McCutcheon crossed back through the main terminal, this time with some pep in his step, and re-approached the old man sitting on a swivel chair behind the thick Plexiglas.
“Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“So my grandfather, he just call you?”
The old man looked suspiciously as M.D. McCutcheon smiled warmly.
“Come on, I know he did. We just lost grandma to cancer. They were married fifty-four years. Poor guy, he’s a good man, but he’s worried about me ya know.”
The old man behind the counter touched the wedding ring on his left hand almost subconsciously.
“My gramps is former F.B.I.,” M.D. continued. “But forgets he’s retired. Tracks me like I’m on the most-wanted list or something. It’s only because he cares. He ring you?”
McCutcheon looked at the ticket seller with soft, caring eyes.
“Look, you don’t have to answer,” M.D. said. “I just need to know that you told him the truth. Told him I bought three tickets, the first to Chicago on a bus that leaves in about thirty minutes, then a ticket to L.A., and then a ticket to Seattle. I’m worried about him, ya know. Not sure what he’s gonna do without Gram. But obsessing over me isn’t the answer. It isn’t healthy for him.”
The old man looked to the left and thought about his own wife. Thought about what he’d do if he lost her.
“I bet he asked for the bar code on my tickets, too, didn’t he?” McCutcheon said. “Pretended like it was big important Federal Bureau of Investigations business.”
The guy nodded.
“Thank you, sir. But don’t worry,” M.D. said, rapping his knuckles lightly on the glass. “My gramps is gonna be okay.”
M.D. cruised back to the eatery.
“Here’s your ticket, here’s your cash.”
“And here’s your hat,” the guy said, ripping the Detroit Tigers baseball cap off of his head. “I got a spare apron for you back there. A clean one.”
“Keep ’em.”
“Really?”
“Really,” M.D. said. The hat and the apron were just a test to see if the guy was for sale. Once the driver scanned the ticket’s bar code M.D. would be back on the grid, just like he wanted to be.
However, as McCutcheon well knew, the only way to stay invisible in the modern world was to create the illusion of being visible. The way M.D. figured it, he’d just bought himself at least six hours, more than enough time to disappear forever.
“Cool. This is my favorite lid anyway.” He put his hat back on head and marched to the two tables where the campers sat dozing. He slapped the wooden surfaces, loud and determined.
“All right, let’s go. Time’s up. Closing early.”
Each of the campers shook themselves awake, gathered their stuff, and stumbled off to go sit on the benches in the middle of the terminal where they were supposed to be waiting in the first place. Five minutes later, the eatery’s iron gate was pulled closed and the place was locked for the night.
McCutcheon zipped his leather jacket and walked out a side emergency exit located near the restrooms. He circled around and watched to make sure that the guy in the Tigers baseball cap got his ticket scanned by the driver. The guy did and then took a seat in the back of the bus. Seven minutes later the evening Greyhound Express to Chicago closed its doors and groaned its way into the dark night, McCutcheon’s location entirely known to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Or so the Federal Bureau of Investigation thought.
McCutcheon headed down a black alley. He had other business to attend to.
The morning sun began to rise in a clear and crisp Detroit sky. A brisk wind, some cool air, freshness in every breath. It was a good time of year to toss the football or take a walk in the park. Perhaps even a Saturday boat ride on the blue-green waters of Lake St. Clair for those with the means.
With no more rain in the forecast for the rest of the weekend, today would be a good day.
McCutcheon stepped over crushed beer cans, bags of long-ago eaten potato chips, and packs of discarded cigarettes. He stared at his phone. Looked at the street. Measured up calculations comparing the grid on his screen to the terrain at his feet. Markings were few and rubbish was plenty. It was as if a tornado had ripped through this part of town and everyone who once lived here had vanished. Just taken what they could grab and fled for higher ground.
This once was the Motor City. Still was, too, but the meaning of what that phrase meant had long ago changed.
McCutcheon checked his phone again and approached some rotted wood. He studied the surroundings again and then slipped on a pair of work gloves he’d bought at a hardware store and hunted around. Perhaps there were squatters. Drug addicts or whores or homeless men and women long ago discarded by society and comforted by alcohol and narcotics. But it was too early in the morning for those who prowled the night to be awake at this hour, and though McCutcheon stood tall and easily viewable from more than a quarter-mile away, he also felt alone and unobserved.
M.D. reached for a board. Tossed it to the side. Spun his shoulders around and saw some numbers on a house across the street that ended with a six.
Evens on that side, he deduced. Means odds over here. He checked the grid on his phone again. Calculated. Searched for an address but couldn’t find one.
Then he did. Found a plank sitting on the front steps. Read the black numbers. 775. McCutcheon circled to the western side of the burned-out dwelling, yanked at his gloves to make sure they were good and tight, and then began pulling away hunks of decomposed brown wood.
He found a cellar. It was made of battered cedar and the lock was long since gone. It didn’t appear as if these cracked, rotted doors to a dark and cavernous underground had been thrown open in forty years. McCutcheon split them apart, hoisted them open, and spied a bag.
Two of them. Duffels. Black and zipped and plump.
He knelt. Opened the first one. Saw brick after brick of clean green cash, stacks of hundred dollar bills wrapped and sorted into tight rectangular bundles.
There were fifties, too. And twenties. McCutcheon stared. It was more money than he had ever seen in his entire life.
M.D. shook his head and smiled, unable to suppress his proud grin.
“Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch.”
ALAN LAWRENCE SITOMER was California’s 2007 Teacher of the Year. In addition to being an inner-city high school English teacher and professor at the Graduate School of Education at Loyola Marymount University, Mr. Sitomer is a nationally renowned speaker, specializing in engaging reluctant readers. He received the 2004 award for Classroom Excellence from the Southern California Teachers of English and the 2003 Teacher of the Year honor from California Literacy. Alan’s previous books include Caged Warrior, The Hoopster, Hip-Hop High School, Homeboyz, The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez, Nerd Girls—The Rise of the Dorkasaurus, and Nerd Girls—A Catastrophe of Nerdish Proportions. Alan is also the author of Hip-Hop Poetry and the Classics, a text used in classrooms across the United States to engage disengaged students.
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