Just the same, he took the ticket and left the station quickly, feeling her eyes on his back all the way to the door. There was a bar across the street, the Cocktail Hour. He figured he'd wait for the bus in there. That way, if the police patrols came by the station, he'd be able to see them through the bar's big window.
The Cocktail Hour was small and dark. There was room for a bar and two tables and a video game and that was pretty much it. There was a fat guy playing the video game and two other fat guys sitting together at the bar, talking. There was rock music playing.
Shannon sat on the side of the bar where he could look out the window and keep an eye on the bus station. The bartender came over to him there. She was a woman in her forties. She was pleasantly slender in her black skirt and white blouse. Her face was showing some wear on it, but it was a friendly face. Shannon asked her for a Miller draft.
There was a TV behind the bar. It was hung up high, a rectangle of colored light and motion against the wall's dark wood paneling. The TV's sound was off because of the rock music, but the captions were turned on so you could read what people were saying.
That's how Shannon found out what had happened.
The bartender set his beer in front of him and turned away. Wiping her hands on a towel, she looked up at the TV, her profile to him. Shannon drank. He watched the TV, too. The local news was just coming on. Shannon had his glass at his lips when his own face appeared on the screen.
He nearly choked on his beer. The picture was a mug shot from five years ago, but it was a good enough likeness. Shannon's eyes shifted quickly. He saw the bartender draw a deep breath. He saw her body stiffen. She was careful not to look at him, but he could tell she had recognized him from the picture.
But that wasn't the worst of it, not by half. The words spelling themselves out under his mug shot told what the newswoman was saying: Local and state police have launched a massive manhunt for John Shannon, a suspect in the Hernandez killings.
Shannon stared, his lips parted. The Hernandez killings? What the fuck?
A detective was speaking on the screen now. His words spelled themselves out beneath him. Benjamin Torrance was arrested earlier this evening during a robbery of the Whittaker Charitable Foundation, he said. Under questioning, Torrance confessed to the home invasion two months ago in which a family of four were brutally slaughtered. Torrance implicated Shannon as his accomplice in that crime.
Shannon felt the room telescope to nothing around him. He felt suddenly spotlit, white bright, as if everyone must notice him, must see that he was a wanted man. The Hernandez killings. The cops had Benny on the Hernandez killings and in a fury, for revenge, Benny had told them Shannon was in on them. He'd given Shannon up for slaughtering an entire family.
Shannon's wide, suffering eyes returned to the bartender. She was still trying not to look at him, but he knew she would. How could she help herself? He waited for it and when, in fact, she stole a glance his way, he shook his head at her back and forth: I didn't do it. Terrified, the bartender quickly looked away at the TV again.
At that moment-as if his luck was collapsing stone after quickening stone, gathering into an avalanche of bad news coming down on top of him-at that moment, a red light caught his eye, and he turned to see two police cruisers pulling up at the curb in front of the Greyhound station.
The rock music in the bar went on playing. The fat guy went on playing the video game, the screen flashing with make-believe explosions. The two other fat guys went on talking, eating peanuts from a bowl and ignoring the TV.
Two cops got out of one of the cruisers across the street. They went into the bus station. Two other cops got out of the other cruiser and just stood there, scanning the area, their eyes passing right over the place where Shannon was sitting.
Shannon turned back to the bartender. She was still staring up at the TV, trying to pretend she hadn't recognized him. Shannon, nauseous, dying inside, followed her gaze.
There on the screen now was the girl, the girl from the job, the one that Benny had molested. Shannon read what she was saying as the words spelled themselves out under her.
It doesn't make sense to me. He could have let this man rape me. He could have taken the money, but he helped me instead. I don't think he could be a killer. It just doesn't make sense. The police must've made a mistake.
When she read that, the bartender couldn't help but glance at him again.
Shannon poured his thoughts into his suffering eyes: Please, sister, believe her. I didn't do it. I'm not that guy.
This time, the bartender did not pretend to look away. She looked over her shoulder at the window. Shannon looked, too. The two cops in the Greyhound station were talking to the ticket lady. She was lifting an unsteady hand to point at the bar across the street-at him. She must've seen him come in here.
Shannon and the bartender looked at one another. He poured his thoughts into his eyes, begging her to help him. He didn't dare speak out loud. He knew if one of the men in the bar realized what was happening, he would be done for. The men would turn him in. They would figure he was probably guilty anyway and if he wasn't, then let the law work it out. But a woman-a woman might go with her instincts. A woman might feel some sisterhood with the girl on TV. She might feel the romance of reaching out to him in his most desperate hour. A man would do the smart thing, the right thing, but a woman might help him. He begged her to help him with his eyes.
Outside, the two cops were pushing back into the night through the door of the bus station. One of them was talking into his shoulder mike, calling for backup. They joined the other two cops standing by the cruiser. Then all four cops began to cross the street toward the bar-although they had to wait a moment as a truck rumbled past.
Shannon turned to the bartender once again and now she was standing right in front of him. She put her small fist on the bar between them and when she withdrew it, there was a keychain lying there with about twenty keys on it. Shannon put his own hand over the keys, then lifted his eyes to her. She made the slightest gesture with her head. He followed it and saw there was a door in the wall behind her.
It was the second time that night a woman had helped him get away from the cops. He felt a passion of gratitude to her and to her entire sex, fools that they were for a man in trouble, fools that they had been for him all his life, he didn't know why. This, too, he expressed through his eyes when he looked up at her for the last time.
But now, the four cops were coming fast across the street, their expressions alert, their hands on their holsters. Shannon closed his fingers around the bartender's keychain. He stood off his barstool and, as he did, the bartender lifted the flap in the bar to let him pass through. With a final glance over his shoulder, he saw the four oncoming cops reach the sidewalk just outside the Cocktail Hour. Then he pushed through the door behind the bar.
He came into a narrow, crowded pantry. A long table filled the center of it. Shelves and boxes lined the walls. Shannon had to squeeze between the table and the boxes to get to the heavy metal door at the far end. The door was locked with a deadbolt. Shannon started flipping through the keys on the bartender's keychain, searching for the right one. He could hear the rock music playing in the bar, but he couldn't hear whether the police had come in yet. He thought they must have. And he thought the fat guys at the bar must've noticed him leaving. There wasn't a lot of time before the cops pushed into the pantry behind him. He fumbled hurriedly through the keys.
There it was: the key he wanted. Quickly, he had the heavy door unlocked. He left the keys dangling there and pulled the door open.