Damnation Alley (7 page)

"I admire your spirit, Mr. Tanner…What led you to volunteer, Greg?"

"I, well, volunteered because… I'm a driver. I run the mail to Albuquerque. I've got a lot of experience."

"I see. Well, both of you are to be commended. If all goes as we expect it to, will you be coming back this way again?"

"I plan to, sir," said Tanner.

"Very good. I'd be happy to receive you anytime you're in town. Perhaps we can have dinner, and I can bear a full report of the trip."

"Our pleasure, sir. If you're ever out L.A. way, I trust you'll drop in and spend some time at the rancho?"

"Delighted."

Tanner smiled and flicked an ash on the floor. "I'm a bit concerned as to our route after we leave here," he said.

"U.S. Forty is good for a distance, how far, though, nobody can tell you. There's been no reason for our drivers to push in that direction."

"I understand. Well, that's something. I was planning on trying Forty, and this confirms it. Thank you."

"Glad to be of help. Have you eaten yet?"

"A fellow who works here went out to get us something. He should be back soon. We have to hurry, you know."

"Yes, that's true. Well, if there's anything you need, let me know."

"Thank you."

He shook their hands again.

"As I said, good luck. A lot of folks will be hoping and praying for you here."

"That is appreciated, Mr. President."

"I'll be seeing you."

"Good morning."

"Good-bye."

He turned then and left, Monk following him out. Tanner began to laugh.

"Why'd you hand him that line of shit, Hell?"

"Because I knew he'd believe it."

"Why?"

"He wants everything to be nice. So I told him nice things, and he believed them. Why not? Dumb bastard actually believed somebody'd volunteer for this!"

"Some guys did, Hell."

"Then why didn't they let them drive?"

"They weren't good enough."

"That's probably why they volunteered. Now they can brag about it. See how he sucked up to me after I talked about humanity? I hate guys like that. They're all phonies."

"At least he went away with a good impression."

Tanner laughed again.

Then the door opened and Monk came in, followed by Red, who carried a large brown bag.

"I got your breakfasts here," he said, and to Monk, "Here's the change."

As they opened the bag, "I'll go help on the car while you're eating," Monk said, pocketing the change. "By the way, there's a guy named Blinky outside who says he knows you, Hell."

"Never heard of him."

"Okay, I'll send him away."

The door closed softly behind him, and they ate.

After a time the door inched slowly open and a tall, gaunt man with thick glasses and a lantern jaw and a mop of snowy hair looked in and then entered.

"Hi, Hell," he said.

"What do you want?"

"What've you got?"

"Nothing for you. Go away.."

"Is that any way to talk to the guy who made you you! fortune?"

"What fortune?"

"I heard the President talking about the place you've got out there on the coast. Very cool. You made most of your money dealing with me, you know."

"Get lost."

"What have you got with you this time?"

"Stuff for Boston."

"A guy like you wouldn't make the trip unless there was a profit in it. What else have you got?"

"If you're not out of here by the time I finish this piece of toast, I'm going to teach you a new way to hurt."

"You're not going to do business with anybody else in this town, Hell. What are you carrying? Candy bars and pot, as usual? Horse, maybe?"

Tanner stuffed the toast into his mouth and rose to his feet, drawing the SS dagger he carried in his boot as he stood.

"I guess your hearing is as bad as your eyes, Blinky," be said, tossing the blade into the air and catching it so that the skull touched his forearm and an inch of steel was extended between his thumb and first finger. He stopped forward then, and Blinky placed his left hand on the doorknob.

"You don't scare me, Hell. You need me in this town."

He swung his arm and slashed the man's left cheek.

"Why did you do that?" Blinky asked, without inflection.

"For the fun of it," said Tanner, and he kicked him in the shins.

As the man bent forward, Tanner raised his arm to cut again, but Greg seized his wrist.

"For Chrissake! Stop it!" he said, as Tanner drove his left fist into Blinky's stomach. "Just kick him out! Why cut him up!"

Still struggling to free his arm, Tanner brought his knee up hard.

Blinky groaned and fell forward.

Greg dragged Tanner away then, before he could kick the man in the ribs.

"Stop it, damn you! There's no call for what you're doing!"

"All right! But get him out of my sight!"

"Okay, I will. If you'll put that knife away."

"He's all yours."

Greg released him and raised the man from the floor. Tanner wiped his dagger on his trousers and resheathed it. Then he returned to his breakfast.

Greg half-carried, half-led the man from the office.

After several minutes he returned.

"I lied about what happened," he said, "and they believed me, maybe because that guy's got a record. But why did you do it?"

"He bugged me."

"Why?"

"He's a lousy pusher, and he wouldn't take no for an answer."

"That any reason to do what you did to him?"

"Also, it was fun."

"You're a miserable bastard."

"Your toast is getting cold."

"What would you have done if I hadn't stopped you? Killed him?"

"No. Probably pulled a couple of his teeth with those pliers over on the desk."

Greg seated himself and stared at his eggs.

"You've got to be a bit nuts," he finally said.

"Aren't we all?"

"Maybe. But that was so uncalled for . . ."

"Maybe you really don't understand, Greg. I'm an Angel. I'm the last Angel left alive. And I've been an Angel since before we switched our denim back to leather, because of the damn storms. Do you know what that means? I'm the last, and I've got a reputation to uphold. Nobody screws with us, or we walk on 'em, that's what it is. Now, this dumb pusher thought he could shove me around, because he's got some muscle outside somewhere, and he thought I'd be going out to make a delivery to somebody else. So he comes in and treats me like some square citizen. I gotta walk on him, don't you understand? I gave him a chance to shut up, and he didn't. Then it was a matter of honor. I had to stomp him."

"But you're not a club anymore. You're just one man."

"Ain't the last Catholic the Pope?"

"I guess so."

"Same thing, then."

"I don't think you're going to last very long, Hell."

"Neither do I. But I don't think you'll make it much longer."

He peeled the cover from the coffee container, took a drink, smacked his lips, and belched.

"Glad I finally nailed that bastard, too. Never liked him."

"Why did they have to pick you?"

"Cause I'm a good driver. I got us this far, you know."

Greg didn't answer, and Tanner rose and crossed to the window. He cracked the blinds and stared out.

"Crowd's thinning a bit," he said. "A lot of them have moved to the other side of the street and on up the block."

He stared at the clock and said, "I wish we were moving again. I hate to waste the daylight in this city."

Greg didn't reply, so Tanner opened a file drawer, stared within, closed it again. He took a drink of coffee. He lit a cigarette.

"I wonder how they're doing on the car?" he asked.

Greg finished eating and threw his empty containers into the wastebasket. He picked up Tanner's and threw them there too. "You're a slob," he said as he did so.

Tanner yawned and stared back out the window.

"I'm going to find the head," said Greg, and left him.

Then Tanner paced and smoked, and finally he went out to watch the men working on the car.

"How's it going ?"

"Everything's okay so far. Did you see the guy who Was hurt?"

"Yeah."

"He sure looked terrible, with all that blood."

"You going to change the oil?"

"Yeah."

"How much longer are you going to be?"

"Maybe an hour."

"Is there a back door to this place?"

"Go around that red car to the left. You'll see it then."

"Know if anybody's out there?"

"I don't think so. It's all weeds and our junk heap."

Tanner grunted and moved toward the back of the shop. He opened the door and looked outside, then stepped through it.

The air was warm, and though the odors of grease and banana oil and gasoline still clung lightly to it, he also smelled the smell that moist grass gives off on a warm evening, although it was not truly evening but black day at that time, as he stood there and looked about him until his eyes adjusted and he saw a narrow bench and moved to seat himself upon it, his back against the gray concrete, listening to the noises of the crickets in the weeds and lighting another cigarette and flipping the match toward the heap of fenders and axles and engine blocks all a-rust and amorphous beneath a single ribbon of twisted white that hung like a frozen thunderbolt in the blackness above his suddenly itching head; and scratching, he heard the cry of a bird above him in the painted fastness of an enormous tree whose branches dipped near the ground behind the rubbish; and slapping a mosquito, he felt a cool breeze suddenly touch his face, and with it came the promise of rain, which he did not altogether welcome; and as he double-inhaled the smoke of his cigarette and its tip grew bright, he threw a rock at a rat that darted from the junk heap, but missed it and snorted; and snorting, he wove within his mind the strands of violence past and fear like knowledge of trouble yet to come. Behind his eyes there was a vision of flames, flames encasing his car like the flower of death, two blackening skeletons within, as all the ammo in all the magazines expended itself in a series of mighty explosions, and all the squares who had ever hated him, signifying everybody, gibbered and jeered and shook billy clubs and moved in a wide, dancing circle about the pyre. "Damn you all," he said then softly, and the shock of white in the sky waved a little wider, bent like an upraised finger, and there came a peal of thunder like laughter. He allowed himself to think of the days when he had been Number One, and the thoughts troubled him. He'd missed the fire and the shooting on that night when they had raided the Coast and killed or carted off his entire pack. Ever since, he bad been a country without a man. That had been his fire, and he'd missed the scene. Now another special fate, another special fire had fallen his lot, serving those who would have had him then. He missed his love, the oneeyed beacon of his life, his hog, with her four-speed Harley-Davidson transmission and stock clutch, two big H-D carburetors, and her throbbing, shuddering, exploding power between his thighs, bars in his hands and hellsmell of burned rubber and exhaust fumes peppering his nose around the smoke of his cigar. Gone. Forever. Impounded and sold to pay fines and costs. The way of all steel. The junk heap lay before him now. Who knew? The hog had been wife to him, damn near, and this might be her burial mound, with his own not too far east. He swore again and thought of his brother. It had been over a year since the last time he had seen him. There'd been a screen between them and a guard in the room, who had allowed cigarettes to change hands, and they hadn't had a whole big hell of a lot to talk about. Now his brother was probably taped up in bed someplace. Saved from the fire and the junk heap, which was something, anyway. He was the only square worth saving, Hell decided. Then he chain-lit another cigarette and flipped the butt toward the rubbish. A rat fled. He remembered his initiation. He'd been sixteen at the time. The bucket had been passed, and he'd stood tall and proud in his shiny jacket and gleaming irons, and though slightly drunk, he did no sway. One by one, they had urinated in the bucket. When they were finished, it was dumped over his head. That was his baptism, and he was an Angel. He wore the stinking garment for a year, and when two more had passed, he was nineteen and he was Number One. He had taken them on the rounds then, and everybody knew his name and stepped aside when they saw him coming. He was Hell, and his pack owned the Barbary Coast. They ranged where they would and did as they would, until he'd gotten into bad trouble and gone away and dark days came over the Coast. The town was perpetually ini tiated, as he had been, by rubbish from the heavens. _Their_ pack was bigger, though, than his; and one day they had struck. His cell had been six by eight, and he'd shared it with a man who had liked little girls, well, if not too prudently. After trying to kill him, he'd found himself in solitary. At least he'd preferred it to the garbled ramblings of the wild-eyed, blue-eyed man they'd put him in with. Craig had sometimes foamed at the mouth, until Hell hit him in it one day and the foam turned red. They'd pried his fingers loose from his throat at the last minute, breaking one. They'd thought he'd go mad in solitary, himself, they later told him, after they'd released him into a full cell of his own, many months later. They'd thought he'd needed company, because he'd been a pack man. They didn't understand. They'd thought a gang of them was the Angels and a single Angel was a bum. They were wrong, though. He didn't go mad, or at least he wouldn't admit it if he had. He just sat there. He didn't play games, he didn't count numbers. He just sat there. He'd learned then that they couldn't hurt him. And he'd waited. For what, he hadn't known. This, though. This. This was what he had waited for, as he'd sat there, dreaming of the Big Machine. What was it? Fire? Probably the fire, he decided, as he looked at the sky and sniffed. He slapped another mosquito. It still smelled like rain, and he wanted a drink. The cricket stopped, the bird stopped, as light poured into the world once more, white and bright and glaring. The skies opened as he sat there, like a sea of phosphorus washing out beyond its shores. Everything about him was suddenly limned in an unnatural brightness, and the bole of the great tree was shrunken by a brilliant entasis that attacked from the north. Every piece of scrap in the heap before him took on a life of its own, and he could almost, listening, hear the rubbish talk of its days and use and usefulness upon the remaining roads of the world. The rubbish spoke to him of the countryside, and he listened until the door beside him creaked and he heard Greg's voice.