“But Australian, right?”
“Why Australian, exactly?”
“Australian accent.”
“Well, not really.”
“Well, where’s that place?”
“What place?” asked Dirk.
“New Zealand,” said Joe. “Australia’s in New Zealand, right?”
“Well, not precisely, but I can see what you’re ... well, I was going to say I can see what you’re getting at, but I’m not sure I can.”
“What part of New Zealand you from, then?”
“Well, more sort of England, in fact.”
“Is that in New Zealand?”
“Only up to a point,” said Dirk.
The car headed north on the freeway in the direction of Santa Fe. Moonlight lay magically on the high desert. The evening air was crisp.
“You been to Santa Fe before?” Joe nasaled.
“No,” said Dirk. He had abandoned trying to engage him in any kind of intelligible conversation and began to wonder if he had been deliberately chosen for his shortcomings in this area. Dirk was trying hard to stay sunk in thought, but Joe kept yanking him back to the surface.
“Beautiful place,” said Joe. “Beautiful. If it doesn’t get ruined by all the Californians moving in. Californication they call it. Hur-hur. You know what they call it?”
“Californication?” hazarded Dirk.
“Fanta Se,” said Joe. “All the Hollywood types moving in from California. Ruining it. Especially since the earthquake. You heard about the earthquake?”
“Well, I did, as a matter of fact,” said Dirk. “It was on the news. Rather a lot.”
“Yeah, it was a big earthquake. And now all the Californians are moving out here instead. To Santa Fe. Ruining it. Californians. You know what they call it?”
Dirk could feel the whole conversation wheeling round and coming at him again. He tried to deflect it.
“Have you always lived in Santa Fe, then?” he said feebly.
“Oh yeah,” said Joe. “Well, nearly always. Over a year now. Feels like always.”
“So where did you live before?”
“California,” said Joe. “Moved out after my sister was hit in a drive-by shooting. You have drive-by shootings in New Zealand?”
“No,” said Dirk. “Not in New Zealand so far as I know. Nor even yet in London, which is where I live. Look, I’m sorry about your sister.”
“Yeah. Standing on a streetcorner down on Melrose, couple of guys drive by in a Mercedes, one of those new ones, you know, with the double glazing, and pow, they blew her away—500 SEL, I think it was. Midnight blue. Real smart. They musta jacked it. You have carjacking back in old England?”
“Carjacking?”
“People walk up to you, steal your car.”
“No, but thanks for asking. We have people who clean your windscreen against your will, but, er ...”
Joe barked with contempt.
“The thing is,” explained Dirk, “in London you could certainly walk up to someone and steal their car, but you wouldn’t be able to drive it away.”
“Some kinda fancy device?”
“No, just traffic,” said Dirk. “But, er ... your sister,” he asked nervously. “Was she okay?”
“Okay?” shouted Joe. “You shoot someone with a Kalashnikov and they’re okay, you’re gonna want your money back. Hur-hur.”
Dirk tried to make sympathetic noises, but they wouldn’t form properly in his throat. The car was slowing down, so he lowered the peeling window to look at the desert night.
A passing road sign flared briefly in the car’s headlights.
“Stop the car!” shouted Dirk suddenly.
He leant out of the car window, straining to look back as the car gradually wallowed to a halt. In the distance the dim shape of a road sign was silhouetted in the moonlight.
“Can you reverse back down the road?” said Dirk urgently.
“It’s a freeway,” protested Joe.
“Yes, yes,” said Dirk. “There’s no one behind us. The road’s empty. Only a few hundred yards.”
Grumbling to himself, Joe put the big barge into reverse, and slowly they weaved their way back down the freeway.
“This is what they do in New Zealand, isn’t it?” he whined.
“What?”
“Drive backwards.”
“No,” said Dirk. “But I know what you’re thinking of. Just like us British, they do drive on the other side of the road.”
“Suppose it’s safer that way,” said Joe, “if everyone’s driving backwards.”
“Yes,” said Dirk. “Much safer.” He leaped out of the car as soon as it drew to a halt.
Highlighted in the pool of the car’s lights, five thousand miles from Dirk’s ramshackle office in Clerkenwell, was a square yellow road sign that said, in large letters, GUSTY WINDS, and, in smaller letters underneath it, MAY EXIST. The moon hung high in the sky above it.
“Joe!” shouted Dirk to the driver. “Who put this here?”
“What?” said Joe.
“This sign!” said Dirk.
“You mean this sign?” said Joe.
“Yes!” shouted Dirk. “‘Gusty Winds May Exist.’”
“Well, I suppose,” said Joe, “the State Highway Authority.”
“What?” said Dirk, bewildered again.
“The State Highway Authority,” said Joe, a bit flummoxed. “You see ’em all over.”
“‘Gusty Winds May Exist’?” said Dirk. “You mean this is just a regular road sign?”
“Well, yeah,” said Joe. “Just means it’s a bit windy here. You know, wind comes across the desert. Can blow you around a bit. Especially in one of these.”
Dirk blinked. He suddenly felt rather foolish. He had been imagining, a little wildly, that someone had specially painted the name of a bisected cat on a signpost on a New Mexican road especially for his benefit. This was absurd. The cat in question had obviously been named after a perfectly commonplace American road sign. Paranoia, he reminded himself, was one of the normal by-products of jet lag and whisky.
Chastened, he walked back toward the car. Then he paused and thought for a second. He went up to Joe’s window and peered in.
“Joe,” he said. “You slowed the car down just as we were approaching the sign. Was that deliberately so that I would see it?” He hoped it wasn’t just the whisky and the jet lag talking.
“Oh no,” said Joe. “I was slowing down for the rhinoceros.”
Chapter 11
“Probably the jet lag,” Dirk said. “I thought for a moment you said a rhinoceros.”
“Yeah,” said Joe, disgustedly. “Got held up by it earlier. As it was leaving the airport.”
Dirk tried to think this through before he said anything that might expose him to ridicule. Presumably there must be a local football team or rock band called the Rhinoceroses. Must be. Coming from the airport? Driving to Santa Fe? He was going to have to ask.
“What exact type of rhinoceros are we discussing here?” he said.
“Dunno. I’m not as good at breeds of rhinoceros,” said Joe, “as I am at accents. If it was an accent, I could tell you what exact type it was, but since it’s a rhinoceros I can only tell you that it’s one of the big grey type, you know, with the horn. From Irkutsk or one of those kinda places. You know, Portugal or somewhere.”
“You mean Africa?”
“Could be Africa.”
“And you say it’s up there on the road ahead of us?”
“Yup.”
“Then let’s get after it,” said Dirk. “Quickly.”
He climbed back into the car, and Joe eased it out onto the highway once more. Dirk hunched himself up at the front of the passenger compartment and peered over Joe’s shoulder as they sped on through the desert. In a few minutes the shape of a large truck loomed up ahead in the Cadillac’s headlights. It was a green low-loader with a large, slatted crate roped down on to it.