When Hal reached into the dead man's pocket, the man grabbed for him.
Hal screamed and banged the Glock against the man's head. A dead arm flew at him, as though it wanted to grab Hal by the head. After that, a dead leg jerked as though it was going to knee Hal in the groin. Then it stopped, then twisted sideways, then bent backward.
The bullets.
Those two sons of bitches were firing as though they owned the market on bullets, but they damn sure weren't trying to kill the dead man. They were trying to whack Hal.
Bullets flying, the stink of his own fear high and acrid in the afternoon air, Hal grabbed at the man's pocket. When he found the disk, he howled triumphantly and jumped to his feet. Bullets pounded around him, plunking the dirt now rather than the dead goon.
"Halford, that's my DVD," Templeton yelled over the growing wail of cop cars.
Hal laughed hysterically. "Was your disk."
"Bought with my fucking money." Dogwood screamed and laid down a solid sheet of bullets.
"Was your money," Templeton answered.
Hal ran harder, all too aware of the bullets slamming in the ground around him as Templeton and Dogwood found their range. He raised his middle finger to them just before the bullet struck him. Pain flared then disappeared.
He hadn't been hit. The heel of his boot slid to a stop in the dust fifty feet away.
Behind the metal skin of the car, he clutched the disk tightly to his chest. Hysterical laughter bubbled out. This was it. Now it was over. He'd take the disk to Hanford and then be able to drive without the road filling up with visions of Tyler in the Walls or Missy in the room.
An explosion ripped through the dirt lot. Hal stuck his head up and saw the Benz in smoldering ruins, smoke and fire pouring from beneath the trunk. Gas ran over the dirt, carrying flames along with it.
Beneath the roar of the burning car, the wail of squad cars grew.
"Shit shit shit." This would be a good time to get himself moving.
Another couple of bullets popped holes into Hal's car. He hopped in and jammed the key into the ignition. The engine screamed but caught.
He kept his head down as much as he could and saw only a thin line of fire and bloody men above the dash. To his left was the Benz. The blue paint was bubbling off. To his right was the Mustang, shot to pieces and sitting on four flat tires.
"Fuck you," he shouted. "I got it."
Templeton fired four times. One bullet shattered the driver's side window, a second left a crease on the car's hood, matching four or five others already there. Dogwood stepped out from behind the Mustang and fired, too. One of his shots killed the passenger window as one of Templeton's shots found Dogwood's leg.
With a howl, Dogwood went down.
Hal goosed the car, afraid to floor it completely and lose control and crash the son of a bitch before he ever left the lot. It fishtailed, squirming like a school girl in her first back seat rumble. He spun the wheel, cranking it around as far around as he could, wishing for more as the back-end struck the nose of the Mustang.
And in the moment of the crunch, when his car kissed Dogwood's battered ride, when the metal to metal crunch was a strangely comforting sound, she dove through the window.
"The fuck're you?" Hal said.
"You're not gonna stop are you?"
When a bullet whizzed past his nose and shattered the front windshield, Hal yelped and floored the accelerator.
2,000 Miles (Still)
She was a tumble of arms and legs.
Arms thrashing, groping for something to grab, legs flailing out the window, boots banging against the roof of the car. Her face pressed against the cracked vinyl seat.
"Who the hell are you?" Hal yelled, his voice nearly drowned by the roar of the engine.
Her legs came in, banging against the windshield. Her hands grabbed the seat, the dash, Hal's shoulder. "Damn," she howled, her finger caught in the seatbelt. Finally her head popped up. Wild green eyes blazed, framed by equally wild red hair. She wore a man's blue denim shirt and where it rode up out of her jeans her skin flashed. The top button had also been torn off and as much as he would enjoyed seeing some tit, he managed to keep his eyes on the road.
But he did catch the scar of train tracks on her arm.
Son of a bitch, Hal thought. A chick dives through my window and she's a junkie. Ain't got enough to worry about with those two shooting it out? Now I've got this?
He shook his head but made no move to stop the car. Damn sure not while those two boys were firing.
Finally, he was out of the dirt lot and harm's way. He had the disk, a full tank of gas, and a map in his head that would take him all the way to Huntsville.
"You know where you're going?" she asked.
"I know exactly where I'm going," he said. "I just don't know how to get out of town."
"Take a left here. Edmunds will take you to East William."
There didn't seem to be any cops coming from the direction she pointed so he turned. As much as he could, he ignored the fact that he was listening to a woman he didn't know, who had jumped out of the car of a man he did know. Regardless, he punched the car up. 60. 65. A bit more.
"East William is Highway 50, right? Get me out of town?"
"Where else?"
"Damned if I know, it ain't my town."
"You think?" She sucked her teeth. "You sure managed to make a mess of this, didn't you? Dogwood isn't any too happy with you right now."
"I give a shit?" He flicked his right hand but the move came off pathetic.
Her chuckle was filled with contempt. She didn't think much of his words, that was obvious. It was also obvious she was trying to get away from Dogwood, too.
"What's the story?" he asked.
"Turn here."
"What?"
"Turn, damnit." She grabbed the wheel and jerked a hard left.
The car's tires screamed as they slid across the pavement. A car in the oncoming lane blasted a weak-lung horn and the driver spun his wheel and laid his middle finger out clear as day for both of them to see.
"Fuuuuuuckerrrrrrrrrrr." The other driver's voice faded into the afternoon air.
Hal's car grabbed the road finally and shot back into his lane. Hal peeled himself off the driver's side door and shoved her back across the car. "What the hell you do that for?"
Behind them, cops roared past, headed toward the sewage plant.
"You better slow down, sweetie, you're going to get us stopped."
Dazed, blinking and thinking he might toss his breakfast, Hal jammed on the brakes. The car decelerated suddenly to fifteen.
"Trying to put me through the windshield?"
"Damn," he said. He sped up just a bit.
"Take it easy, Hal," she said. "We're driving a shot-up car, we've got to be a little more careful."
Hal nodded, even though he knew it. He didn't need some juice tramp telling him anything. Shit, he had spent the last six months desperately tracking that disk from town to town, hand to hand, jurisdiction to jurisdiction. He knew about being careful. "Where are we?"
"Turn right up here and we'll be on Airport Road. That'll take you to 50. Until we get there, just be cool."
Yeah, no problem. His heart pounded hard enough to snap a rib. His head was on fire from the length of superheated wire somebody had shoved into his ear to ignite his brain. His hands gripped the wheel so tightly they had gone from pink to white and then on to colors he wasn't even sure had been discovered yet.
"Slow down," she said.
The speedometer read fifty-seven. He hadn't even realized he was speeding up. He slowed down again, too much, and so sped up a bit.
"This back and forth is killing me, Hal," she said. "Back and forth, back and forth. It's like getting nailed, you know?"
Hal licked his lips and kept the machine neatly between the white painted lines. As they moved further away from the shooting and the traffic got heavier, Hal's heart began to slow. Odds were better in the
middle of people. Easier to disappear in the machinery of a modern city when that machinery was greased with lots of people. Cars and trucks settled in around them and fewer and fewer faces caught his. With that growing anonymity came a sliver of confidence. Maybe he'd make it out of town after all.
"Pull in over there." She pointed to a mom and pop hamburger shop. Painted hamburgers were all over the front glass, lettuce and tomatoes nearly two feet across. "Park on the far side over there, no one will see us."
Without question, he did it and then for seconds, maybe hours, there was nothing. The thrum of traffic rocked them gently and constantly but beyond that there was nothing: no shooting, no screaming, and sure as hell no cops.
"They're not done yet," she said.
"Dogwood and Templeton?"
She shrugged. "Sure, but that's not who we're worried about right now. I'm talking about the cops. They'll set up road blocks everywhere and they'll work every snitch they've got. It's about to get pretty hot in this stretch of Nevada."
"Good thing I'll be gone, then, huh?"
"Good for both of us."
A fiery redhead, no shit about that. Her eyes dared him to make a point. Her lips, set and full, double dared him. Instead, he copped a visual of her body. Tits not so large but nicely shaped, legs long and lean, arms so well muscled that for a second Hal thought maybe she was a man.
"You gotta dick?"
"Moving a little fast, aren't you, Hal?"
Hot red flooded his cheeks. He shook his head. "That's not what I meant. You got good legs. Strong arms. I mean--Damn."
She laughed. "I work out some." She took a deep breath and her breasts heaved gently.
"So you take care of that body except when you're riding the Horse?"
Her eyes pinched into an angry squint. "That self-righteousness you carry heavy?"
"Not especially," Hal said.
"Yeah, well, keep it to yourself."
"I don't travel with junkie whores." He stared at her matter of fact.
"Since I'm not either one I guess you've got nothing to worry about."
He grabbed her right arm and stretched it out. The tracks were black ink scratches. Four ran better than two inches each, one was nearly five.
"Clean and sober," she said. "Two months, two weeks, three days, and I don't know how many hours."
He stared into her eyes, looking for the malice, the anger and hidden agendas. But he saw nothing; just an openness that was more than a little startling.
"You don't have to worry, I'm not a junkie whore."
"Don't have to worry 'cause I travel alone." He released her arm. "What's your name?"
"Call me Apple Valley."
He laughed. "Sounds like a junkie whore to me."
"I'm a performer."
"Bet that's true."
Behind them, more sirens split the air. Fear scratched the back of his throat. He looked around. There were a couple of kids on in-line skates, another couple on foot, and no one else. A waitress inside the burger joint glanced their way but Hal was certain they hadn't really registered with her.
Now that he was stopped, not concentrating on not getting shot or on driving, his hands resembled an old man's with how much they shook. And the sound of the bullets flew around the inside of his skull. If he closed his eyes, it didn't stop the sound, it just gave him the visual. Dogwood and Templeton firing away, intent on killing him and if they managed to kill each other at the same time so what…as long as he was dead.
But Dogwood had gone down, hadn't he? Shot in the arm or the leg or something. Now Hal couldn't remember. Either way, Dogwood didn't matter anymore. Neither did Templeton. Both were now the property of the local police department. They were out of his life and don't think for a minute he wasn't damn glad about that.
Out of his life and he had the disk.
"Son of a bitch," he said. "Where is it?" He pushed himself off the seat, thinking he might be sitting on it. "Where the hell is it?" Panic exploded in him. He shoved her legs out of the way and looked in the floorboard.
It was gone.
"Goddamnit, where is it?"
He twisted around, tearing through the back seat, brushing safety glass off the seat. If he'd managed to lose that damned thing--
"This?" she asked.
She held the disk in her long fingers. He snatched it violently.
"Don't you fucking touch this, you hear me? Apple fuckin' Valley or whatever, you don't touch this. I see you even look at it, I'll kill you then and there."
She held both hands up, palms out. "No problem, Hal, calm down. I wasn't going to take it. I found it when I jumped in the car."
Anger burst through him and he snatched up his Glock. "And why did you jump in my car?"
She said nothing for a long moment and in that silence, Hal realized the crush of sirens was over. The cops would still be at the sewage plant, probably for hours longer, but the rush of it was over. Then another thought struck him. Unless Dogwood and Templeton had managed to kill each other, they'd squeal on him as quick as a Vegas slot disappears three quarters.
"They'll give me up." He jammed the keys into the ignition. "Get out, I'm leaving."
"I'm going with you."
"Got no time to travel with junkies. Get outta my car."
She shook her head. "You can't get out of town without me."
His chest puffed a bit. "I can get anywhere I want."
"You don't even know which road to take. Besides, all that guys-with-guns crap has seriously screwed up your options."
Out the window, the waitress was looking at them again as she took an order to a pick-up. Her eyebrows furrowed, sending alarm bells clanging in Hal's head.
"We've been made."
"Of course we have," Apple Valley said. "Look at this car. The windows are gone, Hal. There are bullet holes everywhere. We'll get made where ever we go."
Her eyes were hard as steel. They bored on him like ice picks. There was no difference of opinion in those, you were with her or you weren't. Except how could he be with a woman who'd been with the enemy, who'd probably slept with the enemy?
"Keep the car if you want," she said. "But I won't be sitting here when the cops pull up. Hal, how many roads do you think there were out of that lot? Just one. And there aren't too many streets off that road. It's not going to take them long to check every road and lot within a mile. You stay here or stay with this car and you will never make it to Texas."
His head snapped back. "How'd you know about Texas?"
"Are you coming with me or what?"
"Going with you? I'm going to Texas." He held the disk up for her. "This is all I got on my radar, lady." He climbed from the car and jammed the pistol in his waistband as an older man left the hamburger stand.
"Hey, boy," the man called. "You car gotta problem?"
Hal looked at her, then back at the man. "Not my car."
The man laughed. "I know it ain't hers; Miss Valley has no need for cars."
Surprise coursed through Hal.
"Hey, Sammy, how's it going?" She climbed out of the car.
Sammy nodded. "I knew her before her name was Apple Valley. I knew her when she was just--"
"That's enough, Sammy, dead men tell no tales."
Sammy laughed, a big, bellowing sound that shook the air. "I love it when she threatens me. Yes, ma'am, Miss Valley, no problem."
Apple Valley pointed to Hal's car. "Obviously, we've got a problem."
"Some shit going on, wasn't it?" Sammy asked. "That scanner was going nuts."
A scanner rat. Hal eyed him. "Where the roadblocks?"
Sammy looked at Apple Valley.
She shrugged. "Tell him, for all the good it'll do."
"Where aren't they?" Sammy said.
"We need a car, Sammy."
He shrugged. "Mine is in the shop, Miss Valley, but that one right there--" A blue Chevy sat on the top level of a three story parking garage half a block down. It was barely visible. "Hasn't had a dri
ver for a couple of weeks." A sparkle worked through his face. "I do believe the owner is otherwise disposed."
Hal's throat tightened up. "Murdered?"
"Listen to him," Sammy said with a laugh. "What are we, in the movies? No, I think he and his woman had a disagreement over how she should be treated. He ain't been murdered yet."
Apple Valley grinned. "The day is still young."
"True," Sammy said. "You're welcome to the car if you want it. I'm sure the keys aren't there but--"
"Fine." Hal turned and headed to the lot. He didn't need any more small talk, he needed to get back on the road. Behind him, he heard her ask Sammy where the cops were. He answered her better than he had Hal.
"Pretty much all over, kid. Got the gang units out, the K-9s, everybody. Think about it. It's a major shooting, at least one man dead, two other known thugs involved, one riding with a former--"
Something about the way he said it stopped Hal short. When he looked at them, Apple Valley was staring hard at Sammy.
"He's not coming, is he?" she asked.
Sammy kicked at an empty soda cup on his parking lot. "It wasn't just any couple of thugs, Miss Valley, it was Dogwood and that scares them."
Hal frowned. Templeton was an entirely worse proposition than Dogwood.
The hard look on Apple Valley's face got harder. "Damnit."
"You should have known that, Miss Valley. They might not have called him but he sure as hell heard about it."
"Who's he talking about?" Hal called.
Neither of them answered, as though he weren't there.
"What about the bullet express?" she asked, indicating Hal's car.
"Leave the keys, it'll be gone two minutes after you're gone. By the time the cops stop whoever gets it, the junkie won't remember where they found it."
"You hope," Hal said.
Sammy smirked at him. "I know, brother. If there's anything I know, it's how junkies in this city work."
"I'll bet." Hal ignored their strained looks and quick hug and headed to the car, off-balance because of the missing boot heel. She was following him, he knew that sure as he knew he'd see the ghosts of Tyler and Missy again. He was just as sure she wasn't getting in his car.
2,000 Miles to Open Road (Barefield) Page 2
