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forward and kissed the TV screen, tears
blurring my mother’s image.
    That’s when
another face appeared on the screen. A face with a taut jaw, axe-edge
cheekbones, sharp dark eyes, and a skimp of mustache. Expensive suit and tie,
raincoat slung over arm. Lettering at the bottom of the screen identified him
as U.S. Deputy Marshal Irving Katz.
    Marshal? What
was this, Dodge City? Where was the hat, the horse, the six-shooter? Last night
a couple of county cops had been half-heartedly tracking me, now a federal
marshal had been sicced on me? High-octane stuff for one measly convict. But
then I remembered that the guy who’d been chasing Richard Kimble was a U.S.
marshal, too. Apparently fugitive apprehension was what marshals did. I felt a
tiny flicker of pride. I’d eluded the locals long enough to have the feds come
after me!
    My little flicker
fizzled as the marshal spoke.
    “The escaped
convict, Mazie Maguire Vonnerjohn, is just a scared young woman,” Irving
Katz said. “She’s unarmed. She’s not going to break into your house and
shoot your dog or steal your car.”
    He sounded east
coast, maybe New York. I’d seen enough Law & Order reruns to pick up
on the eclipsed r ’s; car came out cah.
    “The fugitive
is hungry, cold, tired, and without friends or family nearby to assist her. I’m
confident that my team and I will have her in custody by the end of today .”
    Irving Katz did
not look hungry, cold, or tired. He looked smart, alert, and extremely competent.
He looked like a man who made good on his promises. When he said he expected to
have the fugitive in custody by the end of today, I believed him. He scared the
hell out of me.
    Suddenly I felt
watched on all sides. This place wasn’t safe. Fleeing to Walmart had been a
dumb idea, a perfect example of why I was so lousy at chess: I never planned
more than one move ahead. Wheeling my cart around, I trundled through the Back
to Schooldisplay, the Cheap Ugly Clothesaisle, and the towering
stacks of toilet paper about to fall on your head area. I found myself drawn to
the snack aisle, wishing I had the guts to shoplift.
                When
Vicki Jean the Boosting Queen was short of money, she fed herself and her four
kids in the aisles of supermarkets without spending a cent. Cherries, apples,
and pears from the produce area, pizza slices and sausages on a pretzel stick
from the sample lady, doughnuts from the glass cases in front of the bakery.
Supermarkets were do-it-yourself smorgasbords as far as Vicki Jean was concerned.
If they didn’t want you to help yourself, she argued, they wouldn’t make
everything so inviting.
                My
stomach was doing a pole dance against my backbone. I gazed longingly at a
package of corn chips, suppressing the urge to bite into it wrapper and all.
But I lacked Vicki’s blithe self-confidence; my guilt rays would draw store
security like a magnet attracting steel filings.
                Mrs.
Cellphone and her tribe barged around a corner. Still gabbling away on her
phone, the woman began scooping enormous bags of Doritos and Tostitos and other
snacks from the ito food group into her cart, which already contained a
dozen packages of marshmallow Peeps in jack-o-lantern shapes. When I’d gone to
prison, Peeps only came out at Easter, in the shape of yellow chickies. Now,
apparently, they were a sweet for all seasons. The girls had already been into
the Peeps—their mouths and hands were smeared with marshmallow goo. The
toddler, propped up in the cart, was slobbering over a Peep and waving his
stubby legs through the cart slots. Crammed in next to his aromatic rear was
Mrs. Cellphone’s handbag, her key ring jutting from its outside pocket.
                The
woman ended her call, angrily jabbed in new numbers, then began another
conversation. Cellphones seemed to have multiplied a hundredfold while I’d been
in the can. Every shopper in the store seemed to be on her cell. It