XL: Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead
Highway 150 drifted past Lake Norman, turning onto Highway 16. 15, 16, Sawyer thought. It almost fits that way. He prayed that the beater would make it a little further, and pressed his foot on the gas as steadily as he could. He didn't know quite where he was going, but he'd been told there was a little resort town on the western side of Lake Norman that he would find Hibbs staying at. As he drove into the hills, noticing that they were starting to stack higher and higher, he checked his gun to make sure. He had bullets. He was ready. He hoped Hibbs would be willing to talk. He didn't have to want to use the gun, but all the same, he had to be prepared. Like Hibbs said, he was smart. He wanted to make the man realize how right that was.
He needed a new car. He had the money for it, left over from the con job from which he'd fled. He was down to his last hundreds by now, but he wasn't in trouble. Not yet. He could live on only a little bit of cash. There were always marks around. There was always an opportunity to make more from the idiots that were all over the world. He was sure of that.
He shut his eyes, cruising along, his car sailing into the clouds, feeling like he would drop off the edge of the world. Maybe he could. Nobody would miss him. On the radio, some warbling country star started up a new song. Most times, he would have listened, and maybe even would've liked the song. He wasn't in the mood for it now, though, and he opened his eyes, reaching to shut off the radio, continued coasting along.
Maybe I could keep driving. Hit California and keep going, float across the ocean to Japan and China, go somewhere where nobody can tell what I say. I live by my talk, but, Christ, it gets tiring sometimes. He squinted out the windshield, staring ahead. He didn't see the patchwork quilt of colors in the trees. He had eyes only for the town that was supposed to be up ahead. Hibbs was there. He was sure of that. He had been let down too many times, and he had circled back from Georgia, Florida, back through North Carolina. He was almost home now. Only a few hours 'til Knoxville. He wanted to have something to show for it, and if that was blood on his hands, oh well. Too bad.
When he crossed the county line from Catawba into Lincoln, he decided to take a break. He needed a smoke. He needed to walk. He needed to think. He parked the car and took the gun with him. It was hunting season. Nobody would ask any questions. No one would care. He checked it again, knowing even as he ran his hands over the gun, checking it closely, that he was panicking. God, boy, why are you so nervous? an inner voice asked him. Hibbs ain't nothing. Not even. You don't need to worry.
He was worried, though, and he choked that down, slid the clip back into the pistol. His hands trembled slightly, and he shook his head at that, tried to will them to stop. Every time he'd had to fire that damn thing in the past, he'd gotten consumed by nerves, and he hated that. He could never understand why. He didn't care about other people – so why should he care about killing them? He was weak, a coward, a fuck-up, a lousy con man. Nobody would hire him for jobs anymore, once word got out that he had fled Tampa without getting the deal made. He wasn't sure he blamed them, either. His hands shook even worse now, and he clenched them shut, put the safety on, dropped the gun back into the car through the open window.
Now, for a cigarette. At least that made his hands shake less. He set fire to the smoke, taking a long drag on it. He hoped it would calm him down, and as he squinted towards the sign that declared, 'WELCOME TO LINCOLN COUNTY: WEST LAKE NORMAN REGION,' he knew there was no turning back. The small town of Denver, North Carolina, lay ahead, and Hibbs was sure to be there.
On the drive in to Denver, through the rising hills, he had passed an 'Energy Explorium,' a llama farm, a farm of even stranger animals that he figured were probably alpacas since he had no idea what they looked like, and the rather ominously titled 'Carolina Raptor Center,' which had brought Jurassic Park flooding back into his memories. He figured Denver would be similarly quirky, and was disappointed to find that it was not. The town was small, he saw. It was not as small as the place where he had first met Hibbs, but it looked enough alike that a little wave of déjà vu ran over him as he pulled in from the northwest, coming on the road that had brought him circling around Lake Norman counterclockwise.
A lot of the homes in the farm country that surrounded the town had once been plantations, but now most of them were run-down. Inevitable ramshackle barns with inevitable farming implements stood behind inevitable cars on cement blocks, and the houses looked no better, their chipping, fading paint giving them the feel of a Southern ghost story.
The post office was basically all there was to the center of town. He could see a bunch of camp revival tents out past one end of town – an amazing amount, really – but there wasn't enough traffic in town for him to think the revivalists were still there. That was good, though. It was better that they weren't there. He didn't want to run into them, and he was damn sure that they didn't want to run into him.
He lit a second cigarette off the first as he drove his car through the town. It was a Saturday, but despite that, there wasn't much traffic. In a way, that was good, because nobody would notice him. In a way, that was bad, too, because when he sought Hibbs out, if something bad happened, people would notice. He had to isolate the guy, get him outside of the area, make sure that he wasn't seen. He had to plan ahead. He hated planning. He was better at acting. Wasn't he?
No, you aren't, that same voice continued. You can't even fire a damn gun without just about losing your lunch.
He jerked the wheel harder than he needed to turn the car onto a side street, trying to ignore the voice as he pulled into an empty parking lot to sit for a moment. It sickened him, though, and he sat there in the car, stared up at the sign of the gas station on the side street, tried to swallow his stomach. What he was about to do – the idea that he could really kill Hibbs, just for screwing him over on a job – turned his stomach. He would do it, though. He had no choice. He had gotten himself into this mess by trusting the guy, and it had taken more from him than he had wanted – Jeannie, his money, his one chance so far at something like a comfortable life. The only way to get it back was to give Hibbs what he deserved.
Why, then, was he shaking too badly to drive? He knew the answer, but he did not want to think about it. He shoved the key into the ignition again and sat there for a moment, feeling the car hum to life. Around him, Denver seemed cheerful and fake, a Mayberry that was about to know murder.
No, he told himself, hearing a note of seven-year-old resolve. He saw his parents' bodies in flashes, visions that he knew hadn't gone away through the years, because he saw those same images each night. No, he repeated to himself, his breath and his fingers going from shaky to trembling, lessening some. Hibbs isn't your real target. He couldn't do it, he decided as he sat there staring at the gas station, the sign wavering in his vision and going double. Not Hibbs. Hibbs didn't deserve to be killed like this. He didn't have the stomach for it anyway, but if he had had the stomach for it, there was only one guy who deserved death, the guy that had brought about his parents' death. He would save the gun, and the bullets now within it, for him.
There were better things to do here, anyway. It was fall, and there were plenty of tourists around. Lots of young ones, too, and rich, Charlotte businessmen going boating for the weekend with their gorgeous, frustrated trophy wives. He saw an opportunity for a con here. There was an opportunity for that everywhere. He would get some more money, and he would go back to Knoxville richer in cash, if not in anything else.
An opportunity was always there. This was proof of it. He had been brought here because of the chance for a con, and he would make good on that. He pulled into the gas station, checking the mileage - 41,516 – and then got out of the car. He pulled out his cellphone to check it. Jeannie had called. He pressed the number to hear his voicemail, and had to fight not to lose his nerve at what he heard.
"– I know. I'm sorry! What more do you want me to say? Yeah, James is gone. No, no, I don't know why. If I knew, I would tell you. I don't know where he is, Kelvin. Honest, I don't. You don't need to go searchin' all over the Bible Belt for him, though. He's done with. He isn't worth it."
An unfamiliar voice, then. Not Hibbs', but it was Northern enough anyway. "You know damn well that he is. You know this. You know why we recruited you. We wanted you to keep an eye on him. He was your assigned candidate, and you lost him."
Jeannie's voice rose, panicked. "It's not my fault his partner decided to drop the fiddle game they were running! It's not like we told him to, either."
"No. But it's your fault you were screwing both of them, is – shit, is that thing on?"
Click.
He moved mechanically for the gas, putting it in the car, barely noticing when he slumped against the car, faint and dizzy. Someone yelled at him, bringing him back to his senses with a nauseous shift. Jolted back to reality, he stepped back, smiled at the guy that had yelled at him, feeling how fake the smile was. It was his con man grin. "I'm all right," he told the guy, and for a split second, he even believed that was true.
They wouldn't find him. He was days away from Tampa, and he had only opportunity ahead of him. Denver, North Carolina, was good as any other place to start living on the lam as a proper con artist. He would never be at home anywhere, now, but it was fine. It wasn't like he had a choice in the matter, either. He would keep one step ahead of them, just like he had kept one step ahead of the law, and he would only use his gun to kill Frank Sawyer. He promised himself that, and when he made promises to himself, he stuck to them. He could not say the same for promises to anyone else, but it seemed like everyone else had always lied to him, anyway.