Bill Pronzini - The Crimes of Jordan Wise

"I knew it would, but you can't help worrying a little."

I smiled at that. "No, you can't."

"I should've left Phoenix a little earlier than I did," she said. "Desert driving really wears you out."

"What time did you get in?"

"After three."

"You're at the airport motel now?"

"Straight from the garage."

"But you're not calling from your room?"

"Come on, Richard, you know I wouldn't make a mistake like that. I'm in a pay phone in the main terminal lounge. I took the motel shuttle over here."

"What kind of car did you buy?"

"Nineteen seventy-three Mercury Cougar. Blue and white. I had to pay a little more than we planned—almost thirteen hundred dollars. I could've bought something cheaper from one of the smaller lots, but you said there was less risk of getting a lemon from a large dealership."

"The price doesn't matter," I said. "The important thing is that it's reliable."

"Well, so far. Good gas mileage, too."

"Parked where in the garage?"

"Second floor, space number two fifty-six. The keys are in a magnetic holder under the right front fender, the registration's locked in the glove compartment, the parking ticket is on the dash. And there's a full tank of gas. I filled up just before I parked."

"That should do it, then. You're booked on the nine o'clock flight to Chicago?"

"I've already picked up my ticket. Richard?"

"Yes, baby?"

"I hate being this close and not seeing you. I want you so much."

I wanted her, too. But my hunger was not as great as hers after the long separation, not at this point. It was still a long way to Chicago, and there was plenty to do before I got there. First things first. We'd be together soon enough, and I said as much.

"I know we will," she said, "but that doesn't make it any easier now. Get to Chicago as quickly as you can, okay? Take a more direct route."

I said, "I will," but I knew I wouldn't. Every factor to that point had been carried out with perfect precision. There was no compelling reason to change any of the remaining moves. If I did that, I might be inviting bad luck.

Before nine A.M. on Sunday I packed my suitcase, leaving out the theatrical mustache and spirit gum and the bottle of dark-brown hair dye I'd bought in San Francisco. The suitcase went onto the backseat of my car. I put out the "Do Not Disturb" sign and locked the door to Philip Smith's room, keeping the key. Then I drove the short five blocks to the Mainline Parking Garage.

This early, the second floor had no sign of life and was mostly empty of parked cars. I pulled into the space next to the one marked 256. The Mercury Cougar had a coating of dust, but was otherwise nondescript and in good condition for its age. The tires had plenty of tread, I noticed as I went around to the front and collected the keys. I opened the trunk, transferred my suitcase inside, locked it again, and then drove my car down to the first-floor exit. The sleepy attendant took my money without even glancing at me.

From the garage I headed to the airport, which in San Diego fronts on the bay and is virtually downtown; flights in and out pass over and between some of the taller skyscrapers. I left the car in long-term parking, locked but with the keys on the floor inside and empty of anything I didn't want found in it. A shuttle bus took me to the main terminal, where I boarded another bus that brought me back into the city center. By then I was hungry; I took the time to eat breakfast in a cafe on Broadway. It was a short walk from there to the Greenbriar Motel.

In Philip Smith's room, I washed and dyed my hair, dried it, combed it. Put on the mustache and the tinted contact lenses. Tucked the bottles of dye and spirit gum into my jacket pocket. Left the room key on the dresser; I'd paid cash in advance, so there was no need to go through the usual checkout ritual. The courtyard was deserted when I stepped out of the room. I walked the five blocks to Mainline Parking. When I drove the Mercury down, the attendant in the exit booth paid no more attention to me than he had earlier.

Like Annalise, I had memorized all the necessary street and freeway routes. Even after twenty-seven years, I could tell you my course out of the city with reasonable accuracy. It was a few minutes past noon when I turned off Highway 8 onto Highway 15, heading north—right on schedule.

The long drive from San Diego to Chicago was one of the y factors in the equation. The unexpected is always a possibility during a two-thousand-mile cross-country driving trip. A chance accident. Some sort of mechanical problem with the car that couldn't be fixed. Annalise had bought the Mercury from a reputable dealer, it had performed for her on the desert drive from Phoenix, and it seemed to handle well enough for me as I wheeled north through Escondido and Riverside. But it had 67,000 miles on the odometer and there was no way of knowing whether the engine and transmission had been mistreated by a previous owner or whether it would hold up for the duration.

All I could do was take normal precautions and trust my judgment and my instincts. Which meant driving carefully and defensively, keeping to a sedate twenty-five on city streets, never exceeding the posted freeway speed limits, observing all traffic laws to a fault. And I checked oil and water levels and tire pressure every time I pulled into a service station to refill the gas tank.

That first day I followed Highway 15 on its eastern loop through Barstow and across the Mojave Desert into Nevada. It was late afternoon when I reached Las Vegas. I wasn't tired and the car continued to run smoothly; I could have kept on going all the way through Nevada, maybe even across the southwestern corner of Arizona into Utah. Instead, I stopped at a motel on the eastern outskirts of Vegas, and had dinner before putting through a collect call to Annalise from a pay phone to make sure she'd gotten back all right and to let her know where I was.

The run to Chicago took four more days. I could have made it in three if I'd pushed it, but the Plan called for four. Too many hours behind the wheel invites mistakes in judgment.

Monday: across Nevada and the northwestern corner of Arizona, then up the middle of Utah to Salt Lake City and Highway 80. I found a bookstore in a shopping center near my motel and bought a new, comprehensive Virgin Islands guidebook and another book on Caribbean cruising, to replace the ones I'd had to give up. Appetite-whetters, and far more enjoyable nighttime diversions than anything television had to offer.

Tuesday: straight across Wyoming and southern Nebraska. In a motel coffee shop outside North Platte, the young waitress and the middle-aged cashier both smiled at me—genuine smiles, not the meaningless lip-stretch variety most women give male strangers. Jordan Wise had been insubstantial, as transparent as a jellyfish; women of all ages looked right through him, never saw him at all. Richard Laidlaw was solid, with the kind of self-assured swagger that comes from a strong nature. Women saw him, all right, and felt his power, and responded accordingly.

Wednesday: northeast to Omaha, through Iowa to Des Moines. The Merc was still running smoothly, the time spent on highways and city streets uneventful.

Thursday: Chicago.

It was late afternoon when I reached the city, almost five by the time I got to the South Side apartment. I'd called Annalise the night before, with an approximate arrival time; she was waiting for me with champagne on ice and candles burning and her fine body naked under a terrycloth robe. Thirty seconds after I walked in, the robe was off and she had my fly unzipped and my cock in her hand.

The story had broken in the media that morning. Annalise had scouted a newsdealer not far from the apartment that sold out-of-town newspapers, and all week she'd kept an eye on the Chicago papers and on both San Francisco rags, the morning Chronicle and the afternoon Examiner. The crime hadn't made much of a splash in the Midwest; the Tribune carried a brief account on an inside page. In the Chronicle, of course, it was front-page news. We lay in bed, sipping champagne as I read the account.