A String of Beads (9 page)

Jimmy felt for his wallet, and confirmed that it was still there. The movement seemed
to bring him more awareness. “I feel awful.” He sat up.

“Take it slow. Just sit for a few minutes.” She wanted to say exactly the opposite,
but moving too soon might be a mistake.

Jimmy stood up and leaned against the wall of the building on that side of the alley.
Now that he was standing, he saw the pavement, the two-by-four, the wall on the opposite
side. “Lots of blood.” He looked down the alley and saw the three men, still trying
to hop or hobble away. One of them turned, and Jimmy could see the blood covering
the front of him.

“It’s mostly nosebleeds,” she said. “Let’s try walking.” She helped him out of the
alley to the street. He was still wearing his pack, and she reached into it. “Here,
let me put this knitted cap on you. It’ll help stop the bleeding, or anyway, hide
it.”

They walked on, and before long they reached Erie Street. There were many cars, businesses
with lights on, and pedestrians. When they were a block away from the station, she
stopped him under a streetlamp. “Look into my eyes.”

He did. “How do I look?”

“Your pupils aren’t dilated. That’s a very good sign.”

“I’ll take anything that’s not a very bad sign.”

“Good policy. Can you just hang around here by yourself for about five minutes? I’ll
go see when the next bus leaves, and if we can get tickets, I’ll buy some.”

“Okay.”

In a few minutes she came trotting back, smiling. “We’re in luck. There’s a bus that
came in from Albany a few minutes ago, and it leaves for Buffalo in about five minutes.”
She held up two tickets. “I also looked everywhere, and there’s not a cop in sight.”

They began to walk toward the station. “I’ve been thinking,” Jimmy said. “What are
you, really?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You tell me you’re just this doctor’s wife, but after those guys coldcocked me, you
beat the shit out of them. Three men, and they all looked half dead.”

“Don’t be silly,” Jane said. “How could I do that?”

“I don’t know. How?”

“Sh. You’re disoriented and confused. Just keep as quiet as you can, and once we’re
on the bus I’ll make you comfortable so you can rest.”

7

J
ane took another look at Jimmy’s head wound after the bus was on the thruway moving
west. They sat at the back, where they had some privacy. The light was dim, but she
could see Jimmy well enough. She had some alcohol-based hand sanitizer in her pack,
and she used it to sterilize Jimmy’s wound. In her first aid kit she had Band-Aids
and a large gauze pad, which she stuck over the wound. His knitted wool cap was soaked
with blood so she put hers over his head to cover the bandages, and then went into
the bathroom to wash his with the antibacterial soap in the dispenser over the little
sink. She wrung out the cap and hooked it over the window latch so the moving air
would dry it.

Jimmy fell asleep, and Jane watched him for a while. It was about two and a half hours
from the East Syracuse station to Buffalo—about 150 miles of thruway. The flat, straight
highway was monotonous in the dark, and Jane’s exertion in the fight made her welcome
the sleep that finally took her.

She woke as the bus slowed a bit to drift through the tollbooth at exit 50. The lights
of the little outpost shone through the windshield and the window beside her, and
then she sat up. She studied Jimmy’s face as the bus passed through the dim light.
He looked calm, relaxed, and untroubled. A terrible thought occurred to her, so she
wetted her index finger and held it beneath his nostrils for a second to feel his
breath. He was okay, just in a peaceful sleep. She looked at the highway signs. Even
at almost midnight, the bus might take a while to get to the station, so she let him
sleep. As she surveyed the bus, she and the driver seemed to be the only ones awake.

Riding with the sleeping Jimmy gave Jane a chance to consider what to do. There could
be a cop or two in the Buffalo bus station. Sometimes police departments placed cops
in airports and stations to watch for people who interested them—organized crime figures,
parole violators, or fugitives. They were usually old-timers because experienced cops
had long memories. She would have to watch for them. Where should he turn himself
in? The trip to Akron or Batavia was too long and complicated to be practical unless
they could find a taxi at the station.

There were several police stations in downtown Buffalo, and at least one sheriff’s
station. They would probably put Jimmy in the Erie County Holding Center at the foot
of Delaware Avenue, or if there was no room, put him in a station holding cell overnight
and then take him to the Erie County Correctional Facility in Alden. Any police station
would transport him where he needed to go. The one near the lower end of Franklin
might be the closest, and that would matter if she and Jimmy were on foot.

One of the things that had been bothering Jane for the past few days was that she
always felt a step behind. She had spent years learning to do something risky and
difficult, and what she knew should have made this easier than it was. Now she was
about to do something she knew was wrong—walk her friend into a bus station, one of
the most common places to find people who were running away from something. And instead
of doing it during the day, when Jimmy would have been surrounded by hundreds of respectable
travelers, she was going to take him in at midnight, when there would be no more than
the dozen hollow-eyed, weary people who were on this bus, and maybe a few others waiting
for the next one. And she was going in with both of them wearing clothes they’d worn
to jump a train and fight off muggers in an alley.

Jane had survived so many trips with runners by keeping the odds in her favor. She’d
taught them to look like everybody else, to change anything that was distinctive,
to travel without being noticed. She’d told them to avoid confrontations, controversy,
and even speech, if possible.

The bus turned onto Ellicott Street. She took a deep breath, let it out, and shook
Jimmy gently. “We’re in Buffalo.”

He sat up straight, stretched, and looked around him. There were still some passengers
asleep nearby, but others sat in the dark interior of the bus, their eyes now open
and unblinking so they looked like wary night creatures.

Through the windshield Jane could see the low, lighted building, the roof beside it
to shelter passengers from weather, and the buses in a row. Just beyond the station
was an office building like a box with rows of lighted windows. The bus pulled into
the entrance to the lot, came around the building, and slid into a space in front.

Jane waited for the first few passengers to file out the door at the front, then stood
and picked up her backpack. She glanced out the window from her new, higher angle,
and saw a sight that made her freeze where she stood.

Through the bus window she saw an elderly female figure wearing a light raincoat over
a flowered dress, and high-heeled shoes. The woman stood, unmoving, with both hands
in front of her holding the strap of her purse. She was facing Jane’s window, and
her eyes seemed to bore into Jane, to demand her attention. A casual observer who
saw the woman would have passed on to more interesting sights, but Jane recognized
the woman. She was Alma Rivers, clan mother of the Snipe clan, Jane’s father’s clan.
Alma’s expression was solemn and her gaze grew more intense. As Jane stood and looked
down at her through the window, her head moved, slightly but perceptibly, from side
to side:
No
.

Jane whispered to Jimmy, “Get down and stay on the bus.” He nodded and slumped down
across the seat.

Jane moved to the open door of the bus, went down the steps, and watched Alma’s eyes
as she walked toward the station. Alma moved her gaze toward the interior of the station.

As Jane walked to the station entrance, she could see through the glass what Alma
had been trying to warn her about. Sitting in a row in the blue plastic molded seats
were three men in their thirties, watching the line of people waiting beside the bus
to retrieve their luggage from the compartment in the bus’s side.

Jane veered and moved along behind their row to avoid giving them an easy look at
her, while giving herself a chance to study them. One was light blond with a fleshy
face, and the other two were darker and leaner. None of them had baggage of any kind,
none of them had the edges of tickets visible in any pockets, and none had anything
in either hand. All of them were wearing thin, loose jackets that might have been
chosen to hide weapons.

Jane reached the ticket window. “When does the bus out there leave for Erie?”

“About five more minutes.”

“Two tickets, please.” She handed him two fifty-dollar bills, and looked up at the
glass over the window to study the three men in the reflection.

She took the tickets and change, and walked behind the three men to the doors. A line
was forming at the door of the bus, and Jane joined it. She glanced over at the area
near the doors where Alma Rivers stood. She was still there, unmoving, still watching
Jane. When their eyes met, Alma nodded once, turned, and walked around the corner
of the building—maybe to the parking lot, maybe to the street. All Jane knew was that
she was gone.

The bus driver began taking tickets. “Thank you, welcome aboard,” he said as each
person handed him a ticket. “Thank you, welcome aboard.”

Jane handed him her two tickets. “One is for my husband, asleep in the back of the
bus.”

“Thank you, welcome aboard.”

Jane climbed the steps, made her way down the aisle to the seat where Jimmy waited,
and sat down. In a very short time, the driver had admitted the line of passengers
and come in to sit down behind the wheel. The bus backed up, then turned and drove
out again. As it made the first turn toward the Niagara section of the thruway, she
put her face close to Jimmy’s and whispered.

“Did you see her?”

“Yes,” he said. “At first I thought it must be a hallucination from getting bopped
on the head, but I could tell you were seeing her too.”

“She was there to warn us to keep going.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure. There were three guys sitting in the station watching for something—I
think she thought they were there for you.”

“Police?”

“They didn’t look like police to me, and I don’t think Alma thought so either.”

“How did she even know we were coming in on a bus, or when?”

Jane shrugged. “I can’t guess what they know or how they know it. Maybe they’ve been
waiting at the airport, the bus station, the train station, and your mother’s house
for days, watching to be sure you make it back safely. Maybe they know people so well
they can predict what we’re going to do.”

“What do you think we should do now?” he asked.

“We’re doing it,” she said. “We’ve got another three-hour ride. Sleep as much as you
can to get your strength back.”

Jimmy sat back and closed his eyes, and the sound of the bus rolling through the night
lulled him back to sleep.

When they reached Erie a little after three, Jane got off the bus, went to the ticket
booth, and then returned. “We’ll have to wait for a few hours to catch the next bus
to Cleveland. It leaves at eight.” They bought snacks and water from vending machines.
Jane whispered, “We can relax a little bit. Just crossing a state line still makes
your face a bit less familiar, unless you were a movie star before your troubles started.
Just look normal.”

“How do I do that?”

“Make up a little story and live it. You and I are from Rochester. We live in an apartment
on Maplewood Avenue, near the Genesee River. We’ve been married for, say, eight years.
We’re comfortable together, but we’re past the stage where we have our hands all over
each other in public. We took the bus because it’s a cheap, easy way to visit my mother
in Cleveland. You also want to see the Indians play while we’re there.”

Jimmy sat for a few seconds. “You’re right. When I think about how that guy feels,
I forget to be nervous, and I don’t wonder what to do, because I know what he’d do.
Right now he’d go get a newspaper and read it while you take a turn sleeping.”

“I’ll keep my eyes open until you get back with your paper.”

When he came back from the newspaper vending machine, he sat down on one of the long,
pew-like benches, and Jane fell asleep beside him with her head on her backpack. They
stayed that way until it was time to catch their next bus.

They got off the bus in Cleveland at around nine thirty in the morning. The station
was a 1930s futuristic building, all rounded corners with a tall vertical sign like
the marquee on a theater. They walked along Chester Street for a couple of blocks
and came to a street with a sign that had an arrow and the words
ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME
.

Jimmy looked at it, then looked at Jane.

She shrugged. “It gives us a destination. And it raises the odds that there will be
food in the area.”

They followed the arrows and walked a few blocks before they saw it. There were rows
of man-high guitars painted in bright colors, and then a plaza up a wide set of steps.
The building itself was a glass pyramid with concrete boxlike structures beside and
above it. But what caught Jane’s attention was a roofed area at the margin with a
pay phone. “Wait for me,” she said, and walked to it.

She put in a coin and dialed Carey’s cell number, then put in more coins when the
operator told her to.

“Hello.”

“Hi, Doctor McKinnon,” she said. “I love you.”

“Hold on.” She could hear him walking from a place where there were noises in the
background to a smaller, quieter space, then closing the door. “Hi. I’ve been worried.”

“Sorry. You got my message about ditching my cell phone, right?”

“Yes.”

“I had started to suspect somebody was using the GPS to follow me. What’s going on
there?”

Carey said, “Ellen Dickerson called. She’s been trying to reach you, but couldn’t,
of course. She has something to tell you, and I’ve got her number here.”

Jane took out her pencil and the bus ticket stub. “Okay, go ahead.”

He read the number and she wrote it down and repeated it back to him. Then she said,
“How are you holding up?”

“If I complain, is there anything you can do to make it better?”

“At the moment, honestly, no. Maybe before too long.” Jane stared ahead at the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame, behind its sculptures of enormous guitars.

“Look, I don’t want to fight with you about it. Just do what you have to and get back
here,” he said.

“I love you.”

“That’s twice. It just reminds me of how stupid it is to be apart.”

“I know it’s stupid,” she said. “But if you understood what I’m doing, you would know
that anyone would do the same. Even logical, sensible you. When it’s done, we can
have a nice, dull time. I promise.”

He laughed. “Actually, that sounds really good.”

“It does to me, too. I’ve got to go. Be good.”

“You too.”

She hung up and stood still for a few breaths, looking out past the museum at the
lake. Then she fished in her pack for more coins, put one into the phone, and dialed
Ellen Dickerson’s number.

Ellen’s voice said, “Sge-no.”

Jane answered in Seneca. “Does everybody who calls you speak Onondawaga?”

“I thought it would be you,” Ellen said.

“I heard there was a problem.”

“We’ve been worried. You can’t bring him in yet. There are men who are getting themselves
into the jails around here—minor infractions, the kind that will get them thirty days
or sixty days. A couple of Haudenosaunee boys were in jail this week. They’re good
boys, a Mohawk and a Tuscarora, who were picked up after a burglary. They had nothing
to do with it, so they were let go. But they said some men are waiting in jail for
Jimmy when he comes in.”

“Do the police know?” Jane said.

“We’re having some people go talk to them, but even if the police believe them, fixing
it isn’t easy and will take time. For now, you’re going to have to keep him away from
here.”