“I’ll call the city police and see what they want to do,” Andy said to Hammer. “But I don’t think this is our case at the moment. And we need to get you a taxi,” he added to Hooter.
“Now you listen,” she said indignantly. “I ain’t drunk.”
“I didn’t say you were. But you don’t have a car.”
“He got a car and is the reason I got here.” She jutted her chin in the direction of Freckles, obviously referring to Macovich.
“He’s in no condition to drive,” Andy said. “He’s had way too many beers and is in a bad mood. I think his feelings are hurt.”
“Huh,” Hooter said as interest lit up her eyes. “He too insens’tive to get his feelings hurt.”
“That’s simply not true,” Andy replied. “Sometimes the biggest, toughest men are overly sensitive and keep everything inside. Maybe you can drive him home in his car?”
“Then what do I do?” she exclaimed. “I ain’t staying with no man who still live with his mama!”
Cruz Morales would have given anything for his mother as he sped around half the night. At 3:00 A.M., he glanced around furtively as he shut a pay phone booth door and pulled out the dingy paper napkin the tollbooth lady had given him. She seemed like a nice enough person, and Cruz needed help. He was never going to make it out of the city in his Pontiac with its New York plates–not with cops and helicopters everywhere. Now he at least understood what all of the commotion was about.
While speeding away from the bar where that wild man was hopping around the Dumpster, Cruz heard on the radio that someone had been burned up down by the river and everyone was looking for a Hispanic suspect from New York who might be the serial killer that had been committing hate crimes that could be traced all the way back to a shooting at Jamestown, which was unsolved because some lady police person wasn’t doing a good job, according to the governor. Cruz had no idea what all of this was about, but he was Hispanic, and he was at a loss as to how he had suddenly become a fugitive for crimes he knew nothing about. So he pulled into a 7-Eleven to make an urgent phone call. Cruz squinted at the napkin and noticed there were two phone numbers written down–one on one side, one on the other. He could have sworn the tollbooth lady had written down only one number, so what was the other one and which one was the right one? Cruz dropped a quarter in the pay phone and dialed the first number. After three rings, it was picked up.
“Hello?” a male voice asked.
“I look for the toll lady,” Cruz said, assuming the toll lady must have a boyfriend.
“Who is this?”
“I can’t tell you, but I have to talk to her. She say for me to call,” Cruz said.
Andy was sitting at his computer, working on the next Trooper Truth essay, and he had a feeling the toll lady in question was Hooter. But why was anybody looking for her at his house?
“She’s not here at the moment,” Andy said, which was misleading but true.
Hooter had taken Macovich home, and what happened after that was anybody’s guess. Then Andy had called the city cops, who came and got the package of handguns but decided not to arrest Trader with so little evidence to go on, especially since he was an important government official.
“But if we trace these guns back to you,” one of the cops had said to Trader, “then you’re in a shitload of trouble. I don’t care who you work for. So I recommend you go on home and don’t try to leave town or anything unwise like that.”
“Of course I wouldn’t leave town,” Trader had lied. Remarkably, wires had reconnected inside his head and he was talking normally again. “I will be at work with the governor tomorrow, as usual.”
“Well, I guess you’d better ask the governor that,” Andy had told Trader. “He’s not too happy with you right now.”