“GO!”
My voice sounded tinny and far away to my ears, which still rang from the crack of the blast, but that single syllable was enough to goad Gio into action. He sparked the ignition to life and threw the Caddy into gear. Then he laid on the gas and we squealed out of the parking lot, the scent of our tires against the blacktop lost in the charred stench of the twisted wreck we left behind.
15.
We were twenty minutes from Las Cruces when I realized we were not alone.
The strip club was a good half hour behind us, though between the heated bickering, the withering silences, and the bouts of justifiable paranoia that flared up with every speed trap that we’d passed, it felt like twice that long. It was a good thing Gio got the Caddy running when he did —a fire engine and a couple of squad cars went screaming past us in the oncoming lane before we’d gone four blocks from the strip club parking lot, and by the time we reached the highway, a column of smoke a mile high cleaved the morning sky and no doubt drew the attention of every law-enforcement type the city over.
I’ll admit, as near as I could tell from the passenger seat, the Cadillac handled like a dream, and as the sun crested overhead, sending the temperature into the seventies, cruising with the top down was a little slice of heaven. The stretch of highway leading upward from West Texas to Las Cruces runs alongside the Mesilla Valley —a fertile floodplain four miles wide, blanketed with lush green farmland and dotted here and there with fragrant pecan groves. It was a pleasant respite from the hostile no man’s land we’d been driving through, but I was so damn furious at Gio for the attention he’d drawn our way —and so damn worried about getting snagged by the cops before we managed to track down Varela’s soul —I couldn’t properly enjoy it. So instead, I sat there needling him, oblivious to the danger lurking a couple feet behind us.
“Seriously, Gio, what the hell were you thinking?”
Gio said nothing. He just grit his teeth and drove, his fingers white-knuckled on the wheel. I wasn’t surprised; I’d asked him that at least a dozen times in the past half hour.
“What, you’re not talking now? Come on, Smart Guy —I’d love for you to fill me in on your master plan.”
At that, he wheeled toward me, his eyes glinting with anger. “Fuck you, Sam. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be bleeding to death in the fucking desert right now. And has it even occurred to you that if you hadn’t decided to hold your impromptu little Q-andA back there instead of letting me do my thing, we’da been long gone by the time the Fiesta blew? So don’t go crapping on my plan —you’re the one who went and screwed it up.”
“You think the fact that we were there when it happened was the only flaw in your otherwise genius plan? You’re even dumber than I thought. Unless you somehow managed to vaporize the Fiesta, they’re going to eventually get the VIN off of it, which means they’ll be able to track it back to Ethan and to Illinois. Ethan’s no doubt smart enough to leave out the whole walking-dead angle, but you can be damn sure he’ll give them our descriptions, and once they know we crossed state lines, the Feds’ll get involved. Next thing you know, every cop from here to California’s got eyes out for us. And here we are, cruising around in a bright red stolen car the size of a fucking aircraft carrier. You know what? My bad. In retrospect, it was an awesome plan.”
Gio’s borrowed face went red with rage, and he lobbed back a profanity-laced retort, but I didn’t pay him any mind. I was preoccupied by the strangest sensation at the nape of my neck —a sudden niggling intuition that something was not quite right.
At first, I had trouble putting my finger on exactly what it was. Not a tingle, to be sure, and not a sudden chill. But as a Collector, I’ve learned to trust my instincts, and in that moment, my instincts were insisting we were not alone. And in retrospect, that insistence felt not unlike a cowboy boot to the back of the head.
When the kick connected, I pitched forward, and smacked my face into the dash. It hurt like hell, and my vision went spotty, but at least I remained conscious, and my nose stayed where Gio’d put it.
I saw a blur of snake skin out of the corner of my eye, this time heading in Gio’s direction. He yelped, and the Cadillac swerved left. Beside us, a car horn blared.
Gio tried to correct, and went too far. We barreled toward the barbed wire fence that separated the dirt shoulder from the green-tinged farmland beyond. Shit, I thought —two cars in one day? You’ve got to be kidding me.
But this time, it wasn’t meant to be. I heard a string of curses, delivered in a drawn-out Texan twang, and then an arm shot out from the back seat and grabbed the wheel, yanking it to the left. Our bumper missed the fence post by scant inches, and then Gio slammed the brakes, bringing the Caddy to a skidding halt on the shoulder.
“Jesus H. Christ, that was a close one! I mean, shit, I didn’t want that bitch to take ol’ Bertha here away from me, but that don’t mean I want to go and wreck her!”
I turned toward the source of the statement to find a paunchy, denim-clad sixty-something sprawled across the back seat and fanning himself with a sweat-stained Stetson. A thin cotton blanket that had until moments ago no doubt covered him sat discarded on the seat beside him. He had a shock of white hair atop his head, and a dusting of stubble to match. Gin blossoms colored his nose and cheeks, and his eyes were rimmed with red. As I watched, those eyes widened, and he suddenly twisted around, hanging his head over the side of the car and puking.
Normally, in my world, that’s a sure sign of possession, but if the smell coming off this dude was any indication, this time it was the result of way too much tequila. The odor of sick aside, I was relieved that the head-kicking portion of the program was apparently behind us. The shape our passenger was in, he didn’t pose much of an immediate threat, so while he was busy purging the contents of his stomach, I wheeled on Gio and tried my best to conjure death-rays with my eyes.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” I whispered. “You didn’t check to see if the car was empty before you boosted it?”
“How was I supposed to know he was sleeping it off in back? With that blanket on, he looked like a pile of junk.”
I touched my good hand to the back of my head. “That pile of junk almost took my fucking head off —and damn near got all three of us killed.”
“Yeah, but look on the bright side,” Gio said, smiling. “If he’s here, there ain’t nobody around gonna report this baby stolen.”
The bright side. Right.
This day kept getting better and better.
Eventually, our cowboy friend’s heaving ceased, and he flopped back onto the seat, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.
“Well, hell,” he said. “I guess you boys are going to have to take me back now, aintcha?”
“Come again?” I asked, flummoxed. I suppose the more well-behaved among you might not know this, but in my experience, carjackings don’t typically elicit such blasé responses.
The man saw my confusion and frowned. “Boy, I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but ain’t you repo types just supposed to take the car? Jolene’s made it pretty clear she wants her half of what I got, but she sure don’t seem to want nothin’ to do with me.”
Gio opened his mouth to say something then, but I silenced him with a glance. Then I turned to our new friend and gave him my best not-a-car-thief smile. “Listen, Mr —I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”