She barely tapped me, Pellam thought and wobbled the tooth again.
The driver stood with her arms crossed. The hat was back on. The brown was set off by a small green feather. She gazed back as she spoke to the sheriff; the beige-uniformed man towered over her and his weight, not insignificant, was a high percentage muscle. Probably the only peace officer in whatever town this was; Pellam had passed a welcome-to sign but that had been just as the emergency brake pad had pungently melted and he hadn’t had the inclination to check out the name and population of the place where he was about to die. He guessed it was maybe a thousand souls.
As the sheriff jotted in a small notebook Pellam studied the woman. She was calm now and he thought again how beautiful she looked.
Pale eyes, dark eyebrows.
Two red knuckles on her right hand.
She and the sheriff stood next to the cash register, an old-time hand-crank model. The diner itself was a real relic, too. Aluminum trim, paint-spatter Formica countertops, black-and-white linoleum diamonds on the floor. Arterial blood red for the vinyl upholstery—booth and stool.
The man who’d been in the passenger seat of the Ford stepped out of the washroom, still wearing a cautious smile. He was dressed in dark, baggy clothes--the sort you’d see in TriBeCa or on Melrose in West Hollywood. Pellam--for whom the line between movies and reality was always a little hazy--thought immediately that he could have stepped right out of a Quentin Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez flick. He wore no-nonsense hiking boots. Clutching his backpack, he laughed nervously again. To Pellam he nodded a rueful glance--the sort soldiers might exchange when they’ve just survived their first firefight. His hair was cut flat on the top, short on the sides--the kind of cut Pellam associated with characters in the comic books of his childhood; he mentally dubbed the man Butch.
Was she his wife? Girlfriend, sister? She wore a wedding ring but was easily ten years older. Not that that meant anything nowadays—if it ever had. Pellam was experienced, but not particularly successful, in the esoterica of romance. His job didn’t allow much room for relationships.
Or that’s what he told himself.
The medic pressed a bandage on his jaw. “You’re good to go. Keep your guard up.”
“It was a—”
“Then against dangerous entertainment devices.” The man nodded a farewell to the sheriff, shoved a chaw in his mouth and left with his fix-’em-up bag.
Pellam rose unsteadily and walked toward the driver and sheriff, who said, “Everybody, pull out some tickets for me, if you would.”
Butch said evenly, “Yessir. Here you go.” A moment’s pause as he dug through his wallet, which was thick with scraps of paper. Pellam noted his license was Illinois. Taylor was his real name. Pellam was somehow disappointed at this.
“Don’t look much like you,” the sheriff said, examining the license.
“I didn’t have a beard then.” Pointing to the picture. “Or short hair.”
“Can see that. I ain’t blind. Still don’t look like you.”
“Well…” Taylor offered, for no particular purpose.
“This your current residence? Chicago?”
“For the time being. Where I get my mail.”
The sheriff took Pellam’s license, too, which contained a picture that did look like him. Still, the sheriff frowned slightly, perhaps at the word on the top, California. You saw a lot of Californians in Telluride and Vail and Aspen. Probably not a lot down here in this neck of the woods.
The door opened and a woman walked in. She looked around. “Hey, Sheriff. Everybody all right?”
Pellam squinted. It was the bicyclist they’d nearly squashed. Frizzy blond hair, massive curls. The helmet was gone. She was short and stocky. The bicycle latex revealed serious thighs. She’d taken off her sunglasses and was scanning them all with green eyes—Pellam in particular, probably because of the bandage. A spattering of sun-enhanced freckles dusted her face.
Somebody had come to pick her up. The bike was racked on the roof of an old battered car, a man in the driver’s seat. Short hair, lightish colored, but Pellam couldn’t make out any details of the driver. He was preoccupied with something else—the camper, it seemed.
“Lis,” the sheriff said, glancing their way. “Fine. More or less. That Chris with you?” A nod toward the car.
“That’s right.”
She explained that she was a witness, not mentioning that she’d nearly been run down. “Happy to give a statement if you want.”
“Good of you to come forward,” Werther said. “Most people wouldn’t’ve.”
“I figured you’d track me down sooner or later. Didn’t want to be leaving the scene of an accident.”
“Go ahead. Tell me what you saw.”
She gave a pretty accurate description. He jotted a few notes, every fifth or sixth word, it seemed. This was apparently the investigation of the year.
“That’s helpful, Lis. Thanks. And why don’tcha give them one of our cards. For their insurance companies.”
A little hesitation, as if she hadn’t counted on this level of attention.
She dug into a massive purse, found some cards and gave them out. Lis and Chris were the codirectors of the Southeastern Colorado Ecological Center. Seemed a little odd that such a group was based here, since vegetation was sparse and the human footprint minimal.
“Scared the you know what out of me.”
“I’m sure,” Pellam said. “Sorry about that.”
The driver was silent. She didn’t seem to care. She pulled a cell phone from her pocket, looked at the screen. Pellam was impressed. Hers was one of those new fancy ones where you didn’t need to tug the antenna up.
She put the phone back.
“Thought you guys were racing at first, but then I saw what happened. Brakes went?”
“Mine, yeah,” Pellam said.
“Good thing there was nobody in the oncoming lane.”
That was sure true. Though there hadn’t been much traffic going in any direction on barren State Route 14. Not here, where it was close to a hundred miles to any kind of town.
Lis was cute and maternal. Pellam guessed her first reason for coming here was in fact to see if anyone was hurt, rather than cover her ass about leaving the scene.
“Thanks to you. And Chris,” the sheriff said, looking out the door toward the old car, a Toyota. Had to be twenty years old. The gloss was gone from the paint entirely.
Pellam played out a scenario that the group had been threatened because they protested land use or something or because they were hippies and Sheriff Werther had stood up for them.
It would have made a bad scene in a movie and it was surely not true. But that was the way Pellam’s mind worked. He wrung stories from dry rocks.
The earth-mother left, climbed in the car and they sped away, she and Chris.
Without a word the sheriff stepped outside to write down VINs and to radio in the details and see who was who and what was what.
The driver got a coffee, not asking if anybody else wanted any. She paid with steady hands. “Look,” she said softly. “I’m sorry I hit you. I wasn’t thinking… The pickup was a birthday present. Just last week. It’s got eight hundred miles on it.”
Pellam thought about making a joke that out here that meant two trips to the grocery store and one to Blockbuster.
But he didn’t, mostly because she didn’t sound particularly sorry she’d slugged him.
“ ‘S’okay,” he said automatically as his tongue poked a loose tooth. “I didn’t really get the impression you were out for blood.”
Though he happened to be tasting some at that moment.
He added, “It was a boom box hit me. That’s what happened.” He nodded toward the sheriff.
“Thanks. I get carried away sometimes.”