بخش 04 - فصل 17

17

Brady parks around the corner at five past ten and is careful to feed the meter until the green flag with MAX on it pops up. After all, it just took a parking ticket to catch Son of Sam in the end. From the back seat he takes a cloth carry-bag. Printed on the side is KROGER and REUSE ME! SAVE A TREE! Inside is Thing Two, resting on top of the Mephisto

shoebox. He turns the corner and strides briskly past the Soames Funeral Home, just some citizen on a morning errand. His face is calm, but his heart is hammering like a steamdrill. He sees no one outside the funeral parlor, and the doors are shut, but there’s still a possibility the fat ex-cop isn’t with the other mourners. He

could be in a back room, watching for suspicious characters. Watching for him, in other words. Brady knows this. No risk, no reward, honeyboy, his mother murmurs. It’s true. Also, he judges that the risk is minimal. If Hodges is pronging the blond bitch (or

hoping to), he won’t leave her side. Brady does an about-face at the far corner, strolls back, and turns in to the funeral home drive without hesitation. He can hear faint music, some kind of classical shit. He spots Hodges’s Toyota parked against the rear fence, nose-out for a quick getaway once the festivities are over. The old

Det-Ret’s last ride, Brady thinks. It’s going to be a short one, pal. He walks behind the larger of the two hearses, and once it blocks him from the view of anyone looking out the rear windows of the funeral parlor, he takes Thing Two out of the shopping bag and pulls up the antenna. His heart is driving harder than ever. There were

times–only a few–when his gadget didn’t work. The green light would flash, but the car’s locks wouldn’t pop. Some random glitch in the program or the microchip. If it doesn’t work, just slide the shoebox under the car, his mother advises him. Of course. That would work just as well, or almost as well, but it wouldn’t be so elegant.

He pushes the toggle. The green light flashes. So do the Toyota’s headlights. Success! He goes to the fat ex-cop’s car as if he has every right to be there. He opens the rear door, takes the shoebox out of the carry-bag, turns on the phone, and puts the box on the floor behind the driver’s seat. He closes the door and starts for

the street, forcing himself to walk slowly and steadily. As he’s rounding the corner of the building, Deborah Ann Hartsfield speaks again. Didn’t you forget something, honeyboy? He stops. Thinks it over. Then goes back to the corner of the building and points Thing Two’s stub of an antenna at Hodges’s car.

The lights flash as the locks re-engage.