WEST ON 66

by James H. Cobb

  "I've just been studying on this run. Things are kind of getting complicated."

  "I know. More so than even I expected." Her gaze dropped to some point on the upholstery between us. "Look, Kev. If you want out of this, I can't blame you. I can more than understand. If you want, just drop me off at the next town. I'll be okay."

  "No, you wouldn't be, and what makes you think I want

  out?"

  She looked up again and I realized that I would have to be careful with my face for a while. She peered at me with that catlike intensity of hers, trying to read me. "Look, Kev," she said softly. "You've been really good to me. I'd have never made it this far without you. But you are just a nice guy who happened to walk into my problems. How far do you want to go just for the promise of some money that may not even be there?"

  I wanted to reply that the damn money hadn't been in the equation from the first damn second. But I couldn't. Not with­out saying a lot of things to her that I wasn't sure I could even say to myself yet.

  "Hell, I'm going as far as I have to," I replied. "I made a deal with you back there in Saint Louis. I don't back out of my deals. I also don't run out on my partners just because things start getting a little raunchy. You and me, Princess, we're doing this all the way. You dig?"

  It was her turn to be careful with her expression. "I dig." She nodded. "All the way."

  Up ahead, buildings materialized out of the heat shimmer. A little patch of humanity notched into the side of the road.

  It was one of those little travelers' survival places, a modern-day oasis in the desert. A Phillips 66 sign and a couple of pumps. A white cinder block cafe with a sheet metal Pepsi thermometer beside the door and a cardboard sign in the win­dow assuring that YES, WE ARE OPEN. A couple of scrubby cottonwood trees surviving on seepage from the well. Every­thing, even the trees, a little sun-bleached. Only two or three cars and a single tractor-trailer rig stewed in the gravel turn out, leaving me plenty of room to park the '57 out front where I could keep an eye on her.

  The place was about what you'd expect under the situation. A scarred counter and row of stools. A row of three-sided booths around the walls and another couple of tables centered in the room, the tabletops covered in checked oilcloth. The Mixmaster, the battered coffee urn, and the chalkboard offering up the special of the day.

  The place didn't run to air-conditioning, but it did have a set of desert coolers, big burlap-sided boxes mounted outside of the windows at either end of the dining room. Hoses trickled water onto the burlap, and powerful electric fans drew the out­side air in through the wet cloth. They didn't actually make things cool, just less hot. Any improvement was appreciated, however.

  A lone, wilted waitress was on duty, dealing off the arm with the two heat-fretful families and the pair of truck drivers who shared the place with us. She still managed a couple of pleas­antries, though, as she brought us our menus and glasses of alkali-tinged ice water.

  Generally in a place like this, you're safe with a hamburger and fries. And we were. Fresh meat, a fresh bun toasted on the grill, and the lettuce, tomato, and onion kept in the refrigerator until just before being served. As a longtime burger gourmet, my compliments to the chef. The menu also boasted about their king-sized, genuine ice-cream milk shakes. Lisette and I spilt one, she getting the glass while I got the half remaining in the aluminum blender canister.

  I was just taking a pull out of that canister when I looked up right into Mace Spanno's face.

  He filled the front door of the cafe, a mountain in a sweat-limp white shirt and gray suit trousers. His coat was draped over one arm, and his tie was yanked down a couple of inches. The same fedora he had worn back at the Dixie shaded his eyes.

  Lisette went absolutely rigid beside me.

  There was movement at the back of the room as well. From there, a short corridor led back to the rest rooms and to the restaurant's side door. Nate Temple, Spanno's backup gunner, appeared at the entry to that passage, sealing off the line of retreat.

  They must have spotted the '57 from the highway. Turning off short, they must have cut around behind the building out of our line of sight. We were boxed in, but good.

  Deliberately I finished taking my pull on the shake then set the canister down in front of me. Spanno crossed to our booth and loomed over us. The big square-faced man was going for intimidation again, the principal from hell about to chastise the two cowering truants. His clothes looked as if they had been lived in for seventy-two hours straight, and his face was hazed with the start of an iron gray beard.

  I just nodded toward a chair from one of the center tables. "Sit down and take a load off. It's a hot day."

  Nothing stirred in those dead eyes, but the corner of his mouth quirked up about half a millimeter. He drew the chair up and sat down at the front of our booth, his right arm, the one with the coat draped across it, held in his lap. I sat facing him at the back of the booth, and as he settled into his chair Lisette huddled closer to me.

  I saw emotion in Spanno then, for the first time. One brief, hot flash of rage played across his features. That massive jaw tightened, teeth glinting in a snarl for an instant. Lisette glared back defiantly, the air between them so charged it would have registered on a Geiger counter.

  "You have made me a lot of trouble." Spanno spoke the phrase to Lisette as if he were passing sentence.

  "Yeah? Well, we're sorry about that," I said. I wanted to get that inclusive "we" in there just so all parties involved would understand where I stood in the negotiations.

  Spanno's head turned toward me like a traversing tank turret. "As for you, boy, I warned you once that you were sticking your nose in my family affairs."

  I nodded in agreement. "I recall you saying something about that. I also seem to recall not giving a damn."

  "Then you'd better start now. This is your last chance. Get up from this table, go out that door, get in your car, and get out of my life."

  I shook my head. "Can't do it. I haven't cleaned my plate yet."

  The big man's eyes narrowed. "I guess you still don't know how much trouble you've bought yourself."

  "Oh, I know lots of stuff, Spanno. Maybe more than you'd expect. Among other things, I know that I'll be leaving with the lady I brought."

  "My daughter is going with me."

  I faked the appropriate startled glance in Lisette's direction.

  "No, I won't, Mace," the girl said in a low voice. "I am not your daughter and I am never going with you anywhere ever again."

  Spanno's hand, his left one, darted across the table and caught Lisette's wrist. "You are my daughter!" he spit with venomous intensity. "You have my name and I raised you!"

  "I'm a prisoner in your damn house, and I never wanted your rotten name," Lisette hissed back. "The only reason you ever married my mother was to get even with my father. He took your damn money, and killing him wasn't payback enough! You bullied my mother into marrying you, and then you adopted me, all just so you could torture us both! All to get even with Johnny 32!"

  "And why the hell not!" Spanno growled back. "Your father was a back-stabbing son of a bitch and he owed me! He owed me for the money, he owed me for the lives of my partners, and he owed me for my life! The life I could have had if he'd played it square with us! You and your slut of a mother were poor-enough payback for that!"

  Spanno kept his voice low despite his intensity, and the rum­ble of the cooler fans blurred his words. They didn't spread beyond our booth. No one noticed out in the rest of the room. A harried mother coped with a two-year-old's spilled milk. An overweight salesman argued over the bill with the cashier. A trucker laughed at his driving partner's joke.

  How many times has this happened in your life? How many times in a restaurant or on a bus or in the street have blood, death, and murder been discussed just a few feet away and you never even realized it?

  "If it's such a bad deal, big man, why don't you give up on it?" I cut in. "If you don't think she's worth it
, why not save yourself some trouble? Let her go."

  Spanno's eyes slashed at me. "Shut the hell up, boy."

  His gaze returned to the girl. "Listen to me, Lisette. You've had clothes, money, school, a town house, even a maid. I've given you what you needed and what you wanted. Me, I've done that for you. You can't say that you've had it so hard. You're the one that's given me the grief. But maybe I can forget

  about that."

  And then, for the second time, I saw emotion in Mace Spanno's face. It was far back there in his eyes, a faint warped specter of the way a man should look at a woman like Lisette. The desire, the passion, the . . . no, I won't spot him that last

  one.

  "Just come back with me," he said. His grip on her wrist eased almost to a caress. "Stop making this trouble. Forget this punk and your father's money and come back with me. I'll be able to forgive you after a while. Things will be good. I can make them good for you. Just come home, Lisette."

  It wasn't the kind of speech a father makes to a daughter. There was something grotesque in the softness of the big man's words. Like Frankenstein reciting love poetry.

  Lisette's eyes burned hard and cold like black ice. I hope that no woman ever looks at me the way she looked at Spanno just then. "Why?" she asked. "So you can fuck me in my own mother's bed again?"

  She'd carefully chosen the vilest word she could have used, and with equal care she'd thrown it in his face.

  Spanno's face went bloodless and his lipless mouth peeled open in a snarl. His hand clamped onto Lisette's wrist again, the skin of her arm going pale as he bore down. A low whimpering cry escaped her as the bones strained to the breaking point.

  "That's it!" I growled. My right hand closed on his wrist, just as his had closed on Lisette's. And it wasn't about laws, cops, or money or anything else. For a few long seconds we held that lockup, and it was Spanno who grabbed loose first.

  "That is it, man," I repeated through gritted teeth, releasing him.

  He sank back in his chair. At least I'd managed to drag the big man's hate off Lisette and onto me. "Oh, yeah," Spanno hissed. "That's it. You bought this, you little bastard, and now you're receiving."

  From under the table, where his right hand had been hang­ing out all during this conversation, there came the deliberate metallic click of a pistol hammer cocking back.

  "Now listen," Spanno continued, keeping his voice down. "We're going to get up and go out the back door. Stay in front of me. Don't give me any shit and nobody gets hurt."

  I grinned at him. "You set this up real good, Mace," I re­plied. "Keeping your piece out of sight under your jacket and everything. You've got your ace man over there covering me, too, and neither one of you have taken your eyes off my right hand here, my gun hand, for a second."

  Slowly, and using that right hand, I reached across the table and picked up the aluminum shake canister, giving them some­thing to watch. "And that's cool," I continued, taking a quick drink, "but let me clue you in on something. You see, I'm what you call ambidextrous, and neither of you have seen my left hand since you walked into this place."

  There was another metallic click under the table. The sound of a Colt .45's safety being thumbed off.

  I had to hold Spanno now. I had to be the only thing in his world if this was going to work at all. I had to look right straight into those dead oyster eyes and not glance away for a second. "I can read your mind," I whispered. "You're wondering if you can tip the table over and knock my gun down. Forget it. The table's bolted to the floor."

  Spanno's only answer was a twisted whisp of obscenity.

  "Now," I went on, "you're thinking about firing up through the table and putting a bullet in my brain before I can shoot. Forget that, too. This heavy plywood tabletop would probably deflect a round from that snubnose you're carrying. You can't be sure of killing me instantly with your first shot. We're stuck. There's not one single thing either of us can do except sit here, face-to-face, and blow each other into dog meat."

  "Don't be stupid, boy. Put the piece down or you're dead!"

  "You think I just fell off the goddamn turnip truck?" I re­plied coldly. "I know about you, man. I'm dead no matter how you cut it. I've spit in the face of the great Mace Spanno. If I go out that door, I get taken for a ride. If I stay here, I'm dead, too. But this way, I get to take you with me, and Lisette goes free. It's no contest, man. No friggin' contest!"

  Just now I was clinging desperately to some words of wisdom bestowed upon me by Mr. Jack Le Baer, street cop and pro­found student of human behavior. "Kid," he had said, "some­times the only way you can deal with some of the psychos you'll meet in this business is to make 'em think that you're crazier than they are."

  At the edge of my vision I saw Nate Temple straighten from his lounged posture in the passage back to the side door. He sensed that something was wrong with his boss but he couldn't see the problem. No one could. There were just three people talking around a table.

  "You set this up too good, Spanno," I continued, keeping my voice in a hypnotic monotone. "You've got me backed into a corner, and I've got nothing left but death or glory. You've got all the choices. You get to walk away and try again."

  I could feel the perspiration running down my spine. And why not? I was sitting here with a gun aimed at my balls, banking on the residual sanity of a proven sociopathic killer. The only ray of hope in sight was that the sweat was standing out on Spanno's brow, too. A droplet trickled down into the corner of his eye, and the lid twitched.

  "What the hell do you think you're getting out of this?" he demanded, his words grating. "The money? That money's mine! It's been mine for the past ten fucking years! Just like that little bitch sitting next to you is mine. And once something is mine, it stays that way. You're not getting a piece of either one."

  The serrated grip plates of the Commander burned in my hand. "What I'm getting out of this, Spanno, you'd never un­derstand in ten million years."

  We were right on the edge now, and I had to take us even closer. "Look, man; my burger's getting cold and my shake's getting warm and I'm getting sick of looking at your face. Now, either get the hell out of here or let's get it done."

  It was a sure-money call that no one had ever wanted me dead as much as Mace Spanno did at that moment. The ques­tion was which he wanted more, my life or his.

  "Having trouble deciding?" I whispered. "Okay, let me give you a hand. We go on the count of three. One. ..."

  Lisette sat to one side, her lips parted, frozen. She'd be okay as long as she wasn't hit by a loose round. Spanno's boys prob­ably would be more concerned with getting away after our pri­vate hell broke loose than they would with fooling around with her. I wish I could have told her about Jack out in LA. He could have helped her.

  "Two . . ."

  That's how many pounds of pressure it takes on the trigger of a cocked pistol to trip the sear and drop the hammer.

  "Sorry it took me a minute to get back to you, folks," the waitress chirped, bustling up with a menu under her arm. "Get you a cup of coffee, sir?"

  It was a good thing that it was over by then. "No thanks, ma'am," I answered for Spanno. "The gentleman's just leav­ing."

  Spanno stood up. His eyes swept from me to Lisette, making a silent vow to piss on our graves. Then he turned, brushed past the waitress, and headed for the side door. Perplexed, Temple followed his boss down the passage and out into the desert sun.

  "Anything wrong here, folks?" the waitress asked dubiously.

  "Nah," I replied. "It's just the heat. It gets to some people."'

  I'm glad she was satisfied and turned away. After making that statement about the temperature, I'd have had a tough time explaining why I suddenly started to shiver.

  Evening is the worst time for clouds to come in over the desert. During the day, a little overcast is a good thing. It can take the edge off the sun. But with night coming on, a cloud layer can act like insulation, trapping the heat on the ground like a smother
ing blanket until you give up hope of ever feeling cool again.

  A miniature dust devil swirled past the cafe. It snatched up the smoke of my cigarette, whipping it in with the sand and cottonwood fluff it carried. A hundred feet away, poised under the parking lot arc light, the black Chrysler eyed me like a hungry shark. So did the three men it carried.

  Nate Temple leaned against the car, loose and relaxed, a smoke of his own between his fingers. Like any good hunter, he knew all about patience and about not wasting your energy. His face was emotionless as we swapped stares.

  Not so the kid wheelman. It was getting to him a little. Bannerman kept shifting his position in the driver's seat, one thumb tapping time on the steering wheel to some nervous internal rhythm. He never met my eyes; he just kept looking out toward the road as if he were the one seeking escape.

  As for Spanno, out there in the backseat, I couldn't even guess what he was feeling just now.

  This standoff had lasted for two hours. It couldn't go on for much longer.

  "Anything wrong, son?" The establishment's cashier-cum-pump jockey came up behind me in the cafe's side door.

  I snubbed out my smoke on the door frame. "Nope. Just waiting for it to get a little cooler before we head out again."

  The old desert hand peered out at the dark copper sky. "It's not likely to get all that much cooler, at least until the rain breaks. You watch yourself out there. There's going to be some weather out on the highway tonight."

  "Yeah, thanks. I will." I let the screen door swing shut on its spring and went back into the cafe. It was dinnertime and the little place was about as full up as I imagine it ever got. Half a dozen tables and booths were filled. Enough people so that we were ignored over in the corner. Enough witnesses so that Spanno and his boys would hold off for now.

  It wouldn't last, though. Soon it would be just us, the cafe workers, the night, and the desert. Spanno wouldn't wait for­ever, and what were two or three more corpses to dispose of?