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fabulous engine. The fuel pump rang its bell-the gas tank was full. She handed him a platinum credit card, giving him second thoughts about her status as underpaid police. She waited in silence for her receipt.
As she was driving off, though he had no hope of being heard, he called after her, “You be careful out there!” His eyes traveled over darkened buildings where innocent people lay sleeping. “And the rest of you stay the hell out of her way,” he warned them in a lower voice-in case he had guessed wrong about-what was she called? He looked down at his copy of the credit card receipt and read only one name. “Well, don’t t hat beat all?”
American Express called her Mallory-just Mallory.
The mighty storm front,
born in Chicago, had cut a sodden path eastward. It rained on a patch of the Jersey coast, and then, like many another tourist, it crossed the George Washington Bridge, entered New York City – and died.
Only a few drops of water pocked the windshield of a sleek black sedan as it rolled out of a SoHo garage and pulled into the narrow street. The traffic was light, and this was good, because Detective Riker was hardly paying attention to the other cars as he rode out of town.
After another check on Mallory’s c redit cards, he learned that she had bought a late supper in South Bend, Indiana, still traveling west on Route 80, and leaving no doubt that Chicago was her destination. With one cellphone call, Riker had activated the anti-theft device installed in her car. And then he had bartered his soul to the Favor Bank to bury the paperwork on her surveillance. Given her straight route and likely point of entry, her LoJack’s s ignal had been picked up when the car crossed the state line into Illinois. And, thanks to a police car tracker in Chicago, Riker knew that his partner had stopped awhile at a gas station in that city-even before she had used her credit card to pay for fuel. Though she was definitely in flight, he took some comfort in her use of traceable credit instead of cash. And she knowingly drove a car equipped with a LoJack device; this alone spoke well for the theory that she had not murdered Savannah Sirus.
And everything else argued against innocence.
In his request for covert assistance from Chicago, the New York detective had traded on his reputation as a shabby dresser with a low bank balance; these hallmarks of a dead-honest cop made his badge shine in the dark. There were even rookies in the state of Illinois who had heard of Riker. And he planned to destroy the best part of himself-for Mallory’s s ake.
He stopped for a red light and closed his eyes. More frightening than the corpse in Mallory’s front room was the wall of telephone numbers in her den. If nightmares had triggered her childhood calls, then Riker had to wonder,
Kid, what are your dreams like now?
2
The car’s engine idled
as Mallory pulled an old letter from her knapsack. This was only ceremony; the pale blue ink was illegible by street lamp, and the discolored paper was falling apart at the folds. The opening line, committed to memory, began with green lions-and there they were. The matched pair of statues flanked the broad steps of the Chicago Art Institute on Michigan Avenue, and they pointed the way down Adams Street.
The letter went on to say,
“There are travelers who recognize this intersection of commerce, high art and green lions as the beginning of the Mother Road, though its original starting point was elsewhere. Historically a shifting highway, now it’s vanishing, reduced to a patchwork of interrupted pavement scattered through pieces of eight states, all that remains of a fine romance with the journey and the automobile.”
Mallory was not of the romantic ilk. The night was wet and cold, and she was disinclined to wax poetic on the American car culture.
Angling the headlights into the darkness, she anticipated police barricades, but these wooden sawhorses bore the name of a Chicago
As she was driving off, though he had no hope of being heard, he called after her, “You be careful out there!” His eyes traveled over darkened buildings where innocent people lay sleeping. “And the rest of you stay the hell out of her way,” he warned them in a lower voice-in case he had guessed wrong about-what was she called? He looked down at his copy of the credit card receipt and read only one name. “Well, don’t t hat beat all?”
American Express called her Mallory-just Mallory.
The mighty storm front,
born in Chicago, had cut a sodden path eastward. It rained on a patch of the Jersey coast, and then, like many another tourist, it crossed the George Washington Bridge, entered New York City – and died.
Only a few drops of water pocked the windshield of a sleek black sedan as it rolled out of a SoHo garage and pulled into the narrow street. The traffic was light, and this was good, because Detective Riker was hardly paying attention to the other cars as he rode out of town.
After another check on Mallory’s c redit cards, he learned that she had bought a late supper in South Bend, Indiana, still traveling west on Route 80, and leaving no doubt that Chicago was her destination. With one cellphone call, Riker had activated the anti-theft device installed in her car. And then he had bartered his soul to the Favor Bank to bury the paperwork on her surveillance. Given her straight route and likely point of entry, her LoJack’s s ignal had been picked up when the car crossed the state line into Illinois. And, thanks to a police car tracker in Chicago, Riker knew that his partner had stopped awhile at a gas station in that city-even before she had used her credit card to pay for fuel. Though she was definitely in flight, he took some comfort in her use of traceable credit instead of cash. And she knowingly drove a car equipped with a LoJack device; this alone spoke well for the theory that she had not murdered Savannah Sirus.
And everything else argued against innocence.
In his request for covert assistance from Chicago, the New York detective had traded on his reputation as a shabby dresser with a low bank balance; these hallmarks of a dead-honest cop made his badge shine in the dark. There were even rookies in the state of Illinois who had heard of Riker. And he planned to destroy the best part of himself-for Mallory’s s ake.
He stopped for a red light and closed his eyes. More frightening than the corpse in Mallory’s front room was the wall of telephone numbers in her den. If nightmares had triggered her childhood calls, then Riker had to wonder,
Kid, what are your dreams like now?
2
The car’s engine idled
as Mallory pulled an old letter from her knapsack. This was only ceremony; the pale blue ink was illegible by street lamp, and the discolored paper was falling apart at the folds. The opening line, committed to memory, began with green lions-and there they were. The matched pair of statues flanked the broad steps of the Chicago Art Institute on Michigan Avenue, and they pointed the way down Adams Street.
The letter went on to say,
“There are travelers who recognize this intersection of commerce, high art and green lions as the beginning of the Mother Road, though its original starting point was elsewhere. Historically a shifting highway, now it’s vanishing, reduced to a patchwork of interrupted pavement scattered through pieces of eight states, all that remains of a fine romance with the journey and the automobile.”
Mallory was not of the romantic ilk. The night was wet and cold, and she was disinclined to wax poetic on the American car culture.
Angling the headlights into the darkness, she anticipated police barricades, but these wooden sawhorses bore the name of a Chicago
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