Even when the police stopped coming to question him people recognized Mac from television, double-takes as he went down the sidewalk. If they didn't say anything outright, he still believed they knew who he was. For a fact he got calls from inquiring souls seeking details of the body.
There was a community phone in the second floor hallway of his boarding house across the river—the place he'd found after exile from Coop's trailer. Many of the callers were from the Reverend Sarah's church, some female voices, some late at night. The phone was ultimately forcibly removed by an irate sleeper of whom Mac did not have the acquaintance.
Most of the boarders did not seem to have employment, like Mac, although he had filled out many application forms the past few days. "You might have seen me on the news last Tuesday night . . ." But the only likely opening was for a 7-11 clerk. At the store on Louisville and Fourth he pressed the clipboard against the wall to write and handed it to the businesslike black man inside the small concealed office at the back he had never noticed before in his many visits as a consumer.
