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And, as with those earlier assassinations, the conspiracy theorists were already sharpening their blunt instruments Montrose/ Blankenship, they were quick to assert, was as overnor, an innocent man conveniently on the scene to divert suspicion from the real killers The several callers who took this stance all agreed on this ed as each found a different cabal to bla the plot in the first place One wo linked to the forcible inoculation of young girls with "that alleged anticancer virus," while another saw it as part and parcel of the whole proabortion can A un sn to discredit the NRA, and by the tih, Keller was alarree that there were people who thought he hadn’t done it, although their tendency to tag him with phrases like "pathetic dupe" and "hapless h, was that every last one of the folks on his side, if you wanted to call it that, caIt hadn’t taken the cops long to follow the route Keller had already sketched out for them in his mind, from the Laurel Inn to Denny’s to the cab and the airport and the Hertz counter, and at that point he began to hope they’d get to the Days Inn in a hurry and spend a lot of time there

Because now that they knehat kind of car he was driving, and knew the number on its license plate, it hardlyor parked Either way it was just a matter of time before they found him, and probably not very much time at that

He couldn’t just walk away from the Sentra He needed a car, and he couldn’t rent another to replace this one He could probably steal one, he’d learned long ago how to pop a door lock and hot-wire an ignition, and those skills of one’s youth were like swiotten

Which was to say he’d have no trouble stealing a 198 °Chevy, say His Swiss Are But autoed since he’d learned how to steal them, and they had co wheel if they sensed that so to do, look for an old car?

The kind of car he knew he could steal would probably break down after a few hundred miles Even if it held up, it would be conspicuous That was one great advantage of the car he had now -- it was pretty ordinary in appearance, and at least in Des Moines it was as coh one in ten cars was the sareater portion of them seemed to be the saun metal He had no idea what theabstract, like Seabreeze or Perseverance, that s down too much Whatever you called it, the Nissan people had used it on half the cars they sold that year, and they’d evidently found a lot of takers for it in Iowa

In fact--

Wasn’t that a car just like his up ahead in the next row? It was hard to tell in this light, but it was definitely a Sentra, and the color looked right Was this an opportunity? It certainly felt like an opportunity He could leave his car and take this one, if he could break in and hot-wire it Or, even better, he could just--

He could just forget the whole thing, because while he was looking at the car its lights flashed on and off There was an instant when he thought the car inking at hiet his attention, but a second later he realized it was si its response to its owner, who had just unlocked its doors with her remote control And he watched as she loaded her purchases into its trunk and opened the door on the driver’s side and settled in behind the wheel

If he’d beaten her to it, if he’d switched his car for hers, it wouldn’t have done hiood She’d have realized the deception as soon as she returned to her car, and in no time at all the police would have a new plate nuht have more than that, if her car had a GPS unit in it

Oh, hell Did his?

It stood to reason that the rental car co in their cars in case they lost track of the-haul trucking firainst the occasional amphetamine-crazed driver on his way fro he’d be happier in San Francisco

He really had to do so And he had to do it in a hurry, and it had better be so that wouldn’t just substitute one peril for another

He turned off the radio -- it was justit harder to concentrate -- and he took a bite of pizza and wished he had some Coke left to wash it down

And then it came to him He forced himself to sit still, forced himself to chew the pizza and s it, forced hih to make sure it was sound And, when he decided he couldn’t see anything wrong with his idea, he turned the key in the ignition and put the car in gear

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