“What’s the first stop?” Jake asked him, allowing himself a quick glance out the windows and back towards his own motel. Still no sign of business-suited figures racing across the blacktop toward the bus. He decided they were still debating what to do next. He couldn’t see his door but imagined several of them trying the lock.
Wasn’t it amazing how bad a scare a little trick like that could throw into two grown men? It astonished him. It was a good trick, and he’d have to remember it if he encountered any more guns. It was hard to remember. He’d never made anything as complex as a pistol slipt before, or slipt that much. But he was fairly confident he could do it a second time. It seemed that he only had to do it once and then it became easy.
“Lordsburg,” the driver said.
“What? Oh, next stop, yeah. Lordsburg.” Jake knew he hadn’t passed through a town named Lordsburg.
“New Mexico,” the driver added helpfully as he scribbled something in his log.
“That’s where I’m headed,” Jake told him.
“Right. Well, you can pay the agent when we get there. You look like an okay guy to me, and I’m running late.”
“Thanks.” Jake worked his way toward the back of the bus, found himself a seat on an empty aisle. There were maybe eight other passengers and he had a fair amount of privacy, for which he was very grateful. He hadn’t had much privacy lately.
The first thing he did was take the little vial from his shirt pocket. It was a fresh bottle and he neatly broke the seal. He swallowed two of the nitros, added a calcium blocker even though he knew he might be overloading his system momentarily, and then leaned back against the heavily padded seat and tried to relax.
The air brakes holding the bus in place let go with a wet hiss and it trundled out of the parking lot onto the main street. Jake allowed himself a look out the back window. The pavement was deserted. No one was running frantically after the departing bus.
It was still hard to believe, but then the image they had of him was of an old man with a bad heart. If they hadn’t been in contact with the men who’d driven the pickup they might not envision him worming his way out the back window and running to freedom. As frightened as the two men who’d come into the room seemed to be, they might forget to mention that they’d left the bathroom window open. And with any luck they’d all spend several hours scouring the land surrounding the motel before someone thought about the bus that had been idling in the parking lot next door. With more luck, they might not think of the bus at all.
The nitro did its job. The calcium blocker would take a little longer, but would protect him all the way into tomorrow morning. Already the angina had faded and the pain was beginning to leave him. He was glad it was night and dark, glad that his few fellow passengers couldn’t see the way the sharp fire in his chest twisted his expression. He put both arms across his ribs and squeezed. It did nothing for his heart but it helped him in the mind.
Mandy, Mandy, he thought tiredly, what am I to do? How are you going to help your Uncle Jake out of this? Right now final solutions didn’t seem half as important as just getting to Port Lavaca. Just seeing Mandy again, holding his grandniece in his arms, that was a worthy enough rationale for all the trouble he’d been put through. She was the closest thing to a child he’d ever have. Maybe these awful people would hound him until his heart finally gave in, but at least he’d see his Mandy one last time. Wendy too, and that nice fella she’d married, Arriaga, and maybe his grandnephew Martin. It would be great seeing them all again, even if he’d been forced into it.
His heart was easy again. He wrestled with the lever that let his seat recline and snuggled down as best he could. He’d grabbed his coat on the way out, but he didn’t need it. The bus was nice and warm.
Was a pretty good trick, he told himself smugly. Making the gun slipt like that. The rag, too. It never occurred to him as he drifted off into a sound sleep, lulled by the gentle vibration of the bus and the engine’s steady hum, that the best trick of all had been making the powerful odor of the ether vanish completely.
“I’m not going back in there,” Degrasse insisted.
“Look,” said the well-dressed man leaning up against the flank of the Continental, “you and Nichols get your butts back in there right now and find out what’s doing with that old man. Some very important people want to see him and I’m not leaving this burg without him. You catch my drift?”
“Yeah, and you catch mine,” countered Degrasse. “You know how long we’ve done jobs for CCM? Long time.”
Drew nodded patiently.
“You ever hear of us being afraid of anything before? You hear any stories of us backing down on an assignment before?”
“You come highly recommended to the Coast,” Drew admitted. “That means nothing to me now.”
“Well it damn well ought to mean something to you,” said Degrasse, “because we—”
“Shut up,” snapped Drew. “Keep it down. There are other people in this motel, you know.” He pushed himself away from the Continental. “If you hadn’t come so well recommended I wouldn’t be so surprised at what I’m hearing from you now.”
“You should have been there in the room with us,” Degrasse told him. “You wouldn’t be so surprised.”
“Listen,” said Drew placatingly, “I don’t know what you guys think you saw in there, but—”
“Think we saw?” Degrasse glanced up at his companion. “Come on. Let’s show him your gun.”
“Oh, then you will go back inside?”
“Sure, we’ll go back … if you and and some of the others come with us.” He gestured toward the other half dozen strong-arm types spotted around the parking lot. Two sat in the back seat of the Ford Galaxie, waiting for a driver who wouldn’t show.
“Real tough old man, is he?” Drew taunted them.
“Give us a break, man. At least until you see what we’re talking about.”
“That’s about the only break you’re going to get.” Drew’s tone was threatening. He waved to the others and they began to converge on the Continental. Once assembled, the little army advanced on room twenty-three.
It took only a minute to open the locked door. An empty room awaited their inspection. Jake Pickett was long gone now, wafted to freedom by a diesel guardian angel at sixty-five miles per.
They found an open suitcase, toiletry items, and a disturbed bed. They also recovered the component parts of a .38 special, along with a handful of loose threads which might once have formed a piece of cloth.
Drew differed from Degrasse and Nichols and the men who hurried out back to search the cornfield. He was intelligent enough to recognize the importance of something he did not understand, sensible enough to know someone else would have to come up with the missing answers. So he had the pistol pieces and rag threads collected and sealed in separate plastic bags.
Already he was composing the message he would have to deliver to his employer. Huddy was going to be very angry. Drew had had the opportunity to see how the executive reacted to disappointment, knew what to anticipate. A couple of plastic bags were a lousy substitute for the old man. Huddy never had explained the reason for his interest in the old man and Drew hadn’t asked. It wasn’t his place to ask. Going on what these two local stumblebums swore had happened and judging from the contents of the plastic bags, however, Drew was beginning to have some inkling. He didn’t spend much time thinking about it because it didn’t make any sense.
No matter. They’d get Pickett. Even if Huddy vacillated, they’d get Pickett. For Drew the business was becoming personal.
“I know she misses her brother.” Arriaga Ramirez stood to the right of the sink, drying dishes. One of these days maybe they’d make enough to afford a dishwasher. He was an incongruous sight, standing there in the kitchen handling the dishware in his big hands. No one would dare joke about it, though.
He wasn’t a tall man. Barely five-nine, but with the build of a professional wrestler. Coupled with a rough, almost brutal face, it gave him a wholly unwarranted threatening appearance. Arriaga Ramirez wouldn’t hurt a fly. He commanded the quiet respect of his community, his friends and his fellow fishermen. A soft-spoken, deeply religious family man, he wanted nothing more than to be left alone to do his work and enjoy his friends and family. His aspirations were simple and uncomplicated, so he was rarely disappointed and often amazed at the surprises life sprang on him. He was trying to make sense of one of those surprises right now.
“It’s just that it’s an awkward time for me to suddenly take off.”
“It’s not really time off,” Wendy argued. “It’s not the season now.”
