Free The Crimes of Jordan Wise by Bill Pronzini Page B

inviting bad luck.
     

    Before nine A.M. on Sunday I packed my suitcase, leaving out the theatrical mustache and spirit gum and the bottle of dark-brown hair dye I'd bought in San Francisco. The suitcase went onto the backseat of my car. I put out the "Do Not Disturb" sign and locked the door to Philip Smith's room, keeping the key. Then I drove the short five blocks to the Mainline Parking Garage.
     
    This early, the second floor had no sign of life and was mostly empty of parked cars. I pulled into the space next to the one marked 256. The Mercury Cougar had a coating of dust, but was otherwise nondescript and in good condition for its age. The tires had plenty of tread, I noticed as I went around to the front and collected the keys. I opened the trunk, transferred my suitcase inside, locked it again, and then drove my car down to the first-floor exit. The sleepy attendant took my money without even glancing at me.
     
    From the garage I headed to the airport, which in San Diego fronts on the bay and is virtually downtown; flights in and out pass over and between some of the taller skyscrapers. I left the car in long-term parking, locked but with the keys on the floor inside and empty of anything I didn't want found in it. A shuttle bus took me to the main terminal, where I boarded another bus that brought me back into the city center. By then I was hungry; I took the time to eat breakfast in a cafe on Broadway. It was a short walk from there to the Greenbriar Motel.
     
    In Philip Smith's room, I washed and dyed my hair, dried it, combed it. Put on the mustache and the tinted contact lenses. Tucked the bottles of dye and spirit gum into my jacket pocket. Left the room key on the dresser; I'd paid cash in advance, so there was no need to go through the usual checkout ritual. The courtyard was deserted when I stepped out of the room. I walked the five blocks to Mainline Parking. When I drove the Mercury down, the attendant in the exit booth paid no more attention to me than he had earlier.
     
    Like Annalise, I had memorized all the necessary street and freeway routes. Even after twenty-seven years, I could tell you my course out of the city with reasonable accuracy. It was a few minutes past noon when I turned off Highway 8 onto Highway 15, heading north—right on schedule.
     
    The long drive from San Diego to Chicago was one of the y factors in the equation. The unexpected is always a possibility during a two-thousand-mile cross-country driving trip. A chance accident. Some sort of mechanical problem with the car that couldn't be fixed. Annalise had bought the Mercury from a reputable dealer, it had performed for her on the desert drive from Phoenix, and it seemed to handle well enough for me as I wheeled north through Escondido and Riverside. But it had 67,000 miles on the odometer and there was no way of knowing whether the engine and transmission had been mistreated by a previous owner or whether it would hold up for the duration.
     
    All I could do was take normal precautions and trust my judgment and my instincts. Which meant driving carefully and defensively, keeping to a sedate twenty-five on city streets, never exceeding the posted freeway speed limits, observing all traffic laws to a fault. And I checked oil and water levels and tire pressure every time I pulled into a service station to refill the gas tank.
     
    That first day I followed Highway 15 on its eastern loop through Barstow and across the Mojave Desert into Nevada. It was late afternoon when I reached Las Vegas. I wasn't tired and the car continued to run smoothly; I could have kept on going all the way through Nevada, maybe even across the southwestern corner of Arizona into Utah. Instead, I stopped at a motel on the eastern outskirts of Vegas, and had dinner before putting through a collect call to Annalise from a pay phone to make sure she'd gotten back all right and to let her know where I was.
     

    The run to Chicago took four more days. I