What were the choices? He could tie up Lindahl right now, or shoot him if the man wanted to make trouble, and leave here in the SUV. He’d have the car’s registration and the new driver’s license belonging to William G. Dodd, and if stopped he’d say his friend Tom Lindahl had loaned him the car.
But if he did do that, and it turned out at the same time that Thiemann was eating his rifle, Parker would be on the road in a hot car and not know it. Or he could wait the six hours, ignoring the Dennison brothers and trusting Jane Thiemann to keep her husband in line, and the disaster would find him sitting here in Lindahl’s living room with his feet up.
Another car. He needed a car he could safely drive, a car he could show up in at the roadblocks. A car with paperwork that wouldn’t arouse suspicion, no matter what was happening back here in this neighborhood.
After the Dennisons left, Parker said, “I’ll drive down to the corner, put some gas in the car.”
Sounding bitter, Lindahl said, “Using some of the money you stole from that boy?”
Parker looked at him. “You got that wrong, Tom,” he said. “I didn’t take anything from that boy. I took some cash from a company has nine hundred stores. I needed the cash. You know that.”
“You had that gun all along?”
“I’ll be right back,” Parker said, and turned to the door.
“No, wait.”
Parker looked back and could see that Lindahl was trying to adjust his thinking. He waited, and Lindahl nodded and said, “All right. I know who you are, I already knew who you were. I shouldn’t act as though it’s any of my business.”
“That’s right.”
“It’s hard,” Lindahl said. “It’s hard to be around . . .”
The sentence trailed off, but Parker understood. It’s hard to be around a carnivore. “It won’t be for long,” he said.
“No, I know. And I wanted to tell you,” Lindahl hurried on, obviously in a rush to change the subject, “you don’t want to go to that gas station on the corner. Go out to the right, eight miles, there’s a Getty station. A straight run there and back.”
“But this guy’s right here. He’s open on Sunday, I saw the sign.”
“You don’t want to go there,” Lindahl insisted. “He charges ten, fifteen cents more per gallon than anybody else.”
“How does he get away with that?”
“He doesn’t,” Lindahl said. “The only people that stop there are tourists or lost.”
“Then how does he make a living?”
“Social Security,” Lindahl said. “And he sells lottery tickets there, that’s mostly what people go to him for. A lot of people around here are nuts for the lottery. And he also does some repair work on cars.”
“I saw some cars there, I didn’t know if that meant he fixed them or sold them.”
“He fixes them, he’s a mechanic,” Lindahl said. “That’s what he mostly used to do, somewhere down in Pennsylvania. He worked for some big auto dealer down there. When he retired, he came up here and bought that station, because his wife’s family came from around here somewhere.”
“But why charge so much for gas?”
“Just crankiness,” Lindahl said. “He’s a loner, he likes working on engines and things, listening to the radio in his station.”
“Is he a good mechanic?”
“Oh, yeah.” Lindahl nodded, emphatic with it. “He’ll do a good job on your car, and he won’t cheat you, he’s fair about that. That part he takes pride in. I’ve taken my own car to him, and he’s been fine. What it is, he’ll fix your car, but he doesn’t want to talk to you. I think he likes cars more than people.”
“What’s his name?”
“Brian Hopwood. But you don’t want to go there.”
“No, I’ll stay away from him,” Parker said. “I don’t need somebody cranky, that overcharges. The Getty station, you say, eight miles that way.”
“That’s what you want,” Lindahl agreed.
10
The Dennisons’ red Ram pickup was nowhere in sight as Parker drove a mile out of town, U-turned back past Lindahl’s place tucked back in behind the boarded-up house, and stopped at the gas station, which was brightly lit in the daytime like most such places, but still had an air of emptiness about it.
There was one set of pumps, with service on both sides. Behind them was a broad low white clapboard building that was mostly overhead garage doors except for a small office at the right end with fuel additive posters obscuring the plate-glass window and the smaller panes of glass in the door. To the right of the building, along the rear line of the blacktop, were parked half a dozen older cars, all with license plates attached, so they were here for service, not for sale.
Parker got out of the Ford and read the hand-printed notice taped to each pump: PAY INSIDE FIRST. Taking out two of The Rad’s twenties, he walked over to the office, where another hand-printed sign beside the door gave the hours of operation, including SUN 10-4.
He opened the door and heard the jangle of a warning bell, which was followed by classical music, something loud with a lot of strings that the bell had obscured for just an instant. Parker had expected a different kind of music, given Lindahl’s description of Brian Hopwood, but that was the reason he’d come here, to understand the man and the operation.
The office was small and dark and crowded, as though brushed with a thin coating of oil. The desk was dark metal, covered with specs and repair books and appointment schedules and an old black telephone. A dark wood swivel chair behind it was very low, with the seat and back draped in a variety of cloth: old blankets, quilts, a couple of tan chamois cloths. On the back wall, a wooden shelf held an old cash register, next to a key rack with several sets of keys on it, each of them with a cardboard tag attached.
On the left wall of the office was an open doorway to the service area, through which a man now came, frowning as though he hadn’t expected to be interrupted. He was short and scrawny and any age above Social Security eligibility. He wore what looked like army issue eyeglasses with the thin metal wings bent into dips and rises, and grease-covered work clothes. Wiping his hands on a small towel looped through his belt, he said, “Afternoon.”
“Afternoon.” Extending the twenties, Parker said, “I’m not sure it’ll take that much. If not, I’ll come back for change.”
It was clear that Hopwood wasn’t happy about that; two exchanges with a customer over one transaction. Still, he took the twenties, put them on the shelf in front of the cash register, and said, “Which pump you at?”
Parker peered through the poster-blocked window: “Three.”
Hopwood bent behind the desk to set that pump and said, “I’ll ring it up when you’re done.”
“Fine.”
Hopwood was already on his way back to his work in the service area before Parker left the office. The man was without curiosity and would not be watching what Parker did, so he went first to the cars parked along the rear of the station blacktop. All were locked, their keys certainly on that rack in the office. A couple of them had personal items showing inside: a thermos, a blanket.
The law wanted people to keep their automobile registrations in their wallet or purse, but, in fact, most people leave it in the glove compartment with the insurance card, so at least some of these would be ready to go. If he needed one.
Parker went back to the Ford and pumped thirty-eight dollars and fifty cents’ worth of gas. The car would have taken more than that, particularly with the high price Hopwood charged, but he wanted that second encounter.
Back in the office, Hopwood came from his work in response to the bell, and Parker said, “Sorry, that’s all it took.”
“Not a problem.” Hopwood bent to see what the charge had come to.