Joe left the public telephones and followed the concourse toward the exit. As he reached the head of the escalators, he contrived to glance hack.
The Dodgers fan followed at a discreet distance, well disguised by the ordinariness of his dress and demeanour. He wove himself into the crowd so skilfully that he was no more evident than any single thread in a coat of many colours.
Down the escalator and through the lower floor of the terminal, Joe did not look back again. Either the Dodgers fan would be there or he would have handed Joe over to another agent as the storyteller had done.
Given their formidable resources, they would have a substantial contingent of operatives at the airport. He could never escape them here.
He had exactly an hour until he had to meet Demi, who he hoped would take him to Rose Tucker. If he didn’t make the rendezvous in time, he had no way to re-establish contact with the woman.
His wristwatch seemed to be ticking as loudly as a grandfather clock.
Tortured faces melted into the mutant forms of strange animals and nightmare landscapes in the Rorschach stains on the walls of the vast, drab concrete parking structure. Engine noise from cars in other aisles, on other levels, echoed like a Grendel grumble through these manmade caverns.
His Honda was where he’d left it.
Although most of the vehicles in the garage were cars, three vans—none white—an old Volkswagen minibus with curtained windows, and a pickup truck with a camper shell were parked near enough to him to serve as surveillance posts. He didn’t give any of them a second look.
He opened the car trunk and, using his body to block the view of any onlooker, he quickly checked the spare-tyre well for the money. He had taken two thousand to Colorado, but he had left the bulk of his funds in the Honda. He was afraid the bank’s manila envelope with the brass clasp would be gone, but it was where he’d left it.
He slipped the envelope under the waistband of his jeans. He considered taking the small suitcase as well, but if he transferred it to the front seat, the people watching him would not be suckered by the little drama he had planned for them.
In the driver’s seat, he took the envelope out of his waistband, opened it, and tucked the packets of hundred-dollar bills in the various pockets of his corduroy jacket. He folded the empty envelope and put it in the console box.
When he backed out of the parking space and drove away, none of the suspect vehicles followed him immediately. They didn’t need to be quick. Hidden somewhere on the Honda, another transponder was sending the surveillance team a signal that made constant visual contact unnecessary.
He drove down three levels to the exit. Departing vehicles were lined up at the cashiers’ booths.
As he inched forward, he repeatedly checked his rear-view mirror. Just as he reached the cashier, he saw the pickup with the camper shell pull into line six cars behind him.
Driving away. from the airport, he held his speed slightly below the legal limit and made no effort to beat traffic lights as they turned yellow ahead of him. He didn’t want to put too much distance between himself and his pursuers.
Preferring surface streets rather than the freeways, he headed toward the west side of the city. Block by block through a seedy commercial district, he searched for a setup that would serve his purposes.
The summer day was warm and clear, and the sunshine was diffused in matching parabolic rainbow arcs across the dirty windshield. The soapy washer spray and the wipers cleared the glass somewhat but not sufficiently.
Squinting through the glare, Joe almost failed to give the used-car dealership due consideration. Gem Fittich Auto Sales. Sunday was a car-shopping day, and the lot was open, though perhaps not for long. Realizing that this was precisely what he needed, he pulled to the right-hand curb and stopped half a block past the place.
He was in front of a transmission-repair shop. The business was housed in a badly maintained stucco and corrugated steel building that appeared to have been blown together by a capricious tornado using parts of several other structures that it had previously torn asunder. Fortunately, the shop was closed; he didn’t want any good-Samaritan mechanics coming to his rescue.