Luz had a tiny room, with a narrow bed that faced the window with its view of scrubby Arkansas countryside and minor road. No chair here for a mother sitting in the dark, watching over her child. On the bedside table sat the fourth Narnia book. The lamp next to them worked. The long nightdress folded neatly on the pillow was made of the same blue-and-white check I’d seen in the schoolroom. The foster daughter may have got the worst room, but she had the first nightclothes. Interesting. I put the third receiver behind the headboard; maybe Luz sometimes talked to herself.
I found the missing encyclopedia under the mattress. A scrap of paper divided atlatl (an implement used for hurling spear or lance) from atmosphere (the gaseous envelope surrounding the earth). I thought of all the households in this country that would rejoice at a child’s ferocious need to learn, of the fact that this book had been hidden away, and wanted to push Adeline Carpenter’s face into the stew to boil along with her dumplings.
The booster transceiver went in the pot of chrysanthemums by the front door. On the way back to the trailer, I threw the barbiturate-saturated hamburger into a convenience store Dumpster.
According to the Arkansas Church of Christ’s website, Sunday services in Plaume City ran from ten-thirty to one. It seemed like a long time to expect children to sit still, but it gave me the opportunity to change and drive the twelve miles to the church well before the end of services. Small communities tend to be suspicious of outsiders, and while my conservative clothes might escape casual attention while I was on church property, a woman on her own driving such a truck would not. Once everything was in place, it wouldn’t matter; until then, I couldn’t be too careful. I parked half a mile down the deserted road and walked the rest of the way with my oversize gas can and plastic tubing. If I saw anyone, they might assume I’d run out of gas and was walking to the nearest service station.
I have lived more than a third of my life in this country, but still, to me, the word “church” conjures images of tenth-century Norwegian stave churches, taller than they are long, or the Gothic cathedrals of England and France with their soaring stone buttresses and tall, slitted windows, and naves echoing with history. The red-brick, one-story Plaume City Church of Christ stood by the side of a road running from nowhere to nowhere, and, with its square windows and orderly parking lot, looked more like a library or care facility for the elderly than a church.
The parking lot was half fulclass="underline" as many midsize American sedans as pickups. I found the Carpenters’ pale blue Ford and left the gas can and tubing in its cargo bed.
The congregation was singing a cappella, but they stopped just before I reached the entrance. The main doors stood wide, so did the inner doors, probably because of the overefficient heating system: even in the vestibule it was too hot. It looked like a full house, eighty or ninety people in their Sunday best, nodding every now and again, with the occasional “Amen!” or “Yes, Lord!” when the preacher hammered on his lectern for emphasis.
He was on a roll, voice following the rise-and-fall, call-and-response cadence first brought to this country by Africans torn from their homeland and now used by fundamentalists of all colors. It wasn’t easy to follow, but after a while, amid the litany of biblical references, I found that he was preaching a modern version of the Good Samaritan, only in his version it seemed that the Good Lord saw nothing wrong in the Samaritan getting paid for his kindness. “Now when the Lord says ‘Do unto others as you would be done by,’ He’s not sayin’ you should give away your pension, He’s not sayin’ take that money you saved to help out your son’s new wife who is in the family way and hand it over to some homeless person, no, He’s sayin’ play nicely with the other folks. You have to use your judgment, your God-given wisdom. Maybe that man is homeless for a reason, maybe it’s a punishment from God. Maybe he has some lessons to learn. And charity begins at home, with your own flesh and blood.”
I looked at the congregation, the nodding heads with their careful parts and poverty-dulled hair, and doubted more than five percent had the kind of job that came with a pension. It seemed more likely that the preacher was trying to convince himself; maybe when he counted up the takings every Sunday his conscience bothered him.
But I’d seen all I needed to see. If they were only as far along as the sermon, they would be there at least another thirty minutes. I only needed ten.
The Carpenters’ pickup was fifteen years old, made long before Detroit started building in all the electronic antitheft details that make modern vehicles a challenge to break into. It took less than ten seconds to pop the door, then the gas tank, and another five to feed in the thin hose. I always forgot how long it takes to suck, suck, suck on the tube and get the gas moving. At least with the clear plastic you could see the gas when it welled up; if you were quick and skilled, you didn’t get that stinging mouthful. While the can filled, I looked through the pickup’s cab and the toolbox in the bed: all my preparation would come to nothing if Jud had a can full of gas stowed away.
I’d brought a seven-gallon container but the gas kept coming. It crept past the three-quarters mark. I didn’t want to leave any in the tank, but I couldn’t just let it spill on the asphalt because the Carpenters would smell it, and the first thing they’d do was check the fuel gauge. I had begun to wonder if I’d have to break into the tan Chrysler next to the pickup and siphon the remaining gas into that tank when the flow stopped with an inch or two to spare. I moved the tube around a bit in the tank, just in case it sloped, and sucked again, but it was more or less dry. The old Fords were gas-guzzlers. The Carpenters wouldn’t get more than three or four miles before the engine gave out.
The full can probably weighed about forty pounds. I lugged it around the back of the church and hid it and the tubing by the Dumpster, where it was sure to be found in a day or so. By the time I was done, my knee had begun to ache.
I touched my throat through its concealing scarf. This was not New York. Everything would go smoothly, according to plan.
The blue pickup made it further than I’d expected before it sputtered and jerked and died: nearly five miles. A minor detail. I watched through the field glasses as Jud unscrewed the cap to the gas tank and peered in. Then he walked the two hundred yards they’d just covered, and back again, looking at the road. Then he got down on his hands and knees and peered up at the undercarriage. He did that for a long time. By the time he had the hood up, I was pulling in beside them and rolling down my window.
“Afternoon,” I said.
His face looked like a piece of old hardwood left too long in the sun, his eyes pools of baked tar. His suit was at least ten years old, and made for a wider man.