Samuel Logan was barely recognisable now and he felt the disguise would get him all the way to Jay’s room without alerting anyone to his true identity.
Earlier, he’d used Roger Hawkins’s keys to gain access to the man’s apartment. Though palatial in comparison to the shack he’d shared with his family, it was a soulless place at basement level, steps leading down from the street to the front entrance. On opening the door he’d found an open-plan area with hardwood floors, heavy leather furniture, a large plasma screen TV and entertainment centre, and, thankfully, no sign of a family. He wondered if Hawkins had a wife and kids who lived elsewhere and if the businessman kept this place for when he was in the city. Off the main living room was an en suite bathroom and a kitchen with appliances that he was unfamiliar with, as well as a large bedroom with a walk-in dressing closet. That was what he was most interested in and he’d found a two-piece suit not unlike the one Hawkins was wearing earlier. Shirts on hangers hung in colour-coordinated ranks and below them shoes and boots for every occasion. Samuel stripped down to his boxers, studying himself in a full-length mirror. He looked like a beer keg on legs, but unlike Hawkins his sturdy frame wasn’t formed of pulpy fat. Like his face, his body was a network of fine white scars from past injuries, whereas a couple of others — burns primarily — were lumpy with pink scar tissue. His bandages were soiled. The pink had become red, and was fast changing hue again to an ugly brown. He stank. He didn’t have time to waste on showering, so looked instead for toiletries and sprayed his body liberally with cologne from a glass bottle. Then, at random, he chose a shirt and pulled it on. It almost fit. It was tight across his shoulders and upper arms, whereas there was plenty of loose material at his waist. He then dressed in the suit. He had to add a belt to keep the trousers up, but again the jacket was snug up top. He studied himself in the mirror again, and saw that his greasy hair and roughly shaved face belied the expensive clothing, but didn’t care too much about it. There were razors and scissors in the bathroom. Hawkins’s shoes were too small for him, so he’d no option but to pull on his own boots again. He didn’t think that anyone would be astute enough to notice such detail as his work boots any way.
He sheared away the longest hair and combed it into a side parting, used Hawkins’s razor to scrape his beard off. The man who stared back at him from the mirror was a stranger. With his hair bleached and cut short he barely recognised himself, and he leaned towards the glass to check that it was indeed his own eyes staring back at him. He even went so far as to reach out and jab a fingertip against the glass, just to make sure. He left an oily smear on the surface. Samuel couldn’t give a damn for forensic evidence. The cops were already after him, and it wouldn’t matter if they tied him to the death of Roger Hawkins or anyone else: they’d have to catch him first, and when they did he didn’t expect to walk away from the confrontation alive.
He bundled some spare shirts into a leather attaché case he discovered in the living room, as well as the bottle of cologne. He expected that he would stink more as the hours progressed and the cologne would help disguise the odour.
He left the apartment and headed back past the courthouse he’d noted earlier, following signs to the Amtrak station. As he walked he checked out the other pedestrians and was glad to note that his bruised features didn’t attract as much as a glance, so was confident his disguise was working.
There were more murals decorating the walls as he’d approached the train station. One of them depicted a buffalo draped in the Stars and Stripes, and Samuel paused to study it. He thought that, should the mural become animated and the animal rear up on its hind legs, they’d share a similar body shape. He liked the analogy he conjured from the notion: that he was akin to a wild beast that symbolised power to so many people. He’d offered the buffalo a nod of respect then went on.
After everything he’d done to effect a new persona, he felt a sense of anticlimax when he wasn’t given as much as a cursory glance by the bored teller who sold him tickets for the next train west.
He found a bench where he could wait for his train.
Other passengers avoided him. It was as though an invisible bubble surrounded him, with an impenetrable wall that no one would attempt to pierce. He didn’t know if this was an effect of the cologne he’d doused his body in, or if they sensed some imperceptible warning he must radiate. He was happy with either, because he had no desire for company other than that of Jay Walker.
Soon his train arrived and he found a seat at the rear of the lattermost carriage. No one sat next to him, or in those chairs adjacent, and he hoped things would stay like that all the way to Holbrook.