Choke by Kaye George Page A

show her face in public. Maybe she could concoct a disguise, scout the territory incognito. Would there be anything usable in the van? She opened the back passenger door and rummaged through the collected debris beside Drew’s car seat. She found several Barbie shoes and one tiny cardigan. There was also a full-sized cardigan, very full-sized. It was her mother’s and said size 3X on the tag. A woolen cap was left over from winter. It had been bought so that it would fit Drew now and for several years in the future, and it was quite stretchy. Immy found she could stuff all her hair up under it. With the huge sweater wrapped around her, maybe she could get by without being made if she kept her head down. But what if she had to look up? She needed something more.
    She crawled back to the storage space in the rear and hit the jackpot, a pair of Groucho Marx glasses with a mustache that Clem had given to Drew. Immy returned to the front seat and tried them on. No, the mustache looked a little too plastic. She broke it off and tried the glasses again. Pretty good, unless you looked closely enough to see there were no lenses. It would have to do. She was a desperado, after all, and they are desperate people.
    Immy drove into Wymee Falls and went straight to the book store. She parked in the alley behind it so no one would see her van. Maybe the police had her license number and had put out an APB, or maybe they used a BOLO. Either one would form a dragnet that might reel her in.
    She walked to the front of the store with tiny steps, hunching her shoulders forward and keeping her head low. She hoped to look nearsighted. No one would be looking for a nearsighted person. Her eyesight was excellent, after all. Everyone knew that.
    She knew she couldn’t loiter. Her heart hammered as she zeroed in on the How To aisle and grabbed a book called Criminal Procedures , then picked up a copy of the Wymee Falls newspaper. When she paid at the front counter, she tried to fumble her money a little like an old person. That proved easy with the way her hands shook. She didn’t dare look up to see how her disguise was going over. She handed over the money, glad she still had enough left for a few more days, picked up the book and the paper, and turned away.
    “Wait a minute, ma’am.” The clerk was calling her back. Was she made?
    Immy froze for a moment, then turned back toward him, slightly, still keeping her head down.
    “Your change. You forgot your change.”
    Whew. Her secret was safe.
    “OK,” she said. Damn! She hadn’t been going to say anything so they couldn’t hear what her voice sounded like. “OK,” she repeated in a low, hoarse tone.
    “Are you all right, ma’am?” He lowered his head, trying to peer into her eyes. She wasn’t going to show him what color they were, no matter how hard he tried. She nodded, took the change, then fled.

Nine
    “Oh, shoot.”
    “What is it, Imogene?” Hortense tore her attention away from the blaring quiz show for a few seconds.
    “This stupid book.” Immy waved Criminal Pursuits at her mother. “This is a stupid, stupid book.”
    “Books can’t be stupid. Authors and readers can be, but books cannot.”
    “OK, so it’s me that’s stupid then. I thought this book would tell me how to be a criminal. Instead it tells how to pursue them.”
    Hortense shook her head. She glanced at the screen and said “What is triangulation?” to Alex Trebec.
    You think you’re so smart because you worked in a library and have a vocabulary. Immy looked daggers at her mother, but the exasperating woman, propped with all the available pillows on the motel bed, had turned back to the show. Immy threw the book onto the plastic laminated desk and retreated to the bathroom to think.
    “Don’t slam the door,” Hortense called.
    Immy clicked it shut, then plopped onto the side of the tub and tried to think what to do next. Someone must have cleaned the bathroom recently. The smell of disinfectant