We rolled on for almost four hundred miles. Eight hours. We drove out of Georgia, right through Alabama, into the northeast corner of Mississippi. It got pitch-dark. The fall sun had dropped away up ahead. People had switched their lights on. We drove on through the dark for hours.
It felt like I had been following the guy all my life. Then, approaching midnight, the red truck slowed down. A half-mile ahead, I saw it pull off into a truck stop in the middle of nowhere. Near a place called Myrtle. Maybe sixty miles short of the Tennessee state line. Maybe seventy miles shy of Memphis. I followed the truck into the lot. Parked up well away from it.
I saw the driver get out. A tall, thickset type of a guy. Thick neck and wide, powerful shoulders. Dark, in his thirties. Long arms, like an ape. I knew who he was. He was Kliner’s son. A stone-cold psychopath. I watched him. He did some stretching and yawning in the dark standing by his truck. I stared at him and pictured him Thursday night, at the warehouse gate, dancing.
The Kliner kid locked up the truck and ambled off toward the buildings. I waited a spell and followed him. I figured he would have gone straight for the bathroom, so I hung around the newsstand in the bright neon and watched the door. I saw him come out and watched him amble into the diner area. He settled at a table and stretched again. Picked up the menu with the expansive air of a guy who was taking his time. He was there for a late dinner. I figured he’d take twenty-five minutes. Maybe a half-hour.
I headed back out to the parking lot. I wanted to break into the red truck and get a look inside. But I saw there was no chance of doing it out there in the lot. No chance at all. People were walking around and a couple of police cruisers were loafing about. The whole place was lit up with bright lights. Breaking into that truck was going to have to wait.
I walked back to the buildings. Crammed myself into a phone booth and dialled the station house in Margrave. Finlay answered right away. I heard his deep Harvard tones. He’d been sitting by the phone, waiting for me to check in.
`Where are you?’ he said.
`Not far from Memphis,’ I said. `I watched a truck load up and I’m sticking with it until I get a chance to look inside. The driver’s the Kliner kid.’
`OK,’ he said. `I heard from Picard. Roscoe’s safely installed. Fast asleep now, if she’s got any sense. He said she sends her love.’
`Send mine back if you get the chance,’ I said. `Take care, Harvard guy.’
`Take care yourself,’ he said. Hung up.
I strolled back to the Cadillac. Got in and waited. It was a half-hour before the Kliner kid came out again. I saw him walk back toward the red truck. He was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Looked like he’d had a good dinner. Certainly taken him long enough. He walked out of sight. A minute later the truck rattled by and lurched onto the exit road. But the kid didn’t head back to the highway. He ducked a left onto a service road. He was going around to the motel. He was going to stay overnight.
He drove right up to the row of motel cabins. Parked the red truck up against the second cabin from the end. Right in the glow of a big amp on a pole. He got out and locked up. Took a key from his pocket and opened up the cabin. Went in and shut the door. I saw the light go on and the blind come down. He’d had the key in his pocket. He hadn’t gone into the office. He must have booked the room when he was inside for dinner. He must
have paid for it and picked up the key. That’s what had taken him so damn long in there.
It gave me a problem. I needed to see inside the truck. I needed the evidence. I needed to know I was in the right. And I needed to know soon. Sunday was forty-eight hours away. I had things to do before Sunday. A lot of things. I was going to have to break into the truck, right there in the glare of the light on the pole. While the psychopathic Kliner kid was ten feet away in his motel room. Not the safest thing in the world to do. I was going to have to wait to do it. Until the kid was sound asleep and wouldn’t hear the boom and scrape as I went to work.