by Simon Ings
‘Okay, thanks.’
He put the phone down on her.
She replaced the receiver, picked it up and dialled again.
The male voice came back, impatient. ‘Hello?’
‘It’s – me. Again.’
The man sighed. ‘You just need to ring. That’s all you need to do. Okay?’
‘I’m sorry?’
There were voices in the background now. Other men. A hand cupped the receiver, muddying the man’s response: ‘Algún forastero sacó nuestro número d’un cohete chino.’ He took his hand away and said, ‘So what is it?’
‘I need help,’ Rosa said.
‘What am I supposed to do about it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Rosa said. ‘I just need help.’ She swallowed. ‘I’m kind of scared right now.’
‘Well I don’t see—’
‘I just had your number in my pocket is all,’ said Rosa. ‘I thought I’d try.’
Silence.
She said, ‘I’m sorry,’ and made to put the handset back.
‘Un momento,’ the man said.
She put the handset back to her ear.
‘Where are you?’
‘Nusrat’s TV store on Stockton. I don’t know the block.’
‘Lo sé. Lo sé. What kind of trouble you in?’
She wondered how to sum it all up. She said, ‘I’m lost.’
More hand-cupping. More Spanish. ‘You safe where you are?’
Rosa looked around. ‘I guess.’
‘Wait there.’
She heard more voices, all men’s. They were laughing.
‘I’ll wait,’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ said the man. ‘Do that.’
It got cold, waiting by the phone. When the men came for her, they found her huddled half-asleep on the floor of the phone booth.
She looked up at them. There were three of them. They were big, and their shirt sleeves were rolled up to reveal thick brown arms. They were hard to tell apart. They were grinning.
‘You call us?’ the first one said.
She shook her head.
‘Come on,’ said the second. ‘You called us, hey?’
She shook her head again.
The men looked at one another. The two who’d spoken went back to the truck. The third knelt down beside her. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘You seem pretty scared.’
She shook her head.
He sighed. From his sigh, she recognised him as the man she’d spoken to on the phone. ‘I’m not leaving you here like this,’ he said. ‘You come with us, that’s fine. You don’t, I’m calling the police to tell them you’re out here.’
‘No!’
Firmly: ‘And wait till they get here, understand?’
She nodded.
‘So are you coming?’
She got to her feet.
He offered her his arm.
She took it.
‘Name’s Bernal.’
‘Rosa,’ she said.
He led her to the car, a heavy station wagon with reinforced bumpers, dented all round. The others were inside, waiting for her.
‘These my friends. Bounce, Marco.’
‘Hi.’
‘Hello,’ said Rosa, her eyes downcast.
‘Come on up,’ said Bounce. ‘Come on in the back.’
She got in. Bounce and Marco made room for her between them.
‘You cold?’
She shook her head.
‘Sure you are.’ Marco reached behind him and grabbed a blanket from the luggage space. They tucked it round her legs. It was scratchy on her skin.
Bernal drove. There was no checkpoint on the outbound route, and they soon left San Francisco behind, riding the bridge into Oakland. Rosa couldn’t see much from where she sat: just old women traipsing the sidewalks, and encampment fires burning in vacant lots, and a crowd gathering around two young men. They were playing guitars.
‘Soon be home,’ said Bernal.
The next she knew her head was in someone’s lap.
She smiled sleepily. ‘Ajay?’
‘Who?’
She sat up suddenly.
‘Hey, take it easy little girl,’ said Marco. ‘Despiértate, we’re home!’
She sat up and looked out the window.
The city was gone. There were no street lights. No houses but this one—
Bounce opened the door and helped her out, sliding his arm around her. ‘Home!’
By the porch-light she saw that the house was quite small, and all of wood.
The front door opened. Figures came and stood silhouetted in the light from the hall. Children. Little girls. (Blood feeds the cell by chance and by design.)
‘Come in,’ the first called out.
‘There’s food,’ said the second.
‘A fire,’ said the third.
Yes, Providence, thought Rosa.
The power inside her belly kicked.
The following designs were used in preparing the illustrations for
Hotwire:
Mimbres pottery designs
from:
Decorative Art of the Southwestern Indians by Dorothy Smith Sides
© 1961, Dover Publications, Inc, New York
Bushman rock painting, South Africa
Dogon wooden mask, Mali
Baule wooden mask, Ivory Coast
from:
African Designs from Traditional Sources by Geoffrey Williams
© 1971, Dover Publications, Inc, New York
A charm to bring 10,000 ounces of gold
A charm to insure prosperity and long life,
Dragon
from:
Chinese Folk Designs by W.M. Hawley
© 1949, Dover Publications, Inc, New York
Also By Simon Ings from Gollancz:
Hot Head
City of the Iron Fish
Painkillers
Headlong
Wolves
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Simon Ings 1995
Artwork copyright © Simon Pummell 1995
All rights reserved
The right of Simon Ings to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2014 by Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper St Martin’s Lane
London WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 575 13111 8
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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