“Where’re you headed?” Meche asked.
The soul looked up. “You folks having car trouble?” he asked. “I can give you a lift.”
“It’s in the shop here,” I said. “Should be done soon. We’re just curious.”
“We’re bored,” Meche contradicted.
The guy chuckled. “This does look like a pretty dull spot at that. Well, I’m going to El Marrow, myself. And you?”
“Isn’t that the wrong direction?” I asked. The car he was driving looked like one of the models the DOD used for the car package, which fit with his open helpfulness.
“Well,” he said, “it’d take months to get to the Ninth Underworld by car. I’ve heard it’s possible now to buy Double-N tickets, so why spend months driving when I can make the trip in days?”
“Buy a Double-N ticket?” Meche asked, affecting puzzlement. She was learning to be sneaky. I was a bad influence, hopefully. “That can’t be right.”
The guy shrugged. “I’ve heard it from several sources, some I know I can trust. Believe me, I’ve heard it right.” He had missed Meche’s subtle point.
“So,” I asked, “how does that work? Buying a ticket, I mean.”
The guy put the hose back on the pump and screwed the cap back on his tank. “I’m not sure exactly. There’s some official somebody-or-other you have to go through. I’m sure I’ll learn more once I get back to the city. Pardon me.” He stepped past us and went into the garage to pay.
Meche and I walked slowly toward the diner.
“That guy got the car package,” I said tonelessly.
“That’s one of the premium packages, right?” Meche asked.
“Second only to the train,” I answered.
“No fooling?” she asked and I nodded. “Hector’s really getting his message out, huh?”
“You said it, angel,” I grumbled. “That guy had it made. I wonder how far he got before he fell for it?”
“If he gets on the train,” Meche asked slowly, “do you think he’ll end up like those others you saw?”
“Probably,” I answered. That was fine for the likes of Nick Virago, I thought, but not for the man we’d just met.
“A few months,” Meche said. “He could be there in a few months.” She shook her head. “Is that so bad?”
“Sounds like a good deal to me,” I said.
“But what can we do?” Meche asked, sounding anxious. “If he gets on that train, he’ll never—”
“What can we do? Tie him up?” I retorted. “Sit on him? He’s just one person, and only a potential victim at that. Maybe he doesn’t have enough money. Maybe he won’t make the right contacts. Anyway, there’s no point trying to stop one guy, not unless it’s Hector.”
“When the Bone Wagon’s fixed,” Meche said thoughtfully, “we can probably get to El Marrow first. Maybe we can deal with Hector before any more people can be victimized.”
“You sure we can do that?” I asked.
“No,” she answered firmly, “but I’m determined.”
It was late afternoon before the Bone Wagon was ready. Glottis and his pal had changed the tires and lubed, cleaned, repaired, and replaced whatever needed it. I couldn’t see much of a difference, but Glottis said the car was perfect again. Olivia had turned up before this time, so when Glottis rolled the Bone Wagon out of the garage we were ready to pile in and hit the road again.
“OK, mano,” I said as I got into my seat, “open ’er up wide. Let’s not waste any time.”
“Check,” he said. “Everyone strapped in?” We were. “Yeeeeee-haawwww!” he hollered as we tore out of the road stop and back onto the highway.
We made good time, but not the best. There was too much traffic for Glottis to really give the Bone Wagon its head.
“This is weird, Manny,” he said when we stopped for gas once. “It wasn’t like this the last time I was out this way.”
“Last time,” I said, “Hector wasn’t openly selling Double-N tickets.”
Olivia had gone into the station to buy cigarettes and some beef jerky. She’d come back out in time to hear what what I said to Glottis. “There not all going to El Marrow to buy tickets,” she said, tossing me and Meche a couple of strips of jerky and then lighting up.
“How do you know?” I asked, passing my piece of jerky to Glottis and holding out a hand for a coffin nail.
“El Marrow’s the in place to be, man,” she said, handing me the fag she’d already lighted and getting herself another out of the pack.
“That’s hard to believe,” I said, taking a puff.
“I keep telling you, Manny,” she said in a sharp tone, “that burg has changed.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “It’s not that I don’t believe you, chick, but I was there a long time. ‘The in place’ isn’t how I think of it.”
“I hear you, daddy,” Olivia said with a laugh. “It’s not where the action is for cats like you and me.” She took a long drag, smoke swirling up and down the empty space in front of her neck vertebrae before she exhaled through her jaws.
“But it sounds like you’ve been there enough to know what it’s like,” Meche said after having given her jerky a few nibbles. Glottis had already swallowed what I’d given him in one gulp.
“Well,” Olivia said, “I’ve got a few friends there, and sometimes Rubacava’s new stuffiness gets to me. Sometimes I need to get away and see what I’m not missing.”
“So what is it you’re not missing?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” she said, sounding sly. She pocketed several jerky strips and gave the rest to Glottis.
We hit the road again, keeping on the move as long as possible, stopping only for gas or when Glottis was too tired to go on. He was still a little weak from his brush with death, so he needed to rest more often than I would have liked. When we finally came to the Petrified Forest, Meche kept her head down as the highway carried us through. Night fell as we came to the edge of the forest and Glottis pulled off the highway onto a road that ran along the edge and then into the city. We wanted to be as inconspicuous as possible. When El Marrow was clearly visible, Glottis brought the car to a stop. We sat looking at the city as it glowed garishly ahead, and I understood then why Olivia had been so mysterious about how El Marrow had changed. No words could have done justice to it. The city was a sea of neon that dwarfed the Las Vegas strip.
“Looks like Hector’s taken over the whole town,” I said, amazed and appalled.
“He hasn’t had much resistance,” Olivia said. “There’s only one small group who oppose him, and they hide out on the fringes of the city.”
“In places like this, you mean?”
“Yeah…” she began, then stopped when she saw what I saw.
A ring of armed men surrounded the car. They were all were masked. We put our hands up. One of the men stepped forward. I took him to be the leader.
“I’m Calavera,” I said.
“Prove it,” the man ordered.
“OK,” I said. “How?”
The man thought for a couple of seconds and then stepped closer, tugging down the bandanna that covered the lower half of his face. “Who am I?” he asked.
It was pretty dark, but… “Gunnar!” I exclaimed. “Were you toying with me, man?”
“Well,” he said, “I had to be sure. I recognized the Bone Wagon, of course. Hello, Glottis.”
Glottis shook his head. “Scared me to death,” I heard him say under his breath.