I’d had choices, none of them any good.
Stay in New York and wait for another break with reality, maybe end up locked in a padded room.
Go find a psychiatrist, maybe one from the army, and say what had happened in the Break O’ Dawn…and end up maybe not in padded room but still in a hospital where a Thorazine drip would become my new best friend.
Or travel west. Find Annabelle. Find answers.
And try not to go any crazier between here and there.
I’d had enough of doctors and hospitals in the last days of the war. So, my answer seemed pretty obvious.
The old Meteor had tires that should have been charged with attempted murder and a front bumper held on with bailing wire—which served as motivation not to bump anything as I drove—and I did pretty well for most of the three thousand miles that separated me from California.
In the end, it was a jackrabbit that did in the Meteor after I was already well past the California border—or rather it was my unflinching instinct to hit the brakes when the rabbit bolted across the desert highway not long after sunrise. With a canvas of pink and yellow in my rearview mirror, I punched the pedal to keep my conscience from having any more blood on it, and the old car just couldn’t take it. Both front tires blew out, after which the Meteor pretty much cannibalized itself, the bumper hitting the pavement and peeling off under the car to get caught up in the suspension and wrapped around the disintegrating rims while I wrestled what was left of the machinery to the shoulder. I think it was only a miracle that kept the thing from flipping and bringing my adventure to a permanent end on the sandy slope that bordered the road.
The sound was horrific—first the blowouts and then the sickening scrape of metal on asphalt, followed by the chunking thunder of all those car parts getting intimate with each other in ways the manufacturer had never intended. In the aftermath, the silence was intense, as though the whole desert had stopped what it was doing to watch me crack up on its streamer of highway, and now that the fun was over the desert had forgotten to start breathing again. I sat there, my hands still gripping the wheel while smoke from all of that friction rose up from under the chassis. When I glanced to my left, I saw the jackrabbit on the other side of the road. He stared at me, with his nose twitching and those big ears high and alert. His expression suggested it was my fault that his desert was now littered with the broken behemoth beside the road, and he showed his contempt by turning his back and hopping off into the brush, heading to whatever destination had sent him across my path in the first place.
I got out and pondered the wreck for a minute, realizing immediately that there was no saving the tired old car. Glancing up and down the road and seeing no sign of approaching vehicles, I knew that I had a new decision to make—east or west? It wasn’t a hard choice.
So, I got my banged-up suitcase out of the trunk and grabbed my fedora from the back seat. Putting the hat on my head, I started walking west.
About half an hour later, I spotted a road train heading east. When the driver got close, I stepped into the road to flag him down, a young guy in a uniform shirt and a hat bearing the same logo as was painted on the side of the truck. I made him for a kid who’d missed getting drafted by mere minutes, and now he was working his first real job straight out of high school.
“Can you give me a ride?” I asked as the truck rolled to a stop and his window came halfway down.
“Sorry, mister,” he said. “Company rules. No riders.”
I nodded. “Who’s gonna know?” I asked, looking up and down the road to emphasize my point. Nothing moved in the desert, not even a jackrabbit.
“Sorry, mister,” he said again. “I can let someone know at the next town that you’re out here, but…that’s all I can do.”
My anger flared, and I came pretty close to climbing up onto the rig and forcing my way into the cab. He must have seen it in my eyes, as he looked pretty scared for a second. Seeing the alarm on his face gave me my own dose of fear as I recalled the anger I’d felt towards Annabelle in the “incident”—which was the word I was starting to use when I thought of my lapse of sanity in the Break O’ Dawn. More than anything, I didn’t want a repeat performance, so I figured it would be best if I could avoid the same kinds of feelings I’d had at the time. Anger was at the top of the list.
“All right, kid,” I managed to say. “You’re going in the wrong direction anyhow. Let ‘em know I’m out here, though, okay?”
“Sure thing, mister,” the driver said. He put the truck in gear and started the long process of getting it back up to speed. Before long, it was a speck in the distance, and then it was gone altogether.
After another two hours of walking without a single vehicle running in either direction, my feet felt three sizes too big for my shoes. My back and legs ached, and more than once I thought of donating my almost empty suitcase to the desert; a rattlesnake would have had better luck with its scant contents than I’d had until now. The tired fedora that I’d scooped out of the Meteor’s backseat provided a bit of protection from the sun, but only a bit. Even though it was still morning, the heat of the desert was on a steady climb; my neck was already sunburned and my eyes stung from the sweat that dripped into them, like tears going in the wrong direction.
But then, with my mood at its lowest, I heard a distant rumble, almost a growl, and I knew I wouldn’t be alone for long. I stood still, not wanting the shuffle of my soles to distort the sound until I could tell for certain that it was a car’s engine and not some auditory mirage that my addled brain had worked up. When it grew louder, I knew a car was about to crest the hill I’d spent the morning trudging up and would soon be on the downside, with me.
It wasn’t long before I saw it, and for a second I feared I was having an experience like the one in the Break O’ Dawn, seeing something that wasn’t there. It would have been a final twist of the knife before I dropped dead in the sand. The approaching car wasn’t anything I’d expected to see on this desolate road—not a banged-up jalopy or a truck packed with refugees heading to California like me. Instead, it was a crème-colored convertible Swan with whitewall tires and a pointy boat-tail paneled in varnished oak. The top was down, and the driver wore sunglasses and a magenta kerchief that kept the wind from whipping her dark hair into her face. When I saw it was a lone woman, my determination started to evaporate. I figured my chances for a ride were as slim as my wallet, but she started slowing when the car was still a hundred yards out and brought the Swan to a full stop right next to me. I didn’t even have to raise my hand to flag her down.
“Are you all right?” she asked as she killed the engine.
I could see that her skin was lightly tanned, probably from riding around in the desert with the Swan’s top down. She had full lips and high cheekbones. I expected her smile would be the stuff of dreams, but she wasn’t smiling.
Looking at the expanse of emptiness around me for a moment, I raised my battered suitcase and said, “I’m not in immediate danger, if that’s what you’re asking. But, in the bigger scheme of things, I suppose the answer is no, I’m not all right. I’ve gotten myself into a bit of a fix, if you must know.”
“Was that your wreck I saw a few miles back?” she asked.
A few miles? I thought. Surely, I’d been walking long enough to have put at least ten or twelve between me and the Meteor.
“Front end mangled?”
She nodded.
“That’d be the one.”
“I suppose you want a ride.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” I said.
She appraised me for a few seconds, long enough for me to wonder if she was waiting for me to say “pretty please” or lay some other code word on her. When I gave no reaction to the silent stare, she nodded and said, “Get in then. You can put your case in the back seat.”
“Thanks,” I said, opting for politeness. It seemed the only decent thing to do.
As strange as the young lady seemed in her reactio
n to my distress, I couldn’t help feeling overjoyed at the prospect of not having to walk any farther.
I opened the door and climbed in. The first thing I noticed now that I was up close to the driver was that she had a penchant for perfume. She smelled like a bouquet of roses that had been lifting weights. I don’t normally pay much attention to such things, but her scent was almost overpowering. Even so, I decided that the politic thing would be to ignore it and enjoy the sensation of being off my feet.
Never having ridden in a Swan before—or anything remotely like it—I suppose I couldn’t help reacting to the feeling of the seat beneath my tired body. It was like sitting on feathers that were wrapped around a cloud. I probably looked like someone who thought he’d just hit a jackpot, but when I glanced at the driver and saw that same serious face looking back at me, my boyish grin went the way of the wind.
She pushed the sunglasses up on her forehead for a moment, giving me a look at her wide-set green eyes. Then she dropped them down onto the bridge of her slim little nose and said, “Gemma Blaylock.” She extended her hand in what looked like an automatic gesture. I figured I’d better shake if I wanted to keep my posterior planted on the seat of clouds it had found itself on, so I did. Her fingers were cool and smooth—fingers not used to doing much work, I thought. It felt like shaking a child’s hand, but this was no child. She withdrew after a moment’s contact.
“Jed Strait,” I replied as she started the car again and put it into gear.
She said something in response, but the growl of the Swan’s engine drowned it out.
“Excuse me?” I said, making sure my voice was loud enough to be heard.
Leaning slightly in my direction, she repeated her question, more loudly this time. “Where are you headed?”
“Los Angeles,” I replied, practically yelling as well.
She turned her head so she could look at me. Her eyes might have betrayed some emotion, but they were hidden behind those sunglasses again. Her mouth, though, betrayed nothing, as was also true of the rest of her face. After a moment’s silent appraisal, she said, “You’ve got a girl waiting there for you.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Something like that,” I said, not wanting to go into the details.
“There aren’t many things that would make a man cross this desert alone in a car as sad looking as the one you left behind. Running from something or toward. Either the law or a woman. I’m guessing a woman.”
“You’re very analytical,” I replied, almost shouting now that the Swan had gotten up to around sixty miles an hour. I had to keep a hand on my fedora, or the wind would have taken it.
“I suppose,” was all she said in reply.
“And how did you know I wasn’t running away from a woman? Why toward?”
“More exciting that way. Wishful thinking.”
“Wishful thinking,” I repeated. That was one way to explain my presence on this road. I gave her an appreciative glance and then looked at the road that stretched out ahead of us, Joshua trees and sand spreading in all directions.
Still straining to make myself heard over the sound of the engine and the wind the car seemed to be generating, I asked, “What about you? A woman alone in this desert…in a car like this. I’d expect to see you riding along the beach in Malibu, not out here on the edge of the world.”
She nodded and gave me another look. Still no smile.
“I had business in Las Vegas, if you must know,” she called out after a few more seconds. “Now I’m heading home.”
“Which is where?”
“Not Malibu,” was all she said.
We rode in silence for a long time after that.
I spotted a distant shape on the road ahead, and with the Swan barreling along at 60 mph it didn’t take long for the shape to become more discernable. It was a sad old truck with mattresses and suitcases piled in the back, and it chugged along, well below the speed limit. As we got closer, I could see some people riding in the back, but the old truck was moving so slowly that it wasn’t like the passengers were having to hold on to anything to keep their seats. I figured the truck was running as much on faith as it was on diesel and lubrication.
Without appearing to even consider slowing down, Gemma gave the wheel a little tug and whipped the Swan into the passing lane. We flew by the truck so fast I barely had time to make out the old lady and the three little kids who rode in the back, sitting with what I guessed was a little sand-colored dog but which just as easily could have been grandpa’s urn or the prized remains of their Oklahoma furniture. In seconds, they were behind us, and the Swan continued to eat up the road.
When the peaks in the distance looked like they were no more than five miles away, she pulled off the highway at a crossing where a filling station and restaurant had been built to lure travelers in need of one kind of fuel or another. There were no other cars around, and when she cut the engine on the Swan, I noticed the sound of the wind tearing across the sand. The place looked deserted, which was just as well; it turned out she hadn’t stopped for food or fuel.
Turning toward me in her seat, she said, “Are you what they call…hard boiled, Mr. Strait?”
I smiled at this. It wasn’t a phrase I’d heard before, but I had a guess as to what it meant. “Like a tough guy?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I suppose.”
“Why do you ask?”
She didn’t blink, just answered without hesitation. “Because I need someone who’s…hard boiled, or a tough guy, I suppose…to do me a little favor. You walked away from that accident. You must be at least a little hard boiled.”
I nodded, still smiling wryly, and said, “Well, if you must know, I’ve walked away from worse than that.” An image arose in my mind, the aftermath of that last detail I’d served. The memory was never far below the surface—an image of burned bodies being viewed by the lone survivor, Jed Strait trying to curb his shock before the medics got to him. I don’t know if that made me a tough guy or not, but I’d certainly come close to being hard-boiled.
“That’s good,” she said. “I need someone who doesn’t flinch. I think that’s you.”
I nodded, wondering what she was trying to get at, and decided I didn’t like it. All I’d wanted was a ride, not to get involved in anything strange. So, I told her as much. “I’m not sure I like the direction this conversation is heading in, Miss Blaylock,” I said.
She held her stare on me and said, “You don’t have to like it. You have a choice in the matter.”
“And that would be?”
“I can let you out here or I can take you all the way into Los Angeles, Mr. Strait.”
This didn’t sound like much of a choice. Checking our surroundings, I doubted that the little diner even had a phone. I pulled off my fedora and ran my fingers around the brim for a moment before saying, “And what is it you’re asking?”
“I want you to drive until we’re down the hill in San Bernardino.”
“That’s it?”
“And get us through the checkpoint up ahead.”
I raised an eyebrow at this.
“Checkpoint?” I asked.
She looked at me like I’d just slipped into using another language. “You don’t know about the checkpoint?”
“Never heard of it.”
“The Los Angeles Police Department has a long reach, Mr. Strait. They’re set up out here and also along the coast roads both north and south, all in an effort to keep the riffraff from getting too close to their prized jewel.”
“Which is?”
“The city,” she said with contempt. “Los Angeles.”
I thought I detected a little bit of a Spanish accent in the way she said it.
“Not the gem they’re selling it as in the east coast magazines?” I asked.
“More like costume jewelry,” she responded. “It looks nice in the light, but look at it in the shadows and you see it’s chipped and fading.”
I had long sus
pected that the California dream was just a myth—that there had to be some sort of an angle behind the sunglasses, swimming pools, and soda fountains where a nobody could get transformed into a somebody if the right casting director walked in and the shadows crossed the lovely faces at just the right angles. Every dream needs a dark side, and if this one got no worse than having to get past a checkpoint, I supposed I had it made. Even so, her request didn’t exactly add up.
“Is there a reason you can’t get yourself through?” I asked.
“I don’t want to have to answer a bunch of questions.”
“But it’s okay if I have to?”
“It’ll go smoother if you do.”
I thought about this for almost half a minute, long enough for the sad old truck to pass us by on its way toward the same checkpoint. The driver gave us a honk of his lonesome horn as he went, which we both ignored.
“I’m not sure I like this, but…” I shrugged. If what she said was true, the prospect of getting through the checkpoint and down into San Bernardino on foot was pretty much an impossibility. Of course, I could always stay here at the filling station until a driver like the one who’d just passed us felt inclined to grab a passenger, which would still mean having to get through the checkpoint. In that case, I’d definitely look like what I was—a hitchhiker down on his luck. Behind the wheel of the Swan, I stood a better chance. It meant getting mixed up in whatever was making Gemma Blaylock so nervous, but I supposed I had already gotten mixed up in her mess when I’d first tossed my case into her back seat. “What’s the story?” I asked.
She gave me the first smile I’d seen in days. Even so, it looked like an expression she needed to practice in front of a fancy mirror in order to pull it off.
“Do you have anything on you that says where you’re from or where you’re going?” she asked.
“I’ve got my New York driver’s license. That’s about it.”
The Blacktop Blues: A Dieselpunk Adventure (The Crossover Case Files Book 1) Page 3