The Dream Thieves
Already he could recognize his brother’s silhouette behind the wheel of the farther car. Age had not changed the set of his chin nor the shape of his ears. Age, the Gray Man guessed, had not changed much about his brother. Fear tickled in his gut.
Through the speakers, the Kinks confessed that they no longer wanted to wander.
The Gray Man pulled up to a pump.
Here is the thing the Gray Man knew about gas stations after dark: They were the best and worst place in the world to kill someone. Because here, between the pumps, in this insomnia light show, the Gray Man was well nigh invincible. Even if there were no other cars getting gas, he had two different cameras pointed at him. And the cashier monitoring those cameras was only a panic away from an emergency button. Only the most casual of killers would strike between these gas pumps. Too kill someone here was to be caught.
The Gray Man’s brother would not get caught. He was dangerous not because he was reckless, but because of the opposite.
And the treasure hunters — they probably were not killers at all. Just specialized thugs with a skill for breaking and entering and enough tact to not break something valuable once they had it.
Sure enough, the Gray Man’s brother didn’t even pull close to the pumps but instead pulled into the darkness beside a trash bin to wait.
The other car hesitated as well, but the Gray Man rolled down his window and waved them over. After a pause, they pulled up the other direction, driver’s window to driver’s window.
They were just a pair of young roughs, both looking tired and frustrated. The one in the passenger seat held a bank of devices on his lap. The Gray Man glimpsed a sea of candy wrappers and soda bottles, a blanket balled in the backseat. So they’d been living out of this car for at least a few days. The Gray Man didn’t really begrudge them for trashing his rooms back at the bed and breakfast. Probably how he would’ve done it, before he knew any better. Well, probably not. But still, they weren’t as bad as the two he’d left in the woods.
This is why you’re the best, Greenmantle had said.
It was true. The Gray Man really was the best.
It was quite clear they hadn’t expected the Gray Man to stop, and if they had, they hadn’t expected him to be leaning easily on the window with the Kinks shouting, Silly boy, you self-destroyer!
“Good evening,” the Gray Man said pleasantly. The station smelled like very old fried food.
“Hey, man,” said the driver, an uneasy cast to his voice. “I see you’re following me,” the Gray Man said.
“Hey, man —” protested the driver.
The Gray Man gently held up a hand. “Let’s not waste time. I don’t have what you’re looking for. I lied to my employer. I pretended the unusual readings were because of the object so he’d keep paying for my room and board while I looked for it. And then I told him I took it to try and get more cash out of him. Which didn’t work, as you can tell.”
They stared at him, too bewildered at first to immediately reply.
“Hey, man,” said the driver, a third time. The passenger scrubbed a hand over his face and then pensively thumbed the stillglowing meters in his lap. “How do we know you aren’t lying to us?”
“For what purpose?” the Gray Man asked. He gestured toward the Mitsubishi. “Let’s be honest. I could easily lose you guys in this.”
He thought, anyway. Probably. It looked fast.
The two of them seemed to think so, though, because they both frowned.
“Look, I’m only stopping out of professional courtesy,” the Gray Man added. “I can see you guys haven’t been in this business as long as I have, but I’d hope you’d do the same for someone else in my position.” He wanted to tell them they could search his car, but that would sound too eager. Too guilty. They’d think he’d dumped it.
More frowning. The guy in the passenger seat said, “What about the readings?”
“I told you. I lied about the readings because I knew I could get away with it for a while. They’re only from the fault line. You can drive up and down the mountains if you want to see for yourself. Follows them pretty perfectly.”
They wanted so badly to believe him. He could see it in their bloodshot eyes, their flattened lips. They’d been sent in pursuit of a ghost, and not many besides the Gray Man had the patience for that. They wanted to be done, to go after more concrete spoils.
“But what do we tell our man?”
“Hey, what do I know?” the Gray Man asked. “I’m the one who’s on the run ’cause mine didn’t believe me.”
“True point,” commented the guy from the passenger seat. There was a pause, and then he added, “I’ve got to piss.”
The Gray Man had won.
“Here. Put my number in your phone,” the Gray Man said. “We can keep in touch.”
They exchanged numbers. Passenger Seat went into the station to pee. Driver said, “Well, hell. Do you have a cigarette?”
The Gray Man somberly shook his head. “Gave them up a year ago.” He had never smoked.
Driver jerked his chin back toward where the Gray Man’s brother waited in the shadows. Rain streaked through the pale beam of his headlights. “What about him?”
“Cagey Guy, you mean? I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to talk to him out of the cameras.”
The driver looked up sharply to where the Gray Man pointed. “Oh, man. I never ever thought of them.”
The Gray Man tapped the end of his nose. He said, “That’s a tip. Okay, let’s stay in touch.”
“Yeah,” the driver said. “Oh, hey —”
The Gray Man stopped rolling up the window. He tried not to hold his breath. “Yeah?”
The driver cracked a grin. “I like the license plate.”
It took the Gray Man a moment to remember what it was.
“Thanks,” he said. “I like to tell the truth when I can.”
He rolled up the window and pulled forward. As he did, his brother eased forward in his car, too. It was a slithering little coupe, something that probably looked elegant back in Boston. The lights striped over the top of it as it pulled forward to follow the Gray Man.
A truck stop was the best and the worst place to kill someone. Because outside of the camera-laden gas pumps there was often a parking lot for weary truck drivers to snatch some sleep. Sometimes it was only room for ten or fifteen semitrucks. Sometimes it was twenty or forty. They were rarely lit, never filmed. It was only trailers and fatigue-drugged drivers.