The Hanged Man (21 page)

“So what happened to Bill and Maria?” I asked her.

“Oh yeah.” She replaced the phone in its cradle, then turned back to me, leaning her elbows on the bar. “A couple of the waiters came in from the dining room, and finally they were able to get the two of them separated and quieted down.” She tapped her cigarette into the ashtray. “Bill took her home. Never even looked at the girl. She just stood there the whole time, watching.”

“How'd she get home?”

“Maria's boyfriend took her.” She shrugged. “Maybe they'll live happily ever after.”

I nodded. “Karma.”

She smiled. “Another drink?”

I shook my head. “Gotta go. It's—”

“Right, yeah. Karma.”

About a mile down the road, and maybe sixty yards behind me, the headlights picked me up again.

To my occasionally paranoid eyes, at any rate, they seemed to be the same headlights that had followed me from town. But if it was Paul Chang, why hadn't he tried something on the way up?

I could think of one answer to that, and I didn't much like it.

On the way up, the Subaru and I had been on the mountain side of the road: anyone wanting to run us off the road might think that the trees and the bank of the hill would cushion our arrival.

Heading back into town, we were on the cliff side of the road. For the next four or five miles, the right edge of the highway ran along the edge of the mountain, which sometimes sloped gently downward beneath the weight of its towering black ponderosas, but more often simply plunged straight into the valley, a drop invisible from the car. The only barrier was a line of flimsy retaining posts, each set with a small round plastic reflector that peered at me like a single unblinking eye.

I looked into the rearview mirror. The headlights hadn't moved up. Maybe it wasn't the same car.

There was a glow ahead, through the trees. It became a beam of light swaying through the treetops and then it became another pair of headlights. They grew larger and then the car whooshed by and I watched in the mirror as its taillights diminished and finally vanished behind the glare of the car following me.

Which began to move up now, closing the distance between us.

In New Mexico, except in a bar or restaurant, and so long as it's visible, you're allowed to keep a gun on your person. You're also allowed to keep one in your car. Some enterprising souls, true Sons of the Pioneers, do both. I reached down under the seat and retrieved mine, a .38 Smith & Wesson. The Model 42, five shots maximum, but I keep an empty chamber beneath the shrouded hammer. I'm not usually attacked by more than four people at a time.

I wedged the butt down between the cushion of the passenger seat and the seat back, so the thing wouldn't get lost.

Up ahead, a bright yellow diamond-shaped sign indicated that the road would soon start acting like a snake.

There was no glow down there, no car approaching. I tapped my brakes, suggesting to the driver behind me that I was about to slow the Subaru, and then I downshifted into third and hit the gas, swinging wide to the left lane just before I slipped into the right-hand turn. The tires whined in protest, the engine coughed, but the station wagon held the asphalt. I shifted into fourth and the car shot toward the next curve.

The headlights found the rearview mirror and then, on the straight, they began to grow larger.

It was possible, of course, that the car behind me was being driven by some idiot who was guilty only of recklessness and pride, and who'd been insulted by my attempt to outrun him in a puny Japanese wagon. In which case, by trying to stay ahead of him, I'd just be making things worse.

It was possible. I could worry about it later.

Next curve winding left. No glow, no cars coming. Downshift into third, slide into the turn. The steering wheel fighting me, the wagon's rear end fading off to the right. Hold it steady, ease up on the pedal, get the road back beneath all four tires. Clutch, stick, gas.

Another cough from the engine.

Hang in there, kid. Pull through this and I'll buy you some nice new oil. I was only kidding about the new car.

The headlights stayed behind me all the way, disappearing on the turns and reappearing after them, slightly farther back at first, and then moving closer on the straights.

At last the curves ended and the road ran straight for maybe half a mile. The Subaru was running flat-out but the headlights kept getting larger in the mirror.

Let's see what he has in mind.

What choice do we have?

The headlights filled the mirror. He was less than twenty feet away.

If he hit me from the rear, rammed me hard enough at the left rear bumper, he could cause me some serious trouble.

He moved out into the oncoming lane and lumbered up alongside me. I sent off a silent prayer of thanks to Hollywood, which has encouraged a belief in this sort of nonsense. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the hood of the truck—it was the gray Chevy pickup—and when the driver pulled even with me I risked a quick glance. Saw only a vague featureless shape in the grayness. Ski mask?

Just as the cab of the truck ran ahead of me, I slammed on the Subaru's brakes. Thrown forward, bracing myself stiff-armed against the wheel, I watched the truck lurch into the right lane. The driver, perhaps half expecting the crunch of mass slamming into mass, nearly lost control. The truck wobbled, swayed from left to right a moment, right to left, and then at last straightened out.

But by then I'd stopped the Subaru, cut the ignition, whipped up the emergency brake, snatched the .38 from the passenger seat, opened the door, jumped out, and braced both forearms against the top of the window, the pistol aimed at his gate.

I hadn't been able to read his license plate; the light was out.

The truck raced away, down the hill, its red taillights shrinking, shrinking, and then disappearing around a bend. The sound of its engine slowly faded into the silence of the trees.

I let out a breath and turned and sagged down into the seat, my feet still on the road, my arms on my thighs, the Smith dangling loosely in my right hand. I was soaked with sweat.

It didn't
have
to be someone trying to kill me. It could have been some local cowboy, annoyed that I wouldn't let him overtake and pass.

But he'd cut back into the right lane while I was supposed to be in it.

Maybe he was drunk. Maybe he misjudged the lane change.

I didn't really believe that the driver had been a drunken cowboy. But I was trying to persuade my body that I did, because my body was absolutely horrified at the thought that someone might set out, deliberately, to end our existence.

It was a drunken cowboy.

It was someone who wanted to
kill
us.

Both of us realized, simultaneously, that the station wagon and I were sitting in the middle of the right lane of the highway. Where another drunken cowboy, coming down from the ski basin,
would
very likely kill us.

I swung my legs into the car, pulled the door shut. Wedged the pistol down against the cushion again. Put the stick in neutral. Turned on the ignition. Fastened the seat belt. Released the emergency brake. Checked the rearview mirror. Took another deep breath. And then set off down the road, slowly, driving like a rickety old man.

He wanted to kill us!

Shut up. We're still alive. Drive.

He got me just at the end of the straight, where the road arched off to the left. I went back up there later, and I worked it out. He must have spun around, turned off his lights, driven back to the turn, parked it. He must have left the truck, its engine running, and bolted back to the road to watch for my approach. Probably he saw the car sitting there, immobile. Probably he saw it start moving. Then he must have run back to the truck, climbed in, and waited till the brightening glow from my headlights told him that the time was right.

From my left, suddenly, a pair of headlights flared brilliant white, blinding me as they rushed directly toward the car. I jerked the wheel to the right, knew instantly that this was a mistake, felt the Subaru stagger as it snapped the retaining post. The car lifted itself off the road and then it tilted to the right and then the right front wheel slammed down onto something and then the car was spinning over, left to right, and it seemed to keep spinning forever, over and over, like a Ferris wheel in hell.

“This baby's got everything,” Ernie told me. “Look at this. You got your AM, you got your FM, you got your C.D., you got your cassette. You got your amp, you got your graphics equalizer. You got speakers like you wouldn't believe. Monsters. What kinda music you listen to, Josh?”

“Lawrence Welk.”

“The accordion guy? Yeah? Well, I tell you, Josh, it's amazing, a system like this. You're sitting in the car and it's like you're actually sitting
inside
Lawrence Welk's accordion.”

One of life's cherished dreams fulfilled.

The car in which we sat, me in the driver's seat, Ernie to my right, was a three-year-old Jeep Cherokee. Ernie was my height, bulkier in the shoulders, chest, and stomach. White haired and white bearded, he was wearing a gray down jacket that made him look like the Michelin man, and he and the coat were stuffed into the bucket seat like a pillow into a shoebox. Even though the seat was shoved all the way back, the interior of the car seemed cramped.

“Look at this,” Ernie said. “You got your air. You got your cruise control. You got your rear window wiper, you got your rear window heater. This baby's got it all.”

“How big is the engine, Ernie?”

“Four liters. Hey it's not a Maserati. We're not talking Formula One here. But this baby can move. In two-wheel, it'll keep up with just about anything on the road. In four-wheel, it'll take you up and down the craters of the moon. And power?
Whoa!
The winch? Up front? You hook that sucker to the Empire State Building and you turn it on, and I bet you that damn building comes down on top of you.”

A new dream to cherish.

“Does it run?” I asked him.

“Does it
run?
Josh, this baby runs like a goddamn sewing machine. Go ahead. Turn it on.”

I reached forward, winced, turned on the ignition, winced again.

“You okay, Josh? You're looking a little peakéd.”

“I'm okay.”

“Rough night last night, huh?”

“Kind of.”

I didn't pass out while the Subaru was careening through the air. I noted with a mild, detached interest everything that happened. Centrifugal force ripping at my body, pulling me in every direction at once. The insane spin of the car as it wheeled through the air on its horizontal axis, left to right. The series of deafening crashes as it rolled. The final crash as it hit something, punching my left side against the door, knocking my breath away.

It became clear to me, after a while, that Movement had stopped.

But the engine was still running. How could that be?

I watched my hand reach out, reach out, out, out, to the end of the known universe, and turn off the ignition. That was good, I remember thinking. But the dashboard lights were off now. Was that good? I didn't know.

It was good, yes, because now I could smell gasoline. Don't light any matches, I told myself. Idiot. You don't have any matches. You don't smoke.

Something was strange here.

I realized that I was upside down.

That wasn't so good …

If I was upside down, let me see, if I was upside down, then the road should be that way, to my right. Does that make sense? Sure, the road was off to my right, so all I had to do was get out of the car and walk in that direction. Which would be left, then. Or would it? Left or right? Which was right? He got left because he couldn't tell right from left. Right from wrong. Left, right, left, right, company
halt
…

Why am I not breathing well?

Because you're upside down, you idiot. The seat belt harness is digging into your chest.

Well, that's not good. Maybe I should do something …

What if I can't do anything! What if I'm paralyzed?

Check it out. Right arm. Okay. Left arm. Okay. Right leg. Okay. Left leg. Okay.

Nothing broken. No blood. Everything's fine.

Except that I'm upside down.

With both hands I reached up and felt for the roof. It seemed much closer to my head than it was supposed to be, only an inch or so away. And it was lumpy in strange places, and there was something scattered all over it—clicking, clattering chips of something.

Glass. A window must have shattered. I reached out to check the window to my left. My hand went through empty air until it hit cold damp snow. I realized, abruptly, that I felt cold and damp myself.

I looked at the windshield. It was still there, but in the faint glow of starlight on snow I saw that it was cobwebbed with fractures.

Time to get out of here.

Okay. Here's the plan. You brace yourself with your left elbow against the roof. Get to the seat belt with your right hand. Tuck in your head. Unbuckle the belt. Then, like a stone, you fall.