Bill followed the beat-up Dodge van at what he hoped was a discreet distance. He wanted to confront the punk, but Dial had told him to follow Tom Dalton, not to engage him. He switched off the country music blaring from his wife’s favorite radio station and inserted a CD into the player, Cannonball Adderley’s “Somethin’ Else.”
Annie wouldn’t let him listen to jazz when she was in the rig. She said it sounded like “cats screeching.” But jazz sax was the language of his soul, and he’d had to stuff his entire emotional life into those moments alone in his pickup with Cannonball Adderley, Charlie Parker, and John Coltrane.
Hypnotized by the monotony of the plains, Bill settled into the despairing grooves of his favorite mournful jazz. No matter how many times he heard it, he was still mesmer
