Death of a Citizen

CHAPTER 26

I PUT two pounds more air in the tires all around while the attendant was filling the tank. Then I walked twice around the car to stretch my legs, regarding my borrowed vehicle with awe and wonder. It was the ugliest damn hunk of automotive machinery I'd ever had the misfortune to be associated with, not barring even Beth's glamorized station wagon. It had a great bubble of a windshield obviously designed to make the front seat uninhabitable any time the sun was shining. A nice commentary on these wheeled greenhouses is the number of them you see on our Western roads with roadmaps, magazines, towels, anything, held up against all that glass to keep the passengers from being broiled alive. There was a kind of potty-seat on the rear deck between the fins. It must have been that, because it had nothing to do with the spare tire. I looked. All it needed, obviously, was to be hooked up to a little plumbing, and you'd be all set for the times Junior couldn't hold out until the next restroom..

"That'll be three-forty, Mister," the filling station attendant said. "Oil and water okay. That's quite a car you've got there. I tell you,I don't get it, folks buying these lousy-looking little foreign cars when they can get something real sharp made right here in America."

Well, it's all a matter of taste, I guess. I paid him, got in, remembered that the key worked the starter for some unexplained reason, and that the right-hand row of push-buttons had something to do with the heater; it was the left-hand row that ran the car. The idea of having to locate a certain little white button on the dashboard when you want second gear seems fairly idiotic to me, but obviously I'm not in tune with the times. There were all kinds of colored lights in front of me, but no ammeter or oil-pressure gauge. I didn't even think about a tachometer. Why dream? I turned the key, pushed button number one, stepped on the accelerator, and the machine took off.

I still didn't have quite the feel of it, so there was a certain amount of sliding and screeching before we got straightened out on the highway. By this time the speedometer needle was coming up to forty-five, and I reached out and socked button number two. There was a gadget somewhere around that would do the shifting for me, but I'm peculiar, I like to pick my own gears. This one took me up to eighty, and even so the beast was loafing. I hit number three and we went up past a hundred with a rush; and now you could hear, above the sound of the wind, the sighing roar of the two big four-barrel carburetors reaching for air.

I mean, it was a lot of car. Not only did it have the power-everybody's got power these days-but it was steady as a rock. Underneath all the weird styling dreamed up by the butterfly boys, some real engineers had got together and concocted something quite commendable. I let my mind toy with the possibility of getting Beth to trade in the Buick; maybe I could get this car with a stick shift if I held a gun on somebody..

I let my mind wander like this as I drove. I didn't need time to think. I'd done all the necessary thinking. I knew what had to be done. All I needed was to keep from thinking, now, until the time came to do it.

It was two hundred miles, give or take a few, to La Junta, Colorado, pronounced La Hunta. I was well ahead of schedule by that time, so I found a place that was open and put down a cup of coffee and a piece of soggy apple pie. Then I swung southwest towards Trimidad and Raton. I was kind of sorry to be coming this way in the dark. There's always a fine moment of excitement when you first raise the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies over the edge of the plains ahead, on any road. You can even imagine, if you try hard, something of what the sight must have meant to the early pioneers after a couple of months o~i the trail.

I didn't think about Betsy, and I didn't think about Beth, or Loris, or Tina, or Mac. I just pushed the car along and listened to the roar of the engine and the howl of the wind and the whine of the tires, holding her as close to a hundred as the road would allow, which was usually pretty close in the flat country. Beyond Trinidad, however, the road headed up into the mountains towards Raton Pass and my home state of New Mexico. Going up was no problem with all that power, coming down again on the other side was a slightly different matter, involving, as it did, some hard use of the brakes. They got fairly hot and feeble before we got down off that hill. I didn't dare do any trick braking with the funny push-button transmission, not knowing how much, or little, it could take. Besides, it had its own ideas about when to shift, and they weren't mine.

Out on the flat again, the smell of burned brake lining gradually blew away. At the junction south of the town of Raton, I took the left-hand fork towards Las Vegas. Yes, we've got a town in New Mexico by that name, too. In Las Vegas, I found another cup of coffee and a couple of fried eggs with bacon. Some time after that, the sky started to get light in the east, which was all right. In the truck, I'd have been coming in around ten in the morning. I'd told Beth to expect me about that time. This way, I'd actually hit town around six, which would give me plenty of time for the arrangements I had to make.

Figuring like this, confidently, I almost piled up in Glorieta Pass, not fifty miles from home. Coming up to a curve too fast, I suddenly discovered I had no more brakes than a roller skate. An ordinary car would have rolled and wound up at the bottom of the canyon, but this one kept right side up as I took the corner in a screaming slide, using the whole mad. It would have been a hell of a time to meet somebody coming the other way. After that, as long as I was in the hifis, I kept the transmission locked in second gear, used the compression judiciously to slow her down, and took it much easier. There wasn't that much of a hurry, anyway.

I made my entrance into town by way of a small dirt road instead of the main highway, just in case somebody might be watching for me. The first filling station I hit was closed, but it had a public phone booth outside. I stopped the car-the brakes had recovered enough for casual use-got out stiffly, and made my call to the number Mac had given me.

When somebody answered, I said, "This is the Dodge City, Santa Fe Express, coming in on Track Three."

"Who?" the guy said. Some people have no sense of humor. "Mr. Helm?"

"Yes, this is Helm."

"Your subject is still in his room at the DeCastro Hotel," the guy said. He had a clipped, business.like, Eastern voice. "He has company. Female."

"Who?"

"Nobody we're interested in. Just someone he picked up in the bar. What are your plans?"

"I'll be sitting in the lobby when he comes down," I said.

"Is that wise?"

"It remains to be seen," I said. "Don't call off the watchdogs. He might try to backdoor me."

"I'll be over there myself," the voice said. "There'll be a man standing phone watch at this number, however, in case you want to get in touch with us again. He'll be able to relay any messages to me."

"Very good," I said. "Thanks." I hung up, found another dime, and dialed again. There was only a little pause before Beth answered. If she'd been sleeping at all, it wasn't soundly. "Good morning," I said.

"Matt! Where are you?"

"I'm in Raton," I said. After all, there might be somebody on the line. "Ran into a little trouble in the mountains. The truck threw a connecting rod-I guess I was pushing too hard. But I've managed to wake up a guy who'll rent me a car, and I'll be on my way as soon as I hang up." That would explain the Plymouth, if anybody was watching when I drove up. It would also explain any delays, if I ran into trouble. I asked, "Any news? Any further instructions for me?"

"Not yet."

"Get any sleep?", "Not much," she said. "How could I?"

"That makes two of us," I said. "Okay. When somebody calls, tell her I may be just a little late, and explain why."

"Her?" Beth said.

"It'll be a her, this time," I said, hoping I was right.