“Damn it,” Jackson said. The truck rumbled impressively, but it appeared to be on a treadmill. Jackson looked at the Buick’s speedometer. Fifteen miles per hour. This wasn’t acceptable. It would be next week before they made it to Stockton and ditched their followers. “Look at this,” he said, gesturing at the truck.
“Pass him,” Billy said.
Jackson leaned his head out the window. “There ain’t much room.”
“I thought you were a professional getaway driver. It doesn’t seem to me that we’re getting away.”
“Oh, I see.” For the first time today Jackson’s voice had some lift to it. “You want some Mario Andretti action.”
“Yeah, baby,” said Sam, lounging in the back like a satyr.
Jackson swung the Buick into the opposite lane, surveyed the situation. He could make it, but it would be tight—which was how he liked his women. Smiling at his joke, he pushed the car up to the truck’s rear axle. Then a little bit further. The vortex between the two vehicles made the Buick shake like a belly dancer. The dashboard popped out of alignment, gibbered incoherently. Jackson decided it was time to put both hands on the steering wheel. He could definitely do this, he told himself. No problem. He held the car steady, his brow knitted in concentration. He increased the speed slowly—thirty, thirty-five, forty—inching up alongside the truck as if getting into position for a movie stunt. He was ready to punch through with a final, powerful burst, but he hesitated. Something wasn’t right. The truck banged next to him like a blast furnace, the load clinging to the steel catches. Jackson pinpointed the problem. He wasn’t gaining on it anymore. The truck was matching his speed. Worse, the cab was angling into the oncoming lane, closing off the open space.
“Shit!” Jackson yelled. He pumped the brake. The tires on the driver’s side stuttered on the edge of the asphalt. The car slipped back, and Billy pressed his palms against the dashboard. One of the truck’s axles was right there beside him, as big as a crane. The side window rattled; he felt certain one of the clanging chains on the truck’s carrier was going to crash through and brain him. Jackson slowed the car still more, and they slipped back further. The truck’s wake flung the Buick into place in the appropriate lane. The truck slowed again. Thirty. Twenty-five. Twenty.
Jackson cursed as if having a sneezing fit. “That mother could have killed us!” he added.
Sam pushed his head between the seats, his eyes as round as ice-cream scoops. “What the hell?”
Jackson glanced at Billy. “You don’t expect me to take that, do you?”
“No,” Billy said. He was sweating, but, like Jackson, his fear had quickly turned over to anger.
Sam, worried, pulled on his ear. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, hold onto something, motherfucker. This is an ‘E ticket’ ride.” Jackson slowed the Buick to a crawl, took his foot off the pedal and left the car only to its momentum. The logging truck extended its lead, rumbling and gurgling.
“What are you doing?” Sam asked.
“Be patient. Watch the master work.”
Billy turned in his seat, spotted the station wagon coming up behind them. Coach Prinzano waved from the driver’s seat. A collage of girls melded together in the back seat.
Up ahead, the logging truck eased into a turn. The cab disappeared around the side of the mountain, the load wagging like a dinosaur’s tail. Jackson didn’t let himself hesitate; he punched down on the accelerator. Sam toppled backward, cracking his head against the rear window. Billy gripped the side handle. The back of the truck rushed into their frame of vision, as big as life, blotting out the road and the sky and the mountain. Jackson jerked as if having a spasm, and the car hopped into the oncoming lane. He couldn’t see around the curve or the truck; he had to hope no vehicle was coming in the opposite direction. He certainly wasn’t going to wait around to find out. The Buick exploded past the truck while still in the midst of the turn, the engine roaring, the spoiler shaking. Jackson didn’t dare take his eyes off the road to glance at the speedometer. His right foot, stomped down on the gas pedal, began to cramp. It was going to seize up at any moment. He clenched the foot, marveled at the numbness there, and eased it off the pedal. He blinked hard. Nothing but empty road ahead of them. Safely out front now and back on a straightaway, he skidded the Buick into the correct lane, holding the wheel in a bear hug to keep the car from going into a spin.
“Yes!” Sam screamed. “Sonuvabitch! Yes!”
Jackson smiled at the sight of the truck driver in the rear-view mirror. The man was screaming bloody murder, pounding his fist. A redneck, naturally. That was one redneck who’d go to bed tonight knowing a black man had showed him up.
Chapter Ten
Melvin Johnson had seen this before. In a movie. Clint Eastwood straggles into a dusty little town on a donkey. The bell’s ringing and there’s no one on the street, no one anywhere. The place appears to be abandoned . . . until, here and there, he spots scared eyes peering from curtained windows.
Melvin, standing in the middle of Main Street, surveyed the emptiness a second time, just to be sure. He didn’t have a donkey, but his brother Gordon was an ass. Heh-heh. Now he just had to find the one pair of eyes that weren’t scared. In the movie they belonged to a Mexican girl with big wahwahs. Big enough to suffocate in. That would be just fine with him. Everyone had to go one way or another.
“What do you think’s going on?” Gordon asked.
Melvin put his hand up for silence. Gordon never could enjoy a moment. He always had to ask why. Melvin started down the middle of the street. He’d seen downtown Mammoth View empty like this many times before, but that was in the dead of night. In the morning there were always people around. Always. He reached 3rd Avenue and peered around the corner. Even Benny wasn’t sitting in front of the diner. The silence lengthened; it began to make a noise of its own, a buzzing. About now was when the bell was supposed to ring. Then the crazy bell-ringer runs into the street and tells Clint that he rings the bell when somebody’s been killed. That in this town everybody’s either rich or dead. Well, Melvin wasn’t dead. It looked like he and Gordon were the only ones still breathing.
He headed for the diner, Gordon right behind him. He didn’t see anyone in there, but the door was open, and so he walked right in. Food sat uneaten on the tables. Drinks poured but untouched. He had a bite of Eggs Benedict and spat it out. Sour. He sipped an iced tea. Gordon, seeing Melvin eating, snatched a slice of bacon from a plate and swallowed it without chewing.
Melvin sat at the bar and tucked into a half-eaten sausage-and-egg sandwich. Gordon joined him, spinning on the next stool. Melvin’s little brother snagged a French fry from the plate and popped it into his mouth.
“Good,” Gordon said. “Cold.”
Melvin threw a hand in the air and snapped his fingers. He looked around, mugging for his brother. “Jesus, service here sure is slow.” He cackled, snapping his fingers again and again for emphasis.
Gordon guffawed. The fry fell out of his mouth. “Seriously, Melvin, where do you think everybody went?”
“Don’t know, don’t care.” Melvin had returned to the sandwich, biting down vigorously. The sausage oozed oil from its pores, filling Melvin’s mouth.
“Everybody run because of the quake? We’ve had bigger ones before. Lots bigger.”
“Maybe the bourgeoisie scare easy.”
Gordon allowed for the possibility. The French were known to be cowards. “Maybe,” he said.
Melvin finished the sandwich and slid off the stool. He walked around the counter and pushed through the kitchen’s swinging door. The grill had been turned off, but the food hadn’t been put away. A mound of meat sat at the back of the grill, the bottom layer flattened out and stiff from overcooking. Uncracked eggs still patiently queued on the side table. There was a bowl of diced tomatoes. A block of cheese. Butter. Cooked fries sat in t
heir baskets above the oil vat. The makings of a feast.
Melvin wasn’t hungry anymore. The sausage sandwich shifted in his stomach, and he burped. He stepped back through the swinging door and moved over to the cash register. He hit a few buttons. He crouched and eyed the lid of the cash drawer. It looked pretty solid. He pushed on it, hoping it would pop out. No luck.
He straightened up, cracked his neck, and stretched like a cat. “All right, time to make hay,” he announced. He rounded the counter and swaggered out the door. He stepped into the street. He turned to confirm that Gordon had followed him. Melvin let out a cowboy holler. “Yeee-haaaaaaa!” Cupping his hands to his mouth, he called out: “Listen up, Mammoth! There’s a new sheriff in town! Melvin Johnson is in charge!”
“Yeeehaaa!” Gordon joined in.
Melvin waited, his head swiveling, eyes darting. No one. Nothing. He raised his arms in triumph. A gunshot had woken him up this morning. A single shotgun blast, and then, a few seconds later, another short burst. He didn’t think anything of it at the time—everybody liked shooting their guns—but now he figured there might be a connection. He wondered if some desperado had swept through town, led the police on a chase out into the Meridian. Maybe everyone had gone to watch the showdown.
Melvin had wanted to be a cop when he was a kid. Like Pat Garrett or Buffalo Bob. He remembered jumping out at little Gordo, blasting away with his Fanner 50 cap gun. Gordon bawling—he hated being killed. Melvin screaming at him to fall down; those were the rules. You got shot, you fell down. He always stopped screaming whenever he heard the groan of the bedsprings in the master bedroom, but it was always too late. Daddy, tying his robe, would push into the room and slap Gordon in the head, sending him crashing to the floor. Daddy made him play right. You didn’t cry when you got shot. There was never any excuse for crying. You got shot, you fell down.
Melvin walked along the row of shops on 3rd, Gordon trailing behind. Popping into the stores, they grabbed shoes, candy bars, brochures for European travel packages, two handguns and a box of ammo. They stuffed everything in an extra-large yard bag they found behind the counter at the five-and-dime. In the liquor store, they opened a couple of Johnnie Walkers and the most expensive Paul Masson, guzzled them right there in the aisle. They moved on to the good stuff: beer.
The brothers rounded the corner on Main and headed for the dry cleaner—Gordon wanted to see how fast he could make the clothes go around on the carousel—when Melvin stopped. The bank. Why hadn’t he thought of the bank right off? Everybody’s rich or dead, he reminded himself. He peered in the glass front door, squinted like Clint. The lights were on, but nobody was home. He pulled on the handle—locked. He squinted through the glass again. Still no sign of life . . . and something else.
The vault door stood open.
Melvin was pretty sure the vault was supposed to be closed after hours, that he’d looked in there during some of their nighttime wanderings and seen it closed. Except this wasn’t after hours.
Melvin stepped back, looked left, concentrating hard. He looked right for a long time. He didn’t think this was a trick. There really was no one around. He turned back to the bank. He could feel the blood racing through his veins. He clenched his fists in an effort to control his breathing. He hopped toward the door, jerked his knee skyward, and kicked. A small, veiny crack appeared in the lower half of the glass where the heel of his boot had made contact. He tried again, causing the door’s hinges to rattle against the frame. He kicked again and again, really working up a sweat—until, shocking himself, he felt the glass pop under his foot. The door rained shards on his boot and pant leg. He’d done it! He reached in and felt around for the deadbolt, couldn’t find it. He shook the door—still locked. He looked to his left and right again. Now he and Gordon started kicking in unison. Glass fragments tumbled and skittered in the lobby like pennies from heaven.
“Okay, okay, enough already.” Melvin was tall but lean, Gordon a little taller and thicker. Still, he thought they could make it. He kicked away the jagged edges on the door, dropped into a ball, and squeezed into and through the opening. No problem. Gordon, hugging the yard bag to his stomach, pushed into the bank right behind him. They hustled to the teller counter and swung themselves over. They pulled on the cash drawers, meeting unmovable resistance with each one. Melvin couldn’t believe it. The vault’s open but the teller drawers are soldered shut? He punched randomly at one of the keypads, just like at the diner. Infuriated, he hefted a chair to smash it into a drawer, but stopped himself. He looked at the floor, his heart thumping. He put down the chair, kneeled.
Gordon came up behind him. “Oh, shit, Melvin, what did you do?”
Melvin whipped his head up. “Shut up, goddamn it. I didn’t do nothing.”
The woman in the blue blouse and short skirt lay on her back with her arms and legs splayed, ready to make snow angels. Melvin studied her bony left arm, which was locked awkwardly in a full stretch. Her boobs had flattened out and slid into her armpits. It was Alice Krendel, he realized. She looked different being dead. Prettier.
Melvin stood up. He noticed that one of Alice’s patent-leather shoes had broken. It clung to her foot by half a strap. He kicked at it, and the shoe spun away, clonking into the base of the counter. Alice’s foot wavered for a moment, died again.
“What are we going to do?” Gordon was breathing heavy.
“Nothing. We didn’t do anything wrong.”
Melvin, suddenly in pain, limped around the counter toward the vault. “Goddamn it,” he said, wincing. He sat on the floor and pulled off his right boot. His foot came out smeared in blood.
Gordon watched his brother on the floor, gaped at the bloody foot. “What happened? Did you step on her?”
“Goddamn glass.” Melvin turned the boot upside down and banged it.
“Here,” Gordon said. He reached into the yard bag, extracted a pair of new red Spot-Bilt sneakers.
Melvin wiped the bottom of his foot, felt around in there for glass. He pulled off the other boot and slipped the shoes on. He stood slowly. The right foot throbbed, the bongo beat going all the way up his leg. He kicked at one of his boots—it lifted into the air, turned over, and thumped onto a well-dressed man sprawled on the floor.
Melvin froze. Where did this guy come from? There was no way they had missed him when they came in.
Gordon followed Melvin’s gaze. “Oh, shit.”
Melvin inched over to the body, looked at the face. Never seen him before.
“Is he dead?” Gordon asked.
“Well, he ain’t sleeping.”
“What do you think happened?
Melvin tested putting weight on his wounded foot. “Must be murder-suicide,” he said.
“Shit, that’s heavy, man.”
Melvin turned to his brother. “Don’t be a zip. Somebody robbed the place.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“You think they took everything?”
Melvin spun toward the front door; Gordon, startled, ducked. A car on the street finished screeching into a turn. Melvin couldn’t tell from the sound of the engine if it was getting closer or farther away.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Melvin said. The brothers ran to the door, squeezed through it, and took off down the street.
Chapter Eleven
Janice Littlepaugh hyperventilated as she drove. Just another mile, she told herself, swallowing a hiccup. She zapped through the flashing yellow light at the school crosswalk and turned on Custer, ignoring the stop sign. Just three more blocks, she rasped out loud, her throat raw, her nose completely M.I.A. She made another turn, and the stucco two-flat finally snapped into view, causing a shudder to roll through her. There it is. She could see her asthma inhaler in her mind, sitting there on the dresser next to her jewelry tray. She only needed the damn thing once every blue moon, but of course the
one time she forgot to take it with her was the day the Apocalypse arrived. The gold Camaro Sport Coupe, the love of her life, banged into the curb, sending a tiny burp of puke up Janice’s throat. She swallowed hard, threw herself onto her feet and raced for the side door. She flung her purse at the kitchen chair and lunged for the arm support, air stuck in her lungs like tar. Redd Foxx flashed through her mind. “This is the big one, Elizabeth. I’m comin’ to join ya!” Janice pushed the chair away, made for the bedroom. Jesus Christ, she thought. If she was going to drop dead, she didn’t want the last thing on her mind to be goddamn Sanford and Son.
She grabbed the inhaler, primed it, and sucked as hard as she could. The epinephrine crashed into her like Dick Butkus. For a moment she felt like she had lifted off the ground. Her knees buckled, and she exhaled gloriously, but only enough so she could reverse course and pull air into her chest, a deep gulp. She sucked on the canister again, just to be sure, just for kicks. She sat on the bed, huffing, sweat leaking down her sides. “Motherfucker,” she whispered to herself. She wiped a string of drool from her mouth and looked up to find King in the doorway.
“What are you doing here?” she said, annoyed. “Where’s your car?”
King bit at his lip. He didn’t seem to know what to do with himself, like a priest who’d just heard an especially disturbing confession. “I had to abandon it on the side of the road,” he said. “By the gas station. I was waiting for you. So we could go together.”
“Go where?” She felt the sweat on her forehead now and became conscious of how she must look. She swiped her sleeve across her mouth.
“Doesn’t matter. Out of here. All hell is breaking loose.”
“No kidding.” Janice shook herself, tried to direct the rolling shiver to her extremities. “We’re going to have to hunker down. The highway is packed. Bumper to bumper.”
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