Callisto (39 page)

“You want me to drive the car to Denver?”

“That's it.”

“Without you in it?”

“That's it exactly. I'll hitch a ride maybe tomorrow or the day after, depending, but meantime Feenie gets her car back and I didn't break my promise, that's important.”

“You'd trust me to do that?”

“Sure, because if you steal the car or crash it or whatever, I've got your name and driver's license number. You got a pen I can write it down?”

He dug in his rucksack and brung out pen and paper which I wrote down the details of his license and also Feenie's parents' fake address for him, then I give him the keys and a
hundred dollars for his trouble. Wendell was so excited about driving himself all the way home to Denver he's grinning like a game show winner.

“Hey, thanks, man. I'm a responsible driver, I won't wreck it. Good luck with your girlfriend.”

“Thanks. Now don't go over the speed limit, okay? The Highway Patrol, they won't believe I handed you the keys like this and then we're both in trouble.”

“I'll keep it under the limit, depend on that. Hey, thanks again, this is the best thing that happened in a long time.”

“Okay then.”

He got in and started her up, then headed for the exit with a wave through the window. When he got out of the parking lot he aimed for the interstate ramp and then he's gone from sight,
blipblipblip
ing his way across Kansas and Colorado with the trackers following along behind like fish on a line. It felt good to know I fooled them with the smart intelligence they don't know I have got, which I used to think up the next part of the plan, which is go over to the truck parking area and wait for a driver to come out.

That part only took ten minutes or so in which I drunk down my coffee, and here comes a trucker with a beard halfway to his waist which has got this fat gut hanging over a rodeo belt and a big cowboy hat with a bunch of fancy feathers in front of it. I kind of stood up straight to let him know I want to talk to him but soon as he's in talking distance he says, “I don't take no riders ever, my policy.”

“Okay,” I said, because what else could I say.

He marched on past me in these high-heeled cowboy boots and goes to a big rig, orange I think but it's hard to say
what's a real color under the sodium lamps they have got on poles out there. He opens it up and sets his boot on the first step, then he turned back to me and says, “Okay, get in.”

I went around to the other door and climbed up into that cab like a mountaineer and got settled in this big captain's chair with armrests. The driver is sat way over there on the other side of the cab getting comfy, then he puts her in gear and we started rolling slow across the asphalt to the exit which he eased us through and then across to the interstate ramp. The truck climbed up onto the highway and he run up through the gears like a piano player, real sure of what he's doing, and pretty soon we're going back east toward Callisto, which give me a nervous feeling but you know, they would not think I'm doing this so maybe it's for the best. He might take me as far east as St Louis, which is about as far as my plan was planned for the moment. I was hoping the next stage would come to me around daybreak.

“What's your story?” the driver asks me.

“I'm going home to St Louis,” I said. “Then I'm joining the Army.”

“Why?”

“They need men. They're begging for men, even paying a bonus.”

“Better be a big one,” he says.

“Big enough.”

“What part of St Louis?”

I thought about that for two seconds. “East St Louis.”

“Man, now I know why you want into the Army. That's a hole.”

“Uhuh.”

“That place has got a reputation. Drugs, domestic violence, crime, gangbangers, you name it they got it.”

“Yeah.”

“Someone should drop a bomb on East St Louis.”

“That might work.”

He laughed and told me his name is Gene. I told him I'm Wendell. It rolled right off of my tongue, a fib on wheels. I didn't care that I'm lying, so this must be the New Me coming out, so there's no arguing about it inside me, Truth versus Lies, I just didn't care about that anymore, only about getting away.

“That's a dangerous job, the Army.”

“Someone's got to do it.”

“My daughter, she rides around on planes with a gun in her armpit.”

“She's a hijacker?”

He snorted. “She's there to stop hijackers. Federal Air Marshal. Those terrorists don't expect a woman to be packing, so that's her advantage. The money's real good but I worry about her. My boy too, he's working in freelance security over there in Iraq, goes to sleep with a machine gun under the pillow. Great wages, though.”

“The world is a bad place.”

“Got that right. Hear about that bomb close to here, that huge fucker that's big enough to take out a city block?”

“I heard about that.”

“Some stupid terrorist bomber probably blew himself up, they do that sometimes. They should do it more often.”

“Uhuh.”

“You can't reason with some religious nut thinks he's doing it for Allah.”

“Nope.”

“Can't stop 'em either, just gotta kill 'em off one by one till the problem goes away and we can get back to normal.”

“Right.”

“You don't get Americans flying planes into skyscrapers and planting bombs to kill innocent people, that's strictly a Muslim thing, crazy fuckers.”

“Yeah.”

“Happened just a little ways down the road here, Callisto. They still can't find that ringleader, though, that Dean Lowry guy. What kind of an American does he think he is, doing shit like that? When they catch him they should waste him right there in whatever hole in the ground he lives, save the taxpayer some money for a trial. Shoulda done the same for Saddam. Everyone knows who's guilty and who's not. Trials, they just drag it out and make folks feel bad watching some asshole in a nice clean jail cell when he oughta be burning in Hell.”

“I guess you'll be voting for Senator Ketchum then.”

“Ordinarily I don't discuss politics, can't stand those guys, but the senator, he's got a hard line I can relate to. The other bunch, they talk the talk but they don't walk the walk, you know, like their heart isn't really in it and they'd prefer to pussyfoot around the problem, bring in the fucking UN and talk some more. Screw that. If someone shoots at me I shoot right back, never mind no asking why he did that and what's it all about. Ketchum, he'll blow them terrorist bastards back to Arabia where they belong. You know what I think every time I fill up the tanks on my baby here? I think how I'd be paying half as much if those terrorist assholes didn't exist.
Don't get me started on that subject. My daughter, I put her through college, she's real smart, and the job with the best pay she can find is packing a gun on airplanes, just flying around waiting for some shithead to start waving a knife and screaming about how he's gonna kill everyone for the glory of fucking Allah. You know what I'm talking about or you wouldn't be going in the Army.”

“I sure do.”

“I'd join up myself if I was twenty years younger. The Army, they shouldn't have to be offering bonuses just to join. Young guys should be trampling on each other to join up and do some good in the world. I wouldn't have thought that way five, six years ago, but it's a different world nowadays. Your folks backing you on this?”

“Yeah.”

“Good people.”

“Uhuh, my dad especially. He wanted me to get into professional football but when I said I'm joining the Army he said he's proud.”

“Well, he should be. My kids, they make me proud. Their mother run off a long time ago.”

I tried to think of something I could say about that, but nothing come to me and Gene seemed like he talked enough anyway, there was just some things he wanted off his chest and after he did that he's happy just to drive. Time rolled along and sooner than I expected here comes the sign that says
Callisto Next Two Exits
.

“There's some guy in hospital here,” says Gene, talkative again. “The one that got blown up in that big blast. There's speculation I heard he's one of them himself, maybe a
bombmaker went and got his wires crossed, something like that. They'll squeeze that sucker till he talks.”

“Maybe he was just there accidental.”

“Sure, and maybe I could teach my dog to drive a truck. They'll get it out of him all right, only when they do they won't broadcast it around for fear of scaring off the rest of them. I bet they're already building a new bomb. They don't ever give up, that kind.”

Hearing him talk that way made me realize how it's going to be impossible to prove I had nothing to do with any terrorists, or that Dean had nothing to do with that kind either, only regular drug pushers, nothing religious with bombs and so forth. Kraus and Deedle, they didn't believe me, and Lorraine didn't at the end there, even helped them set me up for a big escape that'll lead them to the terrorists that don't even exist. Except who made Dean's truck into a bomb if they weren't terrorists? If it was a rival drug gang or whatever they would've taken out Dean nice and quiet with a gun, not gone and planted a bomb that made the news nationwide and around the world. It just does not make sense, and I could see why the FBI thinks there's something terroristic going on in Kansas, and maybe there is, but I would not have Clue Number One about any of that, I'm just a guy that his car broke down on the wrong road, only now nobody will believe me so I am fresh out of luck with regard to this.

Gene kept on driving east a couple hours or so and here come sunup all pink and beautiful across the entire sky ahead of us.

“Now that's a picture,” says Gene. “I don't ever get tired of that, same with sundown, both ends of the day are just the prettiest things.”

I watched the new day come up in front of me like watching a giant movie screen, not sitting in the cab of a truck with Thursday coming at me from the eastern horizon like this, and it made me wonder what kind of scenery I'll be looking at this time Friday.

It turned out Gene wasn't going as far as St Louis, he's dropping his load in Kansas City, so that's where he set me down. I told him Thank you and he told me Good luck and I strolled away wondering what to do next. It was around noon by then so I'm hungry again. I ate lunch at Denny's then found a Wal-Mart and got some socks and underwear which I changed into these in a gas station toilet and come out again feeling more comfortable but still no plan. Even if I got another ride and made it as far as St Louis, then what? What am I doing except enjoying a little freedom before they nab me again, which I know they will even if I sent them on a wild goose chase to Denver. When they figure that out they'll put my picture on the news and tell everyone to watch out for the six foot three terrorist that organized the Callisto bomb, a big lie but they won't care so long as it gets me captured again, and this time they won't bother with tricksy stuff like fake getaways, they'll just hammer me until I tell them what they want to hear, namely where is Dean Lowry, which is just one question of which I don't know the answer.

I found a little park and sat down to think about things next to this little pond with ducks, but instead of thinking I found myself just watching those ducks, even getting a kick out of the way they waggle their tail ends when they get out of the water, which they all did hoping I'll feed them, but I didn't have anything so they wandered off again quacking at
each other, maybe saying what a cheap human I am. A movie hero would be thinking hard and teaming up with a good-looking woman who'll fall for him in around three seconds and agree to help him get past the cops or whoever, and then there'll be exciting moments with car chases and so forth while the hero works out who framed him or whatever and goes after him with the cops hot on his trail, but he gets to the bad guy and tricks a confession out of him that the cops will get to hear on an open phone line or it gets tape-recorded or whatever and now the hero isn't a Wanted Man anymore, plus he's got this gorgeous woman hanging around his neck as the credits roll. Me, I get to watch ducks walk away from me. I just did not know what to do. I didn't have a plan anymore. My brain had kind of shut down. I couldn't plan a damn thing beyond lunchtime. It was nice and shady by that duck pond and I didn't want to move.

The speed and caffeine Vine had given me was all wore off by then and I wanted to sleep real bad now, so I dragged myself off of that park bench and walked a few blocks till I come to a Motel 6 and got myself a room. I'm thinking if I can just sleep awhile maybe my brain will shake the cobwebs off and I can think of something smart that'll help me get away some more. I took my key with the room number tag along to door 8 and let myself in. The curtains were pulled shut against the sun and I sat on the bed asking myself if there was anything I should do before going to sleep. Well, I couldn't think of a single thing, so I stripped off and got between those nice fresh sheets naked and fell asleep, how about that.

It's night when I woke up. I took a shower but before I got in I took the bandage from around my hand. The wound
there is scabbed over around the stitches and the bandage wasn't so clean anymore so it went in the trash bin. I used the little bar of soap that's always in these places and the little plastic bag of shampoo and dried myself off feeling good and rested and clean, plus I'm hungry again, so the next part of the plan is to eat supper and maybe do some more thinking about all this. I wondered what Wendell Richard Aymes did after he got to Denver and found out the Lakewood address is bogus. Most likely he parked the Honda someplace and walked away, which the FBI tracker team will wonder why the bug quit moving and investigate, maybe watching whatever house the car got dumped in front of. That made me laugh to think about them wasting their time like that.