The Blacktop Blues: A Dieselpunk Adventure (The Crossover Case Files Book 1)

by Richard Levesque

“Nothing else?”

  I remembered the letter from Annabelle and my discharge papers, both tucked into my wallet. “I guess a couple other things,” I said.

  “Keep the ID in your wallet. Everything else, hide in the glove box. They might get you out and frisk you at the checkpoint, but they can’t search the car without a warrant.”

  “Like I said a minute ago…I’m not sure I like this.”

  “Well, like I said before, you can just stay here if you don’t like my offer.”

  I nodded and said nothing, which she must have taken as answer enough. “I need to go inside for a minute,” she said. “When I get back, you be in the driver’s seat. I’ll explain everything else then.”

  Reaching for my wallet, I said, “Can you bring back a cold drink? That walk in the desert just about did me in.”

  For a moment, she eyed the dollar bill I held in her direction; then she said, “Hang onto your money, Mr. Strait. It’s on me.”

  “Thanks,” I said, but I wasn’t sure I was grateful. There was something unsettling about her glances and hesitations, something I couldn’t put a name to, and I didn’t like the feeling of being beholden to her, not even for a Kicker Cola. Still, I did as she’d asked and put my money back in my wallet.

  She scooted out the door and walked away without another word. Her skirt was tight at the calves, as was the fashion at the time, and it made for an interesting walk that I looked at for only a moment.

  And then I had to look away.

  There was something about the way she moved. It wasn’t exactly confidence. A confident woman would have looked back, knowing she was about to catch me staring. No, it was more like Gemma Blaylock had put me entirely out of her mind the moment she stepped away from the Swan. Our transaction completed, she focused her attention on something else—the building in front of her, whatever she had to do inside, maybe her business in Las Vegas or whatever awaited her in Los Angeles. It didn’t matter. It was like a switch had flipped. That was how it felt to watch her walk away, and it bothered me. I couldn’t have said why.

  So instead of keeping my eyes on that skirt, I turned my attention to my papers, which I pulled from my wallet and folded together into a tight little bundle. Then I opened the glove box, ready to stick them inside and get on with the whole screwy business.

  A gun lay inside the glove box. It was gray and little. The kind of gun I could easily imagine a dealer describing as a “lady’s gun,” as it was small enough to fit inside a purse and probably didn’t carry much kick when you fired it. I was tempted to pull it from the compartment, but I figured it might not be the kind of thing I’d want to leave any stray prints on in case the gun—and the girl—had a nasty history. So, I slipped my papers in beside the piece just like the good boy I was at least pretending to be and then closed the door with a click. Putting the gun out of sight didn’t put it out of mind, though. I sat there staring at the closed glovebox and questioning the wisdom of the agreement I’d just let myself get talked into. Part of me wanted to get out of the car and walk away; it wouldn’t be the first time I was taking my chances. And part of me wanted to stick around and see where all of this went.

  By the time I got out of the car, I still hadn’t made up my mind. I walked around the car’s pointy tail and took a long look at the looming mountains in the west. After a moment’s contemplation, I walked all the way around the front of the Swan to the driver’s side where I sat in Gemma’s seat and started getting the feel for the wheel. I had a few coins in my pocket, but I hadn’t felt like flipping any of them. In the end, I guess I just let my feet make the decision. They still hurt an awful lot from my earlier walk through the desert.

  Chapter Three

  Ten minutes later we were heading toward the checkpoint, an empty Kicker Cola bottle rolling around on the floor on the passenger’s side of the front seat. Gemma had put my suitcase in the trunk when she got back to the car, and I was still behind the wheel, my hat in the back seat with her. She lay on her side across the seat with her legs curled up tight, her face under the hat and her hands on the hem of her skirt to keep her decent as the wind whipped across what was left of the desert.

  About half a mile from the checkpoint, I spotted the beat-up truck again, but this time it was heading the other way, back toward the east. I caught a quick look at the driver, an old man staring at the road ahead of him with a blank expression on his face. He didn’t turn his head to take me in as we crossed paths one last time, and he certainly didn’t honk again. What now? I thought. I took his stare for equal parts desperation and determination. He’d probably head east until he found a highway that ran north and south; then he’d take that and look for a less traveled way west again, maybe one that wasn’t so closely guarded or one where the cops at the checkpoint might be prone to pity the old folks and the kids and the dog—if it was a dog, after all. I felt bad for them, but at the same time I felt fortunate that I’d ended up in the Swan instead of getting a ride like that. Otherwise, it would have been me standing on those eastbound running boards right now, wondering how the hell I was ever going to make it to Los Angeles and the answers I sought there.

  I slowed the car when I saw the checkpoint up ahead. There was nothing official about it, no road signs warning of an imminent stop. It was just two police cruisers parked nose to nose across the southbound lanes and two more motorcycles on the other side of those. Several black clad officers stood around the roadblock, and I noticed a few more lounging in the cars. As the Swan approached the checkpoint, one of the officers sauntered over to her motorcycle—ready, I figured, to give pursuit in case I did something foolish like swerving over to the northbound side and trying to avoid the whole situation. I noticed with some surprise that the bike was a Duesenberg, probably a Thunderhawk model; I could see the logo on the black fuel tank from this far away and knew there was no point in trying to race a bike like that, even in something as powerful as the Swan.

  “Your cops are pretty well-funded,” I said to the prone woman behind me.

  She said nothing in response.

  “Cops back east have probably never even seen anything like a Thunderhawk. Looks like they’re standard issue for these goons.”

  “Just go,” she finally said from under my hat. She sounded impatient, so I crept ahead.

  I brought the Swan to a stop a few yards back from the cruisers, and a black-clad cop came up to the driver’s side door.

  “State your business,” he said. No sir. No please. Just business.

  “We’re heading to Los Angeles,” I said.

  He looked into the back seat, and I glanced around as well. Gemma had let go of the skirt and had her arms folded across her mid-section. The hem, I noticed, had been strategically lifted to reveal two perfectly shaped calves and just a bit of knee.

  “What’s wrong with her?” the cop asked.

  “Migraine,” I said. “She’s finally asleep.”

  “You got IDs?”

  Gemma had coached me on this, providing me with her California driver’s license and a story to go with it.

  I handed the cop Gemma’s ID and mine. He looked at them both, a scowl on his face, and then he called one of his compatriots over. She was no-nonsense, not even looking at me when she walked up, with eyes only for the pair of IDs the first cop showed her. He passed them over, and she laid them on the hood of the Swan. I kept my eye on my ID—not being all that worried about Gemma’s—as the first officer started talking again.

  “Your friend there’s got a California address,” he said as the other cop popped a snap on one of the little leather cases attached to her belt. “So, she’s all right. And the car’s registered in the state, so that’s fine, too. You, though…”

  The female officer pulled a sleek chrome camera from the case on her belt, no bigger than a deck of cards, and I watched as she took pictures of first one ID and then the other. It was a fancy little gadget, like nothing I’d ever seen before. Photo technology must have made som
e leaps while I’d been busy not getting myself blown up in the French countryside.

  “You’re a different story,” the first officer continued. “What’s your business in the state?”

  “I’m just her driver, sir,” I said as the female officer walked around the Swan, snapping pictures of the license plate and then another of Gemma sleeping in the back while I fed her partner the story Gemma had supplied me with. “She hired me back in Flagstaff to drive her into LA. I was working on a ranch out there and had come into town for a beer. She walks into the bar where I’m at, says she needs a driver. I got today and tomorrow off, so I figured it’d be easy money.”

  “What’s the rancher’s name?”

  This hadn’t been part of the set-up, but I answered without hesitation. “Buddy Stiles,” I said, giving him the name of an army buddy who’d been on my mind a lot since the end of the war.

  The cop’s stony face would have registered disappointment at the ease with which I passed his test if that hadn’t been his default expression already. “She sick already then?”

  I nodded. “She says she feels the migraines coming on. Sees the light doing weird things and knows she’s about to get hit with a headache, but she said she has to get home today. Said something about an appointment and how she couldn’t afford to be laid up in a Flagstaff motel for the two or three days till her head’s right again.”

  “So, you’re just gonna do what when you hit LA?”

  “Drop her at her house, collect my pay, and then take a cab to the bus depot and get back to Flagstaff. She said she’d pay my fare.”

  He nodded and reached for the IDs on the Swan’s hood. “Our policy is to only let people through if they’ve got a means of support. Too many vagabonds rolling through from parts east thinking they can carve out a chunk of paradise for themselves. But the pie’s only so big, see? You let everyone who wants a slice have one and…” He shrugged.

  “There’s none left for the people who belong,” I said. “I understand, officer. I have no intention of staying. I’m just working that ranch to save up enough money to get back to New York. This lady’s wages will help a lot. I’m just trying to get ahead, sir.”

  Again, he nodded. The other cop was at his side now, sliding her fancy camera back into its case.

  “What’s your racket in New York?” he asked.

  This, too, had not been part of the script, but I managed nonetheless. “Musician,” I said.

  He gave me a dubious look.

  “Guitar,” I said and took my left hand off the wheel. “Want to feel my callouses?”

  For a few seconds, I feared I’d gone too far. He shifted his glance down to my fingers and then right back to my face. His expression did what I had thought until then was the impossible: it grew even more disgusted. I considered offering an apology but thought better of it; silence was a much better choice at that point.

  His features not softening at all, he gave a quick hand signal, and the two cruisers rolled away from each other, leaving just enough room for the Swan to nose past. As I reached a hand out to receive the two ID cards, I tried to keep my relief from showing, or at least not to excess. The cop who’d gone to her Thunderhawk backed away, probably disappointed at losing the opportunity to chase the Swan down the Cajon Pass. “We’ve got your ID and the lady’s on record,” the cop said. “If there’s anything shaky about this set-up, you’ll end up on the wrong end of a false entry charge. Make sure you get on that bus this afternoon. You got it?”

  A false entry charge, I thought. How can there be such a thing?

  “Yes, sir,” I said. I gave him as friendly a nod as I could muster and put the Swan in gear. When we were well past the checkpoint and starting on the downhill grade, I whispered, “Shit flinger,” and kept going.

  Gemma stayed down for a long time. After almost a mile of steep turns, I called back to her. “When do you want me to pull over?”

  “Not ‘til we’re all the way down,” came the muffled response.

  Two minutes later, I saw the wisdom in her reply. I felt my whole face grow warm when the Thunderhawk came into view in the Swan’s rearview mirror, its engine roaring through the curves behind me. When the cop on the bike caught up to the Swan, she rolled parallel with us for about a hundred yards, keeping even with the driver’s door. I glanced over at her, forced a smile that she didn’t return, and then glued my eyes to the road ahead, determined not to give her an excuse. A few seconds of intimidation more and she slowed down before peeling off into the gravel median and then heading north again to rejoin the roadblock at the top of the pass.

  “You knew they were going to do that,” I called out.

  “Just a hunch. Now drive. They still might not be done with us. It’s cat and mouse with those types.”

  I did as I was told, but this time it was all for nothing. Even so, I enjoyed the feeling of taking that car through the turns all the way down to the flat stretch at the bottom of the pass. There were railroad tracks off to the right of the road on the other side of what looked like a dry streambed. Had I come through in the early spring, there might have been water, but this being late October the stream was nothing but rocks. A sign up ahead with the word “EAT” spelled out vertically told me we were just about back to civilization, and I resigned myself to what was to come—letting Gemma Blaylock be in charge again. She had actually been in charge the whole time, I realized. Anything suggesting otherwise had just been my wishful thinking.

  Chapter Four

  Gemma remained silent for most of the rest of the ride. I won’t say I minded. The last time she’d talked much, she’d gotten me to agree to con the cops at the roadblock. If her staying quiet meant I got to stay out of trouble, I was fine with that.

  Still, she looked bothered as she drove, and I knew the silence wasn’t just because she didn’t like my profile. Something was eating at her, and I had to fight back the urge to get her to spill it.

  Her silence allowed me to take everything in once we were on flat land. Until now, California hadn’t impressed me. I’d crossed the border proper somewhere in the night, but it had all been desert, nothing like the brochures and songs and movies had made the state seem to Easterners like me, sick of the cold and snow. With the mountain pass behind us, though, I soon saw what all the fuss had been about, the highway winding its way through grove after grove of bright oranges on lush green trees, lines of them spreading to the horizon in every direction. When it wasn’t orange groves, it was walnuts, and when it wasn’t walnuts it was pleasant little towns that looked like midwestern hospitality had been uprooted and relocated to the land of sunshine.

  Finally, the silence got to be too much for me, and I asked Gemma whether she minded if I turned on the radio. When she told me to go ahead, I switched it on and started tuning. Nothing I heard really grabbed me, and my flipping from station to station looking for something not too obnoxious must have gotten on her nerves.

  “Can’t find anything you like?” she asked, sounding a bit annoyed.

  “Not really,” I said and settled for the last swing station I’d found.

  What I’d been hoping for was a station playing a song with the same kind of energy as “The Blacktop Beat,” a blend of country, blues, jump jazz and gospel. I hadn’t been able to pick up anything like that the whole way across the continent, and now that I thought about it, I realized I hadn’t heard anything like it in the couple of days I’d been in New York either. This struck me as odd since that song and others like it had dominated the airwaves in Europe, and I’d been sure the music—having been recorded in the States—would be just as popular here. But now I told myself the assumption had been wrong.

  As we neared downtown Los Angeles, thoughts of music and the encounter with the cops all faded into the background. In the days since the “incident,” Los Angeles had been nothing more than an abstraction, but now that I had arrived, I knew the time would soon come when I’d have to confront whatever it—and Annabelle—had t
o show me about my sanity. There had been no other “incidents” during my cross-country trek, and I was grateful for that, but the lack of a repeat performance could not erase the undeniable truth of what had happened in the Break O’ Dawn.

  When we got into the city, Gemma broke into my reverie by asking where I wanted to be dropped off.

  “The Hotel Dorado,” I said with something less than enthusiasm.

  Gemma gave me a quick glance, as if to verify that I’d been telling her the truth. Then her eyes were back on the road again. She navigated the streets with skill, whipping the Swan through traffic and switching lanes with quiet purpose. She took turn after turn, barely giving me a chance to take in the city and the pedestrians who crowded the sidewalks.

  Before long, she pulled to the curb without warning after making one more left-hand turn and finding a spot between a shiny Medford and a rusty Lincoln. “The Hotel Dorado’s one more block that way,” she said, pointing in the direction the Swan had been heading just seconds earlier.

  “Your tank empty?” I asked.

  “No. But this is as far as I’m going.”

  She didn’t say another word, just killed the engine and hit a button on the dashboard that started an electric motor spinning somewhere behind the back seat. The convertible top unfurled from its compartment and soon clicked into place atop the windshield’s chrome frame. When it was secure, Gemma pulled the keys from the ignition and got out.

  I sat there for a moment, a bit dumbfounded. Then I heard the click of the trunk, and I realized she was getting my suitcase out. She was acting strangely—more than she had been on the ride in—and I figured she was liable to just drop my few belongings into the street as a way to get me out of her car and her life, so I hopped into action and opened the passenger door. Circling around the back, I found her there with the fancy trunk lid sliding up on its pneumatic opener.

  She already had my suitcase out and passed it to me without a word. When the trunk’s lid was all the way up, she pulled another case from the compartment and then pushed a button to start the lid on its way down again. The case she held was bigger than mine, and it didn’t look like anything that would hold clothes. It appeared to be made of dull silver metal, and while it had a handle and hinges, its resemblance to a suitcase ended there. The case had four glass-faced gauges across its top and several holes in its sides that looked like the jacks on a switchboard where a phone operator might plug cords in to make connections between parties.