Everyone in the whole damned neighborhood received a morning paper, many of them two. How was he going to pick out the house on vacation if every driveway had newspapers on it? It was just one more thing he hadn’t planned for. He was scared to think about how many other things could go wrong that he hadn’t even considered. And whoever heard of a paper boy who had his route taken care of before five? When he was a paper boy a hundred years ago, he was lucky to get the Washington Post on his customers’ doorsteps before six, and even then it was because his father had wrestled him out of bed.
“Stay cool,” he told himself. “You’ll think of something.”
He finished his first complete pass without finding a single house bereft of papers. But this was still the Fourth of July holiday, and he knew in his heart that at least half of the neighborhood had to be on vacation. All he had to do was figure out which half, and make sure he didn’t make a mistake.
Your real mistake was getting yourself into this in the first place, he thought. Not that it mattered.
At the end of the tenth cul-de-sac, he swung the turn and came to a stop against the curb. The Low Fuel light was burning a bright orange now on the dash. He needed to think things through. How would MacGyver handle this, he wondered.
The first thing he’d do is take a leak.
He switched off the Beemer’s headlights and, moving as quietly as he could, slipped out the driver’s-side door, leaving the car running, and darted up the lawn to the shadow cast by a dogwood sapling near the front corner of the house. He turned his back to the road, and began relieving himself onto what appeared to be some sort of spider plant. In the silence of the night, he might as well have opened up with a fire hose, but once he’d started, there was no stopping until it was done. Middle school scuttlebutt had it that if you made yourself stop peeing before you were empty, you’d rupture your balls. Yet another thing worse than getting caught.
As he finished up and tucked himself away, his attention was drawn to a collection of three spindled handbills that had been stuffed into the handle of the screen door.
I wonder.
By taking four steps out into the yard, he could see the front doors of the neighbors’ houses, and none of them had any handbills on their doors.
Nathan, you’re a genius, he congratulated himself. To confirm his suspicion, he tiptoed up to the garage door. By standing on the metal handles he could peer through the small-paned windows into the darkness of the garage. Just as he’d hoped, there was an open spot. Better yet, there was a second car still there—a Honda, it appeared. He pumped his fist in the air. Yes! he cheered silently.
After making a mental note of the house number—4120—he jogged back to the Beemer and drove away. The first order of business was to ditch the car. He remembered passing a church just before turning into the development that would suit the task perfectly. He paid special attention to street names and the looks of his surroundings as he exited Little Rocky Creek, hoping to simplify the task of finding his way when he returned on foot.
Again, his sense of distance had betrayed him. “Just before the turn” worked out in reality to be about a half mile down the road. By the time Nathan drove the Beemer into the church lot and parked it in the furthest space out, the eastern sky was already beginning to burn red. He had no idea that dawn came so early. It wasn’t a time of day that he frequently witnessed firsthand. To his growing list of obstacles, he now had to add time.
Once out of the vehicle for the last time, he hid the keys under the mat on the driver’s side, locked the door, and closed it as quietly as he could. He hoped that maybe it really wasn’t stealing if you gave back the keys.
Sprawling before him was Saint Sebastian Catholic Church, looking more like a grounded flying saucer than it did a house of worship. For a brief moment, Nathan considered going inside for a brief chat with God—and Saint Sebastian, for that matter, if he was in the mood to listen in—but thought better of it. He was running out of time. Besides, God seemed to be listening so far.
About the time that Nathan was watering the plants, Denise Carpenter was pacing her kitchen, waiting for the limo to arrive. Enrique sat with her, propped up in a hard-backed chair, wishing with all his might that he could trade his boss in for one who was sane. For the past hour and a half he’d issued positive reviews for no less than six different outfits, this on the heels of a previous hour rating hairstyles. If he’d told her once, he had told her a thousand times that she was a beautiful woman, that it didn’t matter what she wore because she looked good in everything. It was close enough to the truth that no one could call him a liar.
More by default dictated by the ticking of the clock than by rational decision, Denise had settled on a very professional, understated kelly green suit with a gold bead necklace and matching earrings. She decided to wear her professionally straightened hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, which Enrique didn’t particularly like, but he would have cut his tongue off with a pair of scissors before he’d have said anything. Besides, she didn’t listen to any of his fashion opinions anyway, which led him to consider the option of just shooting her and moving on to a better job.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have pulled my hair back,” Denise whined.
Enrique lowered his head onto the kitchen table and closed his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Denise, why don’t we just shave you bald and you won’t have to worry about it at all anymore?”
Her eyes shot darts, but they never got through the force field of her producer’s exhaustion. “Come on, Rick,” she begged. “Stay awake with me. Here, have some more coffee.” She refilled his mug, emptying their second pot since midnight.
Enrique sat up straight again and gently gripped her elbow. “Den, listen to me,” he said lightly. “You look great. You’re going to do great. The only thing you have to worry about is staying awake through your radio show. America is just going to love saying good morning to you.”
Denise smiled and ran her hand through Enrique’s hair. “Thanks, Rick,” she said. “You’re such a good friend to put up with me.”
His reply was a warm, if tired smile.
“The red outfit looked better, didn’t it?”
Enrique’s head made a loud thunk when it fell back onto the table.
As the darkness lightened and the shadows turned gray, traffic started to pick up, and Nathan was forced further from the roadside and deeper into the woods. Another planning failure. He had no business being outside in the daylight where people could see him and recognize him. At least he wasn’t driving anymore, he consoled himself.
It took him every bit of forty-five minutes to make the trek back to Little Rocky Creek. Deadfalls, creepers and briar bushes all conspired to slow his progress.
It wasn’t yet six o’clock, yet the air was thick with humidity and the temperature was approaching ninety already. His clothes were soaked with perspiration, his hair matted to his forehead and the back of his neck. The hike was taking long enough that if he hadn’t just driven the route, he would have sworn that he’d made a wrong turn.
Finally, through the underbrush, he could see the turn for Little Rocky Trail. He turned parallel to the new road and soon was crossing behind back yards. It was the time of morning when people let their dogs out. One of them, a German shepherd, spied him through the slats of his fence and barked ferociously, baring its teeth and lunging against the pickets, thus igniting a chorus of barking dogs throughout the neighborhood. Nathan barked back at the dog and flipped him off. Nothing like a six-foot oak barrier to help a guy feel brave.