Dead Echo

  *

  Just less than an hour later he opened his own front door. He wiped a sweaty hand across his sweaty forehead and dropped the diminished stack of brochures on the foyer table. It felt like an anchor letting go. He walked down the hall to the bathroom, stripped out of the suit, and toweled himself dry. Then, standing nude in front of the mirror, he glanced down at the floor under the sink where he’d thrown the clothes. He reached down and retrieved the pants, fumbled in the pocket until he found the folded piece of paper. He pulled it free and (the note gripped tightly in his hand) left the bathroom. He made a right and padded into the bedroom. Sat down heavily on the bed. Slowly he unfolded the note. Opened it.

  It was very short. A terse greeting, an explanation that this Miles Placard had lived in the house. That he had something to tell her that would not do in a note. Below this a phone number, and below that, an address.

  Tomas placed the note down flat on the bed, pressed down with his hand to smooth it. He stood up and walked over to the writing desk by the window. He used it for paying bills, signing checks. In the file drawer at the bottom he kept a phone book, the computer user’s manual, and a Rand McNally U.S. road map. He took the latter out and turned back the front cover. Pushed tight into the staple-fold was another map, this one an area map, much more detailed than the Rand McNally. He’d inexplicably bought it a week before at a local convenience store. Now he knew why. Again, a flutter of disquiet rifled through him at the seemingly pointless urge that had now manifested itself to purpose.

  But his hands didn’t shake as he spread the area map alongside the note he’d stolen from his neighbor’s door. He ran his finger down a triple column of incredibly small print: the list of streets, avenues, drives and boulevards for a thirty-mile radius. His finger stopped when it came to the one on the note. He refolded the map so the area he needed was all he got and left it on the bed. Then he stood up and went to the closet to get dressed again and gather his tools together.

  His smiled to himself grimly as he did this.