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BOOK TWENTY-TWO: TWO WEEKS

205. The thick door closed. . . .

            The thick door closed behind me with a whupp, shutting off the rattle of trucks on Cornhusker Highway. By the time I’d gone two steps, I could feel the cold of the vault begin to sink in. I went down the row to Bin 217 and fumbled the key into the cheap lock; where I touched the steel handle, the metal bit my skin. I slid the drawer open and counted thirteen packages. I took two out and carefully closed and locked it. Eleven packages left. It was Monday the third of August; I worked five nights a week, so by Wednesday morning the twelfth of August I’d be free. I took a breath of the subzero air and headed for the exit, two green-wrapped chunks of Billy under my arm.

            Outside, heat lay on the city; the noise of traffic was startling. Because Monday the third was the first business day of August, I placed the packages in their box in the bed of the pickup and went up the steps to the office to pay the rent. The woman who took my money was well-built and friendly; like me, she’d been born with a cleft upper lip. “Hot out there,” she said, making conversation as she filled out the receipt. “The radio says it’s a hundred and three downtown.”

            I watched a strand of her fine blonde hair wave limply in the current from an electric fan. “It’s cold in that locker, though,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to stay there long.”

            “We keep it at minus twenty-eight degrees,” she said. “The temperature’s set by law. I guess the Legislature thinks minus twenty-eight is a good number.”

            As I left the building, a dog jumped down from my pickup. An undersized German shepherd with a bad hip, it hurried away with its tail between its legs, looking back guiltily. It carried a green-wrapped package in its mouth. “Hey!” I yelled. “You better put that down!” I raced after the disreputable animal as it rounded the corner of the building and trotted toward the gas station next door. It went inside the open garage; I followed, looking around for something to hit it with. The dog retreated to a corner of the workbench and placed the package meekly on the floor. I picked up a ball-peen hammer and went forward to collect.  “You won’t need that,” a voice said. “She don’t bite.” A grimy man in a fatigue-green tee shirt stood beneath the hoist, draining gear-lube from a Jeep. “She’s got puppies under the bench,” he added.

            “Is she yours?”

            “Nah,” the man said. “She just lives here.”

            I put down the hammer and gingerly approached the dog; she ducked her head and raised her lip at me. “Easy, girl,” I said. “I’m sorry, but you can’t have that.” When I was close enough, I grabbed the package; the dog flinched. “Sorry,” I said again. “I can see that you’ve had a hard life.” I turned to face the mechanic. “Does anyone feed her?” I asked.

            “Sometimes I give her peanuts from the machine.”

            I took a quarter from my pocket and left it on the bench. “When you get around to it,” I said, “give her a handful for me.”

            Wiping dirt and condensation from the package, I walked rapidly to my truck to make sure the other chunk was safe. I replaced the retrieved one beside it in its box and folded the flaps down tight, then relocated the cardboard box inside the cab. The incident brought home the foolishness of my actions. If it required nothing smarter than a hungry dog to expose me, then the thing I should clearly do was to go to the chief of detectives and write out a detailed version of the murder. To do otherwise would result in a lifetime of fear; I’d forever walk the edge of an abyss. I mopped my sweating forehead and started the engine. “Fuck it,” I said. “I’m not talking to that mean bastard.” But with my defiant words came insight, transparent as a blade of broken glass: I would quickly be caught and prosecuted for killing Memphis Billy.

            And, if it was indeed certain that I’d be caught, then what time I used now I’d have to pay back later, because my freedom was lost.

(blank line)

206. Time was on Selva. . . .

            Time was on Selva Andersen’s mind that night in Casey’s. “He’s taken that job in Atlanta, Jonas,” she said. “He’s ordered to report for work September first! What am I going to do?” She tugged at her collar and stuck out her tongue in disgust. “It’s the Deep South. It’s the only place on earth more humid than Lincoln.”

            “There’s lots of places you haven’t seen,” I reminded her.

            “My point exactly.” She raised her drink. “I’m considering a life of crime. No kidding,” she said. “Tell me about your proposal to fly drugs out of Mexico.”

            “Proposal?” I blinked. “Well, let’s see. First we’ll need a plane.”

            “I know where we can steal one,” Selva said. “Go on.”

            “If you’re serious, you’ll need a reliable connection,” Dexter Coffey put in. Dex had arrived shortly after Selva’s ten p.m. appearance and sat down uninvited. “Because in the drug business, you assume any stranger might kill you.”

            “Jonas knows a man in San Antonio.” Selva looked at me. “You told me his name. Flambeau or something like that.”

            “LeTorneau,” I said. “We flew together in the Air Force. When we got bored, we used to talk about flying drugs, but talk is all it amounted to. We never made a move toward doing it.”

            “Maybe he’s made a move,” Selva said. “Call him up.”

            “I don’t have his number.”

            “You can get it from Information.”

            “Jonas doesn’t want to fly drugs,” Dexter Coffey said. “Jonas wants a corner office with a lot of books. Jonas aspires to bourgeois-liberal professorhood, same as me.”

            “I remind you that Jonas’s academic career has gone to where the sun don’t shine,” I said. “Sure, I’ll call Tom Tex. I won’t promise to talk about smuggling, though.”

            “That’s just as well if you call from my apartment,” Selva said. “Our phone is bugged.”

            “Why would I be calling from your place?”

            “That way you and Dexter can walk me home. Lincoln has its share of creeps; I get pretty scared when Adrian’s not here.” She sipped her drink. “Don’t get me wrong,” she added. “That’s not an invitation to stay and protect me.”

            “I didn’t think it was.”

            Invitation or not, her suggestion that we accompany her took the air out of the conversation; we drank up and left, Dexter coming along at Selva’s insistence. The moonless sky over Lincoln was a uniform blue-gray, darkening once we’d crossed O Street and moved away from downtown. The Capitol stood tall and bald above its floodlights, the lit-up winking of bats’ wings about its dome plainly visible at a distance of three or four blocks. “What Adrian wants is to get into politics,” Selva remarked, continuing our conversation.

            “He’s in it now,” I said. “What’s more political than the anti-war movement?”

            “I mean at the national level,” Selva said.

            We turned east on F Street and approached the converted mansion. A half-block farther down the street, a white Ford sedan, its lights off, sat at the curb. “There’s our stakeout,” Selva said, and waved. “He comes and goes. Good, he’ll have something to report tonight.” Selva took our arms, one on each side of her, and did a little dance step for the cop’s benefit. “I don’t mind this guy,” she said, “but the other one gives me the willies.”

            “Which other one?” I asked, fearing I might know the answer already.

            “Someone who wears a hat and a tweed overcoat. It’s a pretty elaborate bum’s costume for August.”

            “That is Mattie Halliday,” I said. “I believe it’s possible she suffers from schizophrenia.”

            “If it’s Mattie, I’m a little bit reassured,” Selva said. “At least she’s not planning to rape me. Did you know she sent Adrian a very strange letter? She expects him to be her defense attorney when she comes to trial for shooting Ted.”

            “He hasn’t passed his bar exam, has he?”

            “No, and besides, we’re leaving Lincoln.”

            The apartment was much more Spartan that I remembered it. The carpet looked rich but old, and a pervasive odor of mildew tainted the air. The dining table where so many had reveled at Thanksgiving revealed itself to be marred and devoid of charm; its matching chairs stood about like a herd of cows. A draft from the fireplace brought an unwholesome breath of creosote, and the posters that had brightened the walls were down. Open liquor cartons sat near the bookcases, partly filled with books. “What are your plans for the furniture?” Dexter asked Selva with an odd little glance in my direction.

            “Do you want it? If you do, let me know by this weekend.”

            “I might,” Dexter said. “I think Al Foonts owns a truck.”

            “We’re taking the bookcases and Adrian’s drafting table,” she said. “Nothing of mine will go except clothes. And books; I don’t know how we ever got so many books.”

            I looked all around at the bare walls. “If you have to be in Atlanta September first, when are you leaving?” I asked anxiously.

            “The seventeenth,” she said, giving me a level look. “That’s two weeks from today.”

            “Two weeks is not much time,” I protested.

            “You have nothing to worry about,” Selva replied. “I’m the one who’s moving to Atlanta.”

            “Jonas has Julia,” Dexter said. “He wishes he didn’t have her, but there she is.”

            “There she is,” I agreed, staring into Selva’s green eyes. “Two weeks,” I said softly. “That’s incomprehensible.”

            “Don’t look at me,” she said with a frown. “I’m not offering you anything.” 

            The telephone sat at the end of the sofa, near some built-in shelves that defined the living and dining areas. I sat down near it and gave it a sidelong look. “How do you know the line is bugged?” I asked.

            “When you first pick it up, you’ll hear a pause. Then you get the dial tone.”

            “I really don’t want to do this,” I said. “I might not have a word to say to Tommy. What if he’s gone completely wacko and joined the Young Republicans?”

            “I’ll be fascinated to see if you know anyone in San Antonio at all,” Selva replied.

            I picked up the receiver; there was a moment of echoing silence, followed by a distant, reverberating click. I dialed “0” and asked to make a person-to-person call.

            “What city?”

            “San Antonio, Texas.”

            “Name?”

            “Thomas LeTourneau. And when the call is over, I’d like to be informed of the charges, please.”

            “Whom shall I say is calling?”

            I paused for a second. “Tell him it’s the Drummer.”

            “I’m sorry,” the operator said. “We have to use a proper name.”

            “Tell him it’s Jonas. Jonas Smith.”

            There were seven listings under LeTourneau, none of them a Thomas. I glanced up to see Selva’s triumphant smirk. “I know it’s late,” I told the operator, “but could you start at the top of the list? I’m sure his mother lives in San Antonio.” Tommy’s mother was a widow; I seemed to remember that her name was Betty, but her phone would be listed under her deceased husband’s name. The telephone operator began patiently waking up strangers, getting the kind of cooperation you’d expect. But on the fourth call, I recognized a sweet-sounding little-old-lady voice with an audible touch of palsy.

            “I have a person-to-person call for Thomas LeTourneau from Joseph Smith,” the operator said.

            “Jonas,” I interrupted. “Jonas Smith.”

            “Excuse me, sir?” the operator said. On the other end, Mrs. Letourneau cupped the phone. “It’s Jonas Smith,” she said to someone else in the room. A television was playing.

            “Ask him what he wants,” a male voice said.

            “Hello?”

            “A person-to-person call for Thomas LeTourneau from Jonas Smith,” the operator said. “Is Mr. LeTourneau available?”

            “May I please ask what is the subject of this call?”

            “It’s social,” I said. “I just wanted to see how he’s doing.”

            Before the operator could relay the message, Tom Tex took over the receiver from his mother. “Hello?” he said roughly. “If you’re trying to sell me life insurance, I’ve got my own agency, thank you very much.”

            “Do you accept—?” the operator intervened.

            “Sure,” I said to her. “Hey, Tommy,” I said. “When did I ever try to sell you life insurance?”

            “Jonas, is that you?”

            “Yeah.” A long silence followed. Unable to think of anything better, I said at last, “How you doin’, man?”

            “I’m all right,” he said carefully. “How are you? I thought you were dead or something.”

            “Not me,” I said. “Brainless went over the hill into Dogpatch; I suppose he’s dead by now, but I’m attending the University here in Lincoln.” I remembered as I said it that the information was out of date.

            “Why did you call me?”

            “I don’t know,” I said. “Just an impulse, really.”

            “Are you in trouble? Do you need money or anything?”

            “No,” I said. “You know I’m always in trouble, but it’s nothing to do with money.” I glanced at Selva. “So,” I said. “You’re not crazy any more? Are you doing any flying?”

            “I was never crazy,” he said. “I just wanted out of Viet Nam, that’s all.”

            “Didn’t we all,” I said.

            “As for flying,” he said, “I have no interest in it. You?”

            “I might if I could afford a plane,” I said. “I don’t think I’m commercial-pilot material.”

            “Have you been up?”

            “No.”

            Though I tried until sweat beaded on my forehead, I failed to think of anything else to say to him. At last, I said, “Well, it’s been nice talking to you.”

            “Wait,” he said. “Give me your address so I can send you a business card.”

            “I’m going to be moving soon,” I said. “I have your phone number. I’m sorry I got your mom out of bed.”

            “You didn’t,” he said. “We were watching Johnny Carson.”

            I hung up the phone. Selva wore a look that I’d have called sympathetic if she’d been prone to sympathy. “That was a failure,” I said. It rang, and I picked up the receiver. “The charges on your person-to-person call will be four dollars and thirty-six cents,” the operator said.

            “Thanks,” I said, and hung up again. “I owe you four dollars and thirty-six cents,” I said to Selva. “That’s approximately two mixed drinks, or a pitcher of beer.”

            “You were a pilot, then,” she said.

            “Were is right,” I said. “I’m washed up. Tom’s not interested.”

            “That’s OK,” she said. “I’d never have gone to Mexico with you, Jonas. It’s probably even hotter than Atlanta.”

            “It’s time for me to go to my shoveling gig out by Havelock. Will Dex be safe if I leave him with you?”

            “Dexter will be safe,” she said. “He’s in love with Julia.”

            “That’s good,” I said wearily. “Someone should be.” I stood up and glanced around the apartment. “This place is kind of gloomy,” I said. “I don’t blame you two for wanting to move.”

            “I don’t want to move,” Selva said. “I didn’t marry Adrian to get a nicer apartment, Jonas.”

            “I’m sure you had wonderful motives. See you.”

            “Good night,” she said as I departed.

The walk back to Casey’s and my truck seemed long. The stakeout car left Selva’s and followed me uptown. I wondered whether Mattie might be following as well.

(blank line)

207. Below the grain tanks. . . .

            Below the grain tanks I was a booming success; I’d already cleared a considerable tract and begun a corridor toward the distant end of the basement. I no longer crashed my hard hat against the ceiling, and my knees no longer felt rubbery by the end of my shift. Except for my secret vice—dropping partly-thawed chunks of human meat into the conveyor during the wee hours—I was the perfect employee. I didn’t even smoke reefer on the job.

            I didn’t, that is, unless the rest of the guys on the graveyard crew were smoking it. Every morning at four a.m., a few of us would meet over sandwiches in the parking lot, and every so often a joint would be passed. This was not as stupid as a good Missouri congressman might think; the marijuana buzz offset our early-morning drowsiness, which could be fatal in that vertical world of man-belts and hundred-horsepower grinders. Since I never brought any myself, I took only a token hit, but even that much was welcome. It opened my eyes and helped me fit more comfortably into my toughening body.

            A number of my fellow night workers were Vietnam vets. One man had been part of a Special Forces unit that had been dropped right on top of a North Vietnamese supply column. He’d survived, he said, because the tree he landed in was hollow, though his fingers and toes swelled like sausages from being chewed by ants. Another was an ordinary grunt who’d become a suspect in a fragging, though he said he was underground blowing a tunnel when it took place. A third was an office worker in Saigon who’d had an easy time in the war but who’d discovered his young wife living with another man once he got home. We didn’t talk about our experiences much—only mentioned that we’d had them—but it was good to share the cool night air with men who knew that the hunger for peace was by no means universal, and that, in war, mortal craziness was not an aberration. It helped us retain perspective on our current misery.

            I’d go home in the morning, shower, eat breakfast, and fall asleep in sheets that smelled of Julia.

            We probably fucked more often than I remember. It seemed to me later that we didn’t make love at all. Julia certainly had no time to relax in the days leading up to her second gig in Omaha; when she wasn’t rehearsing, she was grooming the Nerd Brothers toward reconciliation, and when she wasn’t doing that she was trying to buy clothes. Her Captain Julia outfit wouldn’t fit her expanding figure, and swashbuckling had lost its appeal for her the day Mattie blasted Ted Kemp from between her arms.

            “I need something like a circus tent,” she said to me, “but classy.” It was the Thursday after I’d called Tom Tex from Selva’s.

            She said it in perfect seriousness; it didn’t seem right to laugh. “And inexpensive,” I said. “You forgot that part.”

            “And inexpensive,” she agreed. “And it can’t be tacky.”

            “How about a bridal gown? You see them in the classified section sometimes.”

            “A bride’s dress that would fit me? I’d never find one.”

            We were driving east on O Street toward the Goodwill Industries store; it was Wednesday evening and the place was open until 8 p.m. “We could dress you as a weather balloon,” I said. “You could carry a thermometer and a radio transmitter.”

            “What’s a weather balloon look like?”

            “The ones I saw resembled laundry bags,” I said. “Though some fancy reflecting ones are made with Mylar.”

            “What’s Mylar?”

            “Silver-colored plastic. Tough stuff. They made the Echo satellite of it a few years back.”

            “Silver would be great,” she said. “People would think I was the Goodyear Blimp.”

            “Two Goodyear Blimps,” I said, glancing at her boobs. Julia swung her station wagon against the curb and we got out to check the Goodwill offerings. Though she was an able and determined shopper, the only thing she found acceptable was a flannel shirt. She held it sadly to the light. “Well, I can use this,” she said. “It doesn’t help with my costume, though. On to K-Mart.”

            She continued east and turned left to go up 48th Street. The K-Mart store was brand new at that time, and popular in the evening; the lot was packed. Julia found a slot and marched inside, with me dragging my footsteps a few yards behind. As a couple, we drew stares; I was bored with shopping, so instead of following her I went to check out the camping equipment. Along with the usual Coleman stoves, beer coolers, and folding camp stools, K-Mart carried a line of pop-up tents. I went to one that was already set up and crawled inside. It seemed quieter there, a tidy private hexagonal world in which I could have gone to sleep. I curled up and closed my eyes, but the floor was hard. It reminded me of the concrete benches in the new jail.

            I crawled out and looked around for a salesman. Everyone I saw wearing a K-Mart vest seemed to be hurrying the other way, so I examined the tent for myself. A “rain fly” lay to one side, a square of waterproof fabric, gray on one side and silver on the other, accompanied by its “shock cord,” a rod in five sections held together by elastic. I snapped the shock cord to its proper length and fitted it into place in the tiny pockets, and held the resulting object aloft. Weighing almost nothing, it hung like a bandanna draped over a clothesline. I held it high and waved it like a banner; since no representative of the store’s interests came to assist me, I took it all apart again and began folding the fabric. The stuff was so lightweight that all nine square yards of it folded down no thicker than a wallet. I slipped it into my jeans pocket to demonstrate to myself how thin it was.

            “Jonas! What are you doing?”

            I whirled to confront Julia. “Looking at these tents,” I replied. “You said you wanted to wear a tent.”

            “One of these six-sided things? How grotesque,” Julia said. She ducked to peer inside. “It would be a definite fashion statement,” she said. “I’m not the one to make it, though. Not on my big night. What’s that curtain-rod you’re holding?”

            “Shock cord.” I snapped it together and wiggled it to show how flexible it was. “It fits inside the rain fly.”

            “Rain fly?”

            “To keep moisture off the tent. I’ve got it in my pocket.” I quickly whipped the fabric out and hooked it over the ends of the pole. I held it aloft and shook it like a lance, letting the corners fall to cover my head.

            “Jonas, you’re too bizarre. Put that thing down and let’s get out of here.”

            “Don’t you have to go to the bathroom? You always have to go to the bathroom.” I held the rain fly overhead and did an Indian dance with it, knowing nothing about Indians or about dancing. “You go have a pee, Julia, and I’ll stay here until someone waits on me. I want to see how long it takes. Yoo hoo,” I called out. “Oh, salesperson.”

            “Jonas, I will murder you,” Julia said. “That is unusual fabric, though, isn’t it.” She took my advice and headed for the john; I folded up the rain fly, slipped it into my pocket, and unlocked the shock cord and slid it down my pants leg. I hiked stifflegged around an aisle of lawn chairs and back by way of the barbecueing tools. Julia soon returned—her bladder held about a teaspoon—and we left the store. As we crossed the parking lot, she said, “What’s the matter with your leg? Is your wound bothering you?”

            “Nope. Did you find anything?”

            “Nothing fit to wear. So far, all I’ve got is a flannel shirt and a headache.”

            I still needed to pick up the night’s portion of Billy, and I planned to sit in Casey’s on the chance that Selva might come in, so I asked Julia to take me home. As we got out of the car, I unbuttoned my pants and reached down into the leg to get the shock cord. “Well, I got your cape,” I said. “Hold this.” I refastened my jeans and produced the rain fly. “Ta daa!”

            Instead of smiling, she gave me a hurt look. “Jonas, you shoplifted.”

            “Relax, kiddo,” I reassured her. “It’s going to be the art form of the seventies.” I refolded the fabric and hung it over her arm, then started for my truck. “See you tomorrow.”

            “What am I supposed to do with this rain-fly thing?”

            “Can you sew?”

            “Minimally.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Throw it in the furnace room.” I left her standing on the curb.

(blank line)

208. “So,” I asked Selva, “did you. . . .”

            “So,” I asked Selva, “did you get it on with Dex on Monday night?” It was Thursday evening; I was down to seven packages. Two of them were thawing in my truck.

            “You mean Tuesday morning. Don’t insult me, Jonas. I told you, he’s in love with Julia.”

            “That doesn’t signify.” I finished my beer and set it down, gazing at her nipples until the hair stood up on my wrist.

            “Maybe not to you.” Selva glanced around the bar. “Where is everyone?” she complained. “I don’t know a soul tonight.”

            “Come swimming with me.”

            “Not on your life.”

            “Then come to the library. I’ll fuck you on the stairs.”

            “Jonas,” she said, “I wish I had never— Gone anywhere with you.” She sipped her Collins. “It’s a pity,” she said. “I could have liked you if our relationship hadn’t become twisted.”

            “It’s twisted because I’m in love with you,” I said. “You understand well enough when you’re talking about Dex. Why not with me?”

            She gave an infuriating little shrug and searched the room again. “How’s Julia?” she asked.

            “She’s in a panic about her costume for Saturday. She says she can’t go as Captain Julia. I tried to help her, but she has no fashion sense.”

            “You have fashion sense?” Selva smiled at my wrinkled shirt. I glared back. She sighed. “I wish somebody would come in,” she said.

            “You seem especially tense tonight.”

            “You seem especially intent,” she said. “It’s a fact that one-third of women who are raped are personally known to their attackers.”

            “It’s a fact that one-third of men who attack women are frustrated right out of their wits,” I said. “You know you want me. Some part of you does. Just a little bit.”

            “I swear I don’t,” she said unhappily. “Jonas, there are plenty of days when I don’t want any man. Plenty of nights, too.”

            I breathed deeply to force myself to relax. “I’ll take you at your word,” I said finally. I dug a quarter out of my jeans and slid it across the table. “Here’s what we’ll do. You call up Julia and tell her to come get you; you can help her with her outfit. I’ll go drink somewhere else until midnight. Then I’ll shovel beans like a damn machine till I can half forget how much I want to touch you.”

            “Why are you so angry?” Moisture in her eyes.

            I reached across and placed both my hands on hers. “It’s been going on a long time. Since years before I met you.” To my surprise, she took my fingers in her cold grip.

            “Me, too, Jonas,” she said softly. “I’ve been angry for a long time, too.”

            Suddenly filled with inexplicable lightness, I got up to leave. “Spend the night with Julia,” I said huskily.

            “And see you in the morning?” Selva gazed miserably at the table. “That would be despicable,” she said.

            “It’s life,” I said. “It’s not despicable.” I turned to go.

            “I’ll think about it,” she said.

            I left Casey’s in an exalted state; the only feeling I can compare it with is that of having recently escaped death. My arms and legs felt brittle as if stuffed with straw; my heart floated within my body. I breathed with my lips only, like a fish. When I got into my battered truck, I drove it tenderly as if it were an antique racing Bugatti, trembling all over with the desire to blow itself apart. I headed out Cornhusker Highway in the direction of the soybean plant, but it was far too early to go to work. I turned in at the Skylane Bar.

            I would not have entered the Skylane had I not felt invincible. Also, my circumstances had changed. I was now authentically working-class, having come down in the world. I had acquaintances who drank there; I’d heard others on the graveyard crew talk about their nights at the Skylane. It had been nine months since my confrontation with the bartender, and, since he probably saw a fight or two a week, there was a good chance he wouldn’t recognize me. Even so, I felt uneasy.

            I shut off the grumbling pickup and got out. The lot was nearly empty, with only half a dozen pickup trucks and cars. I crossed the gravel, pulled open the heavy door, and went inside; I chose a stool from among three or four at the end of the bar. The simian bartender, who was washing glasses when I came in, glanced up at me, dried his hands, then mixed a drink and brought it over. It was a Black Russian. “Your friend the professor hasn’t been in lately,” he said. His green eyes startled me.

            “You’ve got a good memory.” I carefully sipped the drink. His head was slick-shaved, this ape whose close-set eyes were the color of Selva’s.

            “It’s that Dale Carnegie course I took,” he said mildly. “So far it hasn’t helped me get ahead.”

            “You were rude to me that other time. How come?”

            “I was doing you a favor. Some fellows who were here would’ve trashed you out before the night was over.” He polished a glass, scowled at it, polished it again. His biceps twitched. “Also, I don’t like working here,” he admitted. “There are nights when the need comes upon me to obtain respect.”

            I sipped the oily Black Russian. Its color made me think of sweet Grace Kuzak’s eyes. I wished her joy with her heavy-equipment salesman; I hoped his equipment was heavy enough for the job. I tried to imagine doing things with Selva that I’d done with Grace, but the fantasy would not take hold. When I tried to picture sex with Selva Andersen, nothing came to me but a feeling of joyous dread, as if I’d be diving off a mile-high platform to the cheers of thousands.

            “Another?” the bartender asked.

            “No, thanks,” I said. “I’ve got to go shovel beans in a few minutes.” I thought for a second. “What I’d really like, if you don’t mind— Could you take a frostie glass and fill it with ice water? I like to load up on fluids before I start work.”

            “Sure thing.” He moved down the bar to get a mug from the freezer. A “frostie” is an ordinary pull of beer, served in a mug which has been chilled to a temperature that turns beer to slush. The success of a frostie depends on the weight of the mug, and the Skylane’s mugs were famously massive, six-sided things that weighed at least a pound, with a handle that enveloped your fist. They also tapered on the inside like a shot glass, so that it looked like you were getting more beer than you actually got, but aficionados of frosties allowed that defect to pass since it added to the mug’s mass and chilling effect. The bartender filled the mug with water—it needed no ice—and set it before me.

            I lifted the heavy glass and drank deeply, gazing into the bar-back mirror. As I did so, the door behind me opened and an enormous scarecrow filled the entry. Don Stinns, eyes glazed and out of focus, slowly turned his ravaged face to study every man in the room. From the corner of my vision, I saw the bartender stoop and reach for something under the counter.

            I lowered the emptied mug and swiveled my stool to face The Goon. When he identified me, Stinns lurched back; his huge hand gripped the doorframe. Then he set his teeth, and I saw his fingers clench. He cataputed himself from twenty feet away, hands outstretched for balance and mayhem, his face bone-white with liquor and drugs and fury. Because I had no space to move aside, my only path lay toward him and I took it, stepping down from the stool and forward onto my left foot. The mug sat on the counter now, cupped in my right hand, and as I pushed myself ahead and down I let it lag lazily behind. Then I transferred my weight and shouted a loud “Hunh!” and shoved with all my force, accelerating the mug past my shoulder to meet the giant’s head rushing toward me.

            When the blow connected, I thought my elbow would go out of joint. With the heel of my palm behind it, my arm stiff and straight all the way to the shoulder, the frostie mug hit his cheekbone square and upright, one-half inch to the side of the bridge of his nose. He collapsed like a slaughterhouse steer falling under the hammer. As I stood above him, hardly believing what I had done, I felt scattered touches of coolness and heard liquid pattering around me, and I understood that all this happened so quickly that the little water that had remained in the mug was still descending.

            Time resumed its normal flow. I found I was panting. A hand on my arm steadied me and led me back to the bar, where I groped blindly for the stool. I carefully set down the unbroken mug and looked around the room. Men were wiping up spilled water and muttering, but no one seemed to be in a fighting spirit.

            Stinns lay as if dead. The bartender squatted beside him, a blackjack in his hand. He picked something off the floor and glanced up at me. “You knocked out one of his teeth,” he said.

I bent unsteadily to take the tooth from him. It was intact, not broken, with a bit of pink bone clinging to the root. “I wouldn’t,” he said as I opened my mouth to swallow it. “You might get hepatitis.” He retrieved the tooth from me, went around the bar, and gently packed it in a cup of ice. Then he picked up the phone and dialed a number. “Got one for you at the Skylane,” he said into the receiver. “Head trauma and alcohol poisoning. Guy weighs at least two-sixty, so bring plenty of muscle.” He listened for a moment. “That’s the one,” he said, “Don Stinns. You got it.” He put the phone down with a sigh. “Old Don isn’t what he used to be,” he said to me. “Some broad shot him through the liver. That’s the worst thing you can do to a man like him.”

            “I was there,” I said.

            The bartender looked at me with new respect. “I didn’t know you were a friend of Don’s.”

            “Not friends,” I said. “Business partners.”

            He drew back half a step. “You’re not Dan Kroger?”

            “No, but I burned Dan’s trailer and fucked his wife.”

            The bartender stared at me in disbelief. “Long life to you,” he said.

            “Thanks,” I said. “Well, gotta go.” I pushed myself up onto my shaky legs. “Thanks for the Black Russian. I’ll tell the professor you’re an honest man. I’ll be in the basement at the soybean factory if the cops want to see me.”

            “You work out there?”

            “I’m the Vice President In Charge of Shoveling. I can get you a position on the ground floor.”

            “Can’t use it,” he said. “I’m allergic to soybeans.”

            I’d defeated The Goon. Selva Andersen had all but tacitly agreed to meet me. No mere shitscraper now, I was the king of Thursday night. As I drove the remaining distance to the mill, I replayed the fight in my mind, taking joy in everything good luck and fair reflexes had accomplished. In truth, given Don’s condition, a parking meter in his path would’ve knocked him sprawling, but knowing this did not diminish the thrill. I was in such a buzz that I drove right past the plant, out Cornhusker in the direction of Norden Labs. By the time I got turned around I was late to punch in, and when I went down to the pit I forgot to take the frozen packages with me. I shoveled like a heavyweight boxer in training.

After an hour or two I gradually cooled off; I suddenly felt sleepy, so I dug a nest into one of the fresher piles and lay down for a nap. Since I never slept much anyway, I assumed I’d awaken in time to do a creditable amount of work. Instead, I slept right through the mid-shift break; when I woke and went up for a breath of air, the sun was just under the horizon and the last star was fading. I remembered Billy and dashed to my truck to collect the packages. Both chunks were nicely thawed, so, racing down the steps, I dropped them into the hopper green paper and all, then shoveled frantically to make sure they’d be covered with bean grit by the time the whistle blew at eight o’clock.

(blank line)

209. Because I was both too eager and too afraid. . . .

            Because I was both too eager and too afraid, I put off going home by eating breakfast at the South Street cafe. The hippie waitress grinned at me. “You look like the Pisslebury Dough Boy,” she said. “You’re even smiling.”

            “It’s work,” I said. “I’m working. Give me something to eat.”

            I ordered cream of wheat instead of sausage and eggs, and tried to still my jumping nerves by laying calm odds on whether Selva would be waiting at my apartment. Rationally, the chances were ten to zero she would not, but my desire for her was so palpable, I reasoned, that there had to be some kind of psychoelectric effect. My hunch was so strong that I raised the odds to eight to five against. I must have been broadcasting in all directions, because when the buxom waitress took the bowl, she smiled and bent down farther than she had to. I lingered over coffee, then gathered the check and made my way to the register. “Going to bed now?” the waitress asked as I handed her my money.

            I nodded, covering my mouth in a false yawn. So giddy was I that when she placed change in my palm, I almost laughed with pleasure. “Life is hard,” I mumbled dourly to conceal my elation, and made my escape. I drove past Selva and Adrian’s: Volvo in the driveway. At my apartment, Julia’s car was gone. I shut off my truck and sat for a moment staring at the cardboard box I used to transfer packages. My heart fluttered exactly as it had done following my successful fight with Stinns.

            There wasn’t enough oxygen in the cab, so I opened the door and set my cold feet on asphalt. The object of my desire was not in the apartment. A note from Julia lay on the table: “Costume a success! See you after five p.m.” Nothing offered me the slightest clue whether Selva had been there. Wearily, I peeled away my encrusted socks; I let shirt and blue jeans drop to the bathroom floor. In the mirror I looked feral, a wary, reddened pair of eyes staring hungrily from dusty shrubbery. All I needed was for Mattie Halliday to walk through the door, I reflected, and my night of crazy ups and downs would be perfect.

            Nobody walked through the door. I turned the shower to full blast and stepped inside the tub. It generally took three or four soapings to get the last of the soybean grit out of my fuzz, and I didn’t like to hurry the process. One of my apartment’s good features was the hot water supply, so it could’ve been forty minutes before I opened the shower curtain and found Selva Andersen picking up my laundry. “Jonas,” she said severely, “you’re an untidy person.”

            Words cannot speak my joy and consternation. I stepped from the tub and knelt before her; I cast my arms too roughly about her hips. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “Oh, sorry.”

            Then I took her down.

(blank line)

210. The tale of my lovemaking. . . .

            The tale of my lovemaking with Selva should be told in a style both lyric and profound. Eagles should be invoked, or the mating flight of herons; metaphors might be brought from astrophysics, such as the internal stirring of the ice-moon Io by the magnetic field of Jupiter. Volcanism, flood, the universe in flux. But it wasn’t like that, not at all; it felt more like the release of laughter following an illness. Breathless as a romping puppy, I was ineffective, and Selva was bemused.

            I started by being unable to get an erection, and ended by being unable to get it down. To make matters more confused, Selva was menstruating, so we had to put up with a crackling shower curtain under us; any voyeur would’ve abandoned us in disgust. The day outside was brilliant and calm, one of those perfect August days that you know is half nostalgia. Somewhere boys hit grounders in a vacant lot, while girls played skip-rope games or gamboled at hopscotch. Somewhere a woman drank and honed her grievances; somewhere a man had thoughts about getting on a plane. I did not care what the world was like outside. I was pouring the best of me out in happy foolishness, cleaving Selva Andersen’s bloody little all-American beaver.

            Shall I mention my hands drawing out her hair into rays of fire that blazed against the pillow? Or tracing the whorls and puckers of her back, and under that harmed skin, her scapulae and spine? I cannot remember kissing her on the mouth very much, or taking much pleasure from her cool and rubbery nipples. But the picture of her looking up at me, half smiling and entirely available— that is the vision that will haunt me until I die.

            The hands of the clock moved, I suppose, at their usual pace around the dial. Whatever their speed, it came to be two o’clock. Julia would be home at five; we had to clean ourselves up and remake the bed. Besides which, Adrian was expected at the airport. Besides which, I was a murderer and a crud shoveler and had to refuel and report for duty. After a triumphant day, midnight in the bean basement. Scraping away at the darkness as it trickled down.

            A huge disappointment was that Selva hadn’t come. She said it was to be expected. “Sometimes I can have orgasms with a stranger, Jonas,” she said. “But usually not with a person I know well. I told you I was peculiar.”

            “With Adrian?”

            “My relations with Adrian are not your business.”

            “You know I’m crazy about you, Selva. Do you love me?”

            “Of course,” she said. “I suppose so. I don’t know what it means.”

            “Then marry me,” I said.

            “I understand that you feel tenderly toward me; I think I’m less afraid of you than I was. But Adrian’s the man I married, Jonas. Physically and emotionally, I belong to him.”

            “Will I see you again this evening? Will you come to Casey’s?”

            “Probably not, because Adrian will be home.”

            “What if I can’t stand it not to see you?”

            “Try.”

            I offered to escort her to her apartment, but she wouldn’t hear of it. “No one should see me with you outside my normal routine,” she said. “Don’t embarrass me.”

            “I’m sorry if I embarrass you,” I said bitterly.

            “You know that’s not what I mean.”

            In the end we parted coldly. I watched her walk the half-block north and turn on F Street. She would not look back at me, even after she stepped on a gum-laden tissue and it stuck to her shoe. To avoid Julia, I got into my pickup and drove to the frozen-storage place on Cornhusker. I drove without looking in the rear-view mirror, and that is how I failed to notice the unmarked Ford sedan that must have followed me.

(blank line)

211. After I collected. . . .

            After I collected two of the last five packages, I drove to the soybean factory to get paid and have a word with Augie Stables. (My shift designation was third shift, Monday through Friday, even though I started work at midnight on Tuesday through Saturday mornings. Because the workers were paid on Friday, and because the company wouldn’t trust us a day in advance, my Saturday-morning hours were paid the following week.) I found my paycheck in its slot near the front desk, along with a pink copy of a memo. The pink slip thanked me and informed me that my services were no longer needed “for production.” It was a little unclear if they were needed for anything else, so I went looking for the plant boss to remove all lingering doubt.

            Augie’s secretary told me he was out of the office. After searching all over inside the building, I finally located him in the parking lot, near the passage that led underground to my late place of business, where he stood talking with two men in mechanic’s clothes. They were in the act of dismantling a Bobcat skid-loader.

            “Hey,” I said, waving the pink slip. “What’s this about?”

            “We’re taking your advice and putting a Bobcat down there,” Augie said. “We need to clear all that crap out before the harvest.”

            “I was getting it done,” I protested. “I was well on my way.”

            “You’re an amazing worker,” he agreed. “You’ve done an outstanding job.” He smiled expansively but blankly, as if he thought the conversation should be over.

            “But—” I licked my dry lips and glanced toward my truck and the packages it contained. “I need work,” I said. “I need to work at least two more days.”

            He turned his smile toward the mechanics, then glanced at me. “Didn’t you once tell me you could drive a semi?” he asked.

            “Sure, I can drive,” I said. “I’ve let my commercial license expire, so I’d have to take the test.”

            “Let me know when you pass it,” he said. “I might have work for you.”

            I walked away shaking my head, my right arm tingling. The check in my pocket would take me as far as Mexico, and I could lose Memphis Billy along the way. As an alternative I could follow Selva to Atlanta; while she joined the corporate culture of golf and paid vacations, I could compete for shitwork with rednecks and blacks. I might even find myself another Grace to beat up on weekends.

            Augie Stables’ smile told me that my high-flying luck was about to stall out; if I wasn’t careful, next thing would be a downward spin. I patted my shirt pocket and climbed into my truck, and headed for a branch bank in Havelock to cash my check. At least I could have a drink before Julia took the money.

(blank line)

212. I drank beer at Bob’s. . . .

            I drank beer at Bob’s in Havelock while the brunt of the five o’clock traffic dispersed. Then I got into my truck and headed in the direction of downtown. I had no plans, though I was sure I didn’t want to go home just yet. I hoped that if I waited a bit, Julia might get lonely and decide to go to Omaha; she’d been on the phone to Brenda a couple of times in the past week. Anyway, I headed west into the traffic on Cornhusker. Since my route took me past the Skylane and past the locker plant, I decided that since I wasn’t going to work after all, I’d better put the packages I’d collected back in the deep freeze.

            When I pulled into the parking lot, the woman who ran the office was just locking up; I smiled and waved to her as I got out of my truck. When she saw it was me, she quickly put away her keys and came over. “I shouldn’t tell you this,” she said breathlessly, “but a plainclothes cop was here about an hour ago. He asked to see your locker.”

            A shiver ran through me. “Did you show it to him?” I asked.

            “No,” she said. “I told him we were closing and to come back Monday.” She folded her arms, her clenched purse in one hand. “If you’ve got any deer meat in there—” Her voice trailed off. “I don’t mean to suggest you would store anything illegal,” she added.

            “Certainly not,” I said. “But thanks for the tip. I was just going to put something in. I guess I’ll go ahead.” I slid the cardboard box from the seat and jounced it a little to let her hear that it did contain frozen packages. “You’re not open on Saturday?” I asked.

            “Not the office,” she said. “The lockers are accessible, of course.”

            “Sure, I knew that,” I said. “Well, have a nice weekend.”

            Each patron of the cold-storage plant received two keys. I let myself into the building using the larger key, then went down a plain, tiled hallway to enter the freezer. It had a broad, thick door on heavy hinges that opened to the outside; the latch, also heavy, resembled the latch on the back of a refrigerated truck, except that it was made so that, by pushing a round brass plate on the other side of the door, someone inside the locker could get out. Holding the cardboard box under my arm, I pulled the foot-long lever; it opened with a clack, and I stepped into the cold.

            Bin Number 217, home of Billy, was in the bottom row of the second aisle, a little way down the left-hand side. I got out the second key, the little one, and unlocked it and slid it open. It was bigger than a filing-cabinet drawer, but not by much; just big enough to hold a man’s most corporeal elements. After removing the last of the packages, I slid the bin out all the way and bent close to look for frozen Billy-blood. I thought I saw enough for crime-lab evidence; I picked at a piece of green paper that had frozen to the steel and tried to think. The bin would have to be cleaned, but how? I couldn’t wash it with hot soap-and-water, because at twenty-eight below, water and washcloth would quickly freeze to the metal. Besides, there would still be residue.

            I exhaled a cloud of steamy breath; the only sound was the whirr of the plant’s machinery. The frozen air felt absolutely dead. I was convulsed by a fit of shaking, and my heart fluttered in panic. If I left the meat in the locker, the cops would find it whenever they came to look; but they might not come till Monday. If, on the other hand, I drove around with the stuff, it would be ten times more incriminating if I were caught. I saw that I wasn’t thinking steadily; I’d face the strong temptation to leave it all in the very first dumpster I passed. I placed all five packages together in the cardboard box, set the contaminated box inside the contaminated bin, and slid the bin closed and locked it. Maybe crazy Mattie could think of something freeze-proof to wash it with. The cops didn’t know where to find her, but I thought I might.

(blank line)

213. The Mary Moody Emerson Center. . . .

            The Mary Moody Emerson Center was not someplace a man would enter lightly. Those who took the risk—most thought of themselves as bums, though the newspapers were beginning to call them “homeless people”—could expect hearty meals containing Jerusalem artichokes and broccoli, served with a forced smile by liberal-minded women who obviously wished them dead. Or cleaned up and paying child support, which to a bum is worse. I’d passed it daily on my walks to and from campus, but I would never on any account have entered in search of a meal. Not that I have anything against broccoli stir-fried with ginger and garlic.

            Just inside the entrance, which was set cornerwise in the building, a stairway led up to the offices of the Back To The Bible Broadcast. On the lower level, a hallway led farther back, and I followed it into a long, open room from whence a smell of doleful cooking arose. Without going near the food table, I surveyed the place. About a dozen tables filled the room, each capable of seating four or five on a side, though the seats were sparsely occupied. From behind the brown rice, two women watched me as I scanned the room for one handsome, whiskerless face.

            Mattie sat alone at the center of the longest table, arms spread wide, her head nodding over her food as if in prayer. She pretended not to notice my approach. “Mattie?” I said softly. “Mattie, I need to talk to you. The cops have found the locker.” She glanced up balefully; I was glad to see that her remarkable eyes were clear.

            “They followed you, right?” I lowered my gaze. “Idiot,” she said.

            “They haven’t been into the locker yet,” I said. “The woman who runs the place told them to come back Monday.”

            “They’re probably on the phone right now, trying to find a judge to sign a search warrant,” she said. “Better hope all the judges in town are having dinner.”

            “I left the meat in the locker,” I said apologetically. “I didn’t know what to do.”

            “You want me to save your bristly skin one more time,” Mattie said matter-of-factly. “Sit down until I finish eating. You can lie to me what you’ve been up to since I last saw you.”

            “Since you saw me? Or since I saw you?”

            Mattie looked up from her zucchini casserole. “Are you implying that you think I’ve been spying on you?” she asked.

            “Selva Andersen said someone’s been watching her place. You fit the description.”

            “As to that,” she said, “I have my reasons. She’s another whore,” she added, returning to her casserole.

            “Have you lost interest in me, then?”    Mattie put down her fork. “I was never interested in you,” she said. “I thought you were my friend, that’s all.”

            “That’s a relief,” I said. “Right now I wish you’d’ve let me go to prison.”

            “You can go to prison any time you want.”

            Mattie finished her meal and noisily drank a glass of milk. Her glance flicked sidewise. “Someone’s coming,” she said under her breath. “Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone here.”

            I looked up to see a man approaching who was vaguely familiar. Either I’d seen him on the streets downtown, or else in the Green Frog. He was as tall as me, except that he carried his head inclined forward and to the side. He had full, dark, curly hair beginning to go to gray, and a beard that advertised the Mary Moody Emerson Center’s cooking. He was gaunt, yellow-toothed, red-cheeked; his hands, which occupied themselves with constant smoothing gestures, were the size of shovels.

            “Hello, darling. Hello, Mister What’s-your-name. I seen you before,” he said.

            “I’m not your darling,” Mattie Halliday said to him. “This is Jonas Smith. Jonas, this is Francis Tarkington the Third. He’s descended from a line of famous American patriots.”

            Francis Tarkington the Third nodded gravely. “Fought in the Revolution,” he said. “Fought in the Civil War, both sides. Sent a Rough Rider up the hill in the Spanish-American. World Wars One and Two. I was in Korea, myself. Never been the same man since. You got a cigarette, by any chance?”

            “Smoking is not permitted in the Center,” Mattie reminded him. “Anyway, Jonas doesn’t smoke.”

            “I don’t carry ‘em,” I said, modifying her refusal slightly.

            The man helped himself to a chair at the end of our table. He looked at me steadily. “I seen you before,” he said again. His manner combined cheekiness and humility, a beggar’s bravado. I could see that he made a modest profession out of irritating people.

            “Want something?” I asked. “We were having a conversation.”

            “Maybe,” he said.

            Mattie pushed her plate away and lowered her voice. “Mr. Tarkington assisted me in a matter which concerns you,” she said. “Specifically, he helped carry a friend of his to my van. A certain person named William Stark. You’ll remember William.”

            “Memphis Billy,” I said. I glanced thoughtfully at Francis Tarkington. He grinned. “I haven’t seen Billy lately,” I said. “Maybe you know what happened to him.”

            “I don’t,” Francis Tarkington said. “I’m worried about Billy. There’s times when I even think I should call the cops.”

            “That’s a good idea,” I said. “That’s what I’d do if a friend of mine was missing. Call the cops.”

            “I took Billy to the hospital,” Mattie said blandly. “I haven’t heard that he died. Have you?”

            “I don’t really know a thing about any of this,” I said. “I don’t have money, if money’s what Mr. Tarkington is interested in. In fact, today I lost my job at the bean factory.”

            “That’s too bad,” Francis Tarkington said. “I know just what it’s like to be out of a job. Sometimes it makes you feel like having a drink. Did they give you your check?”

            “Do you feel like having a drink?” I asked him.

            “Maybe,” he said. “It depends who with. You know a man can’t be too careful these days. Lot of violence out there.”

            One of the women from behind the food table came over to speak to me. “Sir,” she said, “you have to sign the guest book if you wish to eat.”

            “I do not wish to eat,” I said. “Thanks.”

            “Then I’ll have to ask you to leave. This is not a social club.”

            “It’s all right, Angela,” Mattie said in a low voice. “He’s a friend. We’ll be gone in a minute.”

            Mattie carried her plate and utensils to a cart at the front of the room. Francis Tarkington and I stood up and followed her down the long hall and out the crooked entrance. A silent trio, we walked together to stand beside my pickup.

            “What do you want to do?” I asked Mattie.

            She glanced up at the Back To The Bible Broadcast sign. “Let me think,” she said. “We have some packages to gather, am I right?”

            “We have to clean that bin,” I said. “It’s twenty-eight degrees below zero in there. Water would freeze.”

            “Vodka,” Francis Tarkington said. “You could clean it with vodka.”

            “You don’t even know what we’re talking about,” Mattie said to him.

            The man ducked his head and made smoothing gestures. “I heard you say ‘twenty-eight below.’ I know vodka doesn’t freeze,” he said.

            “He’s right, you know,” I said. “Or we could carry it out of there and take it to the car wash.” Knowing I was with the indomitable Mattie had given me the courage to think clearly again.

            “We have to dispose of the packages before they thaw,” Mattie said.

            “What is it?” Francis Tarkington asked. “Is it meat? You could take it to the Sallies. They’re not vegetarians over there.”

            “What a good idea,” Mattie said. “Francis, I think we owe you a drink for that one.”

            “But—” I licked my lips uneasily and glanced at Mattie, mad and calm. Sally was the bums’ word for the Salvation Army, who ran Lincoln’s other soup kitchen. “Well, why not. Ashes to ashes and all that. Shall we go together?”

            “Two vehicles,” Mattie said. “You’ll stop at a liquor store and buy vodka. Then you’ll go to the locker and wait for me.”

            “I better stick with you,” Francis Tarkington said to me. “You might need help carryin’ that vodka.”

            I walked around the pickup cab and got in. Francis Tarkington got in on the passenger side. Mattie came to my window. “It’s now six-thirty. You’ll arrive at the locker plant in forty-five minutes, at seven-fifteen,” she said. “I’ll arrive ten minutes later. Got it?”

            “OK,” I said. “We could get there sooner.”

            “I need to do a couple of things first.” She moved off decisively. I saw her VW van parked down the street.

(blank line)

214. Up close, Francis Tarkington. . . .

            Up close, Francis Tarkington didn’t smell so good. I stole a glance at his profile as I waited at a stoplight. The eerie familiarity of the man haunted me. It was as if he were an older version of someone I knew well. Someone tall; not Mark McKinley.

            “What’re you thinkin’, Ace?” he asked me.

            “I’m thinking I ought to know you,” I said. “But I don’t.”

            I drove on to the N Street Liquor Store. Phillips vodka was on sale for ten dollars a half gallon; I bought a jug of it and a package of cigarettes for the bum. I also got matches. Then I drove to the Safeway on O Street and bought a sponge and some paper towels and a small bottle of detergent. When I got back to my truck I found Francis Tarkington tilting the brown paper bag with the vodka inside it up to his face. “Save some of that,” I warned him. “We’re going to use it to clean a frozen food locker.”

            Francis Tarkington lowered the bottle, swallowing wetly. “You ever fuck Mattie Halliday?” he asked.

            “I’m not a real cowboy, mister,” I replied. “I just found this hat.”

            I estimated that we had ten minutes to dispose of. I drove east and then north all the way to Havelock, stopping for a moment at a little park so he could guzzle more alcohol. “If you keep tearing into the vodka that way, you’re going to kill yourself,” I told him. “It isn’t Thunderbird, you know.”

            “Kill myself? No way,” he gurgled happily. “It’s the water of life.”

            I would’ve liked a drink, but I didn’t want a share of his saliva. Instead I handed over the pack of cigarettes I’d bought him, taking one for myself. “Here, light up,” I said. “Put away that vodka. I’m not driving down Cornhusker Highway with you tipping it up for any cop who sees you to pull me over.”

            “Where we goin’, anyway, Ace?”

            “I told you. Mattie and I have to clean out a frozen food locker.”

            I drove north to Havelock Avenue, the principal street of the annexed town. The clock on the Havelock Bank told me I had still more time to waste, so I stopped at a convenience store and put gas in my truck. When I paid the cashier, I bought a plastic container of 7-up. Through the window behind the register, I saw Francis Tarkington ducking his grizzled head toward the bagged vodka. “Damn him,” I growled.

            The young cashier glanced out the window. “That your brother?” he asked.

            “Hell, no,” I said angrily. “I don’t even know who he is exactly. He’s determined to get drunk with me, though.”

            “Have a good one,” the cashier said noncommittally. He gave me my change without touching my hand, his eyes toward something at the back of the store. Fuck you, I thought to myself. Creepy little Methodist asshole.

            On my way out to the pickup, I opened the 7-up and drank. I handed it to the bum when I got in. “Here,” I said. “It’s too hot to drink booze without mix. You’ll get a stroke.”

            “It’ll make me want to piss,” he complained. “You don’t know how painful it can be for a poor man to have to piss here in lovely Lincoln.”

            “Drink!” I snatched the vodka away from him and shoved the 7-up into his hand. “I don’t want another dead hobo on my conscience.” Francis Tarkington turned to look gravely at me. “Drink,” I said. “Please?”

            “Dead hobo?” He took a swig of 7-up as he studied my face. “You do know what become of Billy,” he pronounced. “Don’t you.” I silently cursed my marijuana-damaged brain.

            “How could I? I left town right after I hit him,” I objected. “I ran away like a little kid instead of trying to get him to the hospital.” Francis Tarkington continued watching me. “Are you the one who saw us fight and then went and got Mattie Halliday out of bed?” I asked.

            “I am.” He took another swig. “If you never saw Billy after that morning, then how come you told me he was dead just now?”

            “I don’t know,” I responded wearily. Then a thrill of interest ran up my spine as one possible meaning of his question sunk in. I shot the wino a guarded glance. “Was he dead? I hit him hard enough.”

            “If he’s dead now like you say he is, what difference does it make if he was dead then?”

            “I didn’t say he was dead,” I insisted. “I said I didn’t want a dead hobo on my hands. It was a slip of the tongue.”

            “On your conscience, you said. Let’s go, Ace.” Francis Tarkington turned unsteadily to gaze out the windshield, clutching the warm 7-up in both hands. “Let’s go and see about this deep-freeze locker of yours.” I started the engine and pulled out, heading west toward Cornhusker Highway. I had to put the visor down to keep the sun from hurting my eyes.

(blank line)

215. Though the sun. . . .

            Though the sun was in decline, it still cooked the parking lot like the open door of a furnace. Traffic had picked up following the supper hour, but no one passing bothered to glance at the locker plant. The filling station on the next lot looked deserted, though the overhead door stood open. Only the limping German shepherd came out to bark at us. “I got to piss now,” Francis Tarkington said. “Just like I told you.”

            “You can try that station,” I said, “or you can go around back.”

            “I don’t like the looks of that dog,” he said. “I’ll go around.” I watched him shamble off, one hand trailing the wall for occasional support. If anything, the 7-up had made him more inebriated. I thought he might pass out behind the building, but he returned in a couple of minutes. “Smells like gas back there,” he announced.

            “Maybe it’s coming from the station,” I said. “Or maybe they wash parts back there when no one’s looking.” I poured out the last of the 7-up and filled the plastic bottle half-full of vodka. Then I added detergent.

            “Hey, don’t,” the bum said, gazing at the 7-up bottle with a shocked expression.

            I shook the bottle until the top half filled with suds. “Don’t excite yourself, bucko,” I said. “There’s plenty more.”

            “Well, by God, I’m takin’ it in with me.” Francis Tarkington’s constant smoothing gestures, his shuffling manner, had all but disappeared; he stood straight, if waveringly, and I saw that he was tall. “What’re you lookin’ at?” he asked menacingly as he grabbed the remaining vodka and clutched it to his chest.

            “I’m witnessing an amazing transformation,” I said. “I expect I’ll witness another when the rest of the booze hits.”

            I opened the outer door using the more respectable of the two keys, and held it open while the bum preceded me. As Tarkington shouldered odorously past, I fully understood the silent agreement I’d made with Mattie: we would kill him. I also realized that, by letting him drink his fill, I’d already begun to carry out his sentence. Now I cursed myself for a panicky fool. Besides Mattie, he alone knew whether Billy had breath in him when the two of them, Tarkington and Mattie, put him in her van. If Billy had been alive then, even as a vegetable, I’d be a butcherer of human flesh but not a murderer, a distinction that wouldn’t help Billy but that to me was vital. This drunken man therefore had value, and I struggled to think how I could keep him safe until he told me what he knew, if he knew anything.

            “It occurs to me,” I said to Tarkington, “that our wisest move right now is to get this done before Mattie arrives and get the hell out of here. Would you care to tour the sandhills of Nebraska?”

            “With you?” he asked suspiciously. “Are you planning to bump me off once we get up there?”

            “I am not,” I said. “In fact, depending on what you know or don’t know, it might be I should take care of you like a brother. Let’s go; chop chop. The door is to our right.”

            For the briefest time—a short walk down the hallway of a nondescript building—I felt new energy bubbling in my veins, and I saw that I’d been plunging ahead on a sort of dead momentum, down a road that had no turn-offs and no intersections. Now, with Tarkington’s help, maybe I could get off that track. After all, I’d beaten The Goon; I’d fucked Selva Andersen, who’d come to me by daylight of her own volition. What else might I not accomplish? There was a chance the cops would catch us in the act of removing Billy, but that was like one of those risks you took in combat; I estimated it at fifteen per cent at the highest. If they failed to apprehend us on the spot, then I’d dispose of the packages along the road, dispose of the bin itself instead of cleaning it—outside Lincoln, who would know what it was or where it came from?—and find out from Tarkington what he knew and whether he would talk. I’d get a job and buy him a subscription to the case-of-booze-of-the-month club; I’d never let him go thirsty if that’s what it took to buy his cooperation. Mattie could then go screw herself, which was no doubt what she’d end up having to do most times anyway if all men were as limited as me.

            I hesitated for a moment with my hand on the thick door’s lever. If all this came to pass, it meant I’d practically be married to Francis Tarkington. That in turn meant I’d need to postpone my pursuit of Selva Andersen, since she found me objectionable already without a portrait of my future self clinging to my shirttail. But I’d have to work that all out later; right now what I needed was to get those frozen packages out of town.

            “I wish I had gloves,” I said to Tarkington. “That bin will be cold.” My body felt reluctant to enter the frozen room.

            “There’s a pair right here,” he replied. “They’re in this trash can here, right under your nose.” I glanced down to see a circular receptacle; sure enough, a pair of plain white cotton gloves were lying on top of some metal objects; bolts and nuts, a shaft, some sort of plate. I gratefully stooped and got the gloves. They were small for me, but I tugged them on anyway.

            “Thanks,” I said. “It helps to have someone who’s used to looking in the trash. OK, here we go.” I pulled the latch and swung the heavy door open, and a wave of frigid fog poured past my knees. Still, for some reason I felt afraid to enter.

            Francis Tarkington felt the same way. “I’m not goin’ in there,” he said darkly. “You might close the door on me.”

            “Fine,” I said. “I’m going to bring the bin out anyway. You stay here and hold it open. I won’t be more than a couple of minutes.” I marched resolutely into the vault. Near the door the air was warmer, but a biting cold soon crept up past my shoulders. I went down the line to Bin Number 217 and, shivering, sorted through my keys. The cheap brass key went into the cheap brass lock; I gave it half a turn and slid the bin open. “Good,” I said to myself. The cardboard box and packages were undisturbed. I slid the heavy bin out all the way and began jockeying it around, trying to find the secret of its release from the frame. As I did so I heard the “whupp” of the door and looked up to see Francis Tarkington weaving toward me.

            “I thought you weren’t coming in,” I said to him. “I thought you were going to hold the door open.”

            “You looked like you was about to fold that cardboard box shut,” he said. “I wanted to see them packages first.”

            “Here they are,” I said. “Green packages. Frozen meat.”

            “What kind of meat?”

            “Fuck if I know. Buffalo meat.”

            Francis Tarkington leaned above me; I could smell his boozy breath. “That wasn’t wrapped by a professional,” he said. “I know. I used to cut meat.”

            “So?”

            “So what kind of meat is it?” he asked again.

            “None of your business. Let’s go; this is taking too long.” I lifted the handle, and the back of the bin fell free. “Get out of the way. Go back and get that door.” I handed him the 7-up bottle—I wouldn’t be needing the cleaning solution, now that I’d decided to take the bin with me—and stood with the bin and its cargo in my hands. Francis Tarkington blocked the way.

            “It’s Billy, ain’t it,” he said. “You God-damned little shit.”

            “You don’t know that,” I said. “And if it is, you’re implicated. You helped get him into the van, and you kept your mouth shut afterward. Now don’t go righteous on me. It’s only meat; get that door open, or else get out of the way.”

            Francis Tarkington lifted the 7-up bottle and drank. “Here’s to you, Billy,” he said grimly. “You didn’t deserve this.” A perplexed look crossed his face.

            “Move your ass, old man. It’s cold in here.”

            He drank from the 7-up bottle again and spat. “By God, it’s poisoned,” he said, wide-eyed. “You’ve poisoned me.”

            “It’s only soap, but it’ll make you shit. I haven’t got time to laugh at you now; go ahead of me and open up that door.”

            “Aargh.” Francis Tarkington turned away in cunfusion, the 7-up bottle in one hand and the vodka in the other, and moved toward the door, spitting. I followed, the metal handles biting through the thin cotton gloves. Where the bin rested against my thigh, the metal bit. Besides, the thing was solidly made and heavy.

            “How do you open it?” he asked.

            “Push on that metal plate,” I instructed. “A rod goes through and pushes the outside lever.”

            “Ain’t no metal plate,” he said grumpily. “I don’t see what you’re talkin’ about here.”

            Cursing, I released one end of the heavy bin; the cardboard box slid down and tilted, and five green-wrapped packages fell out on the floor. I set the thing on its end and pushed past him. “Here,” I said, placing my palm where the plate should’ve been. “Where is it?”

            “That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you,” he said angrily.

            The two of us glared at one another. “I told you to hold this open,” I said.

            “I had to look and see if that was Billy,” he said, glancing toward the packages. “You murderin’ bastard.”

            “I ought to leave you here with him,” I said. “I would if I could figure what’s wrong with this door.” I turned to study it. A bracket was there that would’ve held the plate, and a half-inch hole led to the latch outside. “Some parts are missing,” I pronounced. “Someone’s been tinkering with this.”

            “Mattie,” the bum said matter-of-factly. The instant he said her name, I knew I should’ve expected it.

            “Holy fuck,” I said. “Well, she did say she had a few things to do.”

            The two of us stood looking at the door. “It hinges to the outside,” I said. “We can’t pull the pins.”

            “Have you got anything you can put through that hole to trip the latch?”

            “No,” I said. “Broken a few locks, have you?”

            “Only when I needed to get in out of the cold,” the bum said. I shivered. “This here is sort of the opposite,” he observed.

            “Tell me about it,” I said. “Give me a drink of that vodka. And not the one with the detergent in it.” I retreated a couple of steps and sat on the end of the bin to study the door; I was faced by a wall of plywood that covered the insulation. It would be hard to break and impervious to our shouting. The frozen metal bit my rump. “That door is a thick one,” I said. “Thick and ugly. Do you see any other way out of here?”

            The vault was long and narrow, lined with the faces of the drab gray bins. Above the rows of bins the walls were white, and on one side, at a height of seven feet, there was indeed a grated ventilator, big enough to crawl into. There should have been a corresponding inlet near the floor, but cold air apparently was ducted in behind the bins. The room’s one light bulb projected from a ceiling fixture near the vent. Thank God Mattie hadn’t turned the power off. She probably wanted to be sure the compressor would run.

            “You can’t go out that way,” the bum said, following my gaze. “You’ll end up in the machinery.”

            “Watch me.” I felt in my pocket for a coin and dragged Bin 217 near the ventilator. Standing on the bin, I could easily reach the screws that held the cover; using the edge of a dime as a screwdriver, I began the painful process of loosening them. I had to hold the metal grate to steady myself, but if I held it for long my gloved fingertips began to freeze. “This dime is killing my fingers,” I said to Tarkington. “I wish I had a regular screwdriver.”

            “I’d like to know which of us is goin’ down that duct,” he said sourly. The liquid click of his consonants informed me that he’d resumed his passionate love affair with the vodka.

            “You are, actually.” I removed the grate and dropped it with a clang. The opening was generous, thirty inches by two feet; when I put my head inside, I could hear traffic. I thought I heard the stutter of an air-cooled Volkswagen. “Mattie!” I hollered down the duct. “Hey, Mattie!”

            “She’s gone,” the bum said bitterly. “You’re wastin’ your time. There’s no way out. We’re doomed.”

            “Like hell,” I said. “Get your buns up here.” I stepped down from the inverted bin and grabbed the vodka out of his hand, setting it safely in a corner near the door. His fingers, I saw, were pale with cold; his face was white with purple blotches. “Get over here,” I said. “I’m the strongest, so up you go. I’ll follow you, and our weight together will break the straps that hold the duct. It’ll fall apart and we’ll be out of here in no time.” I put my arm behind him and helped him step up on the bin, then turned him to face the opening. “Up you go,” I said again. “Get with it.”

            He touched the sides of the duct and withdrew his hands. “Too cold,” he said, “but it smells hot. I don’t like it.”

            “Like it or lump it, we’re getting out of here.” I grabbed him around the knees and hoisted him up, getting myself a whiff of unwashed wino’s butt. He put head and shoulders through the opening, and I shifted my grip lower and hoisted him again. “This metal is freezin’ my belly,” he reported, “but my head feels warm. Keep pushin’.”

            I straddled the bin, squatted, and placed his feet on my shoulders. “One more push and you’re in.” I slowly stood as he slid himself further, until only his ankles and canvas shoes remained. Then he gave a grunt, and they, too, went into the duct. Suddenly his feet begain flailing and clattering against cold metal. “Yow!” he yelled. “Hot! Too hot! Pull me out of here!”

            “It’s the cold,” I said. “The steel’s so cold you think it’s hot.”

            “PULL ME OUT!” Inch by inch, with great commotion, he began moving back toward me; I seized his feet and pulled him back until he hung half in and half out of the opening. “God damn,” he panted hoarsely. “Tryin’ to poison me, freeze me, and burn me up. I’ve had about enough of you.”

            “What are you talking about? Tell me what’s the matter.” I climbed up on the empty bin and tried to look past him down the duct.

            “I tell you, it’s hot down there,” he said. “If you don’t believe it, try to go yourself.”

            “I will. Get down.” A strange strength possessed me; I lifted him from the opening and set him on his feet, then braced myself against the sides of the duct and hopped in, until I was up to my waist as he had been. “Don’t just stand there,” I yelled back. “Give me a boost.”

            “All right,” he said, “but you’ll be sorry.” I felt him lifting the soles of my boots, and as I did so I smelled what he had reported, hot galvanized steel. I slid further into the dark chamber and reached ahead to help myself, and noted with bewilderment that my face felt suddenly warm. My gloved hand touched hot metal; I heard an ominous crackling sound that seemed to come from all around me. “PULL ME OUT!” I screamed. “HELP! PULL!” On my own power I scrambled backwards, kicking; I heard a tinkling behind me and the light went out.

            Back in the cold, I felt for the empty bin beneath my feet. “Now you’ve done it,” said the bum’s voice from somewhere nearby. “You broke their light bulb, buddy. Someone’s going to have to pay for that.”

            “Fuck.” From my position standing on the empty bin, I could tell I was looking into the duct even though I couldn’t see my hands. A yellow pinpoint of light flickered at me, some sort of gap or screwhole in the metal. Once my eyes got adjusted I could make out a reddish glow. The smell of heated metal was mixed with smoke now.

            I stepped down blindly from the inverted bin, crashing into Tarkington in the dark. “She’s set the place on fire,” I said breathlessly. “We can’t get out that way. Have to break the door down somehow.”

            “Use that bin,” Tarkington suggested. “Smash the door with the bin.”

            “You’re right. Help me. Take the other side.”

            Disregarding the pain of frosted metal on our hands, we managed to pick the bin up, one on each side, and stumbled toward the door with it. A little daylight coming through the hole in the door showed where the handle had been; we began slugging the blankness to the left of that, using the tin drawer as a battering ram. What had seemed heavy to lift now seemed too light; the bin had no effect. “Harder,” I gasped. “One, two, three.”

            “Forget this thing,” Tarking panted when we paused for wind. “Let’s run against it with our shoulders, both at the same time. That’ll break it down.”

            “Fine with me,” I said. “It’s going to be hard for us to keep together.”

            We put the bin against the wall; in doing so, I stumbled on one of the frozen packages and gave it a kick. Then we backed off a few steps and, using the dot of light as our guide and holding hands to keep together, ran against the door. It didn’t budge. “Again,” Tarkington gasped. “You count.”

            “One, two, go!” We ran at the door until Tarkington sat down exhausted. Then I kicked it with my heavy boots and scratched the unyeilding plywood with my fingernails. “This door,” I said, “is the lockedest fucking door I’ve ever met.” Finally I sat down next to the wino. “I’m running out of ideas.”

            “We’re running out of air,” he said, and it was true. Though the temperature of the vault remained icy, smoke had begun to infiltrate near the ceiling; stirred up by our efforts, it percolated downward. The breathing was definitely better near the floor. “What did you do with the vodka?”

            “It’s over in the corner. Did you think of something?” I asked eagerly.

            “Yeah, I thought of somethin’. I thought I’d sort of like another drink.”

            I felt my way along the wall, brushing aside packages, until I found the bottle in its paper bag. I retrieved it and came back to Tarkington, sitting close to him to conserve body heat. “Here,” I said. “I bet it’s nice and cold.”

            “Want some?”

            “I’m not in the mood.”

            I knelt and put my eye to the latch-hole. Shadows seemed to disturb the light; I thought I heard sirens. I stood and began slapping the wood with my palm, kicking it with my boots. “Hey!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Let us out!” I inhaled to scream again and took a lungful of smoke; I bent over, coughing violently, and collapsed to my knees.

            “No one hears you, Ace,” the bum said softly. “Sit down and have a drink.”

            Fumbling in icy darkness, my hand encountered one of the frozen packages, long and slim, shaped like a pestle; I grasped it and stood and began pounding the door. When I quickly ran out of air, I stooped to breathe, then rose and pounded; stooped to breathe, straightened, pounded. Stooped. Pounded. Stooped. Coughed. Pounded. “LET US OUT! GOD DAMN IT, LET US—”

The door swung slowly open. Three figures stood in hellish light; black smoke swirled thickly and a red glow lit the wall. Their human bodies bore triangular heads, with flat circular eyes three inches across and striated elephant trunks that curled down under their arms and passed behind them. I handed the Billy-pestle to the central figure—it had the big shoulders of Davis, the chief detective—and fell, landing on the wino. The smell of his stale clothing was the thing I carried with me into blankness.

(blank line)

216. I woke to the flickering. . . .

            I woke to the flickering rectangle of off-the-air TV. I was lying in a hospital room—Lincoln General, from the look of it—hooked to a glucose bottle. A greasy smoke taste coated my tongue. By my side, in a reclining chair, slept Carl or Rip Van Winkle, the sleepy young cop I’d made a fool of two months earlier; he now wore the uniform and badge of a rookie. I sat up and removed the glucose needle from my wrist. My clothes were in the closet, my billfold was in the drawer. I donned Julia’s necklace with the shrapnel, gathered up boots, jeans, shirt and hat, and left the room without thinking where I was going. I changed in the stairwell, surprised at how my clothing reeked of smoke. My shirt was ripped at one elbow, and when I examined my forearm I found a corresponding scratch. Apparently I’d gashed myself when I entered the duct. I shuddered at the thought of that vault with its unbreakable door, and was flooded with a violent longing for Selva Andersen. I wanted to touch her living skin the way a man trapped under water wants to breathe.

            I descended five floors’ worth of concrete steps and emerged into the summertime air of Lincoln. It was between two and four in the morning; the streets were at their quietest. I crossed South Street in a hurry, anxious to shed the bright lights of the intersection, and fled northward up 15th, with the dome of the Capitol Building shining before me. My apartment on 11th was just blocks away, but I dared not go there; instead, I crossed westward as far as 13th and approached F Street from the south, knowing that 13th would bring me to within a half block of Selva. As I came up the sidewalk from E toward F, I saw Mattie Halliday’s van parked at the curb. I stepped down into the street and approached it from the driver’s side. “Hey, Mattie,” I said through the open side window. “I did some research on your Queen Zenobia. She married a Roman businessman and gave birth to politicians.”

            “Well,” said a hoarse female voice from inside the van. “If it isn’t Mister Nine Lives. You smell smoky, Jonas Smith.”

            “Yes,” I said, “and whose fault is that?” I crossed in front to the passenger side and got in. “You shouldn’t have tried to kill me, Mattie. That went a bit past friendship, I would say.”

            “You don’t seem as worried about it now,” she said. I could make out her silhouette in the darkness, her crazy hair.

            “The game is up, Mattie. The cops have the meat, and they have Tarkington. In a couple of hours the world will know what we’ve done; that means my father will know it, too. I’m not sure I’m prepared to live with that.”

            “You shouldn’t’ve made a fuss,” she said. “You should’ve let yourself be frozen. It’s a peaceful death, they say.”

            “And burnt,” I said. “Not so peaceful, from my experience.”

            Mattie sighed. “I’ve been thinking, Jonas,” she said. “I did something bizarrely stupid yesterday evening. When I was preparing to set that fire, I bought gas from the station next door; I even made a couple of trips back and forth. Now that I reflect on it, that seems irrational to me. What do you think?”

            “If that’s the most irrational act you can recall, then you truly are off your rocker,” I said.

            “I was afraid of that,” she said solemnly. “Do you know, that dog barked and barked at me. The one at the station.”

            “That’s because she’s a friend of mine,” I said. “I gave her some peanuts. She knew you were up to no good, Mattie.”

            “Sold out for a handful of peanuts,” Mattie said bitterly. “No wonder they call them man’s best friend.”

            We sat in silence for a time, looking at the dark once-upon-a-time mansion. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

            “I have no long-term plans,” I said. “I may hide out in Lincoln for a week and try to see Selva before she leaves, if the cops don’t catch me.”

            “Why a week?” Mattie replied. “This is Saturday morning, and they’re leaving Monday. That’s two days, not a week.”

            “You’re full of it,” I said coldly. “Selva said two weeks. That was on Monday night or Tuesday morning, four days ago. I know for a fact that you’re definitely mistaken about that.”

            “I’m not mistaken,” Mattie said. “Selva lied to you.”

            “Like hell.”

            “Go look at their car,” she said. “They already have their bookcases tied on top.”

            I got out of the van and crossed F Street. The Volvo sat in the driveway under the scarlet maple, and as I approached I could see a bulky rectangle perched above it. Sure enough, the rectangle resolved itself into barrister’s bookcases, each glass shelf-cover padded with a pillowcase. There were cardboard boxes blocking the rear seat. I stumbled back across the street and got in with Mattie. “Shit,” I said, tears scalding my eyes. “Maybe he’s leaving early. Maybe they’re going separately for some reason.”

            “Don’t cry, you foolish man,” Mattie said. “Think of my predicament. Adrian’s my attorney.”

            I snuffled angrily. “Adrian is not your attorney.”

            “Well, he would be. Will be, if I can keep him here. Do you think you can sabotage their car, Jonas?”

            “You bet I can sabotage their fucking car,” I said. “Oh, Mattie! What are we talking about? The cops will get us before we can do a thing.”

            “They won’t get me,” Mattie said. “I still have friends in Lincoln. They might get you.”

            “I’ll go up to Omaha,” I said. “I’ll cross over into Iowa and spend a couple of days just driving around. Then I’ll meet you back here in, what? Forty-eight hours?”

            “That should be just right,” Mattie said. “In case they try to make an early start, we’ll be ready for them.”

            “Forty-eight hours,” I said. “Monday morning at sunrise. Give me a ride to Cornhusker Highway. I’ll see if my truck’s still sitting at the locker plant.”

            “All right,” Mattie said. She reached for the key of the microbus. “Promise me something, OK?”

            “OK.”

            “If you ever decide you’re going to kill yourself, kill me first. Will you do that for me?”

            “Sure, Mattie. I could cut your throat with pleasure, just about now.”

            “Thanks, Jonas.” She started the Volkswagen. “You’re the only man in Lincoln I consider trustworthy.”