Death of a Citizen

CHAPTER 16

I BOUGHT a pair of jeans, 24 waist, a denim shirt, 14 neck, a pair of white athletic socks, size eight, and a pair of blue Keds, size seven and a half-she was no real Cinderella where her feet were concerned. Then I bought two boxes of.22 Long Rifle High Speed cartridges and a bottle of bourbon. We were heading towards Texas, and although you won't believe it, that great big he-man state is practically dry. There are no bars, and the restaurants serve only beer and wine. Of course, there are ways of circumventing this strange legislation but… Texas, for God's sake!

The town wasn't large and they had all the stuff in one dark, dusty old general store-called a trading post out here-except the whiskey, for which I had to go to the shiny little drugstore across the street. Starting back towards the truck, I had to wait for a four-wheel-drive jeep station wagon to go by. It was one of the more recent glamorized jobs, green and white. Why anybody would bother to try to glamorize any kind of a jeep with two-tone paint I couldn't tell you. It seems kind of like tying a pink ribbon around the tail of a hardworking jackass.

There were two men in the front seat. One was an older man with a moustache. He was driving. The other was a young fellow in a big, flat-crowned black hat with the wide brim curving up at the sides-real cool, man. I couldn't see his feet, but his boots would have at least two-inch heels to go with that headgear, and his black leather jacket completed the ensemble perfectly.

I let the sturdy vehicle go past; then I crossed over, got into the truck, and drove out of town, heading south. It was getting close to noon now. We weren't going to set any mileage records for the day, having already wasted half the morning in one place-if you want to call it wasted. But then, we weren't going anywhere in particular; at least, if we were, I hadn't been informed of it yet. In the meantime, since no better itinerary had been offered me, I was sticking to my planned route down the valley of the Pecos.

It was a nice, bright day, with the sky clear blue, the land yellow-brown except for some distant purple mountains-the Sacramentos or Guadalupes-and the road black and clean and uncluttered by the herds of Texans and Californians who make our highways hideous during the tourist season. The Texans drive as if they own the country, the Californians as if they merely want to be buried in it, preferably with a few local yokels for company. But they'd all gone into hibernation for the year, and I cruised along at an easy sixty and grinned as I came up behind a little British car, on the rear of which was pasted a sticker reading: DON'T HONK, I'M PEDALING AS FAST AS I CAN.

I passed the little bug, jacked the speed up another five, and pretty soon found a dry creek bed crossing the highway, with a road-two wheel-tracks, rather- leading along it in the direction that would be upstream when the water was running. – I turned in over a cattle guard and bounced along for a few hundred yards until a bend in the watercourse put some brush and cottonwoods between us and the highway-some, but not too much. There didn't seem to be anything of note around, except some Hereford steers, and they never bother anybody.

I got out and went into the bushes to pass the time convincingly, meanwhile watching the highway through the screen of brush and trees. The little import went buzzing past. Pretty soon the green and white jeep wagon came barreling along, containing only the moustached driver. I saw him start to turn his head as he went by, and think better of it; but he saw us all right, as he was supposed to. It wouldn't do for him to think we were hiding from him.

I went back to the truck, took Herrera's little revolver out of my hip pocket, and wedged it out of sight between the back and seat cushions. I'd been going to buy extra shells for that, too, and play around with it to see what it would do, but on second thought it had seemed better not to advertise that I had it. Sometimes an extra weapon, conveniently cached away, can be quite useful.

I went back and opened up the rear of the truck. Tina had made herself a kind of nest of duffel bags and bedding. She was lying there quite comfortably, wearing one of my old khaki shirts, open, and a black pantiegirdle that had survived the recent emotional storm with only minor damage.

Tina smiled at me. "This country of yours, chйri! One moment you are freezing, the next you are being roasted in a hot oven. Did you get me something to wear?"

I tossed her the paper-wrapped package. Looking at her, I felt a kind of constriction in my throat that had, I suppose, something to do with love, of one kind or another.

"I'm going up the wash and fire off a few rounds," I said. "Just to get my hand in. Come along as soon as you're ready, but don't rush it. Take everything nice and easy. We've been spotted, and we're probably being watched from up on the ridge right now."

Her eyes widened slightly. She looked at the cigarette she had been smoking, and pitched it past me, out the open door. "You are sure?"

I turned to grind out the smoldering stub with the toe of my boot. You get so it's a habit, particularly in a dry season, even when you're out on the desert where there isn't a damn thing to burn.

I said, "We've had an overgrown delinquent behind us in some kind of a jazzy Plymouth with fins like a shark, for the past fifty miles. Black hat and sideburns. Back in town, he came rolling past in a jeep station wagon with another fellow at the wheel. Now he's vanished, but the jeep's on our tail. Pretty soon, I figure, the jeep will drop out and another guy will take over in some other kind of machinery, maybe a pickup for variety, and then perhaps we'll go back to young Mr. Blackhat and his Plymouth dreamboat." I reached out and patted her bare ankle, which, slender and nicely formed, was worth a pat or two. "Make it casual. Comb your hair and put on lipstick, out where they can see you; before you join me."

"But, Eric-"

I said, "Just get dressed, honey, we'll talk later. If they've got glasses on us, I don't want them to think we're holding a council of war. I almost walked into the side of their wagon, back in town, and they're probably wondering if it was just a coincidence or-if they've tipped their hand."

I reached up to lower the canopy door. She said, "All right, but leave it open, please, or I'll smother in here, now that we've stopped."

I shrugged, and sauntered around to get the.22s out of the cab. I wandered away upstream until I found a place where the bank of the wash was steep enough to stop a bullet without causing it to ricochet and endanger the local cattle population, but not so high as to hide what I was doing from any vantage points in the surrounding territory that might be occupied by interested observers. I set up a tin can, backed off about twenty yards, took out the Woodsman, and emptied the clip, hitting with seven out of the nine shots. Barbara Herrera. had received the tenth bullet out of that load. I filled the clip and tried again, this time getting only one miss in ten shots. While I was shoving fresh cartridges into the clip, Tina came up, carrying a bundle.

I turned to look at her. She wasn't exactly the bluejeans type as you see it portrayed locally. Her breasts and buttocks didn't threaten to erupt through the tough new cloth, which made her strictly a square, I guess, by current high-school standards. As a matter of fact, with her short black hair, she had kind of a boyish look.

"Everything fit?" I asked.

"The shirt is a little large," she said. "What do I do with this?"

She held out the bundle, which seemed to contain her discarded party clothes.

"Toss it into the bushes," I said, and grinned. "It'll give them something to investigate." She did as instructed. I offered her the gun. "Here. Shoot slowly and don't seem to pay much attention to me." I sat down on a boulder to watch her. She examined the pistol, shoved the safety off with her thumb, and fired once. "A couple inches low," I said. "Don't hold at six o'clock, she's sighted to shoot center… I know you'll have to report that we've got an escort, but an hour more or less isn't going to make too much difference. If we'd hung around that town long enough fur you to scramble into some clothes and dash to the nearest phone, they'd have known we were onto them. I think it's better that we seem to be loafing along without a care in the world, so they feel they can take their time with whatever they plan to do-both here and in Santa Fe."

She fired again, and hit the can. "You do not think it can be the police?"

"It doesn't seem likely," I said. "There'd be no reason for them to keep us on ice like this. If the cops had something on us, they'd just move in and cart us off to jail. I think it's Herrera's bunch. The girl must have arranged to meet someone last night. When she didn't show, they set the wheels in motion."

"Yes," she said, "you may be right. But how did they find us?"

I waited for her to shoot, and said, "I told them." She glanced at me quickly, surprised, and I said: "Me and my big mouth. I told Herrera at the party that I'd be heading down along the Pecos in the morning. She must have reported in before she came to the studio. When they missed her, they must have decided to try an intercept, gambling that I'd stick to my original route in order to make everything look natural and normal. They had plenty of time to get ahead of us while we were messing around back in the hills-anyway, the truck is no hot rod. All they had to do was watch the one highway and pick us up as we went by." Tina fired again. I went on: "They know you're alive now. Therefore, even if they haven't found her, they must be almost certain Herrera's dead. Therefore they'll be assigning another operative to Amos Darrel."

Tina said, "And still you say we should be casual?"

"Yes," I said. "Because they don't know we know it, yet. They think we think we've got them fooled, so far, if you follow me. They think we think Amos is safe, for the time being. Which means that, rather than instituting a crash program, they'll probably let the new guy, whoever he may be, take a little time and set up the job right. Which gives Mac or whoever a little better chance of spotting him and taking him out of the play-as long as we keep these characters happy by shooting at tin cans and making love and in general acting like a couple of unsuspecting kids on a picnic."

Tina's next shot missed the can, as she glanced at me. "You mean you think they were watching…"

"It seems likely."

She laughed, but her face was slightly pink. "Why, the dirty Tom Peepers!" After a little, she said, "But I must report. I must speak with Mac."

"Sure," I said. "They'll expect you to. After all, you've got to tell him that the body's safely buried, and that we've made a clean getaway, slick as a whistle. We'll stop for lunch pretty soon and let them see you put in the call. No harm in that, just as long as we take it easy and carefree."

She nodded, steadied the slim-barreled pistol, and emptied the rest of the clip rapid-fire. I could see the bullets striking in and around the can; she was no genius, either. We'd neither of us become famous for snuffing out candles at ten paces or shooting cigarettes out of people's mouths. I took back the gun, reloaded it, took her by the shoulders, and kissed her, saying, "We might as well give Mr. Peeper his money's worth."

"He's a dirty old goat," she said. "But let us give him his money's worth, by all means, chйri."

She moved abruptly, and I found myself, pushed and tripped at the same time, going over backwards. I landed in a sitting postion almost hard enough to crack my pelvis.

"What the hell-"

"You great bully!" she cried, laughing at me. "You were so big and brave last night, catching me off guard when I was all dressed up and couldn't fight back. Kick my behind up behind my ears, will you?"

Her foot shot out. I tried to grab for it, but it was only a feint. She did some kind of a quick doubleshuffle and, catching me on hands and knees-reaching, off balance-she put a foot in my rear and sent me forward on my face. Then she was running upstream, laughing. I picked myself up and charged after her. She was in better condition, but I had the longer legs and I was used to the altitude. She couldn't stay ahead of me. She tried to dodge, but the banks of the wash were steeper up here, and I caught her by an ankle as she scrambled for the top, and brought her back down in a little avalanche of loose dirt.

She twisted free, found her feet, and, as I closed with her incautiously, tried a wicked little chop to the neck that would have paralyzed me if I hadn't remembered the proper parry. She danced back out of reach.

"Slow!" she panted. "Just a great softy! I bet you do not even remember this one!"

Then we were working our way through the old handto-hand combat-and-mayhem routines, half seriously, holding back only enough so there would be no real damage if a blow should slip through. She was fast and in practice, and she had some new ones I'd never encountered. Finally she clipped me across the bridge of the nose hard enough to bring tears to my eyes, but she didn't get out again quite fast enough. I caught her, tied her up, threw her down, and pinned her. We were both gasping for breath in the thin desert air. I held her down until she stopped wiggling. Then I kissed her thoroughly; and when I was through, she lay there and laughed at me.

"Well, Liebchen?" she murmured. "What about Mr. Peeper and his money's worth?"

"You go to hell, you damn nymphomaniac," I said, grinning.

"Old," she jeered, still lying there. "Old and fat and slow. Helm the human vegetable. Help me up, turnip."

I held out my hand to her, ready for a trick, and set my weight against hers as she tried to pull me off balance. I used her own effort to turn her around, and smacked her hard across the dusty seat of her jeans.

"Now behave yourself, Passion Flower," I said.

She laughed, and we buttoned ourselves up, tucked ourselves in, and brushed each other off. Then we walked back down the wash together. I felt oddly happy, with the guilty kind of happiness of a kid playing hooky from school. I'd been a good boy for years, my attendance record had been perfect, my deportment had been excellent, but it was all shot to hell now, and I didn't care. I was through being a model citizen. I was myself again.