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He broke off the thought when the tinkling of a beaded curtain heralded the arrival of a young woman, dark-skinned and slender, dressed in a white blouse and plaid skirt that ht have been the uniforhter of the proprietors, and she was very pretty, and in other circu At the very least he ood the food smelled
But not now All he did was ask about a room, and all she did was tell him the price was 39, which struck him as perfectly reasonable If she looked at him at all, at his face or at Homer’s, he never saw her do it He was just a burdensoot back to polishing the essay portion of her application to Harvard
He filled out the card she gave hi the space for his car’s make and license number blank They always had a space for it on the card, but they didn’t seeirl, ouldn’t have noticed if he’d registered as Mahatma Gandhi, was no exception
He paid cash, because his credit card was in Rened in as somebody else He could have used Remsen, the name would be safe for days if not weeks, and by tomorrow he’d be back in New York and none of this would matter But he had the money, so what difference did it make?
She asked him if he would want to make phone calls, because then he would need to leave a deposit, or allow her to take an imprint of his credit card He shook his head, picked up his room key, and filled his nostrils for one last time with the sweet sone through to get his hands on it, hebefore he realized he’d left his baseball cap in his roootten to leave the room key on the dresser, so he was able to let himself in and retrieve the cap With Homer on his forehead, rather like a Valkyrie on the prow of a Viking warship, he felt ready to face the world
He drove a few as tank for ould be the final time, drove some more The phrase safe at hoet into his own apart out his life as a fugitive and everything that ith it And, because he was retired noith no one last job loo all of that out forever He’d have his stamps, he’d have his enormous state-of-the-art TV, he’d have his TiVo, and he’d have all the other aspects of the life he’d arranged for hiular deli, his favorite restaurants, the newsstand where he bought the Ti, the laundry where he dropped it off dirty in the ht He didn’t suppose it was a terribly exciting life, centering as it did upon such sedentary and solitary pursuits as television and sta, but excitement had lost its charin with, and he found it thrilling enough to bid a few dollars on a stamp on eBay and see if some bastard pounced on it before time ran out It was low-stakes excitement, no question, but that was plenty
That errant thought was trying to break through again, struggling to rise to the surface It was like soliht of it if you turned your head, and that was all it took to keep your gaze fixed straight ahead
His breakfast, picked up without incident at a drive-up , consisted of two Egg McMuffins and a big cup of coffee Just before exiting the interstate he’d seen a sign for a rest area five miles ahead, so he drove there and parked under a tree He’d tiht, he was pleased to note; the coffee was cool enough to drink and the Egg McMuffins were still war he went to the restroom, and on his way back he finally remembered to buy a paper USA Today was seventy-five cents, and he fed in three quarters before he noticed that the coin box right next to it held that ot his three quarters back, added a fourth quarter and bought the Ti his approach to the paper First the local and national news, then the sports, and finally the crossword puzzle What day was it, anyway? Thursday? The puzzles increased daily in difficulty, froht ten-year-old, to Saturday, which often left Keller feeling slightly retarded Thursday was usually just about right He could generally fill in a Thursday puzzle, all right, but it took soht
He settled in behind the wheel, made hiet to the crossword puzzle
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The paper Keller bought everycame in four sections, but the edition the Times distributed outside of the immediate New York metropolitan area fit into just two There was an assassination story on the front page, dealing pri political implications, and another story further on about the hunt for the killer, which seemed to have trailed off in several directions, none of which had thus far panned out There was nothing about Miller Remsen, which came as no surprise to Keller; even if they’d found the body, which seee, the only way it would interest anybody outside of Indiana would be if he’d scrawled Catch overnors in lipstick on the mirror
He almost e of the second section "Arson, Murder Found in White Plains Fire," the headline announced, and it was White Plains that caught his eye If it had been less specific and said Westchester instead he ht past it, but he’d been to White Plains countless times, first to see the old man and then to see Dot He’d catch the train at Grand Central and a cab fro iced tea on the wraparound front porch of the big old house on Taunton Place, or in the cozy kitchen So he read about the fire in White Plains, and knew shortly that he wouldn’t be going there again, because there was no more house, no more porch, no more kitchen No more Dot