Heat by Stuart Woods Page A

ever knew. If I’d had to guess I’d have said he was an ex-con, but I guess that’s because the injuries make him so rough looking. St. Clair didn’t seem to be his destination, either; said he was on his way to Oregon.”
    â€œWell, if he decides to stay don’t hassle him; make it easy for him, but keep tabs on everything he does.”
    â€œOf course. If he’s real, he sounds like he might be our kind of guy.”
    â€œWe’ll see.” He hung up.
    Â 
    In Toccoa, Georgia, Sheriff Tom Calley dialed an 800 number.
    â€œThis is Fuller.”
    â€œMr. Fuller, this is Tom Calley, in Toccoa, Georgia.”
    â€œYes, Sheriff?”
    â€œThe call came, like you said it would.”
    â€œEverything go okay?”
    â€œSeemed like it. He asked for a picture, so I faxed the thing you fixed up.”
    â€œThat’s good, Sheriff; thanks for your help.”
    â€œNot at all.”
    â€œAnd you’ll let me know if the real Barron turns up?”
    â€œYessir, I will.”
    â€œAnd I’d like to hear about it if anybody else calls about Barron—anybody at all.”
    â€œSure thing.”
    Â 
    Jesse closed the door to his motel room and looked around. His things were, if anything, more neatly arranged than when he had left. So far, so good.

CHAPTER

10
    J esse strolled down Main Street, taking stock of the town. The place was still overcast, but the light was becoming brighter; the clouds would burn off soon.
    His first impression of Main Street was of something out of the twenties or thirties, and for a while, he couldn’t figure out why. Certainly, it was very clean and neat, with every storefront looking freshly painted, but that wasn’t it. Finally, it struck him. Although it was daylight, he saw that there were no electric signs, just the old-fashioned, hand-lettered kind. It was as though the business district was constructed and maintained to some very strict, but out-of-date design code.
    He stopped in front of a small shop. The windows were soaped over, and above, on the facade, there were holes in the brickwork where a sign had been removed. He had noticed it because it was the only vacant storefront on the street, and at a time when most small town businesses were struggling to stay open, competing with the new malls. Some lettering on the glass front door caught his eye: “J. Goldman, Jeweler and Watchmaker,” it read.
    Jesse continued his walk, stopping in the drugstore for a Boise newspaper. To his surprise, there was a soda fountain taking up one wall of the store. He hadn’t seen one since high school. A wave of nostalgia washed over him, a memory of sharing a strawberry soda with a teenaged girl—two straws. And even in those days the soda fountain had been mostly an anachronism.
    â€œGood morning,” the druggist said as he rang up Jesse’s quarter.
    â€œGood morning,” Jesse replied.
    â€œNew in town?” The man stuck out his hand. “I’m Norm Parsons.”
    Jesse shook the man’s hand. “Jesse Barron. I’m so new I might not even be here tomorrow.”
    â€œSorry to hear it,” the druggist said. “We need new blood all the time. Fine place to live, raise a family, St. Clair.”
    â€œI can believe it,” Jesse said, waving goodbye with his newspaper. He took a right at the corner and walked through a residential neighborhood. The houses were mostly Victorian or that most American of houses in the middle third of the twentieth century, bungalows. A new house was going up on the corner, and that, too, was an old-fashioned bungalow.
    â€œTime warp,” Jesse said aloud. Each house was neatly painted, and its front lawn was closely clipped. He couldn’t spot a weed in a flower bed, not anywhere. He stopped on the corner and looked up and down Elm Street. “Jesus Christ,” he said aloud to himself. “Isn’t this where Andy Hardy used to