Echo Burning jr-5 Page 7

  There was a polite beep from somewhere deep inside the dashboard. A little orange light started flashing in the stylized shape of a gas pump, right next to the speedometer.

  "Low fuel," she said.

  "There's Exxon up ahead," he said. "I saw a billboard. Maybe fifteen miles."

  "I need Mobil," she said. "There's a card for Mobil in the glove box. I don't have any way of paying at Exxon."

  "You don't even have money for gas?"

  She shook her head. "I ran out. Now I'm charging it all to my mother-in-law's Mobil account. She won't get the bill for a month."

  She steered one-handed and groped behind her for her pocketbook. Dragged it forward and dumped it on his lap.

  "Check it out," she said.

  He sat there, with the bag on his knees.

  "I can't be poking through a lady's pocketbook," he said.

  "I want you to," she said. "I need you to understand."

  He paused a beat and snapped it open and a soft aroma came up at him. Perfume and makeup. There was a hairbrush, tangled with long black hairs. A nail clipper. And a thin wallet.

  "Check it out," she said again.

  There was a worn dollar bill in the money section. That was all. A solitary buck. No credit cards. A Texas driver's license, with a startled picture of her on it. There was a plastic window with a photograph of a little girl behind it. She was slightly chubby, with perfect pink skin. Shiny blond hair and bright lively eyes. A radiant smile filled with tiny square teeth.

  "Ellie," she said.

  "She's very cute."

  "She is, isn't she?"

  "Where did you sleep last night?"

  "In the car," she said. "Motels are forty bucks."

  "Mine was nearer twenty," he said.

  She shrugged.

  "Anything over a dollar, I haven't got it," she said. "So it's the car for me. It's comfortable enough. Then I wait for the breakfast rush and wash up in some diner's restroom, when they're too busy to notice."

  "What about eating?"

  "I don't eat."

  She was slowing down, maybe trying to preserve the rest of her gas.

  "I'll pay for it," Reacher said. "You're giving me a ride."

  There was another billboard, on the right shoulder. Exxon, ten miles.

  "O.K.," she said. "I'll let you pay. But only so I can get back to Ellie."

  She accelerated again, confident the tank would last ten miles. Less than a gallon, Reacher figured, even with a big old engine like that. Even driving fast. He sat back and watched the horizon reel in. Then he suddenly realized what he should do.

  "Stop the car," he said.

  "Why?"

  "Just do it, O.K.?"

  She glanced at him, puzzled, but she pulled over on the ragged shoulder. Left it with two wheels on the blacktop, the engine running, the air blasting.

  "Now wait," he said.

  They waited in the cold until the truck she had passed came through.

  "Now sit still," he said.

  He undipped his seat belt and squinted down and tore the pocket off his shirt. Cheap material, weak stitching, it came away with no trouble at all.

  "What are you wearing?" he asked.

  "What? What are you doing?"

  "Tell me exactly what you're wearing."

  She blushed. Fidgeted nervously.

  "This dress," she said. "And underwear. And shoes."

  "Show me your shoes."

  She paused a second, and then leaned down and worked her shoes off. Passed them across to him, one at a time. He checked them carefully. Nothing in them. He passed them back. Then he leaned forward and unbuttoned his shirt. Took it off. Passed it to her.

  "I'm getting out now," he said. "I'm going to turn my back. Take all your clothes off and put the shirt on. Leave your clothes on the seat and then get out, too."

  "Why?"

  "You want me to help you, just do it. All of them, O.K.?"

  He got out of the car and walked away. Turned around and stared down the road, back the way they had come. It was very hot. He could feel the sun burning the skin on his shoulders. Then he heard the car door open. He turned back and saw her climbing out, barefoot, wearing his shirt. It was huge on her. She was hopping from foot to foot because the road was burning her feet.

  "You can keep your shoes," he called.

  She leaned in and picked them up and put them on.

  "Now walk away and wait," he called.

  She paused again, and then moved ten feet away. He stepped back to the car. Her clothes were neatly folded on her seat. He ignored them. Reached back and searched her pocketbook again, and then the briefcase. Nothing there. He turned back to the clothes and shook them out. They were warm from her body. The dress, a bra, underpants. Nothing hidden in them. He laid them on the roof of the car and searched the rest of it.

  It took him twenty minutes. He covered it completely. Under the hood, the whole of the interior, under the carpets, in the seats, under the seats, in the trunk, under the fenders, everywhere. He found nothing at all, and he was absolutely prepared to bet his life no civilian could conceal anything from him in an automobile.

  "O.K.," he called. "Get dressed now. Same routine."

  He waited with his back turned until he heard her behind him. She was holding his shirt. He took it from her and put it back on.

  "What was that about?" she asked.

  "Now I'll help you," he said. "Because now I believe you."

  "Why?"

  "Because you really don't have any money," he said. "No credit cards, either. Not in your wallet, and not hidden anyplace else. And nobody travels three hundred miles from home, not overnight, with absolutely no money. Not unless they've got some real big problems. And a person with real big problems deserves some kind of help."

  She said nothing. Just ducked her head slightly, like she was accepting a compliment. Or offering one. They climbed back in the car and shut the doors. Sat for a minute in the cool air, and then she maneuvered back onto the road again.

  "So, you've got a year," he said. "That's plenty of time. A year from now, you could be a million miles away. New start, new life. Is that what you want me for? To help you get away?"

  She said nothing for a couple of minutes. A couple of miles. The road rolled down a slight hill, and then up again. There were buildings in the far distance, on the next crest. Probably the gas station. Maybe a tow-truck operation next to it.

  "Right now just agree with me," she said. "A year is enough. So it's O.K. to have waited."

  "Sure," he said. "A year is enough. It's O.K. to have waited."

  She said nothing more. Just drove straight ahead for the gas station, like her life depended on it.

  The first establishment was a junkyard. There was a long low shed made out of corrugated tin, with the front wall all covered with old hubcaps. Behind it was an acre of wrecked cars. They were piled five or six deep, with the older models at the bottom, like geological strata. Beyond the low shed was the turn for the gas station. It was old enough to have pumps with pointers instead of figures, and four public rest rooms instead of two. Old enough that a taciturn guy came out into the heat and filled your car for you.

  The Cadillac took more than twenty gallons, which cost Reacher the price of a motel room. He passed the bills through his window and waved away a dollar in change. He figured the guy should have it. The outside temperature reading on the dash showed one hundred and eleven degrees. No wonder the guy didn't talk. Then he found himself wondering whether it was because the guy didn't like to see a beaner driving a white man around in a Cadillac.

  "Gracias, senor," Carmen said. "Thank you."

  "Pleasure," he said. "De nada, senorita."

  "You speak Spanish?"

  "Not really," he said. "I served all over, so I can say a few words in a lot of languages. But that's all. Except French. I speak French pretty well. My mother was French."

  "From Louisiana or Canada?"

  "From Pari
s, France."

  "So you're half-foreign," she said.

  "Sometimes I feel a lot more than half."

  She smiled like she didn't believe him and eased back to the road. The gas needle jumped up to F, which seemed to reassure her. She got the car straight in her lane and accelerated back to a cruise.

  "But you should call me senora," she said. "Not senorita. I'm a married woman."

  "Yes," he said. "I guess you are."

  She went quiet for a mile. Settled back in the seat and rested both hands lightly on the bottom curve of the wheel. Then she took a deep breath.

  "O.K., here's the problem," she said. "I don't have a year."

  "Why not?"

  "Because a month ago his lawyer friend came out to the house. Told us there was some kind of deal on the table."

  "What deal?"

  "I don't know for sure. Nobody told me exactly. My guess is Sloop's going to rat out some business associates in exchange for early release. I think his other friend is brokering it through the DA's office."

  "Shit," Reacher said.

  Carmen nodded. "Yes, shit. They've all been working their asses off, getting it going. I've had to be all smiles, like oh great, Sloop's coming home early."

  Reacher said nothing.

  "But inside, I'm screaming," she said. "I left it too late, you see. A year and a half, I did nothing at all. I thought I was safe. I was wrong. I was stupid. I was sitting around in a trap without knowing it, and now it's sprung shut, and I'm still in it."

  Reacher nodded slowly. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. That was his guiding principle.

  "So what's the progress on the deal?" he asked. The car sped on south.

  "It's done," she said, in a small voice.

  "So when does he get out?"

  "Today's Friday," she said. "I don't think they can do it on the weekend. So it'll be Monday, I expect. A couple of days, is all."

  "I see," Reacher said.

  "So I'm scared," she said. "He's coming home."

  "I see," Reacher said again.

  "Do you?" she asked.

  He said nothing.

  "Monday night," she said. "He's going to start it all up again. It's going to be worse than ever."

  "Maybe he's changed," Reacher said. "Prison can change people."

  It was a useless thing to say. He could see it in her face. And in his experience, prison didn't change people for the better.

  "No, it's going to be worse than ever," she said. "I know it. I know it for sure. I'm in big trouble, Reacher. I can promise you that."

  Something in her voice.

  "Why?"

  She moved her hands on the wheel. Closed her eyes tight, even though she was doing seventy miles an hour.

  "Because it was me who told the IRS about him," she said.

  * * *

  The Crown Victoria drove south, and then west, and then looped back north in a giant sweeping curve. It detoured over near the highway so it could fill up with gas at a self-service pump in a busy station. The driver used a stolen Amex card in the slot and then wiped his prints off it and dropped it in the trash next to the pump, with the empty oil bottles and the soda cans and the used paper towels covered with windshield dirt. The woman busied herself with a map and selected their next destination. Kept her finger on the spot until the driver got back in and squirmed around to take a look at it. "Now?" he asked.

  "Just to check it out," she replied. "For later."

  * * *

  "It seemed like such a good plan," Carmen said. "It seemed foolproof. I knew how stubborn he was, and how greedy he was, so I knew he wouldn't cooperate with them, so I knew he would go to jail, at least for a little while. Even if by some chance he didn't, I thought it might preoccupy him for a spell. And I thought it might shake some money loose for me, you know, when he was hiding it all. And it worked real well, apart from the money. But that seemed like such a small thing at the time."

  "How did you do it?"

  "I just called them. They're in the book. They have a whole section to take information from spouses. It's one of their big ways to get people. Normally it happens during divorces, when you're mad at each other. But I was already mad at him."

  "Why haven't you gone ahead and got a divorce?" he asked. "Husband in jail is grounds, right? Some kind of desertion?"

  She glanced in the mirror, at the briefcase on the rear seat. "It doesn't solve the problem with Ellie," she said. "In fact, it makes it much worse. It alerts everybody to the possibility I'll leave the state. Legally, Sloop could require me to register her whereabouts, and I'm sure he would."

  "You could stay in Texas," he said again.

  She nodded.

  "I know, I know," she said. "But I can't. I just can't. I know I'm being irrational, but I can't stay here, Reacher. It's a beautiful state, and there are nice people here, and it's very big, so I could get a long way away, but it's a symbol. Things have happened to me here that I have to get away from. Not just with Sloop."

  He shrugged.

  "Your call," he said.

  She went quiet and concentrated on driving. The road reeled in. It was dropping down off of a wide flat mesa that looked the size of Rhode Island.

  "The caprock," she said. "It's limestone, or something. All the water evaporated about a million years ago and left the rock behind. Geological deposits, or something."

  She sounded vague. Her tour-guide explanation was less definitive than usual.

  "So what do you want me to do?" he asked.

  "I don't know," she said, although he was certain that she did.

  "Help you run? I could do that, probably."

  She said nothing.

  "You picked me out," he said. "You must have had something in mind."

  She said nothing. He fell to thinking about the potential target group she had outlined to him. Out-of-work rodeo riders and roughnecks. Men of various talents, but he wasn't sure if beating a federal manhunt would be among them. So she had chosen well. Or lucked out.

  "You need to move fast," he said. "Two days, you need to get started right now. We should pick Ellie up and turn the car around and get going. Vegas, maybe, for the first stop."

  "And do what there?"

  "Pick up some ID," he said. "Place like Vegas, we could find something, even if it's only temporary. I've got some money. I can get more, if you need it."

  "I can't take your money," she said. "That wouldn't be fair."

  "Fair or not, you're going to need money. You can pay me back later. Then maybe you should go back to L.A. You could start building some new paperwork there."

  She was quiet again, another mile.

  "No, I can't run," she said. "I can't be a fugitive. I can't be an illegal. Whatever else I am, I've never been an illegal. I'm not going to start being one now. And neither is Ellie. She deserves better than that."

  "You both deserve better than that," he said. "But you've got to do something."

  "I'm a citizen," she said. "Think about what that means to a person like me. I'm not going to give it up. I'm not going to pretend to be somebody else."

  "So what's your plan?"

  "You're my plan," she said.

  Bull riders, roughnecks, a six-foot-five two-hundred-fifty-pound ex-military cop.

  "You want me to be your bodyguard?'' he asked.

  She made no reply.

  "Carmen, I'm sorry about your situation," he said. "Believe me, I really am."

  No response.

  "But I can't be your bodyguard."

  No reply.

  "I can't be," he said again. "It's ridiculous. What do you think is going to happen? You think I'm going to be with you twenty-four hours a day? Seven days a week? Making sure he doesn't hit you?"

  No reply. A huge highway interchange sprawled across the empty landscape, miles away in the haze.

  "It's ridiculous," he said again. "I could warn him off, I guess. I could scare him. I could smack him around a little, to back up the message
. But what happens when I'm gone? Because sooner or later, I'm going to be gone, Carmen. I'm not going to stay around. I don't like to stay anywhere. And it's not just me. Face it, nobody is going to stay around. Not long enough. Not ten years. Or twenty, or thirty or however long it is until he ups and dies of old age."

  No reply. No effect, either. It wasn't like what he was saying was a big disappointment to her. She just listened and drove, fast and smooth, and silent, like she was biding her time. The highway cloverleaf grew larger and nearer and she swooped onto it and around it and headed due west, following a big green sign that said: PECOS 75 MILES.

  "I don't want a bodyguard," she said. "I agree, that would be ridiculous."

  "So what am I supposed to be for?"

  She settled onto the highway, center lane, driving faster than before. He watched her face. It was completely blank.

  "What am I supposed to be for?" he asked again.

  She hesitated. "I can't say it."

  "Say what?"

  She opened her mouth. Closed it again. Swallowed hard, and said nothing. He stared at her. Bull riders, roughnecks, an ex-MP. Clay Allison's grave, the fancy inscription, the obituary in the Kansas City newspaper.

  "You are crazy," he said.

  "Am I?" The spots of color came back to her face, the size of quarters, burning red high above her cheekbones.

  "Totally crazy," he said. "And you can forget about it."

  "I can't forget about it."

  He said nothing.

  "I want him dead, Reacher," she said. "I really do. It's my only way out, literally. And he deserves it."

  "Tell me you're kidding."

  "I'm not kidding," she said. "I want him killed."

  He shook his head. Stared out of the window.

  "Just forget all about it," he said. "It's absurd. This isn't the Wild West anymore."

  "Isn't it? Isn't it still O.K. to kill a man who needs killing?"

  Then she went quiet, just driving, like she was waiting him out. He stared at the speeding landscape in front of him. They were heading for the distant mountains. The blazing afternoon sun made them red and purple. It changed the color of the air. The Trans-Pecos, she had called them.