But it didn’t happen. Because I think the truth is, in a funny way, we didn’t stand out at all, Jane and I. She with her grimy face and her big overcoat and her skin sores, and me with my bleary eyes and my two days’ growth of beard: we just looked like two crazy homeless people, wandering the streets with our bags. Instead of staring at us, people looked away from us on purpose. So they wouldn’t have to pay attention to us, you know, or think about us or stop and give us money. In a funny way, we were invisible.
All the same, I was glad when we reached the supermarket. Whether it made sense or not, it felt safer, somehow, to be inside, off the street. The can-return machines were right near the glass doors. They were two big blue boxes with big round holes in the center of them and digital readouts off to the side. We set our bags down next to them and began reaching in and bringing out the cans, stuffing them into the holes in the machines. We could see the amounts of the deposits mounting up dime by dime on the readouts.
I kept looking over my shoulder, afraid someone would recognize me. But the store was pretty empty, and anyway, like I said, we were just two homeless people bringing in our cans. No one paid us any mind.
Finally, we were done. The digital readout on my machine was $9.50-nearly a hundred cans. Jane beat me, bringing in $12.70. We pressed the buttons marked End, and each machine spit out a receipt. I waited while Jane took the receipts over to the cash register. The lady there paid her the $22.20. Jane took it in her fist and stuffed it down deep into the pocket of her overcoat.
Then she came back to where I was waiting at the machines. She took my arm, murmuring to herself. Murmuring to herself some more, she started walking with her quick steps. I let her take me back out onto the street.
She didn’t stop there. She went on walking and talking.
“They shouldn’t have tried it. They shouldn’t have tried their mind control on Jane. Now Jane knows. Jane is ready for them.”
I went along with her, wondering where we were headed. About ten minutes later, I found out.
We came to a busy corner closer to the center of town. There was a food market there and an old, rundown hotel. People were rushing by us on every side, even jostling us sometimes, but none of them paid us any attention. I looked around, trying to figure out why we had stopped. Then I saw the bus station.
It was right across the street, a one-story building with large plate-glass windows. It was set near a parking lot, and the lot was full of buses. I knew there would be one there that would take me back to Centerville. I had a strange feeling in my stomach, sort of like the one you get when an elevator drops too fast.
I turned and looked down at Jane. She was peering up at me with that big round face and those big round eyes of hers. She let go of my elbow and took hold of my wrist. She lifted my hand and brought her fist out of her pocket. She was clutching the twenty-two dollars we’d gotten for our cans. She put the money into my hand.
“No, wait,” I said. “Jane. You can’t give me all of it. You’ve got to keep some for yourself, for food and stuff. We both found the cans. We should split the money so you can get something to eat.”
But all the while I was talking, she was going on in that dreamy murmur: “No, no, no, no, no, no, no.” Pressing the money against my palm, forcing my fingers closed around it.
When she looked up at me again, my eyes went over her-over her filthy, matted dreadlocks and over the patches of dirt on her skin and over the broken sores where red showed through and finally back to those wide, strangely innocent eyes.
“Jane… ” I said.
“Take the money, Charlie,” she said to me. “Take the bus. Stop them. Stop Orton.”
“But Jane, listen…”
Her long, serious mouth curved upward at one side in a faint hint of a smile. “Don’t you worry. They can’t get Jane… they try and try, but Jane knows. Electricity is the secret. Mind control.”
“You have to have money, though…”
“Jane is ready for them. Jane goes on.” She forced my fist back toward me with the money held tight inside. “Charlie isn’t one of them. Charlie stopped the knifeman.”
I nodded. “That’s right.”
“Charlie’s my friend.”
“That’s right,” I told her. “I’m your friend, Jane.”
She pressed her lips together. Her big eyes filled up with tears. “Take the bus. Stop Orton, Charlie.” She gave my fist a final pat and let it go and said, “Think about Jane.”
“I will,” I told her. “I will.”
She turned and started to walk away from me with her quick, clipped steps. For another moment or two, I could hear her murmuring, “Charlie will stop Orton. Charlie stopped the knife-man. Charlie is my friend. Jane knows.”
Then, as I stood there watching, she disappeared into the hurrying crowd.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Beth My mom called me and I woke up, my face pressed deep into the soft pillow. Her voice came again, drifting to me from the bottom of the stairs. I was so tired I didn’t want to get up. It was so sweet here, so comfortable and warm under the covers of my bed. But my mom kept calling, and I was desperate to go to her. I wanted so much to see her face again, to hear her voice saying, “Don’t get too close to the hot stove. You’ll burn yourself.” I wanted to see my father reading his newspaper at the breakfast table. I even wanted to hear my sister, Amy, screaming in wild panic over the fact that her new jeans had been left in the washing machine overnight. I’d been away from them all such a long time.
As my mother called to me again, I became afraid- afraid that she would lose her patience and stop waiting for me. I became worried that when I got out of bed and went to the top of the stairs, she would be gone and my father would be gone and Amy, too, and the house would be empty and I would be alone.
It was that fear that woke me up-that fear and the voice of the bus driver coming over the loudspeaker to announce that we had reached Cale’s Station, ten miles south of Centerville.
I sat up and looked around. My heart sank as I realized that my mother’s voice, my soft pillow, my warm bed-it had all been a dream, just a dream. I was alone again, on the run, here in the cramped seat of this bus heading toward an appointment with an assassin.
The bus came to a stop, and the hydraulics hissed as the door came open. Two or three of the other passengers got up and shuffled down the aisle toward the exit. I slid out of my seat and shuffled after them.
This was my stop, Cale’s Station, a small village surrounded by forested hills. I had bought a ticket all the way to Centerville. It had cost me eighteen dollars. With some of the bills I had left, I had bought myself a detailed map of the area. Reading the map on the bus, I had noticed something. If I went the full distance into Centerville, it would be almost impossible for me to get to Indian Canyon Bridge, where I thought Richard Yarrow was going to be murdered. With Highway 153 blocked off for security reasons, there was no other passage to the spot. But the bus traveled on the interstate, which ran almost parallel to 153, separated from it only by the woods. Cale’s Station was directly opposite the bridge. If I could get over the hill, I could come down the far side and maybe put myself in the way of Yarrow’s motorcade and stop it before it reached the bridge. That would at least be dramatic enough to put the Secret Service on alert. Then, if I could point them to Orton, maybe I could convince them to question him. Or something like that.
It wasn’t much of a plan, I guess. Even if it worked, there would be one big drawback to it. Maybe I could stop the motorcade, maybe I could convince the Secret Service that Yarrow was in danger, maybe I could even save the secretary’s life-but the police were sure to arrest me. I would be taken back to prison for good. I figured it was possible that my actions in saving Yarrow would be taken into consideration. I had a daydream that the president came to see me and said, Well, Charlie, my boy, I don’t know what all this fuss is about you murdering Alex Hauser, but to thank you for your service, I’m giving you a full pardon.