The Fool's Run

on a state-by-state basis. That’s the shortest distance that will get you out of all the states surrounding Maryland-Virginia. You can be in New Jersey in less than three hours.”
    “That sounds good,” I said. “We’ll call you when we find a place.” Dillon had pulled himself together. He sounded like an intelligence officer giving a briefing: calm, detached, certain. But then, he wasn’t being hunted. And he hadn’t known Dace.
    “Get as far away as you can. The closer you get to New York, the less attention the local police should pay to routine watch bulletins. They’ve got other problems.”
    “Okay.”
    “Call back here in six hours. I should know something then.”
    LuEllen was lying in the backseat of the car. She wasn’t weeping; she was absolutely still, her arm thrown across her eyes, her breathing shallow and quick, as though she had been injured.
    “You okay?”
    “I’m fucked,” she said. “Just drive.”
    I went back into the 7-Eleven, bought a map, a pack of donuts, and a Styrofoam cooler that I stocked with ice and two six-packs of Coke. In the car, I traced out the course Dillon had recommended, and five minutes later we were on the way.
    We caught the evening rush going out of town; the trip was a nightmare of stop-and-go. We saw state troopers twice; both times they were involved in clearing fender-benders. LuEllen lay in the backseat for an hour before climbing into the front. Her eyes were red and sunken, but there were no tears.
    “There’s no chance he’s alive, is there?”
    “No. They shot him three times going in. If he was still alive, they would have shot him again before they left.”
    “Who were they?”
    “We don’t know. Dillon’s trying to figure it out. We’ll call him from Camden.”
    “Think they’ll come after us?” she asked.
    “Probably. I’ll be the main target, but you’ve seen their faces. We’d better stick together until we find out. If they haven’t made you, you’d best get on a plane to Duluth and lie low for a while.”
    We stopped once at a fast-food place in Delaware. LuEllen said she had to call Duluth, and she used a phone on the wall of the restaurant while I sat in the car and ate a soggy cheeseburger.
    “I got the name of a guy in Philadelphia,” she said.
    “For what?”
    “In case you want to buy a gun. No questions.”
    A few minutes after eight o’clock, going north out of Wilmington, I spotted a chain electronics store in a strip shopping center and pulled in.
    “Supplies,” I told LuEllen. I ransacked the store’s telephone and home-furnishings departments, bought a few general electronics tools, a power drill, drill bits, and a stapler, paid $160, and threw the sack in the backseat of the car.
    “Now. Where’s this guy with the gun?” I asked.
     
    THE GUY WITH the gun lived in a suburb of Philadelphia, a place with small lawns and aluminum-sided ramblers and a maple tree in the center of each front yard. We found his house after twenty minutes of searching. He met us at the door.
    “Mr. Drexel?” asked LuEllen.
    “Yes. You must be Miss Carlson?”
    “Yes. Weenie called about us. This is a friend.”
    “Come in,” he said. He was a solemn type, tall and bespectacled, with a ruddy outdoorsman’s complexion. He was dressed from the L. L. Bean catalog, with a blue pin-striped oxford cloth shirt and cotton slacks with cargo pockets on the sides. His wife and teenage daughter were watching a movie on television in the living room. The woman said “Hello,” but the girl ignored us. We followed Drexel down a short flight of stairs into the basement.
    The basement contained a neat, well-equipped woodworking shop and a couple of metal-cutting machines. A full-size unfinished airplane wing hung on one wall.
    “Building a plane,” Drexel said laconically. “Finish it in a year or so.” He led the way to an upright cabinet in one corner.
    “Now. What exactly did you have in mind?” he asked.
    “I haven’t handled a handgun since I was in the Army,” I said.
    He arched one eyebrow and opened the cabinet. The top was filled with long weapons, M16s and AK47s. The bottom contained drawers filled with shorter arms. He opened a drawer and pulled out two bundles wrapped in oiled paper.
    “In that case, and depending on your requirements, I would suggest one of these two weapons,” he said. The first looked like it had been made in a high school metal shop, all rough edges and bent, black steel.
    “This