The Falling Away (12 page)

“Yeah.”

“So I'm hoping you'll remember that. Keep me in the loop, give me a heads-up when you hear something.”

A long pause on the line. Dylan turned and looked at the empty bar behind him. The man with the newspaper flipped the section he was reading and refolded it.

“Yeah,” Krunk said. “You stay under a few weeks and check in. This works out the way you say, we're square.”

After he heard the click of the call disconnecting, Dylan replaced the phone on its receiver and limped back to the counter. His leg was stiff. Might be time for a few more Perks when he got back to his truck.

He sat at the bar, waited for the guy reading to finish and make eye contact.

“What'll ya have, cousin?” the guy asked. His face was pockmarked, as if sandblasted by the constant wind of the high plains. Maybe it was. His hair was in two long braids, draped over a navy blue hooded shirt.

“Gimme a six of something to go.”

“Coors?”

Dylan shrugged. “Yeah, that's good.” One or two of the beers might take the edge off Webb when he got back to the truck—more from the familiar ritual and taste of beer than from any alcohol.

“Ask you for a favor?” Dylan said as the bartender pushed a paper bag with the beer in it toward him.

“Shoot.”

Dylan flinched at the word, then did his best to recover and pulled ten hundred-dollar bills out of his pocket and put them on the counter. The bartender glanced at the cash, but didn't seem particularly moved; he locked gazes with Dylan once more.

“Guy's gonna come in here soon—maybe even today—asking for some packages left by Dylan. You turn them over for these ten bills.”

The bartender's
Billings Gazette
was folded on the bar beside him, exposing a story on the front page about wolves in Yellowstone Park. He gathered up the bills, stuffed them into the front pocket of his hooded sweatshirt. “No problem.”

“Two bags. I got 'em out in the truck.”

The bartender picked up the paper again, made a show of reading the next story. “I'll lock 'em in the back.”

Dylan pushed out the front door and reentered the bright white landscape outside, carrying the package of beer. He was surprised to see Webb up and awake in the front of the truck.

He opened the truck door and dropped the six-pack into Webb's lap.

Webb flinched, then cursed. “I got shot this morning, if you don't remember.”

“I shot back, if you don't remember.” Actually, Dylan had been the first one to pull the trigger, but this didn't seem the time to start splitting hairs.

Webb looked at him, his eyes watering a bit. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Have a drink,” Dylan said as he fished the antibiotic from his coat pocket. “Put some of this in it.”

Webb held up the bag of powder and examined it. “What is this?”

“Antibiotic.”

Webb pulled a can out of the brown bag, opened it, and gulped a few swallows. He wiped at his mouth with the sleeve of his good arm. “Rather have this antibiotic.”

“Then give yourself a couple of shots. I'll be right back.”

Dylan closed the door and pulled the backpack and rucksack from the truck bed. For a moment, he considered what to do with his .357. At some point, when the Canucks had been found, the gun would tie him to the scene of the crime. If he left the gun in the rucksack with the money, he'd be rid of any physical evidence that might put him there.

Other than blood from Webb, left on the ground.

But snow and wind would likely take care of that within a few hours. Probably had by now.

Still, if goons were going to come after them, and he knew in his heart they probably would, he might need the revolver, as well as the half box of ammo under his front seat.

Dylan sighed, draped the backpack over his shoulder, and picked up the rucksack. He left the revolver in the right pocket of the new coat Couture had given him. He couldn't give it up right now.

Inside, the bartender had finished his reading and was washing some glasses in a tub of soapy water. “Drag 'em back there,” the bartender said, jerking his head toward the rear of the bar.

Dylan did as instructed and waited while the bartender came to the back, drying his hands with a towel. He pulled keys from his jeans pocket, studied them a few moments, selected one, and slid it into a padlock on the door. Like everything else inside the bar, the door was covered in old barn wood.

Inside the room were crates, cases of beer and liquor, a desk in the corner with sheaves of paper stacked on top.

“Be okay in here,” the bartender said.

Dylan pushed the packs inside and backed out of the room. “Like I said, might be someone here as early as today.”

The bartender watched him in silence for a few seconds, and Dylan realized he'd been unconsciously rubbing his hands on the front of his jeans. As if he could ever get those hands clean.

He stopped, ran his hands through his own close-cropped hair, stopped once again as the braided bartender looked at him.

“Surprised if they weren't,” the bartender said as he relocked the padlock and turned to head back to the front of the building.

“Why's that?” Dylan asked, following.

“Guy pays me a grand to watch something, probably twenty times that in the package.” The bartender was back behind the large bar now. “Today's economy, no one wants to leave twenty grand just lying around for long.” He smiled for the first time.

Dylan nodded. This guy was about $30K off on his estimate, but he'd be all right. He knew how the real world operated. Still—

“Look,” Dylan said. “I don't think you'll have any problems. Quick in, quick out. Just—”

“He white?”

“What's that?”

“The guy coming to get the packs—is he white?”

Dylan paused, considering. “I don't know who it will be, but I'm guessing he'll be white.” Dylan had an odd sense of dèjá vu. “Why? Does it make a difference?”

The bartender smiled. “Might not make much difference to you, because you think you're white. But to me, yeah, it makes a difference. I'll be fine.” The bartender returned to washing glasses that didn't need to be washed, so Dylan stepped outside.

Back in the pickup, Webb was working his way through a second beer.

“Careful,” Dylan said as he started the truck and hit the wipers a few times to whisk away the flakes deposited on the windshield. “A lot of beer with those painkillers might be a bad mix.”

“That's what I'm counting on,” Webb said.

Dylan turned onto the road and wheeled them south on Highway 191. Webb looked out the window as they drove, staring at nothing. Mainly because there was nothing to stare at. Unless you counted snow. At least the highway was clear.

“You dropped the drugs and the cash.”

Dylan glanced over, but he could only see the back of Webb's head. Webb had wrapped his good arm across his chest, gently supporting his wounded shoulder.

“Yeah,” Dylan answered.

“And you called Krunk.”

“Yeah.”

“What'd he say?”

“About what you'd expect.”

Webb shifted, grunting with the effort. “We coulda disappeared with that.”

“Disappeared to where?”

“I don't know. But $50K and a bunch of drugs can buy a lot of magic.”

“Not enough magic.”

Webb was quiet for a few more minutes. “Krunk say anything about the Canucks?”

“Like what?”

“Like anything.”

The windows were beginning to fog over a bit, so Dylan turned up the heat another notch.

“Said he'd let us know if he heard of something happening.”

“And you think he will, him being such a thoughtful guy and all.”

“Well, I don't much like the alternative.”

“You're saying that like there is an alternative.”

“That's my point: there isn't.”

Webb let out a long sigh, popped open another Coors. He chugged half the can in a long draw, shifted in his seat again. “Could my life suck any worse?”

“I don't think you really want to know the answer to that.”

19

Andrew had parked his pickup in the lot for Fiddler's Foods in Harlem. He often parked here, because it was the one place in town where he could actually get two bars on his cell phone. In about half of Harlem he could pick up one bar; in the other half, no signal. But here, in this exact spot outside Fiddler's, he could pick up two bars.

And so, when he was waiting for a call on his cell phone while stuck in Harlem, he often parked here. Gave him a chance to show off his pickup, anyway.

But this waiting sucked. He'd waited here for—quick check of the dash clock—he'd waited for more than an hour now, and Doze still hadn't called with a location on Dylan's position. Dylan was now an hour away from him, and Andrew didn't know which direction. Maybe he should have just followed him.

Abruptly, the phone rang in his pocket. Had to be Doze.

He fished the phone out of his pocket, glanced at the number, smiled.

“Hello?” he said, pouring the sugar on his voice.

“Andrew,” Krunk said.

“Well, Krunk. What a surprise. You hear from your boy Dylan?”

“Hmm? No, no. After we talked, I remembered I got something needs to happen over by Malta. Figured maybe you'd know someone.”

“Malta?”

“Yeah. Some packages I need picked up.”

“I know people in Malta.”

“Someone who can get there soon, make sure I get those packages?”

“Of course.”

“Okay. It's a bar called Liquid Lennie's.”

Andrew smiled. “Liquid Lennie's. I know it.”

“You get someone there, tell them to pick up the packages, call me right away.”

“Your wish is my command.”

Andrew hung up the phone, thought for a moment, started his pickup. He didn't buy Krunk's snow-job story about “remembering” something that needed to happen in Malta. He had a very good idea what the packages in Malta were and where they'd come from. Dylan was being a bit more clever than he'd ever given him any credit for; he'd dropped the money and drugs in Malta, called Krunk to break the news about the deal, played the old “I'm being straight with you” routine, told Krunk to find the stuff in Malta.

And Krunk, soft as he was, stupid as he was, had called Andrew right back.

Dylan's present had just become the gift that keeps on giving.

He could be in Malta soon.

20

Alone in a stall of the restroom at Eddie's Corner, Quinn studied the paper clip.

Quinn had left Great Falls right after Andrew's call, before the pressure inside—caused by Greg's cleansing—could be released. And so, during the drive to Eddie's Corner, Quinn had been forced to listen to the whispered voices, the lies drawn from Greg's mind. Distracting, because what Quinn really wanted to listen to was the police scanner, hoping to pick up something about a red Ford Ranger.

Not that Quinn wanted, specifically, to hear mention of Dylan's truck. That would mean Dylan was causing even more ripples. Ripples that could work their way back to the HIVE.

So in a way, it was good that Quinn was here in the restroom at Eddie's Corner, an odd outpost/convenience store/truck stop in central Montana. It meant there were no mentions of Dylan on the traffic scanner. It meant, maybe, there was time to stop Dylan and Webb.

It meant Quinn could stem the pressure, the constant pressure, building inside.

The paper clip wavered in her hand for a few moments.

Most people might think it would be too difficult, too painful, to embed bits of metal beneath your skin. Paper clips. Staples. Broken bits of glass. Even small nails.

But Quinn knew this was not true. Pain was an illusion, a cruel parlor trick meant to keep you from seeing what was truly behind the curtain. Pain turned your focus inward, if you let it, kept you from seeing truth. Pain, in the right context, was cleansing. That's what the embedding was all about.

That's what the Falling Away was all about. Quinn's purpose, Quinn's reason for existing.

After sucking the disease from someone else's body, after uttering the cleansing prayers, your own skin was bloated, rotten from the sickness. Embedding brought down the swelling, relieved the pressure. It released the true pain—the deep, dark pain of lies—and reset your body. Made you sharp and clear. Prepared you for the next assignment.

Quinn had discovered the need for release long ago, while still on the streets of Portland. At the beginning, simple cuts were enough: nicks on the flesh, usually the stomach or the upper arms, sometimes the legs. Just a quick slice, nothing too deep, and the pressure came draining out. The world around you reset. Colors returned, everything came into focus.

But the cutting had opened a deeper vein, hadn't it? A vein that led her to Paul. Or more appropriately, led Paul to her. He showed Quinn that the compulsion inside could have a purpose outside.

The rest of society, Quinn had learned, knew nothing of the Falling Away. They only lived in the Fall. Which was what made them so susceptible. They walked around in their everyday existences, constantly complaining about finances and jobs and stress and pressure. Eventually they grew to hate their lives, hate themselves, and that's what opened them to the disease.

But society in general didn't know anything about the transforming power of true pressure. Not even close.

Quinn had seen a movie about deep-sea divers around the time the cutting became necessary, after panhandling a couple bucks on the street. It had been cold and rainy on the streets of Portland that day, and the movie theater held the promise of darkness and warmth for a few hours. And it had always been easy to get into the theater; more than once, she'd slipped past the kid at the ticket counter.

On the screen, these divers, these men and women, sank to the depths in giant suits made of armored metal; the suits were necessary because the pressure of their surroundings, thousands of feet beneath the surface of the ocean, would crush a normal human body. Without the diving suit, the body would just collapse, fold in upon itself.