Game of Cages

a point of staying several paces ahead of me, and she didn’t want to chat. It was too bad, but it was her choice.

Still, there were things we had to talk about. “Hey,” I called. “We need to get our story straight.”

She was so used to working alone that it hadn’t even occurred to her. We settled on a rough carjacking narrative. The barn fire would be a problem; there was no way to deny that we’d passed the building at the time it burned, but what should we say? Catherine wanted to claim we hadn’t seen anything, but I’d never met a cop who would be satisfied with I don’t know a thing about it.

In the end, I convinced her to say it had been fine when we passed it, but we’d looked back and seen the flames from down the road.

Traffic began to flow out of town toward us. Morning was coming. My elation over our victory began to wear thin, and my morale dropped. Catherine and I stopped hiding from traffic, and eventually a battered pickup pulled up beside us.

“What brings you folks out here?” the driver asked as she rolled down her window. She was in her sixties, with a thick head of wavy gray hair and a deep, no-nonsense voice.

“My car was stolen,” Catherine said in a high, helpless voice. She had a personality for every occasion.

“Out here?” She sounded skeptical. “What’d they look like?”

“Like Chinese fellas,” Catherine answered.

“If that don’t beat … Hold on. Lemme give you a ride into town.”

She climbed out of the truck and grabbed a blue plastic tarp from the back. Catherine thanked her and said of course she wasn’t offended to be asked to sit on the tarp, considering how muddy she was, of course not. The driver asked me to hop in back with Chuckles, a sleepy Rottweiler. I looked Chuckles over carefully first; he wasn’t made of a blue streak and he wasn’t even a little beautiful. I decided he wasn’t Armand with a fake ID.

The driver introduced herself as Karlene, then climbed behind the wheel and did a U-turn.

Chuckles and I weren’t all that interested in each other. I watched the houses go by—big farmhouses with crooked foundations and peeling paint. We crossed a bridge over a narrow river, and the lots became smaller. More of the houses were decorated with Christmas lights and lawn displays. I slumped down out of the wind. Chuckles leaned against me.

Eventually, we did another U-turn and stopped at the edge of a gravel path. Catherine opened her door, so I hopped out of the bed.

“Chuckles keep you warm?” Karlene asked.

“Other way around, I think.”

“Hah! You have to watch out for him. There’s a motel way other side of town, but these people are nicer. You can shower and call the sheriff here. And I’m in a hurry, so tell them—wait a minute.” She glanced at a pickup driving down the street. “What’s Phil doing driving back into town so early? With an empty load? Anyway”—she turned back to us—“you folks take care.” She sped off.

At the top of the path was a huge rambling farmhouse on a tiny lot. “One moment,” Catherine said. She took out her phone again and pressed the dial button. Then she held up a hand and moved far enough away that I couldn’t hear what she said. She spoke a few words, then shut the phone. I might have thought she was bad- mouthing me to the society, but her message wasn’t long enough.

We walked onto the porch. The sign by the door said this was the SUNRISE BED AND BREAKFAST. Catherine rang the bell, and a slender woman of about fifty let us in. The warm, dry air burned my face and ears.

The woman led us into a living room with a fire crackling in the fireplace and twinkly white lights on the mantel. Catherine told her we’d been carjacked.

She sized up the situation quickly. “We’ve only got one room left.”

“We’ll share, if we have to,” Catherine said with the brisk efficiency of an executive.

“And no luggage, right?”

“Not anymore, except for my bag.”

“Would you like to borrow some things to wear until the stores open?”

Catherine shook her head and looked at me. I almost said no out of habit. Then I looked down at my clothes. I wasn’t in Chino anymore. I could accept an offer of help. I said: “Yes, thank you,” but it was hard.

She seemed to understand. “Don’t fret, hon. Everyone needs help now and then.” She went through a door behind the counter, leaving us alone.

Catherine turned to me. “We’re going to hole up here for a little while, but you’ll have to pay for it. They have my car, which means they know who I am and could trace my credit cards. They don’t know you, do they?”

I took my MasterCard out of my wallet and handed it to her. My dirty hands made it sticky. “No, they don’t.”

The owner returned from the back room with two short stacks of folded laundry. I held up my hands when she tried to give one to me. “Huh,” she said, then led me into the back.

She explained that these were her private rooms and I wasn’t to come back here without her say-so. I told her that was fine with me, and she passed me off to a tall, heavy man with dull gray hair and a heavily weathered face. He was big enough to be a pro wrestler, if he had been thirty-five years younger and dosed with steroids.

She left, shutting the door behind her. The man examined the side of my face for a moment, then began to unbutton my jacket. I tried to help, but my hands stuck to the fabric. They were still covered with pine pitch.

“We’ll get them clean in a second.” He sounded like someone’s grandfather. He got my jacket off and I lathered up my hands. The mud rinsed right off but not the pitch. “It’s all right,” he said. He splashed a little bath oil on my hands, and that worked.