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like her, he’d be able to find her. People, he’d learned, were
predictable.
The bus had arrived a few minutes before four o’clock, and he
stood in the bus station, looking from one direction to the next.
She had stood here days earlier, he thought, and he wondered
what she would do in a strange city with no money and no friends
and no place to go. Quarters and dimes and dollar bills wouldn’t
go far, especially after purchasing a bus ticket.
It was cold, he remembered, and it would have been getting dark
soon. She wouldn’t want to walk far and she would need a place
to stay. A place that took cash. But where? Not here, in this area.
Too expensive. Where would she go? She wouldn’t want to get
lost or head in the wrong direction, which meant that she
probably looked in the phone book. He went back inside the
terminal and looked under hotels. Pages and pages, he realized.
She might have picked one, but then what? She’d have to walk
there. Which meant she’d need a map.
He went to the convenience store at the station and bought
himself a map. He showed the clerk the photograph but he shook
his head. He hadn’t been working on Tuesday, he said. But it felt
right to Kevin. This, he knew, was what she did. He unfolded the
map and located the station. It bordered on Chinatown and he
guessed she had headed in that direction.
He got back in his car and drove the streets of Chinatown, and
again it felt right. He drank his vodka and walked the streets. He
started at those businesses closest to the bus station and showed
her picture around. No one knew anything but he had the sense
that some of them were lying. He found cheap rooms, places he
never would have taken her, dirty places with dirty sheets,
managed by men who spoke little English and took only cash. He
implied that she was in danger if he couldn’t find her. He found
the first place she’d stayed, but the owner didn’t know where