Ill Wind

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Connor chewed on his beef jerky, picked up the phone and pretended to talk into it as he watched the cars come and go.

  A mustard-yellow Volkswagen bus, a silver Honda, a red Nissan pickup, a Chevy, another Honda, a Toyota, a big black Caddy, a rusty pickup piled high with old furniture and cardboard boxes, a low-rider El Camino, three Winnebago campers in a convoy. He saw college students in the cars, families with kids, grandma and grandpa with a poodle barking behind a rolled-up window, a group of college girls coming back from a skiing trip.

  But Connor saw no opportunities. Still, shit would happen, if he waited long enough.

  He hung up the phone, walked around the building, then went back to his vigil. He had eaten all but four inches of his beef jerky by the time he made his move.

  An old station wagon with fake wood sidewalls pulled up; it had only one man inside. The driver opened the door and clambered out, dressed in old jeans and a plaid flannel shirt, needing a shave, and stumbling as if he had been driving for the last four years without a break. Like a horse with blinders on, the gangly man headed for the rest room. He left the station wagon’s lights on, the engine running. Perfect.

  Connor strode toward the car. Hesitation only wasted time.

  By the time the driver had slipped through the battered gray door of the men’s room, Connor reached the station wagon. Not the type of vehicle he would have preferred, but he wasn’t picky.

  He opened the driver’s door and slid inside. Connor’s heart pounded. No one had seen anything yet. Maybe this would teach the jerk to be more careful next time.

  The seats were worn, and the interior smelled like burned garbage. The ash tray overflowed with crushed-out cigarillo tips. Connor scowled. Slob! But he didn’t care, as long as the car could take him to Flagstaff, Arizona. He adjusted the seat, gunned the engine, then put the station wagon into gear. “Ready or not, here I come!”

  Just as the station wagon started moving, the gangly driver suddenly walked out of the rest room. He stopped for a moment, as if astonished to see someone stealing his car. Then he jumped in front of the station wagon, waving his hands for Connor to stop.

  What? Does he think I’m stupid?

  Connor jammed the gear shift into reverse and lurched away from the driver. The man had stringy black hair, dripping wet, as if he had just gone in to splash cold water on his face. His flannel shirt hung unbuttoned over a grimy t-shirt, flapping like wings as he flailed his arms.

  Before Connor could put the car into gear again and drive the other direction, the driver snatched at the door handle. “Asshole! Get outta my car!”

  Connor used his elbow to shove down the door lock, then reached behind him to lock the back and the passenger side doors. The driver shouted, pounding on the windows, yelling for help.

  Connor gunned the engine again and began to move. People turned and stared at the scene. For God’s sake, Connor thought, did the whole world get extra points for causing him trouble?

  The driver threw himself in front of the car, hammering his fists on the hood. Connor tried to swerve, but in a split instant he realized that even if he did get away, the driver would call the police, give the license number of his car, a description of the thief—and the highway patrol would be crawling all over the interstate looking for him in no time. Christ, what a mess!

  It would be better if this guy couldn’t say anything coherent for a little while, Connor thought. Just a little while.

  Without spending a lot of time checking it out with his conscience, Connor yanked the steering wheel to the side and brought the station wagon around into the shouting driver. Beside the gas pumps stood a black oil drum with a plastic liner. Connor swerved to knock the man into the trash barrel.

  He didn’t notice the concrete support pillars holding the barrel in place. The station wagon crushed the driver into the barrel and then the reinforced concrete pillar. Instead of toppling the trash can out of the way, the car smashed the man with a loud, sickening crunch. The front bumper of the station wagon struck him at the hips, ramming into the unyielding cement. The oil drum buckled.

  A flower of blood burst out of the driver’s mouth, accompanied by a scream that Connor barely heard. He pulled the shift into reverse, backing the car away.

  The man fell to the pavement. The crumpled oil drum rolled on top of him. Other gas station customers began shouting, running toward him.

  “Oh, shit!” Connor said. “Why didn’t you get out of the way?” If he stopped to help the crazy bastard, he’d be caught red-handed stealing the car. When the cops ran his ID check, they would find the outstanding Zoroaster charges. All because this jerk felt his crappy old station wagon was worth dying for? Of all the stupid things! No thanks.

  The car’s owner lay bunched against the gas pumps as two people bent over him. Blood streamed from his mouth and nose. The fat kid swaggered out of the Star-Shoppe to see what the fuss was about, then turned so pale his pimples faded.

  “Forget this!” Connor said, then stomped on the accelerator pedal, spinning tires and squealing out of the parking lot.

  He could get back on the Interstate, hook east on the 210, then north on I-5 to I-40, which would take him to Flagstaff. If he didn’t stop, he could make it in six or seven hours.

  It would take the cops an hour to figure out what had gone down at the gas station, even longer if the driver wasn’t in any condition to talk. Connor could sail right past them. And the highway patrol would expect him to try to vanish into the sprawl of Los Angeles, not head east to the state line.

  Besides, it wasn’t his fault.

  Connor roared up the entrance ramp, flowing into the relentless stream of traffic. Behind him, the lights of the gas station oasis dwindled in the distance.

  Now he was home free.

  Chapter 27

  In her small cubicle, surrounded by identical cubicles in the offices of Surety Insurance, Heather Dixon wondered why the receptionist kept forwarding calls to her. She stared at the pile of insurance claims on her desk. Even though she had worked one claim after another without taking a break all day, the stack of papers waiting to be processed grew two inches every hour.

  She was working harder than an administrator. Funny they weren’t willing to pay her for it.

  She punched a button on the phone to pick up the call, then held the receiver between her shoulder and ear as she filed proof-of-loss forms. “Surety Insurance Company, may I help you?”

  “I hope so,” said the thin male voice on the line, “you’re the eighth person I’ve been transferred to.”

  “Sorry, sir. We’ve been unusually busy, and—”

  “I understand,” the man said at the ragged end of patience, “and I’m normally a laid-back person. But if you will just take my information and promise it’ll be straightened out, we can both be done in a flash. Deal?” He had a no-nonsense voice that might have been pleasant if he hadn’t been pushed to the edge.

  “Yes, sir. Let’s see what we can do.”

  “I’ve given my name a dozen times. Could you please punch it up on your computer? I’m Spencer Lockwood, spelled just like it sounds. I was driving my rental car, a Mazda Protege, and it broke down near Death Valley, California.” He rattled off the words as if he had memorized them. “I couldn’t get a replacement from the rental car company, so I was forced to rent another one on my own. Now that I’m back in New Mexico, I’m calling to ask if the emergency road service on my own policy will cover the new rental, because the rental company refuses to pay.”

  “How can they turn down a request like that?” she asked, scowling. “Did they give you any reason?”

  Lockwood said, “They told me I should have just waited a day or so—by the side of the road, presumably—and they would have had a new car delivered to me. Since I refused to wait for them, they claim they’re not obligated.”

  Heather sighed, then yanked reddish-brown hair back behind her ears. It was one of her most unflattering ways of wearing it, b
ut she was too harried to notice. The young college students manning the receptionist desks refused to deal with anything out of the ordinary, especially on a horrendously busy day like this. They input only the routine claims and let the computers bump the questionable ones higher in the system.

  “You really should discuss this with your own agent,” said Heather.

  “My agent’s been gone for a week, and I’d just as soon get this taken care of. I don’t have time to chase down errors once they get lodged in your computer’s brain.”

  Heather took down the pertinent data on a form. Lockwood was trying admirably to be nice, so she made an effort on his behalf. “All right, Mr. Lockwood. I’ll do what I can. It’ll take a week or so before you get confirmation of our discussion and Surety’s decision, but I won’t let it get lost in the shuffle. Promise.”

  “Thank you,” Spencer said. “You deserve a promotion for this!” He laughed.

  “Yes I do,” she agreed, but she wasn’t laughing.

  She held onto Lockwood’s form for a few moments, pondering where in the pile it should go. Suddenly, Albert “You can call me Al!” Sysco was there, rapping his palms on her desktop.

  “So this is where the holdup is! Paperwork’s piled on your desk, and you’re sitting around daydreaming. Shake it, Heather!”

  She wanted to take a baseball bat and “shake it” on his head. But she went back to work without voicing any of the retorts that popped into her head.

  She sorted through the stack of papers. They would all need to be keyed into the computers before the claims could be processed, and Lockwood’s form would have to be vetted by someone in authority, someone like Al Sysco. Heather glared at him as he stormed away, then she stamped APPROVED on Lockwood’s claim.

  Smiling, she filed it in the box of completed forms.

  Chapter 28

  When Todd reached Alex Kramer’s office in Oilstar’s bioremediation facility, he found the door locked. Yellow phone-message slips were taped to his door, one on top of another until they made a stack. Todd flipped through them. A note from Iris was on top; the bottom one was dated three days earlier. Two days after the victory party. He frowned.

  Most of the other offices seemed empty as well, as if Oilstar had declared an employee holiday. Mitch Stone’s office also stood closed; a handwritten note was stuck with a red push-pin into the wall above his name plaque. “WORKING AT HOME. CAR TROUBLE.”

  Around the Bay Area, cars were breaking down right and left—the “bad gasoline” from the Oilstar refinery had hit far too many vehicles, and now fingers were pointing at other area refineries, as well. A few people suspected deliberate sabotage of the gasoline output.

  Frustrated, Todd got the division secretary to waddle down the hall and open Alex’s office for him. Todd followed her, as if he could herd her into greater speed. “He called in sick a few days ago,” she said. “Haven’t seen him since.”

  Todd stared into a dark empty room. Concern gnawed at him. What if some radical protester like that Torgens guy decided to go after the scientist responsible for the Prometheus microbe?

  Inside, the desk was neat, all the papers filed, as if Alex knew he wasn’t coming back. A part of him expected to see sheets draped over the furniture. “You haven’t heard from him since, when, Tuesday?”

  The secretary shrugged. “I don’t know, Mr. Severyn—we’ve got so many people out with the traffic snarls and breakdowns that I can’t keep track. I’m not their mother, you know.”

  “Never mind.” He opened his wallet and dug out Alex’s unlisted phone number as he walked into the office. Picking up the desk phone, he asked out of the corner of his mouth, “What number do I use to dial out? Seven?”

  “Eight.”

  He punched the number while the secretary watched him suspiciously.

  Alex’s phone rang, but no one answered; even the answering machine was disconnected. That was odd. Alex had not looked well after their wild horse ride. What if he was alone at home, too sick to answer the phone?

  “You’re sure he didn’t call? Wouldn’t somebody call in sick if they weren’t going to come in for work?”

  She sighed, poking her lower lip out at him. A thin smear of lipstick had deposited itself on her teeth. “Usually, but a lot of these scientists live in a different universe. We had one guy who never managed to button his shirts right, and another one who had to be reminded to take lunch every day. They’re on flex time. They work late into the night sometimes, and other times they don’t come in at all. Especially with Dr. Kramer’s… uh, personal problems, we don’t see a lot of him.”

  Todd listened to ten hollow rings before hanging up. Remembering the victory celebration, he recalled the closed room filled with treasured pictures of lost family members. Alex Kramer lived alone. No one else would worry about him if Todd didn’t check. Besides, he’d promised Iris to see what he could find out. “I think I’m going to drive over there.”

  Grabbing his cowboy hat, he clomped out of the office, leaving the secretary to lock up behind him.

  * * *

  Out in the parking lot, his own truck started right up. He breathed a sigh of relief, then wound his way out of the cluttered, narrow roads inside the refinery, out the gates past the usual batch of yelling protesters, then headed for the San Rafael bridge that would take him to Marin county.

  Todd had no problem until he got on the freeway. Weaving past stalled vehicles—more than he had ever seen before—he found that the far left lane was open. Traffic crawled along, but at least it moved. He felt his stomach rumble with anxiety and impatience, worried about Alex but also growing more dismayed as he passed a van hauling a motorboat stalled off to the side of the road, then a motorcycle, then a Toyota, finally a tow-truck itself abandoned in the breakdown lane. He turned his head, suddenly filled with confused fear.

  * * *

  When Todd finally made his way through the hilly backroads, he was relieved to see Alex’s four-wheel drive pickup in the gravel drive. The brown Chevy sat parked next to Alex’s ranch house, which looked closed-up and abandoned. Alex must be home—but why hadn’t he answered the phone? Could he be out riding one of the horses?

  Todd’s truck bounced in the driveway as he pulled up. Swinging down from the cab, he ambled to the door, trying to look calm but growing more uneasy with each step. He rang the doorbell. Nothing. He rang again and shouted, “Hey, Alex, you in there?” Impatient, he tried the doorknob, then pounded on the door—still no answer. The grassy hills and nearby forest smothered all sound.

  Muttering, he walked around back, his boots crunching in the dry grass. He heard neighing as he approached and smelled the bright, fresh odor of the stables. The two horses trotted to the fence as he approached. Todd held out a hand as the palomino, Ren, nuzzled him, looking for a sugar cube or a carrot. He noticed that the back corral gate was wide open, but the horses had remained next to the stable.

  Todd scanned the back yard, then went to close the gate. The horses followed him like lonely puppies. “Hey, Alex!”

  When no one answered, he ran a hand along Ren’s neck. The crisp animal smell made him long for Wyoming. “Sorry, buddy. I’ll get you some sugar later.” He swung over the wooden fence and walked across the corral. The horses followed, even to the point of nudging Todd with wet noses. He half expected to see Alex come out of the stable, but the place was vacant. Worse yet, the feeding trough was empty. Ren whinnied.

  “Hold on,” said Todd. He slipped into the barn and returned with a rustling armload of hay, which he dumped into the trough. The dry, weedy scent clung to his shirt. Todd found the smell pleasant. The horses pushed toward the food and ignored him. As they munched, Todd rubbed the sweaty back of his neck.

  Obviously the horses had not been fed for a day or two. No one had seen Alex since the party. Something terrible must have happened to make him neglect his horses. From what Todd had noticed on their ride, Alex doted on the animals.

  Something must have happ
ened to him.

  Despite their empty smiles and bubbly “Have a nice day!” comments, Todd thought Californians were particularly callous to their neighbors. They never checked on each other or watched each other’s homes, barely managing to wave when they went to get the mail. If some tragedy had happened to Alex, the other residents would turn a blind eye until somebody else took care of the problem.

  Well, Todd wasn’t from California, and in Wyoming people watched out for each other.

  Todd strode to the rear of the house, around flower beds gone to weeds. A picnic table out back sat streaked with caked dust, and the blue-and-white overhead umbrella had been rolled down for some time. At the back door, he pulled open the screen and rattled the knob on the white-painted door, but the back door was locked solid with a deadbolt.

  He didn’t give much thought to calling for help. Who was Todd to file a missing persons report anyway? He had spoken to Alex after the celebration, gone on a brief horse ride with him, but he could not claim to be a long-time friend. Did Alex have any long-time friends? The police would tell Todd to wait a few days, check back, maybe something would turn up.

  But Todd kept imagining Alex unconscious or dead on the floor inside his house. He would rather pay for some broken glass than leave the microbiologist inside.

  Besides, he could always apologize later.

  Todd spotted the smallest window he could crawl through, the laundry room by the mud room in the rear hall. He jiggled the window frame. It was locked, but loose.