voice

Tough night last night -- felt like quitting for no apparent reason. I've been going gangbusters on the thing for the last week or so, and probably need a break. I've got a bunch of paying work to do for the Real Job (TM), so that's a good excuse.

A thought came to mind about the voice in the book, and I'm not sure what to make of it. I admire Elmore Leonard's writing style, especially the way he is able to make his characters sound like real people, and I had this thought of writing Nine Days in Julia's real voice -- having her relate the story in the way that a person would actually tell it, sitting down with you, face to face, like this:

So I'm looking at the driver, the side of his face from the back seat, and I'm just thinking he kind of reminds me of Kang, when he folds up the Post and goes, "That's gotta be her."

I look over, and there's this big broad going through the plate glass doors into the bus station where the other fed -- Buford? Bradford? -- is waiting. She's wearing a gray button-down shirt and navy twills pressed to within an inch of their lives; black tactical boots, dark hair pulled back tight -- she might as well be wearing a sign that says 'cop,' for Christ's sake. 

She and Buford impress each other with their identification, then he nods at us through the window. Like he can see us. It's pitch black out here. 

Kang pops the trunk and we get out of the car, me dragging my overstuffed duffel bag off the back seat with me. The air outside is surprisingly warm for November. It smells funny, too; kind of grassy and gasoline-y.

Kang gets my suitcase from the trunk and we go in. The woman's bigger than I thought at first, close to six feet and maybe 250. Not that you'd know what that looks like. Nobody knows what anybody really weighs anymore. Back in San Francisco, I noticed even the cops are starting to give descriptions like, 'medium build,' instead of 'one-eighty.' Me, I'm around 200, but nobody believes it. Their 170-pound girlfriends have been claiming 130 for so long that they figure 200 is Orca the Whale territory or something.

Anyway, it looks good on her. She's got a sort of regal thing going on with the height, nice golden-brown eyes and a lot of shape. She sticks out a surprisingly delicate hand as we come over, saying, "Teresa Hallstedt. I've heard a lot about you."

It's pretty witty, right? Kang can't take it, he gives a guffaw and swats the Post into my midsection. He's the better of the two -- hasn't been driving me nuts since Knoxville with his incessant yammering, like Buford -- so I take it away from him without breaking any of his fingers.

I shake the Amazon's hand, and the feds do their farewell shtick -- "Good luck," and all that crap -- and get lost. She grabs my suitcase and heads for the door.

Ma used to go on and on about the Texas sky, and I kind of get it now, heading out of the bus station. The horizon's too low -- I can see it as a darker strip where the stars stop -- and it makes you feel sort of light on your feet, like the sky's sucking you upwards. There's nothing between you and what looks like the edge of the world. A stiff wind could come along and blow you straight to Canada if you're not paying attention. It's an interesting sensation.

We get into the maroon four-door Pontiac sitting alone in the parking lot, and the first thing I notice, it's got one of those old two-way radios clinging to the underside of the dashboard.

"You guys haven't gone digital?" I ask the Amazon.

"Digital takes money," she says, buckling herself in. "I'm lucky to have a damned car."

Witty again. I've never met a cop I liked, but maybe I can get along with this one. Six months. I ought to be able to do it standing on my head.

We pull out onto the two-lane road. There's nothing out here, aside from the fluorescent bus station; no lights in the distance or anything. 

After we've gone a couple of miles, she asks me, "You want the air?"

She's looking at my sweater. It was fifty degrees when we left Langley, two days ago, and they gave me like half an hour. So of course I packed for the weather. The weather in Virginia.

"I'm fine," I say. 

Is it too weird? What do you think?