weren’t so careful when they left as when they approached.”
“You just figured that out?” Magda said, and in the same breath added, “Pull over, Don. You’re not in a fit state to drive. You’re shaking so much. I’ll take’the wheel as soon as you can put us in a parking-bay-ah, there’s one now.”
Dumb, Sheklov nosed the car into it.
“Well, it’s how it had to be,” Danty said. “I felt something bad on the way. And I can’t think of any other disaster that fits the picture. No, Donl Don’t get outl Slide towards Magda and let her climb over youl”
Sheklov, numb, withdrew his hand from the doorhandle and obeyed.
As Magda took the controls: “So that’s the way I see it. If the site hadn’t been turned off, the sub would have registered on the detectors, and-pow.”
“But he’s been staying right in our apartmentl” Lora cried. She was having to clamp her jaw to stop her teeth chattering. “A Russianl A spyl”
“You recommended the gas-station on Sixtieth, didn’t you?” Magda said, glancing at the dash. “Oh, shit! Loral Loral Stop your snivelling and tell me which of these damned dials is the gas-gaugel”
“Uh . . .” Wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “Doesn’t have a dial. It’s sonic.”
“Just say to fill up the tank,” Danty snapped. “Nightriders usually do.”
“Yeah.” Magda slowed to make the turn on to Sixtieth, a right. “But why the hell did you leave the site turned off?”
“I guess . . .” Danty swallowed hard. “I guess so that this would happen. So that we’d be here, now, in this mess.”
“Gas-stationl” Magda said unnecessarily; it was blazing with light and huge mobile advertising figures, spotlighted, filled with helium, and tugged into a weird non-stop parody of a dance by fine wires attached to cams on electric motors, signalled drivers to pull in. “Don, you hold your tongue and behave yourself, hm? And you, Loral”
“No! Let me outl” Lora cried, and as the car swung close to the side of the road, in order to enter the gasstation, she tried to snatch at the door-handle.
Danty stopped her, his dark hand closing over her
mouth and his full strength forcing her back against the seat.
“I may only have one hand right now,” he said in a voice as cold as a Siberian winter, “but if I have to I’ll strangle you. Is that, understood?”
For a moment Sheklov thought she was going to fight back; her fists curled over and her eyes widened in a look of fury. Then, abruptly, she yielded, and went limp. When he took his hand away, she stared at Danty with a kind of adoration, as though this were the first time in her life that someone had given her an order meant to be obeyed –and she liked the novel sensation.
“Full, pleasel” Magda called as they drew up to the pumps.
“Full it isl” came the reply over the remote speakers.
“I . . .” Sheklov licked his lips. “I meant to ask someone: Why do you lay your gas-stations out this way, with the attendants in those high glass booths?”
“Robbery,” Magda said. “Maybe the risk of sabotage, too. There was a time a few years ago, when I was in my teens, when gas-stations were closing down all over. They made such a lovely show when someone tossed a Molotov cocktail at the pumps.”
Cash-drawer. Credit card. Usual routine. During it, Sheklov noticed that Danty was tensing and biting his lower lip. Then, as soon as the card came back and they were leaving the station, he spoke up.
“I just figured out how they got on to us.”
“You and me, you mean?” Magda said, spotting a gap in the trafc and accelerating violently towards it. “So, how?”
“A cat called Rollins-get on the superway as soon as you can, hm?-gave me a ride back to. Cowville. We stopped for gas and a suspicious pig came and checked the governor on his car. A Banshee. Thought it had been shorted out. I guess he would have filed a report. He looked at my redbook.”
“Ah-hah. And the sexies got to the tape of the report, hm? Yes, that fits. So this time wherever we go, we go for godd.”