What are you, twenty-two? Rothstein had asked him. Twenty-three?
That was a good guess by an observant man. Morris had been twenty-three. Now he’s on the cusp of sixty, and the years between have disappeared like smoke in a breeze. He has heard people say sixty is the new forty, but that’s bullshit. When you’ve spent most of your life in prison, sixty is the new seventy-five. Or eighty. Too old to be a wolf, according to McFarland.
Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we?
He turns in to the yard of Statewide Motorcycle – the shades pulled, the bikes that were out front this morning locked away – and expects to hear a car door slam behind him the moment he transgresses private property. Expects to hear McFarland saying Yo, homie, what you doing in there?
But the only sound is the traffic passing on the way to the stadium, and when he gets around to the back lot, the invisible band that’s been constricting his chest eases a little. There’s a high wall of corrugated metal cutting off this patch of yard from the rest of the world, and walls comfort Morris. He doesn’t like that, knows it isn’t natural, but there it is. A man is the sum of his experiences.
He goes to the panel truck – small, dusty, blessedly nondescript – and feels beneath the right front tire. The keys are there. He gets in, and is gratified when the engine starts on the first crank. The radio comes on in a blare of rock. Morris snaps it off.
‘I can do this,’ he says, first adjusting the seat and then gripping the wheel. ‘I can do this.’
And, it turns out, he can. It’s like riding a bike. The only hard part is turning against the stream of traffic headed for the stadium, and even that isn’t too bad; after a minute’s wait, one of the BASEBALL GAME 2NITE buses stops, and the driver waves for Morris to go. The northbound lanes are nearly empty, and he’s able to avoid downtown by using the new city bypass. He almost enjoys driving again. Would enjoy it, if not for the nagging suspicion that McFarland is tailing him. Not busting him yet, though; he won’t do that until he sees what his old pal – his homie – is up to.
Morris stops at the Bellows Avenue Mall and goes into Home Depot. He strolls around beneath the glaring fluorescents, taking his time; he can’t do his business until after dark, and in June the evening light lasts until eight thirty or nine. In the gardening section he buys a spade and also a hatchet, in case he has to chop some roots – that tree overhanging the bank looks like it might have his trunk in a pretty tight grip. In the aisle marked CLEARANCE, he grabs a pair of Tuff Tote duffels, on sale for twenty bucks each. He stows his purchases in the back of the truck and heads around to the driver’s door.
‘Hey!’ From behind him.
Morris freezes, listening to the approaching footsteps and waiting for McFarland to grab his shoulder.
‘Do you know if there’s a supermarket in this mall?’
The voice is young. And white. Morris discovers he can breathe again. ‘Safeway,’ he says, without turning. He has no idea if there’s a supermarket in the mall or not.
‘Oh. Okay. Thanks.’
Morris gets into the truck and starts the engine. I can do this, he thinks.
I can and I will.
26
Morris cruises slowly through the Northfield Tree Streets that were his old stomping grounds – not that he ever did much stomping; usually he had his nose in a book. It’s still too early, so he parks on Elm for awhile. There’s a dusty old map in the glove compartment, and he pretends to read it. After twenty minutes or so, he drives over to Maple and does the same thing. Then down to the local Zoney’s Go-Mart, where he bought snacks as a kid. Also cigarettes for his father. That was back in the day when a pack cost forty cents and kids buying smokes for their parents was taken for granted. He gets a Slushie and makes it last. Then he moves onto Palm Street and goes back to pretend map reading. The shadows are lengthening, but oh so slowly.
Should have brought a book, he thinks, then thinks No – a man with a map looks okay, somehow, but a man reading a book in an old truck would probably look like a potential child molester.
Is that paranoid or smart? He can no longer tell. All he knows for sure is that the notebooks are close now. They’re pinging like a sonar blip.