Deep Trek

“I know it.”

“Anything could’ve happened to him and Pete Turner to delay them a little.”

“Yes, I thought about that. I’m going to leave them a message.”

“Where?”

“I’ve written a short report, detailing what happened. It’ll also be useful in case Zelig sends anyone else down here after us.”

“Where are you going to hide it?”

“Where would you put it, Carrie? You know Henderson McGill.”

“Not as well as you, Jim. Still… I guess I’d put it in the saloon.” She was grinning broadly as she saw from his expression that she’d guessed right.

“Yeah. Behind the bar, under a pint glass. Tell him about Muir Woods on the fifth. Maybe he’ll find it. Maybe.”

Chapter Nine

Jeff Thomas sang along with the tape that Nanci had slipped into the car’s sophisticated player. It was a collection of the best girlie rock groups of the past five years and included some of his special favorites.

She’d stolen it for him in an unusually tender moment while they were living up in his Jackson Street apartment.

The thought of San Francisco reminded him of Nanci’s warning to Hilton while they’d been finalizing routes.

She’d told him that the beautiful city on the bay was now a death trap where shadows clung to your shoulder and the juvenile wolf packs hunted along the urban canyons.

“An abundance of rotted corpses, Jim,” she’d said in that old-fashioned, pompous way she had. There were times that he wanted to creep up behind Nanci and smash something heavy into that neat head. Pulp the bones and mash the brains and curdled blood.

But fear stopped him, fear that he might not make it without her. Fear of losing the most wonderfully exciting relationship he’d ever had in his life, the sickening thrill of ritual humiliation at her hands.

As soon as they’d left Calico, turning onto the wide, deserted swell of Interstate 15, Nanci had made him unzip his jeans so that she could fondle him as she drove, occasionally making him whimper as she dug her nails into him.

After a quarter hour she’d become bored and made him zip himself up again, ignoring his whimpered request for some kind of relief.

“Later, Jefferson,” she’d said not unkindly. “When you’ve earned it.”

But that was forgotten. The late afternoon was beautiful, and the engine purred along. They passed an occasional wrecked car, rusting away, sometimes with a jumble of whitened bones close by.

They didn’t see another living soul.

The wind raced through Jeff’s long hair, and he leaned his right arm over the sleek side of the Mercedes, feeling the welcome coolness.

The tape rolled on.

The night’s getting light,

And the day’s got so dark,

We’re never goin’t’ stop

To find some place to park.

Heading for tomorrow,

‘Cause the dead have got today.

We’re running close to empty

With the price we got to pay.

Yeah, the price we gotta pay.

His fists were drumming on the dash, and he was yelling out the lyrics as they drove on north and east, toward the Nevada state line.

THERE WAS a croaking, grinding noise from the overheated engine, and a spurt of noxious brown smoke from the exhaust.

“Again,” called Kyle.

Steve was in the cab, head out of the window. “Trying to get this mother into gear’s like stirring a basin of cold grits.”

The pickup had sounded brash and confident as they gunned their way down the sandy main street of Calico, following the glittering chimera that was Nanci and Jeff in the silver Mercedes.

Kyle had been driving, with Sly next to him and Steve completing the front-seat lineup. Heather had been huddled on the sleeping bags, the hood of her sweatshirt pulled over her head to try to protect her from the billowing clouds of orange dust. Jim had his arm around her, fighting to compensate for the bucking of the rig over the rutted trail. Carrie was hanging on in the rear corner, braced against the rolling and rocking.

They’d barely reached the freeway when the truck started to play up. It began to cough and miss, making their motion even more jerky.

“Malfunction, Captain!” shouted Carrie, trying to lighten the moment.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *