FRIDAY OCTOBER 26, 2007
WALKER HIT THE ROAD FRIDAY morning and arrived in Des Moines three hours later. Done with fancy-shmancy, he checked into the Holiday Inn Express west of the city. He called Jimmy Zebrowski and scribbled directions to a six o’clock dinner at Applebee’s. In the motel lobby he found a map of the city and went sightseeing, not in the regular sense of taking in the main attractions, but rather a slow drive through the suburbs and downtown, across the river and back.
Up and down the blocks and around the corners, he passed two-story, brick or wood-sided houses on tended yards with evergreen and deciduous trimmed hedges and paved driveways. Sidewalks with proper curbs lined the streets. Cement steps led up to porches with solid, square posts, the overhanging roofs pitched and layered with proper shingles. The people who built these homes were good, sturdy stock, descended from ancestors in northern Europe or Scandinavia, tradesmen who brought their masonry and carpentry skills across the ocean. Street after street of solidarity, security, and conformity. Ah, the predictability of it all. In New Mexico sidewalks were a rarity and streets bled into yards, loose gravel served as a driveway, if you had one at all, and a mansion might fill an acre right next to a shack. Houses were made from the dirt they sat on, with flat roofs that leaked. Front yards crowded with cosmos thrived happily next to vacant dirt lots littered with trash and rampant weeds.
He drove past insurance companies, banking establishments, and high-rises with meager bits of landscape at their feet, no space wider than a horse stall between them. Man, no air. Reflections of obtrusive rectangular structures bounced off glass windows, distorting the sky and blocking the horizon. Inside, people worked nine to five, scurrying down hallways into rooms with no natural light—a death sentence. High-heeled shoes. Suits and ties. Damn, cowboys lucked out being spared such a fate.
Jimmy hadn’t changed since prison, fat and sloppy, the same high, nervous laugh, and up to the same old dealings that got him in jail in the first place. He’d held onto a job at a 7-Eleven, augmenting his minimum wage income by selling pot to his wife’s relatives and abetting their slimy activities. Walker accused him of being the personification of yet another rehabilitation hope failed.
Jimmy said, “Look who’s talking.” He looked Walker up and down. “You look like a fucking mega dweeb.”
The steak on the menu looked good, but when it was placed before him, whatever appetite Walker had left the premises. He missed Vera’s, the hands that waved, even the heads that turned away, the air foggy with cigarette smoke, the chile so hot it burned his nostrils and made his eyes water. He missed the grimy bric-a-brac and the smudged glass case behind the counter filled with day-old, maybe week-old pies, and the ancient register from the fifties with the numbers worn off, and the drawer that stuck.
Jimmy sliced into his meat, sending juice oozing around his plate. Walker looked away. Bloody food was for savages. Seasonings, sautéed vegetables, salad dressing, rolls, and butter tightened his throat. The only thing able to slide down easily might be liquid, alcoholic liquid.
“I need a driver’s license,” Walker said.
“I’ll need a photo.”
Jimmy held up his phone.
“Okay, then. Finish up and let’s do it.”
Back at the motel Walker stood against the white wall while Jimmy moved close and stepped back, getting it just right.
“Let’s see.” Walker took the camera. “Good. I want the name to read Ross Plank.” He tore a slip from a Holiday Inn notepad. “Here, I’ll spell it out.”
“Give me a day or two,” Jimmy said. “I’ll meet you here at noon Sunday.”
A lot of people had screwed on this mattress, consumed umpteen bottles of beer, wine, or champagne, quarreled, promised eternal love, and betrayed their one and only. He crossed his feet on the maroon, yellow, and green floral bedspread, and turned on the TV. An excited weatherman warned of an early snow blizzard coming down from Canada. Treacherous conditions. Stay indoors. Do not travel unless absolutely necessary.
He stocked up at a liquor store and stopped at TD’s Sports Bar. Fair-haired, well-fed twenty-year-olds in sweat-shirts and jeans filled the place. Ponytails and rosy cheeks. On TV, the Colts were ahead of the Jets seventeen to ten. TD’s rambunctious patrons cheered and booed. For the first time in his life Walker sat alone, this crowd, the game, and this establishment of no interest whatsoever.
Right about now, Jo would be perched on her stool at Art’s, sliding a Manhattan across the slick, wood counter. She’d light up and postpone taking the first sip until she took the first drag and after a while she’d cross her legs. Smoke would come out her nostrils and linger around the impenetrable helmet of red hair. Art would know better than to say, “Any word?” His expression would remain unchanged, his voice would stay low, as if a relative had died, and they’d drift into familiar small talk until the crowd picked up. At seven o’clock, she’d drive home, heat a Lean Cuisine and watch one of those lawyer shows.
The first snowflakes blew in from the northwest, hit the windshield, and stuck. A fierce wind picked up, and when he shut the motel room door, the wail and chill came through the walls. He cranked up the heat. Out the window snow blew at a horizontal angle, already collecting against the brick wall.