Part 35 (1/2)

”I should call my sister,” Ca.s.sie said, ”and tell her I've changed my mind.”

”We'll stop at a gas station,” B.T. said, opening the door fully and looking both ways again. ”Okay,” he said, and they went down the hall, through the emergency exit door, and onto the fire escape.

”You go bring the car around,” B.T. said, and Mel clattered down the metal mesh steps and ducked across the parking lot to the car.

The emergency-room door opened and two men stood in its light for a moment, talking to someone.

Mel jammed the key into the ignition, switched it on, and pulled the car around to the side of the hospital, where B.T. and Ca.s.sie were working their way down the last steps.

”Come on,” he said, grabbing Ca.s.sie under the arm, ”hurry,” and hustled her across to the car.

A siren blared. ”Hurry,” Mel said, yanking the door open and pus.h.i.+ng her into the backseat, slamming the door shut. B.T. ran around to the other side.

The siren came abruptly closer and then cut off, and Mel, reaching for the door handle, looked back toward the entrance. An ambulance pulled in, red and yellow lights flas.h.i.+ng, and the two men in the door reached forward and took a stretcher off the back.

And this is crazy, Mel thought. n.o.body's after us. But they would be, as soon as the nurse saw Ca.s.sie was missing, and if not then, as soon as Ca.s.sie's sister got there. ”I saw two men push a woman into a car and then go peeling out of here,” one of the interns unloading that stretcher would say. ”It looked like they were kidnapping her.” And how would they explain to the police that they were looking for the City of G.o.d?

”This is insane,” Mel started to say, reaching for the door handle.

There was a flyer wedged in it. Mel unrolled it and read it by the parking lot's vapor light. ”Hurry, hurry, hurry! Step right up to the Greatest Show on Earth!” it read in letters of gold. ”Wonders, Marvels, Mysteries Revealed!”

Mel got into the car and handed the flyer to B.T. ”Ready?” he asked.

”Let's go,” Ca.s.sie said, and leaned forward to point at the front door. Two men in navy-blue suits were running down the front steps.

”Keep down,” Mel said, and peeled out of the parking lot. He turned south, drove a block, turned onto a side street, pulled up to the curb, switched off the lights, and waited, watching in his rearview mirror until a navy-blue car roared past them going south.He started the car and drove two blocks without lights on and then circled back to the highway and headed north. Five miles out of town, he turned east on a gravel road, drove till it ended, turned south, and then east again, and north onto a dirt road. There was no one behind them.

”Okay,” he said, and B.T. and Ca.s.sie sat up.

”Where are we?” Ca.s.sie asked.

”I have no idea,” Mel said. He turned east again and then south on the first paved road he came to.

”Where are we going?” B.T. asked.

”I don't know that either. But I know what we're looking for.” He waited till a beat-up pickup truck full of kids pa.s.sed them and then pulled over to the side of the road and switched on the dome light.

”Where's your laptop?” he asked B.T.

”Right here,” B.T. said, opening it up and switching it on.

”All right,” Mel said, holding the flyer up to the light. ”They were in Omaha on January fourth, Palmyra on the ninth, and Beatrice on the tenth.” He concentrated, trying to remember the dates on the sign in the hospital.

”Beatrice,” Ca.s.sie murmured. ”That's in Dante, too.”

”The carnival was in Crown Point on December fourteenth,” Mel went on, trying to remember the dates on the sign in the hospital, ”and Gresham on January twelfth.”

”The carnival?” B.T. said. ”We're looking for a carnival?”

”Yes,” Mel said. ”Ca.s.sie, have you got your Bartlett's Quotations'?”

”Yes,” she said, and began rummaging in the emerald-green tote bag.

”I saw them between Pittsburgh and Youngstown on Sunday,” Mel said to B.T., who had started typing, ”and in Wayside, Iowa, on Monday.”

”And the truck spill was at Seward,” B.T. said, tapping keys.

”What have you got, Ca.s.sie?” Mel said, looking in the rearview mirror.

She had her finger on an open page. ”It's Christina Rossetti,” she said.” 'Will the day's journey take the whole long day? From morn to night, my friend.'”

”They're skipping all over the map,” B.T. said, turning the laptop so Mel could see the screen. It was a maze of connecting lines.

”Can you tell what general direction they're headed?” Mel asked.

”Yes,” B.T. said. ”West.”

”West,” Mel repeated. Of course. He started the car again and turned west on the first road they came to.

There were no cars at all, and only a few scattered lights, a farm and a grain elevator, and a radio tower. Mel drove steadily west across the flat, snowy landscape, looking for the distant glittering lights of the carnival.

The sky turned navy blue and then gray, and they stopped to get gas and call Ca.s.sie's sister.

”Use my calling card,” B.T. said, handing it to Ca.s.sie. ”They're not looking for me yet. How much cash do we have?”

Ca.s.sie had sixty and another two hundred in traveler's checks. Mel had a hundred sixty-eight. ”What did you do?” B.T. asked. ”Rob the collection plate?”

Mel called Mrs. Bilderbeck. ”I won't be back in time for the services on Sunday,” he told her. ”Call Reverend Davidson and ask if he'll fill in. And tell the ec.u.menical meeting to read John 3: 16-18 for a devotion.”

”Are you sure you're all right?” Mrs. Bilderbeck asked. ”There were some men here looking for you yesterday.”

Mel gripped the receiver. ”What did you tell them?”

”I didn't like the looks of them, so I told them you were at a ministerial alliance meeting in Boston.”

”You're wonderful” Mel said, and started to hang up.

”Oh, wait, what about the furnace?” Mrs. Bilderbeck said. ”What if the pilot light goes out again?”

”It won't,” Mel said. ”Nothing can put it out.”

He hung up and handed the phone and the calling card to Ca.s.sie. She called her sister, who had a car phone, and told her not to come, that she was fine, her knee hadn't been sprained after all, just twisted.