“Wait,” Carmen said. “Are you serious?”
“Of course I’m serious,” the woman said. “I was going to ship it off to my bastard grandson, but who knows what kind of criminal activity he’d use it for.”
Shy couldn’t believe she’d actually give the bike to them after five minutes together. He looked at the bike and then looked at the woman. “Was it your husband’s?”
The old woman laughed. “No, it wasn’t my husband’s. It’s mine. I used to zip all over this godforsaken place. My favorite time was right after it rained. Spraying mud into people’s yards. Of course, that was before my stupid hip went out. Now I just come in here every once in a while to polish it.”
As the woman and Carmen continued talking about the motorcycle, Shy went to the bedroom window and peeked through the blinds. He didn’t see a helicopter anywhere. Or an SUV. Or a motorcycle. Didn’t hear anything, either. He felt bad taking something that obviously meant a lot to the old lady. But it would definitely beat walking the rest of the way under the desert sun.
His mind flashed on Mr. Miller when he shot him. Addie’s face when he and Carmen fled the scene. He could still feel his finger on the trigger even though the rifle was back on the freeway somewhere. He reached into the duffel and pulled out the manila envelope. He unfolded the single handwritten page Addie had given him. And there it was in the comb-over man’s familiar scribble, the rest of the vaccine formula.
Shy shoved everything back into the duffel and turned to the old woman. “We can’t thank you enough, ma’am. Seriously, we owe you big-time.”
“You don’t owe me jack shit,” the woman said. “Now go on, get out of here. Before I make you clean my kitchen.”
63
Freedom of the Open Road
Ten minutes later, Shy and Carmen were speeding east along the 10 Freeway. Shy squinted into the wind, concentrating on the feel of Carmen’s hands around his middle. Her breath on his neck. He was shocked that he’d somehow soaked in most of what his old man taught him about operating a motorcycle. It had taken a couple of minutes to get used to, but now he was flying down the two-lane freeway, shifting effortlessly, operating the clutch, maneuvering around the occasional stalled car or buckle in the freeway. The handlebars were set sort of high, which made him feel like one of those Mexican Harley vatos from back home.
“A hundred miles at this speed?” Shy called back to Carmen. “We should be there in two hours, max!”
“What?” Carmen shouted back. Shy was realizing how impossible it was to communicate over the rushing wind. And the old woman must have done something to the muffler because the roar of the dirt bike’s exhaust was mind-numbingly loud.
“I said we should be there in two hours!” he tried again.
Carmen only shook her head this time. She couldn’t hear a word he was saying.
Shy concentrated on the road instead.
He thought about what had happened back by the tents again. Carmen getting clubbed with the butt of a gun. Addie defying her dad and cracking the other guy with the rifle. The look on Mr. Miller’s face when Shy stepped up and fired those two bullets. Shy wondered if what he did made him a bad person. What if he was more like Mr. Miller than he wanted to admit?
If only Shoeshine was still around so Shy could ask his opinion. He tried to imagine the riddle he’d get in response. Man, what Shy would give for one of those riddles right about now. Then Shoeshine would probably go off and write about Shy’s question in his journal.
But Shoeshine was gone.
Shy would have to come up with his own riddles from now on.
After a while he cleared his mind, which was surprisingly easy to do while racing down the freeway on a dirt bike. There really was a freedom to being on the open road, like people said.
Soon he and Carmen would be in Avondale, standing in front of the border, holding a duffel bag that contained syringes full of a Romero Disease vaccine and the comb-over man’s letter—including the last page. But for the first time since they’d landed in Venice Beach, Shy wasn’t in such a hurry to get where he was going. For now he just wanted to concentrate on this moment with Carmen. Her hands linked around his waist. The warm feel of her chest against his back.
He glanced back and nodded to her, and when he saw the bandage near her right temple a strange feeling swelled in his chest. A feeling he couldn’t put into words.
“Your head okay?” he shouted.
“What?” she shouted back.
He looked forward and laughed a little. And then he thought of something else. He turned to her again and shouted: “Know what’s crazy, Carm?”
She shrugged. She still couldn’t hear.
“I think I love you!” he shouted. “And I think it’s been this way from the second we first met!”
“I can’t hear a word you’re saying!” Carmen shouted back. At least he was pretty sure that’s what she said. His ear was only inches from her mouth.
“And no matter what happens with your punk lawyer boyfriend,” Shy continued shouting, “I’m gonna keep on loving you! Even if you go on to have mad punk lawyer kids! Nothing’s ever gonna change what I feel!”
Carmen didn’t even shout back this time. She just shrugged and shook her head.
Shy faced forward again, smiling into the wind.
It felt good to finally get the truth off his chest.
64
Second Chances
About an hour into their ride, Shy looked at his side mirror and his breath caught. There was a motorcycle coming up quickly behind them. It took a few seconds before he was able to make out that it was the metallic gray one from earlier. The driver wasn’t pointing any kind of weapon at them, though. In fact, he seemed to be waving them to the side of the freeway.
There was no way in hell Shy was pulling over. He sped up instead, looking all over for a good place to pull off the freeway and try to lose the guy. But there was nothing on either side of the freeway except wide-open desert, as far as the eye could see.
Shy kept watching the motorcycle in the side mirror.
Carmen started looking back, too.
But the more Shy thought about it, the less worried he felt. Back near the buses, the biker had been shooting at the SUV, not Shy and Carmen. And Shy remembered the biker who’d shot out the tires of the Hummer at the gas station. He was on a gray motorcycle, too. It had to be the same guy.
There was no way Shy’s tricked-out dirt bike was going to outrun a street bike anyway, so he slowed down a little, allowing the guy to catch up. In a minute or so they were riding side by side. The man kept waving for Shy to pull to the side, and Shy kept shaking his head. “What do you want?” he shouted.
“Pull to the side!” the man barked through his helmet.
At this slower speed, the muffler wasn’t quite as loud. Nor was the wind. Shy could actually hear himself think again. And an odd suspicion started creeping into his brain.
Carmen was gripping Shy a little tighter, staring at the man beside them. He was wearing a dented and badly scuffed helmet with a reflective visor. Ripped-up jeans and a blue hooded sweatshirt.
“Who are you?” Carmen shouted at the man.
The driver lifted up his shiny visor and pointed at his face. Shy saw a familiar scraggly-looking beard peppered with gray. And he saw that half the man’s face was badly burned. Shy nearly drove the dirt bike right off the road.
He was right. It was his old man.
He couldn’t believe it.
“Pull over!” his dad shouted at Shy and Carmen again. The man reached up to undo the strap under his chin, maintaining pace with the dirt bike, and yanked off his helmet.
Shy had no idea what to think or feel. All he could think to do was keep driving.
“What are you doing out here?” Carmen shouted, clearly recognizing Shy’s dad now, too.
“What do you think?” the man shouted. “I’m watching my son’s back! Like I said before, this is my second chance! And I’m not
letting it go!”
A strange feeling began bubbling up inside Shy as he shifted his gaze from his dad to the road. It wasn’t pride, so much. Or happiness. It was more like a sense of security. A recognition of loyalty. He recalled all the different times they’d seen a random motorcycle along their journey. And he remembered the look he and his dad had shared just before Shy left the Sony lots. His dad must have jacked the SUV from the LasoTech guy waiting outside and followed them into the desert.
His dad shouted something Shy couldn’t quite make out, so he slowed down a little more and yelled, “What?”
“Can’t say I never taught you anything now!” His dad pointed at the dirt bike. “Looks like you’ve been riding your entire life!”
Carmen squeezed Shy’s middle.
Even she sensed the weight of what was happening.
Shy concentrated on the road for a stretch, but there was one thing that still confused him. He turned back to his dad, shouting: “Why’d you wait till now to catch up?”
“That man you were with before!” his dad shouted. “He said to hang back until he was out of the picture!”
“You talked to Shoeshine?” Shy shouted. “When?”
“In the mountains! Outside that beat-up resort place you were at!”
Shy remembered hearing a motorcycle by the front gate when Mario was giving them a tour. And then he remembered something else. One of the last things Shoeshine had told Shy near the Intaglios. “You can’t even see it, can you? You have no idea who else you’re leading.” Maybe he was talking about Shy’s dad.
All these years Shy had held a grudge against his dad. Especially after the year he’d lived with him in LA. But the fact that he’d followed Shy all the way into the desert, and tried to protect him…maybe Shy had it wrong.
Or maybe the earthquakes really had changed him.
Shy motioned for his dad to follow him and Carmen, and then he sped up a little, ready for whatever came next.
65
The Avondale Border
Miller Road marked the first sign of civilization. Shy studied the few gas stations and fast-food spots off the right side of the freeway. A large cluster of tents filled what had once been a major construction zone.
Just after a sign announcing the town of Goodyear, Shy began seeing groups of people. They were arranged in half-circles, talking, or they were lined up in large parking lots, waiting to receive relief packages from crusaders. Anywhere there was shade, people were packed in together. Families were living in half-finished housing developments, and on commercial rooftops, and in tents erected right up against the freeway. The only thing Shy could compare it to was a series of National Geographic photos he’d once seen of Third World slums.
Carmen rested her chin against Shy’s back as they moved slowly down the freeway, maneuvering around stalled cars and empty crates and tons of trash. Shy’s dad rode slightly behind them, swiveling his head around as he took everything in.
They passed huge grassy fields covered by tents and hordes of people. Many turned to watch the noisy dirt bike sputter by. The closer they got, the more government vehicles they saw parked along the shoulder of the freeway. Cop cars. Ambulances. Fire trucks. All stranded, Shy assumed, when the border went up.
Tingles ran up and down Shy’s arms and legs when he saw the first sign for Avondale, Arizona. Soon after, they passed a sign for the Agua Fria River. Shy remembered DJ Dan describing how the border was built on the east side of the river, which meant they were close.
There were hundreds of people packed along the sides of the freeway here. Thousands, even. Shy had to slow to a crawl to get through without hitting anyone. Some people shouted at him. Others grabbed at the handlebars or took swipes at the duffel bag. Shy held the bag closer to him and lurched forward whenever he came to a pocket of open space. He kept looking back at Carmen and his old man, happy they were still with him.
Shy took the next off-ramp and moved through the crowded side streets, following the signs for the river. There were tents set up everywhere. And swarms of people. “Excuse me!” Shy had to keep calling out in order to maneuver past them. He inched the dirt bike forward a few feet at a time, until Carmen smacked him on the shoulder and pointed ahead.
Shy looked up and saw it.
He stopped the bike and planted a foot on the asphalt. Then he cut the engine. Carmen put a foot down, too. His dad coasted up beside them and flipped up his helmet’s visor. “Shit, there it is,” he said over the commotion of the crowd.
They were right at the edge of the Agua Fria River, which was twenty, twenty-five yards wide at most. On the other side was the makeshift border Shy had been hearing about since the day they left the island. But it wasn’t anything like he’d imagined. Instead of some intimidating wall that reached up into the sky, it was just a crappy-looking little fence that extended as far as he could see in either direction. What kept people from charging the fence was the river standing in front of it. And all the armed military people standing guard.
A two-lane bridge that had once stretched across the river appeared to have been blown up. Only the two jagged sides remained.
Shy turned to his dad and Carmen. “This border looks kind of weak, doesn’t it?” The crowd had closed in tighter around them, making Shy feel claustrophobic.
“They didn’t have a whole lot of time,” his dad said, leaning his bike on its kickstand and pulling off his helmet. “What’s up with that key around your neck?”
Shy reached up to touch Shoeshine’s black key but didn’t answer.
“I guess the guys with assault rifles make up for the shitty fence,” Carmen said. She leaned over to stretch her back after the long ride, but some haggard-looking woman backed up a step just then, nearly knocking Carmen over.
Shy watched his dad check out all the people surrounding them. Most were either looking out at the river or staring at Shy and his crew. His dad cleared his throat. “I guess this is a good time to ask what we’re doing here.”
“You probably want to get to the other side,” a nearby man said, “but it’s impossible.”
A college-aged guy with no shirt on laughed in Shy’s face. “We all came to cross the border, dude. But here we still are, stuck in this bullshit.”
“Now that the vaccine failed all the tests,” the first guy said, “nothing’s going to change anytime soon.”
“Wait, the vaccine doesn’t work?” Shy asked.
A bunch of people shook their heads. “It was announced this morning,” the man said. “They’re back to square one.”
Shy and Carmen shared a look, and Shy clutched the duffel a little closer.
Shy’s dad leaned toward Shy and Carmen. “So are either of you gonna tell me why we’re here?”
Shy stared across the river again, at the guards pacing along a platform just beyond the walls. “We have to get this duffel to the other side,” he said, low enough so that only his dad and Carmen could hear.
“What for?” his dad asked.
“Trust us,” Carmen said. “We just have to.”
Shy’s dad nodded, gazing out over the river. “Then we’ll make it happen,” he said. “Do you guys have a plan?”
Shy shook his head.
“We haven’t really worked that out yet,” Carmen said.
Shy’s dad glanced back at his bike and then nudged Shy with an elbow. “ ’Cause I got an idea if you’re interested.”
66
Leap of Faith
They waited until just after sunset to enact the plan.
Shy and Carmen were crouched at the edge of the river about a hundred yards south of Shy’s old man. All they had with them was the duffel bag, and they huddled with it underneath a second blown-up bridge. As far away as they were, though, Shy could still hear the loud roar of the muffler-less dirt bike, especially when his dad revved the engine. And just like the man promised, Shy heard at least a few hundred people hooting and hollering for him, creating a bit of a spectacle.
>
Shy smiled as he listened to the crowd roar. His dad had always had charisma. Normally he used it on women, even back when he was married to Shy’s mom. Tonight he’d found a more admirable use for his charm.
“Your dad was right,” Carmen said, pointing at the guards directly across the river from them. They were all migrating toward the commotion.
Shy shook his head. “Dude, if this actually works…”
“You think he has any chance of actually making it?” Carmen asked.
“Zero.”
Carmen looked back at the closest group to them. But they were all hovering around a bonfire in a metal trash can. “I don’t know,” she said. “The way he saved our asses in the desert those couple times?”
Shy shrugged. In reality, he was incredibly nervous. His dad’s plan was to rile up as many people as he could with the Evel Knievel–type stunt he was going to attempt. If the guards focused on him, like he promised they would, Shy and Carmen would attempt to swim across the dark river, toward the base of the wall. From that point forward it was on them.
But it was his dad’s stunt that worried Shy most. A day ago he wouldn’t have given his old man’s well-being a second thought. Now Shy was genuinely nervous.
Just then there was a swell in crowd noise. Shy and Carmen craned their necks to try to see as far north as they could. Shy spotted his old man racing the dirt bike through a mass of people that had formed a narrow corridor all the way to the stunted bridge, and all Shy could see over the tops of their heads was his dad’s helmet moving down the line, picking up speed.
“They’re all running over there.” Carmen pointed at the guards positioned along the border. “We should go now, right?”
“Hang on,” Shy said. He rose from his crouch and watched his dad hit the lip of the mangled bridge and launch himself and the dirt bike into the air, the crowd roaring behind him, the guards sprinting toward that section of the border.
A few shots were fired at Shy’s dad, and when he was at the peak of his jump he let go of the handlebars and kicked away from the dirt bike and fell from the sky like a man with a failed parachute, landing in the river face-first, creating a splash almost as high as the dirt bike.
The Hunted Page 24