Stuart Woods - Heat

Cursing the man’s tardiness for screwing up the meet, Jesse got into his truck and started the engine, then looked down and saw a package of Bicycle playing cards on the front seat beside him, and they didn’t belong to him. He waited until he got to cruising speed before opening the package; inside was the Zippo lighter and a tightly folded sheet of instructions. He glanced in his mirror and saw that his tail was one car back, then he held the sheet against the steering wheel and read it carefully, alternating with watching the road. If he started a fire in the truck it might be noticed, so he wadded up the paper and slipped it into a pocket; he’d deal with that later.

At the huge office supply store he got a shopping cart and began to fill it from his list. Halfway through the store he caught sight of his tail, pushing a cart and pretending to shop. Then, as he was about to approach the checkout counter, he saw exactly what he needed. A pretty young woman was demonstrating, of all things, a shredder. He stopped and, keeping his back to his tail, removed the wad of paper from his pocket and opened it up. “Can you shred this for me?” he asked the woman.

“Just shred, or would you like to see our burn feature, too?” she asked.

“I’d just love to see the burn feature,” Jesse replied, handing her the folded sheet of paper. He watched as she fed it into the machine, and he followed it with the playing card package. A puff of smoke rose from the bin as the paper was converted to ash. “That’s very impressive,” he said.

“Can I order a machine for your company?”

“I’ll have to ask my boss,” Jesse replied. He smiled at her and continued to the checkout desk. He noticed that his tail preceded him from the building and was waiting in his car.

Jesse loaded the supplies into the back of the pickup, got in and drove back toward St. Clair, occasionally glancing in the rearview mirror to be sure his tail was in position. He drove straight through the town and back to the plant and, as he was unloading the supplies, he saw the tail’s car make a U-turn and head back toward the town. The young man would have nothing to report, Jesse thought, with some satisfaction. It was clear, though, that someone — Coldwater or Casey — didn’t yet entirely trust him.

At supper, he broached the subject of San Francisco. “Herman says I can have the week after next off.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Jenny said, glancing worriedly at Carey. “I don’t think Carey could miss school, though.”

“Well, it is a honeymoon, after all; I thought maybe she could come just for the first weekend. We could fly from Spokane on Friday night, then send her back on Sunday afternoon. Do you think we could get someone to meet her at the airport?”

“Oh, please, mommy, I want to go to San Francisco,” the little girl said.

“Well,” Jenny said, reluctance in her voice, “Let’s see what we can do. I’m not promising, though.”

The little girl was practically jumping up and down with excitement.

“I’m sure we can work it out,” Jesse said, reassuringly. Carey beamed at him.

After dinner, when Carey was absorbed in her homework, Jesse put down his newspaper. “Want to take a stroll around the neighborhood?” he asked Jenny. “It’s a starry night.”

“Sure,” she replied. “I’ll get our coats.”

When they were away from the house and Jesse was reasonably sure they were not being watched, he spoke up. “I have some things to tell you,” he said. “First of all, we’re talking about a lot more than a honeymoon.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” she said, slipping her hand into his.

“I don’t want you to ask any questions about this, but I have three valid passports with yours, Carey’s and my photograph in them. I also have enough money to get us out of the country.”

She squeezed his hand. “I’ve never been out of the country,” she said excitedly. “Where would we go?”

“Maybe Hong Kong, as a first stop. There are excellent airline connections from there to points all over the world. I want to give some more thought to where we might end up on a more permanent basis. Where would you like to live?”

“Anywhere you say is fine with me,” she replied. “I mean that; Carey and I will go anywhere with you.”

“Here’s what we’ll do, then; we’ll drive to Spokane and leave the truck there, then fly to San Francisco. We’ll check into a hotel, the three of us, and stay until Sunday. When time comes to take Carey to the airport for her flight back to Spokane, we’ll simply get onto another flight. I’ll have to check the schedules and see what our best bet is, and we’ll have to go with only the clothes on our backs. We won’t even check out of the hotel. Carey will have some things with her, of course, but that will be all we can take.”

“There’s nothing here that I can’t live without,” Jenny said. “Not one damned thing.”

“My, my, I’ve never heard you use strong language, ma’am.”

She laughed. “I guess I must feel pretty strongly about it.”

“Something I have to know about,” Jesse said, serious again. “Carey. Just how firm a grip does the church and school have on her?”

“I know this isn’t a very good answer, but it’s hard to say. You’ve heard her spout the racial stuff they’re taught there, and as I’ve said before, they insist that she never miss a day’s school, unless she’s certifiably ill. The children are also taught to report any derogatory remarks their parents make about the church or Jack Gene; I think they use them as a sort of early warning system against parents who seem to be straying from the fold.”

“Have there ever been consequences for those people?”

“As I said before, people have been known to disappear.”

“Are there ever any questions asked about these disappearances?”

“People are afraid to ask questions. Sometimes there’s a story that they’ve been expelled from church and are ashamed to show their faces in St. Clair; sometimes they’re just gone.”

Jesse nodded. “We’re going to have to be very careful with Carey. It’s important that she not have the slightest idea of what we’re planning. Answer her questions about the San Francisco trip, but don’t overdo it; tell her we’ll visit Fisherman’s Wharf and the Golden Gate Bridge and see all the other sights. We’ll do that on her weekend with us. I don’t want her to know that anything at all has changed until the last possible moment, when we’re at the airport, and you’re going to have to figure out what to tell her to be sure that she’s not upset by the change in plans.”

“I understand.”

“Also, talk with her about things beyond the San Francisco trip, things at school or at church. Make the trip seem like just one event in the coming months. That way, if anybody questions her, she’ll have the right answers.”

“I think the best way to handle things at the airport is to tell her that Jack Gene is sending us on a trip, a secret trip, maybe, to do something or other for him or the church.”

“Good. You’ll have to build our name change into the story, too.”

“What is our new name going to be?”

“Warren. I’m Jeffrey, you’re Jillian, Carey is Katherine.”

“I like the sound of them,” Jenny said. “Jeff, Jilly, and Kathy, the all-American family.”

“That’s us,” Jesse said. “Something else: I’ve got enough money to keep us for a while, if we’re careful, but we could certainly use more.”

“I rarely have more than a hundred dollars in the bank at any one time, after I’ve paid the bills,” she replied.

“That’s not what I was thinking of,” Jesse said. “When you lived with Jack Gene, did you live in the house he’s in now?”