And, if you were a man or woman from Gujarat, wouldnt it work in about the same fashion when you looked over the counter of your motel at a white American? Wouldnt you see what your prospective customer was before you saw who he was? And, since all you had to do was run his credit card and hand him a room key, would
there ever be any reason for you to pay attention to any more of him than you saw on first glance?
Keller decided to risk it.
There was no one at all behind the desk when Keller opened the door to the motel office, but he didnt need to see anybody to know that his first assumption was correct. The owners were from India, if not necessarily from Gujarat. The rich smell of curry left no room for doubt.
It was not an aroma you expected to encounter in the hills of central Pennsylvania, and it had an even stronger effect upon Keller than had the phrase Pennsylvania Dutch home cooking . Here was a smell that promised everything that had been missing from all those fast-food hamburgers and fries. Keller wasnt hungry, hed eaten not that long ago, but hunger was somehow beside the point. He wanted to find the source of that wonderful bouquet and roll around in it like a dog in carrion an image, he reflected, that flattered neither himself nor the food, but even so
He broke off the thought when the tinkling of a beaded curtain heralded the arrival of a young woman, dark-skinned and slender, dressed in a white blouse and plaid skirt that might have been the uniform of a parochial school. She was almost certainly the daughter of the proprietors, and she was very pretty, and in other circumstances Keller might have allowed himself some light flirting. At the very least he might have commented on how good the food smelled.
But not now. All he did was ask about a room, and all she did was tell him the price was $39, which struck him as perfectly reasonable. If she looked at him at all, at his face or at Homers, he never saw her do it. He was just a burdensome duty to be dealt with as quickly as possible, before she got back to polishing the essay portion of her application to Harvard.
He filled out the card she gave him, making up a name and address, leaving the space for his cars make and license number blank. They always had a space for it on the card, but they didnt seem to care if you filled it in or not, and this girl, who wouldnt have noticed if hed registered as Mahatma Gandhi, was no exception.
He paid cash, because his credit card was in Remsens name and hed already signed in as somebody else. He could have used Remsen, the name would be safe for days if not weeks, and by tomorrow hed be back in New York and none of this would matter. But he had the money, so what difference did it make?
She asked him if he would want to make phone calls, because then he would need to leave a deposit, or allow her to take an imprint of his credit card. He shook his head, picked up his room key, and filled his nostrils for one last time with the sweet smell of curry.
15
He drove a few miles, stopped to top off the gas tank for what would be the final time, drove some more. The phrase safe at home echoed in his mind like a mantra. All he needed to do was get into his own apartment and lock the door behind him and hed be locking out his life as a fugitive and everything that went with it. And, because he was retired now, with no one last job looming in front of him, hed be locking all of that out forever. Hed have his stamps, hed have his enormous state-of-the-art TV, hed have his TiVo, and hed have all the other aspects of the life hed arranged for himself within easy walking distance his regular deli, his favorite restaurants, the newsstand where he bought the Times every morning, the laundry where he dropped it off dirty in the morning and picked it up clean at night. He didnt suppose it was a terribly exciting life, centering as it did upon such sedentary and solitary pursuits as television and stamp collecting, but excitement had lost its charm for him over the years, if it had ever had any to begin with, and he found it thrilling enough to bid a few dollars on a stamp on eBay and see if some bastard pounced on it before time ran out. It was low-stakes excitement, no question, but that was plenty.
That errant thought was trying to break through again, struggling to rise to the surface. It was like something barely glimpsed out of the corner of your eye. You knew youd catch sight of it if you turned your head, and that was all it took to keep your gaze fixed straight ahead.
His breakfast,
picked up without incident at a drive-up window, consisted of two Egg McMuffins and a big cup of coffee. Just before exiting the interstate hed seen a sign for a rest area five miles ahead, so he drove there and parked under a tree. Hed timed it just right, he was pleased to note; the coffee was cool enough to drink and the Egg McMuffins were still warm.
When he was done eating he went to the restroom, and on his way back he finally remembered to buy a paper. USA Today was seventy-five cents, and he fed in three quarters before he noticed that the coin box right next to it held that mornings New York Times . He pressed the coin return, got his three quarters back, added a fourth quarter and bought the Times . On the way back to the car he was already planning his approach to the paper. First the local and national news, then the sports, and finally the crossword puzzle. What day was it, anyway? Thursday? The puzzles increased daily in difficulty, from Monday, not much of a challenge to a bright ten-year-old, to Saturday, which often left Keller feeling slightly retarded. Thursday was usually just about right. He could generally fill in a Thursday puzzle, all right, but it took some thought.