‘Did you say anything else?’
‘I told him I knew he killed my father and I was going to kill him for that.’
‘Well then, you’ve told him pretty much all he needs to know. He can’t let either of us live now.’
She bit her lip. ‘Thanks for bailing me out.’
I managed to smile at her.
I passed the motel without stopping, turned at a fast food place, and waited for a minute by the roadside. No one was following us.
‘Tomorrow we have to move again. For tonight, we sleep in shifts. The other one keeps watch from the window. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
As it turned out, I didn’t have the heart to wake her. It was all my fault she was here in the first place. What had I been doing taking her to London with me? Of course, if I hadn’t taken her with me, they’d probably have killed her when they killed Max. This thought pushed away the guilt. I sat in a chair by the window, and went out to the vending machine occasionally for ice-cold Coke and chocolate bars. I crunched a few caffeine tablets until my heart rate sounded too high. I knew every inch of the parking lot, every scrap of trash blowing across it. The sodium glare hurt my eyes. I wanted to close them, to wash them out. Then I closed them for a second too long.
I slept.
It was morning when I woke up, and not early morning either.
Through the window I saw the maid’s cleaning cart. She was looking at me, so I shook my head and she pushed the cart along to the next room, knocked, and then went into it.
My watch said 10:15. I got up from the chair and stretched, shrugging my shoulders free of their stiffness. I needed a shower.
‘Bel,’ I said. ‘Time to wake up.’
She rolled over, exhaled, and then lifted her head from the pillow. Like me she was almost fully dressed.
‘What time is it?’
‘It’s gone ten. Come on, get up. You can take first shower.’
I watched her as she slunk into the bathroom and closed the door. I knew our options now had narrowed considerably. We were no longer the hunters but the hunted. Worst of all, I still didn’t know what was going on. I could think of one man who knew: Jeremiah Provost. But Kline would have Provost covered. Kline would have everything covered.
I had enough quarters left to buy us a couple of breakfast Cokes. I had a head full of mud and my body felt like it was dragging weights. The vending machine was next to the ice-box in a little connecting alley between the back of the motel and the front. There was a concrete stairwell up to the rooms on the first floor. I’d sat there last night for a while, listening to traffic. Now, as I got the second can from the machine, I heard tyres squeal out front. I looked around the corner and saw a car sitting next to the motel office. A man was getting out of the passenger side, buttoning his jacket as he walked to the office. He wore sunglasses and looked around him. I didn’t recognise the man, but he didn’t look like a typical resident. He looked official. I ducked back into the alley and flew to our room.
‘Got to go!’ I called. Bel came out of the bathroom dressed and rubbing her hair with a towel. ‘Got to go,’ I said. When she saw me throwing stuff into a bag, she took the hint, threw down the towel, and started packing.
‘What’s the problem?’
‘Bad guys at the office. They could be asking about VW vans.’ I took hold of the Smith & Wesson. ‘Here,’ I told her, ‘take this.’
She didn’t say anything. It took her a moment to make up her mind, then she snatched the pistol from me. She checked the clip, slapped it home and made sure the safety was on. I didn’t have time for a smile.
They say discretion is the better part of valour, but we were anything but discreet leaving the room. We ran to the van, heaving bags into the back. Bel was toting the pistol, and I had the Colt Commando by its carrying handle. I’d taken off the flash-hider. When I’d used the Commando last night, the noise without the hider had been impressive. It had made people duck. So the hider stayed off.
Now we were in the van, I hesitated for a second. What were we supposed to do? Cruise past the car with a nod and a smile? Play hide and seek around the motel? Or leave the van and take to the streets? I certainly didn’t want to leave the van, not just yet. So the only thing to do was drive... drive, and see what happened. I knew I could tell Bel to split, to run off on her own, or stay holed up in the room. It was me they wanted. But of course they’d want her too. We were a package now; she knew everything I did. Besides, she wouldn’t stay behind. It wasn’t her style. I turned to her.
‘Tell me about yourself.’
‘What?’
‘You said I should ask you some time when you weren’t expecting it.’
‘You’re crazy, Michael.’ But she was grinning. I realized she was probably readier for this than I was. I started the engine.
‘It’s just, it’d be nice to have known you before we die.’
‘We’re not going to die.’ She raised the pistol. ‘I love you, Michael.’
‘I love you, too. I always have.’
She flipped the safety off the semi-automatic. ‘Just drive,’ she said.
I drove.
We took it slow out of our parking bay and around the side of the motel, then speeded up. I saw that the car was still parked. Worse, it had reversed back to block the only ramp into and out of the car park. I brought the van to a stop. The passenger came out of the office and saw us. He pointed us out to the driver, then took a radio from his pocket. With his other hand, he was reaching into his pocket for something else. And when the driver got out of the car, I saw he was holding a machine-gun. I risked a glance over my shoulder, but all I could see were walls.
‘Come on, Michael, let’s do it.’
‘Do what?’
‘What do you think?’ She pushed open her door, readying to get out. The driver was taking aim against the roof of the car. I opened my door and steadied the Commando.
Then I saw it.
It was a flat-bed pick-up with a cattle bar on the front and searchlights on top of the cab. I don’t know where it came from, but I could see where it was going. It mounted the pavement and kept on coming. Hearing the engine roar, the car driver half-turned, saw what was happening, and pushed himself away from his vehicle, just as the cattle bar hit it from behind. The pick-up’s back wheels lifted clean off the ground from the force of the collision, but that was nothing compared to the car. It jumped forward and then spun, looking like a wild horse trying to throw off its rider. Its boot crumpled and then flew open, its rear window splintering. Both driver and passenger had hit the ground. Now a shotgun appeared from the pick-up’s passenger-side window and blasted two rounds over the heads of the men, shattering the office window. Then the pick-up reversed back down the short ramp and out on to the road, stopping traffic.
‘He’s waiting for us!’ Bel yelled. She was back in the van now, and slammed shut her door. I drove out past the wrecked car, keeping the Commando aimed out of my window in case the two men decided to get up. The pick-up was already moving, so we followed it, stalled cars complaining all around.
‘Who is it?’ Bel was shouting. ‘Who’s in the truck?’
I had a grin all over my face. ‘Who do you think it is? It’s Spike, of course.’
26
The pick-up seemed to know where it was going.
We followed it east on to I-5 and then south through the city till we connected with the I-90 east out of town.
We were headed for the interior.
‘Why doesn’t he stop?’ Bel said.
‘I don’t know.’ I’d flashed my lights a couple of times, but all I’d received in return was a wave from the window. We crossed over Mercer Island, retracing the route we’d taken into Seattle when we’d arrived. Soon we were on a wide road with wilderness either side. This really was frontier country. Few tourists or holidaymakers ventured into the interior. It was hot and dry, and if you didn’t like hills and trees there wasn’t much in the way of scenery. That this was logging country was reinforced by crudely made roadside signs denouncing government policy, foreign timber imports, owls and environmentalists. Not always in that order.