“The brown Mercedes,” Colley says.
The kid frowns, looks at him as if he’s wondering if this is the same guy who drove up in the brown Mercedes. But Colley stares him down, and the kid turns and runs to where the Mercedes is parked right at the head of the driveway. By the time Colley reaches the big brick pillars flanking the drive, the kid has the car started and is standing outside it, holding the door open on the driver’s side. The kid still looks puzzled. He is probably certain now that Colley isn’t the man who drove up in this car, and he is probably also beginning to wonder if Colley is the man who was earlier wearing the white slacks and the polyester shirt. But Colley hands the kid a buck, and the kid says, “Thank you, sir,” and smiles, and keeps holding the door open until Colley is inside and fastening the seat belt. He closes the door then and stands back a few feet, watching Colley as he eases the car out into the road.
The car smells of real leather. It is a rich smell, he luxuriates in it. He has not driven a car since he got out of prison. He began breaking parole a month and four days after his release from Sing Sing, but the one thing he has not done in that time is drive an automobile because he does not want to get stopped by a cop on a traffic violation and be unable to show him a driver’s license. The car he is driving now is a 280SL, a ’63 or a ’64, he’s not sure which, but a discontinued model either way. Probably cost eight or nine thousand dollars new, bucket seats in beige leather, stick shift on the floor, AM/FM radio — he turns on the radio now, stabbing at one of the buttons and getting a rock station, and then pushing in another button and getting a station playing an opera. He remembers his grandfather going to the opera in Brooklyn all the time. The car has a convertible top, he is tempted to lower the top and drive along with the wind in his crew cut and the sounds of the opera flooding the countryside. It is a beautiful countryside he drives through. He forgets for the moment that he is running from the law. He feels instead that he is out for a late-afternoon drive. He looks at his watch, sees that it is still four o’clock, and remembers that it’s stopped. The dashboard clock reads 6:10.
In a little while it will be dark.
He desperately needs a gun.
Before this he has used guns only aggressively, to force people into doing things he wanted them to do, to force people into giving him things he wanted from them. Now, at 7:48 p.m. on the dashboard clock, he wants a gun only for defense. He is afraid that something terrible is going to happen to him if he does not get his hands on a gun soon. He knows that there are probably two very angry people back there at the pool party, the one whose clothes he stole and the one whose car he stole — unless they are one and the same person. He knows the police have undoubtedly been called by now, and he knows they are probably looking for the stolen car this very minute, but he is reluctant to get rid of it until he has a gun.
All that remains of the afternoon sun is a thin line of vibrant purple behind the silhouetted hills. As he drives northward and eastward, the sky and the hills blend into one. There is a moon, a slender silver slice hanging against the blackness. His headlights have meaning now, they pierce the darkness ahead, picking out shops, and roadside stands, and gasoline stations, all of them closed — this is Sunday. He glances at the fuel gauge. The tank is a quarter full. In the glare of the headlights he sees a phone booth on the side of the road, and he pulls in alongside it, and then steps out of the car and walks quickly to the license plate at the rear. The plate is a Jersey plate, pale yellow and black, the police undoubtedly have the number. There is a clean pressed handkerchief in the hip pocket of the slacks he stole, and he takes that out now and tents it over his hand and gingerly unscrews the bulb illuminating the license plate. He throws the bulb aside, and then steps into the phone booth.
If this was New York City, there’d be no telephone directory in the booth. Also, the phone wouldn’t be working. Also, somebody would have pissed on the floor. But this is Jersey, and when he closes the door of the booth the light comes on, and there’s a directory on the end of a chain and the booth is clean and he figures if he wanted to make a phone call, he would stand a very good chance here in this booth. In New York City the odds are thirty-to-one you will never get to make a phone call from a public booth. It is nice of the police to have a special number to call when you want to report a crime. Trouble is, you go into a booth the phone is always out of order. Colley sometimes thinks there is a bunch of guys just like himself running all over New York City fucking up the phones. So if later they’re committing a robbery or a burglary or mugging an old lady in the street, nobody can pick up the phone and dial 911.
He opens the directory to the yellow pages at the back of the book. There are two pages with the heading GUNS at the top. One of them reads GRAVEL-GUNS and the other one reads GUNS-HAIR. The listings start near the bottom of the first page, under the heading GUNS & GUNSMITHS. There are four listings on that page, and six on the following page. Colley rips both pages out of the phone book. Then he puts a dime in the slot and dials the operator. When she comes on he tells her he is on the highway someplace, and doesn’t know exactly where he is, and could she please give him the location of this phone booth, what town it’s in. She tells him where he is, and he thanks her and hangs up, and then goes to sit in the car with the interior light on, to study the ten listings for GUNS & GUNSMITHS.
There is only one listing for this town. A place called Richard’s Gun Rack, Inc. The address is 76 Rock Ledge Road. He snaps off the overhead light, puts the car in gear, and begins driving north again. Probably going in the wrong direction, Rock Ledge is probably someplace behind him. He passes two closed gas stations, an Exxon and a Mobil. He passes a closed diner, looks just like the one he held up this afternoon, except it doesn’t have those big aluminum poles out front with the open 24 hours sign. Finally, he comes to a shopping center with everything closed in it but a tavern.
The juke box is playing a country-western song when Colley walks in. He takes a stool at the bar and waits for the bartender to discover him. At the other end of the bar, there is a man wearing a pinkie ring that sparkles even in a place as dim as this. A girl wearing a black dress is sitting on the stool next to him. She almost fades into the background except for her frizzy blond hair. The bartender nods at something the girl says, and then comes over to Colley.
“I’m looking for Rock Ledge Road,” Colley says.
The bartender nods. “Keep going north till you come to the third stop light,” he says. “That’s Main, goes straight through the middle of town. You make a right, you’ll go two more stop lights, and then you’ll make another right, that’s...”
“What are you telling him, Lou?” the guy with the pinkie ring says.
“He wants Rock Ledge. I’m sending him down Main.”
“He’s better off taking Lakeview.”
“Too complicated.”
“Shorter, though.”
“You go the way I’m telling you,” the bartender says to Colley. “Third stop light, you make a right, then you go two more lights and make another right. That’s Pointer Street. You go four blocks on Pointer, that’s Rock Ledge. What number did you want?”
Colley hesitates, and then lies. “One-oh-four,” he says.
“You’ll have to make a left, I think. Where’s one-oh-four Rock Ledge, Andy?”
“Down around Osborne, I think,” the guy with the pinkie ring says.