“What’s the problem?” he asked the frustrated farmhand.

“Hell, I don’t know.” He nodded toward the door. “Some joker’s been in there for ten minutes. He’s got the door locked, and I’ve got to pee like a Russian racehorse.” Turning away from Royrader, he resumed his pounding on the door. “Hey man, come on out of there! Your time’s up!”

Royrader exchanged a look with Archer, then Snyder. The latter pushed the irritated hand aside and kicked out hard with one boot. Other diners looked up and there was a faint protest from the vicinity of the cash register which the three men ignored.

“Hey, partner, I ain’t that desperate,” said the startled farmhand.

The door flew inward with a slam. Snyder went in first, followed quickly by Royrader and Archer. They saw the gaping window right away.

“Dammit,” Royrader muttered under his breath. They piled back out through the john and back into the cafe, ignoring the comments of the other diners and the protest of the woman manning the register.

Then they were outside again, squinting through the glare and heat of the late summer sun. The Galaxie was gone. Archer pointed to his left, up the road.

“There he goes!”

“Christ,” Royrader snapped as they headed for the pickup.

“If he gets into truck traffic we’ll have a helluva time trying to pull him over.”

It was at least ten miles from Buckeye to the point where the Los Angeles-Phoenix traffic began to bunch up on its way into the valley of the sun. Once he entered real traffic, the old man would be surrounded by eighteen-whèelers and tourists, not to mention the ubiquitous highway patrol cruisers. At least they had one thing in their favor, Royrader thought as they piled into the pickup. The quick look-over they’d given the old man’s car indicated he didn’t have a CB. He couldn’t call for road help.

The pickup roared, sending dirt and ants flying as it rumbled out of its parking space and tore out onto the street.

“Take it easy, Ed,” Archer advised him. “We’ll catch him.”

“Yeah,” said Snyder, leaning out the opposite window, the wind making him squint as he tried to see up the road, “that’s no four-barrel he’s pushin’.”

“It’s not that.” Royrader’s expression was grim as he gripped the wheel hard. “I just don’t like being taken for a sucker, especially by some dumb old geezer out of L.A.”

“Don’t get your ass in an uproar,” Archer advised him. He was staring through the dusty windshield, trying to see up the road. “We’ll be all over him in a minute. Just think about the envelope and all that sweet green stuff.”

“Yeah, the envelope.” Thinking of the money did make him feel better. He was a lousy third-string foreman at the plant. His days were spent clad in hardhat and coveralls, white gunk and choking grime. Of course, dirty as it was, that work was still a lot cleaner than what he was into right now.

Hell with it. Too late for second thoughts. If not him and his buddies, Lasenby would’ve found three other guys for the job, and in less than five minutes. Times were tough.

He tried to blot out thoughts of anything but the overstuffed envelope heavy against his chest.

IX

Jake held the accelerator pedal to the floor, but the old Ford didn’t respond the way it used to. It had been a long time since any real speed had been required of it. Jake didn’t know much about cars, but he did know that you couldn’t coax rpm’s out of an engine that no longer had the strength to manufacture them.

He could see the pickup coming up fast in his rear-view mirror. Its occupants’ identity was masked by the glare off the glass, but it didn’t take much guessing to imagine who they were. They’d discovered the trick he’d pulled on them in the washroom. That wasn’t so bad. What was bad was that they’d discovered it about ten minutes too soon.

He strained to see a possible refuge, but there was nothing here. No gas station to pull into, no motel, nothing but scrub and pavement. He was trapped on a desert road only a few miles from the safety of big-city traffic.

A few dirt roads and narrow side streets branched off the main highway, pointing toward neat frame houses and distant cotton fields. He could imagine what would happen to him if he turned off on any of those. His only hope was to bury himself in traffic, lots of traffic. A highway patrol car was too much to hope for.

For an instant tiny flashes of fire danced behind his retinas and he winced. The little men were at work inside his chest again, banging away with their chisels and saws and hammers. But he couldn’t spare a hand away from the wheel to dig for the nitro bottle in his breast pocket.

His morning dose of calcium blocker had done its job so far, but it wasn’t designed to protect him from the kind of stress he was subjecting his mind and body to now. Keeping his foot on the accelerator and his eyes on the road ahead, he clung grimly to the wheel and tried to shut out the pain.

Despite the Galaxie’s best efforts the big pickup truck loomed steadily larger in the rear-view mirror. Inexorably, it pulled up on him. Then it was cruising alongside. The man who leaned out of the window and shouted at Jake tried to keep a smile on his face. He only partly succeeded.

“Hey, old man, pull over!”

Jake didn’t answer him, didn’t look at him, continued to stare resolutely straight ahead. Where were the police? Where was the highway patrol? Jake didn’t even consider what kind of story he’d tell them. If they arrested him he was bound to be better off than he’d be if he gave in and pulled over. Or would he be better off? Cops could be manipulated too. He’d read about what some of the big corporations could do. How far did young Huddy’s reach extend?

“Come on, old man!” The man in the truck was shouting insistently. “Just pull over. We just want to talk to you, that’s all.”

“You go away!” Jake yelled out his own half-open window. “Go away and leave me alone! I’m not bothering you fellas.” A soft pounding had started inside his chest. It was a warning, a throbbing internal siren, a signal flashing at the railroad crossing. Not dangerous, it said. Not yet, but slow down, be cautious, take it easy. Which was the one thing he couldn’t do right now.

“Look, old man,” said the one leaning out the pickup’s window, “there’s just some people who want to talk to you, okay? We don’t even know who they are. Pull over and we’ll talk about it, okay?”

“Go away!” Jake shouted, rolling up his window all the way. The man who’d been yelling at him gave up, pulled back inside the pickup’s cab. He glanced meaningfully at the driver.

Royrader considered the road ahead. Four lanes, an occasional car going the other way, otherwise still mostly deserted. He checked the speedometer. They were doing seventy-five. Either the old man’s car couldn’t make any more speed or else he didn’t dare risk losing control of it. It was fast enough, though. At this rate they’d run into traffic within the next few minutes.

“Hang on,” he warned his friends.

“What are you gonna do?” Archer wanted to know.

Royrader glared at him. “Run him off the road, what d’you think? We can’t just keep running parallel with him.”

“He might roll that old car,” Snyder observed.

“Tough. We’ve got to do something.” He turned the wheel to the right. The front end of the pickup leaned into the Galaxie. Rubber from the big front tires squealed against blue steel, sending paint flying.

They’re going to do it, Jake thought wildly as he felt the Galaxie being pushed toward the shoulder. They’re going to do it! The pickup carried twice the weight of his old Ford. The shoulder was all sand, scrub and sagebrush spotted with ocotillo and jumping cactus. He’d be okay if he didn’t turn over, but that would be the end. They’d drag him out of the car and take him off to wherever they’d been ordered to. Jake knew where that would land him eventually; in Huddy’s clutches, strapped to a doctor’s bench. Little pieces of metal, poking him, prodding him, tiny wires running into his head, no, no!

Why didn’t I go to college? he wondered. I had the chance. Maybe I’d know more about myself now, about what I am, about how to protect myself, even if Amanda insists nobody else knows anything about what it is that I do. Too late for that now. Fifty years too late. Bottle caps and dirt and mystified children.

He’d never tried anything else, never tried to make anything else slipt. It was no more than a game, a trick to make kids laugh. That’s all it was, all he ever wanted it to be. But this fellow Huddy thought differently. Mandy had done her best to warn him about the possibility. Too late now. Too late. He didn’t know what to do next.

“Tell me what to do, Mandy!” he thought wildly. “Tell me what to do!”

But Amanda couldn’t help him. She wasn’t talking to him now and she was the one who had to make the long reach out, make the connection. The phone always rang at his end.

Truck. Gotta stop the truck. But he didn’t want to hurt anybody. Even during the war he’d been spared that necessity. As a welder he’d worked out the duration in Los Angeles, building Liberty ships.

The pickup rammed into him again. For a second or two the tires on the right side of the Galaxie kicked up sand. The Ford slid crazily, its back end gyrating like a go-go dancer. Then it was back on the pavement and the pickup moved toward it yet again.

The steering wheel… what about the steering wheel? That was kind of like a bottle cap, wasn’t it? No, not really, and they’d lose all control and they’d crash and it would be all his fault. He didn’t want to hurt anybody, not even a little. What was familiar, what could he do for sure, what was just like a bottle cap? The big right front wheel slid toward the hood of the Ford and then he knew.

It was funny when he tried it. It was as if an old friend had been there all the time. A real good, close, intimate friend, the kind you can call every five years and ask, how are ya doin’ and not worry about making small talk or not having written. He’d never tried to make use of his friend before because he’d never had reason to. But he did now, for his own sake.

Really it wasn’t any different from making the bottle caps slipt, though it made him feel funny inside. Not in his heart, which always felt funny and was beginning to slam against his ribs with agonizing force now. Somewhere else. Inside his head, and it made his head hurt a little bit too. It always hurt a little bit whenever he made things slipt, but this time it hurt more than usual.

But it was just like the bottle caps.