Page 8 (2/2)

He opened his eyes There was nobody standing anywhere near the car A pickup truck was parked at an angle half a dozen spaces away, its engine idling, and there was a big RV clear down at the other end of the strip, which he seemed to remember from when he pulled off the road and parked Other than that the place was deserted

He was in a rest area off US Route 30 west of Cedar Rapids He’d taken I-80 out of Des Moines, then decided he’d rather stay off the interstate, at least until he was out of Iowa Thenortheast toward Marshalltown, and he took it as far as Route 30 and aimed himself at Cedar Rapids From there he’d have a choice of a few routes -- northeast to Dubuque, where he could cross the Mississippi into southern Wisconsin, or stay on 30 east to Clinton and cross into Illinois, or another road that angled between those two He didn’t think ithe wanted to do was get out of Iowa and into either Illinois or Wisconsin as soon as possible And it looked as though he could do that without having to fill the gas tank

What he hadn’t taken into account was fatigue It wasn’t that late, and he hadn’t gotten up that early, but the stress he’d been under had evidently taken its toll, and he started yawning and felt hi concentration well before the approach to Cedar Rapids He tried to shake off the tiredness, and thought about stopping somewhere for a cup of coffee, but the whole point was not to stop before he had to and not to expose himself to human eyes if he could possibly avoid it Besides, he knew coffee wasn’t going to do it The last thing his body wanted was a sti out for was a chance to shut down for a while

The rest area, when he can announced that it was closed from two to five AM, and that violators would be prosecuted He’d heard soned to keep prostitutes fro truckers on their CB radios Keller, who couldn’t iine how either of the parties involved, the hookers or the truckers, could be quite that desperate, also couldn’t figure out what business it was of anybody else’s But he gathered that an ordinary et bothered, and the presence of the trailer at one end of the rest area and a couple of cars at the ested he wasn’t alone in this conclusion So he’d found a place to park, far away froine and locked the doors, and then he closed his eyes, figuring twenty ood as new

He hadn’t bothered to check the tiht, but it couldn’t have been much later than one or two, and it was just past five now, so he’d slept three or four hours That was ti still, but on the other hand he had clearly needed the rest Now he could get back on the road Or, even better, he could think things through with a sleep-refreshed brain, and then he could get back on the road

He looked at the map, decided he’d do best to stay on 30 That was the most direct route Earlier, Dubuque had held some appeal for him because he’d at least heard of it, which wasn’t true of Clinton Now, in the cool light of day, or ould be the cool light of day in an hour or so when the sun caet across a state line, not to pass through a town he’d heard of (And it wasn’t as though he’d heard anything particularly alluring about Dubuque In fact, the only thing he could recall about it was the advertising slogan The New Yorker azine had used back when he was a boy Not for the Old Lady fro the azine sound wonderfully sophisticated, while no doubt pissing off any nuo on, he thought to hi those words was Dot’s He wished he could hear her voice now, saying those words or almost any others She was the only person he ever really had a conversation with He didn’t spend his days in stony silence, he’d exchange a feords with his doorton Avenue, talk about the weather with the guy at the newsstand or discuss the fortunes of the Mets and Yankees, Nets and Knicks, Giants and Jets -- depending on the season -- with guys he ran into at the gy for an elevator

But he didn’t really know anybody except Dot, and hadn’t let anyone else know him It was rare that he wentto her And now she was the one person he couldn’t call

Well, actually, she was one of the several hundred million people he couldn’t call, because he couldn’t call anybody But she was the one person he wanted to call and couldn’t, and it bothered him

And then he heard her voice in his head It wasn’t uncanny, it wasn’t so to be Dot and telling hiht she would tell hi all that crap from one trunk to the other, the voice said Don’t you think you ought to at least see what you’ve got?

Whoever’s idea it was, his or Dot’s, it wasn’t a bad one, and this was the perfect time to do it, with no one around to take an interest in hi He popped the trunk and pulled out a cardboard carton that he’d shifted intact and unexah it now, and if he ht prove useful, because it was all stuff for the beach -- little toy buckets and sand shovels, bathing suits, beach towels, and a Frisbee That last wasn’t exclusively for the beach, you could throw a Frisbee just about anywhere, as long as you had somebody to throw it to If he had to throw it, he supposed he would throw it away

And why not toss the whole carton? There was a trash bin just steps from his car, and was there any reason to keep any of this junk? He hoisted it, headed for the bin, then changed hisitems from the carton on the back seat and floor A blue and yellow plastic bucket here, a red shovel there It would be good ca a quick peek at the car’s interior would knoas looking at the car of a husband and father, not an assassin on the run

Unless they just figured him for a pedophile…

Back to the trunk There was a metal tool chest of the sort he supposed most men carried in their cars, tricked out with all ets, not all of which he was able to identify Sonized lead sinkers and plastic floats, as well as a couple of lures with hooks attached, one shaped like afor all the world like the little spoons eine solorious anticipation, taking a deep sniff and getting hooked through the gills Which, metaphorically, as supposed to happen to people, though he had no firsthand experience in that area If Keller was addicted to anything it was to sta holes in anybody’s septum