19 – Reluctant friends
The
van bucked slightly as it climbed up out of the ravine, the dirt road turning
into gravel, then asphalt. The jeep in front of the little caravan blinked out
each turn like a command. Behind the van, a half dozen other jeeps followed,
soldier green, nearly invisible in the darkness.
"A lot of help you were back there,"
Chris said, seated beside Dan in the front. Mike and Marie sat on the bed in
back, like buffers to the battle of silence between Lance and Sarah. "I
expected the pacifist to stand by and watch, but you?"
Dan glanced sidewards at the cruel twist of
Chris' mouth. She reminded him of his ex-wife, making his ache worse. He hadn't
been laid since the road to Denver, and then only a quickly with a hitch-hiking
hippie chick. He missed the regularity of L.A. and the parade of mid-west girls
from which to pick. But his ex-wife had always been able to turn him on, in the
mood or not.
"You expected me to charge out into the
middle of all that shooting with only a knife?"
"Why not?" Chris asked, her eyes
suggesting Dan might well have a chance. "You got us into the mess."
"Leave him alone," Mike said.
"You wouldn't have done any better in his place. Those people have been
waiting for weeks. They thought we were bringing in the shipment from
Denver."
"What?" Dan said, glancing up at the
silhouette of Mike in the rearview mirror. The jeeps had turned on their lights
for travel on the more conventional roads.
"Looks like the drug company put out the
word on you, Dan," Mike said.
"But they were looking to take you and
Chris," Dan said.
"I know. Once they heard we were in town,
they changed their plans. Me and Chris go way back in this state. I guess they
figured we were here to start up business again. And the last thing they needed
was more competition. Gil's quite enough."
"But if the company knows I'm
here...?" Dan mumbled, his hands shaking on the wheel and not from rough
ground.
"Still, there's something queer in all
this," Mike said.
"Everybody
acts as if we really do have the drugs. Even Gil."
"Well, you heard those men in the
pass," Chris said, looking over her shoulder. "They said the shipment's
still back at the house."
"Maybe," Mike said. "But I
don't think they are. Who else was in that house, anyway?"
"Demetre was," Chris said.
"He wouldn't take them."
"Maybe he's using them to trace out the
rest of the circuit," Dan suggested.
"I don't think Demetre would take the
chance," Mike said.
"Look," Chris said. "They're signaling
for us to stop."
"So they are," Dan said, slamming
his feet down on the brake and clutch, feeling an odd tingle as if someone,
somewhere near was watching the whole transaction. But who? And from where? And
for what purpose?
Gil
came to the driver's side window, his gaunt face haunting in the spray of
headlights. "We have to leave your van here," he said, glancing
around the interior. "It's much too obvious on the road."
"Where exactly are we?" Chris asked,
drawing the full focus of the man's eyes.
"Just an old warehouse in the
desert," Gil said.
"Which leaves our transportation up to
you?" she asked.
"I can provide what you'll need while in
Phoenix."
"And perhaps more than we want?"
"Chris!" Mike snapped from behind
her. "Quit badgering the man."
"Oh my, you've gotten trusting in your
old age," Chris said, "leaving your survival in someone else's
hands."
"If I didn't trust him, we wouldn't be
here," Mike said, glaring at her, his tone carrying with it every bit of
hate from Detroit.
She
wanted cry at his feet and beg him to understand. But he never would. Not with
the bitch beside him, propping him up like a Jesse
James.
"You wanted to meet with Gil," Dan
pointed out.
"But not like this," Chris said.
"Not with us helpless."
"If you want our protection, it must be
on our terms," Gil said, looking a little annoyed. "But make up your
mind quickly. The police will put out the net after the shooting."
"And if anybody saw our van by the site,
it won't be hard for Sweeny or Demetre to put us in the middle of it," Dan
said. "I vote to take the man up on his offer."
"All right," Chris grumbled.
"Drive us into the lion's den! But don't say later I didn't warn
you."
As
warehouse, the building had long ceased its purpose, and once the van's
headlights blinked out, only the narrow beams of several hand-held flashlights
showed the dust and devastation, canvas-covered machines and sagging work
benches.
Chris stepped down onto the gritty floor. The
desert had crawled in through the crack, leaving piles of sand beneath the
broken windows and mis-hung doors. The air smelled and tasted of sand, of night
things and dead things, and things which remained unseen. It reminded her of
the reservation when she was a girl, the stagnant, terrible life of her
mother's people dying before her eyes, and her father dancing ghost dances in
an empty gesture of war, unpainted and drunk, taking pot-shots at passing
trucks along the highway.
"This way," Gil said from behind one
of the lights. Dan hesitated, looking nervously at the dented van. "Your
vehicle will be quite safe. One of my men watches this place always."
"Why?" Chris asked. "What's
worth watching?"
"The future," Gil said. "But
come. It grows cold and we still have some way to travel." He motioned
them with the light towards what had once been a double door. The yellow face
of a hand-cranked pallet-jack grinned from between the rooms, its double
tongues jammed under a rotting wooden pallet. They stepped around it and into a
smaller room, the smell of oil and gasoline suggesting more recent use. Indeed,
a cream-colored Ford sat before the closed garage door waiting on them.
"Hey!" Chris said, stopping
abruptly. "That's a cop car!"
"Of course, it is," Gil said with a
note of impatience. "It's how we move freely around the city."
"Or maybe you're a cop," Chris said.
"And if I am?" Gil asked sharply,
pieces of his face showing from around the light. "What do you think you
could do about it now?"
Chris touched the butts of her pistols.
"You wouldn't live to draw your
weapons," Gil said softly. "But if I was a cop, you wouldn't have
them to draw. I have many resources at my disposal. Police cars are one of
them. You travel with friends, despite your suspicions. And safely, if you
hurry."
She saw the impatience in the others, too,
Mike's eyes gleaming with added anger in the reflected light.
"All right," she said with a sigh,
and slid into the back of the car, Dan, Lance, and Sarah beside her. Mike and
Marie sat up front.
Gil
did not climb behind the wheel, but a red-haired youngster who grinned back at
them like a taxi driver.
"Next stop, the hideout," he said.
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