“That was fast,” the voice said. A rough voice that I knew I’d heard before. “Good boy. Now write this down because I’m only gonna say it once. We need you to get yourself to Cleveland. We’ll be down there on Friday morning, bright and early, like around eight o’clock. So you’ve got what, two and a half days from now to get there. Here’s the address…”
I wrote down the number and the street name.
“It’s a bar. Restaurant, whatever. Just go on inside and hang out until we get there. Oh, and one more little detail. Things are kinda hot right now, so do not fly there. You got that? Do not get on a fucking airplane. Are we crystal clear?”
He actually seemed to be waiting for me to say something.
“Can you press a goddamned button or something to let me know you’re there? Once for yes, twice for no, how’s that?”
I pressed one of the buttons. One time.
“There you go. We figured out how to communicate. So I’ll see you in Ohio. Getting there won’t be any more fun for me than you, believe me. So don’t bitch at me about it.”
He hung up. I looked at the address on the pad. I tore it off, put it in my pocket, and started writing on the next page.
I need to go. Back in a few days.
I put the pad on the table. As soon as somebody came back here looking for me, I knew they’d find it.
I did a quick packing job. Then I hit the road.
____________________
Ohio was over two thousand miles away. A hell of a trip, but I didn’t figure I had much choice. I hit Las Vegas by the time the sun was going down. I was just past St. George, Utah, when I stopped for the night. I checked into a little motel, paid cash for a room, and fell asleep on the bed with my clothes still on.
The sun was hot on my face when I finally woke up. Galaxies of dust floating in that one ray of light that shone through the gap in the curtains. I got up, grabbed some breakfast, and hit the road again.
I made it through Utah that day, then through Colorado. I could feel my hands going numb. The road was dead straight by the time I hit Nebraska. I kept the bike between the lines and just rode and rode. This is a test, I thought. It’s impossible to do this, but they want me to do it anyway.
I stopped at another motel outside of Grand Island. It was hard to walk when I got off the bike that night. I paid for the room, took a shower, and tried to sleep. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t close my eyes. I sat up, turned on the light, and started drawing. I had all of my stuff with me, of course. I couldn’t imagine going anywhere without it. So I drew myself sitting there in the bed, in that little motel room so close to the road I could feel the walls shake every time a truck went by. Another chapter in my ongoing story for Amelia. Michael on his way to Ohio to do God knows what.
In the morning, as I was packing up again, I heard the blue pager go off. The guys from New York? Did they somehow know I was already halfway there? Thinking maybe I could swing by and do a second job on the same trip?
I picked up the phone right there in the motel room and dialed the number. It didn’t even finish the first ring before the man on the other end picked up and started talking.
“Michael, you have to listen to me.”
It was Banks. First yellow, then green. Now he had the blue pager number.
“Time is running out, my friend. You need to face reality. We’re almost past the point where I’m going to be able to help you.”
I looked out the window. I had a sudden feeling that I was being watched, at that very moment, right here in the middle of Nebraska. That the door would come busting down and a dozen men would jump into the room and yell at me to lie down on the floor with my hands behind my head.
“This might be your last chance. Are you listening to me?”
But no, he wouldn’t call me first. If he knew where I was, he’d just come get me. He wouldn’t bother with the phone call.
“Michael. Don’t hang up. Okay? Just stay with me here. I want to help you.”
They can trace this. I’m sitting here in a motel room and they can trace this call.
I hung up the phone and got out of there.
I hit some heavy traffic around Chicago. Then I lost another hour in the time zone change. It was after midnight when I finally got to Cleveland. I stayed at my third motel in a row, this one by the airport. I stared at the ceiling for a long time, wondering what the next day would bring.
When the morning came, I got myself together and rode over to the address I’d been given. It wasn’t eight o’clock yet, but I could see the long black sedan in the parking lot. The same car I’d seen before, back in Michigan.
I parked the bike next to it and was about to go inside. That’s when Sleepy Eyes came out the door.
“Welcome to the mistake by the fucking lake,” he said. “What took you so long?”
I pointed at my watch.
“Yeah, yeah. Save it. Let’s go.”
He went back inside and got the other two men.
“The kid is here,” the first man said, looking me up and down. “In the flesh.” He wasn’t actually wearing a fishing hat today, but he’d always be Fishing Hat to me.
“How was the trip?” the second man said. Tall Mustache. It had been a year since I had last seen these guys. They didn’t look any different at all. Which wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
Sleepy Eyes opened up one of the back doors for me. As he did that, the other two men got in front. Sleepy Eyes shook his head and muttered darkly to himself. I could see that the wonderful team chemistry in this crew hadn’t changed, either.
The morning sun was in our eyes as we drove down the expressway. So we were going east. Through Cuyahoga Heights, Garfield Heights, Maple Heights. A lot of Heights out here in the suburbs of Cleveland. It was a warm pale blue morning in the Midwest, like the days I knew when I lived in Michigan. I didn’t want to be here. Not like this.
“So let me ask you something,” Sleepy Eyes said, tapping my arm.
I turned to look at him.
“Do you know how far we had to drive down here, from Detroit?”
“Oh God,” Tall Mustache said. “Here we go.”
“I know you just rode across the whole fucking country, but hell, you were on a bike. That’s different.”
“Just knock it off,” Tall Mustache said.
“So here’s my question,” Sleepy Eyes said, ignoring the other man. “How come it’s always me who has to sit in the fucking backseat? Can you answer that for me, please?”
“You can’t drive,” Tall Mustache said, “because you lost your license, remember? And it wouldn’t make any fucking sense for you to sit here in the front, because you’re like a foot shorter than me.”
“A foot is twelve inches. I am not twelve inches shorter than you.”
“My legs are a lot longer than yours, is what I’m saying. That’s why you’re in the back.”
“Will you two knock it off!” Fishing Hat said. “Do you always have to do this?”
“On the way back,” Sleepy Eyes said, “it’s me and the kid in front. Whaddya say? Then when we drop him off, it’ll just be me by myself.”
“I’d say you’d have to kill both of us first,” Tall Mustache said.
“One more word,” Fishing Hat said, “I’ll turn this car right around and take you kids straight back home.”
That got Tall Mustache laughing.
“Yeah, that’s funny,” Sleepy Eyes said. “I’m dying of laughter back here.”
Nobody said anything for a while. I thought about the three hours it would take to get to Detroit from here. I hadn’t been back to Michigan yet. I couldn’t help but wonder what Amelia was doing at that very moment.
“I always get the shit end of the stick,” Sleepy Eyes said to me. “Any time there’s an unpleasant job to do? Somebody’s garbage taken out? Something hot and boring and dangerous? Who do you think does it?”