Cold Fire (8 page)

The air-conditioning had been off ever since the killers had parked and gone to check the wrecked Camaro. The bedroom was growing hotter by the second, and it stank. He smelled stale beer, sweat, what might have been the lingering odor of dried blood rising from dark maroon stains on the carpet, and other foul odors that he dared not even try to identify.

“Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Lisa did not appear to be a strong woman, but she lifted her daughter as effortlessly as she would have lifted a pillow. With the girl cradled in her arms, she moved toward the door.

“Don’t let her look to the left when you go out,” he said. “One of them’s dead just beside the door. It isn’t pretty.”

Lisa nodded once, with evident gratitude for the warning.

As he started to follow her through the doorway, he saw the contents of the narrow closet that had come open when he’d backed against it: shelves of homemade videotapes. On the spines were titles hand-printed on strips of white adhesive tape. Names. The titles were all names. CINDY. TIFFANY. JOEY. CISSY. TOMMY. KEVIN. Two were labeled SALLY. Three were labeled WENDY. More names. Maybe thirty in all. He knew what he was looking at; but he didn’t want to believe it. Memories of savagery. Mementoes of perversion. Victims.

The bitter blackness welled higher in him.

He followed Lisa through the motor home to the door, and out into the blazing desert sun.

Lisa stood in the white-gold sunshine on the shoulder of the highway, behind the motor home. Her daughter stood at her side, clung to her. Light had an affinity for them: it slipped in scintillant currents through their flaxen hair, accented the color of their eyes much the way a jeweler’s display lamp enhanced the beauty of emeralds on velvet, and lent an almost mystical luminosity to their skin. Looking at them, it was difficult to believe that the light around them was not within them, too, and that a darkness had entered their lives and filled them as completely as night filled the world in the wake of dusk.

Jim could barely endure their presence. Each time he glanced at them, he thought of the dead man in the station wagon, and sympathetic grief twisted through him, as painful as any physical illness he had ever known.

Using a key that he found on a ring with the motor home ignition key, he unlocked the iron rack that held the Harley-Davidson. It was an FXRS-SP with a 1340cc. single-carburetor, two-valve, push-rod V-twin with a five-speed transmission that powered the rear wheel through a toothed belt instead of a greasy chain. He’d ridden fancier and more powerful machines. This one was standard, about as plain as a Harley could get. But all he wanted from the bike was speed and easy handling; and if it was in good repair, the SP would provide him with both.

Lisa spoke worriedly to him as he unracked the Harley and looked it over. “Three of us can’t ride out of here on that.”

“No,” he said. “Just me.”

“Please don’t leave us alone.”

“Someone’ll stop for you before I go.”

A car approached. The three occupants gawked at them. The driver put on more speed.

“None of them stop,” she said miserably.

“Someone will. I’ll wait until they do.”

She was silent a moment. Then: “I don’t want to get into a car with strangers.”

“We’ll see who stops.”

She shook her head violently.

He said, “I’ll know if they’re trustworthy.”

“I don’t...” Her voice broke. She hesitated, regained control. “I don’t trust anyone.”

“There are good people in the world. In fact, most of them are good. Anyway, when they stop, I’ll know if they’re okay.”

“How? How in God’s name can you know?”

“I’ll know.” But he could not explain the
how
of it any more than he could explain how he had known that she and her daughter needed him out here in this sere and blistered wasteland.

He straddled the Harley and pressed the starter button. The engine kicked in at once. He revved it a little, then shut it off.

The woman said, “Who are you?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“But why not?”

“This one’s too sensational. It’ll make nationwide headlines.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They’d splash my picture everywhere. I like my privacy.”

A small utility rack was bolted to the back of the Harley. Jim used his belt to strap the shotgun to it.

With a tremor of vulnerability in her voice that broke his heart, Lisa said, “We owe you so much.”

He looked at her, then at Susie. The girl had one slender arm around her mother, clinging tightly. She was not listening to their conversation. Her eyes were out of focus, blank—and her mind seemed far away. Her free hand was at her mouth, and she was chewing on her knuckle; she had actually broken the skin and drawn her own blood.

He averted his eyes and stared down at the cycle again.

“You don’t owe me anything,” he said.

“But you saved—”

“Not everyone,” he said quickly. “Not everyone I should have.”

The distant growl of an approaching car drew their attention to the east. They watched a souped-up black Trans Am swim out of the water mirages. With a screech of brakes, it stopped in front of them. Red flames were painted on the fender back of the front wheel, and the rims of both the wheel wells were protected with fancy chrome trim. Fat twin chrome tailpipes glistered like liquid mercury in the fierce desert sun.

The driver got out. He was about thirty. His thick black hair was combed away from his face, full on the sides, a ducktail in back. He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal tattoos on both biceps.

“Somethin’ wrong here?” he asked across the car.

Jim stared at him for a beat, then said, “These people need a ride to the nearest town.”

As the man came around the Trans Am, the passenger door opened, and a woman got out. She was a couple of years younger than her companion, dressed in baggy tan shorts, a white halter top, and a white bandana. Unruly dyed-blond hair sprayed out around that piece of headgear, framing a face so heavily made up that it looked like a testing ground for Max Factor. She wore too much clunky costume jewelry, as well: big dangling silver earrings; three strands of glass beads in different shades of red; two bracelets on each wrist, a watch, and four rings. On the upper slope of her left breast was a blue and pink butterfly tattoo.

“You break down?” she asked.

Jim said, “The motor home has a flat.”

“I’m Frank,” the guy said. “This is Verna.” He was chewing gum. “I’ll help you fix the tire.”

Jim shook his head. “We can’t use the motor home anyway. There’s a dead man in it.”

“Dead man?”

“And another one over there,” Jim said, gesturing beyond the Roadking.

Verna was wide-eyed.

Frank stopped chewing his gum for a beat, glanced at the shotgun on the Harley rack, then looked at Jim again. “You kill them?”

“Yeah. Because they kidnapped this woman and her child.”

Frank studied him a moment, then glanced at Lisa. “That true?” he asked her.

She nodded.

“Jesus jumpin’ catfish,” Verna said.

Jim glanced at Susie. She was in another world, and she would need some professional help to reenter this one. He was certain she couldn’t hear a thing they said.

Curiously, he felt as detached as the child looked. He was still sinking into that internal darkness, and before long it would swallow him completely. He told Frank: “These guys I killed—they wasted the husband ... the father. His body’s in a station wagon a couple of miles west of here.”

“Oh, shit,” Frank said, “that’s a rough one.”

Verna drew against Frank’s side and shuddered.

“I want you to take them to the nearest town, fast as you can. Get medical attention for them. Then contact the state police, get them out here.”

“Sure,” Frank said.

But Lisa said, “Wait... no ... I can’t...” Jim went to her, and she whispered to him: “They look like ... I can’t.... I’m just afraid... ”

Jim put a hand on her shoulder, stared directly into her eyes. “Things aren’t always what they appear to be. Frank and Verna are okay. You trust me?”

“Yes. Now. Of course.”

“Then believe me. You can trust them.”

“But how can you know?” she asked, her voice breaking.

“I
know,
”he said firmly.

She continued to meet his eyes for a few seconds, then nodded and said, “All right.”

The rest was easy. As docile as if she had been drugged, Susie allowed herself to be lifted into the back seat. Her mother joined her there, cuddled her. When Frank was behind the wheel again and Verna at his side, Jim gratefully accepted a can of root beer from their ice chest. Then he closed Verna’s door, leaned down to the open window, and thanked her and Frank.

“You’re not waitin’ here for the cops, are you?” Frank asked.

“No.”

“You’re not in trouble, you know. You’re the hero here.”

“I know. But I’m not waiting.”

Frank nodded. “You got your reasons, I guess. You want us to say you was a bald guy with dark eyes, hitched a ride with a trucker going east?”

“No, Don’t lie. Don’t lie for me.” “Whatever you want,” Frank said.

Verna said, “Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of them.”

“I know you will,” Jim said.

He drank the root beer and watched the Trans Am until it had driven out of sight.

He climbed on the Harley, thumbed the starter button, used the long heavy shift to slide the gearwheel into place, rolled in a little throttle, released the clutch, and rode across the highway. He went off the shoulder, down the slight incline, onto the floor of the desert, and headed directly south into the immense and inhospitable Mojave.

For a while he rode at over seventy miles an hour, though he had no protection from the wind because the SP had no fairing. He was badly buffeted, and his eyes filled repeatedly with tears that he tried to blame entirely on the raw, hot air that assaulted him.

Strangely, he did not mind the heat. In fact he didn’t even feel it. He was sweating, yet he felt cool.

He lost track of time. Perhaps an hour had passed when he realized that he had left the plains and was moving across barren hills the color of rust. He reduced his speed. His route was now filled with twists and turns between rocky outcroppings, but the SP was the machine for it. It had two inches more suspension travel fore and aft than did the regular FXRS, with compatible spring and shock rates, plus twin disc brakes on the front—which meant he could corner like a stunt rider when the terrain threw surprises at him.

After a while he was no longer cool. He was
cold.

The sun seemed to be fading, though he knew it was still early afternoon. Darkness was closing on him from within.

Eventually he stopped in the shadow of a rock monolith about a quarter of a mile long and three hundred feet high. Weathered into eerie shapes by ages of wind and sun and by the rare but torrential rains that swept the Mojave, the formation thrust out of the desert floor like the ruins of an ancient temple now half-buried in sand.

He propped the Harley on its kickstand.

He sat down on the shaded earth.

After a moment he stretched out on his side. He drew up his knees. He folded his arms across his chest.

He had stopped not a moment too soon. The darkness filled him completely, and he fell away into an abyss of despair.

Later, in the last hour of daylight, he found himself on the Harley again, riding across gray and rose-colored flats where clumps of mesquite bristled. Dead, sun-blackened tumbleweed chased him in a breeze that smelled like powdered iron and salt.

He vaguely remembered breaking open a cactus and sucking the moisture out of the water-heavy pulp at the core of the plant, but he was dry again. Desperately thirsty.

As he came over a gentle rise and throttled down a little, he saw a small town about two miles ahead, buildings clustered along a highway. A scattering of trees looked supernaturally lush after the desolation—physical and spiritual—through which he had traveled for the past several hours. Half convinced that the town was only an apparition, he angled toward it nevertheless.

Suddenly, silhouetted against a sky that was growing purple and red with the onset of twilight, the spire of a church appeared, a cross at its pinnacle. Though he realized that he was to some extent delirious and that his delirium was at least partly related to serious dehydration, Jim turned at once toward the church. He felt as if he needed the solace of its interior spaces more than he needed water.

Half a mile from the town, he rode the Harley into an arroyo and left it there on its side. The soft sand walls of the channel gave way easily under his hands, and he quickly covered the bike.

He had assumed he could walk the last half mile with relative ease. But he was worse off than he had realized. His vision swam in and out of focus. His lips burned, his tongue stuck to the roof of his dry mouth, and his throat was sore—as if he were in the grip of a virulent fever. The muscles in his legs began to cramp and throb, and each foot seemed to be encased in a concrete boot.

He must have blacked out on his feet, because the next thing he knew, he was on the brick steps of the white clapboard church, with no recollection of the last few hundred yards of his journey. The words OUR LADY OF THE DESERT were on a brass plaque beside the double doors.

He had been a Catholic once. In a part of his heart, he still was a Catholic. He had been many things—Methodist, Jew, Buddhist, Baptist, Moslem, Hindu, Taoist, more—and although he was no longer any of them in practice, he was still all of them in experience.

Though the door seemed to weigh more than the boulder that had covered the mouth of Christ’s tomb, he managed to pull it open. He went inside.