He was glad the blond waitress wasn’t on yet when he had breakfast at the place next door. He ate, checked out of the motel, and got on the interstate again. The Corvair kept running. He wondered whether the Rambler would have done the same. He’d never know now. But he would have bet there was an APB out for that car.

California was long from top to bottom, narrow from side to side. Tennessee was the other way around. He drove more than five hundred miles to get from the southwest corner of the state to its northeastern tip. Bristol City wasn’t much of a town, but it had the usual assortment of places to stay and places to eat when you pulled off the highway.

He got a room. He went to the closest place and ate a pork chop and mashed potatoes. The food wasn’t nearly so interesting as it had been the night before. Neither was the waitress. That might have been just as well.

Out of Tennessee and into Virginia. The farther east he went, the more traffic there was. He’d crossed the country in six days. He knew he might have pushed harder, but he didn’t care. He might have killed the car. He also might have got busted, which was the last thing he needed.

He came into Washington, DC, just in time for rush hour. It wasn’t as bad as getting stuck on the San Diego Freeway when a wreck closed three lanes, but it wasn’t much fun, either. And he knew where he was going on the San Diego. Here, he groped his way along.

No motels by the off-ramps now. No swarm of not-too-fancy places to eat. This was a real city. He drove along, looking for a hotel of the plainer sort. It took him a while to find one; this part of town seemed pretty fancy. You didn’t plop a green space as big as Rock Creek Park down in the middle of a ghetto.

At last, he saw a place that might do. All the parking was by valet. He grabbed his suitcase and cash and gave the black guy in the maroon uniform a buck to stow his car, then went in to register. Even a plain hotel here cost more than he’d expected it to. He booked his room for three nights, adding, “I may stay longer. It depends on how my business goes.”

“That’s fine, sir,” said the black woman at the registration desk. The staff looked to be mostly black. The guests walking through the lobby were all white. That saddened Jerry without surprising him.