main street, stainton
gas station * coffee shop * convenience store
Wardell blinked and had time to read the name of the place again before the sign flew by. Juba. He glanced at the fuel gauge and saw that the tank was half full. Then again, that also meant it was half empty. No harm in a small detour to top up.
He slowed for the turn and signaled. He had the driver’s side window rolled all the way down, enjoying the sting of the cold, fresh air on his face. As a man who’d spent the best part of the previous five years confined to a tiny, airless cell for twenty-three hours of every day, this felt like the lap of luxury.
This was more like it, traveling under his own steam. It was more than worth the risk of stealing the vehicle. The three separate bus journeys it had required to get to Fort Dodge had been uneventful, but there was always the constant nagging pressure that one of the other passengers might recognize him, even with his new look, and make a phone call once they disembarked. Then the game would be over before it had properly begun. Besides, there was something institutional about bus travel that was a little too close to the way he’d been living the past few years. You had to be at a specific place at a specific time to be taken by someone else to a specific destination. There was no room for deviation from the schedule, for detours.
Wardell had a destination, of course. He’d thought about it almost as soon as he’d been freed and had confirmed and finalized those arrangements in the course of the five-minute phone call he’d made the previous morning. But he wasn’t on a bus anymore, and he had more than enough time so that he could afford to take a detour.
As promised, Juba’s X-press Stop was perched on the main street of Stainton. As far as Wardell could see, it was the only business in what was a minuscule town. He pulled in and parked beside a self-service pump. Before he turned off the engine, he surveyed the area. There was a kid in a red hooded puffer jacket with his — or her, Wardell couldn’t tell — back to him, standing over by the ATM that was built into the wall of the store. The only other human in sight was the clerk inside, an overweight man with a thick beard. The man was reading a magazine and hadn’t looked up when Wardell pulled in.
There were security cameras, of course, but that was fine. Wardell didn’t think his pursuers would have any way of knowing what kind of vehicle he was traveling in. Their attempts to keep up with him had been almost depressingly ineffective so far. He hadn’t expected them to fall so completely for the green shirt ruse.
Wardell opened the door, got out, and unlocked the fuel cap. The guy with the beard authorized the pump without looking up. It started with a thump, and the nozzle thrummed in his hand.
Wardell glanced up at the clerk a couple of times as he waited for the tank to fill, but the only sign that he was even conscious was the occasional flick of a magazine page.
“Mister?”
Wardell’s head snapped down and he saw the kid in the red jacket staring up at him proprietorially. It was a boy, nine or ten years old maybe. Wardell glanced around again, but there was no one else in sight.
“What do you want, kid?” he asked.
“Are you scared?”
Wardell shook his head briefly and looked away, annoyed. He didn’t particularly like kids, especially ones who invaded his space and asked nonsensical questions. When he looked back, the boy was still there, still expecting a response.
“Why the hell would I be scared?”
“Because of the news.”
“The news?”
The boy nodded solemnly. “The news. It says people are scared to fill up their tanks. Because of the sniper.”
Wardell smiled. Maybe he liked this kid after all.
“I heard about that.”
“The lady on the news said people don’t want to fill up their cars. ’Case they get shot. My daddy says that’s all we need, less customers.”
“Your daddy owns this place?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is that your daddy?” He indicated the clerk with a brief nod.
The boy grinned indulgently. “No. that’s just Phil.”
“Right,” Wardell said, as though he’d got it straight now.
The pump clicked off automatically as the level of fuel in the tank hit the sensor in the nozzle. Wardell pulled it out and replaced it in the slot.
“Aren’t you scared?” he asked the kid as he screwed the cap back into place.
The boy considered this carefully for a moment. “Not really. I’m here to look out for the bad guy. Make the customers feel safer.”
Wardell bent at the knees to drop closer to the boy’s level. He put a hand on his skinny shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
“You’re a pretty brave kid. I bet your daddy appreciates you looking out for the business. A boy should always look out for his pop.”
The boy shrugged a little, uncomfortable now. “I guess.”
“But I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
“No?”
“I mean, look around. There’s nobody here. Nobody but you and me. And Phil over there, of course. Why would the bad guy want to come here?”
“But the news says nobody knows where he is.”
“Is that right?”
“Uh-huh. So that means he could be anywhere. And if he could be anywhere, he could be right here in Stainton.”
“You have a point there, partner. Difficult to argue with that. He could be right here with us.” He laughed out. “Why, he could be you or me, I guess.”
The boy swallowed and glanced over at Phil, who was oblivious. “I think I have to go in the store now.” He tried to move backward, but Wardell tightened his grip on his shoulder.
“Not so fast, partner.”
The boy looked back at him and stared, wide-eyed.
Wardell reached down with his free hand, not seeming to disturb the pocket of his jeans. Then his hand flashed up, holding something against the boy’s face. He flinched and focused on what Wardell was holding, relaxing a little when he saw it was a fifty-dollar bill.
“I’m in kind of a hurry, to tell you the truth. If you could drop that inside for the gas, I’d be mighty grateful. And make sure Phil gives you the change. You can keep it.”
“Thank you, sir,” the boy said quickly as he took the bill.
Wardell released his shoulder at last and opened the driver’s door. “You know something?”
“What?”
“Even if the bad guy was here, I think he’d leave you alone. I think he’d like the name of your pop’s store.”
The kid looked puzzled, then glanced up at the sign. “That was just the name when my daddy bought the place. I think Juba’s kind of a dumb name.”
Wardell smiled and tipped a finger to his brow in a little salute; then he got in and started the engine. As he pulled out of Stainton, he realized that the daylight was already beginning to fade from the sky. He’d find a place to stop soon, somewhere safe to rest up for the night. There was work to do in the morning.
26
The evening was well advanced by the time I arrived in Lincoln, and the clear blue sky of the morning had long since given way to dark gray clouds and then to nightfall. Lincoln was the state capital of Nebraska and the second largest city in the state after Omaha. Nebraska being what it was, that meant the town held a sizable proportion of the total state population.
Eddie Nolan’s last-known address was a one-bedroom dive in the Westwood Terrace Apartments, a run-down building located in the part of town called Clinton. Clinton, Lincoln. Being named after two different presidents hadn’t helped make the location any more desirable. Westwood Terrace was a dirty concrete block, U-shaped and gathered around a trash-strewn patch of grass. The building superintendent was an obese, husky-voiced man in jeans and a flannel shirt. Although hostile at first, he warmed considerably after I explained I wasn’t an FBI agent.