“Tell me the rest of it,” I said.
“There is no more.”
“Then I’m not interested,” I said.
Mister Flint leaned forward and unveiled his teeth again. “Yes, you are. You’re broke.”
“Why would you think that?”
“I’ve done my research,” he said. “I know all about you.”
That set me to wondering how much he really did know. Probably nothing. I was staying in a fleabag hotel so saying I was broke wasn’t even a lucky guess.
“You’re not telling me the truth,” I said. “Not all of it. I won’t work for a man that I can’t trust – and who doesn’t trust me.”
Flint leaned back and stared at me, probably trying to decide whether he could trust me. He nodded.
“All right, I’ll level with you,” he said. “Delivering this cargo, meeting the deadline, is important to me. And there is someone who would like to see me fail. If you agree to haul it, people will try to stop you. It will be dangerous.”
His eyes said this was the truth – but perhaps there was still more he was hiding. Flint was too good for me to know for sure. That made things interesting. But I’d already learned one thing – he wasn’t just a pig farmer.
“Now we’re closer to the truth,” I said, letting him know that I knew there was still more he hadn’t said.
“Then you’ll do it?” he asked.
“Ten thousand isn’t enough,” I said. I got to my feet. “I’ll pay for my own breakfast. Good day to you.”
The two thugs didn’t try and stop me when I walked out which was a relief. Floyd came hurrying me.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “Is this a bluff?”
“We’re not doing it,” I said.
“You should go back in there and negotiate,” Floyd said. “Ask for more days. A bigger fee – he may go as high as twenty thousand. We need that money.”
“You want it, you go and negotiate,” I said. “I don’t trust him and I don’t want to work for him.”
“Something’s wrong,” Floyd said. “What is it?”
“I’m fine. I need some air. And don’t worry about the money, I have a plan.”
I walked out into the sunlight. Floyd followed me. Sometimes it was like having a dog. But at least he didn’t squit in the street.
I thought Floyd would keep badgering me to take the job, but he didn’t mention it again that morning. He was probably hoping I’d come around to it if he left me alone. A few weeks back he’d been reading a book on human psychology, one of those pseudo-scientific things that claims to reveal the secret of persuading other people to do what you want. He hadn’t told me he was reading it and was surprised when I called him out for trying the techniques on me. You should never try to con a conman. I wondered if he’d been reading about more subtle approaches.
There was a deep rumbling sound behind us and I turned to look back. Two guys on motorcycles were cruising down the street. They appeared to have dressed up as members of their favourite rock band. I figured they were retired dentists, or maybe one was a condo salesman, having a midlife crisis. The nearest one scowled at me as they rode past – he looked mean but not too bright. Probably not the dentist then. His bike seemed to have been welded together from parts found at the side of the road. But the other one was brand new and gleaming – all bright chrome and candy-apple red paintwork. These weren’t skinny dirt bikes with big springs and knobbly tyres, they were full-fat old-style hogs. There was a big motor in the hub of each wheel and their battery packs were slung low.
“Have you ever ridden one of those things?” Floyd asked as the bikes rumbled away from us.
“Once. Briefly.”
“Briefly?”
“I stole one as a getaway vehicle. I rode it to the first corner and then I fell off. And before you say anything, I was nine years old.”
Floyd just shook his head and we walked on.
“Are you still unhappy?” he asked.
“I’m not sure what I am,” I said.
“Am I still not allowed to mention her name?”
“This isn’t about Harmony,” I said. “I think I’m having a midlife crisis.”
“Based on recent census returns and your medical history, the probability is that you are presently less than one quarter of the way through your total lifespan,” he said. “But I understand that ‘midlife crisis’ is a figurative term. Humans suffer psychological and sometimes physical symptoms as a result of significant changes in circumstance at various points in their lives.”
“Are you reading that?” I asked.
“I’m summarising what I’ve read. Circumstances which may trigger these symptoms include relocation, a change in employment, the death of a loved one, financial loss, or the beginning or end of a relationship.”
“I told you, this isn’t about her.”
“I was referring to your relationship with me,” he said.
That caught me by surprise. I’d never really thought of us as being in a relationship. We were just together.
“Before we met, you were a lone wolf, surviving by your wits and beholden to no one,” he said. “I am concerned that I may now be... cramping your style.”
I shook my head. “If you were, I’d tell you, I promise. This is something else. Something I have to work out for myself.”
“I want you to know that if you feel a need to talk about it, anything you tell me will be treated in the strictest confidence.”
“Okay, you’re definitely reading that part,” I said. “Cut it out. I don’t need an amateur psychiatrist. And you can drop that soothing non-judgmental tone. It makes you sound like a psychopath.”
“That’s a relief,” Floyd said. “Because faking all that touchy-feely stuff makes me feel nauseated.”
“Let’s agree that you never need to do it again,” I said.
“Great,” he said. “I’m glad we were able to talk about this. And if you ever need anyone to kick you up the ass and tell you to pull yourself together, I’m your non-human friend substitute.”
“I’m really touched, I want you to know that,” I said. “Let’s head down towards the bank.”
“Are you going to rob it?”
“No, I’m hungry.”
“How can you be hungry? You had breakfast fifty-seven minutes ago.”
“That was spoiled by business talk,” I said.
“It didn’t stop you clearing your plate.”
“Yes, but I didn’t have time for seconds.”
Just up from the bank was a little hole in the wall place that sold nothing but hotdogs. The smoky scent of the meat and the smell of frying onions made my stomach rumble. I handed over a dollar, local currency, and bought two of them.
“I haven’t had one of these in ages,” I said, biting into the first one.
“You do know what’s in those things?” Floyd said.
“Yes and I don’t care, it’s delicious,” I said, chewing noisily.
We headed off down the street but both stopped and turned when we heard a cry behind us.
“Hey! Stop!”
It was the hotdog seller. He was leaning out of his hole in the wall and waving his hands. But not at us. A giant of a man was walking away from the hotdog stall with one of the foot-long dogs loaded with chili and sauerkraut and dripping ketchup. The big man was dressed in jeans and a black leather jacket. No shirt. One of the bikers we’d seen earlier.
“You have to pay for that!” the hotdog man called.
Floyd stepped up and blocked the big man’s way. I’m sure he still thought he was a much bigger robot.
“You forgot to pay for your hotdog,” Floyd said.
“What?” the biker said.
“You owe the man seventy-five cents,” Floyd said.
“I’ve got coins in my pocket,” the brute said. “Why don’t you come and get them?”
Floyd stepped forward, reaching for the pocket. He’d rip the guy’s jeans off if he got hold of
them.
The big biker tossed the remains of the hotdog aside and reached for Floyd’s shoulders. He picked Floyd up off the ground and tossed him aside. Then he flexed his muscles and moved towards the fallen robot.
“That’s enough!” I said.
Chapter Three
The big man stopped and turned towards me, squinting. His eyebrows stuck out from a thick brow ridge that shadowed his eyes. He looked like the type of guy who would run headfirst into a wall to prove how tough he was. There was a lot of muscle in his chest and arms but not the sort that has been sculpted by gym equipment. My guess was that some of it was genetic and the rest came from hitting a punchbag. Some people go for pure beef, but I prefer a guy with at least a little bit of something going on behind his eyes. The embroidered patch over his heart said his name was ‘Blud’. I wasn’t sure if it was a misspelling or short for Bludgeon.
“What’s your problem?” he said.
“That’s my robot,” I said.
“So?”
“So I think you should help him to his feet,” I said.
“How about I rip off his arm and smash him to pieces with it?”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I said.
“You one of them robot lovers?” His lip was twisted into a sneer.
“I’m not one of them small-minded bigots, if that’s what you mean,” I said.
“Fine words. You got any action to back ‘em up?”
“I’ve got a couple of moves.”
“Prove it.” He made a fist and swung it towards my head in a big lazy arc. I stepped back and the punch missed me by a good three inches.
The hulk swung again. And again I stepped back out of range. He had a big weight advantage and put a lot of power behind his punches. But he didn’t have any skill at all. Those big roundhouse blows would achieve nothing unless they connected with his opponent – and I didn’t want them doing any connecting. If I stayed out of reach I could probably wear him down without ever throwing a punch.
“Stand still and let me hit you,” he gasped, lumbering after me.
I tried to sidestep his next blow but I misjudged it and his fist pounded into my ribs making me gasp. He grinned, thinking things were about to go his way. But he couldn’t see what I could see. He tried a quick one-two but he must have lost count in the middle. I jabbed a fist towards his nose, just to prove that I could.
“Badturd!” he said as blood ran over his top lip.
All the evidence suggested he had a thick skull. To hurt him I would have to hit him really hard and I didn’t want to do that. I’d end up bruising my knuckles. As a thief, I have to look after my hands. I could keep hammering away at his nose, but I might end up doing him some real damage if a fragment of bone went back into his skull. That was a risk I wasn’t going to take. But at the same time, I really did want him to stop trying to hit me.
“I think you hurt my robot’s feelings,” I said.
“What?”
“The robot,” I said. “He doesn’t like it when people threaten him.”
“You want me to go and apologise to him?” the biker said, amused by the idea. His teeth were stained with his own blood.
“It’s too late for that,” I said. “That sound you can hear is him smashing your bike pieces.”
“What?!” He dropped his fists and I could easily have dealt him a knockout blow. And broken my hand in the process. It wasn’t worth it. He turned away from me and ran. I didn’t think he’d get there in time. Floyd’s a fast worker, especially when it comes to demolition.
I sat at the hotel bar sipping freshly brewed coffee to wash down the hotdogs. I was trying to decide what our next move should be. Floyd was still pushing for us to take the job hauling the medical supplies over to New Grimsby, but I couldn’t get excited about the idea. I had known that having a real job would make me feel hemmed in and restless, but I hadn’t expected it to kick in quite so quickly. Being an independent trucker gives you much more freedom than most paid work, but it still wasn’t enough for me. I was itching to do something felonious. Floyd couldn’t understand this and I didn’t blame him for it. Maybe we had reached the point where it was time to go our separate ways. Floyd could take off in the truck, maybe find himself a non-outlaw partner, and I could... do what?
Floyd was in a booth at the back of the room, sitting with his hands resting on his knees, topping up his batteries from a wall socket. Demolition work uses up quite a bit of juice. This robot slash artificial sentience was the closest I’ve had to a friend in a long time and I didn’t want to go off without him. But I couldn’t come up with any other options. I was distracted from these depressing thoughts by a movement outside in the street.
“Is there a biker convention this weekend?” I asked the barman, nodding towards the window.
“No, why?” There was a note of concern in his voice.
“I saw two of them ride into town earlier and now there’s three more.”
“Oh, scrack!” he said.
What happened next looked a lot like the scenes you see when a town prepares for the arrival of a tornado. There was a lot of scraping of chairs and most of the locals scurried away, off to batten down their hatches or whatever it is that people do when a storm blows in. The bartender locked the doors behind them and pulled down the shades on the big windows that faced the street. From behind the bar, he pulled out a sign that said Closed for Refurbishment and he taped that on the door and then pulled the blind down over it.
I got down off the barstool and looked around, confused.
“Here we go again,” an old woman beside me muttered. Her face was deeply lined but she still had a sort of elfin quality – and not just because of her small stature.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Happens two or three times a year. Those squit-kickers ride in like a plague of locusts,” she said, her voice a cynical growl.
“How many?”
“A dozen maybe. Bastards.”
That wasn’t the biggest swarm I’d ever heard of – but Gizzard Creek wasn’t a big town.
“Their leader rides a pale hog,” the bartender said dramatically. If that was a mythical reference, it was lost on me.
“They call him Mother,” the old woman said.
“They do? Why?”
“Because he’s a miserable mother-scracker,” she said. She said other things too, but they were the sort of words that nice boys don’t repeat. You wouldn’t have guessed anything like that could come out of the mouth of such a dainty old lady. Standing there in her heels, the top of her head wasn’t quite level with my chest. Her iron-grey hair was pulled back in a neat bun and she was wearing a faded cotton dress with little daisies printed all over it. In the crook of her elbow she had the handles of a purse that looked big enough to hold a couple of bowling balls. She might be anyone’s favourite aunt. Except for the language.
Apparently, the biker gang called themselves the Dragon Riders. I guess all the cool gang names were taken. They moved from town to town along the edge of the desert and when they ran out of places to disrupt they went back to where they started and did the whole thing over again.
“What should we do?” I asked.
“Pretend we’re not here and wait for them to go away,” the bartender said.
I saw the old woman roll her eyes and shake her head.
“They soon get bored and move on to the next town,” the bartender insisted. “Best just stay out of their way.”
Something told me it wasn’t going to be that easy. Especially given our encounter with the lunk earlier. Floyd must have been thinking the same thing. He walked over, coiling up the charging cable.
“You know that thing you do,” he said, “when you open your mouth and swazz people off? Try not to do that. We don’t want any trouble.”
It wasn’t the first time someone had said this to me.
“You stay away from them too,” I said. “They might all be bashers.”
> Floyd wasn’t used to the fact that he was more vulnerable than he used to be. Right now he was the perfect size for a robot basher to target, as our earlier encounter had proved. But even this, I knew, wouldn’t be enough to convince him to lie low.
Chapter Four
By next morning the whole town seemed to be filled with bikers, but I think the old woman was right when she said they were a swarm of about a dozen. They were whizzing about the place like demented locusts, the wheels of their bikes kicking up dust. Most of them had fake engine sounds turned up loud so they were also kicking up quite a racket.
The hotel was still pretending to be closed so the blinds were down. I’d eaten my breakfast in a sort of artificial twilight. Guests and other local customers were being let in and out through the door at the back. There were more people in the dining room today – gathered to drink coffee and gossip about what was happening outside.
“The sheriff should lock up the whole lot of them and send for the judge,” the barman said.
A few people nodded at this, but most frowned and shook their heads.
“You know what happened when the old sheriff tried that. They all busted out of there and burned down the sheriff’s office. The sheriff barely escaped alive.”
“That’s right,” said another voice. “We’ve all seen old Ben Wayans’ scars.”
“That’s as maybe, but it just ain’t right the way they’re tearing up the place. One of them rode his motor-sickle all over Laura Lander’s garden and ruined her squashes.”
“That’s nothing. A gaggle of ‘em were up at the graveyard riding all around it and even knocking over gravestones. They’ve got no respect.”
“Oh, hush Benjamin, the dead don’t care so it ain’t worth risking your neck on their account.”
There was a lot more of this kind of thing. Complaining about the loud music playing late into the night. Complaining about the food and drink being stolen. And complaining about the fact that the gang had unlawfully tapped into the local electricity supply to charge their bikes. Everybody seemed to think that ‘somebody’ ought to do something, but no one wanted to be the one to take action against the bikers. Given what had happened to their previous sheriff, I didn’t really blame them.
Road Rage Page 2