Part 2 (1/2)
Garage Sale 103 today Coo on as scheduled in Wisconsin The split-level's garage door was rolled up and the sale merchandise spilled out onto the driveway Toys, bikes, abandoned knitting projects, romance novels, popcorn poppers, salad shooters, tater twisters, ho projects, and rack upon rack of clothes Everything looked fabulous to my fashi+on-starved eyes, even the polyester pants and the gypsy skirts that were so hot for about a microsecond and now seemed as dated as disco suits
It wasn't ten o'clock yet, but the buzzer-beaters were already scavenging for bargains The wo the sale sat on lawn chairs behind a card table, drinking coffee and scarfing down blueberry muffins, still steamy warm from the oven, slathered with butter
My sto noises Theravitational field I wanted to rip the muffins out of the women's butter-sured thatto the rear of the garage, I began pawing through the junk, hoping no one would notice s, brah it'd been styled with a wood chipper
The garage sale wo a portable TV tuned to the local news A fe a fabulous low-cut top (I'd wear that) and tooa standup report with the walls of the prison as a backdrop
”believed to have escaped during the tornado that touched down in the Taycheedah area last night,” she gabbled ”A passing e, but a search of the college grounds revealed no trace of the fugitive Maguire, as convicted ofher husband, is believed to be unarmed, but should be approached with caution A itive is asked to contact law enforcement officials”
I kept h the clothing table
assigned to laundry detail at Taycheedah, I'd worked with Victoria Jean Otto-aka Vicki Jean the Boosting Queen Vicki Jean had explained the trick to filching ot to dress up for the job You don't look up to check if the spy ca you because that ular clothes in the dressing roo the new stuff and a Miss fuckin' America expression on your face”
I'd have been a co that didn't belong to rocery store and pointed out the error on a receipt if they'd undercharged ize and pay the difference
You can see what an insufferable goody-goody I was I deserved to be in prison for being so da I couldn't even lie-ive etting htened that out In the Big House, it's lie or die
I held a pair of black sweatpants against ht fit I skulked behind a purple-flocked Christain at nineteen bucks-stripped off the hideous boxers, kicked the-I looked like I was s away here Sonized me on the street and already have phoned the police No ti the fuschia silk Donna Karan blouse shrieking pick -sleeved T-shi+rt, zipped out of the hoodie, and zapped on the T-shi+rt in twenty seconds flat The other bargain hunters, araht aere too intent on their shopping to notice -strewn hair into a ponytail, and yanked it out through the oval at the back Rolling the hoodie into a luht come in handy sooner or later The days were still hot, but Septe outside again assu
What else did I need? I found myself drawn to the appliance table, craive their mothers for Christadget caught , and it was shaped like an octopus, with bladed tentacles designed to slice a single wiener into eight skinny seg, I had to ade I could use it as a weapon Thron your guns or the kid's finger gets sliced into eight exactly equal pieces!
Then I re: you take what you need, but you don't get greedy You don't stop to grab the shoes on the way out of the store In forty years of shoplifting, Vicki Jean had never been busted for boosting What had landed her in prison was assault and battery on her cheating boyfriend She'd tied hiic wand to his stomach This had earned her a three-year prison term, but Vicki Jean said it orth it Sure, she was in the sla time with a bunch of criminals, but her ex-boyfriend had to pee toward his belly button
No did I get out of the garage without paying for the goods? Tiainst my ribs, I casually sauntered toward the door ”Back in a sec,” I chirped ”Left e sale wo with a customer over the price stickered on a Fry Daddy As soon as I was out of sight of the garage I broke into a trot Ms Suburbia goes jogging It was nine thirty on a Saturday and people were out in their yards, , red-facedto the boom box he'd set out on his lawn The radio was tuned to a news station
”believed to be in the Fond du Lac area,” the radio announced ”Maguire, serving a life term at Taycheedah for the murder of her husband, is the object of afive feet three inches tall, brown-haired and blue-eyed, with no known scars or tattoos”
A whapping noiselow and lazy across the sky Either the governor, taking a gander at the tornado da the escaped felon I voted for the spy chopper I could feel soround with binoculars powerful enough to pick out individual wads of chewing gu for a woman in a skateboarder sweatshi+rt? Would the cap bri looked tooto a walk, I detoured onto the lawn of the nearest house, picked a downed tree branch off the grass, and hauled it to the curb Just another hoko The chopper made two an flying a grid pattern over another section of town I a here and there to haul tree branches off the sidewalk Little Miss Civic Pride
Before long I could see the interstate just a few blocks away, the traffic already audible On the other side of the highway, the city petered out into scruffy subdivisions and beyond that, into farm fields where I'd stick out like the prize in a box of Cracker Jack
I spotted it then, just a block away: the enore as se for
Walh the parking lot, heading for the store's entrance A maroon van suddenly shot out of the traffic lane, zipped acrosson its shocks The driver's door flew open, nearly knocking me down, and a woman heaved herself out of the van
Not even a muttered Sorry No, that would have required her to take ti ather phone from her ear, she wrenched open the van's rear door Three kids tu on her cell, the woirls ahead, interrupting her phone conversation only long enough to screa at the freakin' snack bar”
I stuck close to the would take me for the Dysfunctional Faled witharound in a shopaholic stupor, overwhel overabundance of stuff Eventually I broke out ofwhat Vicki Jean had toldboxes had spy ca their customers' everyin on edforout the toaster ovens
Maybe I could hide inside the store when it closed, raid the snack bar for food, and stretch out on a sleeping bag in the sporting goods departuards ise to it
I meandered into the electronics section Row upon row of plas the Dangerous Escaped Felon story My photo flashed on thirty-two screens
”five-thousand-dollar reward now being offered for inforuire,” a voice squawked over a close-up of rand? Kip used to spend that ht now,” the television anchor chirped, ”we have our very own Ki live frouire's parents”
They couldn't, the filthy vultures!
But they could and they did There wasconfused and harassed as reporters swar e She looked tired and pale Despite the fact that ets outside My dad has panic attacks if she's gone for more than ten minutes
My dad was injured in a faron unexpectedly sprang loose, knocking him unconscious He was in a coma for two months, and when he came out of it, he didn't recall the accident He didn't recallDad's internal circuit breakers were scralobal amnesia, which meant he could recall the distant past with perfect clarity, but the part of his brain that told hied He tried to return to far, but he'd atte or start to gas up the tractor twenty tier work the job he'd dedicated his life to My brothers took over the fa facility in Florida
Noatched helplessly as reporters hounded hter?” yelled a female reporter
”No,” uire didn't raise no duirl doesn't know about tapped phones?
She didn't say that, of course, but I could feel her thinking it even over a distance of fifteen hundred htful, sweet-tempered woman who co like burned Brillo pads, says excuse me when she buer language than darn, but now she snatched ainto the caive yourself up! Stay out there, stay free as long as you can! Your dad and I both know you're innocent! Love you, baby!”
Feeling a fierce swell of longing for mye
That's when another face appeared on the screen A face with a taut jaw, axe-edge cheekbones, sharp dark eyes, and a ski over ar at the botto 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 h-octane stuff for one uy who'd been chasing Richard Kiitive apprehension hat 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 uire Vonnerjohn, is just a scared young wo to break into your house and shoot your dog or steal your car”
He sounded east coast, h Law & Order reruns to pick up on the eclipsed r's; car cary, 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 extreood on his proitive 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 plannedh the Back to School display, the Cheap Ugly Clothes aisle, and the towering stacks of toilet paper about to fall on your head area I found uts to shoplift
When Vicki Jean the Boosting Queen was short of money, she fed herself and her four kids in the aisles of super a cent Cherries, apples, and pears froes on a pretzel stick frolass cases in front of the bakery Superasbords as far as Vicki Jean was concerned If they didn't want you to help yourself, she argued, they wouldn'ta pole dance against e of corn chips, suppressing the urge to bite into it wrapper and all But I lacked Vicki's blithe self-confidence; net attracting steel filings
Mrs Cellphone and her tribe barged around a corner Still gabbling away on her phone, the wos of Doritos and Tostitos and other snacks froroup into her cart, which already contained a dozen packages of one 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 oo The toddler, propped up in the cart, was sobring over a Peep and waving his stubby legs through the cart slots Cra, her key ring jutting frorily jabbed in new nuan another conversation Cellphones seemed to have multiplied a hundredfold while I'd been in the can Every shopper in the store see to hear someone say hello, whirl around, and discover that the person was babbling into her phone It wouldn't have surprised me to see the toddler whip a phone out of his diaper to set up a play date Didn't anyone ever talk face-to-face any over a package of Bratz accessories, the wo hoever was on the other end of her phone, and the toddler was s cart
Maneuveringcart next to their cart, I casually reached out and closed ers around the Peeps-smeared car keys
Vicki Jean would have been proud of me
Escape tip 5: