“Hey, I need some gas.” Ralph grabbed the man’s elbow and pulled him outside. “And quick—it’s an emergency.”
“No,” moaned the storekeeper. “I . . . won’t give you any.”
“What? Why the hell not? I’ll pay for it.”
“It’s wrong.” The old man feebly tried to jerk his arm free from Ralph’s grip.
“Wrong?” He dragged the man closer to the gas pump. “What’re you talking about? What’s wrong?”
“To be on the road after dark.” The cracked voice had shrivelled to a whisper. “There’s haunters out there!”
“What the— Come on, I don’t have time for this crap.”
“No, no, it’s true! Turrible dark things. The little dot’s out there!”
“The little dot?” Ralph stopped and looked into the old man’s face, caught for a moment its mask of feebleminded panic.
“When you turn off your TV,” whispered the store-keeper. “And it all turns into a little white dot in the middle, and then the dot goes away and flies through the night, and it catches you and . . . sucks your blood. It’s true.”
“No kidding,” said Ralph wearily.
“Yes! Yes!” shouted the old man in a sudden fervor. “Turrible dark things in the night!”
“Then you might as well give me some gas. Because I get those kind of things in the daytime, anyway.”
“No.” Convulsively, the old man pulled his arm free and ran back to the store, his thin pajamas flapping against his narrow legs. Ralph sprinted after him and caught the door before the old man could slam it shut.
Inside the store the old man had seemingly vanished. Ralph scanned the rough wooden shelves packed with cans of beans and sacks of flour that revealed nothing to him. Suddenly he noticed the edge of a shiny pink scalp showing from behind a row of barrels. He walked over to them on tiptoe, then reached behind and pulled the old man up by his stringy throat. “Give me that damn key,” grated Ralph. “The one to the gas pump.”
“Ak . . . ak . . .” gasped the storekeeper. His face darkened as he dangled from Ralph’s fist. “You—you’re one of . . . them!”
“That’s right. My buddy the little dot is right outside. So hand over the key.”
“I don’t have it!”
“Where is it?”
“In the cash register.” The old man flapped his arm. “Over there!”
Ralph dropped him and went to the counter at the rear of the store. He struck the NO SALE button on the tarnished metal register. Under the change bin in the drawer he found a ring of keys.
When he had finished filling up the jeep’s tank, as well as the spare gas can, he tossed the keys at the baldheaded face that peeked out at him from the corner of the store’s window. The keys bounced off the glass without breaking it but the old man ducked out of sight anyway. Ralph started the jeep and got back on the highway, wondering, as the wind increased in velocity, what dim mythology he had just gained a place in.
* * *
Las Vegas was beating off the night with neon. He drove past the incandescent casinos, his mind racing faster than the crawling traffic.
A motel, he decided. A cheap one—that’s what I need. To get the dust off. Nobody will listen to me if I look like I do right now.
Beyond the city’s brilliantly lit center he entered into one of the darker sections. The neon signs were smaller or broken, flickering their odd off-colors over shabbier, squatter buildings and the older cars parked around them. Ralph pulled the jeep in under a sign with red and green tubing twisted into the outline of a palm tree. The engine clattered for a few seconds when he turned the key, then sighed into silence as the fuel gauge needle fell the fraction of an inch to EMPTY.
“Always glad to see an army man in town,” said the gray-haired lady behind the motel office desk. She handed the room key to Ralph. “Have a good time.”
Perplexed, he stopped halfway through putting his wallet back in his pocket. He realized then that she had mistaken the Opwatch patch on the sleeve of his jacket for a military emblem. “Yes,” he said. “I will.”
I should’ve taken my civvies, he thought as he walked across the motel’s courtyard. He had a sudden, irrational fear that the Opwatch emblem, small as it was, could only help Muehlenfeldt’s agents spot him.
He let himself into the motel room and locked the door. On the bottom of the pink plastic trash can in the bathroom he found a discarded razor blade, its surface dotted with rust. He sat on the edge of the bed and carefully—the blade was dull and hard to work with:—picked at the threads holding the Opwatch insignia to the fabric. When it finally came loose he flushed the patch down the toilet, then laid the jacket out on the bed and sponged the dust from it with damp paper towels. He hung it by the window and then let a hot shower massage the driver’s cramp from his shoulders and arms.
“Is there a telephone booth around here?”
The gray-haired lady behind the desk smiled and nodded. “Just around there on the side of the building.”
Ralph closed the door and walked into the darkness on the office’s far side. He stepped into the glass cubicle and picked up the directory hanging by a chain below the telephone. I wonder if the FBI is open all night. He spread the book open, limp from constant use. Seems like they should be.
As he flipped through the tissue-pages, he looked up through the booth’s glass and froze. The row of parking spaces where he had left the jeep was visible from an oblique angle. Someone, a dark silhouette wearing a helmet, was leaning into the jeep and examining it. The motorcycle with the bullet-like black fairing could be seen, sleek and ominous under the streetlight.
Ralph ducked behind the metal bottom section of the booth. The telephone book dangled on its chain over his head. Slowly, he opened the folding door and peered out, his head close to the ground. The motorcyclist hadn’t spotted him yet. As he watched, another figure separated from the shadows and approached the one with the helmet.
They conferred for a moment, then started toward the motel office.
He crouched out of sight in the phone booth, waiting and listening to the tread of his two pursuers across the asphalt of the motel courtyard.
The office door opened, then closed. He crouched over and ran awkwardly to the parking spaces, scrambling into the jeep. The engine started with the first turn of the key, and in seconds he was on the street, accelerating and heading for the illuminated area of the city.
Jerk, he cursed himself as he drove. Just had to screw around and wait for them to catch up, didn’t you? He kept forgetting that in this universe there was no time, that everything was always later than he thought. Or too late. The jeep pressed on toward the surging neon.
The traffic was so thick in the main part of the city that he couldn’t see whether he was being followed or not. He pulled into a casino parking lot, beating out a wide Cadillac for the only vacant space, then got out and sprinted past the rows of empty cars that surrounded the empty building.
The noise and light inside reassured him. Somewhere out of sight, a band heavy with brass was playing, its sounds interspersed with the constant sound of people and money in motion. Words became altered and lost in a partly mechanical, partly human clatter. Ralph hurried through the lobby, beneath blazing tiered chandeliers and past slot machines with little flashing lights. Where, he thought with a combined desperation and irritation, do they keep the phones around here!
Across an expanse filled with more slot machines and people he spotted a booth. It was set against a wall that opened onto another gigantic room where people clustered around and stared into the depths of felt-lined tables. He hurried down the wide carpeted steps and started pushing his way through the nearest aisle.
A fat woman with blue hair and rhinestoned glasses—her small eyes glittered behind the lenses—stepped backwards into the aisle to watch the whirling symbols on the machine she was playing. She collided with Ralph as he tried to get past. A paper cup full of nickels dropped from her hand, and
the coins scattered over his shoes and the carpeting. “Hey!” she shrilled at him. “Watch where you’re going!”
“Sorry,” he called over his shoulder. He brushed past two more women, who stared at him indignantly and held their own paper cups tightly to their breasts. Finally he broke free into the clear space in front of the telephone booth. When he got inside it he pulled the folding door shut and sank onto the little seat in relief. The casino noises filtered softly through the clear panes of the booth. He placed the telephone book on his lap and opened it, the thin paper clinging to his sweating hands.
There was no listing for the FBI. Bewildered, he flipped back and forth through the book, looking under “Federal.”
“Bureau,” and “Investigation” with no results. He scanned all the subheadings under “U.S. Government,” but still found nothing. What’s going on here? he wondered, feeling cold dismay gathering inside him.
Finally, he slid a dime into the phone and dialed Information. “May I help you?” cooed the mechanical-sounding voice in his ear.
“Do you have a number for the FBI?” he said. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation?”
The line hummed for a second. “That number is unlisted,” said the operator. “I can put you through to it, though.”
A flurry of beeping electronic sounds, then he heard the sound of another telephone ringing. It went on for a long time until someone answered. “FBI,” a man’s voice said casually. There were the faint sounds of chewing and swallowing, as though he were eating a sandwich.
Ralph took a deep breath before he spoke. “I want to report a plot. A criminal conspiracy. They’re—”
The voice on the other end of the line sighed. “I don’t think we can do anything for you, then. You’ve got the wrong people.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“It’s all right,” said the voice. “We still get—well, not a lot, but a few—calls from people who still think the Bureau handles that sort of thing. I guess most people don’t know that we’ve been re-organized.”
“Re-organized?” said Ralph, incredulous.
“Oh, yeah. It was a long process, but it began when the old Hoover papers finally came out of the archives several years ago. A lot of stuff the old boy had done didn’t look too good, and Congress stepped in and started changing things around. The bureau was pretty low in prestige right then—hadn’t solved any big kidnappings or anything for a long time.
“It really began with the Watergate thing. So now we mainly just keep records and send out pamphlets to high school classes. That sort of thing.”
“Hell,” muttered Ralph. He kneaded his forehead with one hand. “Well, who am I supposed to—”
“What you want,” interrupted the voice, “is the Federal Security Agency. They kind of took over the things we used to do. Somebody had to.”
“Oh. How do I get hold of them?”
“They’re in the book. Okay? They ought to be able to fix you up, whatever your problem is. They all carry guns and do the TV hero bit. Just like the bureau used to be.” The voice sounded wistful, caught in memories.
“Thanks,” said Ralph.
“Glad to help.”
He already had the telephone book open to the letter F when it struck him. The initials, he thought. FSA. His hand turned the pages by itself and found the listing for the Federal Security Agency. There was a tiny illustration of the agency’s emblem. It was the same as the shoulder patch that Muehlenfeldt’s guards had been wearing.
No way, thought Ralph, staring at the tiny letters and numbers in the book. There is no way I’m going to call them. Besides, what’s the point?
He suddenly felt like laughing. They’re already here looking for me.
The telephone book fell from his lap as he stood up and opened the booth’s folding door. He stepped out into the open space that bordered the floorful of slot machines and their players. A man was striding rapidly toward him from around the other side. Ralph caught sight of the other’s grim face and started in the opposite direction. He broke into a run and glanced over his shoulder to see the man running now as well, brushing a waitress with a tray of drinks against the wall.
The gamblers at the tables looked up curiously as Ralph sprinted past them. A bulky man wearing a uniform like a policeman—one of the casino guards—stepped into his way, but Ralph managed to duck under the outstretched arms. Behind him he heard his pursuer collide with the guard. He looked back as he ran and saw the two men fall entangled to the ground. The sound of a gunshot hit Ralph like an electric shock. There was a second of quiet as the unseen band stopped playing, then a woman’s scream mixed with the harsh clatter of an alarm bell.
He had spotted a side exit and was through it before his pursuer had gotten up from the casino guard’s limp body. Behind him was the bright chaos of milling figures, scattering gamblers and more guards pouring in from nowhere. As Ralph plunged between the dark shapes in the parking lot he saw another figure running toward him from the street. There were no features visible in the darkness but he thought he recognized the outline of the motorcyclist.
“Metric!” called the figure. “Stop!”
Ralph had already changed directions, dodging between the cars as he tried to elude the other man. The parking lot seemed vast, an endless maze without light. From the street he had lost sight of came a mounting wail of sirens.
More figures appeared at the end of the aisle. He scrambled across the hood of a car and, his lungs aching, headed down another corridor.
The sharp noise of guns came at him from two directions. He dropped to his knees, his hand scraping painfully on the asphalt. Brief spurts of flame accompanied each shot, quick orange red flares in the darkness. A fragmented memory passed through his mind from a book about police: if the gouts of fire looked round, then the gun was being fired directly at you—if teardrop shaped, it was being fired in a different direction. There was no time to wonder why the flares at either side of the parking lot were spurting toward each other and not at him. He squeezed beneath the nearest parked car and crawled, his face brushing the asphalt, to the other side, away from the battering roar of the guns.
The firing became more sporadic but the flashes still tapered toward each other. Ralph got to his feet, crouched over and ran toward the border of the lot. On this side it was flanked by an unlit service road that curved around to the rear delivery entrance of the casino. He reached the road and suddenly heard the whine of an accelerating engine. The shape of a motorcycle was just visible hurtling toward him. Beyond it, a car was turning into the far end of the service road.
Ralph pivoted around in the now quiet parking lot but froze when he saw one of the figures running to him. Then, before he could make any movement, the motorcycle skidded around at his side, its roar drowning out the rest of the world. The machine’s rider slammed an arm across Ralph’s chest, then fell with him as the motorcycle toppled and spun away on its side.
Stunned, he lay on his back, the stars blurring above him as he gasped for breath. The motorcyclist didn’t get up, but still gripped Ralph fast about the waist.
As though from a great distance he heard the car stop and its doors open. Hands gripped him and lifted him from the ground. The motorcyclist’s arm loosened and he seemed to fall away in the darkness.
Ralph was emerging from his daze as he was deposited in the car’s back seat. The door slammed shut and the car sped around in a tight circle, jostling him against the seat’s other occupant as the wheels thumped over the curb of the narrow street.
“You sure gave us a hard time, Ralph,” said the person on the seat beside him.
He focused his vision on the other, then slumped down in the seat and stared at the lights reflected on the car’s ceiling. His mind was frozen wordless.
“Come on,” said Spencer Stimmitz. “Pull yourself together. We don’t have much time.”
Chapter 15
Wailing sirens had surrounded the car as it sped out of the cen
ter of the city. The noise was so loud that Spencer had given up trying to say anything more, but had merely grinned and gestured with his open palm for Ralph to be patient—all questions would be answered eventually. They both swayed as the motorcade wheeled off the highway and headed across the desert towards the waiting helicopter.
It seemed to be bouncing gently on its landing gear. The sirens died and Ralph could hear the urgent whup whup of the blades flashing silver in the moonlight. In front of the rough semicircle that the police motorcycles formed on the sand, the car pulled up and stopped.
“Come on,” said Spencer. He opened the door on his side, got out and strode rapidly to the helicopter. After a moment Ralph followed him.
“Hop in.” Spencer held open the curved transparent door.
Ralph looked into the machine’s cramped interior. There was barely room for two seats behind the pilot. The clear plastic sphere seemed fragile as a bubble. Something fell and connected inside himself and he suddenly backed away. “No,” he said, shaking his head.
Spencer stared at him. “Hey, what’s the matter?”
“I’m not getting in that thing. I’m not doing this stuff anymore.” He felt his face stiffening with blood. “I’m tired of getting fooled and fooled with by everybody that comes along. You’ve suckered me enough times already. I’m not going for anymore. You can try that universe out on somebody else.” He turned away, disgusted.
“What are you talking about?” said Spencer.
“Come on,” he said, turning to look at him again. The noise from the helicopter—the cool, expressionless pilot fluttered the throttle—and the uneasy blue lighting from the headlamps of the police motorcycles drained the reality from the scene. “You know what I mean,” shouted Ralph. “All that stuff with that phony Alpha Fraction and everything. Pretending to be part of a group working against Operation Dreamwatch, and then you show up here as one of Muehlenfeldt’s agents. And now you want me to climb in that thing? So you can toss me out over the desert or something?
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