Los Alamos

by Joseph Kanon

  More screams. Footsteps. Hector looked down at him, hesitating for a split second, then, sneering, brought up his foot and kicked from the side, knocking the gun out of Connolly’s hands. It slithered across the polished wood floor toward the corner, and Connolly lost sight of it as the workboot came up again, kicking him. He fell over, his face hitting the floor with another crack.

  “Stop it!” Emma’s voice. Dimly, Connolly saw her pounding Hector’s back. His face raging, Hector turned away from Connolly and flung her aside as if her fists were nothing more than wasp stings. She fell against the pedestal, the scrap-metal cowboy crashing to the floor beside her.

  Connolly tried to stand, but Hector’s foot caught him in the stomach, and when he fell this time he put his hands around his head, curling his body into itself to protect it from the blows. “Stop it!” he heard Emma scream again. Then there was another kick to his chest. He groaned. Hector kicked him again, a machine now, uncontrollable. Connolly realized that if he didn’t move, he was going to die, bludgeoned to death like Karl. Then, in some bizarre transference, he turned to look up and saw not Hector but Emma, her hand held high in the air, swinging the metal down toward him, just the way it must have happened at San Isidro. When he turned his head slightly to protect his eyes, he heard the statue connect, a crack, a thud into flesh, and heard Hector grunt, rearing his head back so that the force of the smash was strengthened and the horse’s hooves pushed into his scalp. There was an explosion of blood from Hector’s head, spattering in a circle around them, an oil well of blood, before he fell over, partially covering Connolly, his body twitching in one long drawn-out spasm.

  Connolly heard the statue fall to the side. Now there were lots of voices, screams of surprise, and he knew it was almost over. He looked along the floor to the gun in the corner, but it was gone. Raising his head to see better, he felt the nausea that he knew meant he would black out. He stretched his fingers to grasp the statue and drew it toward him by the hooves, so that when the crowd finally arrived it was clutched in his hand, and with his breath crushed by the weight of the body on top of him and his face sticky with blood, he did pass out.

  He couldn’t have been out more than a minute. He felt Hector’s body being lifted off him, then hands hooked under his arms, pulling him to his feet, holding him from behind. “Jesus Christ,” someone said, and Connolly looked at Hector too, his head still oozing blood. Connolly weaved, dizzy, trying to draw breath through the dull pain in his chest. For a moment nobody moved, and Connolly saw the drops of blood on the painting next to him, the end of the arc. One of the guests was leaning over Hector’s body, turning it so that his face, absolutely still, stared up at them. His legs, twisted, hadn’t moved with the rest of him. Connolly tried to move toward him, but someone still held his arms, restraining him.

  “Somebody get an ambulance,” the man kneeling over Hector said, feeling the side of his neck for a pulse.

  Connolly saw Holliday run into the room, people moving aside in a wave to let him through. He stopped in front of the body, taking in the scene—Connolly with his arms pinned, the statue still dangling from one of his hands, the giant body lying on the floor, blood spreading out from the head in a small lake.

  “Let him go,” he said to the man behind Connolly, and Connolly, his arms suddenly free, slumped against the wall. He watched Holliday bend over and examine the pupils, then close the lids of the Mexican’s eyes.

  “Oh my God,” someone in the crowd said.

  “Call my office,” Holliday said to the man next to him. “Get some of the boys over here. Quick.” Then, turning to Connolly, “You all right?”

  Connolly, still breathing heavily, nodded, feeling another wave of nausea as he moved his head.

  “This the guy?” Holliday said simply.

  Connolly nodded again. The nausea was gone now, and he took a handkerchief from his back pocket to stanch the blood in his nose.

  “Broken?” Holliday said. Connolly nodded. “Anything else?”

  “Maybe a rib. I don’t know.”

  “He’s lucky to be alive,” a woman said. “He was kicking him, kicking him. It was awful.” Everyone seemed to be talking.

  Holliday turned toward the guests. “You folks want to give me a little room here?” His voice, easy and unhurried, stopped them. “How about all of you wait outside till the boys get here. But don’t anybody run away now— we’ll need to make a report,” he said, slipping into his small-town police manner.

  “I saw everything,” the woman said, beginning to cry. “It was awful. Awful.” Someone took her arm to lead her away. The room began to empty, some people craning their necks to get a last look.

  Holliday looked at the body, then up at Connolly. “He’s dead,” he said simply. “You kill him?”

  Connolly nodded.

  “Well, that’s a hell of a thing. He come after you?”

  “It was him. He killed Bruner.”

  An ambulance siren wailed outside, rising over the voices on the patio.

  “Who was the woman with him?” Holliday said calmly.

  “Hannah. His boss.”

  But where was she? Connolly looked around the empty room, suddenly panicked. “Where’s Emma?” he said, but Holliday didn’t know what he was talking about. “Doc, come on.” He moved away from the wall, but Holliday stood up, blocking him.

  “Take it easy. I don’t want two bodies on my report.”

  “I’m all right.”

  “Well, we got a killing here.”

  “Doc, she’s got the gun.”

  “Who?”

  “Hannah,” he said impatiently. “The other one. I’ll explain it later. She’s got the gun.”

  Holliday stared at him as the ambulance crew rushed into the room, carrying a stretcher. Connolly could see police uniforms moving through the crowd on the patio.

  “Doc, now,” he said. “She’ll kill her.”

  Holliday looked at him for another minute, deciding. The ambulance crew swarmed around them. Then he said, “I’ll drive.”

  On the patio, people moved away as Connolly approached, afraid to make contact with the violence. “Ask them,” he said to Holliday. “Somebody must have seen them leave.” Holliday glanced at him and turned to a group standing next to one of his men, already reporting details of the fight.

  But it was Chalmers, finally, who came forward, hypnotized by the blood on Connolly’s face. A black Chevy, yes. Emma’s car. Heading down toward the bridge. Not the Cerrillos Road, to Albuquerque. The bridge. He thought they’d been too frightened to stay. Two of them, yes. He hoped it wasn’t wrong, their leaving the scene—

  Connolly grabbed Holliday, moving him toward the street, so that a few people, puzzled, thought, that it was the chief who was being taken into custody.

  “They’re going to her ranch,” Connolly said, getting in the car. “Up past Tesuque.”

  But when they reached the Alameda, one of Holliday’s men, on traffic duty, had seen the car going west. “Hell of a way to get to Tesuque,” Holliday said.

  “The Hill,” Connolly said.

  “Now why would they do that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Just in case, Holliday ordered the traffic cop to check the road to Albuquerque, then turned sharply onto the Alameda, wrenching the gearshift hard so that the car shuddered as they shot forward.

  Connolly was wiping his face, the handkerchief stiff now with dried blood.

  “How’s your rib?”

  “It hurts. Maybe just a bruise.”

  “You ought to get that taped. You could puncture a lung.”

  Then they were out of town, rounding one of the low hills to an open stretch of yucca and gray mesquite. “Can’t you go any faster?” Connolly said, still anxious.

  “If they’re going that fast, somebody’s likely to pick them up. Save us the trouble.”

  “She wouldn’t be thinking that clearly. She just wants to get away.”

  “She capable
of killing her?”

  “Yes,” Connolly said grimly.

  “Then we better not let her see us. First rule of pursuit—the minute they see you, they’ll go that much faster.”

  “That doesn’t mean you have to slow down.”

  “Well, that looks to be them up ahead.”

  In the distance, Connolly saw the dark speck of a car heading toward the Jemez foothills. “How long have you known?” he said, looking at Holliday.

  “Few miles. You ought to calm down—you’d see more. ‘Course, when you do this for a living you get a feeling for it. Now look at that,” he said, as Emma’s car took a curve wide. “Not a very good driver, is she?”

  “No.”

  “Someone special to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Funny thing. Someone back there thought it was a woman hit him.”

  “No. Me. The statue was on the floor. I grabbed it just in time.”

  “He was on the floor, was he?”

  “Bent over. He was leaning over to pop me.”

  Holliday was quiet for a minute. “It could have happened that way, I guess.”

  “It did,” Connolly said, looking at him. “I don’t think anybody could’ve seen it clearly. He was blocking the way.”

  “And of course it all happened so fast.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What’d you say to him, got him so excited?”

  “I told him we had proof he killed Bruner.”

  Holliday paused. “That would do it.”

  The road was climbing now, out of the Rio Grande Valley, and it was more difficult to keep the car in sight.

  “Sure does look like they’re heading for the Hill.”

  “Don’t lose her.”

  But a huge cattle truck, lumbering off a secondary road, swung onto the highway to block their view.

  “Pass him,” Connolly said.

  “Now just where in hell do you expect me to do that?”

  They crept up behind the truck, close enough to see the cattle watching them through the slats. The truck ground upward, slowing at each incline, spewing clouds of diesel exhaust. Connolly leaned over to beep the horn, but there was nowhere for the truck to go; the narrow shoulders rimmed the side of the hill. There was an agony of waiting as the truck made its way up the high grades of Highway 4, trapping Holliday’s car and another behind it. Finally, a few miles before the turnoff for Frijoles Canyon, the truck slowed nearly to a stop and turned onto a dirt road that dropped precipitously to some canyon where lonely grazing land was waiting.

  Holliday, in a hurry now, lurched forward, spinning around a curve so tightly that Connolly was thrown against the door. Pine trees passed in a blur. Connolly craned his neck, hoping to see the car around each turn, but they still hadn’t spotted it by the time they reached the turnoff for the west gate. Improbably, a sign posted in the middle of the road announced that it was closed.

  “Well, what the hell,” Holliday said.

  “They put it there. So nobody would follow. Just drive in.” Even as he said it, he remembered the extra security, sealing the Hill before the test. But where else would they go?

  Holliday drove around the sign and sped down the gate road. The same Georgia cracker was on duty at the sentry post. He came out carrying a rifle, clearly upset to see the car.

  “Can’t you fucking read?” he said, his twang turned mean. “This road’s closed.”

  “Black Chevy come through here?” Connolly said.

  “Ain’t nobody come through here. Road’s closed. Can’t you read?” He took up the rifle.

  Holliday flashed his badge out the car window. “Put your dick back in your pants,” he said. “Now, that car come through here or not? Two ladies.”

  “No, sir,” the soldier said sullenly.

  Holliday turned to Connolly. “Now what?”

  They’d been on Highway 4. He’d seen them. Had they slipped into one of the canyons? Frijoles? Those were traps, nature’s dead ends. It had to be the Hill. But they didn’t know the gate road would be closed. They’d have no choice but to continue on. Maybe she had even planned it that way. Anybody trailing them would come here, following the wrong scent.

  “They’re still on 4,” Connolly said.

  “They could have turned off. They could be anywhere.”

  “She’s not hiding. She’s running.” All the way to the Pacific, he thought. “Come on, just a little farther.”

  They saw nothing for miles. They drove by the green valley of the caldera, Connolly thinking of that other drive, to Chaco, when everything had changed.

  “If you’re wrong, we’re just going farther and farther in the wrong direction,” Holliday said. “This road’s a bitch.” They were driving into the sun, and at this speed the curves and hills came at them like an obstacle course. There was no other traffic—Sunday.

  “She’s heading for 44,” Connolly said. “Why else would they come this way?”

  “If they did.”

  And then, minutes later, coming down from the caldera, the views began to open up and they saw the car below them, moving through the landscape like a figure in a child’s picture book.

  “Get closer,” Connolly said.

  “Why?”

  He imagined the Chevy for a minute on a canyon road, a short detour, one shot. How long would Hannah feel she needed her? “I want to see if they’re both still there.”

  Holliday glanced at him, then nodded quickly. “You’re the boss.”

  The car, already going fast, speeded up, taking one dip in the road so quickly that for a moment they felt suspended. When their stomachs followed them down, Connolly groaned.

  “Open the glove compartment,” Holliday said.

  Connolly leaned over and pushed the button. The door of the compartment flapped down. He stared at the gun, struck by its size, the bulky carved handle and long, thin barrel. A Western gun. It was like looking at a snake, threatening even when it was still. He touched it, as cold as dead flesh, and held his hand there, feeling another death. But the violence ended with Hector. Karl to Eisler to—The chain had to stop now.

  “Ever use one?” Holliday said.

  “No,” Connolly said, taking it out. A cowboy gun. Chasing the runaway stagecoach across the screen. A prop. Heavy. One shot. “We need her alive,” he said, taking his hand away. “She’s the key.”

  “Who?”

  “Both of them.”

  Holliday took a breath. “Leave it on the seat. Just in case.”

  “Could you hit one of the tires?” Connolly said.

  “You don’t want to do that. Not at this speed.”

  Connolly placed it carefully on the seat next to Holliday. It wasn’t finished. Guns go off. For a second he wanted to stop the car, stop everything in time before it moved the next notch. Hannah was bound to be caught, somehow. He saw her at a train station, melting into the crowd, leaving Emma in the car. But Emma was still, slumped against the door.

  When he looked up, he saw the sign for Jemez Springs. Everything now reminded him of that other drive. They were still dropping, literally putting a mountain between them and the dead man in Santa Fe.

  “They see us,” Holliday said.

  The car in front of them jerked with a new burst of speed. Connolly imagined Hannah’s panic. Her one chance was to lose herself in all the empty space, leaving the past behind the mountain. You could do that in the West. Now it was following her, a bogeyman always just over her shoulder. No time to be careful. She would have the gun on Emma, watching her steer, then looking out the window behind, trapped.

  “Not too close,” Connolly said. “She has to stop sometime.”

  “She’s not going to stop,” Holliday said quietly.

  Connolly saw the few buildings of town, Emma’s Chevy streaking through, past the wide porch of the old hotel, the gas station. Suddenly a police car pulled into the street behind her. Our old friend the speed trap, Connolly thought. Emma had been so annoyed. Bu
t not now. Get out of the way, he wanted to scream, you don’t know. But the traffic cop, jolted from his lazy afternoon watch, kept on them, his one chance for a ticket. When they didn’t stop, he turned on his siren.

  The noise cracked the air like a long scream. Connolly felt his own blood pump faster, triggered by the sharp wail, and he knew that Hannah’s would be racing. The siren wouldn’t stop. It surrounded them, louder and closer, as if the air itself were chasing them. He imagined Hannah turning to see—not just Connolly’s car now, but the lights and the siren, a whole posse. She was being run to ground.

  “Idiot. He’s got to stop,” Connolly yelled to no one.

  They flashed through the town and then they were back in the hills again, but the cop kept going, inching closer to the lead car. It’s not speeding, Connolly wanted to shout. You’re ruining everything. But that wasn’t the point anymore. Now it was Emma, hands clenched on the wheel, terrified, the air shrieking around her. And his own helplessness. He’d found out everything and it didn’t matter. He couldn’t help her.

  When they started climbing the long hill, the police car gained on them, the siren still furious and insistent. Holliday, grim, was pushing their car as fast as it could go, flashing his headlights to get the cop’s attention. Nobody stopped. When Emma reached the top, the car shuddered for an instant, then banked into a sharp curve. Connolly saw it swerve. Then the squeal of tires as it slid toward the edge of the road, the crack as it hit the tree, so fast that it bounced away, fishtailing back in an uncontrollable circle until it flew off the road, plunging backward over the side. He heard the sound of metal crashing, louder even than the siren, a roar. Connolly’s mind went blank. He thought for a second that he could not see, but that was only because the car was gone.

  At the top, he jumped from Holliday’s car even before it stopped, the momentum pitching him forward, past the traffic cop standing at the side of the road, over the rim, then down the hill in great leaps, sending up clouds of dust. The car was on its side, driver’s side up, steam rising from the hood. There was glass everywhere. Running, Connolly thought he heard a new siren, but it was his own screaming, shouting her name. He was still screaming for her when he fell against the car, unable to stop his run. Pain shot through his chest. He yanked the door handle, pulling with both hands until it finally came unstuck and popped open. The angle of the car made it snap back, hitting him on the shoulder, and he groaned, then pushed it again until it stayed open. She was flung over the steering wheel, her face covered with blood, not moving.