“You did. You slept the whole way.” Walter glanced around at the other men. “Can we go out? We got to talk.”
East nodded. The bouncing daylight outside the bathroom braced East, brought him back into space and time. He and Walter made their way to the exit. Iowa, he mused. Back in Iowa now. Behind them like beads on a string lay the other places: the van, his brother, the wooden house in Wisconsin. And The Boxes, the boarded-up house that was his. Strung out behind, not far, not long, but behind. Links in a chain. Behind, like his black eye, the bruise clouding over.
The noxious air of taxis idling. They found a bench, and Walter dug in his pocket.
“What is it?”
A single key. “Hers.”
“Whose?”
“Miz Jefferson’s. She had two. This is a valet key. It will start the car—I tried it. Just won’t open the trunk.”
East held the key in his fingers, examined it.
“And she won’t be back for two days.” Walter looked down the line of cabs. “Likely won’t notice it’s gone till then.”
East whistled. “Smart,” he said quietly.
Walter laid his legs out straight and crossed one over like an old cigar smoker. “I know,” he said. “I impress myself.”
“Walter,” East said. “We gonna get caught?”
“I been thinking on that,” Walter said. “Looks like police got the van. Question is, why? Because of Wisconsin? Or because of your brother?”
“What does it matter?”
“It does,” Walter reasoned. “Two very different things.”
“You gonna tell me they upset about Wisconsin,” East guessed, “but they don’t give a damn about my brother?”
“Well, there’s that.” Tightly Walter smiled. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe they don’t hunt the one at all. But they gonna hunt them differently. If it’s just Ty they’re looking for here, and they found the van, then we’re just black boys who shot another. Probably didn’t go far. Police are looking in that area. That Denny’s, even. Not an airport. You follow?”
East nodded.
“But if it’s Wisconsin, then they tie in Ty, maybe—there were witnesses, they saw us, man, they got a plate, probably an APB on us all night—then they find the van, that makes a direction. One, two, three. That points west. This way. The way home. Got me?”
“How you gonna know for sure which it is?”
Walter laughed. “Ha. I’m not. East, I’m guessing it was because of you and Ty. Because of the witnesses. I’m guessing it’s your bullet they’re following.”
East sat back. The black string jangling inside.
“But the van isn’t here. That’s lucky—we drove it a few hundred miles last night and ditched it. We made a mystery jump. And we didn’t dump it near an airport. And we didn’t steal a car they can look for. That don’t tell the cops we’re looking to hop on a plane.”
“But we’re not,” East said, “looking to hop on a plane.”
“Well, I was thinking about it,” Walter said.
“You what? You said it was dangerous, man. Even walking in there.”
“Everything’s dangerous now,” Walter said. “Right? But we got cash. They can sell us walkup tickets. They gotta check our IDs, but they’re clear, and we can drop them the minute we get to LA. Kill these names off and never look back.”
Walter sat up out of his crouch and looked around, face wide open, as if they were waiting for a ride, as if he was unconcerned.
“What’s it cost?” said East. “Do we have enough?”
“Don’t know,” said Walter, “but it sounds good to me. See the country from up top. Be home this afternoon.” He traced the idea across his pants and stopped it with a dot. “Nobody knows where I’ve been all week,” he confessed. “Probably worried.”
“Oh, you got people?”
“Yeah,” Walter replied. “Of course. I got people.”
East watched the airport cop down the way, forty yards, directing people with suitcases.
“Quicker we drop these guns, the better, then,” Walter said.
“If we’re done shooting.”
“How we gonna know if we’re done shooting?”
“I’m done shooting,” said East. He got up and strode over to the nearest trash can, poking around until he found a good fast-food bag, stiff white paper, a little greasy. He picked it out, straightened it, then palmed the little gun into the bag. He walked it back to Walter.
“See if you can put your trash in here. Be cool with it.”
Walter emptied his pockets on the bench beside him: granola bars, van key, the money in a clip, paper napkins clean and used. He covered his pocket with a napkin and fished the gun out into it. Into the bag it went. East crumpled the bag and took it back, tucking it into a corner of the trash can, just so.
“Feel better now?” said Walter, up on his feet.
“No.”
Walter frowned. Disappointment, maybe. What mattered to Walter, East saw, was solving problems. Inventing. Wasn’t anything in East’s stomach that Walter could solve.