He parks the rental Ford in a residential neighborhood and walks three
blocks, trying the doors of the cars at the curb. Only half are locked.
He is prepared to hot-wire a car if it comes to that, but in a blue
Honda he finds the keys tucked behind the sun visor.
After driving back to the Ford and transferring his suitcases and the
pistol to the Honda, he cruises in ever-widening circles, searching for
a twenty-four-hour-a-day convenience store.
He has no map of Topeka in his head because no one expected him to go
there. Unnerved to see street signs on which all of the names are
unfamiliar, he has no knowledge of where any route will lead.
He feels more of an outcast than ever.
Within fifteen minutes he locates a convenience store and nearly empties
the shelves of Slim Jims, cheese crackers, peanuts, miniature doughnuts,
and other food that will be easy to eat while driving.
He is already starved. If he is going to be on the road for as much as
another two days–assuming he might be drawn all the way to the
coast–he will need considerable supplies. He does not want to waste
time in restaurants, yet his accelerated metabolism requires him to eat
larger meals and more frequently than other people eat.
After adding three six-packs of Pepsi to his purchase, he goes to the
checkout counter, where the sole clerk says, “You must be having an
all-night party or something.”
“Yeah.”
When he pays the bill, he realizes the three hundred bucks in his
wallet–the amount of cash he always has with him on a job–will not
take him far. He can no longer use the phony credit cards, of which he
still has two, because someone will surely be able to track him through
his purchases. He will need to pay cash from now on.
He takes the three large bags of supplies to the Honda and returns to
the store with the Heckler & Koch P7. He shoots the clerk once in the
head and empties the register, but all he gets is his own money back
plus fifty dollars. Better than nothing.
At an Arco service station, he fills the tank of the Honda with gasoline
and buys a map of the United States.
Parked at the edge of the Arco lot, under a sodium-vapor light that
colors everything sickly yellow, he eats Slim Jims. He’s ravenous.
By the time he switches from sausages to doughnuts, he begins to study
the map. He could continue westward on Interstate 70–or instead head
southwest on the Kansas Turnpike to Wichita, keep going to Oklahoma
City, and then turn directly west again on Interstate 40.
He is not accustomed to having choices. He usually does what he is
. . programmed to do. Now, faced with alternatives, he finds
decision-making unexpectedly difficult. He sits irresolute,
increasingly nervous, in danger of being paralyzed by indecision.
At last he gets out of the Honda and stands in the cool night air,
seeking guidance.
The wind vibrates the telephone wires overhead–a haunting sound, as
thin and bleak as the frightened crying of dead children wandering in a
dark Beyond.
He turns westward as inexorably as a compass needle seeks magnetic
north. The attraction feels psychic, as if a presence out there calls
to him, but the connection is less sophisticated than that, more
biological, reverberating in his blood and marrow.
Behind the wheel of the car again, he finds the Kansas Turnpike and
heads toward Wichita. He is still not sleepy. If he has to, he can go
two or even three nights without sleep and lose none of his mental or
physical edge, which is only one of his special strengths. He is so
excited by the prospect of being someone that he might drive nonstop
until he finds his destiny.
Paige knew that Marty half expected to be stricken by another blackout,
this time in public, so she admired his ability to maintain a carefree
facade. He seemed as lighthearted as the kids.
From the girls’ point of view, Sunday was a perfect day.
Late-morning, Paige and Marty took them to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in