Callisto (38 page)

I started wrestling my way out of the gown and he goes on, “I'm going to give you five hundred dollars, Odell, to help you get to wherever it is you're going. My niece's friend is out of town for a whole week with her parents checking out colleges in the east, so the alarm won't be raised on that car for awhile, plenty of time for you to get there. Will you be going interstate, Odell?”

“Mmmmm. . .”

“Need a hand with the shirt?”

“Uhuh.”

He reached behind me and helped out getting my arm into the second sleeve. I had to lift my butt to get the pants on but managed that part okay, only it feels peculiar to have pants on but no underpants, Vine has forgot about those but I guess it isn't all that important. I fumbled the zipper closed and tied the sneakers which have got no socks, and then I'm ready. He says to take off the bandage from around my head because it'll make me stand out, so I unwound it with a little help and now I'm really ready.

“The money is in your pocket, Odell. Try not to do anything to attract the attention of the law. Don't exceed the speed limit or drive erratically. I'd advise you to go directly to the people who can help you get even further away, whoever those people happen to be. Don't waste any time, because the more time you waste the more opportunity for things to go
wrong, so just go directly to them and your chances for success are multiplied accordingly, okay?” He put out his hand. “Good luck, Odell.”

“Thank you . . .and thank Lorraine for me, will you? She went away too fast.”

“I'll do that. Go on now before someone at the hospital realizes you've gone.”

I got out of the car and went across the street to this little white Honda and opened the door, so he's right, the girl that owns it is real careless. Then I went back to Vine's car. “Where did you say the keys are?”

“Under the driver's mat, Odell. Good luck.”

I went back and he's right, the keys are right there where he said. I squeezed myself inside the car and put the seat way back as far as it'll go, then fumbled the ignition key into the dash. The engine come to life sounding good. I put her in gear and away I drove. The needle says the gas tank is totally full which is a good thing, I won't have to stop anytime soon so I can just keep going and going like the Energizer Bunny.

Only where?

Where am I supposed to go? The first place it occurred to me to go was back home to Yoder, Wyoming, but then what? My old man, he'd tell me to give myself up all over again, I know he would, so forget that, I didn't want to see his face or hear his voice anyway, so that's that plan gone out the window. I didn't even know what part of Callisto I'm in, never mind knowing where the hell I'm supposed to go now. Then I saw a sign that says this way to I-70 so I went that way and got out of town after a little while and then onto the interstate heading west. Why west and not east? That's just the way back
towards some places I know, I guess. Callisto is the furthest east I ever went. Manhattan is further east but I don't think I can go back to my original plan of going there and signing up for the Army, not with my face going to be on the TV news again when they find out I escaped like I did.

My brain was starting to come alive with the new drugs Vine gave me, humming and buzzing instead of wanting to snooze, and as I drove along at a steady seventy-five miles per hour I got to thinking about how Lorraine and Larry and Detective Sergeant Vine had got together to save my ass. I thought about the different reasons they said they're doing it, well, okay, Lorraine kind of spoke on behalf of Larry Dayton, but what she said made sense, kind of, and Vine would get to have Andy Webb's job when Andy got fired because I escaped from under the nose of one of his cops that's already in trouble, so that was his reason. Then I got to thinking about how Lorraine was very up and down in regard to her feelings for me in the hospital and I wondered how she got in touch with those other two to set up the escape plan. It must not have been very long, maybe five or six hours. And how would she have known they'd do what she wanted ahead of time to approach them like that? That was way risky, to approach two cops and ask them if maybe they'd like to help her get a suspect in a federal case busted out of custody like she did.

This question about how she did all that in so short of a time went around and around inside my head like a dog chasing its own tail. I tried to think about other things, like where should I go from here, but that other question kept whirling back into my thoughts, it just would not go away. I was thirsty now and wished I had kept the bottle of Gatorade but I left
that in Vine's car. He was certainly very well prepared to help me escape, with the clothes and the wakeup pills and the friend of his niece's car with the keys right there and the door unlocked. And the hospital was very empty even for a hospital at night, I mean not a soul around to stop Lorraine from wheelchairing me away. And how did she get hold of that nurse's uniform anyway? Now that I thought about it, the whole caper had gone about as smooth as a TV show adventure with nothing getting in the way to mess things up.

Like a TV show. A TV show is how it went. A TV show has got a script that gets wrote out on paper and they rehearse it and then do it with the cameras rolling. My getaway was a TV show. I started to sweat big time, could not stop my heart going
budumbudumbudum
as that one thought kept on spinning around until the dog caught hold of his tail and tasted it. It tasted like dog tail, the only real thing going on tonight, I could see it now. They had got together, those three, Lorraine and Larry and Vine, and put together a script to fool me. Or more likely it was Kraus and Deedle come up with the idea and roped Lorraine in first because they know I have got this sweet spot for her like I do, or did anyway, and she said the best way to fool me is to use the fact that I don't like Andy Webb, who was most likely the next one brung into the plan and Andy brung in Larry Dayton because he already told me Larry is in big trouble about what he did . . .and they brung in Vine next with his bullshit story about wanting to take over Andy's job when he gets fired for letting me escape . . .And there isn't a single speck of anything real in the entire thing, it's just a TV script they put together and worked out all the bugs till it's a smooth story like on TV, and then they sprung
it on me while my head was ripped with painkiller drugs so I can't see how stupid it all is. How could they have expected me to fall for it once I got to thinking about it all? Did they think I was stupid or something?

Well, there it was, the one thing that made it all hang together, the one thing nobody likes to admit about how people think about him. They thought I was stupid, every single one of them. They thought I'm so fucking stupid all they have to do is put together a bullshit TV script and spring me from the hospital ward like in
Mission Impossible
and set me up with a car nobody'll miss for a week with a full gas tank . . .and let's not forget the way Lorraine and Vine both told me more than once to go find my friends to be with in safety so the getaway succeeds in its mission . . .which is not to let me get away, it's to follow me and find out where my terrorist buddies are holed up, most likely with Dean running the show. . . because why would they believe Dean is dead when I told them two different places he's buried and he's not in either one, so they figured that's all bluff on my part to buy myself time in which to plan my big escape . . . but they know I'm not smart enough to get away on my own so they put their heads together and helped me out, knowing I'm too dumb to see how it's all been arranged like a TV show. . .

Except I did notice. And now, believe it or not, I started to cry about how dumb they think I am. This is a hard thing to say about the crying, but that is what I did, started crying because all those people think I'm so dumb. And what made it worse, I had to admit they're right, I am dumb. I am a big dumb stupid idiot, that's me, for covering up the way I killed Dean accidental, then for pretending to be him, then for
getting sucked into the drug-pushing thing with Lorraine because I liked her and thought maybe she liked me, which I see now was the biggest dumb thing I thought, she always looked on me as a fool . . .and then for writing that dumb letter to Condi Rice, and letting them – whoever they are – steal the truck and turn it into a bomb . . .and last of all, being dumb enough not to see how they let me escape like putting a rat into a maze and watching him from above as he scuttles this way and that, up one skinny corridor and down another searching for the cheese, which is this terrorist cell they all think I belong to.

Watching from above. They have got a tracking bug somewhere inside the car and are following me along I-70 in a FBI car with this little screen inside going
blipblipblip
as the little glowing dot gives out its signal. Or maybe overhead in a chopper. Or way overhead with spy satellites tracking me like Jim Ricker kidded me about. Maybe Jim Ricker is the real terrorist here, I don't know because I am a big dumb idiot that should've kept going and not stayed one minute in Callisto, kept going to Manhattan, Kansas, and enlisted in the Army like I planned. But I walked through the wrong door when my car broke down and got swept up in Something Big that I still don't understand how big it really is, and all those people tracking me and trying to fool me, they don't know either, so there is plenty of ignorance to go round, which made me feel a little better and I quit crying and started to think like a normal man, which it is high time I got to be one of those.

So I am being tracked. Going nowhere. In the movies the guy in the car with the bug finds it and puts it on another car that goes in a different direction and fools the bad guys
following the bug with their blipscreen. Maybe the bug is tucked away in a wheel well nice and convenient, or it could be stuck anywhere inside the car where I can't find it even if I pulled the whole thing apart, those things are small. The speed and caffeine had took hold very nicely and my brain fizzed with all kinds of things I might do to get out of this Bad Situation, but as soon as one of these popped into my skull it got smacked down again for being totally stupid and unworkable. And I was hungry again too, seeing as I was too upset to eat that evening meal on account of the big surprise about Dean not being buried near the cottonwoods anymore. So now I'm starving hungry on top of everything else, but this was a problem easy to take care of at the next big gas station and truck stop which is only another ten miles to go this sign tells me –
Brubaker's All-Niter, We Never Close
.

I pulled off the interstate and parked with all the other cars, a fair number even at this hour of the morning. Over on the other side of the gas station/diner with the big neon Brubaker's sign there's a dozen or so eighteen-wheelers lined up neat in rows with their diesels grumbling while the drivers are inside chowing down or even taking a shower, Brubaker's has got this service also a sign tells me, but I'm only interested in food right now.

I went in and the bright lights hurt my eyes for a moment then I got used to it. I went and found a booth to sit in alone and private, orange vinyl, then a waitress come along looking perky even if it's way past 3 am now and asks what I want. I ordered a double cheeseburger plus fries and a large Coke, plus coffee to keep my mind working overtime on a way out of this situation I am in. Only a smart plan is going to save me now, and I'm not
exactly sure how smart I am even if I figured out I'm a runaway rat with a bug up my ass. But I had made up my mind on one thing – I would never again shed a tear for how dumb I am, this is not my fault, just the way I was born and nothing to do with me you might say, and anyway I'm not so dumb as everyone thinks, so there you go. From now on I would use every bit of smart in me to figure out a way to stay free.

The food got brung out and I ate like a starving man, which I am, but not anymore after I got through eating everything and was drinking down the last of the Coke. I used the bathroom and had them give me another tall coffee to go, which I carried out to the car and already I'm asking myself if I should keep going west or maybe go north, not that it made any difference to me.

I'm standing there with the key in my hand asking myself this when I noticed a guy over by the exit with a piece of cardboard in his hand wanting to be given a lift. I went on over and the cardboard has got
DENVER
wrote on it in big letters. It is just a young guy, maybe eighteen, and my mind with the new smart part took over my mouth.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” he says back.

“I can get you to Denver.”

“Okay, great.” He looked real pleased, probably not hopeful of getting a ride until I come along. He was dressed kind of shabby which most people will not allow in their car, but I would, even if it's not my car.

“This way,” I said, and we started walking over to the Honda. “You'll have to do all the driving, is that okay?”

“Sure, I'm a good driver.”

“Can I see your license just to be sure?”

He dug it out of his jeans and showed me. Wendell Richard Aymes dob 23-6-89.

“Okay,” I said, “this is the situation. This is not my car, it belongs to a friend, uh, Feenie Myers.” I used Feenie's name because it's hard to make up a name on the spot that sounds real, otherwise I would've come up with something like Susan Smith or whatever. “Feenie goes to college in Durango, so this is her parents' address I'm giving you, okay? Uh, 1286 Newton Drive in Lakewood, that's in Denver.”

“I know, I'm a Denverite.”

“Well, good. Now Feenie is expecting this car back tomorrow, only I've got this situation here with one of the lady cooks over there in Brubaker's. She wants me to stay over, you know, and she's real pretty, but then I've got to get Feenie's car back to her like I promised, which I'm a man of my word about stuff like that.”