Joe was tense, waiting to hear what she would say, whether she had understood the urgent message that he was striving to convey so indirectly.
After a brief hesitation, Barbara said, “I hope you find peace, Joe, I really do. It took a lot of guts for you to go out there, right to the impact site. And it takes guts to face the fact that there’s no one to blame in the end. As long as you’re stuck in the idea that there’s someone who’s guilty of something, someone who’s got to be brought to justice…well, then you’re full of vengeance, and you’re not healing.”
She understood.
Joe closed his eyes and tried to gather his unraveled nerves into a tight bundle again.
He said, “It’s just…we live in such weird times. It’s easy to believe in vast conspiracies.”
“Easier than facing hard truths. Your real argument isn’t with the pilots or the maintenance crew. It isn’t with the air-traffic controllers or with the people who built the airplane. Your real argument’s with God.”
“Which I can’t win,” he said, opening his eyes.
In front of the newsstand, the storyteller and the Dodgers fan finished their conversation. The storyteller departed.
“We’re not supposed to understand why,” Barbara said. “We just have to have faith that there’s a reason. If you can learn to accept that, then you really might find peace. You’re a very nice man, Joe. You don’t deserve to be in such torment. I’ll be praying for you.”
“Thanks, Barbara. Thanks for everything.”
“Good luck, Joe.”
He almost wished her good luck as well, but those two words might be a tip-off to whoever was listening.
Instead, he said, “Good-bye.”
Still hummingbird tense, he hung up.
Simply by going to Colorado and knocking on Barbara’s door, he had put her, her son, and her son’s entire family in terrible jeopardy — although he’d had no way of knowing this would be the consequence of his visit. Anything might happen to her now — or nothing — and Joe felt a chill of blame coil around his heart.
On the other hand, by going to Colorado, he had learned that Nina was miraculously alive. He was willing to take the moral responsibility for a hundred deaths in return for the mere hope of seeing her again.
He was aware of how monstrous it was to regard the life of his daughter as more precious than the lives of any hundred strangers — two hundred, a thousand. He didn’t care. He would kill to save her, if that was the extreme to which he was driven. Kill anyone who got in his way. Any number.
Wasn’t it the human dilemma to dream of being part of the larger community but, in the face of everlasting death, always to operate on personal and family imperatives? And he was, after all, too human.
Joe left the public telephones and followed the concourse toward the exit. As he reached the head of the escalators, he contrived to glance back.
The Dodgers fan followed at a discreet distance, well disguised by the ordinariness of his dress and demeanor. He wove himself into the crowd so skillfully that he was no more evident than any single thread in a coat of many colors.
Down the escalator and through the lower floor of the terminal, Joe did not look back again. Either the Dodgers fan would be there or he would have handed Joe over to another agent, as the storyteller had done.
Given their formidable resources, they would have a substantial contingent of operatives at the airport. He could never escape them here.
He had exactly an hour until he had to meet Demi, who he hoped would take him to Rose Tucker. If he didn’t make the rendezvous in time, he had no way to reestablish contact with the woman.
His wristwatch seemed to be ticking as loudly as a grandfather clock.
Tortured faces melted into the mutant forms of strange animals and nightmare landscapes in the Rorschach stains on the walls of the vast, drab concrete parking structure. Engine noise from cars in other aisles, on other levels, echoed like a Grendel grumble through these man-made caverns.
His Honda was where he’d left it.
Although most of the vehicles in the garage were cars, three vans — none white — an old Volkswagen minibus with curtained windows, and a pickup truck with a camper shell were parked near enough to him to serve as surveillance posts. He didn’t give any of them a second look.
He opened the car trunk, and using his body to block the view of any onlooker, he quickly checked the spare-tire well for the money. He had taken two thousand to Colorado, but he had left the bulk of his funds in the Honda. He was afraid the bank’s manila envelope with the brass clasp would be gone, but it was where he’d left it.
He slipped the envelope under the waistband of his jeans. He considered taking the small suitcase as well, but if he transferred it to the front seat, the people watching him would not be suckered by the little drama he had planned for them.
In the driver’s seat, he took the envelope out of his waistband, opened it, and tucked the packets of hundred-dollar bills in the various pockets of his corduroy jacket. He folded the empty envelope and put it in the console box.
When he backed out of the parking space and drove away, none of the suspect vehicles followed him immediately. They didn’t need to be quick. Hidden somewhere on the Honda, another transponder was sending the surveillance team a signal that made constant visual contact unnecessary.
He drove down three levels to the exit. Departing vehicles were lined up at the cashiers’ booths.
As he inched forward, he repeatedly checked his rearview mirror. Just as he reached the cashier, he saw the pickup with the camper shell pull into line six cars behind him.
Driving away from the airport, he held his speed slightly below the legal limit and made no effort to beat traffic lights as they turned yellow ahead of him. He didn’t want to put too much distance between himself and his pursuers.
Preferring surface streets rather than the freeways, he headed toward the west side of the city. Block by block through a seedy commercial district, he searched for a setup that would serve his purposes.
The summer day was warm and clear, and the sunshine was diffused in matching parabolic rainbow arcs across the dirty windshield. The soapy washer spray and the wipers cleared the glass somewhat but not sufficiently.
Squinting through the glare, Joe almost failed to give the used-car dealership due consideration. Gem Fittich Auto Sales. Sunday was a car-shopping day, and the lot was open, though perhaps not for long. Realizing that this was precisely what he needed, he pulled to the right-hand curb and stopped half a block past the place.