Chapter 14
January 6, 2:45 a.m. In the abandoned cabin
Marajo wanted to ask Larson how he knew where the Society had hidden their information, but for the moment that could wait. There were more important things to do.
“I want you to go back to your hotel and check out today by 11 a.m. Then buy a ticket on the train back to Chicago. And go back to Chicago. And then get on another train and go to the Greens Motel in Wichita, Kansas. And use cash.”
“Why? Aren’t we going to work together?”
“They’re going to find out you came here. You left a trail a stupid man could follow. What we’ve got to do is convince them you’re not the one Julian gave information to about the Society. If we can do that, they’ll ignore you.”
“What about you?” he asked.
“I’ll disappear.”
“You’re not going to try and expose the Society?”
“Yes. With your help. We have no choice. Because of your stupidity.”
“Okay, I’m stupid,” he said in an angry voice annoyed at her use of the word stupidity a second time. “I’m new to this cloak and dagger stuff, you know.”
“Well, you don’t have much time for learning,” she told him.
“Alright, I’m willing to learn,” he said. “What have you got in mind?”
“This is what we will do, Larson,” she said. “You return home. Buy a seat on the train. Not a compartment. A seated passenger is harder to trace.”
“Where is this Greens Motel?” he asked.
“Buy a map in the train station,” she angrily snapped at him. “And take a bus not a cab the drivers kept records. Buy a bus ticket at the train station. Do you keep extra cash at home?”
“Yeah.”
“How much?”
“A little over four thousand dollars for emergency purposes.”
“How much have you got on you?” she asked him.
“About three thousand.”
“Bring all of it. Don’t go to your bank for more. Even if you use an ATM the Society is capable of tracing you.” She looked at his feet. “And wear warm clothing, and boots for outdoors. Not those damned city shoes you’re wearing.”
“Do you have a gun?”
“No. Can’t carry one on a train anyway. They have metal detectors, you know.”
“I’ll provide you with one.”
“I haven’t fired a rifle since I got out of the army more than thirty years ago.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll give you a quick refresher course.”
“Why a bus?” he asked.
“Buses record the number of passengers they carry and the tickets they use. Not the individual person,” Marajo told him.
“They have security cameras,” he said.
“Yes, but the tapes are kept only a month and reused unless a crime is committed on the bus, and the tape is needed in court.”
“If this Hidden Society is as resourceful as you are implying, a month is more than enough time to check bus company security tapes.”
Marajo breathed a sigh of frustration and said, “My dear, Larson, they don’t know who you are, and they don’t yet know who I am. And there are probably a thousand and one bus companies in America, and they can’t check them all because they don’t have that much time.”
He stared at her for a few seconds before he said, “If we leave as soon as possible, they won’t have time to check on all the bus companies in America.”
“Correct,” she said.
“What about my stupidity at Duffy Electric Parts Company?”
“I’ve already removed your picture from the security system,” she said.
“I didn’t see any cameras,” he said.
“You weren’t supposed to. Insurance company regulations require any business doing business with the public has to have them. Whether you can see them or not.”
“That’s not going to do much good when the Society’s people check and find out there’s no Oakland Electric Company. And my name.”
“Your name we can’t help, but after you left I checked for such a company in
Cook county Illinois and discovered there is an Oakland Electric Company in Chicago. It is small firm and has been there for over a hundred years.”
“I’ve probably heard of it. That’s why I used the name, but so what?”
“I managed to put your name on their payroll as a buyer.”
“And when the Society’s people check and find out I’ve never worked there they’re going to wonder why would I come down here and tell a lie?”
She stood up and walked over to him and grabbed him tightly by his left arm and turned him toward the door. “Do like I’ve told you, Larson,” she said in a quiet angry voice. “We can talk and plan later. Now go. And use cash no credit cards. They can be traced.”
“Just one last question,” he said as he turned to face her.
“What!”
“How did you know I was going to be at that theater?”
“The plate frame on the Jeep you rented has the name of the rental company on it. Now go. You’re wasting time we don’t have.”
“But that wouldn’t have told you I was going to the movies,” he said.
“No, it wouldn’t have, but Westport has traffic cameras like most cities and towns in America, and I -,”
“And you accessed them and looked for a Jeep with the same plate number,” he finished for her.
“You may not be a stupid as I suspect,” she told him. “Go.”
“Good night,” he said as he turned around walked toward the door. His headache was still hurting him, and he didn’t want to put his hat on. Pulling a hat over that lump would only make it more painful. Maybe the cold air, he hoped would cause it to decline and be less of a problem.
The Jeep was parked a few yards away from the door of cabin behind snow covered bushes. He got into it and drove toward the hotel.
*
Fifteen minutes later he was in his cabin’s bathroom swallowing three aspirins for his terrible headache with a cold wet towel covering the lump. Then he brushed his teeth and stripped to his shorts and got into bed. He lay on his left side to avoid lying on the lump. He closed his eyes thinking, Next time throw the fucking letter away, you idiot. He didn’t know whether the aspirin stopped his throbbing headache or falling to sleep did. And thank God that lump on the back of his head wasn’t as painful as it was. Maybe the cold air did help reduce the pain. He drifted off to sleep dreaming of being chased by a monster that made no sound and whose face he couldn’t see.
*
9 a.m. Monday, January 7
Larson had awoken at 8:30, showered, shaved, dressed, and packed by 9:30, then walked to the main building with his overnight bag. The lump had gone down enough for him to put his hat on. He paid for the rental of the Jeep in cash, and went to the restaurant for breakfast. By 10:54 he was riding in the same cab that brought him to the hotel back to the train station. By 2:30 he was sitting in a seat in a nearly empty passenger car riding to Chicago. His headache was little more than a dull ache and the lump was no more than an annoying pimple, but he decided to sleep anyway. It was fear of what he had gotten himself into more than the headache or the lump that made him want to sleep. He foolishly hoped that when he awoke everything that had occurred since January third would turn out to be no more than a bad dream.
It was 9:44 p.m. by the time he reached Chicago. He checked the train schedules before he left the station and bought a ticket using cash on a train leaving for Wichita at 1:15 a.m. on the eighth of January. By 10:15 p.m. he was driving his car out of the station’s four story parking garage where he’d parked it on the fifth. Twenty-five minutes later he was home. He had a sandwich and a cup of coffee before he packed for Wichita and got the extra money from the safe in the basement of his house. The he locked up his house, left a note taped to the front door telling the mail carrier he’d be out of town for two weeks and for the Post Office to hold all his mail. He apologized to the carrier in the note for not making arrangements for his mail at the Post Office. Before he left his house he went to his study and made four maps of where the Society’s information center was and the roads necessary to reach the area using the copier on his printer. By 12:30 a.m. January 8 he was sitting in the train station waiting for his train to board. Boarding began at 12:55 a.m.
***