so, how come I can see it.
He looked out the cruiser’s back window. The coyotes were peeling away as soon as they passed, he saw, loping off into the desert.
“You’ll learn, Lord Jim,” the cop said, and Johnny turned back toward him. He saw gray eyes staring from the rearview mirror. One was filmed with blood. “Before your time is up, I think you’ll understand a great deal more than you do now.”
Ahead was a sign by the side of the road, an arrow pointing the way toward some little town or other. The cop put on his turnhlinker, although there was no one to see it.
“I’m taking you to the classroom,” the big cop said.
“School will be in shortly.”
He made the right turn, the cruiser lifting onto two wheels and then settling hack. It headed south, toward the cracked bulwark ot—the open-pit mine and the town huddled at its base.
Steve Ames was breaking one of the Five Com-mandments—the last one on the list, as a matter of fact.
The Five Commandments had been given to him a month ago, not by God but by Bill Harris. They had been sitting in Jack Appleton’s office. Appleton had been Johnny Marinville’s editor for the last ten years. He was present for the handing down of the commandments but did not participate in this part of the conversation until near the end—only sat back in his desk chair with his exquisitely manicured fingers spread on the lapels of his suitcoat. The great man himself had left fiFteen minutes before, head up and studly gray hair flying out behind him, saying he had promised to join someone at an afl gallery down in SoHo.
“All these commandments are thou shalt nots, and I don’t expect you to have any trouble remembering them,” Harris had said. He was a tubby little guy, and there probably wasn’t much harm in him, but everything he said came out sounding like the decree of a weak king. “Are you listenin—.”
“Listening,” Steve had agreed.
“First, thou shalt not drink with him. He’s been on the wagon for awhile—five years, he claims—but he’s stopped going to Alcoholics Anonymous. and that’s not a good sign.
Also, for Johnny the wagon’s always had a nonstick surface, even with AA. But he doesn’t like to drink alone, so if he asks you to join him for a few after a hard day on the old Harley, you say no. If he starts bullying you, telling you it’s part of your job, you still say no.
“Not a problem,” Steve had said.
Harris ignored this. He had his speech, and he intended to stick to it.
“Second, thou shalt not score drugs for him. Not so much as a single joint.
“Third, thou shalt not score women for him… and he’s apt to ask you, particularly if some good-looking babes show up at the receptions I’m setting up for him along the way.
As with the booze and the drugs, if he scores on his own, that’s one thing. But don’t help him.”
Steve had thought of telling Harris that he wasn’t a pimp, that Harris must have confused him with his own father, and decided that would be fairly imprudent. He opted for silence instead.
“Fourth, thou shalt not cover up for him. If he starts boozing or drugging—particularly if you have reason to think he’s doing coke again—get in touch with me at once. Do you understand. At once.
“1 understand,” Steve replied, and he had, but that didn’t mean he would necessarily comply. He had de-cided he wanted this gig in spite of the problems it pre-sented—in part because of the problems it presented; life without problems was a fairly uninteresting proposition—but that didn’t mean he was going to sell his soul to keep it, especially not to a suit with a big gut and the voice of an overgrown kid who has spent too much of his adult life trying to get some payback for real or imagined slights he had suffered in the elementary-school playground. And although John Marinville was a bit of an asshole, Steve didn’t hold that against him. Harris, though… Harris was in a whole other league.
Appleton had leaned forward at this point, making his lone contribution to the discussion before Marinville’s agent could get to the final commandment.
“What’s your impression of Johnny.” he asked Steve. “He’s fifty-six years old, you know, and he’s put a lot of hard mileage on the original equipment. Especially in the eighties. He wound up in the emergency room three dif-ferent times, twice in Connecticut and once down here. The first two were drug ODs. I’m not telling tales out of school, because all that’s been reported—exhaustively—in the press. The last OflC may have been a suicide attempt, and that is a tale out of school. I’d ask you to keep it to yourself.”
Steve had nodded.
“So what do you think.” Appleton asked. “Can he really drive almost half a ton of motorcycle cross-country from Connecticut to California, and do twenty or so read-ings and receptions along the way. I want to know what you think, Mr. Ames, because I’m frankly doubtful.”
He had expected Harris to come busting in then, touting the legendary strength and iron balls of his client—Steve knew suits, he knew agents, and Harris was both—but Harris was silent, just looking at him. Maybe he wasn’t so stupid after all, Steve thought. Maybe he even cared a little for this particular client.
“You guys know him a lot better than I do,” he said. “Hell, I only met him for the first time two weeks ago and I’ve never read one of his books.”
Harris’s face said that last didn’t surprise him at all.
“Precisely why I’m asking you,” Appleton replied. “We have known him for a long time.
Me since 1985, when he used to party with the Beautiful People at 54, Bill since 1965.
He’s the literary world’s Jerry Garcia.”
“That’s unfair,” Harris said stiffly.
Appleton shrugged. “New eyes see clear, my grand—mother used to say. So tell me, Mr.
Ames. do you think he can do it.”
Steve had seen the question was serious, maybe even vital, and thought it over for almost a full minute. The two other men sat and let him.
“Well,” he had said at last, “I don’t know if he can just eat the cheese and stay away from the wine at the recep-tions, but make it across to California on the bike. Yeah, probably.
He looks fairly strong. A lot better than Jerry Garcia did near the end, I’ll tell you that.
I’ve worked with a lot of rockers half his age who don’t look as good.”
Appleton had looked dubious.
“Mostly, though, it’s a look he gets on his face. He wants to do this. He wants to get out on the road, kick some ass, take down some names. And…” Steve had found himself thinking of his favorite movie, one he watched on tape every year or so: Hombre, with Paul Newman and Richard Boone. He had smiled a little. “And he looks like a man who’s still got a lot of hard bark left on him.”
“Ah.” Appleton had looked downright mystified at that. Steve hadn’t been much surprised. If Appleton had ever come equipped with hard bark, Steve thought it had probably all rubbed off by the time he was a sophomore at Exeter or Choate or wherever he’d gone to wear his blazers and rep ties.
Harris had cleared his throat. “If we’ve got that out of the way, the final commandment—”
Appleton groaned. Harris went on looking at Steve, pretending not to hear.
“The fifth and final commandment,” he had repeated. “Thou shalt not pick up hitchhikers in thy truck. Neither male nor female shalt thou pick them up, but especially not female.”
Which was probably why Steve Ames never hesitated when he saw the girl standing beside the road just outside Ely—the skinny girl with her nose bent and her hair dyed two different colors. He just pulled over and stopped.
She opened the door but didn’t get into the cab at first, just looked up at him from across the map-littered seat with wide blue eyes. “Are you a nice person.” she asked.