Keller followed her into the house. She opened a drawer of the buffet, where she kept the dishes, and pulled out the pink slip. Keller handed her the envelope and watched her count the hundred-dollar bills. When she had finished, she leaned over the coffee table and signed the pink slip and handed it to him.
Keller glanced at the slip. It had been signed by Ronald Sedgely with the new owner as Maura Sedgely, and now she had signed it. The car was hers? There was no husband coming home tonight. Either Ronald Sedgely was her father, and she wasn’t married, or she had gotten the car in a divorce from Ronald Sedgely. The discovery made him feel elated, filled with confidence.
He wasn’t the only one. Everybody was lying. Everybody was hiding some vulnerability. Opening your face and telling people the truth about yourself wasn’t normal. She was normal. She was a single mother trying to deal with a man who called on the telephone and might try to cheat her on a car deal, or might even be a maniac who would rape and kill her in front of her baby. Pretending there was some guy who had to approve the deal and knew all about cars, and just might pop in to protect her, that was the sensible thing to do. She was perfectly normal. He was normal.
Keller drove the car to the D.M.V. to register it, drove to an insurance office he had picked out in the telephone book to insure it, and found that neither was as difficult to do as he had feared. They wanted to know the answers to questions he had prepared for a month ago. Jane had assured him that his driver’s license was genuine. It must have been true, because everybody’s computer loved David Keller. He had no outstanding warrants, no problems of any kind, and not even any disturbing blank spaces. He had gotten a new license a year ago, after driving in New Jersey for twelve years.
As David Keller drove around town, he couldn’t help feeling grateful that human beings were so simpleminded. All he had needed to do to break free of the depression that had been paralyzing him was to get out and drive around in a car on a summer day with his window rolled down. It was such a small improvement that it made him laugh.
It made him even happier when he looked at it in reverse. He had bought the right kind of car in the way Jane had said was the safest. He had bought it from the ideal seller, a woman who didn’t even know his name. Maybe he had done it a little early for Jane’s taste, but she had not known how invisible he had been for three months. He had made no mistakes at all. And the car made him feel safer.
He would park it somewhere away from his apartment. If they found the apartment, he could sneak down the fire escape, get in his car, and go. If they found the car, he would see them watching it before he went near it. He would hide some emergency supplies inside the car—money, maybe ten grand in a clever place. And what else would he need if they found him?
The clerk in the gun shop was a woman. She was short and gray-haired and probably had been pretty once, but her face looked as though she had spent some time squinting into the sun. When she walked around the counter and he saw that she was wearing a pistol in a holster on her hip, he thought at first that it was some kind of illusion. Then he noticed that everybody in the store was wearing one, even the stock boy with the broom.
She let him stare down through the glass case for a few minutes, then came up and stood beside him. “Anything I can show you?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure. Yes, I guess so. I just don’t know what.”
She smiled like an aging dance-hall girl in a Western movie. “Let’s narrow it down. You want to buy a handgun.”
He smiled back at her. “That’s right.”
“Are you an old shooter?”
“No. I’ve never even fired one of these.”
“What do you want it for? Target range or protection?”
“Protection. You know, burglars and so on.”
She stared at him for a moment as though she were estimating his hat size. “Well, okay. You know, of course, that if somebody comes into your house, what he really doesn’t want to see is one of these.” She pointed to a short-barreled pump shotgun on the rack behind her.
“I suppose not,” he said. “But I’d rather have something small.”
She nodded. “And you’ve never fired a pistol. Are you mechanically inclined? Fix your own car?”
Keller shook his head. “Never.”
She opened the case thoughtfully with a key on her belt, selected four pistols, and set them side by side. “There’s this,” she said. “It’s a Beretta 92. A good, reliable nine-millimeter semi-automatic. A lot of police forces use it, and there’s a similar model that the army uses. This is the kind of gun that you have to take apart to clean and oil, and put back together right. I don’t recommend that for a novice.”
“What do you recommend?”
She showed him a revolver with a short barrel. “This is a Ruger SP 101. It’s a .38 Special and it’s small and lightweight. It doesn’t pop up and hit you in the face from the recoil when you fire it. It’s easy to care for, and won’t let you down.” She leaned close to him and spoke from the side of her mouth. “It’s the model we usually recommend for women who don’t know anything about guns.” She watched him for a reaction.
He smiled. “That sounds like just the thing. I’ll take two.”
“Really?”
“Is that a bad idea?”
“No,” she said. “I’d be delighted to sell two.” She pulled a set of forms from a tray behind the counter. “Fill these two out, and after the waiting period is up, you can come get your guns.” She put away the row of pistols, then stopped, holding the one he had picked out. “As you know, it would be illegal for you to carry a concealed weapon. This is a model you have to be very careful with in that regard. It would be possible to put one of these in your coat pocket and go out without noticing it. Your friends wouldn’t see the bulge. Of course, when you reached in and discovered your mistake, the compact size would be a great advantage because you could take it back home without embarrassment.” She winked and locked the gun in the case.
12
Linda Thompson sat at the edge of her chair in the dark and watched the front door of Pete Hatcher’s apartment building. She liked looking through the night-vision binoculars, liked the way everything showed up green and glowing. She even liked the fact that Earl had spent nearly nine hundred dollars on them. His aching need for the best toys and gadgets gave her a lever to keep him a little bit off balance. Any time he felt the urge to say something about what she spent, she had been able to point to a gizmo that cost twice as much. She was careful not to let Earl notice how much she liked looking through the binoculars. They made her feel as though she had the senses of some sleek, beautiful animal lying in wait in the jungle, its eyes bright and yellow, able to see its dim-sighted, clumsy, hoofed enemy stumbling through the underbrush toward her.
Tonight she could feel her heart beating in her chest, the blood carrying more oxygen to her fingers and toes than it had since they had arrived in Denver. The air was clear and thin here, and she had hated that until her body had adjusted to the altitude.
Linda was feeding on Pete Hatcher’s fear and indecision. Five nights ago she had seen him walk down the street at about nine, and come back at nine thirty carrying a single big grocery bag back to his apartment. He had done the same thing three nights ago. Tonight, she knew he was thinking it was time to go get some more food. She was sure he wanted to get into his car and drive somewhere—to a giant supermarket in some other part of town, or to a good restaurant. He had not done it because he was afraid. He was afraid to go where there were bright lights and a lot of people, even though his craving for them was almost physical. Those moments in crowded public places must be precious to him because they felt like safety, but he seemed to know they were not good for him. People would see his face. His car represented the same kind of problem. He had probably bought it because it kept him from feeling helpless and trapped, but he sensed that he needed to keep away from it.