25

Joey Moreland could hardly believe how close he had come. When that big moron had started messing around with him, it had pushed Joey into a rage. The idiot wouldn’t go away, so all Joey could do was make him die. Once he was dead, the girl should have died too. She had called the police, and he hadn’t wanted to leave her alive to describe and identify him, but he’d had no choice. He’d had to run.

As he had driven past the coffee shop, he had seen the cops who had poured out of the bank’s door. They must have all been in there waiting for him since before dawn. So the big psycho who had come in and taken his chair had actually saved him from the police. It wasn’t a small thing. He could never have surrendered, and he couldn’t win a gunfight with a dozen cops.

He drove north with determination, trying to get out of the state of Texas as quickly as possible. It was night now, and that should have made him less worried, but it didn’t. What had happened in San Antonio had shocked him.

He knew he would never get the money in the San Antonio bank. Now that the authorities had connected that account to the Broker, it would be confiscated. Probably it already had been confiscated before he’d arrived in San Antonio. As he drove, he thought about the other accounts he had established. He needed to remember which accounts he had let the Broker deposit money into electronically. That had been going on for only a year or so. At the beginning the Broker had paid Holcomb and Holcomb had paid Moreland in cash. Sometimes the Broker had sent Holcomb cash and they had simply sat down and split it. But then he had gotten clever and let the Broker transfer the money. There were other times when the Broker had sent him a check, and he had deposited it in one of his accounts.

Every account that the Broker had known about would eventually be found. He had to try to save some of those accounts before the cops got to them. He had to save some of his money.

He drove steadily for the state line on Interstate 285. He went from Pecos, Texas, to Carlsbad, New Mexico, with particular care. There was no reason to get close to the Mexican border, where the cops and the drug dealers stared into one another’s eyes to guess the next move. He drove at exactly the speed limit until he was past Carlsbad and heading for Roswell. He had done this trip before, and he knew that he would hit Interstate 40 at Vaughn.

He stopped at Artesia at one a.m. for gas and coffee, and then went on. He had been relying on his youth and physical conditioning to keep him ahead of the FBI agent or detective who had been following him since Phoenix. He knew he could outlast any pursuer, so he had stayed on the road. But it was getting to be time to rest. He stopped at a big motel off the highway near Roswell at two-thirty, checked in, showered, and went to bed. He had driven hundreds of miles during the day, and now he felt exhausted. He fell asleep quickly.

When he awoke at ten, he knew what had to be done. He checked out and drove toward Illinois, the northern state where he’d opened a bank account. That was the next bank account to try to salvage. It took Moreland three days to drive to southern Illinois. He stopped in a Denny’s restaurant in Carbondale, and went inside to look for the right sort of person. As soon as he came in the door, he noticed a young couple who looked about right. He went to the booth nearest to their table, and sat down. As he studied his menu, he couldn’t help looking over the top of it now and then, and when he did, he would see them again.

What had caught his eye was that they were just the right age—about twenty—and the right general description, attractive and clean and wholesome-looking. The girl was about five feet three with pretty skin and the kind of curves that were perfect now, but would probably turn to fat in twenty years. The boy had dark hair and a handsome, symmetrical face with intense brown eyes. He was slim and wiry. As Moreland lowered his eyes to the menu, the boy stood up and walked toward the men’s room.

The girl looked around the room, a little bored, when her eyes met Joey Moreland’s. She had already let her eyes rest on his for the half second when she should have kept her eyes moving, so she smiled a bright, white-toothed smile that crinkled the smooth skin at the sides of her blue eyes, then turned away to stare straight ahead, but still keep him in the corner of her eye.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Do you know the best way to Springfield?”

She turned all the way around to face him, and bestowed the smile on him again. “I would say that the best way is to get on the interstate and take it north to Route 55—that’s right around Centralia—and follow that straight up.”

“What’s the number of the interstate?”

“Oh, that was dumb. I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s 57. We just call it ‘the interstate’ because it’s the only one we’ve got.” She blushed a little and touched her hair. “Are you going up for the fair?”

Moreland had no idea what she meant. “Is the fair happening now? I’ve never been before, so I suppose it’s time. I was just going up there on business.”

“I’ll say it’s time,” she said. “I just love the fair. We’re planning to go up in a couple of days.”

“We?”

She was flustered, and the blush in her cheek grew redder. “My boyfriend Gabe. Didn’t you see him sitting here when you came in?”

Joey gave her his best smile. “I’m sorry. I guess my eyes couldn’t get past you.”

She made a swatting gesture in his direction, but then touched her hair again. “Get real,” she said. “Now you’re just making fun of me.”

“Honest, I’m not,” he said. “I’d never be mean like that. I’m just sorry you’re taken, but I respect that. I’m Michael, by the way.”

“Pleased to meet you.” She said it and her eyes rose to his for only a second. “I’m Sharon.”

“Delighted.” He leaned forward, took her small pudgy white fingers in his, gave her hand one gentle shake, and then released it.

She curled her fingers into a dimpled fist, as though she had an unconscious urge to touch the place where he had touched her. She saw his eyes rise and focus on something behind her, and she spun around in her seat and pretended she’d known her boyfriend was coming all along. “Honey,” she said, “this is Michael. He’s going up to the state fair.”

Moreland stood up and held out his hand. “Hi. Michael Grimes,” he said. “I’m actually going up on business, but your girlfriend mentioned it’s fair time, so I thought I’d check that out too.”

Gabe had no obvious alternative but to smile and shake this stranger’s hand, and Joey was pleased to see that Gabe didn’t think of a way to avoid it.

Gabe sat down across the table from Sharon, and looked at her with the sort of shrewd gaze that indicated he thought she was cute rather than smart.

Moreland sensed that Gabe would start signaling for their check in a minute, so he brought out his pitch. “Sharon tells me that the two of you are planning to go up there in a few days yourselves. What are the best things for a first-timer to see?”

“We’re just thinking about going,” said Gabe. “Nothing definite.”

Sharon interpreted the question as intended for both of them, and she was delighted to be asked. “I love the Ferris wheel, and oh, the Mega Drop, and Turbo Force.”

“Those are rides,” Gabe explained. “On Mega Drop they drop you a hundred and thirty feet to the ground.”

“There are over a hundred rides.” Sharon was more and more animated. She wiggled her hips excitedly. “There’s nothing else around like the fair.”

“You must like being scared,” Moreland said.

“I do,” she said happily.

“They have good bands some nights,” Gabe offered. “Lots of chicks.”

Moreland pretended to think. Then he said, “You know, the reason I’m driving up there to Springfield is that I’m a lawyer, and I’ve got to go file some claims to take possession of some property for a client. That’s a pretty quick process, and my company is paying for everything.”

“You’re so lucky,” Sharon said.

“I guess so. Anyway, if you two feel like going up there tomorrow, I’ll drive to Springfield and my company will pay for the trip. I’ll drop you off here on my way home to Texas. You can show me the way, and talk to me so I don’t fall asleep at the wheel.”

“Wow,” said Gabe. “That sounds like a great offer, but—”

Sharon jumped in to keep the conversation from ending. “We’ve got to wait until I get paid on Thursday. It’s only like fifteen dollars to get in, but you have to eat, you need a place to stay, and all that.”

“No problem,” said Moreland. “I’ll tell you what. You can help me do my errand when we get there, and I’ll put you on the payroll. Your pay will be whatever the trip costs.”

Sharon said, “Gabe, can we, please?”

Gabe said, “Jeez, I don’t know. I’m supposed to work tonight. We’d both have to take the next two days off.”

“We’d have to do that anytime we go, and the fair won’t be free any other time. Please.”

Gabe looked at Moreland for a second, then shrugged. “I guess so.”

Moreland said, “Great. We can meet here tomorrow for breakfast, and then leave from here. How about eight o’clock?”

“That’ll be great,” said Sharon. “I’m so excited.”

Gabe looked at his watch. “We’d better get going. I’ll get the check.” He got up and walked to the cash register.

Sharon leaned forward toward Moreland. “Wait until you see the Butter Cow.”

“The Butter Cow? What’s that?”

“It’s a cow. Made of butter.” She stood up and gave a little wave. “Thanks, Michael. We’ll have a great time.”

She went to join Gabe as he was paying the check. She took his arm with both hands and walked with him to the door. She turned around and waved again. Moreland smiled and waved back.

Moreland waited for the waitress to swing by his table so he could order his breakfast, then sat at his booth and ate it. He couldn’t be sure this was going to turn out well, but being one of three people would make him a little harder for all of the people pursuing him to spot.

The next morning Joey Moreland was in the same seat in the booth at Denny’s. There were a few people eating breakfast on the way to work, and a few families who seemed to be vacationers just getting ready to head back to the interstate, but the place was not crowded.

“Michael!” The high, chirpy voice came from over his left shoulder. As he turned and saw Sharon in a tank top and a short white skirt, she slid into the booth quickly and stopped only after her hip had touched his. He found himself with his face only inches from hers. “Ready to go?” The minty smell of toothpaste was strong.

“I’m just finishing my breakfast,” he said. “I got here early. Want to see the menu?”

“No, thanks. I had breakfast, and Gabe did too.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s out in the lot with our bags waiting to see which car is yours. His brother Dave drove us over here in his truck and let us off.”

“Then maybe we should get going,” said Moreland. “Want some coffee to take with you?”

“No, thanks,” Sharon said. “It’s more fun to stop for coffee on the way.”

“I can see you’re a worldly and experienced traveler.”

She bumped him again with her hip.

He opened his wallet and set a couple of ten-dollar bills on the check beside his plate. “We’d better help Gabe load up.” He slid out the other side of the booth and they met in the middle of the floor.

She looked at his hand. “No ring. You’re not married, are you?”

“Nope. Never been married.” He smiled the smile that had worked on her yesterday. “The good ones all seem to be taken.”

“Maybe you’ll find somebody at the fair.”

“No heifers, though, or Butter Cows.”

“You’re awful.”

“Probably, but I’ll still stay away from the ones that are wearing blue ribbons.”

She gave his arm a gentle slap, turned, and went out the door ahead of him. He led her to his car, popped the trunk with his key chain remote, and watched Gabe sling the two small duffels into the trunk and close it. He held out his hand. “Morning, Gabe.”

Gabe shook it. “Morning,” he said. “Would you like me to drive?”

“I appreciate that, Gabe. But I think for now I’ll drive. I feel pretty fresh.”

“He’s not,” Sharon said. “Gabe worked the night shift.”

Moreland kept his attention on Gabe. “Really? What do you do?”

“I work at the big Mobil station out by the interstate. Eight gas pump islands and a store.”

“Why don’t you lie down on the backseat and get some sleep? If you do that you’ll feel a lot better, and we’ll all have a better time at the fair.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Of course not. Just so somebody’s awake, we’ll be fine.”

“See?” Sharon said to Gabe.

“Thanks.” Gabe climbed in the back and lay down, Sharon got into the passenger seat beside Moreland, and Moreland started the car.

“That way out of the lot,” she said, “then right, then left at the first light.”

He drove as she directed, and then got onto the interstate and headed north across flat farm country. He had made this trip once, when he had gone to establish the bank account in Springfield, but he pretended everything was new to him. He spoke in a low voice to give Gabe a chance to fall asleep, but he had no need to worry. Before he accelerated onto the interstate, he could hear Gabe’s first slow, regular snores.

“Thanks so much for letting him sleep. If you want a good driver to spell you, well, then, that would be me.”

“Are you a good driver?”

“Sure am. No tickets, no accidents, and hardly anybody ever swears at me.”

“Then I’ll keep you in mind.”

“I’ll bet you will.” She smiled.

He drove for a time, keeping the car at the same speed as the rest of the traffic, and not making any sudden moves.

Sharon said, “You’re a lawyer, but what kind?”

“I’m sort of a general attorney. I do whatever is necessary for each client. This job is claiming and taking possession of some assets my client owns, and bringing the money back to him. If you don’t do that now and then with your financial assets, the state confiscates them, as though you died without a will and had no relatives.”

“That doesn’t sound fair.”

“Some people stash their money away for the future, but then forget about it.”

“I should have that kind of problem.”

“Me too. It’s pretty simple to fix, but I don’t want it to spoil the fun of the fair. We can stop at the courthouse after the fair.”

He could feel her staring at him for a time. The only sound in the car was the snoring of Gabe in the backseat. “Do you have a girlfriend? Anybody special?”

“No,” he said. “Not lately. I’ve been working and traveling so much lately that it wouldn’t have been fair to the girl.”

“Poor thing.” She patted his right shoulder, and then he felt her hand move slowly and deliberately down his arm to his elbow, and then to his thigh. She rested her hand in his lap and left it there. He turned his head to look into her blue eyes, but said nothing.

“It’s a good thing we met up in Denny’s,” she said. “I think we’ll have a good time. You’ll be glad you came.”

“I already am,” he said. This time there was something conspiratorial in his tone. He looked in the rearview mirror to be sure Gabe was asleep. He had always loved the moment when the first step had been taken and things were no longer ambiguous. She kept her hand there, and as he began to grow hard, she gripped him.

He tolerated it for a minute or two, and then he moved her hand away. But before he could return his hand to the wheel, she clutched his hand and placed it on the smooth skin of her inner thigh, and held it there, just above the hem of the skirt.

He looked at her blue eyes again, and they were wide with innocence. He looked in the mirror to be sure Gabe was still asleep. “You hit me for teasing you, but you seem to be quite a tease yourself.”

“People have said that, but I think they just weren’t good sports.”

“I’ll try to be a good sport.”

She looked at his lap. “You’re doing fine.”

He shrugged. “I’m looking forward to Springfield.”

She nodded. “You’re going to like it.”

Coming into Springfield from the south brought them under exit signs that announced the fairgrounds.

“I forgot to look to see what day it was,” Sharon said.

“Tuesday.”

“No, at the fair,” she said. “They have something every day. Agriculture Day, Senior Citizens Day, Republican Day.”

“It’s Sharon day.”

She smiled happily and leaned back in her seat so he could move his hand farther up her thigh. “Well, maybe it is.”

As though he had subconsciously set an internal alarm, Gabe stirred in the backseat, then groaned. Sharon sat up and pushed Moreland’s hand away. By the time Gabe had groaned again and sat up scratching his scalp, she was sitting up straight and looking prim. “Hi there, Sleeping Beauty,” she said. “We’re nearly there.”

They drove onto the fairgrounds and parked in a huge lot that had until this week been an empty field. They walked the half mile or so to the front gate, where Moreland bought their tickets, then handed each of them a hundred dollars in cash, as though the bills were coupons that came with the tickets.

Gabe looked at the money and said, “ Hey, Michael. You don’t need to do that.”

“It was our deal. I said I’d pay for the trip. You two will help me do my errands tomorrow, and we’ll be even. Today we have fun.”

“Thanks, Michael.” After a second, he nudged Sharon. “How about you? Aren’t you going to thank him?”

“Oh, I will. Don’t rush me.” Only after he looked away did she give Moreland a glance.

“Where do we start?” asked Moreland.

“Let’s go on some rides right away before we eat anything,” Sharon said. “I don’t want to get queasy.” Moreland watched her scamper ahead, her perfect white legs graceful in the short skirt she wore and her pink-lacquered toenails showing through the toes of her sandals.

Gabe hurried to follow Sharon, and Michael trailed both of them by a few feet. He never got between them or competed for Sharon’s attention. For an hour they went from ride to ride. They fell 130 feet on the Mega Drop, then hurried to other machines where they were lifted, hurled, spun, rocked, somersaulted, and taken on quick turns.

When Gabe said he was going to the men’s room, Sharon said, “We’ll be over on the Sky Ride.” She pulled Moreland to the end of the Sky Ride at gate 2, and got them aboard. They stepped onto a track side by side, and a seat like a ski lift scooped them up and a bar came down across their laps.

As soon as they were aloft and moving away, Sharon turned and kissed him. He started to pull back, but her tongue was already slipping into his mouth, and she held tight to him. He kissed her for a few seconds before he gently disengaged and looked back to see if Gabe had emerged from the men’s room. “Sorry,” she said. “I can hardly keep my hands off you.”

He smiled. “I hope we don’t get thrown out of the fair.”

“People don’t think that way, silly. We’re young and single and cute. They don’t care about anything else, and nobody looks up here anyway.”

He knew they were too far away now for Gabe to see clearly, so he put his arms around her and kissed her until he had induced a kind of breathless excitement in her. He released her when the Sky Ride swooped down and stopped to let them off near the arena. They stood by the arena and he kissed her again for a second, but she pulled away. “That’ll help focus our minds.”

“Is that a good thing?” he asked.

“Now we go back and finish wearing out Gabe.”

“He had a good nap.”

“A little over two hours. Not much after he was working all night long.”

When they got off the Sky Ride on the return trip Moreland studied Gabe. He was squinting and looking tired already. “I’m hungry,” Gabe said.

Sharon took Gabe by the hand and made him walk quickly along the midway to a row of food shacks. She led them to one where she ordered all of them beer and barbecued pork sandwiches. Then there was another that had roasted corn on the cob and more beer. In a few minutes they were walking again, and then they went on another ride.

All afternoon she tired Gabe out. She insisted that they walk the length of the midway, stopping at each of the games where he could win her a prize. He wasn’t big or heavy enough to ring the bell with the sledgehammer, but he won her a small pink bear. He had a good arm for throwing balls at clown dolls, but the dolls were on a wooden rack that made them nearly impossible to dislodge. Sharon told Gabe how good he looked throwing hard, so he kept it up until he won her a faux pearl necklace. Then Sharon insisted that he must be thirsty again, and brought him another big cup of beer.

Moreland could see that Sharon was succeeding. Gabe looked more and more exhausted as the early afternoon breeze subsided and the late afternoon sun sank lower and shone directly at him. Wherever Gabe looked, the light flared as it reflected off every metal or glass surface into his eyes. The beer was a powerful soporific, but the heat made him drink more. For a time the beer infused him with enough energy to do more walking and play more games.

As evening came, the three revived a bit. The air lost its most uncomfortable ten degrees, and they went to watch horses pulling sulkies around the track. Gabe bet and won a couple of times, so he felt elated. The lights came on at dusk and the enormous fairground glowed with a garish beauty. They went to a German beer garden, and ate dinner. Sharon made sure to buy beer by the pitcher, but only Gabe drank much of it.

By the time they were finished it was after eight-thirty. Sharon announced to nobody in particular, “Wow. This has been one of the best days of my life. I’m having so much fun. But do you think maybe we should go find a place to stay? I’ll bet we have to drive a ways to find a vacancy.”

“I have reservations,” Moreland said. “I called yesterday.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. If you’ve had enough, we could go anytime.”

Gabe leaned against the side of a refreshment stand, and barely seemed to hear, but said, “Yeah, I think we’re pretty worn out.”

They made their way out of the fair to the field where their car was parked. Moreland opened the doors, and watched them get into the backseat. He drove to a hotel on East Clear Lake Avenue. On the way they passed several other hotels that seemed indistinguishable from the one he’d picked—tall and whitish with a circular drive in front, a roof over the entrance, and a large lot for guests to park their own cars.

Moreland opened the trunk and took out his suitcase. Gabe carried the other two, and Sharon handled the door openings, then waited with Gabe while Moreland registered. When Moreland returned he handed Gabe a key card in a folder with the room number written on it. As they walked to the elevator he slipped the second folder with his own room number on it to Sharon. He walked them to their room, then went on to his own room. He took a shower, lay down on the king-size bed, and turned on the television set.

It was no more than twenty minutes before he heard the knock on his door. He stood and looked through the fish-eye lens and saw Sharon’s blue eye pressed to it. He opened the door.

“Surprise,” she said.

“Can I unwrap it?”

“That’s what surprises are for.” She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. She held her body back a little so he could reach the buttons and clasps easily. He slipped off her clothes, then tossed them onto the chair by the door.

She pulled the belt of his bathrobe so it opened, then stepped inside it, put her arms around him, and held him close. “I’ve been waiting all day to get naked.”

“So have I.” He kissed her. “I assume Gabe is sleeping?”

“Yep. He felt guilty for being sleepy and said we should go back to the fair without him.”

“That was nice.”

“It sure made me happy.” She tugged Moreland’s bathrobe off and pushed him onto the bed. She kissed him everywhere, then stepped to the chair where her purse was, and returned with a small box of condoms. She tore one off the strip, put it on Moreland, and straddled him. After about a minute, she turned her head upward so her hair hung down her back, and then closed her eyes. “Still the best ride there ever was.”

Moreland had spent a lot of time with young women. He had studied them carefully and soberly at times like these, and the knowledge and skill he’d obtained gave him an advantage. As the time went on he observed Sharon and assessed her changing mood by her skin coloring, movement, voice, breathing, and pulse, and the dilation of her eyes. He used the information to become her fantasy. At first she wanted him to be gentle and sweet, but as she got wilder, she wanted him to share her mood—be rougher, faster, more demanding, and so he was. She adored him for it, and soon all her inhibitions were gone.

Later, when they were lying on the bed side by side and feeling the sweat drying on their skin, she said, “Oh, I do love the fair.” There was a long minute of silence, and then she said, “I’ve got to go back to Gabe’s room now.”

“I understand.”

“No you don’t. If there were any way not to, I wouldn’t. But he’s always going to be around. You’re not.” She got up, went to her clothes, picked them up, and took them with her into the bathroom. In a moment he heard the shower, then the hair dryer. Very soon she was out, and her hair wasn’t wet. She crawled onto the bed and kissed him. “See you in a few hours.”

“Call me at eight.”

She got up and went out the door.

Moreland stood, went to the door, put the do not disturb sign on the outer knob, turned the latch to engage the bolt, and put in the chain. He moved the chair in front of the door, and then went to his suitcase and took out his M-92F Beretta pistol. He checked to be sure he had left it loaded, then slipped it under the pillow beside his, turned off the light, and went to sleep.