“Herb, I appreciate your concern,” I rasped. My voice sounded like Karl Malden playing Satan. “And I know you have to follow proper management procedure to run this restaurant efficiently.”
Okay, next item. Head wound. I eased toward the back of the kitchen. The grill. “But if you get in my way, as soon as my team of security professionals get here, and that’ll be in about two minutes, they’ll torture you and your co-worker to death with a Makita cordless circular sander. After that they’ll take your IDs and look up your families and kill them, too, if they live anywhere in the area.” I got a quarter-inch of paper napkins out of a dispenser and folded it into a mitt in my right hand. “So, Herb, seriously, please, make this easy for me. My way right away. Right?”
I stood in front of the flame broiler. There were two big iron grates, with patties charring on the right one. The left one didn’t look hot, so I just whisked the burgers away and lifted up on the iron grate. Too heavy. Takes two hands to handle. I folded a second paper mitt, crouched, and pushed up. The grate rose up. I stood up and poked through the layer of volcanic rocks that covered the heating elements. The bigger the better. I picked up the largest lava stone I could find in my left hand. The napkins smoked but didn’t catch fire. I pressed the smoother side of the rock into the wound in my forehead. This was a different order of pain, colder, more like diving into liquid nitrogen. It wasn’t easier to deal with, though. My body knew it had to get away, so much so that I thought it would split into two pieces like it was tied to two cars going in different directions. I could hear my head sizzling like Canadian bacon. I screamed again, I think even louder.
“Sir? Are you hurt?”
No, I thought. I’m fine, can’t you tell? I turned. I could only see a little bit of him, just his face and hat, like I was looking through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. I pushed past him and staggered to the exit door on the side with the drive-thru window. There was gray stuff around him and a smell that shouldn’t be there. Oh, hair, I thought. Yes. The front section of my hair, short as it was, was on fire. Evidently I’d spattered oil on it and the rock had ignited it. No problem. I patted it and it went out, I think. The pain rose again and I screamed again. Whoa. Okay. It’s out of my system. Damn, that was a whopper freakout. I took a quick look back over the counter at the eating area, expecting to see Grgur walk in the front door. He wasn’t there. Neither were any other new visitors. ES must be having problems, I thought. Well, don’t fuck a gift horse in the mouth, et cetera. Okay. As I’d learned from No Way back in the day, drive-throughs are the fugitive’s best friend. Let’s go car shopping.
Side door. EXIT. Right.
Step, step Whoa. Who are you?
A dude-who I guessed was the Manager on Duty, finally alerted by the panic button-had strode in from somewhere in the back and was blocking my exit. He was big, blond, about thirty, and, as seemed to be de rigueur, somewhat overweight. I noticed I still had the lava rock in my left hand. He said something about how I had to stay where I was and wait for the police.
“Thank you, sir,” I said, keeping my eyes on his eyes. I pressed the rock into his paunch. It sizzled. He emitted a high, shrill scream, almost louder than the ones I’d just produced myself, and his body recoiled, although, I guess reflexively, his right arm threw a sort of halfhearted haymaker punch. I just crouched under it-it wasn’t coming fast enough for me to claim that I ducked-and I edged around him. There was a three-AA flashlight hanging in its own OSHA-mandated spot next to the first-aid kit, and I took it as I left the food prep area. Damn, if I’d known pain like this existed I would have crawled back into the womb and lived there for the next eighty years. Although it had made me forget about the cold.
“Sir, excuse me?” Herb asked somewhere behind me. I looked around. My vision seemed to have opened out a bit, and I could see that he was still back at the grill station.
“You’ve been great, Herb,” I said. I went out. The patrons looked up to watch me leave, but only one or two of them stopped chewing.
(14)
The car at the head of the drive-thru line-a first-generation Equinox in Navajo Nectarine-had its window down, I guessed waiting for the rest of its order, and I edged forward to where I could see the driver.
A woman. Young. Plain. White. Fat. Bewildered by life.
Perfect.
Okay. Plan Um.
I held up the flashlight in that underhand cop style and flicked it on.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned this, but actually I have a pretty deep voice. “Police emergency!” I said, in as authoritarian a basso as I could manage while also reining in my chattering teeth. I flashed my American Malacological Society membership card. “License and registration, please.”
She obeyed. The license said she was Miss Kristin Dekey, 24, of Winter Haven, not that I cared, but I felt I had to look at it long enough to seem official. I tried to hand it back but she was fumbling in the between-seats thingie for the registration. The woman in the passenger seat blinked at me. She looked enough like her to be her twin sister, except all crackers look alike to me, so who knows. “I’m sorry, I can’t,” Kristin was saying, “I’m sorry, I have um, I have a proof of insurance, here, I’m not sure, the registration, I’m not sure where the registration is, is this going to be enough to, I’m sorry-”
I took the piece of paper. Pretending to look at it used up twenty seconds, but when you’re impersonating, it’s a good idea to get the subject used to the idea that you’re who you’re pretending to be before you tell them to do something unfamiliar. And the best way to do that is to put them through whatever rituals are most familiar. If you do it right, even if you’re, say, a five-foot Chinese teenager in a Gothlita dress-or if, like me, you’re covered in blood and your hair is smoldering and there’s smoking bloody charcoal scab all over your face-by the time they sign the report they’ll swear you were six foot six, wearing a full police captain’s uniform, and looked like Clint Eastwood.
I gave the paper back and took out the larger of my still-jammed phone. “One Adam thirteen,” I said into it. “I am in pursuit of suspect in a civilian ve hic le, over. Ma’am, you and your passenger must exit your ve hic le.” As normals usually do, she obeyed. Her vehicle mate took longer but also got out. Instead of both backing up, though, they sort of sought each other out and met in front of the car, standing there like they were going to confer about something. I got in and leaned over the open door.
“Ma’am, for you own safety, please step away from your vehicle.” She did. I said the same thing to her twin. Her twin did the same thing. Then, she thought of something.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
“Hey, are you really a policeman?” Kristin got it together to ask, too late. I got in the rest of the way, slammed the door, reached over and slammed the passenger door, found the thingy that locks all the doors, locked all the doors, got the thing in gear, and took off.
Ahh. Freedom. I Oh, hell, I thought. I’d left my hat back in the kitchen. I thought of going back for it, realized that was ridiculous, and then got worried that just the fact that I’d considered it meant I wasn’t thinking clearly. Focus, Jedface.
Up the ramp. On the off ramp, on the other side of the highway, my abandoned Barracuda was lit up with halogen light. Above it, a helicopter swept a second light around the car in a widening spiral. Hah, I thought. They’re way behind. Way.
Onto 400. Forward. Upward. Ad astra per atrocitas. I adjusted the seat and wheel to suitable positions for nonporkers. The highway straightened out and pointed the Equinox toward the burnt-orange glow over the No-Go Zone. My hands were still shivering and my teeth were still chattering, and I was tired and light-headed, but I wasn’t quite in shock yet, and if I held on to the four quarts or so I had left, and if I kept making adrenaline, I’d keep going for another few hours. Just need to be supercareful until I find a dealer… well, the last time I heard they were selling blood packets there, so they ought to be able to get factor IX too… and maybe some thrombogen, a few burn packs… top up the O negative… hmm, while I’m at it, pick up some Oxy or at least some Hydro, and a saltshaker of the old benzoylmethylecgonine. Maybe a Glock 36 and couple of Heizer DoubleTaps, and a few hundred rounds of HydraShok. And a papered ride, of course. I just had to stay ahead of the ES people. And the way I’d set it up I knew I’d manage it. Finally my paranoia was coming in handy. I’d set up four different legends, of varying degrees of detail and remoteness, and if I cycled through all of them over the next few weeks they’d never catch up. ES was top-shelf, but nobody’s resources are unlimited. Of course, they’d be using the Game to find me, but I’d be using it to stay ahead of them. And I’d be doing it better.