“Hurry,” the woman said. “Our presence has been noted.”
“Where are we going?” Jenny repeated.
“Someplace safe.”
“I want to go home. That’s someplace safe.”
The woman shook her head. “No, sweetheart. Not anymore it isn’t.”
But Jenny was no longer in a believing mood. The distrust and paranoia that surrounded these people had infected her. “Is Thomas all right?”
“He’s fine for now.”
“That’s it? For now? I’ve had enough of your half answers. Who are you? What do you want with me? Who’s chasing Thomas?”
The woman rushed forward and grabbed Jenny’s arm. “I said let’s go,” she whispered as her nails dug into Jenny’s skin. “That means now. We’re friends. That’s all you have to know.”
A different car was waiting at the curb. Jenny slid into the backseat, along with the woman and the man who had taken her from school. The car pulled out before the door was shut. They’d driven a hundred yards before the driver yelled at everyone to get down. Two sedans approached, traveling at high speed. She could make out a pair of heads silhouetted in each. Jenny pressed her face into the woman’s lap. A moment later, she felt their car buffet as the sedans raced past. “Was that them?”
“Yes,” said the woman.
“Who are they?”
“I believe you met them last night.”
“How do you know…” Jenny didn’t know how to finish her sentence. How did they know about last night? Or how did they know it was the same people?
The woman laughed, and the laugh traveled round the car, pulling everyone in. “I’ve had a little practice in this matter,” she said afterward.
The driver turned his head and looked at the woman. “Jesus, Bobby, that was close.”
“Yes,” said Bobby Stillman. “They’re getting better.”
26
“Do you have another card, sir?” asked the salesclerk.
“Excuse me?” Bolden stood at the counter, slipping his belt through the last loop of a new pair of blue jeans and notching it around the waist. His soiled clothes had been folded and slipped into a bag for him to carry out. Besides the jeans, he wore a dark flannel shirt, a hip-length work jacket, and a pair of ankle-high Timberlands. Everything was new, down to his socks, underwear, and T-shirt.
“The card has been refused.”
“You’re sure? It’s probably a mistake. Can you run it again?”
“I’ve run it three times already,” said the clerk, a punk-cum-lately with spiked hair, a bad complexion, and a dress shirt three sizes too big around the neck. “I’m supposed to confiscate it, but I don’t want any hassle. Here, take it back. Don’t you have a Visa or MasterCard?”
Bolden handed over his MasterCard. There was no reason for his credit card to be turned down. He paid his bills on time and in full. He’d never been one to live beyond his means. When his colleagues talked matter-of-factly about their new Porsche Turbo, or their second home in Telluride, or the superiority of a seven-thousand-dollar made-to-order Kiton suit, he felt strangely out of place. He didn’t think there was anything wrong with buying nice things, he just didn’t know how to spend money like that. The Cartier watch he’d given to Jenny was the single most expensive item he’d ever bought.
“Declined,” said the clerk from the end of the counter. “I’ll have to contact the manager. You can talk to him about it if you want.”
“Forget it,” said Bolden. “I’ll just pay cash.” He thumbed his billfold. A fiver and a few ones looked up at him. He glanced at the pimply clerk with his oversized collar and thought that it made perfect sense. They can stake out a team to kidnap you off a busy street in the middle of the city. They can fabricate e-mails. They can beat a woman’s face to a pulp and convince her to tell the police that you did it. Of course they can hijack your credit. “Doesn’t look like this is going to work. Let me go change out of this stuff.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said the clerk, putting down the phone. “Happens all the time. Just leave the clothes on the chair in the dressing room.”
Bolden picked up the bag holding his dirty suit and cut through the pants section. He couldn’t go back out on the street in his old clothes. They were filthy, and called attention to him from fifty feet away. He looked one night away from being a bum. The two dressing rooms sat side by side down a corridor to his left. A few customers browsed here and there, but otherwise, the store was deserted. Bolden stopped and pretended to look into his bag, as if making sure everything was there. The emergency exit was dead ahead, past the shirts and shoes and the manager’s office. In a mirror, he saw the clerk come out from behind the counter and make his way slowly toward him.
Just then, a bearded, heavyset man emerged from the office, a few feet away from Bolden. He held a clipboard in one hand and was talking into a cell phone with the other.
“Hey,” Bolden called to him. “You the manager?”
“Hold on a sec,” the man said into the phone. Putting a smile on his face, he lumbered over. “Yes sir, how can I help?”
Bolden nodded his head toward the clerk. “Your cashier’s got some mouth on him,” he said angrily. “You should have a word with him.”
“Jake? Really? I’m sorry to hear that. What exactly did he-”
“Here, take these.” Bolden pushed the bag of soiled clothes into his arms.
As the manager fumbled with the bag, Bolden walked past him.
“Hey!” the clerk shouted. “That guy hasn’t paid. Don’t let him go.”
“But I got the clothes,” replied the manager, holding up the bag.
The path to the exit was clear. Bolden took off down the aisle.
The clerk ran after him. “Hey, man. Get back here. He hasn’t paid. Stop!”
Bolden hit the door at a run. It flew open, and rebounded against the wall with a loud crack. The alley was empty, a Dumpster to the right, piles of cut-down cardboard boxes to the left. Instead of running, he stopped short and pressed his back to the wall beside the door. The clerk emerged a moment later. Bolden grabbed him by the shoulders and flung him against the wall. “Do not follow me,” he said. “I’ll be back. I will pay for this shit, okay?”
“Yeah, man, sure. Whatever you say.”
Bolden smiled grimly, then slugged him in the stomach. The clerk doubled over and fell to the ground. “Sorry, man, but I can’t trust you.”
There was a banking center a few blocks up. Bolden chose “English” as the language he’d like to do business in, then entered his PIN: 6275. Jenny’s birthday. When the ATM chirped, and the main menu appeared, he sagged with relief. He selected “Cash,” then keyed in a thousand dollars. A second later, the screen informed him that the amount requested was too high. He typed in five hundred instead.
Waiting, he stared at his new boots. You could trace a man’s life by his shoes, he thought, remembering his PF Flyers, Keds, and Converse high-tops. As a teenager, he would have killed for a pair of Air Jordans, but priced at seventy-five bucks, they were beyond reach. Beyond dreaming even. In college, his first check from work-study had gone to buy a pair of Bass Weejuns. Oxblood with tassels. Shift managers at Butler Hall were required to wear dress shoes. Sixty-six bucks so he could look nice shoveling tuna casserole and potatoes au gratin onto a plate. Every Sunday night, he’d spread the front page of the Sunday Times on the floor, gather his toothbrush, Kiwi polish, chamois, and rag, and spend an hour polishing them. Sixty-six bucks was sixty-six bucks. The shoes lasted him through three years of college. He still refused to pay more than two hundred dollars for a pair of shoes.