Nelson DeMille - Spencerville

"You used to have the key in forty-five seconds."

He smiled and got out of the Blazer, noticed a Ford Escort in the parking lot, and went inside the small lobby.

The desk clerk, a young man, looked up from a television behind the counter.

Keith adopted a manner of sexual urgency and said, "Need a room."

The clerk put a registration form on the desk.

Keith said, "How much for a few hours?"

"Same."

"Hey, I just bought her a Sizzler steak, buddy. Can you do better?"

"How long you staying?"

"Maybe midnight. You get off at midnight? You can check."

"Yeah, I'm off at midnight, but I'm not rushing you."

"Tell you what — I might be longer. I'll give you twenty-five for all night."

"Okay."

Keith filled out the registration form with some creativity, listing a Ford Escort as his car. He'd discovered that the clerk, who could possibly identify him despite the disguise, would be gone at midnight. So far, so good. He gave the young man twenty-five dollars in cash, took the key to room 7, and left.

He got into the Blazer and pulled up to a parking spot several places away from room 7. There weren't too many cars there on a Sunday night, and none of them could be seen from the highway. But he had no intention of leaving the Blazer there anyway.

They took the luggage, and Keith also took all his personal possessions out of the car, including his audiotapes, the registration, and other odds and ends.

Keith opened the door to the room, and they carried everything inside. Annie turned on a lamp and said, "It's lovely."

Actually, it was very shoddy. Keith found the telephone book under the nightstand and flipped through the yellow pages.

"What are you looking for?"

"I need... here it is." He closed the book and said, "I'll be back in about fifteen or twenty minutes."

"Where are you going?"

"To get the car out of here."

She put her hand on his arm. "I'll go with you. If they come, I don't want to be here without you."

"All right."

They went outside and got into the Blazer. Keith drove up the lane and stopped at the lighted signboard near the highway. He got out and pulled the light plug out of the electrical outlet, leaving the signboard in darkness, then got back in the Blazer and said, "Enough customers for one night."

Annie glanced at him but said nothing.

Keith pulled back onto the highway and made a right, toward Toledo. He said, "We're going to have to walk back."

"Okay."

A police cruiser came toward them from the opposite direction and passed them. Keith looked in his sideview mirror, but the cruiser kept going. He said to her, "There's a Chevrolet dealership on this road, according to the phone book. Odd number, so it'll be on the left-hand side."

She nodded. "That's a good place to leave a Chevy. You're smarter than you look, Landry."

"Thank you."

"Do you still need that mustache and glasses?"

"For your fantasy, later."

She smiled and punched his arm. "You are my fantasy."

The Chevrolet dealership came into view on the left side of the road, and Keith slowed down and took the left into the lot. The place was closed, as he thought it would be at this hour, and he found space in the used-car lot.

They got out, and Keith went around to the rear, got two screwdrivers from the toolbox, and they took off the license plates. "There. They'll wonder about the good car fairy in the morning. Let's walk. It's exactly one-point-four miles, if you're interested."

They began the walk back to the motel, along the commercial highway. Keith stuck the license plates in his waistband and zippered his windbreaker over them.

She asked him, "Will we come back for the car in the morning?"

"It's an option."

They came to a Burger King, and Keith asked, "Hungry?"

"No, my stomach is in knots."

"You need a belly-bomber. Come on."

They went into the Burger King, got hamburgers, Cokes, and fries, and sat at a table. Keith asked, "Is this as romantic as you thought it would be?"

She smiled. "When I'm with you, the airport highway looks like the Via Veneto."

"I think I'm going to throw up."

She laughed, and he put his hand on hers. "It's okay now."

She nodded.

They ate, and he found he was hungry and so was she. He glanced at his watch. It was always a good idea to put in some time outside of the room you just booked. The police sometimes got sloppy about their stakeouts when they were waiting for you to return.

She said, "Don't swallow your mustache."

He smiled. "I like you."

At ten P.M., he said, "Let's walk off the fries."

They left and crossed the highway at a light. There were absolutely no other pedestrians on this highway, and in some parts of America, pedestrians were a rare enough sight to attract attention. He picked up his pace, and she kept up with him.

They approached the dark motel sign near the lane, and Keith slowed down and took her arm. There was an all-night convenience store next to the lane that led to the motel, and he directed her into the parking lot. They stood in the lot and kept watching the motel. He asked, "Do you want to go in there and get some snacks for later?"

"No. I'm not leaving your side."

"Okay. We'll wait here a few minutes."

Keith gave it five minutes, then they walked to the motel, through the parking lot, and went to the door of room 7. If the police were here, or somewhere out there, it was already too late, so he just walked in, noting the lights were still on and nothing seemed disturbed.

Annie locked and bolted the door behind them.

Keith threw the key on the nightstand and the license plates on the bureau and looked at her. "You're a real trouper."

"You're amazing." She took his glasses off, peeled off his mustache, and kissed him.

In fact, he was basically happy with his tradecraft, which was at one time second nature to him. Now he had to think about it, but at least he knew what he was supposed to be thinking about.

Annie was unpacking her overnight bag in the bathroom, and Keith parted the blackout curtains and looked out into the parking court. Everything seemed all right, but he had this sense of deja vu, like he was in East Berlin again, looking out at the street from a window in a safe house that wasn't so safe.

So far, he thought, he'd done the best he could. Even picking Toledo because it was closer was the right decision, notwithstanding the small problem of having missed the last flight. The only thing he'd done wrong, his only true mistake, was his spontaneous decision to run off; to act on his emotions instead of his intellect. But maybe that's what the entire last two months were about. To let go, to lose control, to want someone so badly that a quarter century of doing things by the book — what they called the right combination of D&D, discipline and daring — was suddenly transformed into desire and daring, just like that. It felt good. But there was a price to pay. After his first impulsive act, all his cleverness — all of Plan B — was just damage control. He looked out into the parking lot again. "It looks okay. It is okay..."

There were no chairs in the room, so he sat on the bed and pulled off his shoes. He let himself think about the morning. There was no way they were going to Toledo Airport, of course, or any other airport. An all-points bulletin for kidnapping a police chief's wife, mother of two, and so forth was sufficiently serious to keep every cop in the state and surrounding states on full alert, unless, of course, as he'd suggested to Annie, the state police got onto Baxter. But Keith wouldn't know that immediately.

His best bet, the thing that appealed to him most, was to just get out of the state. And the best way to do that would be to wait until about seven or eight A.M., a normal, busy workday, then take a taxi into Toledo, which was a big enough city to blend in. He couldn't rent a car, as he knew, and he didn't want to steal one and compound his problems.