James Siegel - Deceit

“I guess it worked, then.”

“Huh? Didn’t you just say they’re wrong?”

“Someone stole my gun. I was trying to be funny.”

“Ha, ha.”

“Can you call Sam Weitz and tell him I’m out of town? That I’ll be back in a week or so? He’ll want to know why I’m not at bowling.”

“Sure.” Silence. “ Tom ?”

“Yes?”

“What are you looking for?”

“Credibility, Norma. Just like you said.”

Dennis was right about Seattle.

It was raining when we got there, a soft, steady downpour that caused clouds of steam to drift off the asphalt.

We drove through the downtown area because Dennis wanted to see Safeco Field where the Mariners played. Once upon a time Dennis used to be a baseball fan, but that was before reading the box scores began hurting his head. He used to be able to recite every player’s statistics by heart. Maybe that’s why he’d bunked out in the shadow of Detroit’s baseball park after he’d ended up on the streets. To feel the nurturing presence of America’s pastime.

We drove past the fish markets and restaurants that flanked the water and Safeco before we hit the highway going south.

The first VA hospital on our itinerary was on the border between Washington and Oregon-in the city of Tellings, population 159,000. At least that’s what Dennis read off the map.

“Sound familiar?” I asked him.

“Huh?”

“The city name. Tellings ? Does it ring a bell?”

“Population 159,000,” he said.

“Right. I’m asking if you recognize the name-if maybe you were there?”

“Dunno.”

Dennis had begun swatting his face even though there were no actual bugs there. He sometimes whispered things to himself, but when I asked him what he said, he’d ask me what I was talking about.

I tried to imagine what we might look like to passing motorists.

A broken-down Miata sporting another car’s front bumper and a man in the passenger seat mumbling to himself when he wasn’t killing phantom flies.

Then I knew exactly what we looked like.

At least to one motorist.

It had gotten dark almost without me knowing it.

One minute it was light enough to easily make out passing license plates-Dennis had begun reading them off again in lieu of road signs-then it wasn’t.

He had to lean forward and squint, each license suddenly immersed in individual pools of sickly yellow light.

“Speed up,” he said. “Can’t see the last number.”

I told Dennis he might want to give it a rest-eventually it grated on you, being assaulted by the constant drone of numbers and letters, the only relief provided by vanity plates like IAMGR8T and LUV2BWL.

Dennis was oblivious to my entreaties; I didn’t press the matter since it gave him something to do, at least.

M65LK1…

RLN895…

I’m not exactly sure when it occurred to me.

L983HT4…

K61MN0…

Have you ever had the car radio on and begun listening to a certain song only when the next one’s already playing? Your mind meandering down its own roads, and the music far away as if it’s coming from a half-open window?

VML254…

HG54MT…

Dennis’s litany of licenses was a kind of music-steady, low, and rhythmic. A tune I mostly tuned out, but half didn’t.

QR327N9…

KL61WT…

At some point, I began to actually hear it, at least become cognizant of a certain repeat phrase.

MH92TV…

Something about those letters and numbers. They seemed, okay, familiar. As if he’d mumbled them before, and before that, too.

MH92TV.

Twenty minutes ago, maybe, then sometime later, and then now.

MH92TV.

So what? There were hundreds of cars on this highway going in exactly the same direction we were-even all the way to Tellings. Even as I attempted to placate a bad case of the jitters, I knew that I’d heard those numbers before twenty minutes ago.

Dennis had been reading license plates since Iowa.

“Dennis… that license plate-which car?”

“Huh?”

“MH92TV? Which car?”

He seemed pleasantly surprised that something I’d previously expressed annoyance at had suddenly captivated my attention. Cool.

“Over there,” he said.

“Over where ?”

“There.” He motioned to his immediate left, but when I slowed to let the red Mitsubishi to our left inch forward, its license plate said GAYSROK.

“That’s not it, Dennis.”

He shrugged. “No, not that one. Behind us, I think.”

“Where behind us?” I scanned the side- and rearview mirrors, but it was pitch black and all I saw were vague shapes obliterated by crossing high beams.

“Dunno, man. Maybe it’s in front of us.”

“Okay. What kind of car is it?”

I knew what his answer would be before he said it.

I was Karnak the Magnificent , the answer already pressed against my forehead, even though I was praying for something else, any other car on earth, really. A Honda Accord, a Saturn or Caddy, a sensible Dodge minivan or VW bus or Volvo.

No such luck.

“Pickup,” he said.

My hands gripped the steering wheel so tight that my knuckles went white.

“You’re sure?”

“Uh-huh. He’s been following us since we left, man.”

“Since Iowa ? Why didn’t you say something?”

“Well, you know. Maybe I wasn’t seeing what I was seeing.”

“Okay. What color ? What color pickup has been following us since Iowa?”

“You’re getting kind of specific, man.”

I threw out pretty much every possibility I could think of, every color in the rainbow-Dennis shaking his head at each one, uh-uh, nope, don’t think so -until the inevitable process of elimination led me to the last color I wanted to hear.

“ Blue ? Was it blue, Dennis?”

“Uh-huh,” Dennis said. “That’s right, sure. Blue.”

You’re it.

Standing at the bottom of the stairs with a metal tool in his hands.

Playing Auto Tag with me on a desert highway.

Trolling down Third Street while he sighted a.38 Smith amp; Wesson through the window. My Smith amp; Wesson.

Bang.

I checked the rearview mirror.

Then the sides. Right, then left.

My heart was jackhammering. It was going to do an Alien and burst right out of my chest. I veered into the next lane, nearly got obliterated by an eighteen-wheeler hauling toilet fixtures, swerved back, slowed down, worked my way to the exit lane.

“Hey… what are you doing? We stopping?”

The next exit was coming up. Dennis had dutifully read it out loud two miles back.

Wohop Road.

“I need to pee,” Dennis said.

Back to my left side mirror. I wanted to see if someone crossed lanes. There were several cars in the next lane-two separate and distinct pair of headlights. Then, suddenly, there was one.

I squinted into the mirror. What happened?

“I need to pee like a motherfucker, Tom.”

He’d turned off his lights.

There were two pair of headlights and now there was one.

He’d turned off his lights.

I floored the gas. Passed eighty and kept going.

“I don’t need to pee that bad,” Dennis said. “I won’t do it in the car.”

Eighty-five… ninety… ninety-five…

“Maybe I will.”

When the turnoff for Wohop Road appeared, Dennis didn’t bother reading it. He couldn’t. He was crouching down with his hands up over his eyes-the crash position familiar to any airline passenger.

Wait… wait…

Now.

I yanked the steering wheel hard to the right.