Blvd. of Blood
Book 3, chapter 10
(Upcoming appearances: May 10, 12–3, Branford Book Festival, Main St., Branford CT | June 1, 12–5, Skullastic Book Fair, American Legion Post 16, Shelton CT | July 15, 6–7:30, author talk, Hagaman Library, East Haven CT)
This is a serialized “thriller” novel. Continued from here. Table of contents for ease of navigation here.
(The story so far: Zero hour is fast approaching, and tomorrow night (some sources say) the trap will spring. Colin Lang has taken the week off from work for last-minute preparation.)
10.
Near the Ridgemont Rest assisted living facilities on Ridgemont Road, Route 434, stands a sad, decaying twenty-four hour diner. Some three miles away is a Polish-themed old-man pub. Everything else on the strip closes early. Manicurists, aquarium supply, tot lot—they all close before seven; the supermarket closes at eight; Choice Pizza, over by the pub, stays open till nine on weekdays, or at least it did before it shut down for good. This is before it shut down: right before it shut down. The night of April ninth.
On that night Colin Lang took his car out into his driveway, just to get a little more room. In the garage he turned his bicycle upside down. He spread a garbage bag under it like a tarp.
They had shown him, when he bought the bicycle, were the serial number was. He’d considered filing it off months ago, but had figured that there were still so many things that could happen—the bike could get swiped or impounded or just looked over by a policeman. Surely a bike without a serial number appeared to be stolen! He left the filing to the last minute. Perhaps the removal of the numbers wasn’t strictly necessary, as nothing should ever connect the bicycle with the Incident. But no harm in being careful. He turned the bike back over, and folded the corners of the garbage bag up, gathering the filings. He put that bag into another garbage bag and put it in his pocket, along with a bandana, still in the original plastic wrap. He checked his pockets to make sure he had a wallet but no cell phone. He checked the combination lock to make sure it was open and set correctly—159—but wedged tight on the chain so it would not fall off as he rode. He checked and then triple checked inside the handlebars to make sure no paper had been left there. He checked to make sure the car was locked—he’d leave it in the driveway. Wearing gloves he wiped the whole bike down. Only then did he hop on and begin the long ride to Ridgemont Road.
It wasn’t actually a long ride, only five miles or so, but a lot of it was uphill. This was the foothills of the Appalachian mountains, and all of Cottinend slopes uphill, south to north. The night was dark and overcast. Colin had a light on the front of his bike, and a flashing red light on the back of his seat. Even under the sherpa hat his ears were cold.
A mirror on his handlebars would light up periodically as a car’s headlights crept up behind him. In an explosion of brightness, the car would speed past. One or two angry drivers leaned on the horn, either to warn him they were coming or just out of annoyance. Some of these streets were not the kind cyclists usually frequented.
When he reached a street with a short stretch of sidewalk, he pulled over and removed the garbage bag from his pocket. He could feel the cold wind on his face even while stopped. When no cars were coming he dumped out the metal filings making sure to stand upwind. He shook both bags. Whatever came off them was invisible in the night. Then he rode on. The first trash can he passed got the two garbage bags. He kept on, uphill.
This would have been easier, Colin estimated, ten years ago, when he was younger. A light rain started up.
Finally, huffing a little, Colin pulled over onto a little grass margin of Ridgemont Road and turned off both his lights. Nearly blind he pedaled the final twenty yards to the rainslick darkened parking lot of Choice Pizza. Hopping off his bike he groped his way forward. He’d thought the night was dark along the road, but behind the pizza place it was dark like the back of a closet. He found himself completely disoriented and had to turn his handlebar light on to find where he was. Keeping it mostly off, he managed by touch to locate the metal dumpster. The side of the dumpster was so cold it radiated through his leather glove. He popped the light off the handlebars and used it as a flashlight, locating the handle he’d seen. He threaded the chain around it, passed it through the front tire and the bike frame, and closed the combination lock. He had practiced this move in the dark, but he used the bike light anyway, just in case. With his thumb he dialed back the third digit of the lock. 158.
Now came the hard part. He wished it weren’t raining. Holding the bike light in one hand, trying not to get completely muddy, he scrambled up the embankment. It was easier than he’d feared. He scrambled through the woods, pausing to pick up a sturdy stick, until he could see the streetlights along Blande Boulevard. The bike light went off. There were no cars.
Quickly, Colin ripped the red bandana free from its plastic wrap, which he stuck in his pocket. He tied the bandana to a stick he found, and broke from the tree cover. Right where the trail started, right along the side of the road, Colin jammed the stick into the ground. He worried it in deeper until shifting lights indicated a car coming. He didn’t want to hit the deck—he’d be covered in filth—so he retreated to behind a tree. After the car passed he came back and forced the stick down until it was sunk too deep even to wiggle.
Back through the woods using the bike light sparingly. It was actually good practice to follow the trail again, after so long. Down the embankment. Once in the parking lot, he put the bike light in his jacket pocket for the walk back toward the road. Facing Ridgemont, the blackness was not quite so pitch; it was easier to head that way without stumbling. He stopped under a streetlight to see how dirty he was. His shoes, and the bottom of his pants were bad, and one glove, but the rest was wet without looking like a ditch digger. He walked along the dark road for a few minutes until he came to Krakow Nights.
The pub really was a sleepy affair. Old men sat hunched over the tables. They stuck their feet straight out, a series of trip hazards, and their socks were checkered and pulled up high and tight. Colin figured he might as well have a good time if he was already out on the town, so he ordered a whiskey sour and headed to the bathroom. He washed his hands, but he spent more time rinsing off his glove, and cleaning his shoes and legs with paper towels.
The drink was waiting for him when he returned. “You looked pleased with yourself,” the bartender said.
Colin considered telling her that he was nearing the end of a project, but decided that was risking too much. “I’m on a staycation,” he said.
“Did you walk here?” she asked, nodding towards his soggy hair.
Colin shrugged. “Pub crawl,” he said. She smiled big, and he set his cash on the bar. It included a five-dollar tip. He’d need her on his side. He finished his drink and called for another. Alcohol didn’t usually do it fir him, but he was feeling all right. Foreign music played low in the background. This was the quietest bar Colin had ever been in. He liked it.
Nursing his whiskey, Colin leaned on the bar and scanned the room. He had to be the youngest person in the place. Actually, the bartender had to be the youngest. He looked back and she was smiling at him. He knew she had to flirt with customers to get a tip, but he was still getting a serious energy off her.
The bartender set a third whiskey in front of him. “On the house,” she said.
She was probably too young for him, Colin thought, but not so young that you’d have to be embarrassed by it. She looked good, in the way that younger people seem to when you get older. The spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose seemed charmingly out of place; she wasn’t as fair as freckled people usually looked She certainly didn’t look Polish. If it wasn’t for Carol, he decided, he’d probably go for it. He sipped his free drink.
But then he realized: He was less than two days away from the most audacious Incident in…was it fair to say in American history? In any event, it seemed almost hypocritical to worry about conventional mores such as fidelity in the shadow of such an Incident.
And he was about to turn around. He was about to ask her about when she got off.
When he realized that the one thing he must not do was anything unusual. It was folly to even be in the bar. He hadn’t been solo at a bar since that night in October. Already he was forming an excuse, if anyone asked him where he’d been that night. He was just so worried about his mother; a nightcap for worry.
He still turned around, but all he said to the cute bartender and her freckles was, “Could you do me a favor, call me a cab? I’m a little tipsy.”
“You sure?” she asked. But it was a request no bartended could turn down. She was already reaching for the bar phone.
Colin finished his drink while looking out the window. The rain had gotten worse. When the cab’s headlights pulled up, Colin put a thank-you twenty on the bar.
“In another lifetime,” he said to her, wistfully.
“What?” she said.
The cab took him to an address near his house. He paid cash and watched its tail lights disappear before he walked home through the rain.
Continued here.