"Pull the fucking trigger!"
Majestyk pushed against the seat back, lunging at Wiley. Renda hit the brakes again, bouncing Majestyk off the dashboard. But he was able to push off from it, twisting around enough to get a hand on the girl's arm just as she fired and the automatic exploded less than a foot from his head.
Renda was kicking at him again. "Christ, shoot him!"
He kicked at Majestyk's ribs, got his heel in hard a couple of times, kicked again and this time his heel hit Majestyk's belt buckle, slipped off and hit the door handle as Wiley pulled her arm free and put the automatic in Majestyk's face. The door opened and she saw him going out, fired, saw his expression and fired twice again, saw the window of the swung-open door shatter, but he was gone, out of the car, and she knew she hadn't hit him.
The XK Jag was two hundred feet up the road before its brake lights flashed on. The car made a tight turn, backed up on the narrow blacktop, and turned again to come back this way.
Majestyk heard the sound of the engine. He was lying facedown on the shoulder of the road, propped on his elbows, dazed, staring at gravel and feeling it cutting into the palms of his hands. His vision was blurred and when he wiped his eyes, he saw blood on the back of his hand. He heard the engine sound louder, winding up, coming toward him. When he raised his head he saw the headlights and the grille, low to the ground, the nose swinging toward the gravel shoulder, coming directly at him.
With all of his strength he threw himself to the side, rolling into the ditch, as the Jag swept past. A moment later he heard the tires squealing on the blacktop and knew he had to get out of here, pushing himself up now, out of the weeds, climbing the bank away from the road and ducking through the wire fence, as the Jag made its tight turn and came back and this time stopped.
Majestyk was running across the open scrub, weaving through the dusty brush clumps, by the time Renda got out of the car and began firing at him with the automatic, both hands extended in the handcuffs. Majestyk kept running. Renda jumped across the ditch, got to the fence, and laid the.45 on the top of a post, aimed, and squeezed the trigger three times, but the figure out in the scrub was too small now and it would have to be a lucky shot to bring him down. He fired once more and the automatic clicked empty.
Seventy, eighty yards away, Majestyk finally came to a stop, worn out, getting his breath. He turned to look at the man standing by the fence post and, for a while, they stared at one another, each knowing who the other man was and what he felt and not having to say anything. Renda crossed the ditch to the Jag and Majestyk watched it drive away.
It seemed easier to get out of jail than it was to get back in.
He got a ride in a feed truck as far as Junction, after walking a couple of miles, then sitting down to rest and waiting almost an hour in the sun. When the driver asked what'd happened to him he said he'd blown a tire and gone off the road and was thrown out when his pickup went into the ditch. The driver said he was lucky he wasn't killed and Majestyk agreed.
At Junction he went into the Enco station and asked the attendant, the one named Gil, for the key to the Men's Room. The attendant gave it to him without saying anything, though he had a little smile on his face looking at Majestyk's dirty, beat-up condition. In the Men's Room he saw what a mess he was: blood and dirt caked on his face, his shirt torn up the back, his hands raw-looking with imbedded gravel.
It was four-thirty that afternoon when he walked into the Edna Post of the County Sheriff's Department and asked the deputy behind the desk if Lieutenant McAllen was around. The deputy, ignoring his face, asked him what it was he wanted to see the lieutenant about.
"I want to go to jail," Majestyk said.
He waited on the bench thinking, Christ, trying to get back in. He was still sitting on the bench twenty minutes later when McAllen walked up to him and stood there, not saying anything.
"I had him," Majestyk said.
"Did you?"
"I guess you want to hear what happened."
"I think I can see," McAllen said.
6
Getting Renda to Mexico was no problem. A young guy who brought reefer in two or three times a month flew him down in his Cessna, landing on a desert airstrip not far from Hermosillo. Renda spent two nights in a motel while the rest of it was being worked out. On the morning of the third day an Olds 98 with California plates and a house trailer attached-with Eugene Lundy behind the wheel and Wiley curled on the backseat reading a current bestselling novel-pulled up in front of the motel. Renda, wearing work clothes and a week's growth of beard, walked out of his room and got in the trailer. The Olds took off and didn't stop again until they were on the coast road south of Guaymas and Lundy thought maybe Frank would want to get out and stretch his legs, exercise a little, breathe in the salt air, and throw a couple of stones at the Gulf of California. Wiley said to him, "You don't know Frank very well, do you?"
He didn't come out of the trailer or bother to look up when the door opened. He was sitting in back on one of the bunks, smoking a cigarette.
Wiley said, "Hey, do you love it? I think it's great."
Behind her, Lundy said, "Air-conditioned, you got plenty of vodka, scotch, steaks, and beer in the ice box and"-he took an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Renda-"twenty-five hundred cigarette money."
Wiley was opening cabinets and doors. "There's a shower in the john. Even a magazine rack."
"Tonight we'll be in Mazatlan," Lundy said. "We can stay there or go on down to Acapulco, it's up to you."
Renda looked up at him. "Regular vacation. You having a nice time?"
"Listen, I think I could use a rest. That stunt, hitting the fucking bus, that took some years off me."
Renda watched him turn to the refrigerator and take out a can of beer.
"Where is he?"
"You want one?"
"I said where is he!"
Lundy, about to pop open the can, looked over at Renda. "The guy? He turned himself in. Last I heard they're still holding him at Edna."
Wiley came in to stretch out on the opposite bunk. "Kind of tight fit, but all the comforts of home."
"We're not at home," Renda said. "He is."
"He's in jail, Frank." Wiley's tone was soft, approaching him carefully. "You're free. We can go anywhere you want."
"There's only one thing I want," Renda said. "Him."
Lundy opened the can and took a swig. "He gets out, we can have somebody take care of that."
Renda shook his head. "Not somebody. I said I want him. I want him to see it and know it's me. Put the gun in his stomach and look at him. Not say anything, just look at him and make sure he understands."
"You still have to wait," Lundy said.
Renda didn't say anything. He was still picturing it, putting the gun in the melon grower's stomach.
"All right, let me ask you," Lundy said. "What do you do, walk in the jail, ask them for a visitor's pass? How do you get close to the guy?"
"You get him out of jail."
"You get him out. How?"
"Find the guy he hit," Renda said. "Tell him to drop the complaint. It was all a mistake, a misunderstanding."
"What if the guy doesn't want to drop it?"
"Jesus, I said tell him, not ask him."
"Maybe pay him something?"
"That's up to you. See what it takes."
"You mean you want me to do it? Go back there?"
"I'm talking to you, aren't I?"
"I just wanted to be sure."
"You're going to go back and set it up," Renda said. "Find the guy made the complaint and get that done. Get some people if you see we need them. Call me, I come up. We go in and get out fast. No bullshit screwing around. Arrange it, I walk up to him, and it's done."
Lundy took a sip of beer, getting the right words ready in his mind. "I keep thinking though, what about the cops? They'll be looking for you, watching your house, the apartment."