Continued from here. Table of contents for ease of navigation here.
(The story so far: It’s the morning of April 11. Nothing bad has happened yet (despite Officer Oberman’s suspicions). Maybe everything will be fine.)
6.
Chief Wanamaker was having a great time. He ranted and fumed and strutted up and down his office. Oberman was an alarmist. He was bad for morale. He was fomenting panic in the streets.
“Chief, I just—”
Don’t interrupt, Oberman!
Oberman could see, through the window, Campbell standing there, waiting, shifting from foot to foot, wishing (Oberman knew) he had a cigarette. The Chief had not bothered to draw the blinds, which is how Oberman knew he was enjoying himself.
“Let me see your phone, Oberman,” he barked.
Oberman handed it over.
“You get Twitter on this thing?”
Of course he did.
“Not any more. Nancy! Give this to Sergeant Gaye. Lock it in his desk. Oberman can have it when he goes off duty.
Sergeant Gaye was not a sergeant; that’s just what they called him. He wasn’t even a police officer any more, just a retiree augmenting his pension by acting as “desk sergeant” in a precinct that had never had an actual desk sergeant. He just manned the front desk.
Oberman watched Nancy and his phone pass through the rows of desks and disappear through the door to the foyer.
“And I’ve got another surprise for you,” the Chief continued.
7.
Amber Meir wanted to give her sympathies, but she didn’t want to get caught making a personal call from work. Prishtine made it very clear he did not like that. There was a window of time before work, though, when it was not too early, really, to call. A decent hour. Amber called.
If Bernie’s phone, buried beneath blankets in his brother’s room, had never been successfully powered off by Bernie’s incompetent thumb—is that better or worse? If its generic ringtone was audible throughout the house—would this have made any difference?
Bernie and Colin had already left. They were already in the car. The phone rang, if it rang, to an empty building, and Amber left a heartfelt voicemail that no one would ever check.
8.
Things that could go wrong:
The car could have been locked, and Bernie could waste time fumbling for the keys while inquisitive neighbors (“was that a gunshot?”) poured from their houses. So Colin had had Bernie open the doors ahead of time.
The car could fail to start—Colin had almost asked Bernie to start the engine and leave it running, but he decided the chance of it getting stolen were as great as the chance of the starter failing.
And the rifle—letting Bernie use the rifle! Bernie could turn and stone cold shoot him. But Colin had seen on cop shows that they could tell from powder marks on the hands if someone had been firing a gun. He needed Bernie’s hands on the rifle. So as Bernie aimed at his TV, Colin stood right at Bernie’s side, too close for the rifle to pivot around and face him. That should put an end to any nonsense.
The poor boy was practically weeping tears of joy as the shots missed the television and thudded against the wall. There was a billowing cloud of plaster, but Colin barely noticed it because he was too busy ducking away from the shells that came flying out of the side of the rifle. Not something he’d expected.
But it was only five shells. He snatched the rifle from Bernie’s limp, quivering grasp, flicked the safety on, and popped the magazine out, letting it fall to the floor. He stuck another one in, and then draped a trash bag, the one with the banana peel in it, over the rifle. He already had the other trash bag over his wrist. Somewhat encumbered, like a Christmas shopper, he ushered Bernie by pressure on his shoulder out the door and over to the car. He intentionally left his duffel bag, tossed behind the couch.
“My arms are tingly,” Bernie said inanely.
Colin pulled the passenger side door shut and scrunched himself down. He managed to tuck himself in so that he was actually sitting on the floor, his legs twisted around sideways. “Hurry up and drive,” he hissed. The position was extremely uncomfortable, and the burner phone in his pocket dug into his thigh. He had the rifle out from under the trash bag, lying on the passenger seat, level with his shoulders. With a great deal of bumping of elbows, he removed his wig, his hat, his disguise accouterments, and tossed them all into the trash bag they’d come from, next to the banana peel and circular. He knotted the bag and slipped the Alfred E. Neuman mask on. The car started moving, and he heard the flup-lup of cardboard whipping off. From his seat on the floor all he could see was the sky flashing by. “Faster. Drive faster. Okay, now slow down.”
“Don’t irritate me, man,” said Bernie.
“Are we on Rano?” Colin allowed himself to hoist his body up for a quick peek to see if the stolen car was still there. Someone had swiped it overnight, he noted with pleasure. Everything was going according to plan. “Drive down St. Gabriel,” he said then. “You can take Burr Avenue. You know where Michaelson Road is?” Colin had studied his map, of course.
“Of course I know—”
“Turn down it and when you get to the creek pull over to the railing.” Colin was already cranking down his window. He felt the knotted trash bag to make sure there was nothing in it he’d need—no bullets, most importantly. There were two trash bags to keep track of, and he didn’t want to make an elementary mistake.
When he felt the car stop, Colin tossed the knotted trash bag out the window without looking. He heard a splash. “Now drive on.” There was a pretty good chance that his DNA was all over the wig, but even if anyone thought to follow the car’s path to this place, the bag would have floated far downstream. And of course there was little to connect the wig to the Incident in the first place. “Take a left.”
As they drove, Colin uncomfortably slid the tape holders full of magazines from the other trash bag. He set them on the passenger seat behind him. He felt the unearthly calm that settled upon him. They coasted up to a stop light, and he bullied Bernie into putting on his ridiculous mask.
“I look stupid.”
“We’re twins,” said Colin. “You’ll see how it works. Now look. When we get to Blande, or even right before it, roll down your window. You’ll have to scooch down. I’m going to be leaning across you and shooting out the window right over you, which is going to be uncomfortable but it’s only for a few minutes. Keep down, or just at a level where you can drive without crashing. Remember, it has to look like only one of us in the car.
“For surprise.”
“Right, for surprise.”
“Is this a good idea?” Bernie asked.
“Don’t worry you’ll do fine.”
“If you see a green Volvo, I call dibs. A lady driving, someone next to her.”
“Okay.”
“An ugly someone next to her. Like deformed.”
“Okay.”
“Dibs.”
“Okay.”
“Is this a good idea?” Bernie asked again without pausing.
Colin exhaled. He felt calm, but he felt nothing else; and yet he felt like he might soon be feeling something else. His eyes were watching the sky, but he could tell, from the few trees that hove into view, that they were almost there.
“Bernie. Bernie, roll down your window,” he said.
Continued here.