Cormac McCarthy - No Country For Old Men
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Moss pulled into Eagle Pass at a quarter till two in the morning. He'd slept a good part of the way in the back of the cab and he only woke when they slowed coming off the highway and down Main Street. He watched the pale white globes of the streetlamps pass along the upper rim of the window. Then he sat up.
You goin across the river? the driver said.
No. Just take me downtown.
You are downtown.
Moss leaned forward with his elbows on the back of the seat.
What's that right there.
That's the Maverick County Courthouse.
No. Right there where the sign is.
That's the Hotel Eagle.
Drop me there.
He paid the driver the fifty dollars they'd agreed on and picked up his bags off the curb and walked up the steps to the porch and went in. The clerk was standing at the desk as if he'd been expecting him.
He paid and put the key in his pocket and climbed the stairs and walked down the old hotel corridor. Dead quiet. No lights in the transoms. He found the room and put the key in the door and opened it and went in and shut the door behind him. Light from the streetlamps coming through the lace curtains at the window. He set the bags on the bed and went back to the door and switched on the overhead light. Old fashioned pushbutton switchplate. Oak furniture from the turn of the century. Brown walls. Same chenille bedspread.
He sat on the bed thinking things over. He got up and looked out the window at the parking lot and he went into the bathroom and got a glass of water and came back and sat on the bed again. He took a sip and set the water on the glass top of the wooden bedside table. There is no goddamn way, he said.
He undid the brass latch and the buckles on the case and began to take the packets of money out and to stack them on the bed. When the case was empty he checked it for a false bottom and he checked the back and sides and then he set it aside and began to go through the stacks
of bills, riffling each of the packets and stacking them back in the case. He'd packed it about a third full before he found the sending unit.
The middle of the packet had been filled in with dollar bills with the centers cut out and the transponder unit nested there was about the size of a Zippo lighter. He slid back the tape and took it out and weighed it in his hand. Then he put it in the drawer and got up and took the cut-out dollar bills and the banktape to the bathroom and flushed them down the toilet and came back. He folded the loose hundreds and put them in his pocket and then packed the rest of the banknotes into the case again and set the case in the chair and sat there looking at it. He thought about a lot of things but the thing that stayed with him was that at some point he was
going to have to quit running on luck.
He got the shotgun out of the bag and laid it on the bed and turned on the bedside lamp. He went to the door and turned off the overhead light and came back and stretched out on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He knew what was coming. He just didnt know when. He got up and went into the bathroom and pulled the chain on the light over the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. He took a washcloth from the glass towelbar and turned on the hot water and wet the cloth and wrung it out and wiped his face and the back of his neck. He took a leak and then switched off the light and went back and sat on the bed. It had already occurred to him
that he would probably never be safe again in his life and he wondered if that was something that you got used to. And if you did?
He emptied out the bag and put the shotgun in and zipped it shut and took it together with the satchel down to the desk. The Mexican who'd checked him in was gone and in his place was another clerk, thin and gray. A thin white shirt and a black bow tie. He was smoking a cigarette and reading Ring magazine and he looked up at Moss with no great enthusiasm,
squinting in the smoke. Yessir, he said.
Did you just come on?
Yessir. Be here till ten in the mornin.
Moss laid a hundred dollar bill on the counter. The clerk put down the magazine.
I aint askin you to do nothin illegal, Moss said.
I'm just waitin to hear your description of that, the clerk said.
There's somebody lookin for me. All I'm askin you to do is to call me if anybody checks in. By anybody I mean any swingin dick. Can you do that?
The nightclerk took the cigarette out of his mouth and held it over a small glass ashtray and tipped the ash from the end of it with his little finger and looked at Moss. Yessir, he said. I can do that.
Moss nodded and went back upstairs.
The phone never rang. Something woke him. He sat up and looked at the clock on the table. Four thirty-seven. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached and got his boots and pulled them on and sat listening.
He went over and stood with his ear to the door, the shotgun in one hand. He went in the bathroom and pulled back the plastic showercurtain where it hung on rings over the tub and turned on the tap and pulled the plunger to start the shower. Then he pulled the curtain back around the tub and went out and closed the bathroom door behind him.
He stood at the door listening again. He dragged out the nylon bag from where he'd pushed it under the bed and set it in the chair in the corner. He went over and switched on the light at the bedside table and stood there trying to think. He realized that the phone might ring and he took the receiver from the cradle and laid it on the table. He pulled back the covers and rumpled the pillows on the bed. He looked at the clock. Four forty-three. He looked at the phone lying there on the table. He picked it up and pulled the cord out of it and put it back in the cradle. Then he went over and stood at the door, his thumb on the hammer of the shotgun.
He dropped to his stomach and put his ear to the space under the door. A cool wind. As if a door had opened somewhere. What have you done. What have you failed to do.
He went to the far side of the bed and dropped down and pushed himself underneath it and lay there on his stomach with the shotgun pointed at the door. Just space enough beneath the wooden slats. Heart pumping against the dusty carpet. He waited. Two columns of dark intersected the bar of light beneath the door and stood there. The next thing he heard was the
key in the lock. Very softly. Then the door opened. He could see out into the hallway. There was no one there. He waited. He tried not even to blink but he did. Then there was an expensive pair of ostrichskin boots standing in the doorway. Pressed jeans. The man stood there. Then he came in. Then he crossed slowly to the bathroom.
At that moment Moss realized that he was not going to open the bathroom door. He was going to turn around. And when he did it would be too late. Too late to make any more mistakes or to do anything at all and that he was going to die. Do it, he said. Just do it.
Dont turn around, he said. You turn around and I'll blow you to hell.
The man didnt move. Moss was walking forward on his elbows holding the shotgun. He could see no higher than the man's waist and he didnt know what kind of gun he was carrying. Drop the gun, he said. Do it now.
A shotgun clattered to the floor. Moss pulled himself up. Get your hands up, he said. Step back from the de said. Step back from the door.
He took two steps back and stood, his hands at shoulder level. Moss came around the end ofthe bed. The man was no more than ten feet away. The whole room was pulsing slowly. There was an odd smell in the air. Like some foreign cologne. A medicinal edge to it. Everything humming. Moss held the shotgun at his waist with the hammer cocked. There was nothing that could happen that would have surprised him. He felt as if he weighed nothing. He felt as if he were floating. The man didnt even look at him. He seemed oddly untroubled. As if this were all part of his day.
Back up. Some more.
He did. Moss picked up the man's shotgun and threw it onto the bed. He switched on the overhead light and shut the door. Look over here, he said.
The man turned his head and gazed at Moss. Blue eyes. Serene. Dark hair. Something about him faintly exotic. Beyond Moss's experience.
What do you want?
He didnt answer.
Moss crossed the room and took hold of the footpost of the bed and swung the bed sideways with one hand. The document case stood there in the dust. He picked it up. The man didnt even seem to notice. His thoughts seemed elsewhere.
He took the nylon bag from the chair and slung it over his shoulder and he got the shotgun with its huge canlike silencer off the bed and put it under his arm and picked up the case again. Let's go, he said. The man lowered his hands and walked out into the hallway.
The small box that held the transponder receiver was standing in the floor just outside the door. Moss left it there. He had the feeling he'd already taken more chances than he had coming. He backed down the hallway with his shotgun trained on the man's belt, holding it in one hand like a pistol. He started to tell him to put his hands back up but something told him that it didnt really make any difference where the man's hands were. The bedroom door was still open, the shower still running.
You show your face at the head of these stairs and I'll shoot you.
The man didnt answer. He could have been a mute for all that Moss knew.
Right there, Moss said. Dont you take another step.
He stopped. Moss backed to the stairs and took one last look at him standing there in the dull yellow light from the wallsconce and then he turned and doubled down the stairwell taking the steps two at a time. He didnt know where he was going. He hadnt thought that far ahead.
