I still didn't have quite the feel of it, so there was a certain amount of sliding and screeching before we got straightened out on the highway. By this time the speedometer needle was coming up to forty-five, and I reached out and socked button number two. There was a gadget somewhere around that would do the shifting for me, but I'm peculiar, I like to pick my own gears. This one took me up to eighty, and even so the beast was loafing. I hit number three and we went up past a hundred with a rush; and now you could hear, above the sound of the wind, the sighing roar of the two big four-barrel carburetors reaching for air.
I mean, it was a lot of car. Not only did it have the power-everybody's got power these days-but it was steady as a rock. Underneath all the weird styling dreamed up by the butterfly boys, some real engineers had got together and concocted something quite commendable. I let my mind toy with the possibility of getting Beth to trade in the Buick; maybe I could get this car with a stick shift if I held a gun on somebody..
I let my mind wander like this as I drove. I didn't need time to think. I'd done all the necessary thinking. I knew what had to be done. All I needed was to keep from thinking, now, until the time came to do it.
It was two hundred miles, give or take a few, to La Junta, Colorado, pronounced La Hunta. I was well ahead of schedule by that time, so I found a place that was open and put down a cup of coffee and a piece of soggy apple pie. Then I swung southwest towards Trimidad and Raton. I was kind of sorry to be coming this way in the dark. There's always a fine moment of excitement when you first raise the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies over the edge of the plains ahead, on any road. You can even imagine, if you try hard, something of what the sight must have meant to the early pioneers after a couple of months o~i the trail.
I didn't think about Betsy, and I didn't think about Beth, or Loris, or Tina, or Mac. I just pushed the car along and listened to the roar of the engine and the howl of the wind and the whine of the tires, holding her as close to a hundred as the road would allow, which was usually pretty close in the flat country. Beyond Trinidad, however, the road headed up into the mountains towards Raton Pass and my home state of New Mexico. Going up was no problem with all that power, coming down again on the other side was a slightly different matter, involving, as it did, some hard use of the brakes. They got fairly hot and feeble before we got down off that hill. I didn't dare do any trick braking with the funny push-button transmission, not knowing how much, or little, it could take. Besides, it had its own ideas about when to shift, and they weren't mine.
Out on the flat again, the smell of burned brake lining gradually blew away. At the junction south of the town of Raton, I took the left-hand fork towards Las Vegas. Yes, we've got a town in New Mexico by that name, too. In Las Vegas, I found another cup of coffee and a couple of fried eggs with bacon. Some time after that, the sky started to get light in the east, which was all right. In the truck, I'd have been coming in around ten in the morning. I'd told Beth to expect me about that time. This way, I'd actually hit town around six, which would give me plenty of time for the arrangements I had to make.
Figuring like this, confidently, I almost piled up in Glorieta Pass, not fifty miles from home. Coming up to a curve too fast, I suddenly discovered I had no more brakes than a roller skate. An ordinary car would have rolled and wound up at the bottom of the canyon, but this one kept right side up as I took the corner in a screaming slide, using the whole mad. It would have been a hell of a time to meet somebody coming the other way. After that, as long as I was in the hifis, I kept the transmission locked in second gear, used the compression judiciously to slow her down, and took it much easier. There wasn't that much of a hurry, anyway.
I made my entrance into town by way of a small dirt road instead of the main highway, just in case somebody might be watching for me. The first filling station I hit was closed, but it had a public phone booth outside. I stopped the car-the brakes had recovered enough for casual use-got out stiffly, and made my call to the number Mac had given me.
When somebody answered, I said, "This is the Dodge City, Santa Fe Express, coming in on Track Three."
"Who?" the guy said. Some people have no sense of humor. "Mr. Helm?"
"Yes, this is Helm."
"Your subject is still in his room at the DeCastro Hotel," the guy said. He had a clipped, business.like, Eastern voice. "He has company. Female."
"Who?"
"Nobody we're interested in. Just someone he picked up in the bar. What are your plans?"
"I'll be sitting in the lobby when he comes down," I said.
"Is that wise?"
"It remains to be seen," I said. "Don't call off the watchdogs. He might try to backdoor me."
"I'll be over there myself," the voice said. "There'll be a man standing phone watch at this number, however, in case you want to get in touch with us again. He'll be able to relay any messages to me."
"Very good," I said. "Thanks." I hung up, found another dime, and dialed again. There was only a little pause before Beth answered. If she'd been sleeping at all, it wasn't soundly. "Good morning," I said.
"Matt! Where are you?"
"I'm in Raton," I said. After all, there might be somebody on the line. "Ran into a little trouble in the mountains. The truck threw a connecting rod-I guess I was pushing too hard. But I've managed to wake up a guy who'll rent me a car, and I'll be on my way as soon as I hang up." That would explain the Plymouth, if anybody was watching when I drove up. It would also explain any delays, if I ran into trouble. I asked, "Any news? Any further instructions for me?"
"Not yet."
"Get any sleep?", "Not much," she said. "How could I?"
"That makes two of us," I said. "Okay. When somebody calls, tell her I may be just a little late, and explain why."
"Her?" Beth said.
"It'll be a her, this time," I said, hoping I was right.
CHAPTER 27
SHE was a Spauish-American girl, dark and willing-looking, but a little past the prettiest time of her life, which comes early among that race. She was wearing one of those small gray jackets made of nylon fur, over a yellow sweater and a tight gray skirt tricked out around the bottom with a lot of little pleats. Somehow, whenever one of those girls gets hold of a narrow skirt, which isn't often, it's always several inches too long; and the tartier the girl, strangely enough, the longer the skirt. You'd think it would be the other way around.
This one was pretty well hobbled. She came across the hotel lobby in her high heels and went out into the morning sunlight. Presently a man came in to buy a paper at the cigar counter. His crisp Eastern voice was familiar; I'd heard it over the phone quite recently. He walked on past me towards the coffee shop, a moderately tall character, well set up, in a gray suit-too young, handsome, and clean-cut for my taste, the epitome of a modern law-enforcement officer, no doubt, with good training in law or accounting as well as marksmanship and judo. He could have taken me with either hand, while lighting a cigarette with the other;
but he'd never get the chance; he was too nice a boy. I was going to have trouble with him. I could smell it.
He didn't look at me as he went past, but his head kind of bobbed in a nod, to tell me it was the right girl and things might start to happen, now that she was out of the way. It was about time. I'd been sitting there for an hour and a half.
He'd hardly gone out of sight when Loris appeared at the head of the short flight of stairs that led to the rear of the hotel, whatever might be there. He was yawning. He needed a shave, but with my beard,I was hardly in a position to criticize. I'd forgotten how big he was. He looked tremendously solid, standing there above me, and handsome in a bull-like way. The place was lousy with handsome young men. I felt old as the Sangre de Cristo peaks above the town, ugly as an adobe wall, and mean as a prairie rattlesnake. I'd driven four hundred miles in the truck since yesterday morning and five hundred miles in the Plymouth since last night, but it didn't matter. Weariness just served to anesthetize my conscience, if 1 had one, which wasn't likely. Mac had done his best to amputate it long ago. It was, he said, a handicap in our line of business.