Time Games

by Rex Bolt

  You had to walk about a half mile from where the bus dropped you to the Super 8, and that was fine, it gave him a chance to think. Well . . . was there anything else? He couldn’t come up with anything, and now the question was, do you try to return to Palm Springs right now, or do you spend another night in the room since you paid for it anyway?

  He got here yesterday afternoon, which meant he’d used up an hour of Palm Springs time, plus another hour for the overflow, so what difference did it make? Stay over, take a darn hot tub, stuff your face at breakfast--you’re still only losing 2 hours either way.

  There was too much he didn’t understand about this business, and like so many of these quirks you ran into, it just wasn’t worth it to try to justify them or figure them out . . . so forget it.

  Which he did a good job of the rest of the night, and the mountain air did its job again as well, and Pike woke fresh as a daisy.

  After breakfast he found an old abandoned watershed tunnel, not far from the motel actually, halfway up the hill and then 50 yards down a fire trail, and he wasn’t sure it would qualify as a structure, but he sat down in there and there was a little more herky-jerk than normal, but soon enough he was across the street and up the block from Ida’s Country Kitchen.

  Every time he made it back . . . even though that part was proving more and more routine . . . it kind of felt like you just survived a football game in the NFL, or a war in a strange foreign country where you were a soldier and thank God you made it out okay.

  However you looked at it, it sure was a relief.

  Chapter 26

  Pike tapped Jack on the shoulder, and a real sunburned one by now he noticed, and said, “Welp. We really should be getting the show on the road.”

  Jack had his sunglasses on and casually pulled them down to see what was going on, with the attitude, Pike thinking, of a rich guy on vacation being bothered by someone inconsequential.

  Jack said, “Ya think?”

  Pike said, “I looked it up, it’s around 4 hours to Phoenix, and they’re a little north of there, so . . . yeah.”

  Luckily it wasn’t that late. He’d gotten off easy, in a way, in Pocatello, since he’d first assumed he’d have stay until at least Thursday night, but now, with only 2 hours missing, it was only quarter to one.

  The funny thing, much as he didn’t like dealing with that country club, he tried hard to arrive there coming back, since he was still a little spooked from the outbound, finding himself on the shoulder of that freeway, which turned out the be a major one, Interstate 15. But he was here now, and in one piece, so no point obsessing over it.

  What Pike had done five minutes ago before tapping Hannamker on the shoulder was check Dani’s room, which was the moment of truth.

  There was no answer for a minute, and then a guy with a sleeveless t-shirt and a beer belly opens the door looking dumbfounded and scratching his rear end, and Pike excused himself for having the wrong room and moved on.

  So Pike continued with Jack now, “And that 4 hours could be longer, since don’t forget we’re dealing with Friday of Christmas weekend. All hell could break loose on the roads.”

  “Jeez, you’re right,” Jack said. He didn’t seem as eager to stick around as he had, and Pike wondered if there’d been some issue with Dani while he was gone.

  Speaking of which . . . “Where’s Dani?” Jack said. “We should say goodbye, thank her and everything . . . Tell you the truth, I haven’t seen her for a couple hours.”

  “I just checked the room,” Pike said, “she’s not feeling well. She sends her best . . . This time I think it’s real too, not a fake not-feeling-well like with Arnold.”

  “Shute, hate to not see her . . . That is some fine lady. Though I’m telling you what you already know, right?” Looking at Pike with the dumb half-smile, waiting for a reaction.

  “Not a problem . . . all’s we do, is catch her on the way back,” Pike lied.

  “Hey yeah, forgot about that,” Jack said, a little more fired up now. “Fair enough then.” And he finally started moving his ass out of the recliner, and when it dawned on him and he asked what about our stuff, Pike said he’d taken care of it, don’t worry about every little detail so much, and to get in the damn truck.

  Jack complied, but as he was strapping on his seatbelt he said, “The good thing about getting an early start . . .”

  “Not early, but relatively early,” Pike said.

  “Fine . . . is if we have to stop and eat before necessarily going too far, it doesn’t screw us up that bad.”

  Pike said, “You remember your job? Since yesterday? . . . Which is to basically mind your own business. And let me be the one to decide when it’s time to eat, and so forth. You got that straight?”

  “I got it boss,” Jack said, “it’s up to you.”

  “What’d you have in mind though?” Pike said

  ***

  Traffic wasn’t bad so far, and maybe it wouldn’t be, since holiday stuff was unpredictable and you’d drive yourself crazy trying to assume who would logically be going which way at what time. They’d found a roadside hole-in-the wall about a half hour outside of Palm Springs, and the owner was a talkative guy and a ham radio buff, and there were two big antenna towers out past the parking lot.

  Pike figured what can it hurt and asked the guy if he’d ever seen any UFO’s out here. The guy answered, no, not in the daytime that he could ever recall, but at night, you bet.

  Without missing a beat, Jack surprised Pike by saying to the guy, “You’re in a good spot for ‘em out here . . . You use infared too?”

  “Nothing that fancy,” the guy said. “You pick up enough with the naked eye. Especially in the winter.”

  “That makes sense,” Jack said. “It must get real brisk and clear some nights, huh?”

  The guy nodded. “It puts on a show for you,” he said, and went to refill someone’s coffee.

  Pike said to Jack, “Since when do you believe in that shit?”

  “Since whenever. It makes more sense that we got ‘em than we don’t . . . Plus you have people like Aaron Rodgers now, saying they saw stuff.”

  Pike didn’t say anything, but of course he read about that too, Rodgers, the Green Bay Packers Superbowl quarterback swearing he saw something while driving cross-country with a bunch of old Cal teammates.

  “The Rodgers sighting,” Jack continued, “four fighter jets come zooming by shortly after, chasing the thing.”

  “Gee, you say the Rodgers sighting, like you’re some kinda expert and it’s only one of the many.”

  Jack said, “All’s you do, spend a little time on YouTube . . . You might not be so cynical.”

  Pike left it alone, and they got back on the road, Jack taking over the driving this time and Pike trying to get a little sleep.

  Everything was fine until they were about an hour outside of Phoenix, when Jack said, “Dog, you know that Andrea girl right?”

  “Yeah?” Pike said, waking up and right away regretting it.

  “Well, it turns out she wanted to come down . . . So I figured you wouldn’t mind, we have to pick her up at the airport.”

  “Wait a second,” Pike said. “Today?”

  “Well not today . . . I mean not right this minute or anything . . . but like, tonight.”

  “Wait a second,” Pike said. “You’re not talking Andrea . . . Anthony’s girlfriend?”

  “You know more than one of them suddenly?” Jack said.

  “Well hold on a second . . . what about him?”

  “It kind of . . . didn’t work out, according to her.”

  “So . . . she just happens to be free then, nothing else to do at Christmas?”

  “Sort of it, yeah.”

  “I’m not believing this,” Pike said.

  “Yeah, I thought that might be your reaction . . . but it shouldn’t hurt anything. When you take a step away, and put it in perspective . . . Right?”

  Pike was thinking back now, Jack coming in th
at night in a bad mood, about to crash on the couch, except things livened back up with Anthony and Andrea showing up, and then Foxe and Cathy just happening to drop in, and after a while Jack was ready to fight someone in The Box, though he couldn’t remember now if it was Foxe or Anthony . . . or both . . . and he wondered if that had anything to do with this new development . . . But it wasn’t worth trying to replay the whole scene in his head and figure it out.

  “What time then?” Pike said.

  “Not til about 9:30. She’s coming on Southwest.”

  “Hmm . . . meaning . . . we’ll have to kill a couple hours at least.”

  “What?” Jack said. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “No reason. Except I hear they have some good steak places in Phoenix.”

  “I wouldn’t know. A little over my head this trip, to be honest.”

  “And the good part,” Pike said, “you’re paying.”

  “Dude, you gotta be kidding.”

  “Fine, pull over.”

  “Ah c’mon man . . . you wouldn’t dump me off again, would you? You’re not that cruel.”

  Pike didn’t say anything and stared straight ahead, and waited until Jack understood the concept, and then he started checking Yelp reviews of steakhouses in the greater Phoenix area.

  Chapter 27

  Last night had been a little awkward, to say the least. Pike finally got a hold of Mitch and actually confirmed that not only was he coming, but he was here, and to make matters interesting had a couple people with him, one of them female.

  You had to hand it to Mitch, for an old guy he went with the flow pretty well, and instead of being mad about the short notice and excess company (not to mention, Pike probably woke him up) he said come on by and we’ll figure it out, and he gave Pike directions.

  It had also been pretty weird driving up there, the half hour from the Phoenix airport to Anthem, with Hannamaker and Andrea cuddled up next to him, but what could you do.

  Mitch had it pretty well figured out when they got there, and had set up an extra cot and a camping pad in his place, and said Lucy was looking forward to putting up Andrea at her place, which was probably a lie, since Lucy needed to be hit with that at 11 o’clock at night like a hole in the head, but it all worked out.

  The plan today, if you could believe it, was Lucy was making a Christmas Eve dinner, which was more of an afternoon deal actually, and they were all invited at 2.

  Jack checked with Andrea when they got up, and she was doing fine and seemed to be getting along nicely with Lucy and was helping her with the dinner.

  Jack and Mitch were hitting it off pretty well too.

  Pike was starting to feel like the odd man out, frankly, and he excused himself, though Mitch and Jack barely noticed, and took a little walk.

  Where Mitch rented his little apartment--and by the way, a continued no-mention of his actual wife, Melinda--it was a planned community where everything was 100 percent artificial, which was how he pictured Lucy’s as well, a couple miles away, but it all sort of agreed with Pike.

  You had incredible manicured lawns, flowers all over the place, giant swimming pools, walking and biking trails with various markers about every 10 feet so you wouldn’t get lost, and the whole shebang framed in the background by mountains full of red rock.

  He wrestled with it for a while, walked about a quarter mile, and finally pulled out his phone and called Dani.

  “Hey there,” she said, certainly sounding okay, and Pike hoped everything was okay.

  “Hey yourself,” he said. “I was just . . . wishing you a Merry Christmas . . . and also making sure Marcus was the last guy you killed.”

  “Ex-cuse me?”

  Pike said, “I could sugarcoat it a different way . . . but, yeah, that really is why I called.”

  Dani said, “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you have a lot of nerve . . . Pike, that’s simply not funny . . . and not something to joke about.”

  “What about Chuck?” he said.

  “What about who now?”

  “Guy named Chuck. Who you’ve been dating.”

  “Okay, now I’m wondering if you’re okay.”

  “You can tell me. I’m not going to crucify you for having another boyfriend.”

  “Pike, it’s been real . . . I’d ask you if you’re doing anything for Christmas, but I’m a little insulted at the moment.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve kind of been down in Palm Springs.”

  “Gosh, what brings you down there? Is it a family vacation?”

  Pike said, “You might say that,” and wished her well and said goodbye.

  Hmm. That wasn’t bad. Not at all. He’d thrown her enough curve balls to where he was pretty dang convinced there’d been no Chuck. Which for now at least, meant no second homicide on the horizon.

  Not that the first one was likely a homicide, but even so.

  What he was still worried about unfortunately though, despite this encouraging confirmation, was one of the Laws kicking in somehow, and her meeting Chuck anyway, and one thing leading to another, and who knows, them taking a long weekend to Palm Springs in, say, March or something.

  Which you couldn’t control, Pike realized that. He’d done his best. And for now, he could relax and enjoy a little holiday spirit in the great southwest.

  Couldn’t he?

  You would think . . . Except it would be nice to make sure . . . for your good old-fashioned piece of mind, before you sat down to a turkey dinner or whatever was coming out of the oven . . . that all parts of this cocamanied story fit together . . . and then you could relax like everyone else.

  So he googled Charles Kolskie Pocatello Blackfoot.

  And boom.

  Up top on the search results was an article from the Pocatello Daily Register, dated Friday, November 4th, 2016. It read:

  Pocatello Man Fatally Injured in Overnight Collision That Claims the Life of Nampa Woman

  A highway collision Thursday night east of Boise claimed the lives of a Pocatello man and a Nampa woman.

  Charles Kolskie, 32, was travelling eastbound on I-84 at approximately 10:45 pm when he struck a stopped vehicle occupied by 74-year-old Wilma Gallyo of Nampa, police said.

  The accident occurred approximately 6 miles west of the town of Mountain Home, with both parties succumbing to their injuries by the time emergency personnel arrived, authorities said.

  Mrs. Gallyo had reportedly been a passenger in a car driven by her husband Nestor, 76, when he began to experience nausea and pulled onto the shoulder and got out, leaving Mrs. Gallyo in the vehicle.

  Neither alcohol nor excessive speed appear to have been a factor, police said.

  Kolskie was a union steamfitter and had been employed by Lincoln Bid Construction for the past four years, a company spokesperson said.

  Son . . . of . . . a . . . bitch.

  On a stick.

  Damn it.

  Now what?

  It was quarter to 11, they were going to eat in 3 hours. That would give him 3 days back in Blackfoot to straighten this mess out.

  And if he didn’t make it back on time, what could you do . . . you couldn’t let this stand.

  Unbelievable. If the guy wants to run off the road and kill himself, that's one thing. In the end, he's no worse off than he was after Dani got through with him in that hot tub . . . And the good thing, he for sure wouldn't have met Dani after that.

  Except now he had to go and take an innocent person with him . . .

  The biggest problem now, the immediate one, was coming up with a departure point ASAP.

  You had this community made up of these planned mini-communities that had sprung up in the desert, and most everything looked brand-spanking new, which obviously meant nothing looked old.

  Off in the distance, to what Pike thought was the east, though he was a little turned around, was what appeared to be a rare ranch.

  A farmhouse circa 1970’s, shaded by a grove of trees, plus there were cat
tle, horses, and some outbuildings that you couldn’t tell how old they were.

  But off to the left, an old dilapidated barn. No question about that thing being too young.

  From this little vantage point on the manicured walking trail of Mitch’s complex, it was a couple miles away at least, but the biggest problem was you had to go cross-country from here for most of it, until finally as you got close you hit the service road that took you to the ranch turnoff.

  Oh boy.

  This meant vaulting over the little retaining wall on the property, and then heading across desert, no other way to look at it, pointing toward that paved service road way off in the distance.

  Pike was wearing a baggy swim suit and a t-shirt, along with loafers and no sox. You could go back to Mitch’s, waste time, explain yourself, change into something hardier . . . or you could take care of this right now, before the damage you did back there, which was currently scrambling his brain big-time, had even another minute to take hold.

  So Pike took off, over the wall and into the thorns and cactus and lizards and scorpions and rattlesnakes and whatever else, and when he got to the road he looked around and didn’t see any cars or people either direction who would notice him moving at extreme high speed, so he threw it into gear and hung a right at the ranch and right away crossed a metal cattle guard, wondering am I going to have to outrun any loose bulls now too?

  But luckily everything was quiet, no bulls, no dogs, no humans . . . and the big old barn was what it looked like, not quite falling down but definitely abandoned at this point, and he went into one of the old horse stalls and worked harder this time than last, trying like heck to visualize Utah State, the campus, the stadium, the recruiting trip . . . and also throwing Halloween into the mix . . . but either way the last thing he could afford to do was land on that interstate again, and the familiar business began again soon enough.