Several yards from the car, a young woman in a short nightgown was standing barefoot, hugging herself and crying. Other people stood nearby, watching. Something violent had happened at the motel in the past hour, but Blackburn had heard none of it. The air conditioner had drowned it out. There must have been a siren too, but Blackburn had not heard that either. He switched off the air conditioner, and it stopped with a loud, shuddering
Blackburn ducked and held his breath. After several seconds he risked another look. Everyone was watching the police car again. The cops shut the shirtless man into the back seat and got into the front seat. The red and blue lights stopped flashing, and the car moved off toward the highway loop. Blackburn let out his breath and stood. The police car hadn't come for him, but sooner or later one would. He took his disposable razor from the grocery bag and went into the bathroom, where he turned on a light and looked at his watch. It was after eleven; time to get on to Oklahoma and beyond. Maybe he would give Canada a try. It was cold, but there was national health insurance.
He took a shower, then went to the sink and worked the remaining sliver of motel soap into a lather. He spread the foam on his cheeks and throat and got too much around his mouth, so he made a mad-dog face in the mirror. Then he shaved. The State of Texas would be thinking of him as a desperate, dirty animal on the run. Maybe he was, but he could try not to look like one.
After shaving, he toweled off and returned to the bedroom. The room was steamy from his shower, but he didn't turn the air conditioner back on. He put on the clothes and shoes he had bought that afternoon, then stuffed his other clothes and shoes into the sporting-goods bag. He had to hang on to them until he could dump them where they wouldn't be found. The jacket, still wrapped around the Python, went on top. Obtaining more ammunition would be a priority as soon as he was out of the state. His five remaining cartridges would be adequate for now, but they wouldn't last forever.
He picked up his plastic bags and was about to leave, but heard a knock at the door of the room next to his. He heard the door open and then voices on the balcony. He set down his bags, went to the window, and peeked between the curtains again, looking sideways. He saw the two cops who had been in the parking lot, and the old woman from the motel office. The cops were talking to a man in the next room, asking whether he had seen or heard anything unusual that evening. They were looking for witnesses against the man they had arrested.
One of the cops said, 'If you think of anything, give us a call.' The door closed, and the cops and the old woman started toward Blackburn's room. Blackburn backed away from the window, then stood still as they knocked on his door. He breathed in short, shallow puffs.
'Excuse me,' one of the cops said in a loud voice. 'We're police officers, and we need to ask a few questions.'
Blackburn squatted and reached into the sporting-goods bag. He put his hand into his rolled-up jacket, but his palm came up against the Python's muzzle. He pulled his hand out again.
'I know this room's occupied,' the old woman said. 'Maybe he's gone out.' Blackburn heard the rattle of keys. 'We'll just take a look.'
Blackburn picked up his bags and went into the bathroom. 'Just a minute!' he yelled. 'I'm on the pot!' He put the bags into the bathtub and pulled the shower curtain across to hide them. Then he took some deep breaths. There was nothing to worry about. These cops weren't here for him. They wouldn't be thinking about him. He wasn't wearing the same clothes as yesterday. He could leave the bathroom light on, and that would draw their eyes away from his face. Even if they did look at his face, his hair was wet and looked darker than it really was. He flushed the toilet and went to answer the door.
As the door opened, Blackburn saw that the cops were young, in their early twenties. They looked grim. 'Sorry to bother you at such a late hour, sir,' the closest one said. He didn't sound sorry. 'But we had a disturbance downstairs, and we were wondering if you might have seen or heard anything that could help us with our investigation.'
'I'm afraid not,' Blackburn said. 'I had the air conditioner on, and I didn't even wake up until you were putting the guy into your car. I did see that.'
'You slept through the disturbance, sir?' the cop asked.
'I guess so.'
The other cop pointed at Blackburn's feet. 'Do you sleep in your shoes, sir?'
Blackburn looked down at his new running shoes. 'No,' he said. 'But I couldn't get back to sleep, so I thought I'd go for a jog to tire myself out.'
'Jogging at night isn't advisable, sir,' the first cop said. 'You might be hit by a motorist.'
'Oh,' Blackburn said. 'I won't do it, then.'
'Maybe you could watch TV instead,' the cop suggested.
'I'll do that.'
'And if you happen to remember anything that might help us, please call the Palestine Police Department. Or tell the front desk here at the motel.'
The old woman rattled her keys. 'I'm sorry about the ruckus,' she said. 'I hope you can get back to sleep.'
'Not your fault,' Blackburn said.
The cops and the old woman moved on toward the next room. As Blackburn closed the door, he saw the second cop look back at him and scowl. But there was no recognition in the look, only the normal aggressive distrust of a young male.
Blackburn turned on the television so the cops would hear that he had taken their advice. He couldn't leave until he was sure they were gone anyway. As he sat down on the bed, the television screen brightened into an artist's rendering of Jay Pinkerton lying strapped to a gurney. According to the voiceover, the execution was taking place at that moment.
Blackburn got up and turned off the television. He went into the bathroom, took his plastic bags from the tub, and returned to the bed. He pulled the Python from his jacket and cocked it. Then he sat with his back against the headboard and waited.
Several minutes later he heard the cops' voices in the parking lot, and then a car starting and driving away. He waited ten more minutes before uncocking the Python and replacing it in his jacket in the sporting-goods bag. Then he picked up both bags and left the room. The sky was covered with clouds again.
Blackburn walked behind the motel and out to a tree-canopied side street. There was no traffic. He headed east, away from the highway loop, until he came to a small apartment house with a ripe parking lot. There he wrapped his polyester courtroom shirt around his meat-tenderizing mallet and broke the driver's-side wing window from an old Dodge Coronet sedan. He reached in and unlocked the door, then opened it and tossed his bags inside. He glanced at the apartment house to be sure no lights were coming on, then squirmed under the car's dashboard.
When the engine started, Blackburn came out from under the dashboard and looked at the apartment house again. There were still no lights. He settled into the driver's seat, pulled out of the lot, and drove back toward the highway loop. The Coronet's engine stumbled, but he thought it would get him to Oklahoma.
As he turned north onto the highway loop beside the Best Western, he saw that the police car was back again, parked in front of the motel. The two cops were coming out of the office. One of them seemed to stare at Blackburn as he drove past.
Blackburn watched his rearview mirror and saw the police car pull onto the loop and also head north. But it was half a mile behind him, and its flashing lights weren't coming on. Blackburn turned west at a stoplight, and although the police car turned west there too, it dropped back even farther. By the time Blackburn was out of the city, accelerating northwest on U.S. 287, there were no headlights in his mirror. It had been thirty-six hours since he had escaped from the courthouse in Houston, and he was still alive and free.
That put him two up on a lot of people. Including, by now, Jay Pinkerton.
The Coronet died soon after he turned off U.S. 287 onto Texas 19, before he could find one of the back roads that he preferred. There was a grinding noise, and then the engine quit.
