Then I took the deepest breath of my life and eased open the door. The alarm didn’t blare. I walked straight out into the cool sunlight. I waited for a bullet to pound the pavement in front of me, or to cut into my kneecap. I waited to be hurt and fall and for a man to hustle me into a car at gunpoint and call on Howell to say I’d been a bad boy, asking me to explain the dead body in the neighboring apartment.
Silence. The bars were widening, just a bit.
I walked to a nearby car I’d noticed parked on a side street, same place every week, in front of a strip shopping center. The model was one that was easy to boost, and it had no GPS system to track it remotely. I hot-wired it and was gone in less than the proverbial sixty seconds. No sign of pursuit in the mirror; any watchers used to my routine were probably keeping their eyes on the front door or considered themselves clever by monitoring the Internet searches.
I drove north, making a stop at a Wal-Mart for the rest of my disguise, then I drove on and found a truck stop about thirty miles south of Albany. I parked the car in the far corner, went inside for coffee. Many ate here because it was cheaper to eat a couple of hours out of New York than in the city. I drank three cups of excellent coffee in unhurried progression, watching the truckers come and go. Mostly they sat and listened to the news: a bombing at a train station in Amsterdam that had killed five, a dive in stocks yesterday, an indictment against a congressman for bribery.
In the hush of the commercials I listened to them chat, in their varying levels of sociability; I wanted a talker. Talkers don’t ask as many questions. They like to discuss themselves, not you. You are just there to drink in the wisdom. Often they talked about their cargos, a conversational opener the same way one might ask about the weather. Forty-five minutes after I came in, a trucker, silver-haired and with a slight Southern accent, sat next to me and wolfed down a hamburger and fries, half-drowned in ketchup. When his plate was clear, he mentioned to the uninterested trucker next to him that he was hauling flannel and buttons to be shipped overseas for fashioning into shirts.
“Why they can’t stitch together shirts here is beyond me,” the talker said. “We got sewing machines.”
“Yeah,” the other trucker said, “Japanese sewing machines.” He shrugged at the shrinking world. He got up and left.
The talker ordered a cup of coffee.
After it had been poured and the first curl of steam was rising from it and he’d taken an ample sip, I asked, “Are you heading to the port, sir?”
He gauged me with a look. “Yeah.”
“I’m trying to get there. My car broke down here. My brother’s working on a ship sailing out of New Jersey and he got me a job.”
“Usually it’s not American boys working those ships.”
“I know. He’s a supervisor. He got me the job.” I tucked my teeth over my lip, all small-town sheepish. “I’m a little desperate. Ship’s coming in and leaving tomorrow and I’m stuck here, drinking coffee. I kept asking for rides earlier and I think I asked wrong. Everyone said no.” I let a shade of heartbreak show on my face.
“That’s tough.” He looked at the empty, ketchup-smeared plate like it was a painting.
“I know, sir. I wouldn’t ever ask but I need the job bad. If I can get to any Port terminal I can get a ride to my brother’s ship.”
“I’m not supposed to take on riders. You understand.”
“Sure, of course. But this wouldn’t be out of your way.” Then I went for the knife. “Like you said, wish they’d make shirts here. I’d have a job where I could stay on dry land. I got to take what I can get.” I had been careful to count out sparse change for the coffee in front of the waitress. I wanted to look like I was what I said I was the moment I walked into the truck stop. You have to play the role to the hilt. The waitress, listening since the crowd had slowed, put a bit more coffee in my cup without me asking.
The trucker set down his coffee cup. Thinking it over. Most people are decent and are inclined to help. “Well…”
“I could chip in some gas money.”
“What’s your name?”
“Sam. Sam Capra.” I had no fake ID; there was no point in lying. I did have a driver’s license and he asked to see it. I showed it to him.
“Capra like the film director?”
I laughed like I’d never heard the question before. “Sadly no relation. How much royalties could I get off It’s a Wonderful Life?”
“That’s a good movie,” he said, like I had confirmed a connection to the most famous Capra. “Says you live in New York: why are you up here?”
“I was looking to get a job in Albany. Didn’t get it.” Could I be more hard luck?
He studied the license some more, like it was a long book. He handed it back to me then downed the rest of his coffee.
“Then it’s a wonderful life, Sam Capra, you got a ride,” the trucker said, and he laughed at his own joke. So did I.
18
I was now part of the flux into the Port of New York and New Jersey, the river of goods going out into the wider world. I just wanted to be swept along by the current and hope I didn’t jam up in an eddy or a byway.
The denim delivery truck paperworked its way into one of the port’s terminals on Newark Bay, past the checkpoints and the inspection sheds, all at a steady clip. I thanked the trucker, slipped him his bribe (which we called gas money), and stepped out of the cab.
Ports are busy. People are intent on their work. From my Wal-Mart stop I was dressed in jeans and a denim shirt and work boots and a Yankees baseball cap. I carried not a knapsack but two duffel bags on which I’d marked FACILITIES along the side with a Sharpie pen. I could have come from a ship; I could have come from an office inside the port complex. I hoped I was invisible.
I watched containers being hauled off the docks and craned into the bowels of the ships and, when the holds were full, stacked along the flat decks. The loadings were as graceful as a dance. The trucks inched forward, were relieved of their burdens, then turned around and joined another line to be loaded again with goods from Europe and Africa or from American ports to the south: Charleston, Miami, New Orleans, Houston.
I walked past a line of cargo ships. There was an entry gate, with a guard. The line of fencing curved away as I walked out past a loading area and within a few hundred feet the guard shack lay out of sight.
I climbed the fence fast, dropped over the other side. No one yelled.
I walked, without haste, past towers of containers. I faced a choice. Pick a ship or pick a container. If I tried to board a ship and then hide, I was going to be dealing with people. Not good. It was taking a risk to enter a container; I might end up at the bottom of a shipment, unable to force open the door. I had tools inside my duffel with which I could cut open an air hole, but I preferred to pick my own coffin for the next ten days.
No one was paying any attention to me. But my chest felt tight. Anyone could stop me; anyone could challenge me. If I looked the least bit suspicious I would draw attention. Howell and his watchers knew by now that I had run; I could make no assumptions about how close they were on my tail.
“Hey!” a voice called.
A guy, twenty feet away, hurried toward me. I froze. He wore a shirt that indicated he worked for a shipping contractor. He carried an electronic handheld bar reader and he said, “Where’s the closest john, man? First day-and this place is too goddamned big.”
I jerked my head toward the nearest building and I hoped I was right.
“Thanks.” He took off.
If there wasn’t a bathroom there-would he remember me? I watched him walk off toward the building. I might have a lot less time to find what I needed than I thought. Yeah, I asked this guy, but he told me wrong. No I didn’t notice if he had an ID clip on…
I knew what kind of container I was looking for. The sides showed a stenciled shipping company ownership mark tied to an individual number. Containers were routinely bought and sold and bartered among the shippers; I could see on some of the containers that they had been restenciled, the shadows of old paint edging the new numbers.