Theyd given him a claim check when he entered
Long-Term Parking, and hed stuck it in his breast pocket. But the owner of the other Sentra had guarded against misplacing his own claim check, and left it under the clip on the sun visor. Keller, who hadnt even thought about that aspect of things, promptly switched checks.
But could he afford it? If he used his own check hed pay the minimum, which was just a couple of dollars. But if the other guy had left the car for a week or two, the charges could eat into the small amount of cash he had left.
He checked, and the thing had a time and date stamped on it. It had been parked less than twenty-four hours earlier, so at most it would cost him an extra five dollars, and he decided it was worth it. He left his original tag under the visor, kept the new one in his pocket.
And he substituted a few touches of his own. The pizza box (minus the two remaining slices, which could remain on the passenger seat of his car, because he still didnt know where his next meal was coming from) found a place on the passenger seat of the new car. The fragments of the cell phone went in the new cars trunk, and he drew a certain grim satisfaction from the image of all the FBIs horses and men knocking themselves out reassembling the thing. The cup that had once held Coca-Cola before it had held the ruined phone was now empty, tossed for verisimilitude onto the floor in back.
What else?
Well, he hadnt gotten around to the most important thing of all. But the two cars didnt have to be close to each other for the next step, and hed be better off getting his own car out of the way. He started it up, found a place to park it, used his Swiss Army knife to remove the front and rear license plates, hunkered down in the shadows while a car crept by, and then carried them to the other car. He switched the plates, returned the new set to the original car, attached them, and drove off, wondering what hed forgotten.
He couldnt think of a thing.
Could it work?
Well, it seemed to him that it had a shot. For a while, anyway. The minute he left the long-term lot, he was no longer in a car of interest to the authorities. Well, the car was still of interest to them, it was the same car hed been driving all along, but they didnt know that, because it had a different license plate on it.
He could have switched plates with any car. It didnt have to be the same make and model as his, nor did it have to be stashed in a lot at the airport. But that would only shelter him until the cars owner noticed the switch, or got pulled over by someone who recognized the plate. As soon as that happened, the police would have a new plate number to look for, and hed be back in their sights all over again.
But if this worked, hed have some breathing room. Because he wasnt just giving them the old plate, he was providing a car to go with it. Theyd find the car, with his rental papers in the glove box. Theyd find the smashed-up phone, and theyd probably get a print off the pizza box, and what conclusion would they draw? That hed switched cars? That hed switched plates and kept the same old car?
No, theyd almost certainly assume that hed come to the airport because it was in fact an airport, with the intention of getting on a plane. And theyd have a tough time establishing unequivocally that he hadnt somehow managed to slip through Security and do just that.
Eventually, of course, the real owner of the Sentra would return. But he wouldnt find his car, because theyd have long since hauled it away and very likely stripped the thing down to the chassis, until it would be about as easy to put back together as the cell phone.
So what would he do? After hed looked all over the lot for it, and very likely cursed a blue streak, what would the guy do?
Report it as stolen, most likely. And the police would add the vehicle to the national hot car list, where it would have thousands of others for company. That meant that police officers all over the country would be looking for it, but it didnt mean theyd be looking very hard. If he was in an accident, if he got stopped for speeding, someone would run the plate and determine that the vehicle was stolen. But if he was just driving around and minding his own business, nobody would give him a second glance.
It would be just as well, though, to point them toward the Sentra sooner rather than later. It would probably be at least a day or two before the owner returned, but that wasnt the only reason to get things moving. As soon as they identified the car and followed their noses into the airport terminal, theyd get out the word to stop searching for the car, and all Nissan Sentras, including the one he was driving, would stop attracting untoward attention.
So should he call it in?
Caller ID, a staple on every 911 line, would
immediately pinpoint the pay phone he called from. Hed be long gone before anybody could stop by to ask questions, but was there a better way?
The station had a toll-free number, and it had imprinted itself on his memory somewhere in the course of the few hundred times theyd announced it. He picked a pay phone at the far end of a strip mall with all its stores closed for the night. When a man with a good radio voice said, WHO, Central Iowas leader in news and opinion, youre on the air, he took a breath and said, Hey, is there a reward for spotting that car everybodys looking for? On account of I just seen it out by the airport.