The coming dawn was beautiful. Not colorful at all, but beautiful just the same. A smear of ash along the horizon, the dull petrified earth below, soft light bathing all. He stared at it for a long moment, listening to his heartbeat, filling his lungs with cool dry oxygen.
He felt surprisingly relaxed. Confident. Certain of his identity. He’d suffered a couple of blackouts, that was all. He’d killed a man-a man of hideous disposition whom he would have undoubtedly killed anyway. And he’d tossed his own clothes into the desert, and he’d written himself a note, signing it with the name he’d gone by as a callow youth. These were not events that should trouble him. They were nothing more than the result of a knock on the head-isolated incidents that would soon fade from his memory.
The fact was that he felt much better now. The morning light didn’t bother him at all. A little rest, a little relaxation, and he’d be perfectly fine. No more bright lights. No more blackouts.
Woodrow stepped out of the Saturn.
He knew exactly who he was.
And exactly what he had to do.
He opened the trunk and withdrew a prayer rug. He unrolled it on the gravel at his feet, turned toward Mecca, and prepared for his morning salat.
Woodrow Saad Muhammad prayed five times a day. To him, prayer was as important as breath. He knelt. .
. . and prayed for guidance. .
. . for freedom from his past. .
. . opening himself to Allah. .
. . and his concentration was interrupted by a dog barking in the junkyard.
Woodrow turned, his wounded hand tensing automatically. A stubby little pit bull charged along the perimeter of the fence, tried to climb the chain link with its stubby little legs, ended up earthbound as a brick. Woodrow paused, stared at the dog, studied its fury. The animal was completely focused, the way he had to be right now, when only one thing was important-
Another sound punctuated the dog’s barking. Crackling. No, crunching. Quick footsteps on gravel-
Someone grabbed Woodrow from behind and dragged him him his feet.
Automatically, Woodrow’s hand slipped under his coat. Fingers closing around pistol grips, index finger finding the trigger, he started to draw the weapon.
He never made it, because the pain was explosive. Thermonuclear. A private little cold war erupted on his backside, just below his ribs. He knew he’d been kidney punched-that was all there was to it-but the pain was paralytic, and just as it started to pass there came another explosion, the epicenter of this one his backbone, and his legs went numb for an instant, and he never even felt his knees caving in.
And then he was on the ground, gravel in his mouth.
The dog was still barking, raking chain link with sharp teeth. Woodrow grunted. Something was pinning him to the ground. Someone’s foot, or knee. That someone leaned forward, putting his full weight on Woodrow’s spine. Woodrow’s coat was pulled back, and the butt of his pistol tore at his ribcage as it was drawn from his shoulder holster.
Woodrow heard the slide rake back and forth as his attacker chambered a round.
The man said, “Think about it.”
Woodrow did.
And that was when his skull caved in for the second time in two days, and suddenly he was falling. . falling. .
. . into a bottomless pit of light.
THREE
Baddalach punched the Saturn’s gas pedal and frowned. Damn, but he hated cars that were named after astronomical phenomena. The Ford Galaxie, the Mercury Comet, the Chevy Nova. . and now the Saturn.
Not that they weren’t okay automobiles-it was the old game of heightened expectations that bothered Jack. Some marketing guy in Detroit decides that people want to feel like Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise when they climb behind the wheel and pretty soon you’ve got automobiles named for every heavenly body this side of Uranus, as if a metal box on four wheels could really send you soaring through the stratosphere.
And what was worse was that people fell for it. All kinds of people. Even hit men.
Jack laughed at that. He sure hadn’t expected the hired gun to show up in a Saturn. He’d expected something flashy and tanklike. A Caddy or something.
But maybe the hired gun was smarter than the average bear when it came to such matters. No ostentatious Caddy ragtop for him. He’d picked a car that would make him look like Joe Suburbs. That showed a little more brainpower than Jack might have expected.
So maybe the hit man was a thinking man. That didn’t worry Baddalach. Let the son of a bitch think all he wanted to. Thinking wasn’t going to change the fact that he couldn’t take a punch.
The cat was a big mother, too. Not heavy. Pure ectomorph- the kind of body type Jack wished he had. Hell, he hadn’t felt any fat at all when he’d kidney punched the dude. Good muscle mass and low body fat. Jack would’ve never lost his title if he’d had a body like that.
He’d kind of hated to clobber the guy while he was praying, though. That seemed like a low blow. But, hey, the guy was a dog-beater. What the hell did he deserve?
Jack grinned. What a beauty of a punch it had been. Half uppercut, half hook-like slamming a brick under the guy’s ribcage. Hey, for Jack Baddalach, that spelled S-A-T-I-S-F-A-C-T-I-O-N. Rabbit-punching the guy and watching him go down was even better.
First the chump dropped to his knees. Then he went face first into the gravel, sending up a puff of dust that looked kind of like a miniature Hiroshima.
Yep. It was a real Kodak moment, all right.
Jack hadn’t lingered, though. Other fish to fry, and all like that. But he did take the time to steal the hit man’s gun, wallet, and car.
That’d teach the bastard to beat up on a guy’s dog.
Jack wished he could have hung around to see the hit man come to. No car, no gun, pockets empty except for the key to his room at the Saguaro Riptide.
Room 21. Right next to Jack’s room. Jack knew where the guy was. He also knew that he wasn’t done with him yet.
The highway was clear of traffic, the road itself as straight as Jack’s right jab. Jack hit the gas and the Saturn lurched forward like a peg-legged man pushing a wheelbarrow.
In other words. Jack had plenty of time to think things through.
One of the first rules of boxing at the championship level-know your opponent. You watch films of a guy, see what he does over and over, figure out what you’re going to do to take the play away from him. You hire sparring partners that can approximate the guy’s style, and you go to school on them. You get in shape, you get your mind right, you stick to your plan. . and a lot of times you’ve got the fight won before you ever step in the ring.
Jack glanced at his reflection in the rearview mirror. “Time for a little scouting report.”
Okay, the hit man’s choice of wheels told Jack something. And Freddy G had told him something else-that the guy was a Muslim. Not some mystical kufi-wearing Muslim either. No, this guy looked like the old-fashioned kind, a throwback to the suit-and-tie era of the sixties when the heavyweight champ of the world had joined up, changing his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali.
This guy looked like a real Fruit of Islam candidate. They were the A-1 badasses who protected the Muslim elite, kind of like the Nation of Islam secret service. To a man they were purer than pure and meaner than mean, and their hearts were made of stone.
The hit man’s wallet lay on the passenger seat next to his gun-a serious enough looking piece. But Jack didn’t know anything about guns, so the pistol didn’t tell him anything.
He reached over and opened the glove compartment. The contents told him plenty:
1) A few cassettes, mostly jazz. That fifties be-bop shit where you couldn’t hold onto the melody with both hands.
2) A brand new map of Arizona, folded so that it showed Pipeline Beach and its environs.