“You want to find something on the radio?” Alex asked.
Is “I’ll have to unbuckle my seatbelt.”
“Okay. But just for a minute or two.”
The boy relished the slithering retreat of the cloth belt. for an
instant he was on his knees on the seat, turned and looking out the car
window. “He’s still behind us!”
“Hey!” Alex said. “you’re supposed to be finding a radio station.”
Colin turned and sat down. “Well, you’d have thought I was slipping if
I didn’t try.”
His grin was irresistible.
“Get some music on that thing,” Alex said.
Colin fiddled with the AM-FM radio until he located a rock-and-roll
show. He set the volume, then suddenly popped up on his knees and
looked out the rear window. “Staying right on our tail,” he said. Then
he dropped into his seat and grabbed for his belt.
“You’re a real troublemaker, aren’t you?”
Alex asked.
“Don’t worry about me,” the boy said. “We have to worry about that guy
following us.”
At eight-fifteen they stopped at a Howard Johnson’s restaurant outside
of Harrisburg. The moment Alex slotted the car into a parking space in
front of the orange-roofed building, Colin was looking for the van.
“He’s here. Like I expected.”
Alex looked out his side window and saw the van pass in front of the
restaurant, heading for the service station at the other end. On the
side of the white Chevrolet, brilliant blue and green letters read:
automover. ONE WAY MOVE-IT-YOURSELF CONVENIENCE! Then the van was out
of sight.
“Come on,” Alex said. “Let’s get some breakfast. ”
“Yeah,” Colin said. “I wonder if he’ll have the nerve to walk in after
us?”
“He’s just here to get gas. By the time we come out, he’ll be fifty
miles down the turnpike. ” When they came outside again nearly an hour
later, the parking spaces in front of the restaurant were all occupied.
A new Cadillac ‘ two ageless Volkswagens, a gleaming red Triumph sports
car, a battered and muddy old Buick, their own black Thunderbird, and a
dozen other vehicles nosed into the curb like several species of animals
sharing a trough. The rented van was nowhere in sight.
“He must have phoned his superiors while we were eating-and discovered
he was following the wrong people,” Alex said.
Colin frowned. He jammed his hands into his dungaree pockets, looked up
and down the row of cars as if he thought the Chevrolet were really
there in some clever new disguise. Now he would have to make up a whole
new game.
Which was just as well, so far as Doyle was concerned. It was not
likely that even Colin could devise two games with built-in excuses for
his popping out of his seatbelt every fifteen minutes.
They walked slowly back to the car, Doyle savoring the crisp morning
air, Colin squinting at the parking lot and hoping for a glimpse of the
van.
just as they were to the car, the boy said, “I’ll bet he’s parked around
the side of the restaurant.” Before Doyle could forbid him, Colin
jumped back onto the sidewalk and ran around the corner of the building,
his tennis shoes slapping loudly on the concrete.
Alex got in the car, started it, and set the air conditioning a notch
higher to blow out the stale air that had accumulated while they were
having breakfast.
By the time he had belted himself in, Colin was back. The boy opened
the passenger’s door and climbed inside. He was downcast. “Not back
there either.” He shut and locked the door, slumped down, thin arms
folded over his chest.
“Seatbelt.” Alex put the car in gear and reversed out of the parking
lot.
Grumbling, Colin put on the belt.
They pulled across the macadam to the service station and stopped by the
pumps to have the tank topped off.
,__o The man who hurried out to wait on them was in his forties, a
beefy farmer-type with a flushed face and gnarled hands.
He was chewing tobacco, not a common sight in Philly or San Francisco,
and he was cheerful. “Help you folks?”
“Fill it with regular, please,” Alex said, passing his credit card