The Brotherhood of the Wheel (3 page)

“Fuck compassion,” the Marquis screamed, spittle flying from his blued lips. He jammed the accelerator and shifted the large gearshift with a silver skull as the knob. The Mack lurched forward, accelerating. “And fuck you!”

Jimmie slammed his boot and the accelerator to the floor and jerked the shotgun gearshift as the Peterbilt blasted toward the charging Mack truck. “C'mon, you sick bastard,” Jimmie said as the two trucks headed straight for each other. “Bring it!” Jimmie punched a button on the console above his head, and the cab was filled with staccato metal guitar—Metallica's “No Remorse.”

Many large corporate fleet trucks came equipped with speed governors to keep them moving at a respectable but less legally actionable speed. Pretty much any semi could pull a full trailer load up an eight-degree incline at a hundred and twenty-five miles per hour. Independents like Jimmie and the Marquis liked to tinker with their engines, giving them thirteen- or eighteen-speed transmissions and making them capable of greater speeds, much greater speeds.

Both trucks were hurtling like rockets toward each other on the dark, icy road. Their speedometers creeping higher and higher … seventy mph … eighty mph … eighty-five … ninety … Less than ten yards separated them now.

Jimmie was sweating. His eyes locked on the windshield, on the brilliant lights and the massive grille that now encompassed his universe. His hand was steady on the wheel. This was it. He had faced this before—over there in Khafji, on the Road, when the cannibal sages of Metropolis-Utopia had almost gobbled him up, and the time with Ale and the others when they rode into the deep darkness to save Ale's old lady and her baby son. Jimmie knew the shape of death, the dry taste of dust and the bittersweet wine on her lips. The crazy sumbitch would blink, he'd swerve … hold … hold …

Saving Ale's baby. Jimmie suddenly flashed to his wife—to Layla, and the baby in her belly, his baby. Layla was home right now, waiting for him. Waiting with Peyton, his fourteen-year-old little girl. Their brights blinded both men as the trucks came closer and closer.

Who would keep them safe from things in this world like the Marquis, and worse? And Jimmie Aussapile knew there were things so much worse than the sick little madman barreling down on him. Who'd keep them safe? His family was waiting for him.

Jimmie's courage shivered. He began to jerk the large steering wheel to turn and try to avoid the crash. But the blinding lights of the Marquis's Mack suddenly swerved to the left. The maniac had turned, and the two cabs rushed past each other, like passing freight trains. Jimmie's driver's-side mirror exploded as the trucks passed, and sparks flew off the Marquis's trailer as they narrowly averted a crash. Jimmie downshifted and clutched the wheel tight as he applied the hissing air brakes. The wheels of the truck squealed in defiance. If he hit a patch of ice right now, he was dead.

Behind him, Jimmie heard a crash that sounded like a bomb blast, a heavy jarring boom; and he knew, even without his mirror, that the Marquis had jackknifed his rig—sliding sideways, with his trailer going one way and the cab the other. Jimmie's truck groaned to a stop with a final hiss of the brakes. He shifted the gears and shut off the engine. The sirens were louder now and closer, a screaming flock of banshees coming for retribution and judgment. Jimmie found the hidden catch on the gearshift and slid the fully functional sawed-off shotgun free of the transmission well one-handed, as he struggled out of the cab and into the cold night.

The Marquis's truck was partway through one of the graffiti-covered barrier walls; the cab and the trailer were on their sides in the shape of a massive “L.” The overturned trailer blocked both sides of Wharf Street. Jimmie spat out tobacco juice, pumped a round into the 12-gauge's chamber, and ran as quickly as his age, weight, and the slick road would allow toward the overturned cab. The sirens were very close now, blocks away. He saw a dark form drop off the top of the capsized cab and grunt in pain as he hit the frozen asphalt. It was Wayne Ray Rhodes. The gangly killer got to his feet and ran toward the now smashed chain-link fence, sliding through it and disappearing inside the quarry. Frank Pena, the gypsy cabbie, appeared around the side of the wrecked cab. The sirens were here now, all around them. State police and St. Louis PD cruisers were swarming both ends of the street.

“I smell gas,” Frank shouted. “It could start burning any second!”

Jimmie had reached the shredded fence and was struggling to get his gut through the narrow passage. “Get the girl out,” he said to Frank. “Make sure she's okay. Tell the cops where he went and that I'm back there, too!”

“Be careful, Paladin!” Frank shouted to the trucker over the sirens and the police radios.

Jimmie disappeared into the darkness. It was hard to hear anything above the sirens and his own labored breathing. The chaw in his cheek was like a ball of sour acid now, and for the millionth time he swore he was going to give the shit up. He slowed and looked around the narrow path between lines of conveyor belts, pulverizers, and storage sheds. He clicked on his heavy, baton-like Maglite flashlight and held it away from his body as he scanned.

There were dunes here. Massive mountains of sand and gravel. The backhoes and huge dump trucks were dark slumbering guardians as Jimmie moved as quietly as he could among the hills. There was the loud crack of a gunshot and the sound of something sizzling the air near him before it crashed into a conveyor ramp. Jimmie swung the light around and saw the Marquis, near the top of one of the ice-covered hills of cinder. The killer fired at Jimmie again with his snub-nosed revolver and Jimmie dived to the ground, dropping the flashlight, and quickly belly-crawled for cover behind a backhoe. Getting shot at—he hadn't done this shit in a spell. He still heard his old DI screaming at him to keep his fat ass down and out of the barbed wire. That was a million lifetimes, and at least eighty pounds, ago. Jimmie grunted as he crouched behind the massive front tires of the tractor and fired off two rounds in the direction of the Marquis. He couldn't see Wayne Ray, but he heard a satisfying crunch he assumed was the killer tumbling down the other side of the cinder pile, either hit or fell trying to avoid the gunfire. Jimmie was cool with either one.

Jimmie hustled, running, popping the hot cartridges out of the shotgun's breech, and fumbling to slide two more shells into the gun. He moved to the far side of the sand pile as the quarry's lights snapped on. Sweeping floodlights illuminated the machinery and the work roads between them. Jimmie was a silhouette against the halogen suns. He ran faster and snapped the breech shut on the gun. He rounded the sand dune and saw the back side of the cinder hill. Wayne Ray was getting to his feet, gun still in his hand. He saw Jimmie at the same time Jimmie spotted him. He squinted and fired from a kneeling position, cussing as he did. In his mind, Jimmie heard his dad's voice:
“You charge a gun, son, and back off a knife.…”

“Stay the hell back!” the Marquis bellowed. “I got a gun!”

“Shit,” Jimmie said, adding a few extra syllables to the word, as he ran full steam toward the killer and fired off a blast of the shotgun as he ran, the gun bouncing. The air around the Marquis was full of hot, angry bees. Wayne Ray flinched as several pellets stung his cheek and arm. Jimmie was on him, and the two men leveled their guns at each other from spitting distance. Jimmie was panting, his breath silver smoke in the cold, wet air. The Marquis was shaking more from fear than cold.

“I'm not going to fucking prison,” Wayne Ray said, cocking the revolver.

“Should have thought about that before you butchered all those women, Wayne Ray,” Jimmie said. “Whatever they do to you in there won't be a tenth of what you did to those poor souls.”

“Shit!” the Marquis said. “I was jist killing whores. It ain't like they're some damned endangered fucking species!”

Jimmie took a deep breath. “Come on, now,” he said to the killer, “drop the gun and let's walk on out. They'll buy you a big old cheeseburger and fries while your crazy ass confesses.” Wayne Ray didn't move. One of his eyes kept scrunching up, as if it had a will of its own. His gun hand was trembling.

“I could shoot you,” Wayne Ray said. “Kill you and then kill myself. Couldn't miss your fucking gut from here.”

“You talk too damn much to do that,” Jimmie said. “Now put that gun down and walk out with me, or, I swear to God, I'll empty enough shot into your fucking kneecap that you'll be begging me to kill you, and at this range I might end up taking your fucking pecker off with it. Last chance.”

“It ain't fair,” Wayne Ray said. “I was jist doing what everyone else does—killin' whores.”

“It truly is an unfair world, Wayne Ray,” Jimmie said. “Cowboy the fuck up. You did this—now face it like a man.”

Jimmie lowered the shotgun slightly to aim at the killer's knee. The Marquis gently lay the revolver on the cold ground.

“Think they'll make a movie about me?” Wayne Ray asked, putting his hands on his head.

“Yeah,” Jimmie said, sighing. “They probably will.”

*   *   *

The girl was alive. She broke her collarbone in the crash, but she was crying tears of joy and thanking Jesus a whole lot as the paramedics wheeled her on a gurney to an ambulance and sped her off to the hospital. She never saw Jimmie, but he saw her, and it made him smile. Someone handed him a paper cup of really bad coffee, and he nursed it and checked his watch. He was late, really late. His cell phone had been blowing up from the dispatcher. He turned it off. Most of the cops, paramedics, and others on the scene just tried very hard to ignore him. Jimmie knew the routine. He needed to get going, but there was someone he had to talk with first. He just hoped that afterward he wasn't going to jail.

A few hours after Wayne Ray Rhodes had been put in the back of a police car and sped away, a tall black man with salt-and-pepper hair, dressed in an oxford shirt, slacks, and an FBI windbreaker, walked up to Jimmie. He nodded in the direction of the overturned Mack truck. It was still surrounded by cops, state troopers, forensic technicians, and, now, federal agents.

“Another low-profile operation,” Agent Dann said. “Very subtle.”

“We git 'er done, Cecil,” Jimmie said, spitting some tobacco juice, from the new nest of chaw in his cheek, into the empty paper coffee cup. “Damn sight more than I can say for you fellas.”

“And who, exactly, is ‘we,' Aussapile?” Dann asked. “How do you people do what you do?”

“Rhodes is a solo,” Jimmie said. “He's not part of the Finders or the Zodiac Lodge or one of the other serial-killer packs. Lone mad dog—no one was pointing him or giving him aid and comfort. He's got enough Polaroids and videos in there to clear pert near fifty cases for you, though. Thought you'd want to know.”

“How the hell do you know about the…” Dann sputtered, but then collected himself. “The official bureau policy on those so-called child-abduction cults and serial-killer clubs is that they do not exist and don't use the highways as their private hunting grounds. It's all urban myth.”

“Well,” Jimmie said, “that's a comfort coming from the folks who said the same thing about the Mafia.”

“Who
are
you people?” Dann asked.

“We're urban myths, too,” Jimmie said. “I got a load of iron to get to Chicago. Am I free to go now?”

“What if I bust your ass until I get some real answers?” Dann said.

“The same thing that happened the first time we met and you tried that shit,” Jimmie said. “Can I go?”

Dann nodded. “You saved her—that girl. Go. But I'm not giving up on this, on whoever you people are.”

Jimmie climbed into the truck, groaning with the effort. His back and knee were acting up again in this cold. “And that is exactly why we contacted you tonight. Keep up the good work, Cecil. Thanks for coming out so quick, and for trusting us.”

Jimmie's rig pulled away from the federal agent and headed back toward the interstate and his dwindling deadline.

“I never said I trusted you,” Dann said to the retreating brake lights.

*   *   *

Jimmie got back on the highway, taking I-55 across the powerful, lazy Mississippi River into Illinois and onto I-64 headed for Chicago. With a little luck and a decent tailwind, he might not be too late. That was good, because this was his third load with this company, and the last two had been late because of business like tonight. He doubted they would contract him for a fourth one if he screwed this job up. With the baby on the way, and Layla not working at Walmart right now, they needed the money pretty bad.

The road drifted beneath him, white bullet lines flashing by, acceleration making them an endless thread. Green road signs with white lettering announced his progress, as did his GPS. He was making good time now, humming with the rhythm of the road. He switched the CD player back on and clicked to change the disc. “Far from Home,” by Five Finger Death Punch, kept him company. Jimmie sighed. He was ready to go home for a spell. He missed his wife, missed his family. After tonight, he felt that he deserved a little break, a little peace. He needed home.

That was when he saw her. He slowed instinctively, even though part of his mind was screaming to ignore her, pass on by. The deadline, peace and quiet. Home. So far from home.

He drove past her. She was pale, almost washed out in the glare of his lights. She looked about fifteen, maybe younger, and was dressed in a dirty white lace sundress. A jean jacket, too big for her and covered with buttons declaring the logos of various bands, was her only protection from the cold and the rain. She wore simple leather flats over dirty feet. Her straight brown hair fell to her shoulders but didn't appear to be wet in the freezing drizzle; none of her looked wet, but she shivered all the same. Her face pleaded with him silently in his headlights.