The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)(69)

Women sorts of clients. For the most part.

Women with husbands.

Or boyfriends.

Have you ever lost one?

Yes. One.

What happened?

They let him out of jail. Didnt bother to tell anyone. She was dead in two hours. Your sister was something of a beauty.

Yes. How would you know that?

Because beauty has power to call forth a grief that is beyond the reach of other tragedies. The loss of a great beauty can bring an entire nation to its knees. Nothing else can do that.

Helen.

Or Marilyn.

Well, I dont want to talk about her.

I know.

Where are we with this.

Even if you didnt want to flee the country a new identity would solve some of your immediate problems. But you’d probably have to move somewhere. Since you dont know what they want with you it’s hard to know what sort of effort they might put into looking for you.

But if they want to find you they will.

Oh yes.

I think the idea that the government of the United States of America routinely assassinates its citizens is something of a paranoid fantasy among certain political groups.

I would agree with that. Unless you’re one of those selected for assassination.

My problem is I dont have enough information.

Your problem is that you dont have any information. I wouldnt start any investigation with no more to go on than what you’ve given me. It would be an investment with no guarantee of getting anywhere at all. No one can tell you how to deal with an enemy that is completely unknown to you. The best advice would probably be to make a run for it. A strategy fairly effective against all adversaries, domestic and foreign.

Yes. As a friend of mine once said: I would rather make a good run than a bad stand. We’re talking about a new identity. Right?

Yes. If you want me to set it up for you I’d do it with no charge on my own part. You’d get a passport, a driver’s license, and a social security card. Fully backstopped, as they say in the trade. It will set you back eighteen hundred dollars. In this case a bit less.

Is this something that you do?

No.

Would I get to choose my name?

No. You would not. The phone’s about to ring.

I’m sorry?

The phone’s about to ring.

The phone rang.

I’m guessing that’s just a cheap trick.

Yes.

Eighteen hundred.

Yes. It’s pricey. A bit. But it’s also the best. You can actually become another person for next to nothing. Then you can just go away. Just dont get fingerprinted anywhere.

You’re not going to get that?

No.

Kline rose and stood looking out the window. The racing plane, he said.

Yes.

You knew something that no one else in the world knew.

Yes. I guess that’s so.

Kline nodded. He could see across the rooftops to the river. The warehouses and the docks and sections of the ships between the buildings. He turned and looked at Western. What was the number on the vertical stabilizer?

On the Laird.

Yes.

Do you fly?

I used to.

It was NS 262 Y.

These people think that you know something that in fact you dont.

Is that how you see it?

Is there some other way to see it?



* * *





He and Red sat at a small table at the rear of the bar. Red took a sip of his beer and set the bottle on the table beside his keys.

His mother says she’s going to call the police. But if the police find him they’re liable to throw his dumb ass in jail.

For what?

Damn, Bobby. How far do you think they’d have to look?

Yeah. You’ve got a point. Why dont you go?

I’m afraid of what I might find.

That he’s dead somewhere.

No. That he’s alive somewhere. Lafayette. Apparently he’s livin in a housetrailer maybe eight or ten miles out of town.

That’s all you’ve got.

It’s a small town. Somebody there knows him.

I’m sure that’s true. All right.

All right? Really?

Yeah.

You’re a good fucker. The old lady said she wanted a picture of him holdin up a newspaper like they do in the movies but I told her I didnt have a camera. Which I dont. I told her I’d get him to sign a piece of paper. Maybe sign the newspaper. That would work wouldnt it?

What if I find out that he’s dead?

I dont know. I aint tellin this woman that her darlin boy is dead over the phone. I’m just not.

Well. Get the key off of there.



* * *



—

Two days later driving through the swamps east of Lafayette on little more than a Caterpillar track through the black dirt—liveoak parklands and stillwater bayous with cypress knees standing out of the green muck—he came to a fork in the road and sat there with the engine idling. When you come to a fork in the road, take it. He took the righthand track. No reason. He went on, lurching and sliding through the boggy places in the road. Potholes of black mud. Graylooking cormorants standing on logs out in the swamp. Turtles.

Two miles on and the road ended in a cleared lot where a housetrailer sat pitched and leaning in the mud. The wheels half buried and the tires rotting. A pickup truck. He switched off the engine and sat there. Then he got out and shut the door and hallooed the house.