“Leave Dallas? Where would I go?”
“What about your uncle Jacko? In Oregon.”
“Uncle Jacko? He’s not even a real uncle.”
“Can you think of anyone else?”
Silence on the other end of the line.
“Jacko it is, then. Dan will make your travel arrangements.” He gave her the phone number. “If you need any money, use that credit card I gave you last year for emergencies.”
“What if Aunt Marnie won’t let me go?”
Travis swore silently. This was advice he hated to give. “Go anyway,” he said softly.
“Okay. Wow.”
“Are you writing all this down?”
“I can remember.”
He only hoped that was true. But at times her attention disorder was extremely pronounced—her powers of concentration were low and she couldn’t be expected to retain anything. “This is very important, honey. Don’t mess around. And don’t tell anyone where you’re going.”
“I don’t like this, Travis,” she said. “It’s not right running off when you’re in trouble.”
“It is right, honey. It’s the most right thing you can possibly do.” He exhaled, much relieved. “I can’t stay on this line any longer. I’m going to hang up.”
“Travis?”
“Yes?”
She stalled, apparently unable to say what she wanted to say. “Be careful.”
“I will.”
“If you don’t come see me soon, I’ll punch your lights out!”
“Understood.” He hung up the phone and climbed back in the car with Cavanaugh. “Now. We need to talk to that Elcon corporate president, but I suppose we’ll have to wait until morning. In the meantime, let’s find a safe place to catch some shut-eye. I wouldn’t object to getting something to eat, either.”
“Any suggestions?”
“No. I don’t know what’s safe.” He gripped the steering wheel tightly. “I don’t understand how these people keep finding me wherever I go.”
“Well, we have to stay somewhere, so pick a place.”
Travis shrugged. “Cheap motel.”
“Fine. Just don’t make it the Million Dollar.”
“Deal.” Travis glanced uneasily into the rearview mirror.
Cavanaugh leaned closer to him. “You think someone’s following us?”
Travis thought a long time before answering. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I just don’t know.”
“Did you get it?”
The technician pressed the headphones closer to his ears. “I think so. …”
Kramer slapped him brutally across the side of his face, knocking him out of his chair. “Don’t tell me what you think, goddamn it! I need results!”
The technician lay sprawled on the floor of the truck, stunned. “I’m—I’m sorry. I got it. Every word.”
“When is she leaving? Where is she going?”
Crawling back to his feet, the technician related everything he had heard.
“Then there’s still time.”
“Do you want me to arrange for some of the boys to meet her?”
“No,” Kramer replied. “I’ve depended on assistants far too much already. I’m going to take care of her myself.”
The technician tossed the headphones down beside the recorder. He felt nauseated—not from the blow, but from the thought of Kramer “taking care of” a teenage girl. “I don’t understand, sir. How will this help you find Byrne?”
“It won’t.” A wide, leering grin spread across his pocked face. “Byrne will come to me.”
52
10:40 P.M.
TRAVIS AND CAVANAUGH SAT side by side on the ratty double bed in their fleabag motel room. They purposely chose low-end accommodations, both to stay out of sight, and because they knew their cash on hand couldn’t last forever and using credit cards and automated tellers would be suicide. Without discussion, they had agreed to share a room—safety in numbers. They’d stopped at a gas station, and while Cavanaugh gassed up, Travis grabbed an assortment of unnutritious snacks—beef jerky, potato chips, pork rinds, and every other high-fat fried food he hadn’t eaten in months.
“Kind of sliding off the cholesterol-free diet, aren’t you?” Cavanaugh observed.
“Right now I need stress reduction. And I don’t care if I gain a few pounds getting it.”
“Certainly that’s always been my approach to dieting.” She opened a jumbo bag of Cheetos. “Topic one. First thing tomorrow, we need to get a new car.”
“Fine. I’ve got forty-five bucks left.”
“I’m serious, Byrne. Whoever crashed my apartment knows my name, and if they know my name, all it takes is a phone call to get a description of my car and the license-plate number. Plus that goon at the library may have seen the car. We need new wheels.”
“But if we buy a new car, we’ll have to register it.”
“True. That’s why, much as it pains me, I conclude that we should acquire a new vehicle by less than legal means.”
“Am I hearing these words spoken by Little Miss I’m an Officer of the Court?”
Cavanaugh snatched his pork rinds. “Our lives are on the line here. Legal ethics are a swell concept, but I’m not prepared to die for them.”
“And how are we going to acquire this automobile by, uh, less than legal means?”
“Leave it to me.”
“You’re the expert.” He paused, then added, “Laverne.”
She slugged him on the arm. “Byrne, if you start calling me Laverne in the courtroom, so help me—”
“Relax, relax. I wouldn’t do that. Besides, surely you realize we’re both going to be disbarred.”
“That makes me feel much better.”
“It’s not such a bad name. Laverne, I mean. Has kind of a warm … grandmotherly feel.”
“Just what I was hoping for.” Cavanaugh sighed. “I always wanted a friendly name. The kind of name people have that other people … well, like.”
“Such as what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Daisy, maybe.”
“Daisy? Like Blondie and Dagwood’s dog?”
She cast her eyes toward the ceiling. “One year when I was in college, during spring break, I decided to drive from Dallas to San Francisco to visit an old high-school friend. A brief adventure. I drove it nonstop—just me, the radio, and lots of No Doz. Anyway, along the way, somewhere in Arizona, I think, I picked up this hitchhiker.”
Travis’s eyes widened. “You? A hitchhiker?”
“I was younger then. I didn’t know any better. He was what my parents would’ve called a hippie, even then. Long stringy unwashed hair, a guitar, fringed jacket. He was a folksinger, or wanted to be. He played a few tunes for me in the car. He wasn’t bad.” She turned away suddenly. “I’m sorry. I’m boring you.”
“No, please continue. I’m fascinated. This is so unlike the Madame Prosecutor I’ve come to know and … know.”
“Yeah, well …” She waved her hand aimlessly. “The hitchhiker asked me what my name was. I went by my initials then—L.C.—but he wouldn’t settle for that. He wanted to know what the letters stood for, and I eventually told him.”
“And then what? He left in outrage?”
“No. He grew very quiet, then said, ‘Well, I’m going to call you Daisy.’ ”
A smile played upon her lips. “And he did, for the whole drive to California. Called me Daisy. I loved that name. It was so … soft. And romantic. It was everything I had never been but always secretly wanted to be.”
“What happened?”
Cavanaugh shrugged. “He got out in Monterey. I never saw him again. And no one has called me Daisy ever since.”