It was set. Tonight I was going to pull off a daring robbery
of a man who would surely kill me if the plan was real. King wouldn’t be
anywhere near the crime scene I assured myself. The only thing I needed to make
sure of was that none of the three idiots came inside the bus station with me.
I secured my valuables to the underside of the sink again
with duct tape, and exited my room. I drove to the station to check the place
out and to drop off a brief case that I would carry out later. I had seen in
movies that they often have long-term lockers at bus stations and I hoped that
was the case here. This was all feeling like some sort of terrible B-movie, or
a work of fiction by a brilliant, well-versed, attractive, smart, author. Most likely an author with a giant penis.
Anyhow, I pulled up to the place and was a little thrown off
by how small it was. I guess in a town of only 100,000 people, you don’t need a
bus depot the size of an airport, but this place was like a damn fishing shack.
It would complicate things, but I thought it would work for what I had to do.
The important thing was that I could not see the inside from the outside.
I parked and strolled through the door. I realized immediately that I
had forgotten about my face. Everybody turned and looked at the same time like
I had walked on stage. Fortunately, everybody that worked there was just three
people. There were maybe another five or six people wandering around looking at
signs, and I assumed waiting for the next bus to Vegas. The walls were painted
in many layers with the highest-gloss white enamel I’d ever seen. Every ten
feet or so were signs pointing out the dangers of riding or being near a train
including my favorite, “Never stand on tracks when a train is approaching!”
Brilliant. I guess this was a former train station. I didn’t want to appear any
more suspicious than I already did so I went to the counter and inquired about tickets
to Florida. She asked, “Train or bus?” I guess this still is a train station.
Now the signs made sense, I should heed their warnings. I bought a train ticket
to Miami for the following morning and asked if there was any place I could put
my case overnight. She pointed to a small bank of lockers and said, “It’ll cost
you one token to get the key out.”
“How much for a token?” I inquired.
“A dollar.”
“Do they have any monetary value?”
“Yeah, about a dollar.” She smiled at me.
“Can I use the tokens anywhere else, like, say, Chucky
Cheese?” I asked.
She replied, “You could try, but they don’t take kindly to
token fraud.”
“Hmmm. I guess I’ll just take the one for now then.”
I put the gun in the case in the locker with the token that
actually cost $1.07, and I left the small building. I didn’t see tracks
anywhere, which was confusing at best, but I didn’t have any plans to take a
train anywhere anyhow.
I hopped back in the car and pulled away from the station. I
decided I would need a clever disguise for my face for when I came back. I had
to get a fake mustache, that would throw everybody off.
I needed to get high. I already felt the effects of sleep deprivation
again. I had left everything illegal back at the room because I was carrying a
gun, and the two never mixed well with police. I had to go back. So I went.
Just the excitement of knowing I was going to get high was
enough to give me a small adrenaline rush. I took the flight of stairs in two
leaps and found my room. I opened it up, went inside, and chained it, bolted
it, and even clicked the little button the knob just in case. I looked at the
door. Even with all of that security I could still see light through the frame.
What a joke. I didn’t really care; it was just something to be negative about.
I grabbed my pipe and a small bag of crystals I kept separate
for private use, and loaded it. I spent the next half an hour alternating
between breathing air, and inhaling noxious meth fumes. I could feel a layer of
shit building up on my teeth, and my mouth went dry. This is probably about
when most people would throw up, but my tolerance was high, and I didn’t even
bother to brush my teeth; I could lick off the layer of grime later and maybe get
a small residual buzz from it.
I sat in the quiet, poorly lit room. My foot was tapping the
floor at an alarming rate, and my mind was making sense of nothing and
everything. I had to call the bad guys and lay down some kind of plan that
would get me and them somewhere far away, and alone. I picked up the phone.
Driver answered, “What’s up?”
“I need you to be my driver tonight, I can’t risk having
King see my car anywhere.”
“Alright, that makes sense.”
“And after it’s done, we need to get out of town fast.
Somewhere safe, like where we had our first talk.”
There was a moment of quiet. “Yeah, I guess we’ll want to
make sure you aren’t trying to fuck us over. We will keep you with us until we
get there and see what you have for us.” Fuck, this was too easy.
