WEST ON 66

by James H. Cobb

  I could feel him as well. We were shredding the air with our passage, shoving aside bow waves of turbulence. Wounded wind that patted and pressed against the sides of the cars, lightly, so lightly, but just enough to push you off that narrow band of concrete unless you fought the wheel with a constant series of sharp correcting jerks.

  A small, suicidal bird flew across the road ahead of us. It touched the '57's hood and exploded, spraying the windshield with droplets of blood that flash-dried instantly.

  I didn't know our speed; the speedometer had given it up as a bad job a long time ago. Anyway, beyond a certain point, miles per hour become irrelevant. All there is, is fast. The blur and the vibration make the whole world around you soft and hazy, and the only thing that's sharp and real is the ringing howl of your mill and the outline of that other car out there beside you.

  Lisette huddled on the seat beside me, silent and scared. It was a good time to be scared.

  The Chrysler had an overlap on us, a jet shadow creeping up our flank, its front hubcap a shimmering disk of mercury. Bannerman was a silhouette leaning forward behind the wheel, a blue-steel jockey urging his mount into the lead.

  Temple, the gunner, gripped the frame of the passenger-side window and snarled into the air blast. He could have put a slug into a tire or into me easily enough at this range. But then his body would have been one of the five dug out of the bloody pileup that would have followed. The gun clenched in his fist was a pathetic toy when compared to the mass and energy locked up inside the metal of the two racing cars.

  And Spanno? Spanno just sat in the back and stared, seeking Lisette's eyes.

  Ahead, across the desert, light glinted on the traffic moving along on the highway. Too far ahead.

  Suddenly Lisette grabbed my shoulder. She couldn't be heard over the hammering chorus of the engine and the slip­stream, so she just pointed off to the right.

  A third contestant had entered the race. An eastbound Santa Fe fast freight was thundering along the rail line that paralleled Route 66, converging on the uncontrolled crossing ahead of us. All involved parties looked like they were going to arrive at about the same place at about the same time.

  It made things a lot simpler in a way. Either we'd make it across the tracks ahead of the train or we wouldn't.

  Flip a nickel, God.

  It wasn't like we were driving down a road anymore; it was more as if we were falling down it, like we'd had a streamer in a parachute jump and we were burning in with no reserve chute. Destiny was hurling straight up into our faces, and there was no way around.

  The Chrysler was wheel to wheel with us now, trying to inch ahead. Bannerman didn't dare ram at this speed, and I didn't bother with trying to block him. All the jazzy driving in the world wouldn't save us if we were cut off on the wrong side of the tracks. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the pale flash of the kid wheelman's face. He kept looking across at me, waiting for me to get off the gas and go shallow, praying for me to give it up so he wouldn't have to make the call. It wasn't Spanno or Temple now; this was our piece of the fight, Bannerman and me and the cars and that freight train out there.

  Who are you anyway, Randolph Bannerman? Are you some guy like me who'd dreamed speed and who'd yearned for the transcendence you feel when you share your spirit with a piece of hot iron? Is that why you sold your soul to Mace Spanno? Okay then, let's see what you're willing to sell your life for.

  Over our engines, I could barely hear the frantic honking of the train's air horn as the crew in the lead power unit spotted the two incipient suicides trying to cut across in front of them. The honking became a continuous baritone bawl, and chain lightning suddenly danced in the shadowy spaces beneath the rail cars. The engineer had hit his dynamiters, sparks flaying off the rails as the brakes on a thousand steel wheels locked up. Even with the Big Hold thrown on, there was no chance of shutting down that mile's worth of train in anything less than three times it own length. The train driver was just trying not to take a flying engine block in through his cab window.

  The track crossing exploded toward us. I looked over and met the wheelman's wild-eyed stare for one last time.

  I told Bannerman no.

  The nose of the Chrysler dipped, and the big coupe shrieked in agony as its tires tore on the concrete. An instant later and the '57 hurled into space like a Navy Pantherjet launched off a carrier catapult.

  The rail crossing was almost flush with the tracks. But at the speed we were traveling, even a couple of inches of ramp put three feet of empty air under our tires. We went weightless, seemingly frozen at the high point of our arc, caught in one of those eternal seconds when the universe locks up and you can look around and remember everything.

  Behind us, the black Chrysler was sliding to a halt broadside on at the foot of the crossing, wreathed in rubber smoke and burning brake shoe. Beside me, Lisette twisted away from the passenger window, throwing her arms across her face in a futile instinctive gesture of survival. And outside of that window there was nothing but the orange-striped bumper plate of a railroad locomotive, close enough so that a tall man could have reached out and brushed it with a fingertip.

  Then the '57 crashed through the time barrier. Clearing both sets of tracks, we touched down on the far side with the shock -straining WHUMP of a lion at the end of a long leap.

  The freight blasted past behind us, chattering and squealing angrily, sealing Mace Spanno away on the far side of a wall of slow-moving steel. Given all the speed it had lost by braking, it would be a good ten minutes before the train would clear that crossing. And in ten minutes, man, we weren't even going to be in the same county.

  Lisette and I tore away toward our junction with 66, laugh­ing and crying in turn with survival hysteria, and I beat my fist against the steering wheel and screamed my triumph to the gods.

  "CHICKEN! YOU FRIGGIN' HAD ME! YOU HAD ME AND YOU FRIGGIN' BLEW IT! YOU . . . FRIGGIN' . . . CHICKEN!"

  Although a couple of people had pulled over to gawk at the smoke rising from the funeral pyre of Peerless, nobody paid much attention to us as we swung back onto the highway. It had been a long afternoon, and I knew that Lisette and I were going to conk out as soon as we ran out of adrenaline.

  We had to find a place to lay low again. Up to this point, we'd always headed west. That's why I turned east now, dou­bling back over our tracks. Maybe that would throw the hound off for a while.

  Bypassing Winslow and the isolated desert-side tourist traps, we retreated fifty miles to the little town of Holbrook. There the first motel vacancy we found was at one of the Wigwam Village chain.

  These outfits have got to be one of the most god-awful pieces of tourist ticky-tacky on the entire length of Route 66. Riding on the Hollywood western craze, the Wigwam auto courts have been set up to resemble mock Indian villages, the half-circles of garishly painted little tourist cabins having being tortured by their builders into the conical shape of tepees.

  The place did have certain advantages, though. I'd had a look at the Wigwam franchise out in Rialto one time and dis­covered that the phony wigwams were actually junior-grade blockhouse, formed out of heavy stucco over a steel frame. With one narrow door and one small diamond-shaped window not full of air conditioner, nobody was going get at you in a hurry unless he happened to be packing a bazooka.

  The clerk at the office wondered a little about our appearance when we pulled up, and I was too shot to think of a good story. I just slammed an extra five spot on the desk to make him quit wondering and took the key.

  Leaving the '57 parked in a slot behind the office and out of sight of the road, I helped Lisette over to our unit. She was sprawled across the bed and asleep before she could even get her shoes off. As for me, I had just enough left to lock the door and turn on the air conditioner. Then I dropped beside her and died for a little while.

  It was dark when we awoke in the little odd-shaped room. We climbed out of our smoky, reeking clothes and took a shower together. No sex; it
just felt good to touch and be clean and cool.

  I donned a fresh shirt and Levi's while Lisette touched up her face and hair and put on the wine red sweater and skirt she hadn't worn since Saint Louis. Then we walked over to a road-house near the motel.

  Good thing we weren't all that hungry, because the food wasn't all that inspiring. You'd think that they could at least get a steak right in Arizona. Lisette ate even less than I did, and I was a little surprised when she asked if we could go into the bar afterward.

  It was warm and dark in there, the low lights blue and hazy through the cigarette smoke. Other than the slow-moving bar­maid, nobody paid us much mind as we slipped into a back booth. The few patrons of the joint hadn't come here for con­viviality. It wasn't that kind of place. They'd come to get drunk in a quiet, businesslike fashion, and I suspected Lisette had that in mind, too.

  I ordered a beer and Lisette asked for a vodka and tonic. She was all gathered up inside of herself again, and I could only get an occasional glimpse of the emptiness behind her eyes.

  I let her put her first round away for anesthetic purposes before I started working on her.

  "So, now you know."

  "No," she replied softly, giving her head a shake. "I've known for a long time. It's just that now I believe."

  Lisette took a hard bite at her second drink, coughing a little as the fiery liquor caught at the back of her throat. She wasn't adept at drinking the hard stuff, but she was taking it on fast tonight, courting the hope that the heavy-caliber shots would kill the despair and the pain building within her. It wouldn't, but that's something you have to learn for yourself.

  "It was like Santa Claus," she went on after a little while, "When I was a little girl, there came a time when I knew in my mind that he wasn't real. I knew that my mother and father were really the ones who bought me all my presents and put them under the Christmas tree. But in my heart, I still believed in Santa Claus. And at least for a Christmas or two more, what I believed was still stronger than what I knew."

  I could only nod and listen as it began to tear loose inside her.

  "I knew ... I knew that to be what he was, my father had to be as dirty and as ruthless as Mace or Temple or any of the others. I knew that Johnny 32 had to be that way, Kev. But I didn't believe that my father . . . my daddy . . . could be. That's stupid, I know. It doesn't make any sense, even to me."

  "Makes a whole lot of sense to me, Princess. There's so much dumped on us in this life we don't want that sometimes we fight like hell to hold onto the things we do."

  "But there is nothing to hold onto anymore! Today, listening to Jubal Claster tell how my father casually set up the cold­blooded murder of his partners, two men that he'd worked with for years, all the belief ended. All that I have left is what I know; that my father was a killer. There's just Johnny 32 now." Lisette's voice sank to a broken whisper. "There's no Daddy left at all."

  Losing a father is a bad deal. Nobody should have to go through it twice, but it was happening to the Princess this night. I reached over and rested my hand on hers.

  "You're wrong. There is something left."

  She looked up, the first tears of many gathering in the cor­ners of her eyes.

  "Yeah, your dad ran with the dirty pack. And yeah, he could have been a hell of a lot better man than he was. But there's one thing left about him that you can still remember,"

  "What?" So faint and soft a word that it was hardly there.

  "That at the end, he was tired of being what he was. He wanted out. He wanted to become something different, maybe for the sake of his little girl. That's what's left for you to hang onto."

  The tears came for real then. Lisette had learned to weep quietly in her life. Her face dropped down to rest across her arm, and her shoulders trembled so you'd hardly notice. I stroked her hair and glanced over at the Select-o-Matic glowing at the back of the booth. Dropping in a quarter, I carefully chose a couple of records.

  The big, neon-lit Crosley jukebox over on the other side of the bar clicked and flipped a forty-five under its transparent dome. They had the volume set low, so that when Elvis Presley's "Lovin' You" issued from the speakers it didn't really break the quiet of the place.

  I stood up and slipped my hand under Lisette's arm, lifting her to her feet. She looked up into my face, bewildered for a moment. Then she understood and buried her face in my shoulder. Hesitantly she began to move with me, her skirt swishing lightly against my knees. I could hold her now and no one would pay any attention. She could cry out her hurt and loneliness and nobody had to know. As we slow-danced, I could feel the dampness of her tears spreading down my shirt.

  Back in that ridiculous cement tepee of ours, Lisette finally slept. The strain and fear of the day, the emotional release, and the vodka eventually had united to put her under. I wanted to join her in about the worst way, but I couldn't. Hell or high water, I had to talk to Jack tonight.

  I managed to keep my eyes open until the even rate of Li­sette's breathing beside me told me she was out. Easing out of bed, I pulled on my jacket and jeans again. Slipping out the door, I crossed to the office building and to the outside phone booth. The Bear answered at his home on the third ring.

  "Could you try calling before I get to sleep sometime? Just for the novelty."

  "Cut me some slack, Jack. I've had a nervous day."

  "How'd the meet with Claster go?"

  "FUBAR, man. Totally and completely Fucked Up Beyond All Recall. But I did get some stuff out of it. Look, can you remember the ballistics kickback on the Leopold and Vallessio killings?"

  "Yeah, sort of." We were half a dozen states closer than when we'd started, and Jack's voice was clearer and stronger over the shortened phone link. "What do you need?"

  "I need to know if Leopold was killed with a single .44 Special round behind the ear at close range?"

  "He was."

  "And was Vallessio taken out with a single .32 slug?"

  "Yeah. Ballistics matched the bullet to the '03 Model Colt recovered from Kingman's body."

  "Okay." I slid down onto the stool inside the booth and stretched my legs out through the open door. "That confirms what I got today. You can inform the authorities back in Kan­sas and Oklahoma and whoever else might be interested that the Leopold and Vallessio killings did happen on the Oklahoma side of the line. Jubal Claster was hired by John Kingman to back him up in the murders and to conceal the bodies after­ward. Kingman hit Vallessio while Leopold was put down by Claster. I got this in a verbal statement from Claster, made in front of at least one other solid witness." "Solid enough to go for a murder warrant?" "There's nobody left to arrest. Jubal Claster's dead." "Dead!" I yanked the handset back from my ear. "How?" "It was kind of an accident, Jack. He still had the murder weapon in his possession, though. If the Oklahoma people want to recover it, they can probably dig around in the ashes and find it without too much trouble." "Ashes?"

  "Yeah. His gas station sort of got burned down, too." "Was that also an accident?" The Bear was being very for­bearing now.

  "Well, I didn't plan on it. Anyhow, I've got some additional charges we can tack onto Ira Claster's tab if you want them. Assaulting a police officer, kidnapping, and criminal conspir­acy."

  "And is he alive?" "I'm not sure."

  "What do you mean, you're not sure?" "I mean that after the rest of the town caught fire, I started losing track of the details!"

  "Aw Jesus'n'MarymotheraGod! Shield, get up and fix me a pot of coffee!"

  It took awhile to get the whole story out, and by the time I was finished the Bear was the one on fire. "That," he said in a deadly monotone, "is totally crazy. You are totally crazy. This whole situation is totally, fucking crazy! Are you hearing me, Pulaski?"

  I let the air trickle out of my lungs in a protracted sigh. "Yeah, Jack, I hear you."

  "Then hear this! This thing is over! Now! Grab the girl! Get to the nearest highway patrol or sheriff's station and stay put until Captain Faraday a
nd I can get out there!"

  That got me back on my feet again. "Wait a minute, Jack! We can't cut this op off yet. It's just starting to produce! I'm almost there, man! I've zeroed the money! I know where it is, and I'm almost there!"

  "Great. You and half a dozen state cops can go out and pick it up.

  "No, dammit! I don't have enough on Spanno yet! For Li-sette's sake, I've got to bury this guy for good!"

  "We've got enough to put some kind of package together on him, especially if you can get the girl to testify for us. We can take it to the feds. Hell, we'll get something on the son of a bitch."

  "Not enough, Jack! Not enough!"

  "Then what is enough?" Le Baer roared. "What are you trying to do out there, kid? Will you answer me that? Just what in the hell are you trying to accomplish? Are you seeing your­self walking out to meet this Spanno character in front of the OK Corral at high noon? Are you trying to hand his head to this girl on a silver platter? Kevin, use your brains instead of your balls! It ain't going to happen! Next time you cross this guy he's going to kill you!"

  "Maybe, Jack. But I've played this out for too long. I can't turn chicken now."

  Jack's voice quieted as he pulled himself back under control. I think my partner was about as close to pleading as he could get. "Give it up, kid. Break it off and get yourself out of there."

  "I can't do it, Jack. I admit it; I don't know exactly what I'm going to do. But I have to finish this thing my way. I need a little more time, man."

  "Kid, tell me where you are?"

  "I'll be in touch when it's over."

  ''Kevin, tell me where you are!"

  I hung up the phone. I felt like a deep-sea diver who'd just cut his own air hose.

  I walked back to our motel unit, but I couldn't stand to go inside just then. I left the door ajar so I could hear Lisette if she woke up, and I started to pace a slow sentry go in front of the little cone-shaped structure. Earlier I could barely keep my eyes open. Now sleep didn't exist.