Joe Gores - Glass Tiger

‘They only got beer and wine here,’ said Andy almost apologetically, as if he were the host and Thorne was a guest.

‘All I need is a cup of coffee.’

Andy waved at the waitress. ‘I eat here because they use organic greens and veggies, and their burgers are damn good.’

Thorne grinned and jerked his head toward the waitress.

‘And here I thought maybe she had something to do with it.’

Andy’s face flamed almost as scarlet as the girl’s hair. When she came with Thorne’s coffee, Andy asked for apple pie à-la-mode for dessert. Thorne did too. After the table had been cleared, Andy leaned across it to speak in a low voice.

‘I been thinking, you ain’t no newsman.’

‘Said I wasn’t. Maybe I’m one of those alphabet-soup guys from the government. You’re a hunter, right?’

‘How’d you know that?’

‘The gunrack in your Silverado. Since you hunt, you must know the back country around here pretty well.’

‘Try me.’

‘Okay. Below the western side of the ridge above the meadow where the President gave his speech, there’s a sub-alpine valley. Do you know it? I need to find a—’

Andy exclaimed, ‘Jesus Christ! The bastard went up that valley to the massif, didn’t he? He wasn’t any Muslim, he had to be a local who knew the terrain.’

‘Knew the terrain, yeah. Local, no. Now, if he needed to stash a four-wheel SUV within a five-mile radius of that valley so he could get out of Dodge quick, where would he put it?’

Andy stood up, said, ‘Be right back,’ and left the cafe. He came back with a topo map from his truck. He opened it out on the tabletop, tapped a finger on one of its squiggles.

‘See that minor national-park road right there? I’d look up any one of those little dirt tracks going off of it.’

‘You should have my job.’ Thorne stood up. ‘If I’m not back with the truck within a couple of days, you’ll find it hidden under that stand of fir trees at the mouth of the valley. The keys will be on the left front tire. Will the security deposit cover going over there and getting your truck back?’

‘Christ yes, more than. But...’ He paused. ‘I’d sure like to be in on whatever it is you’re doing, Mr. Thorne.’

Thorne shrugged and grimaced. ‘I wish you could, Andy. I’d feel comfortable with you covering my back. But...’

‘I know,’ said Andy, crestfallen. ‘National Security.’

Thorne scattered too much money on the table. ‘My treat.’ He stuck out his hand. They shook. Before he knew he was going to say it, he added, ‘I kill people for the government, Andy.’

‘I figured maybe you did,’ said Andy solemnly.

Walking out of the place, Thorne thought, Maybe that’ll be my epitaph: he killed people for the government. Maybe, in this case, the wrong person?

Corwin’s 4-Runner was the key to everything. If Thorne couldn’t find it, he’d painted himself into a corner and would just have to flat-out go on the run. He had to believe that if he found it, he would find something to point toward something he could use as leverage against Hatfield’s scheming.

In the morning he walked up the street for breakfast, came back, and used the room phone to make a reservation to fly Northwest from Missoula to Minneapolis the next night, then on to D.C. Give the Feebs something to chew on.

For the same reason, he drove the Cherokee and Franklin’s GPS transmitter to the Ravalli County Museum in the old county courthouse on Bedford Street. If they bothered to track him there, they would figure he was just killing time.

He let a collection of American Indian artifacts fascinate him for an hour, then went out the ground-floor men’s room window, leaving it unlocked, and went shopping. To buy more time, he needed to give Hatfield something tough to explain away.

In a variety of stores, he bought underwear, shirts, socks, a waterproof pouch to use as a wallet, two pairs of pants and one warm jacket, shaving gear, a pair of shoes and a pair of ankle-length boots, a belt. He also bought a wood rasp, Providene-Iodine 10 % topical antiseptic microbicide, gauze bandages and adhesive tape, and thin opaque medical gloves. At the last minute, he bought two more $10 phone cards. They could be traced but it took time. He paid cash for everything. At the bank, he cashed the FBI’s severance check, and drew out his day’s limit of cash on his ATM card. After today, his money belt would have to see him through.

Everything fit into two grocery shopping bags he left under the men’s room window at the museum while he hauled himself back up inside. He walked sedately out the front door, drove around to pick up his purchases, and went back to the motel. No messages on the phone. No intrusions into the room. He hadn’t expected any. They were so damn sure of him, like his FBI taggers in D.C., that he felt only contempt for them. And anger.

He paid through the next day, telling the room clerk not to bother making up the room in the morning, and put out the DO NOT DISTURB sign before going to bed.

Thorne rolled out at four a.m., silently tore up the bed, laid a lamp on its side, and tipped over a chair. His cash was in his money belt, his money clip was on the dresser with a few bucks in it, along with his keys and watch, the FBI badge, and the wallet that held his i.d. and driver’s license. His passport was hidden in his suitcase where they were sure to find it.

He left the clothes he had worn the day before tossed over the room’s still-upright chair, left his shoes with yesterday’s socks stuffed in them under it. He also left all his old clothes in the dresser right where they were, and left his suitcase in the closet. He would carry no miniature bugs away with him.

He put on new socks and the new boots, then dropped the shopping bag with his new shaving kit and his extra new clothes on the grass below the rear window. With gloved hands, he quietly broke the glass inward and artistically scattered shards of it around on the floor.

Only then did he draw the wood rasp across his forehead and let blood splatter around the room and on the window sill. After he disinfected and bandaged the cut, he put on his money belt and dressed from the skin out in his new clothes.

A two-step run, and he dove through the glassless window, tucking and rolling as he hit the grassy slope behind his room. He waited. No window opened, no lights went on, no pale blob of face looked out at him. When they came to clean the room the following morning, they would find what looked like a murder scene, and call the cops, who would be all over the crime-scene before Hatfield could close things down.

Thorne went through the woods to Andy’s Dakota four-by-four parked two blocks away. In his waterproof pouch was his new i.d.: driver’s license, social security card, library card (expired), and three unemployment benefit payment stubs. All of them legal and valid, all identifying him as one Benjamin Schutz: Benny the Boozer’s full and real name. Also in the pouch was his FBI commission card. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. Not because someone would challenge it — how many civilians knew what FBI credentials looked like? — but because eventually it would get back to Hatfield that the card was in play. Once that happened, the noose would tighten.

The wood rasp, bandaids, disinfectant, and surgeon’s gloves went into three different dumpsters on his way out of town.

An hour later, he ran Andy’s Dodge Dakota in under the firs at the mouth of the valley, and left the keys on the tire. Carrying his shopping bag, he walked northwest on the national park service road Andy had pointed out, checking out the dirt tracks going off on either side. No vehicle passed him, not one.