The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)(38)

He woke up at four twenty in the morning and switched on the light. He got up and went over and pulled away the blanket and sat in the floor looking at the coins. It surprised him. He already knew that he was going to buy a revolver.

In the morning he emptied his suitcase and carried the gold out to the car in the suitcase, four trips in all. He dumped the gold into the trunk and spread his clothes over it and shut the trunk and went back in. He threaded the caps back loosely onto the pipes and carried the pipes out and put them in the floor of the car on the passenger side. He put a half dozen of the coins in his pocket and got in the car and drove around to the coffeeshop and went in and ate breakfast.

He looked up coin dealers in the phone directory. There were two of them. He wrote down the addresses. Then he drove to the first store and parked and walked in.

The man was polite and helpful. He explained that there were two types of the coin. The St-Gaudens—or Standing Liberty—and the Liberty Head. The St-Gaudens was the more valuable.

How did you come by these? If I might ask.

They belonged to my grandfather.

They’re very nice. You shouldnt carry them in your pocket.

No?

Gold is very soft. Two of these are close to mint. What we would call an MS-65. Uncirculated. Well, in the real world you never rate a coin higher than MS-63. MS stands for mint state.

He was looking at the coins through a loupe. Very nice, he said.

He wrote down figures on a pad as he examined them. Then he totaled them and turned the pad and slid it in front of Western. When Western walked out of the shop ten minutes later he had over three thousand dollars in his pocket. He sat in the car and ran the numbers through his head. Then he ran them again.

He took the metal detector back to the rental store and drove out to the hardware store where he bought four white canvas mason’s bags with leather bottoms and leather straps and handles. He drove until he came to a vacant lot and he pulled over and got out and dumped the lengths of lead pipe in the weeds. He sold a dozen more coins at the other coin dealer’s and that evening he bought for cash a black 1968 Dodge Charger with a 426 Hemi engine that had four thousand miles on the odometer. It had headers and twin four barrel Holleys on an Offenhauser intake. He had the dealer return the rental car and he bought a stainless steel Smith & Wesson .38 special revolver with a four inch barrel and for the next two weeks he drove through the midwest selling coins in batches of a few dozen. He had a lock for the steering wheel but he carried everything in at night and he slept with the .38. He had a coin collector’s guide and he would sit in the motel at night and sort through the coins and slide them into small plastic envelopes and put them in the mason’s bags. Every few days he’d take the coins and small bills to a bank and cash them in for hundred dollar bills. He swung down to Louisville and set out across country. By the time he got to Oklahoma he had nine hundred thousand dollars in a shoebox fastened with a rubber band and he still had one of the bags filled with coins. The Charger went like a scalded rat and he’d been stopped by the Highway Patrol once and now he drove more carefully. He’d no idea how he’d go about explaining the contents of the trunk to a police officer. He went to Dallas, San Antonio, Houston. By the time he got to Tucson he’d sold all but a double handful of the coins and he checked into the Arizona Inn and carried in all the money and stacked it on the dresser and then divided the stack by eye into two equal stacks and put the two stacks into two of the empty bags and fastened the straps. Then he called Jimmy Anderson’s bar. She answered the phone. Heaven, she said.

Is God there?

He’ll be in at seven. Can I help you? Bobby? Is that you?

Yes.

Where are you?

I’m at the Arizona Inn. I’ve got some money for you.

I dont need any money.

A lot of money. And I bought you a car.

It was quiet at the other end of the phone.

Are you there?

I’m here.

How did you know that I’d go look?

Because I asked you to.





V


The Kid was sitting at her desk in a frockcoat and frightwig. Rimless eyeglasses and a wispy goatee glued to his chin. She sat up in the bed and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. What are you supposed to be? she said.

He noted the time and laid his watch by on the desk. He adjusted his glasses and leafed through the pages of his notebook, sucking the while on a clay pipe. Very well, he said. Did he attempt liberties with your person?

What?

Did he attempt to remove your insteps?

Remove my what?

Your unspeakables. Did he attempt to pull them down.

Unmentionables. It’s none of your business. And the good doctor smoked cigars, not a pipe.

Was there digital manipulation?

You look ridiculous in that get-up.

Were there attempts perhaps to slobber upon your clamlet?

You’re disgusting. Did you know that?

Did you ask him to stop?

Would you ever mind leaving please?

The Kid peered at her over the tops of his glasses. The hour’s not up. Any nightsweats?



* * *





They had put her on antipsychotics and she took them for a couple of days until she got a chance to read the literature. When she got to Tardive Dyskinesia she flushed everything down the toilet. The Kid was back the next day, pacing. She was already dressed to go out with her brother. Make yourself at home, she said.