Who reached for whom first? It was too close to call.
He hugged her and she held tightly to him, and he found himself crying, just small tears squeezed out between his eyelids, because he was so very very sorry that this terrible thing, this soul-sickening thing, had happened to her, that though—thank God—the DJ had not violated her, some part of her had to have been touched by his ugliness, by the vileness that had been shaped by his suffering, whatever the cause. But those were things of the world, and he couldn’t protect her from them any more than he could protect himself, or any of them. Besides, all that went into the stew they called ‘writing’.
He put his head against her shoulder and breathed in her aroma. It was a faint smell of honeysuckle, like a sunlit summer meadow. It was the proper aroma for a heroine in one of those Victorian novels who is doomed to fall in love with the callous cad.
But that would not be him, because though he was his father’s son he was not his father, and he would never be.
Ariel pressed her hands against his back, and when she heard him sniffle like a little boy she whispered in his ear, “It’s all right.”
And again, so he’d be certain of it.
TWENTY-SEVEN.
The wheels on the bus go round and round…round and round…round and round.
A children’s song, Terry thought. He wondered if that was how it had begun, for all of them.
Music, heard when they were children. A tune from a local TV show, one of those disappearing breed where the host in a captain’s cap shows cartoons to kids and does magic with balloons and napkins, somebody always named ‘Cousin’ or ‘Cappy’. A snippet of a Christmas carol in a department store, with all the festive lights ablaze and Santa on his way. A tinkling outpouring of silver notes from a music box that holds a tiny dancer, slowly pirouetting. A guy playing a harmonica in one of those old black-and-white westerns or war movies. The distant keening of a train’s whistle, lonely in the rainy night.
Something had been awakened in them early, of that Terry was sure. Something that other children might hear, but not keep. He was sure they all had heard something and kept it, and had it still, hidden away in a place of safety. He knew what his was. He knew very well.
True tapped the brake. The Scumbucket slowed at the top of a rise. Not much of a rise, on this straight and flat stretch of Interstate 40, also known as Route 66, but enough of one. He checked his sideview mirror, looking past the U-Haul trailer.
That white car was still there.
Maybe half a mile behind? Now this was kind of ridiculous, he thought, because there was all sorts of traffic heading west from Albuquerque this Sunday afternoon. There were small cars and big SUVs and tractor-trailer trucks and vans and pickups, all makes and all colors. But that white car—a foreign make, maybe a Honda?—had for a while been close enough for True to catch a glimpse of a man behind the wheel. Wearing sunglasses—duh, heading west into the sun, right?—and a ball cap bearing some kind of logo. But then the white car had slowed down and dropped back, had let three or four cars get in between them, and now seemed to be maintaining a constant speed. Or, rather, matching the Scumbucket’s speed.
Which was slow.
A white car. Foreign make. Young driver, he looked to be.
How come he didn’t blow right on past?
“What’re you slowing down for?” Nomad asked, from the seat behind Terry.
“Resting my foot, I guess,” True answered, and he gave the old engine some more gas.
A white car. Foreign make. Not a dark blue pickup truck.
True looked straight ahead again. The first layer of this highway could have been laid down using a single gigantic rubber band stretched on stakes across the New Mexico desert. Just pull it tight and pour the asphalt in its shadow. He didn’t know if they’d had rubber bands back then, but they could’ve done it that way if they’d had them.
He was getting loopy, he thought. Life on the road. No wonder these people started smoking dope, drinking too much and throwing television sets out of motel windows. He jumped a little bit—just a hair, nobody noticed—when a tractor-trailer truck roared by, sending an insulting wind slapping against the Scumbucket. True noted it was a Hormel meats truck. A meatwagon, he thought.
He’d never smoked dope before. He wondered if anybody in this van had some in their possession. He’d never asked; he didn’t really want to know, but at least they hadn’t lit up in his presence. This highway was so straight it was hypnotic. On both sides the desert was stubbled with small brown clumps of vegetation that he figured could stab thorns in your ankles at the slightest graze. He wondered how many rattlesnakes were out there, coiled under those ugly clumps, their forked tongues vibrating on the scent of prey.
He knew he was going loopy, because he was starting to think about asking his band what marijuana tasted like.
He shifted in his seat.
“You okay?” Terry asked from the passenger side, and True said he was fine.
True glanced quickly in his rearview mirror. Ariel was drowsing. The bandage was still across her nose, hiding the bruise, but the darkness under her eyes had gone away. Her sniffer hadn’t been broken, though it had really swelled up and hurt her the next day and she’d blown out dried krispies of blood until after Anaheim. She had two cracked front teeth that were going to need some work. She was one hell of a trooper. John Charles was staring into space, thinking. His right eye was ringed with pale green. He had a lot to think about. In the back, Berke was listening to her iPod, eyes closed, head slightly nodding to the beat pumping through the earbuds. That girl could play drums like a machine, but True had made the mistake of asking her what she thought about drum machines and for that he’d gotten a year’s supply of f-bombs packed into his ears. Terry was alert and excited, of course. This was his day.
There were lots of cars on this highway. Every sort of make and model, big and small. But that white car back there…well, he couldn’t see it now, but he knew it was still there.
What was making True so jittery was the fact of the slow decay. The reality of the money pit, even for the FBI. The large hand on the leash, pulling the little dogs home.
After Anaheim, that next morning, the call had found him.
He would have to make do with one team. The money this was costing was out of all proportion to the situation, he was told. He just loved that bean-counting language. He was told, and to be truthful the voice that told him was not as warm and ole-buddy-buddy as usual, that this whole thing might well be a wash. I know this was important to you, but—
Ouch. It hurt when you realized you weren’t as big a dog as you’d thought you were. And, really, nobody was that big of a dog.
The team in the metallic gray Yukon had peeled off the caravan. So long, guys. We’re going on.
And then, this morning, after the gig at Staind Glass last night.
True had been shaving in his bathroom at the Comfort Inn when the call had found him this time. “Good morning,” True had said, with lather on his upper lip. “Are you being a heathen and skipping church today?”
“Truitt, we need to talk.”
“Obviously. You’ve called me.”
“Are you sitting down?”
“No, but I have a razor in my hand.” He’d known what it had to be. He’d hoped a phone call was going to lead a team of agents to a motel where Jeremy Pett was holed up, afraid to open his curtains or door to let in a sliver of sunlight, afraid to leave his crummy flea circus of a room for a takeout pizza because of the media noise, but hoping wasn’t about to make it happen. Pett had plain and simply vanished. Gone to Mexico? That was the theory. But where was his truck? It hadn’t shown up, so where was it? Abandoned somewhere on the border, was the theory. Driven into a gulley, or parked amid the mesquite trees and head-high sticker bushes just north of many of the paths grooved into the earth by the shoes of Mexican illegals. After all, those paths went both ways. Another theory: maybe Pett, trained in the art of going to ground, had actually gone underground. Maybe he’d found a tunnel across. Those things were out there.