The Road To Ruin

20

“WE COULDN’T JUST FOLLOW him around all day,” Buddy insisted. He was the driver, and the other two were disagreeing with his executive decisions.

Ace, for instance: “We could have waited. How long’s he gonna be? An hour?”

“And then on to somebody else,” Buddy said. “It’s the middle of the day, he could be seeing clients until six o’clock for all we know. Besides which, it’s lunchtime.”

They were, in fact, seated at a window table in this diner in the middle of Somewhere, Pennsylvania, elbows on the Formica, waiting for various fried foods, and watching the occasional vehicle drive by out front. It was a timeless America they’d found, and the waitresses had a speed to match.

Mac, frowning deeply, said, “Buddy, in a way I understand what you’re talking about. Hanging around behind that guy could get boring after a while—”

“And he could notice,” Buddy pointed out, “that same car behind him all the time.”

“That’s also true,” Mac agreed. “But, Buddy, we had a bird in hand.”

“We’ve figured out who the guy is, or at least what he is,” Buddy said. “One of those rich-people personal trainers, your own gym coach. Hall can’t get off the property, can’t get much exercise, so this guy comes around to keep him in shape.”

Grudgingly, Ace said, “Okay. And the nursing home, that fits in.”

“Sure,” Buddy said.

Mac said, “But so what? Buddy, what do you want us to do? Go through every Yellow Pages in central Pennsylvania, which has gotta be about a hundred—”

“More,” Ace said.

“More,” Mac agreed. “Check out every personal trainer in every phone book?”

“We’ve got the guy’s license number,” Buddy reminded them. “And the make of the car. And we know what his business is. Mark, we’ve got over twenty-seven hundred members in ACWFFA. At least one of those people’s got a cousin on a police force. We don’t have to say what we want it for, a union brother will respect the need for privacy, but we do have a big spread-out powerful force out there, in the rank and file, and I think we should use it, and in no time at all, we’ll have this guy’s name and address and everything in the world that the law knows about him.”

Mac sighed. “I didn’t want to bring the membership in,” he said.

Buddy said, “I know you didn’t, and I agree, and I don’t want to make anybody accessories or anything. But this is the quick and easy way, Mac, and sometimes, you just have to set your principles aside just a little bit and go for the way that works.”

Mac sighed again. “I suppose so,” he said. “Just so this isn’t the beginning of some slippery slope.”