I found a bank that was open on Saturday, half-day walkup-window service. My paper trail would end here, it was cash-and-carry from now on. The paper I had already left would soon take them through Slater to the Hilton. Supercop would also know that I’d been driving an Alamo rental, but he’d be annoyed to find it disabled in the Hilton garage. How long a leap would it be until he had me driving Rigby’s car? It could be half a day or it might be done with two two-minute phone calls. A lot depended on luck—his and mine—and on how super the asshole really was.
I drew a $3,000 cash advance on my MasterCard. There was more where that came from, an untapped balance maybe half again as much. In the other pocket of my wallet I had a Visa, which I seldom used: the line of credit on that was $2,000. I never maxed out on these cards: I always paid it off and the jackals kept bumping my line upward, hoping I’d have a stroke of bad luck and they could suck me into slavery at 18 percent along with the rest of the world’s chumps. It was good strategy, finally about to pay off for them.
I took the cash in hundreds, two hundred in twenties. It made a fat wad in my wallet.
I stopped in a store and bought some hair dye, senior-citizen variety, guaranteed to turn me into a silver panther. I’d have to do it in two stages, bleach my dark hair white and then dye it gray with an ash toner. I’d be an old man till I dyed it back or it grew out. I bought a good grease pencil with a fine point and a hat that came down to my ears. I bought some sealing tape, shipping cartons, a marking pen, and a roll of bubblewrap. I doubled back toward town. In the Goodwill on Dearborn I bought a cane and an old raincoat. For once in my life I left a thrift store without looking at the books.
I sat in the car with the windows frosting up and did my face. I gave myself a skin blemish under my right eye, added some dirty-looking crow’s-feet to the real ones I was getting through hard living, and headed out again. I looked at myself in the glass. It wasn’t very good, but maybe it didn’t have to be. All I needed now was to pass in a rush for an old duffer with the hurts, when I talked to the man at the check-in counter.
I chose a motel not far from the Hilton, the Ramada on Fifth just off Bell Street. I pulled my hat down and leaned into the cane as I walked into the lobby. For now I would be Mr. Raymond Hodges, a name I pulled out of thin air. I also pulled off a pretty good limp, painful without overdoing it. I gave a half-sigh, just audible with each step down on my right foot. The guy behind the desk didn’t seem to notice me beyond the bare fact of my presence, a sure sign that he had taken me at face value. There’s nobody in that room but an old guy who can barely walk , he’d tell anybody who wanted to know. It wouldn’t fool supercop if he got this far, but if they were checking around by phone, it might discourage them from coming out for the personal look.
It was still only midmorning: registration for the night wouldn’t be opening for another four or five hours, but the man let me in when I told him I was tired. The only thing that seemed to throw him momentarily was the sight of cash. In the age of plastic, a man with cash is almost as suspicious as a man with a gun.
For my own peace of mind, I had to get rid of Otto Murdoch’s books, and it was Saturday and the post office was on a banker’s schedule. In my room I sealed the books in the bubblewrap and packed them tight, with the other books I’d bought all around them. I sealed the boxes and addressed them to myself in Denver. I called the desk for directions and he sent me to the main post office at Third and Union. I insured the boxes to the limit—not nearly enough— and felt a thousand pounds lighter when they disappeared into the postal system.
The library was just a few blocks away, and I stopped there to look at a copy of The Raven . The most accessible Poe was the Modern Library edition, on an open shelf in the fiction section. I sat at a table and browsed it, looking for the words still and whisp , printed diagonally one above the other. I found them in the fifth stanza, partial words but strong as a fingerprint.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood
there, wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared
to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness
gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered
word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the
word, “Lenore!”
Merely this and nothing more.
I took the charred scrap from my wallet and looked for the letters ange . It was there, twice, in the sixteenth stanza, reference to the sainted, radiant maiden Lenore, who had been named by the angels.
I made photocopies of the three pages and headed back to the Ramada.
In my room I did my hair, watching with some amazement as the black became white and then gray and by degrees I took on the appearance of my father. I quit when it seemed right. When it dried, I hit it with the grease pencil, giving myself a slightly speckled look.
I redid my face and made a better job of it.
There was a kind of fatalistic rhythm to my movements. I was doing what I had to do and time no longer mattered. Eleanor was either dead or alive: if she still lived, I rather liked her chances for the immediate future. He wasn’t about to kill her, not after all this grief, till he had what he wanted. Never mind the ashes: appearances could be deceiving, and the feeling persisted that what I wanted was still out there somewhere, alive and well. If I could find it first, I’d have a strong bargaining chip, and there was a fair chance we’d even converge in the hunt. I didn’t know Seattle, I had no idea where Pruitt or the fat man’s kid might do their drinking, but I did know books. I’d let the cops do the legwork—the job I’d set them on at no small personal risk to myself, the work they had the manpower and the skill to pull off—and I’d go after the book.
It was now after ten-thirty. Supercop would be finished with Trish, at least for the moment, and he’d be on the phone to Denver, going after my mug shot and stats. I pictured the looks on Hennessey and Steed and almost laughed at the thought. It would go against Steed’s grain, but he’d have to honor supercop’s request and wonder to himself if I had finally popped my buttons and started cutting out paper dolls. As for Hennessey, I’d have some serious fences to mend there, but what else was new?
I knew I was tired—the last real sleep I could remember was the Rigby loft, more than forty-eight hours ago—but I didn’t want to stop. I sat on the bed and began working the phone. I opened Eleanor’s little address book to the Grayson page and decided to start with Allan Huggins, the man who knew more about the Graysons than they had known about each other. I punched in the number, but there was no answer.
I kept going. I called Jonelle Jeffords in Taos. A machine answered. “Hi, this’s where Charlie and Jo live. If you’ve got something to say that I might want to hear, leave a number, maybe I’ll call you back.”
No bullshit there: old Charlie cut right to the short strokes. I hung up on the beep.
I sat for a while looking at the name Rodney Scofield. It seemed vaguely familiar, like something I’d heard once and should’ve remembered. Finally I called his number cold, a Los Angeles exchange.