Walter returned and they got rolling, the storm behind them again, looming high, boiling. East held the ripe, ripped Dodgers shirt outside his window and let it flap, tattered like a flag. The moment he let go his pinch, it was gone.
East dreamed interstate dreams, dreams he’d never had before, choppy, worrying. Running the wrong way, or driving against oncoming traffic, or impossible land: a highway emptying into a river, a bridge wobbling, a prairie breaking up. Or ahead of them in the east, LA, with its smog and brown mountain scrim, where it shouldn’t be. All the land — people talked about America, someday you should see it, you should drive across it all. They didn’t say how it got into your head.
He awoke. Walter was intent in the driver’s seat, his lips mumbling something, repeating, like a song. He glanced at the rearview mirrors.
“How far we come?”
“I don’t know. Fifteen hundred miles. Shh.” Walter gestured back with two fingers.
East blinked, wriggled upright. “What?”
“Shh,” Walter said again.
Out the back window he saw the dying light of the day below the shelf of the storm, a layer of smoky blue. One pair of headlights nosing behind them in the lane.
“That’s state patrol,” Walter said.
East looked again at the silhouette behind the headlights. “How you know?”
“Wasn’t so dark out when he picked us up,” Walter said. “He’s on my ass this whole time.”
“You speeding?”
“No. Right at sixty-five,” Walter said. “I wish this van had cruise control.”
“So maybe we’re okay? If he wanted, he’d light you up.”
“Maybe,” Walter said. “Maybe. Maybe he’s just taking his time? Maybe he’s checking us out in the database.”
“Database?” East yawned.
“Every plate,” Walter said. “I forget what it’s called now. Cops run a check. Find out are you wanted, are you missing, is the car stolen, do you owe money. Find out whatever they want.”
“But Johnny said the van was straight.”
“The van is registered in Johnny’s family. Someone named Harris who can’t be found. Insured. Licenses are straight. I know; I had them made. Everything was straight until Vegas.”
“Stopping at that casino?”
“It wasn’t the stopping,” said Walter. “Wasn’t even getting up on the tow. You can always pay the guy, give him a hundred dollars, the problem goes away. It was you two, jacking it up. Slugging the guy.”
“That wasn’t me.”
“All right. Your brother did.”
“That ain’t on me,” East insisted.
He glanced back. Nothing from Ty. No way to know if he was even alive.
“All right. Anyway. So what you gotta ask is: Did they call it in, those guys? Is there some bulletin out on us? Or did they keep it in house, make themselves a promise they’d kick our ass next time?” said Walter. “Wisconsin plates. So they knew there probably wasn’t gonna be a next time.”
East said, “How’d you learn all this?”
“That’s what I do,” Walter said. “Projects.”
“Projects?”
“I know people,” said Walter. “I got jobs. I watched a house for a bit like you. But I moved up.”
“You made the licenses,” said East. “What’s that mean? That license ain’t real, that’s what it means.”
“East. Fin has a whole setup. People in the DMV. People at the state. I got a part-time job there; they think I’m twenty-two. So we can float records. We can make people up. Some sit in the system for years, man, before we use them. When we need them, I take care of it. I make it happen.”
“You make what happen?”
“I make a license,” Walter said.
“You an artist? You print it?”
“No, state does that. I used to, but it wasn’t good enough. Get you past a bouncer. But a cop would spot it. Now they’re real.”
“But they ain’t real.”
Walter said, “What is real? These got everything a California license has. There’s backup in the statehouse says there is an Antoine Harris. State trooper calls it in, it checks out. That real enough for you?”
“I don’t believe it,” said East.
“Well,” Walter sniffed. “Best hope you don’t have to prove it. Antoine is clean, man. Keep him that way.”
“I’m clean,” said East. “I never been picked up. My name’s good.”
“Ain’t you lucky,” Walter said. “Shh, here comes the man.”
The trooper had hit his light, blue and white pulsing off everything. Walter cut speed and shifted his path right.
But the cop sped on by.
“See?” East said. “Nothing to worry about.”
Walter exhaled a long, tense breath. He smelled like fried food, sweat, and oil. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “I should have woken you up earlier. Talking to you, it’s sure to make me feel better.”
—
Walter was floating before the headlights, big 4XL Dodgers jersey lit to boiling. Another dream East was having about the road — or so he thought. Then he saw the chain-link, that they were in a rest stop, not in a lane. Behind Walter’s body was a pay phone.
Walter was making the second call. East bolted up in his seat. But Walter was already hanging up, the pink flyer in one hand, atlas in the other. He turned, spotted East behind the windshield, and nodded.
“Got it,” he grunted, opening his door. “You want to drive, or should I?”
“You must have crept out smooth,” East accused him.
“You were sleeping.”
“You got no business making the call without me.”
“I’ll drive, then.” Walter tugged the seat belt around himself uncomfortably. There was no good fit. “Yeah, I got business.”
Bitterly East said, “I need to be on there when we call.”
“East,” Walter began, “I ain’t your boy. I made the call. Like you did before. Do I feel better, since now I know? Yes. Who got directions? The one who can read did. Read a sign. Read a map.”
“I can read,” said East.
“Ain’t you lucky,” Walter said. “You ready?”
East snatched the flyer from Walter. Handwriting covered the back side now — terrible writing, scratches, loops slanting downhill.
“I can’t read this,” East said at last. “No one can read this.”
“That’s right, son,” Walter said. “Nobody but me. I can read every word.”
It was night now, thickening. A bread truck sat disabled two spaces down, the doors gaping. Like a foreclosed house.
“What they say about Michael Wilson?”
“We didn’t talk about Michael Wilson. Why we want to talk about him?”
“Don’t sneak around on me,” East snapped.
“You’re so angry,” Walter said. “Put me out too. Go on. It was always gonna come down to you. You and your little brother. I knew it. You headstrong street Negroes. You were always gonna win. So do it now.”
“Come on,” East said, steaming.
“I mean it,” Walter said. “Here the keys, then. Put me out.”
Schoolgirl drama. But Walter had him beat.
“Come on,” East groaned again.
Walter spat out the door and palmed the keys back. He started up the van and checked the mirrors. “About an hour,” he said. “Then we get off the road.”
Finally East relented. “What did they tell you? About the stop?”
“Easy. Grocery store about twenty miles off the road. We meet up with a truck. Follow them. Everything’s paid for. They don’t know us. We just get and go.”
“What kind of people?”
Walter picked up speed. A strange field of lighted wire deer glowed in the distance. “They didn’t tell me that.”
9
“What state are we in again?”