Paradox Bound: A Novel

by Peter Clines

  “To be clear,” Truss said, “when I’m saying I’ll buy it, I’ll offer a very fair price.”

  A noise—a very sharp, deliberate noise—came from behind them. Harry spun around, one of her pistols whipping out as she did. Eli flinched back and turned to look.

  Helena scraped her heel against the corner of a warehouse a few feet away. Her modern clothes had been ditched for a dark dress and corset with a tight coat over it. She settled against the building and crossed her arms. She and Harry shot daggers at each other for a moment before Harry’s pistol drifted back down.

  “You can’t buy us off,” Eli said to Truss. He glanced at Harry. “Money’s useless, right?”

  “A fair point,” she said, her gaze sliding back to the old man. “Money’s no good on the road, and your favors aren’t worth the wood they’re scribbled on. So what could you even offer us?”

  Truss’s sneer shifted again, back into something closer to a smile. “But that’s what I’m offering you. Both of you. A way to get off the road.”

  Harry laughed. “There’s no way off the road. You drive until someone finds the dream or you die.”

  “Or until you find a way off,” said Truss. “Like Alice Ramsey did.”

  The mocking smile vanished from Harry’s face.

  The old man’s grin widened, showing off too-white veneers. “Want to know something fascinating about the faceless men? As a show of my goodwill, I’ll tell you their greatest weakness.”

  “Lots of long-range gunfire, last I checked.”

  “Paperwork.”

  Eli and Harry both blinked. “I beg your pardon?” she asked.

  “Paperwork,” repeated the old man. “Bureaucracy. The faceless men find us through the ripples we leave in history. Government records, business records, banking, newspapers. That’s how they find things beyond their certainty.”

  “Hasn’t really seemed like a weakness, in my experience,” Harry said.

  Truss snorted again. “Oh, but it is. The faceless men can’t find anything when there’s no record of it, no paper trail. Eliminate that and the odds of them finding something—or someone—drop like a rock.” He turned his beady gaze on Eli. “And what’s the best way for someone to get rid of their paper trail, Teak?”

  Harry glanced at Eli. “Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?”

  Some of the stories and jokes about Truss rolled to the front of Eli’s mind. “You become someone else,” he said, staring at his boss. “You set up a fake identity with all the paperwork and ID to back it up.”

  Truss extended a bony finger and stabbed it emphatically toward Eli. “Why do you think the faceless men have never come after me,” said the old man, “even though I have a seventy-year business sitting in plain sight, right under their noses? I switch identities depending on when I am. Like the old song says, I am my own grandpa. And my great-grandpa. The faceless men see a well-documented family line, but don’t realize it’s all just one person.” His face twisted into another skeletal grin. “Truss isn’t even the name I was born with. They keep looking for Edward Longcarriage.”

  Harry gaped at him. “And we’re supposed to believe that fools them?”

  Truss made a showy, exaggerated shrug. “It’s like hiding money. Or a mistress. They might know you’re doing it, but if they can’t make the connections, can’t actually catch you at it…” He put up his hands in a what-can-you-do pose.

  Helena let out a wispy laugh behind them.

  Eli glanced over his shoulder, then back to Truss. “So you’re offering to…what? Give us new identities?”

  “If that’s what you want,” Truss said. “Pick somewhere to settle down and I’ll make it worth your while. New identity, passport, perfect credit history. I can even get you a high school yearbook if you want it. I think I own four or five private schools.”

  Svetlana held up four fingers.

  “Four, then. Still easy to get a full history for the two of you. Or just rewrite the one you had. Hell, Teak, we could drop you back in history right where you left. Nothing new to get used to except the fact you’ll be filthy rich. How much do you want? A hundred million?” He tossed the number out with the ease of a man standing behind a bar and offering a bowl of pretzels.

  “Not interested,” Harry said. “Some of us aren’t in this search for personal gain.”

  Eli pictured a hundred million dollars breaking down across banking spreadsheets, and briefly considered just how much personal gain they were talking about.

  Truss spread his hands again. “Your choice, of course. All I can do is dangle the carrot. You still have to take it.”

  “I know you, Truss,” said Harry. “Everyone knows you. You’re not to be believed or trusted.”

  “You can trust I’ll pay handsomely to get what I want. But at some point…I’m going to stop offering.”

  Harry flicked her coat back. Her hands settled by the holsters. “I’m hoping that wasn’t a threat.”

  Helena walked past them, stretching her arms out and straining her corset. She rolled her head as she crossed the street. Her neck popped as she settled next to her employer, across from Svetlana. If the two women noticed Harry’s weapons, it didn’t show on their faces. Or in their body language.

  Truss looked at them. The thin lines of pleasantness vanished. “You’ve got two days to think about it. I’ll be in touch.”

  Svetlana escorted the old man toward the Cadillac’s rear door and closed it after him. The two women slipped into the Sixty Special’s front seats. The engine grumbled to life, the headlights flared, and Eli flinched as the car rolled forward. It swung around and headed up the street. The horn sounded twice as it vanished around a corner.

  Harry dropped into a crouch, like an exhausted runner. “Consarn it.”

  Eli took a few steps past her, looking up the street and listening. “He’s gone,” he announced after a moment. “I can’t hear their engine.”

  Harry pushed herself back to her feet. The fingers of her right hand rolled themselves into a fist.

  “I said he’s go—”

  She slammed the fist into his shoulder, right where it flowed into his chest. A solid, bruise-leaving punch. “YOU WORK FOR HIM?!” The second blow hit hard before the pain from the first one had fully registered.

  Eli saw the next one coming for his face and got his hands up. Her knuckles cracked against the side of his wrist, sparing his nose. “I didn’t know who he was!”

  Her fists trembled in the air.

  “I told you, he owns the bank. There was about a hundred levels of bureaucracy between him and me. I’d only seen him three times in six years. I’d only ever spoken to him once.”

  Harry’s fist dropped a few inches. “I trusted you.”

  “You still can. You saw his face. He was surprised to see me here.”

  “That weasel’s ability to lie is legendary on the road.”

  “He doesn’t even know my name.”

  “As I just said,” she snapped.

  “He’s a liar,” said Eli. “Not me. Have I ever lied to you?”

  She stared at him. “I don’t know. A few hours ago I would’ve said no.”

  “And you’d be right.”

  “I wish I could believe you, Mr. Teague.” She emphasized the formal name. “But there’s just too much at stake.”

  27

  They drove for six hours.

  From the sun and the occasional road sign, they seemed to be heading west again. They traveled along Route 66. For an hour or so, the road became hard-packed dirt under the Model A’s wheels.

  At one point, in the distance, a few skeletal buildings flickered and became a small town for a few moments. He guessed it to be somewhen around the Great Depression, but mostly because the town looked damned depressing, even at its peak. Then the moments passed and the buildings fell back into history.

  Eli tried to engage Harry a few times. He asked questions about where and when they were, others about her
past. Twice he asked about the faceless men. He wondered, out loud, why Truss was so eager to get what little information they had about Frank Hawkins. Harry glanced at him a few times during these questions, then shook her head and returned her attention to the road. His questions gave way to random statements about things they passed. Big trucks. Odd rocks. Fields of different grains.

  After a while, Harry made a point of shifting the Model A’s gears whenever he tried to talk. Eleanor’s transmission whined. The noise moved conversation from challenging to almost impossible.

  Eli took the hint. The past three hours had been silent. He shifted on the rumble seat and watched history roll by outside the car.

  Two hours after sundown, they stopped for the night somewhere in Oklahoma. She didn’t offer him food, and dumped out the blankets. Eli grabbed himself one of the greasy biscuits—only one left after this—took his blanket, and walked a few feet away.

  Harry folded her own blanket, swung it out, and folded the top few inches over to make a thin pillow.

  “Good night, Harry.”

  A long minute passed. “I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice barely carried through the night.

  “What?”

  He heard her move, saw her outline shift on her own blanket. She cleared her throat. “I said I’m sorry.”

  “The crickets are really loud tonight, could you—”

  “Don’t be an ass, Mr. Teague.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Please forgive me for being so…closed off today. Truss generally puts me on edge, more so when he has me at a disadvantage. And then adding in the revelation of your past with him—”

  “I don’t have a past with him.”

  “Your relationship, then.”

  “I definitely don’t have a relationship with him,” said Eli.

  She snorted. “Let’s just say your tenuous connection to him didn’t present itself at the most opportune moment in our fledgling partnership. I’m reasonably certain you have no loyalty to the weasel, and I’m sorry I reacted as I did. I ask your forgiveness.”

  He looked over at her. “Reasonably?”

  “I’m only human.”

  “Well, in that case, of course I forgive you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Eli rolled onto his back and stared up at the night sky. “At least it’s still a partnership.”

  “I suppose it is.”

  “I spent a few hours today wondering if you were going to leave me stranded somewhere.”

  “Oh, I still might,” she said, readjusting her body on the blanket, “but you can rest assured it’ll have nothing to do with this.”

  “I’ll remember that as I’m dying alone somewhere.”

  Harry chuckled. A soft, light sound that faded into the night. “Plus, you’d probably make a mess of history,” she added. “Make my job even more difficult.”

  Eli stared up at the stars and yawned. The sky seemed bigger than it did back in Sanders. He’d read about it before, some kind of perception thing, but he’d never thought it would seem so…true. He swung his head left to right in lazy arcs, trying to find the edge of the night.

  “So,” he yawned, “are we going to head back tomorrow and try to catch up with Hawkins before Truss does?”

  She was quiet for a long time. Eli felt a twinge of worry that he’d somehow offended her again, and then realized she’d just beat him to sleep. He waited to hear her snore, but then sleep caught him too.

  —

  The next morning, they drove for another three hours without conversation, but it was a gentler silence. Eli used the time to watch the country roll by outside the Model A. He’d heard of the Great Plains in school, but never imagined such a vast stretch of…flat. Being able to see for miles and miles in every direction was overwhelming and hypnotic all at once.

  Somewhere near the edge of the Texas panhandle, the road vanished altogether. They drove for an hour across a dry valley while the wind hurled sand and dust at them like rain in a downpour. Eleanor slowed as Harry pulled up her scarf and leaned over the wheel to get her face close to the windshield.

  At one point, through the dust, Eli glimpsed a covered wagon being pulled by two bulky cows, or maybe oxen. A man and a small boy sat at the wagon’s front, their faces wrapped in scarves and bandannas. The boy pointed at the Model A, gesturing wildly to the man with his other hand.

  Then the air cleared again, and Eli saw the road stretching out a quarter mile to their left.

  Harry sighed. “Route 66 is a pain.”

  They pulled onto Interstate 40 and drove for another hour before a sign alerted them to food, gas, and lodging a few miles ahead. Harry glanced at the fuel gauge, hovering on the lower side of ¼. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel.

  Eli coughed some dust from his throat. “You want to stop for water? For Eleanor?”

  “She needs it, and a cleaning.” Harry pulled into the right-hand lane. “We all need it after that dust storm.”

  Fifteen minutes later they swung onto the exit. Eli had half expected a pair of bathrooms and some vending machines, but the rest area seemed to be closer to an oversized truck stop. At least a dozen gas pumps out front, a car wash, signs for two restaurants and a store. A nearby motel didn’t seem to be connected to the complex, but certainly took advantage of it.

  A pole stood in front of the main building, and it flew one of the largest American flags Eli’d ever seen, the kind of thing that would be displayed on battleships or maybe at the White House. Its edge stretched at least a third of the way down the flagpole. Two more flags hung from the large roof over the gas pumps. Red, white, and blue bunting draped every restaurant window. Another flag had been mounted above the main door of the store, and when the doors whisked open, Eli glimpsed a mannequin dressed like Uncle Sam. The pageantry looked much newer than everything else. “Must be the Fourth of July,” he said to Harry as they circled the complex.

  Eleanor settled into a space next to a small bank of air and water pumps. Eli climbed out, stretched his arms up over his head, and brushed some of the dust storm from his shirt and pants. Harry slid out across from him, pulled off her tricorne, and rolled her head in slow circles until her neck gave a loud pop.

  “Feel better?”

  “A bit. Get the tools from the trunk, please.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing yet. Time for you to start earning your keep.”

  “I thought I did that already with Hawkins.”

  “Tools,” she repeated, pointing at the back of the car. She batted a cloud of dust from the hat.

  Eli got the toolbox from the trunk. When he returned, she’d opened up the hood and exposed the engine. “Crescent wrenches,” she said before blowing some more sand away.

  “You need help?”

  “I don’t believe so, but thank you.”

  Eli handed her tools and watched while she removed the carburetor. A little more work popped it open and revealed the dull plates inside. She held it up for him to see. “They release here,” she said, pointing, “and then slide out like this.” The first plate popped out into her fingers. She handed it to Eli, then gave him the rest of the carburetor.

  “Ummmm…”

  “There’s a toothbrush in the toolbox. Clean all of them. Both sides. It should take about an hour.”

  He looked at the array of plates, then down at the bag. “Really?”

  She slid her coat off and shook it by the shoulders. More dust and grit rained down on the pavement. “Basic maintenance. Once you’re familiar with it, you’ll probably be able to get that time down to forty minutes.” She pointed at the toolbox. “Clean.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “And you?”

  Harry walked off toward the main building. “Cleaning up. I have dust in too many places it shouldn’t be.”

  “Okay, then,” he called after her. “I’ll just sit out here in the sun.”

  She waved at him without looking back. “You’ll get your
turn.”

  Eli sat on the small curb with the carburetor in his lap and tried to get the most shade he could from the water pumps. He scrubbed at the first plate for ten minutes with the hard bristles until it gleamed in the sunlight. The next one didn’t pop out quite as easily as it had for Harry, but it came loose and he set the brush to it. The third one came loose with less effort.

  He had the fourth plate in his hands when a rumbling engine made his skin tremble. He looked up in time to see a blue 1969 Mustang roll by behind Eleanor. Its shadow swung around beneath the Model A as it pulled up in the next slot on the driver’s side. A door opened, shoes hit the pavement, and the door slammed shut.

  “Harry?” A man’s voice drifted over the car.

  Eli set the carburetor down and stood up with all four plates in his hands.

  “Oh,” said the stranger. He wore a brown leather coat with wide lapels, something that would’ve been popular with ’60s musicians, but wouldn’t’ve looked too out of place back in either New Orleans or Independence. Under it were old jeans and a gym-gray linen shirt. “Sorry, man. I thought you were somebody else.”

  “No problem.”

  He gave Eli a once-over, then looked at the car again. “This is Eleanor, yes?”

  “Yeah.” Eli held up the plate and brush. “I’m just cleaning the carburetor out.”

  The man gave Eli a grin, revealing teeth yellowed by age and tobacco. Eli guessed him to be in his mid-fifties and a few inches under six feet. Short, brown-blond hair streaked with gray topped a creased face that had probably looked boyish for far too long, even dominated by thick salt-and-pepper eyebrows. He had a narrow mouth and a strong chin, but neither so much as to be distracting.

  “Did mine last week,” he said, jerking his thumb back at the Mustang. He cleared his throat. “So, how’d you end up with Eleanor, Mister…?”

  “Teague. Eli Teague. And I don’t own her, I’m just a partner.”

  The man’s brows furrowed. “Really? So who owns her?”

  Eli studied the man’s eyes for a moment. “I didn’t catch your name.”

  The man’s mouth moved toward a scowl, then relaxed. “Sorry,” he said. “Not trying to pull anything. I’m—”