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Drive. He got into the car and on and off the interstate and called Dot from a pay phone at an Exxon station.
    “All done,” he said.
    “That was quick.”
    “It didn’t seem quick,” he said, “but I suppose it was. All I know is it’s done. I’d like to get off the phone and hop on a plane.”
    “Why don’t you?”
    “It’s too late,” he said. “I have to figure the last flight’s in the air by now, and I still have to go back to the motel for my stuff. Anyway, the room’s paid for.”
    “And maybe the Hell’s Angels are in a mellow mood tonight.”
    “They’re probably in a different time zone by now,” he said, “but all the same they put me in another room. On the top floor, so nobody’s going to raise hell overhead.”
    “Suppose you get a carload of Satan’s Slaves down below?”
    “Unless they can figure out a way to dance on the ceiling,” he said, “I think I’ll be all right. Anyway, I’ve got ear plugs. You can buy them at the 7-Eleven.”
    “What a country.”
    “You said it.”
    “Keller? Did it go all right?”
    “Yeah, it was fine,” he said. “Anyway, it’s done, and I’ll be on the first flight out tomorrow morning. It’s not a bad town—“
    “Keller, that’s what you always say. You said it about Roseburg, Oregon.”
    “—but I’ll be damn glad to see the last of it,” he finished, “and that’s something you never heard me say about Roseburg. I can’t wait to get out of here.”
    He had the Olds tucked away in his usual slot at the rear of the Super 8 before he remembered his new room was at the front. He left it there, reasoning that it might as well stay where it couldn’t be seen from the street, even if no one was looking for it. He didn’t have to decide what to do with the gun. That, like Walter Hirschhorn, was something he no longer had to worry about.
    He soaked in the tub, then watched a little TV, including a half hour of local news. A black woman and a white man shared the anchor desk, and it was hard to tell them apart. Color and gender somehow disappeared, and all you were aware of were their happy voices and big bright teeth.
    It was consequently hard to pay attention to what they were saying, but Hirschhorn wasn’t in any of the stories they reported. Keller hadn’t figured he would be.
    He got into bed. The traffic noise from outside wasn’t too bad, and Keller was a New Yorker, rarely bothered by horns or sirens or screeching brakes, rarely even subliminally aware of them. But he tried the ear plugs anyway, just to see how they felt, and fell asleep before he could get around to taking them out.
    He woke up around ten-thirty, coming awake abruptly, sitting up in bed with his heart pounding. He couldn’t hear a thing, of course, and it took him a minute to figure out why. Then he glanced at the phone, expecting to see the red light flashing, but it wasn’t. He checked his watch and was amazed he’d slept so long. Plug up your ears and you slept like the dead.
    He unplugged his ears and put the plugs, no longer sterile, in with the unsullied pair. Was that okay? Did you have to throw away ear plugs after you’d used them once? Or could you reuse them? They weren’t sterile anymore, he understood that much, but did they have to be? It wasn’t as though somebody else was going to be exposed to your ear wax. If they’d never been anywhere but your own ears, and if that was their sole future destination, how unsanitary was it to use them again? Was it like reusing a Q-Tip, or more like getting a second shave out of a disposable razor?
    He packed his bag and carried it to the car, and as he rounded the building he saw the rear parking lot filled with police cars and emergency vehicles, some with lights flashing on their tops. Yellow crime scene tape was stretched here and there, and, while he stood watching, two men in teal jumpsuits emerged from one room carrying a stretcher between them. There was an olive-drab body bag on the