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by J. Carson Black

  Luke, gloved in latex, gently pushed on the door at the end of the hallway.

  It was a small room. The curtains were pulled partway across the floor-to-ceiling glass window overlooking the pool. A lozenge of sunlight fell on the dingy carpet.

  Pat noted the laptop on a cheap veneer desk—some kind of picture on it. The image jittered slightly.

  But the object that dominated the room was a 60-inch, flat-screen, high-def LED TV, backlit by the window and the bright sunlight.

  An image from a homemade video frozen in the frame.

  A man sat in the murky turquoise gloom of what Pat knew instantly to be the bomb shelter. He sat on a chair, trussed up like a Thanksgiving Day turkey. His head hung low but he stared upward, into the camera. Blood clotted his forehead and dripped into his eyes.

  It took a moment for Pat to recognize the man.

  When he did, he felt the thrill of a job well done.

  When a case came together, it came together with the solid thunk of a car door closing. Final, like that.

  Now Pat knew who had killed the three men in the bomb shelter.

  He knew, because he’d met him yesterday at the Round Up Diner.

  The actor, Max Conroy.

  MAX MADE IT into town without being seen. It helped that he went cross-country through the desert. No water, in July, the humidity pulling any juices he had out of him. He stopped outside a little homestead, another small ramada, this one occupied by two horses. There were algae in their tank, but he wasn’t particular; he drank. Waited for the water to sink in, and drank again. He didn’t want to drink too quickly, or he’d get a stomachache and possibly eject the water. He’d learned that when he had done the remake of Hondo a few years ago.

  He encountered no one on the couple of occasions he had to cross a road. He guessed the sheriff’s office had sent everyone they had to the scene of the crime.

  His mind kept returning to the house, to the bomb shelter.

  The first deputy must have come across the woman and the boy.

  Either that, or the woman and the boy had found the bomb shelter, which meant they’d found Luther, Sam, and Corey.

  But they wouldn’t call anyone. He knew that in his bones. They would continue doing what they were doing. They were looking for him. And they’d almost found him.

  He could see it: the deputy pulling up to check out the house, seeing the shattered glass, the shot-out windows, and he would investigate.

  And the woman and the boy would shoot him. Max pictured him falling, talking into his radio. And they would…what? Finish him off.

  Yes, if he could identify them.

  He was glad the deputy who showed up wasn’t Tess. He was very glad about that. But he needed to find out what happened. He needed a TV, or at least a radio.

  Max formulated a loose plan as he skirted the main section of town. He’d go to the Subway by the freeway and see if he could get a trucker to drive him to Sedona.

  But then he saw the white truck in the parking lot—the new Chevy truck.

  They were here.

  He went into the convenience store inside the Pizza Hut across from the Subway instead. Glanced around and saw a couple of men eating lunch, who might be truckers. He thought about approaching them when they finished. And so he kept a low profile, looking through the magazines. Fortunately, his face wasn’t on any of the tabloid or celebrity mag covers, and neither was Talia’s. Lindsay Lohan was in trouble again. Thanks, Lindsay. He blended in, with his cheap shorts and Arizona tee. With the sunglasses, people didn’t give him a second look. He kept one eye on the plate glass window, until he saw the woman and the boy come out, get into the truck, and drive away.

  They headed down the road he’d come in on—maybe they were retracing their steps, looking for him.

  Max walked over to the tables in back where the truckers were. He chose the black guy. He wasn’t sure why.

  He approached the black trucker and asked him if he was heading north on 17. The guy gave him a weird look, then shook his head.

  OK, it was the white guy.

  He went up to him and asked the same question. The guy nodded.

  “Would you take a passenger? I’ve got money.”

  The guy eyed him. He looked mildly suspicious but not overly so. “I’m not supposed to carry passengers,” he said at last.

  Max pulled the money out of his jeans. “Here’s a hundred-dollar bill. All I want is to get to the Verde Valley. That’s not very far, is it?”

  “That’s a good way.”

  “A dollar a mile,” Max said. “Can’t do better than that.”

  “I don’t think so, buddy.”

  Max said, “I just need to get to Clarkdale. My ride broke down.”

  “You’re a little ripe, you want to know the truth.”

  “OK,” Max said. He laid down another hundred. “Does that make me smell any sweeter?”

  He hoped it did, because after that he had a ten, a five, and three ones.

  The guy took the money and stuck it in his jeans. “I guess I can put up with it for a while.”

  “Good.”

  “See that rig out there, the third one, parked at the edge of the lot? The blue cab? That’s mine. You go sit out there and wait till I finish my pizza.”

  Max did.

  The guy called out behind him, “You look familiar. I seen you before?”

  “Not around here,” Max said, and went out to wait by the truck.

  IT WAS HOT and muggy and his hair dripped with sweat. He sat in the shade of the semi truck, hands clasped around his knees, the asphalt burning through his cheap, thin shorts. About ten minutes in, he heard another big truck start up and cruise out of the parking lot, changing through the gears as it drove onto the on-ramp.

  Twenty minutes went by. The guy had to be finished with his pizza by now. How long did it take to wash his hands and clean up a little bit, if he had to?

  Max opened the glass door into the convenience store and almost bumped heads with the black trucker. He scanned the booths—his trucker was gone. “Hey,” he said. “You know that trucker who was sitting with me?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  Max went into the bathroom. Nobody there. He came back out and found himself watching the black trucker walk to his rig and get in.

  His rig with the blue cab.

  Max knew he’d been conned. Max realized that having everything taken care of for him all this time, he’d lost his street smarts.

  He was left with eighteen dollars, no credit card, a couple of cheap prepaid phones, and a stolen semiautomatic pistol.

  Then it occurred to him: Dave.

  Dave Finley, his buddy. Dave said he was coming. Sometimes it was hard to know if he was serious. Dave was a fountain of ideas—he put words to any stray thought that drifted through his transom—but he wasn’t big on follow-through. Max hadn’t taken Dave seriously when he’d suggested they meet and then ride back. More than likely, Dave had forgotten all about it.

  Still…

  Max went over his other options. He could go to the sheriff’s office and tell them the whole story. About how he was kidnapped by Sam, Luther, and Corey. About the woman and the boy. He doubted they’d believe him, though. They’d see him with blood on his shirt and jeans, and ask to look in his duffel bag. The guns, the phones…

  By the time he’d explained everything—if he was able to convince them of his innocence—he would have lost half a day. He wanted to get to Gordon and he wanted to get to him now.

  Max recalled seeing a TV set hanging from the ceiling at the Subway. It would be good to know just what he was up against. The deputy had spotted him and his fingerprints were all over the stolen truck. He needed to know what had happened in that house.

  Head lowered, looking downtrodden and homeless, he shambled over to the Subway. He certainly was ripe enough now. No one looked at him; as a matter of fact, they looked at anything but him. He went to stand in front of the TV set. A game show was
on. He waited. No one came up to ask him to get out of the way. He looked at a family sitting in one of the booths, and caught the eye of the mother. Her gaze slid away immediately, and she concentrated on her sandwich.

  He was the next best thing to invisible.

  Max knew the two kids manning the counter were talking about him behind his back. They wanted to tell him to leave. You do it. No, you do it.

  Here he was, Max Conroy, whose face was on every newsstand in every grocery store in the country, and people couldn’t see past his grimy clothes, dirty complexion, and body odor.

  Finally, there was the local announcer, breaking in with news.

  Max watched the announcer’s lips move. The sound was turned on low. There was a shot of Sam’s house. Max watched as two people pushed a gurney holding a black body bag out of the carport toward a waiting white van.

  He didn’t feel anything—he realized he’d been expecting it.

  He swallowed on a dry throat.

  He felt as if everyone was watching him, but of course they weren’t. His ears burned anyway. And then it hit home.

  He knew all three men were dead. And he’d been the one responsible. He’d left them there—

  Like fish in a barrel.

  He shut his eyes, but it didn’t shut out the bad feeling.

  Nothing he could do about it now. Except run.

  He called Dave. “You mean what you said about coming out here?”

  “I said I was. I’m on my way, man.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, I said I would.”

  “Where are you?”

  “About two-and-a-half, three hours from Paradox.”

  Max said, “When you get here, I’ll be…” He glanced over at the tamarisk tree on the corner across the street from the truck stop. He described it. The abandoned adobe house right behind it, the empty lot, the tree with shade as black as ink. You could hide a baseball team in there.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  MAX SAT UNDER the tree for approximately twenty minutes before deciding to go back to the Subway and get himself a bottle of water and something to eat—at least a candy bar. He’d be waiting under the tree for a long time. And Max wanted to find out what was happening at the house on Ocotillo Road. He knew his fingerprints were all over the crime scene.

  Once again, he was able to walk into the crowded sub shop and nobody recognized him. He shouldn’t be surprised.

  Max and Dave used to go for long rides, stopping in at biker bars all over Southern California. Dave wasn’t his exact double, but he looked a lot like him and acted like him too. When they went to biker bars, Dave would wear Max’s Breitling watch, the diamond stud in his ear, and dress better. Max would look scruffy, cheaper. He even had a clip-on ponytail. And the bikers would buy drinks for “Max Conroy”—Dave—because they knew he rode. They’d buy drinks for Max too.

  Max had learned to turn it on and off. At a certain point, Dave would be outside checking his bike, and Max would go off to the bathroom. When he came out, people in the bar would suddenly see him as Max Conroy, not the guy they’d been hanging out with playing pool. It was like a light switch—just a change in the way he saw himself, his attitude.

  He also knew how to give the paparazzi the slip.

  But he used them too. He went to certain parties and clubs, attended events like golf tournaments and rock concerts, and let them snap away. He did it because an actor could not just stand still. Part of the job was actively courting publicity. You had to get your name splashed across the tabloids, your photos on sites like TMZ. The constant speculation about his marriage, about the coming baby, about his potential breakups, his drug use—he fed the fire. He had to. If he didn’t keep running, the parade would pass him by. He didn’t like it, but that was the game.

  There were certain paps he tipped off. Certain photo ops he went for. He would have liked to fit a narrative, but because he used and he drank, that didn’t always work out. The narrative chose him. So much of it, if not manufactured outright, was blown out of proportion. Jerry Gold was a master at this. So was his publicist, Diane.

  Diane must be going nuts right about now.

  So he walked into the Subway and nobody noticed him.

  Then he glanced up at the TV. And saw his face.

  He knew the photo—it was an arrest photo for a public drunk charge five years ago. He looked one hell of a lot better than Nick Nolte.

  Max was still wearing his Arizona cap. He tilted his face downward, but looked up under the brim.

  The announcer was saying that Max Conroy was a “person of interest” in the killings at the house on Ocotillo.

  Panic surged, but abated quickly. He was Max Conroy. No one would believe this—it was impossible.

  But still. Person of interest.

  Max decided he’d err on the side of caution and get out of here. He couldn’t wait for Dave. He wanted to get to the Desert Oasis, wanted Gordon to tell him the truth. He needed to go and he needed to go now.

  He walked to the door. Calm. Anonymous. He pushed the door open, held it for a girl with a stroller and a little boy. She didn’t say thank you, didn’t even look at him.

  Good.

  Out in the blaring sunlight, he looked around. Turned right and started for the side of the building, thinking about the long wait ahead of him.

  Then he saw them—the woman and the boy. They appeared to be killing time outside the Pizza Hut. The boy looked resentful, but the woman seemed to have an air of satisfaction about her, as if she’d won a round or two. But he knew the woman’s eyes were roving behind her sunglasses, like a spotlight moving back and forth across the landscape. Restless, always probing.

  Just looking at her chilled him to the bone.

  He ducked back from the corner of the building.

  Did they see him?

  He knew—knew—they were looking for him.

  Everyone was looking for him. He was a person of interest. But if the woman and the boy got him, God only knew what would happen. Look what they had done to the men in the house.

  He pictured a scene out in the desert—saw it cinematically—and they were walking him to his execution. He saw his death: two to the back of the head, left for the coyotes to clean up.

  A car cruised by. It was the deputy in an unmarked cop car. The car slowed to a stop. He could reach her in three strides.

  He thought of the woman and the boy and came to a conclusion.

  Crazy.

  But so was he.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  TESS WAS ALMOST to the freeway entrance when she saw the big truck blocking the on-ramp—Sunline Traders. Both of Paradox’s PD cars were parked behind it, and a Paradox PD officer was placing reflective triangles out on the road.

  Tess circled the parking lot around the Subway, thinking she could use something cold to drink. Mostly she was thinking about how she’d approach Gordon White Eagle. She put the car in park, and that was when the passenger door wrenched open and she found herself staring at the famous movie star, Max Conroy. He slid into the car. “Don’t try anything. I have a gun.”

  Tess looked down. He did have a gun in the waistband of his jeans, and his hand hovered near it.

  She had no idea of his abilities, but he could draw the weapon and shoot her, or shoot himself, or shoot wild. Guns were unpredictable that way.

  Cursing the fact that her new ride had a broken locking mechanism, Tess raised her hands. Don’t antagonize him. Play for time. All those bromides that had been scrupulously inculcated into her. Because of her “ability,” she remembered every single moment of every lesson. The problem was, Tess not only got the lesson, but every subfile of the lesson.

  Don’t antagonize. Play for time. De-escalate the situation.

  As if reading her mind, he said again, “Don’t try anything.”

  “I won’t.”

  He saw her phone on the seat between them at the same time she did. He grabbed it, buzzed his window down,
and threw it out. “I don’t want to kill you, but I will if I have to.”

  That was a cliché she’d heard in at least fifteen movies. Those exact words.

  “I’m good,” she said. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Drive.”

  “Drive where?”

  “Up I-17.”

  “OK,” she said. “Do you see that truck over there? Sunline Traders?”

  He said nothing. She glanced out the corner of her eye and saw that although Conroy was nervous, he was also in control. She wondered what he had to lose. The impression she got was: nothing.

  “The truck?” she said again. “It’s blocking the freeway entrance.”

  “Then take the access road.”

  No choice. She did.

  THEY DROVE. MAX couldn’t believe he had threatened the deputy with a weapon. It was unreal. He knew what he was doing would change everything. It would end badly. He knew that, but he didn’t see that he had a choice.

  “You don’t have a radio,” he said.

  “No.”

  “Why is that?”

  “The car’s new.”

  “Oh.”

  The guy in the pink granny glasses and the shower cap materialized between them. Shoved his bony elbow into Max’s side. Max could see his own hand, still hovering over the semiautomatic pistol’s butt sticking out of his waistband, with Shower Cap superimposed over it. Max could see right through him.

  Shower Cap said, “Tell her what happened.”

  “Why should I? She won’t believe me.”

  The deputy glanced at him, her eyes sharp. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing. Just keep your eyes on the road and drive.”

  “You need her help,” Shower Cap said.

  “Fuck off, I’m doing this my way!”

  This time the deputy didn’t glance at him. She glanced at his gun. Her voice was calm—soothing but in charge. “Do what ‘your way’?” she asked him.

  He didn’t answer. What could he say? He was hallucinating? He was the one with the gun—he didn’t owe her any explanations. He just wanted to get to Gordon White Eagle.