WEST ON 66

by James H. Cobb

  It wasn't heat lightning anymore, either. It was the genuine cold-fired article now, blue-white, hard-edged, and forking across the sky, burning starkly lit images of the rimrocks onto your retinas and blazing a path for the thunder to follow.

  And damn, the thunder. A crack like a mountain splitting and a rolling roar like a battery of eight-inch howitzers firing for effect. It was a hell of a show when there was nothing be­tween it and you but a little glass and sheet steel.

  I'd made do with less, though. During the four years I'd been a soldier, I'd lived out in just about every kind of weather you could name, from blizzard to typhoon, and mostly with no more shelter than a field jacket. That was one edge I'd have over Spanno tonight.

  Sure, he and his boys were big, tough gangsters with a gun in each fist and a spare up their ass. But the city was their world. They'd seen their lightning dimmed by smog and heard their thunder muffled by concrete. Tonight, though, they'd be out here under the real stuff, straight from the bottle and with­out a chaser.

  Grown men afraid of a little storm? Yeah. It happens. They'd never admit it to it, though, especially to themselves. But deep down in their bellies, Spanno and his boys would be just a little afraid. The fear would manifest itself in their finding good, logical reasons not to stay out searching for us. It would motivate them to find solid, manly excuses for getting four walls around them. It would justify three fingers of whiskey and a blaring jukebox.

  You see, on a night like this, they'd be reminded about God.

  Blow on, Brother Storm. Lay me down some covering fire. Chase the scum back under the rocks so my Princess and I can rest safe awhile.

  The thing was, I'd forgotten that there was someone else around here who'd never been out under the raw-edged sky before either.

  "Kev," a small voice asked from the front seat. "May I crawl in back with you?" oure.

  The backseat was tight for one person. It was claustrophobic for two, even with the front seat backs flipped forward. We did the best we could, though. We used the sleeping bag and my suitcase to fill in as much of the floor space as we could, level­ing us out a scrap of a bed. Then I gathered her in close and she tucked her head under my chin and we let the storm roll over us.

  The heat was volcanic. Our sweat-damp clothes bunched and chafed, and perspiration prickled wherever our bodies touched. We didn't notice, though. No more than we noticed the clamor of the storm or the limited room. We were becom­ing too aware of each other just then, our heartbeats, our breathing, our being, to pay attention to details.

  After a while, it started to happen. A random movement of my fingers extended into a caress down her flank. A shift of her position changed into a responsive writhe, the firm softness of her breasts molding against my chest. I felt Lisette's face tilt up, her lips brushing lightly across my face, seeking mine.

  It had been a hell of a few days, a continuous string of emo­tional highs and lows, adrenaline surges and shared fears, en­forced intimacies and half-acknowledged exhaustion. And always that perpetual hungering presence on the edge of each other's space. It was a mixture that had become as explosive as a pool of gasoline. Now we flicked a match into it.

  Blouse and shirt, jeans and shorts, panties and underpants, all were torn off by one person or the other and thrown into the front seat. There was a last moment of sanity as I dug out the little cardboard box with its pay load of small foil packets. Then Lisette and I both went slightly crazy.

  She was all raking teeth and nails and urgent, voiceless de­mands. She offered and then took back. She resisted and then yielded on her terms. I had to capture her and pin her down into the narrow angle of the seat and there lift her up and out to the edge of this fire we had ignited and beyond.

  And it was never enough. We'd collapse back into each other's arms, panting and exhausted, thinking that it was over. But after only a minute or so, our hands would begin to explore and caress again, moving beyond our will, and once more we'd start the long climb. We were a couple of young animals trapped in a rutting season, driven to mate again and again until we both reached total satiation.

  It was the storm that finally saved us from ourselves. The rains broke, roaring down out of the skies, toning the wind down into a clean, cool breeze that flowed over us, bringing us back to our senses.

  We slipped out of the car and stood naked on the hard packed sand, holding each other close and swaying through a couple of dance steps born out of some music that only we could hear.

  I looked down into Lisette's face, and a last lightning flicker showed me her ironic and infinitely lovable smile. "I guess we don't have to worry about getting two rooms anymore?" she said.

  Damn straight we didn't.

  We helped each other bathe in the sweet rainwater. Then we crawled back into the '57's rear seat. Once it had felt like a coffin built for two. Now it was a cozy den. We built our abandoned clothing into the bed, bare skin being a lot more comfortable than damp denim in a situation like this. Also dur­ing the past couple of hours, we'd learned a whole lot about the best ways to fit our bodies together. With Lisette snuggled against me like a drowsy kitten, I tugged a corner of the un­zipped sleeping bag over us. This time we slept.

  We awoke next morning to a clear sky and a brushfire sunrise out over the plains. On one side, a towering streak-sided mesa loomed over us, night shadow still cowering in its rim canyons. On the other, a broad and rolling valley glowed dry-grass gold and cedar green in the dawn light.

  That's the funny thing about New Mexico. People just go around living in places beautiful enough to be declared a na­tional monument anywhere else.

  I dug my pants, shirt, and boots out of the boar's nest in the back of the car, leaving my space to Lisette. With a drowsy grumble, she hugged the sleeping bag to herself and burrowed into the corner of the seat, leaving the morning to the '57 and me.

  That was okay. I didn't mind having a few minutes to my­self. I had a lot of things to think about.

  I ambled around to the front of the car and leaned back against the fender, stretching the kinks out and enjoying the experience of breathing. God, the air was something else. Cool and so clean that it was almost scary to an LA boy. The rain had refreshed the cedar grove around us, and the little trees were pumping out so much oxygen you felt like you were run­ning on a personal supercharger.

  That supercharge, though, reminded me that we were going to be doing some serious climbing today. "You're going to need your jets reset, Car," I commented to the '57. "We're getting into some altitude, and I don't need you fading out on me. I'll go under the hood and have a look at those carbs before we haul out this morning."

  "Just warm your hands first, hotshot," the '57 replied in a muffled feminine voice.

  Since my vehicle is far too dignified to make that kind of wisecrack, it had to stem from another source. Lisette leaned bare-shouldered out of the rear window, smiling at me. "Do you always go around talking to your car like that?" she asked.

  "Sure. Don't you?

  "Uh, no."

  "Well, then, the next time it won't start for you on a cold morning don't wonder why."

  I stepped back to the girl and hunkered down to meet her at eye level. I started to say good morning, but then I remem­bered that we had better ways to communicate now. Lisette's good-morning-it's-nice-to-be-with-you kisses were fully as good as her good-night-and-thank-you ones.

  "Sleep well?" I asked her as we paused for breath.

  "Eventually," she drawled back.

  "The accommodations weren't exactly the Waldorf Asto-na.

  "I've stayed at the Astoria," she replied, "and this was nicer. A much better grade of clientele." She drew herself up a little farther. The sleeping bag slipped to the car floor, leaving her kneeling sleek and nude on the seat.

  "Aren't you a little cold, Princess?" I inquired, sighting down her back.

  "Nope," she replied, glancing at herself. "It feels good. So good, in fact, that I might give up wearing cloth
es altogether. Would you mind terribly?"

  "I guess I could learn to live with it after a while."

  We shared a chuckle and a nuzzle. Lisette crossed her wrists on the window frame and rested her chin on them. "Kev, can I tell you something?"

  "Sure. Anything you like."

  "Last night is going to be my first time."

  I didn't know exactly what she meant, so I didn't exactly know how to answer. Lisette's experiences with Spanno must have left a massive raw place torn inside of her. I wasn't sure what I could touch without causing her pain.

  "That . . . stuff with Mace didn't count," she went on, a shadow of sadness crossing her face. "That will all go away after he's gone. But last night I'll remember."

  She slipped one of her hands out from under her chin and reached out with it, gently stroking my hair. "I didn't get to choose the first time and place I was ever with a man. But I did get to choose the first time and place I ever made love, and that was here, with you. No matter what else happens, Kev, I want you to remember that. It's important. Okay?"

  I traced the outline of her cheek with a fingertip. "That's an easy promise to make, Princess."

  When we crept down out of our hideout, we found 66 clear of traffic, hostile or otherwise. In Santa Rosa, we yielded to the grinning blandishments of the fat man on the Club Cafe ad­vertisements and stopped for a short stack and a side. Topped off on gas, grub, and water, we headed out on the hundred-and-twenty-mile haul to Albuquerque. As we pulled the long subtle climbs west to Cline's Corners, more ranked mesas rose out of the scrub forest ahead of us, stone-sided battleships cruising a green sea. To the north and west was the shadowy promise of the more serious mountains to come.

  We cleared Tijeras Pass at seven thousand feet, with the peak of Cerro Pedernal towering buckled and broken on our right hand. Then the downgrade and fifteen miles of twists and dips into Tijeras Canyon and, finally, the valley of the Rio Grande.

  Albuquerque itself was good for another refuel, a stretch, and a cold quart of milk shared out of the bottle in the meager shade of the market building. Then we moved out again. We were getting within striking range of Arizona and of a place called Peerless.

  West again, into a hot, parched pastel world. Pale vermil­ion cliffs, pale yellow sand, and pale gray sage under a pale azure sky, tangled with frost-colored contrails.

  Correo . . . Mesita Village . . . Laguna Pueblo . . . Paraje Trading Post. The Indian trading posts along the stretch of the highway weren't tourist traps. They were the real thing. We were skirting the vast Laguna, Navajo, and Zuni reservations, and there wasn't a Made-in-Japan rubber tomahawk in sight.

  Grants . . . Prewitt . . . Thoreau . . . the Continental Divide and the highest point on Route 66. Then the final decent to Gallup, hiding down in the wind-carved sandstone bluffs near the borderline.

  It was midafternoon when we rolled into town, and the as­phalt smoked under the glare of a sadistic sun. The biting heat gave us the excuse we'd both been looking for to stop early.

  Things had been different in the car that day. We'd ended one kind of dance last night, and now we were beginning an­other. Suddenly it was safe to let a casual touch turn into a caress, a look become a kiss. Lisette didn't ride over in the corner of the front seat anymore. She sat beside me, her thigh brushing mine, her hand lightly resting on my shirt collar, her head free to rest on my shoulder whenever she liked.

  I was incredibly aware of her as well, the look of her, the feel and the scent of her, the wondrous secrets hidden beneath her scant summer clothing. And then there was the realization that all of it was open to me now. Lisette's gift, freely given.

  It was hard to keep my mind on the road or the job. And it would be incredibly easy to tell Spanno and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department and the entire world in general to kindly go to hell and leave us alone for a little while. The Princess and I wanted some time to explore the new steps and rhythm we were moving to.

  We hadn't gone totally hormone-happy, however. Before settling down, we cruised the narrow western-flavored streets of Gallup, scouting for anything black, shiny, and ominous.

  There hadn't been any sign of Spanno and company all day, although the drive through the mountains and desert had left them plenty of good openings for an ambush. Once, out beyond Barton, we'd nearly jumped out of our skin when we'd come booming around a blind corner to almost rear-end a dark Chrysler. However, it turned out to be a navy blue New Yorker and a gray-haired retiree couple en route to Vegas with a back­seat full of hangered evening wear.

  I wasn't sure which was worse, having the bad guys hanging on my hip, where I could at least keep an eye on them, or having them out there somewhere, out of sight, setting some­thing up.

  Eventually, I took us back to the old El Rancho hotel.

  I'd heard about El Rancho clear out in LA. The big old brick-and-native-stone hotel is Gallup's finest and the base camp for a lot of the movie crews doing location work in the area. Framed photos of some of the biggest names in Holly­wood, personally autographed to the hotel, were displayed around the big two-story lobby, along with a sizable collection of southwestern art.

  With Lisette secure behind locked hotel doors, I took the car to the service station across the highway. There I got the '57 up on the rack for a lube job and an oil change. I slipped the attendant a couple of bucks to let me do my own work. I slipped him a couple more to let me keep my car parked out of sight in one of the service bays until the next morning. I used one of my better lines, the just-between-us-guys one about my inattentive son of a bitch of a boss, his obliging and warm-natured wife, and a discreet little rendezvous that I didn't want disrupted. I suspect I made that pump jockey's day.

  A shower and a shave felt good, and considering the com­pany I was keeping, I didn't even mind digging out my sports jacket and the one pair of dress slacks I had along. Lisette wanted a sit-down dinner that evening in the hotel dining room, and she was busy at the esoteric task of making herself even prettier than usual. Naturally, I was ready in about a quar­ter of the time she needed. Taking advantage of the fact, I told her I had some things to do and that I'd meet her in the lobby.

  There were a couple of phone booths down there, and it didn't take long to get through to our office in LA. I brought Jack up-to-date, and his response worried me. He didn't do any roaring and raging.

  "Kid," he said quietly, "I think we might want to pull the plug on this one."

  "Pull the plug! Jesus, Jack! I haven't gotten anything yet!"

  "I know. And you've been sticking your neck way the hell out for that load of nothing. Look, yesterday this guy Spanno had a gun in your guts. You managed to bluff him, once. You ain't going to be able to do it again. Next time, he's gonna pull the trigger."

  "Next time I won't give him the chance. Hell, this is no worse than any other undercover job we've ever worked."

  "The hell it ain't, kid!" Now the Bear growled. "These guys are pros! The real Chicago article! And you are out there with­out one damn bit of cover. You do one thing wrong, and we'll never even find your damn corpse. Hell, screw that! You could do everything right and still end up dead!"

  "Come on, Jack; give me a break here!" I replied. "I'm solid inside the setup, and I'm still rolling the dice. I just need some more time to work this thing. I know I can produce some solid evidence on Spanno. We have to put this guy away!"

  "Why?" Jack asked flatly. "I want you to tell me why it's so important that we put this one particular hood down."

  "What do you mean, why ?"

  "Let me put it this way, kid. Has Spanno's daughter dropped her pants for you yet?"

  "Jack, you son of a bitch!" I came to my feet in the confined space of the booth so fast that I almost knocked out the door.

  "Take it easy. Take it easy." Jack suddenly sounded old and tired. "You just answered the question. God damn it, Kevin! Haven't I taught you anything these last three years? When you're out there working undercover, you don't get involved
! You don't become part of the crime!"

  "That's bullshit, Jack! I'm handling this!"

  "The hell you are, Pulaski! The second the job gets personal instead of professional, the second you stop thinking cop, you are not handling it!"

  What could I say? He was right. Somewhere back along the road this deal had become more than just a job. Maybe it was about time that I started admitting that to myself.

  "She's a good kid, Jack," I said into the phone. "And she's in bad trouble. I can't bail out on her now. If Spanno ever gets his hands on her again, it's going to be something really ugly. I'm asking you to stick with me on this, partner. I need a little more time." "Aw, shit!"

  But it was a resigned, "Aw, shit!"

  Jack's voice went wry. "Okay, kid. It's your neck. We'll hang on this thing awhile longer. I've got a picture of the Spanno girl on the desk in front of me now. Maybe if I didn't have Sheila and I was twenty years younger, I might be tempted to make a goddamn fool of myself, too. What's the play for tomorrow?"

  "We're moving in on the older Claster brother, Jubal, in a place called Peerless, Arizona," I replied. "It's a little hole-in-the-wall out between Flagstaff and Winslow. According to dope we got on this guy from Calvin Reece, he was involved in the killings of Leopold and Vallessio back up in Oklahoma. By the way, any word out of Texas about the younger brother, Ira?"

  "The Texas Highway Patrol found the truck and the shot­gun about where you said they'd be. No sign of this Ira guy, though. They figure he must have hitched a lift out of there to one of the local towns. APBs are out in Texas and all adjoining states. No kickbacks on him yet."

  I nodded to myself. "Okay, let's just hope he hasn't joined

  up with his brother, Jubal, or that they both haven't taken off."