Adobe Flats (10 page)

seventeen

Even with both windows
open and the speed approaching sixty, the hearse was still as hot as an oven on baking day. Wind swirled around the interior without cooling it one iota, but it helped freshen Grant's mind. Decisions had to be made. Whether to stay or go now that he'd done what he'd set out to do. Whether to go see Sarah Hellstrom one last time before leaving now that he'd put the ghost of Pilar Cruz to rest. And what to do about Tripp Macready, given what Eduardo Cruz had just told him.

Grant replayed the conversation in his head as he steered the hearse through Study Butte towards Absolution.

“Macready is poison.”

Doc Cruz rinsed his hands in the washbasin at the rear of his office. He'd waited for the wife beater to leave before answering Grant's question. “He bought everything in town and then killed it.”

“Why?”

“It is what he does. He chokes the life out of everything he touches.”

“There are still businesses in Absolution.”

“Only the ones he subsidizes to keep the town on life support.”

Grant relaxed in the chair by the window. “For appearances sake.”

“Exactly.”

“He doesn't own the diner.”

“The exception that proves the rule.”

Grant smiled. “I never understood what that meant.”

“Me neither. But in truth, the diner is only open because of Scott Macready.”

“Him liking Sarah.”

“Exactly.”

“And the rest of the town just dried up, huh?”

“The last straw was him buying the school. When he knocked that down, it took the last bit of fight out of Absolution. Anyone with kids left—they send them to Marathon or Alpine. Anyone who really cares moved long ago.”

“Doesn't say much for those who're left.”

“No fight in 'em. Like I said.”

“They all with Macready?”

“Not with him, just not strong enough to be against him. Not many are. You either stay and swallow the poison or you move out.”

Grant watched the doctor dry his hands. “And you moved out.”

“Not exactly.”

Grant changed the question. “Why is Macready looking for you?”

“He told you that?”

“He didn't want me talking to you.”

Cruz folded the towel and hung it over the rail. “What makes you think that?”

“Kept discouraging me from going to Adobe Flats.”

“I'm not at Adobe Flats.”

“That's what everybody said. But I got the impression it was more about me not finding you.”

Cruz leaned against the desk and shook his head. “You've got the wrong end of the stick there, my friend.”

Grant took his time while he got that straight in his head. “This isn't about you?”

“No.”

“It's about Adobe Flats.”

Cruz nodded his approval. “If you could check the land registry, what do you think you would find?”

Grant joined the dots. “Macready bought your place at Adobe Flats?”

Cruz shook his head. “No. He bought everything leading to Adobe Flats. I wouldn't sell.”

Grant didn't ask why not. He reckoned Cruz was going to tell him.

“My wife would not have wanted me to. It was the happiest time of her life. And she died there giving birth to our daughter.”

Despite the heat a chill went down Grant's spine. Pilar had never mentioned that. Their time together had always been focused on the here and now. They hadn't discussed her childhood, and Grant had never mentioned his mother dying giving birth to him or his subsequent isolation—his father sending him to boarding school as soon as he could. Grant hadn't realized just how close he and Pilar Cruz actually were. It made what had happened to her all the worse. He kept quiet and let Doc Cruz continue.

“I could not sell that heritage. I would not.”

Grant let out a sigh. “So he burned you out.”

“There was a fire. Yes. The sheriff said it started accidentally.”

“The sheriff that Macready pays.”

“I still own the land. But it was move or die.”

“And you chose life.”

“It was an easy choice.”

Grant considered something Cruz had said earlier. “How does that make Macready afraid of me?”

“You're a stranger.”

“Yeah, like in
Rango
. I got that.”

“
Rango
?”

“The Johnny Depp lizard Western.”

“We don't get much TV down here.”

“It was a movie.”

“No movie theater either.”

Grant shrugged. Some jokes were best left unexplained. “So. I'm a stranger.”

Cruz nodded and continued. “I don't know what business Macready is in. But it isn't local, I know that.”

“Not legal either, I bet.”

“And he is not in it alone. He has partners from out of town. Word is there was some friction there. Macready is wary of strangers.”

“Like me.”

“A big man. Ex-military.”

A light went on behind Grant's eyes.

“He thinks I'm a hit man?”

The hearse followed a
gentle curve out through Study Butte and began the long, slow descent to the desert floor. That last revelation explained why Grant had been treated with kid gloves. Why Macready had been so annoyed when his son got him arrested coming back from Adobe Flats. It was the rest of the discussion that would shape Grant's decision about how to deal with Macready, though.

His recollection of that was put on hold as he approached Kathy's Kosmic Kowgirl Kafe. The Barbie-doll diner was coming up fast. Then the ugly pink bus pulled out of the parking lot and slammed to a halt across the tarmac, blocking the road. It looked like Macready had decided the kid gloves were off.

eighteen

Three things happened in
quick succession. The bus blocked the road. The hearse closed the distance. And a man with a gun stepped into the road and waved for Grant to pull onto the forecourt. Men with guns always demanded your attention. Grant hated guns. He acted on instinct.

Instead of slowing down, he floored the gas. The hearse sped forward. Grant checked his options in an instant. The road was impassable. A ditch ran along the left-hand side; no room for maneuver there. A dirty pickup was parked next to an ice cream van outside the diner. The Kosmic Kowgirl offered
bar-b-que
in big letters. The ice cream van offered sno-cones. The pickup offered more men with guns. Two men in cowboy hats, as big and dirty as the first.

The first man realized the hearse wasn't going to stop and whipped his handgun into a hasty firing position. He fired two shots that didn't even hit Texas. Too fast. Too panicky. High and wide. The gunman dived to his right, through the open door of the bus. The other two stepped away from their pickup and turned their guns towards the onrushing hearse. Steadier hands.

Grant swerved onto the dusty forecourt towards the cowboys. More people die on the roads each year than are killed by gunshot wounds. Best way to keep death off the roads was to drive on the sidewalk. Grant pointed the hearse at the gunmen. Steady hands became dithery aim. The three shots they managed to get off were as wild as their compadre's. General direction. Wide of the target. Then they were diving for cover, too, behind the flimsy ice cream van.

The hearse was big and heavy. It was built to carry dead weight in comfort and solidity. At sixty-plus miles an hour it was a hurtling missile. The wheels sideslipped on the hardpan, then steadied, throwing up a cloud of dust. Grant aimed for the ice cream van, and the cowboys dove for cover again, away from the van. The ice cream van disintegrated. Ice cream and chocolate sprinkles shot into the air. The roof of the van, with its giant fake swirl of ice cream, landed on the pickup's cab. The rear axle bounced across the forecourt.

The impact sent the hearse into a skid. It slewed sideways, the rear wheels losing traction, and ended up pointing back the way it had come. Grant feathered the brakes and clutch and got the heavy vehicle moving again, back towards Study Butte and the ghost town he'd just left. The man on the bus recovered first. He stuck his head up above the windows and pushed the cowboy hat back from where it had fallen over his eyes.

Grant saw him and realized his mistake. This wasn't a Macready ambush. It was the wife beater from Terlingua. The big greasy ratfuck of a Mexican trying to prove he was as tough as John Wayne with men as well as women. He smashed the bus window with his gun and fired three shots as the hearse struggled to pick up speed on the dusty forecourt. The wife beater's friends took heart from the reversal of fortune and started blasting away at the hearse.

Two shots thumped into the bodywork.

One shattered the long side window.

Another punched a starred hole in the windshield.

The rear wheels bit and the hearse steadied on its course. In the wrong direction. Grant steered towards the bus, then swerved left, targeting the pickup. If he managed to get out of this, he didn't want them all piling into their truck and giving chase. The pickup wasn't an ice cream van though. Not flimsy bodywork on a split frame chassis. It was a solid-built working vehicle. None of that mattered. Even a pickup couldn't drive without its engine.

Grant handbrake turned, skidding the rear wheels across the dirt. The hearse clipped the front of the pickup with its rear end and demolished the radiator and engine housing. Steam hissed from the twisted hood. Water poured lifeblood onto the ground. The skid threw up more dust. The cloud was almost impenetrable. More gunshots sounded behind him.

One more hit the bodywork.

Another starred hole appeared in the windshield.

The other shots missed the hearse but weren't entirely wasted. There was a ping of metal as a bullet ricocheted off something solid. A spark and a whoosh showed what it had hit: the propane tank supplying the Bar-B-Que. The tank exploded in a ball of flame that took out the front of Kathy's Kosmic Kowgirl Kafe and melted two fluorescent-green aliens sitting at a table outside.

The hearse steadied and drove past the diner. Grant turned away from the main road and swung around the back of the flaming building. A large overspill parking lot for when custom got brisk. Just as dry and dusty as the forecourt. The cloud grew and spread behind him. A second propane tank exploded, ripping the back out of the storage shed. One of the aliens drifted in the wind, its big-brained, bug-eyed head burning at the edges.

There were no more gunshots. The Mexicans were trying to beat off the attentions of a big waitress in a pink smock and a cowboy hat. She looked angry and not to be messed with. The wife beater was no match for her brute strength and extra weight. Unless he planned on shooting her, he'd have to retreat.

The hearse circled the diner and came out the other side. The wheels skidded one more time, then found solid ground on the two-lane blacktop. The pickup reversed out of the forecourt and went in the opposite direction. Steam and smoke chugged from the engine.

Grant threw them one last glance in his rear-view mirror, then focused on what lay ahead. Doc Cruz's parting shot pointed the way.

“Macready ain't sure if you're a hit man or not. That's why he wants to keep you close—until he can figure that out.”

“By offering me a job?”

“Can you think of a better way?”

“Wouldn't that get me too close to whatever he's doing?”

Cruz raised his eyebrows and smiled.

“Asked and answered. Maybe you should have accepted.”

nineteen

Grant didn't think he
could simply walk up to Macready and tell him he'd reconsidered. He reckoned he'd have to take a different route. Luckily for him the different route presented itself almost as soon as he got back to Absolution.

The town hadn't changed while he'd been away. There was no reason that it should. But something was different. He tried to put his finger on it as the hearse bounced over the railroad crossing and approached the intersection with First Street. He stopped at the junction. Avenue D straight ahead. Left towards the Absolution Motel or right towards Gilda's Grill at Sixto's. Nothing strange about that. No obvious signs that the world had moved on or that Absolution had changed its pattern of heat and misery.

Grant surveyed the skyline. The houses were the same as when he'd left. There was no gaping hole where burned-out buildings used to stand. There was no smoke cloud or wreckage or any other sign of violence on the outside. But violence had come to town, and it had come in the shape of Jim Grant. Let off the leash by a wife- beating Mexican and his friends.

The restraint Grant had shown since coming to Absolution was gone.

The engine ticked over in neutral. The needle showed that the gas tank was barely a quarter full. Grant was working up to telling Hunter Athey about the damaged rear fender, but there was no need to give the hearse back running on empty. If he turned left, he could pack his bag and leave Absolution behind. He didn't. Grant turned right towards Sixto's, and the future was set.

“You need to drive
more careful once you're off the main roads.”

The man working the pump wasn't the old Mexican from before and he wasn't Scott Macready. He could have been Macready's distant cousin though. Same slant of the cowboy hat. Same insolent body language. Same Texan drawl. He uncapped the gas tank and slid the nozzle home. He clicked the trigger on auto and left it to fill up while he examined the broken window and dented bodywork.

Grant made a that's-the-way-it-goes gesture.

“Loose chippings and potholes. It's dangerous out there.”

“This is Texas, mister. It's dangerous everywhere.”

“Can't argue with that.”

The dog was still guarding the compound. Wrecked cars were still piled high beyond the wire fence. The pair of army jeeps was still parked in front of the workshop doors. The dog barked as if it remembered Grant. Its stumpy tail wagged hard enough to bring up dust. Foam dripped from its jaws, and Grant vowed to keep his distance no matter how friendly old Pedro looked.

The pump jockey poked a finger into one of the bullet holes in the bodywork. “Looks like you hit more than potholes.”

Grant nodded.

“A statistical anomaly.”

“A what?”

“More people die on the roads than are killed by gunshot. The anomaly is that I nearly got two in one.”

The pump jockey didn't look any the wiser. Grant gave up.

“Target practice. Too near the road.”

The cowboy nodded his understanding.

“Yeah. Them road signs are mighty tempting.”

Grant indicated the
welcome to absolution
sign across the road.

“Seems like it.”

The gas pump continued to hum, the display clocking up the quantity and price with a little ding for every cycle. Fumes shimmered around the filler cap in the heat. The most dangerous time when filling up. Ninety percent of gas station fires were started by fume ignition, not the petrol itself. Not like Rambo dropping his Zippo in a spreading pool of gasoline. Grant backed away from the smell and glanced towards the diner.

Sarah Hellstrom was looking out of the window.

That was the other decision Grant had been mulling over. He supposed there had never been any doubt which way that one would go. Filling up the hearse might have been the polite thing to do, but the gas station being next to the diner was the real motive.

Grant nodded at Sarah.

Sarah didn't nod back.

A finger of doubt stroked the back of Grant's neck. He watched her turn away from the window and disappear into the shadows. The pump continued to
ding
,
ding
,
ding
, the cycle slowing as the tank reached capacity. The trigger clicked off and the pump stopped. The cowboy followed Grant's gaze and his eyes slitted into a sly little smile. A secret smile that Grant wasn't supposed to see. Grant ignored the implication. In a town this small there would always be gossip and innuendo. Let them think what they wanted.

The pump jockey wiped his hands on a greasy cloth. “You paying cash?”

“Yes.”

Grant took the money wallet out of his back pocket and followed the cowboy to the office. He noted the amount on the pump display and began to count banknotes from the wallet. The office door creaked as he went through. Another fly zapped itself on the electronic bug catcher above the door. The old Mexican was sitting behind the counter. He rang in the amount and the till drawer opened. He wouldn't meet Grant's eyes. The first sign that things weren't right. The second, Grant corrected himself. The first was Sarah turning away without acknowledging him.

The pump jockey stood with his back against the door. The Mexican moved to the back of the office. The fly died a slow and painful death. Grant's eyes flicked around the hot interior. Front door—blocked. Door in the rear—partly open. Two men in the room—the Mexican and the cowboy. Grant discounted the Mexican. He was an employee but not hired muscle. The pump jockey was no hard man either. That left the partly open door at the rear.

The pump jockey stuffed the rag in his back pocket. “I hear you're all kinds of accident prone.”

Grant looked at the cowboy but half turned towards the rear door. Peripheral vision gave him good sightlines to both.

“You reckon?”

The cowboy moved away from the front door. The Mexican sat behind the counter and almost disappeared. The rear door moved slightly, and a gentle breeze wafted dust across the floor. The view through the opening was sand and scrub and the parched landscape behind the service station.

Grant relaxed his hands. Took half a step towards the pump jockey. The nearest threat. “How d'you work that out?”

The desert wind picked up and slammed the back door shut. The noise was loud in the confined space of Sixto's. Grant tensed, ready for action. Nobody came through the door. Nobody yanked it open to come charging in.

The cowboy smirked.

“Potholes and target practice. And spilled coffee lids.”

Now Grant understood what the sly little smile had been all about. Towards the window of Gilda's Grill. The threat wasn't coming from the rear door to the office. Before he finished the thought, Grant was out of the front door and crossing the forecourt.