“Gonna hitchhike?”
“That’s the idea.”
The middle-aged man turned to look at the street. Bennie knew he wasn’t really looking at anything in particular. He was just trying to seem knowledgeable, to make himself different from Bennie himself. Bennie leaned back and took the man’s wallet out of his back pocket and slipped it into his own. It was over in a second. If Bennie had any luck, it would be hours before the man bothered to try to take his wallet out for anything at all.
“You’ve got to go up there,” the man said, pointing in the direction Bennie had been walking anyway. “It’s a long walk though. You’ve got a mile and a half to go before you start seeing the access signs.”
“That’s okay,” Bennie said. “Is there a place to eat somewhere on the way? A diner? A McDonald’s?”
“There’s a Taco Bell a couple of blocks up. I think it’s open twenty-four seven.”
“Right,” Bennie said. “Thanks a lot.”
He went back out to the sidewalk. He did not run. He did not walk quickly. He just walked, and in no time at all he was past the point where he could see the body shop behind him. He could see the Taco Bell up ahead. He looked around but couldn’t find a clock. The DON’T WALK sign was up at the intersection, and he stopped there in a crowd of people to wait. There was a man just in front of him with his wallet bulging out of his back pocket. He took it just as the light changed and the crowd began to move.
In the Taco Bell, Bennie went into one of the stalls in the men’s room and took out the two wallets. The one he’d picked up at the body shop had a $142 in it, mostly in twenties. The one he’d picked up at the intersection had nearly $500. He put the bills in his own wallet, and then took out his driver’s license. The last thing he needed now was that driver’s license. He looked at the other two driver’s licenses and took the one from the guy at the intersection. Then he thought better of it. One of these guys was going to report his wallet stolen. Or maybe not. One of them might think the wallet hadn’t been stolen so much as lost, and then . . . what?
Bennie didn’t know what. It was safer to get rid of the two stolen wallets, and all three of the driver’s licenses, but in the end he kept the licenses. He threw the wallets in the trash next to the sink. Then he came out into the main area of the Taco Bell and started thinking about something to eat.
If a serial killer had really wanted to do the world a favor, he thought—but, of course, a serial killer would not want to do that. A serial killer would know better than to care about the world.
Bennie Durban didn’t know what he knew at all.
3
Margaret Beaufort knew that her sister, Elizabeth, was trying to avoid her. Her sister, Elizabeth, was always trying to avoid her. Even years ago when they were both debutantes and could have gained so much from being willing to be photographed together, Elizabeth had been trying to avoid her and had managed it by going away to California for college.
Margaret had been in California only four times in her life, all of them on business trips with her late husband, who had something important to do at a bank. She had been to Texas only once, also on a business trip, although that time she had combined business with social obligation and attended the wedding of a friend of hers from boarding school. It was as much traveling as she wanted to do west of Philadelphia, because there was nothing west of Philadelphia except dinky little towns that called themselves cities and local “societies” that thought recycling Madame Butterfly exhibited a commitment to Art. Margaret was committed to Art, but not to Artists, because Artists were Bohemian and tacky. She was committed to Science but not Scientists, because Scientists were grubby and boring and didn’t know how to hold a conversation with anybody who couldn’t understand equations. Most of all, she was committed to understanding herself, and other people, not by the people they knew, but by the people they didn’t.
She was thinking about that—about the fact that it was so difficult these days only to know those people it was good for you to know—when the phone call came from Henry. When the phone started to ring, she let it go on for a very long time. She expected Elizabeth or the maid to pick it up. They nearly always did. When nobody picked it up, she finally got it herself, and for the first few seconds she had no idea what she was listening to. Police officers were some of the people Margaret did not know. Even with all the trouble Henry had been in, she didn’t know them, because Elizabeth could usually be counted on to see to that.
This police officer was very polite, but he had a flat, nasal accent that reminded her of that silly old television show about hillbillies in California. Margaret was not surprised to think that the Pennsylvania criminal justice system might be stocked with hillbillies. She couldn’t imagine who else would want to join the police force.