"It's timing," said Heller, his mind obviously on other things.
They entered the hotel. A black bartender saw Heller coming and set out a Seven Up. Heller said to him, "Have there been any phone calls for me?"
The bartender went to yell at somebody. In the mirror I could see construction men strung along the bar. And down at the end, who was that? Raht! Very inconspicuous, dressed in sweaty khaki like the rest, mustache unmistakable: at least he was on the job and obviously undetected by Heller.
A switchboard girl, a Mexican by the looks of her, phones on her head and disconnected jack plug in her hand, walked up to Heller. "Nada, nada, Mistaire Floyd," she said. "I try all morning while you gone and they don't answer. The Norteamericano telefonista operador dice que-excuse me, I have not been in country long-the operator say they on vacation. They no answer."
"Yes," said Heller, "I know they're on vacation. But look, keep trying." And he gave her a ten-dollar bill.
I
She grinned and looked him up and down specula-tively. But he shooed her away.
For a moment it occurred to me that if I had not disconnected their phone by putting it on "vacation," I might have picked up her whereabouts from Heller's mushy interchanges with his sweetheart. But it was too late to worry about spilled milk. I had every confidence I could find her.
The second day, as we combed the mountains of Pennsylvania, I got another glimpse of her. She was sitting by a lake looking pensively at the reflections of an island in the still water. There were a lot of shrubs about that had white, leathery-looking flowers and others that were budding in purple. I did not know the flowers and it seemed too soon in the year for such display but the weather had been unseasonably warm this very early spring.
We looked for lakes along the route and, with Torpedo whining and drooling and stroking his bullets and pants, inspected three. No land yacht. No Countess Krak.
On the third day, after a fruitless morning between Hagerstown, Maryland, and Winchester, Virginia, covering U. S. 81, I got a clue. I noticed I was entering an area where the same types of shrubs I had earlier seen her looking at were now in bloom. We were getting closer.
And then a break! Just after lunch I eagerly hunched in the back seat of the Ford we had and turned on the viewers. There she was! She was staring into a shallow valley where a small brook ran. All about her were flowering shrubs. What a target if we could just find her!
I ignored Torpedo in the front seat: he was whining his usual whine that he couldn't stand holding off much longer, that he itched and burned to get it into the
fresh-killed target and why couldn't I hurry up before I drove him mad.
An engine roar sounded behind her. She turned. Bang-Bang sprang out of a jeep and approached her. It gave me a new clue: that second motor home must be pulling a jeep on a tow bar like they often do. Made it easier to identify.
Bang-Bang seemed excited. "Miss Joy, I called like you said. And I think I've got a trace of him. After he got hurt, he retired to a rest home!"
She said, "Great! Then just start calling every rest home!"
Bang-Bang said, "Beggin' your pardon, ma'am, but three days' worth of telephones has shot the wad! Since the mobile phone went dead, we musta spent a thousand bucks on pay phones."
"Oh. Well, I'll come back with you and draw another thousand on the credit card."
I ground my teeth. I had forgotten you could draw cash. My half-million certificate in Squeeza Credit hands was more and more at risk.
They got into the jeep and Bang-Bang drove with wild abandon down a bridle path. He burst into a clearing. A sign said:
General Store Bogg Hollow
It seemed an unpopulated, sylvan place.
The Countess Krak went in and used the credit card to get her change from a smiling clerk. She also bought a black, smoked Virginia ham that was hanging in the rafters and told the clerk to send it to the cook. So she
was in Virginia! I was not wrong. I was also in Virginia and so was the whining, itching Torpedo.
Bang-Bang walked to an outside pay phone and closed the kiosk door. The Countess Krak, (bleep) her, did not follow him and so I could not see the number that would give me the absolute pinpoint for our hit.
She walked down a path and there before her stood the vehicles. The land yacht and the other smaller motor home were parked so as to make an L. They had their awnings out. Very colorful. In the center of the L was a large picnic table that seemed a permanent fixture. The vehicles were hooked up to water lines: this must be some kind of a national park, very groomed and beautiful.
An elderly lady, obviously Italian, in a stewardess uniform, was laying out a lunch at the picnic table. She saw the Countess coming and looked up and smiled. And then the Countess was inside the interference zone and my screen wiped out.
Anxiously I began to tear through my accumulated maps and guidebooks. I found three separate places named Bogg! None of them were called Bogg Hollow. But ALL of them were north of Lynchburg!
I grew very cunning. The only way you could get to Fair Oakes on a main highway was going through Lynchburg. To think was to act.
I instantly pushed the whining, suffering Torpedo aside, started up and drove like mad to Lynchburg. I found a motel just south of town on U. S. 29.
It was a shabby, tattered place but the room I got on the second floor was ideal. It covered the highway with a view of such expanse that I could not miss. And the parking lot on the other side of the room afforded the quickest possible launching pad from which to give chase.
I hated to share the same room with Torpedo. He
was whining worse and worse, getting absolutely frantic. But I had to watch my cash and motels are expensive.
I sat down with my viewers and my highway view. I had only to wait.
Heller's movements interested me. He was running about, pounding stakes with ribbons on them into the sand. Finally he ran out of stakes and walked back toward a mound of them. A man in a pilot's uniform was nearby, making notations in a small book and looking toward the ditches some digging machines were excavating. He saw Heller and came over.
"Mr. Floyd, what's the tonnage in these cooling pipes?" the pilot said.
"Thirteen point two three," said Heller. "Are you still going to pick them up tomorrow?"
"That's the plan," the pilot said. "Two freight choppers leave for the foundry at Scranton, Pennsylvania, tomorrow afternoon."
"Mind if I bum a ride?" said Heller. "Fair Oakes, Virginia, is not too far off your route."
"Never heard of the place," said the pilot. "Probably boxed in by trees*. If you don't mind going down a ladder, come ahead."
"They scare me to death," said Heller, telling what I knew for a fact was an outright, vicious lie. He hung by his teeth on safety lines from spaceships just for kicks.
But the pilot saw through the lie. "I'll bet. Glad of company."
"See you tomorrow afternoon," said Heller.
It made me anxious. This was going to be close. I promptly sent Torpedo out, rifle cocked and eyes hot, to visit every Bogg I had located.
Torpedo came back late. He had not connected. He was screaming with frustration.
"You got to get it," Torpedo whined, "to really understand what I've got to do. All day now I've known I have the clap."
"What?" I said, aghast.
"Yeah, that (bleeped) black corpse in Harlem. I wondered at the time why it was so juicy. Now I know. She had the clap. Now I've got it. But I know how to handle it. The prison psychologist always told all us cons the only thing to do with it was spread it around fast. So, God (bleep) it, where is the target? Where, where, where? I got to find her and do it, now that I got the clap. I need a bloodhound!"