And thus warn the Old Man that I’m out here somewhere waiting for him, thought Val.
Time to get out of there.
Val had hobbled half a dozen steps west along the old river path before he realized that he could barely walk. His right ankle was cut worse than he’d noticed. There was a pool of blood where he’d been standing by the bridge and he was leaving red pools as he walked.
Fuck.
He sat down and rolled up his torn pant leg. It was a pretty deep slash—the kind you needed stitches for. The kind you went to the emergency room for.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
Val shucked off his jacket and flannel shirt, tugged his T-shirt over his head, and tore it into rags. He tied the cleanest strip as tightly around the wound as he could and then got dressed again.
He was filthy, his right pant leg was torn to shit and bloody from the cuff halfway to the knee, and his boots were so sodden with blood that he made squishy noises as he walked.
I’ll deal with it later.
Hobbling as fast as he could, trying not to let the pain and nausea make him puke, he turned left on South University Boulevard at the light since he didn’t want to head west past the Denver Country Club on First Avenue the way he and Leonard had come. Six or eight painful blocks south, he turned right—heading west—on East Exposition Avenue. He could see a park up ahead. Where there was a park, there’d be homeless people—and with the homeless, there’d be what he needed to steal in order to do what he had to do.
1.16
Denver—Saturday, Sept. 25
K.T. HAS OUTDONE herself.
Nick, with Val riding shotgun beside him and Leonard in the backseat, is barreling due south on Highway 287 - 385 through the empty Comanche Grasslands at 130 miles per hour in the 2015 Chevy Camaro supercharged SS that K. T. Lincoln provided from the impound lot.
Endless grasslands unspool on either side of the white automobile roaring down the empty two-lane highway. They’ve long since outrun the puny Denver PD and Colorado Highway Patrol interceptors, and Nakamura’s hydrogen-powered skateboards never had a chance to catch up once they turned south from I-70. Val has been cheering and pumping his fist for forty miles now.
The almost-twenty-year-old Camaro is pouring out its Vortech-supercharged 603 horsepower and 518 pound-feet of torque. No plug-in electric motors here, just the raging 6.2-liter L99 V-8 engine gulping down gallons of rare high-octane gasoline.
The windshield and windows on the Camaro Vortech SS are just glassed-over gunslits and Val has already had the opportunity to use his as such. The hood of the highway patrol cruiser in pursuit had exploded upward from the shotgun blast and the car had spun into its own dust cloud. That had been the last of the pursuit before they passed through Springfield, Colorado, just north of the grasslands. Leonard is busy in the backseat double-checking unfolded paper maps, even though both Betty and the Camaro’s nav system are providing minute-by-minute information.
“When we get to the town of Campo ten miles ahead,” calls Leonard over the engine howl and roar of the Nitto Extreme Drag NT55R rear tires, “it’ll be about ninety-eight miles to the border station at Texhoma.”
“How many people in Campo?” shouts Nick. He finds it hard to believe that there’s a town out here in the endlessly undulating grasslands.
“A hundred and fifty,” shouts Leonard.
“One hundred thirty-eight,” answers Betty.
“One… hundred… forty… one,” says the Camaro’s mildly retarded nav system.
“Dad!” cries Val. “There’s some sort of helicopter coming in behind us. But I don’t hear it, just see it.”
“That’s a Sasayaki-tonbo,” says Nick, proud to share his knowledge of such things. He has had to concentrate hard on the driving the past hour and more. At more than 130 m.p.h., a chuckhole or jackrabbit could mean disaster. “It means ‘dragonfly’ in Japanese.”
“What do you want me to do?” shouts Val as he opens the sunroof, shucks off his shoulder harness, and stands, holding the RPG that Nick’s brought in his duffel of weapons.
“Just a warning shot across the bow,” shouts Nick over the roar of air that’s joined the engine and tire noise. “Sato might be in it. I don’t want to kill him.”
“Roger that,” shouts Val and takes aim and launches a rocket. The dark back-exhaust of the rocket scorches the white hood of the Camaro.
The rocket misses the nose of the dragonfly ’copter as planned, but it does catch the tip of one of the huge, intricately warped rotors. The big but elegant machine corkscrews to the right, out of sight over a grassy hill.
“Did you see it hit?” calls Nick as Val sets the spent RPG in back, closes the sunroof, and straps himself back in. They’re approaching Campo at 140 miles per hour.
“It’s all right,” says Leonard from the back. “It autorotated down and just landed hard in a big cloud of dust. No one hurt.”
Val high-fives his father, who quickly returns his hand to the steering wheel.
“Turn right onto Main Street and the highway marked four-twelve, two-eighty-seven, sixty-four, three, fifty-six in front of the town hall in Boise City,” says Leonard, leaning forward between the father and son.
“Why does one highway have so many numbers in Oklahoma?” laughs Val.
“What they lack in actual number of roads, they make up for in numbers for them,” says Nick and is surprised when both his son and father-in-law laugh.
Then they are in Texhoma, Oklahoma, population 909 according to Leonard, 896 according to Betty, not-enough-data according to the Camaro’s nav, 364 miles and less than three and a half hours’ Camaro SS driving time from Denver.
And then they are approaching the Republic of Texas border station.
“Jeez,” says Val, “they’re on horses.”
Nick turns right at the flagpole with the flag showing a single white star on the triangular field of blue. The red and white stripes look familiar. The Texas cavalry is escorting them through the opened gates that cut through the two high fences and intervening minefields.
Nick’s amazed to see a familiar building just beyond the open border gates. “I thought the Alamo was much farther south,” he says softly. The Camaro’s big V-8 is just rumbling softly now.
“A lot of people make that mistake,” says Leonard, who is leaning forward to shake Nick’s hand. When Nick offers his hand to Val, the boy hugs him instead.
NICK CAME AWAKE GASPING and with tears running down his cheeks.
Flashback addicts rarely dreamed at all. Now that real dreams, as opposed to flashback trips, were coming back to him, he was astonished at how powerful they were. Why would anyone trade such things for chemically induced reruns of fragments of a life? Why had he?
He was up and showered and shaved and planned to be dressed, armed, and out of the condo complex by 6:30 a.m. His ribs hurt worse today under the tape-corset, but he didn’t care. Looking in the mirror after he’d shaved, Nick saw that something was different.
He’d managed to lose quite a bit of weight for two weeks on a case, and his cheekbones were sharper, his features more gaunt, but that wasn’t the primary change. His eyes. His eyes were different. More clear. For almost six years now, he’d stared at himself and at everything else out of the cave-stare of either wanting and needing flashback more than anything else in the world or staring at the world through the glaze of a heavy flashback hangover. His eyes were different now.
Can they stay that way? Nick shivered and finished getting dressed.
At weapons-check, he signed out his 9mm Glock for the clip-on crossdraw holster at his belt and a tiny .32-caliber pocket gun for his rarely worn ankle holster. The .32 had been his throw-down for all the years he’d been a patrolman and homicide detective—numbers filed off, grip taped, no traceable history on it—but he’d never fired his service weapon in anger, much less come close to having to use a throw-down for himself or his partner. He trusted the short-barreled .32 to be accurate at dista
nces of five feet or less.
Before leaving for the day, Nick took security chief Gunny G. aside, showed him the photos of Val and Leonard, and paid the ex-marine $50 in old bucks—more than a third of what Nick had left after paying the pilot to get him to Los Angeles and a fortune by anyone’s standards—with more promised if Gunny were to take care of the two until Nick got back. Or if he didn’t get back.
“The FBI and Homeland Security were here last week asking about the boy, Mr. B.,” said Gunny G.
“I know,” said Nick, handing the fortune in hard cash to the white-scarred ex-marine. “But I swear to you that it’s only because they wanted to question my son as a material witness to something he wasn’t involved in. And even that’s been dropped. You won’t get in trouble helping them, I promise you that, Gunny. And there’s another twenty-five in it for you after you do help them get settled ’til I get back—and keep anyone from bothering them.”
“I’d do that for you no matter what, Mr. B.,” said the security man as he pocketed the cash.
Nick scribbled a hasty note—he had little hope that Val and his grandfather would show up today, but the remnants of the dream he’d had made him a little more optimistic than usual—and then he was out the parking garage door and into his vibrating, wheezing gelding. It was hard to drive that volt-bucket after the dream-memory of real V-8 power and freedom. The charge indicator’s happy face showed that he had a range of thirty-one miles today, if a major part of it was downhill.
K.T.! ”
The police lieutenant spun, crouched, and had almost cleared the Glock from its holster before she froze.
“Nick Bottom. What the fuck do you want?”
“And a good morning to you, too, Lieutenant Lincoln.”
K.T. lived on Capitol Hill in one of the big old nineteenth-century homes in that once-prestigious neighborhood that had been converted to a dozen or more cubie rentals late in the last century or early in this one. It had been a high-crime neighborhood for more than six decades now, but this only gave the cops who wanted to live there a better deal. The residents of K.T.’s building who could afford cars kept them in an oversized detached garage down this long driveway and that’s where he’d planned to intercept his old partner.
“What are you doing in your uniform, Detective?” asked Nick. Seeing K.T. in her patrol blacks, gunbelt, visible shield, baton and all, reminded him of their early years together.
“There’s been a little unpleasantness in Los Angeles this past week,” said K.T., straightening. “Or perhaps you’ve been too busy playing Philip Marlowe to notice.”
“I’ve heard rumors,” said Nick. “So?”
“So the reconquista armies and militias out there got their collective asses kicked, there are more than a million and a half spanic residents of East L.A. running south for their lives, and word is that the Nuevo Mexican forces haven’t been able to draw the line at San Diego but are falling back to the old border.”
“So?” repeated Nick.
“So there are about half a million yahoos in Denver who are getting big ideas of kicking spanic ass here in our own backyard,” said K.T. “The whole force is on duty today—full riot gear—and drawing a protective line in Five Points, north Denver, West Colfax area, the old Manual High School feeder neighborhoods, and all of southwest Denver beyond Santa Fe Drive.”
“You don’t have enough people, K.T.”
“Fucking tell me about it,” said the lieutenant. “What the hell do you want, Nick? I gotta get to work.”
“Any progress on getting me that impound V-eight I asked for?”
K.T. squinted at him. “You were serious?”
“As a heart attack, partner.”
“Don’t call me ‘partner,’ you flashcave dweller. Why on earth would I risk my entire career and pension by stealing you a car from impound, Nick Bottom?”
“Because they’ll kill me if I don’t have real wheels to get out of here.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” demanded K.T. “The black helicopters coming for you?”
Nick smiled at that. She was closer to the truth than she could know.
“You read the grand jury notes,” said Nick.
“Another reason not even to talk to you, mister. Much less commit a felony for you.”
Nick nodded. “Assuming they were a frame-up—assume that for just a minute—ask yourself who’d have the juice to change phone records, suborn testimony, do all the things that grand jury near-indictment required to be done. The late mayor and former DA Mannie Ortega?”
K.T. snorted a laugh.
“Who, then?” pressed Nick. “The governor? Who?”
“It’d have to be someone on the level of Advisor Nakamura’s group,” said K.T., glancing at her watch and glowering. “But why would Nakamura spend all that time almost six years ago framing you—at great effort and expense—and then hire you now to find the killer of his sweet widdle boy?”
“I’m working on that,” said Nick.
“But that’s assuming that all that grand jury work was a frame-up,” snapped K.T. “Which has to be bullshit.” She turned to walk away.
Knowing how much K. T. Lincoln hated to be touched—he’d watched her scowl a supervisor into retreat for doing so, not to mention baton the teeth out of a begging perp—he grabbed her by the upper arm and turned her around.
“That grand jury information meant that I killed my wife. You knew us for years, K.T. Can you imagine me hurting Dara?” He shook her with both hands. “God damn it, can you?”
She removed his hands and glared at him, but then looked down. “No, Nick. You couldn’t hurt Dara. Not ever.”
“So one way or the other—whether I find Keigo Nakamura’s killer or not, and I only have until this evening to report on that—Advisor Nakamura’s going to have me whacked. I’m certain of it. But with a fast car…”
“You’re nuts,” said K.T. But her voice was softer now. “Why did you say in your call yesterday morning—I never got back to sleep, by the way—that you were trying to save Val and you? Is Val back from L.A.?”
“I was out there looking for him from Monday until last night,” said Nick. “I think odds are decent that he and his grandfather got out of the city before the shit hit the fan.”
“And he’d come here… to you? Why, Nick?”
He may want to kill me, thought Nick. Instead of saying that, he shrugged. “All I know is that if he arrives today, I need a fast way out of town. A car with balls.”
“How far do you have to get to be… away… out of town?” asked K.T.
“Three hundred sixty-four miles would about do it,” said Nick.
“Three hundred sixty… Nick, no car goes that far these days without an overnight charge or a hydrogen top-off. What on earth is three hundred and sixty-one miles from here that you’d need to…” She paused and her eyes widened. “Texas? Are you shitting me?”
“I shit thee not, Lieutenant Lincoln.”
“The Republic of Texas doesn’t take felons on the run, Nick. Nor do they take flashback addicts. Nor do they…” She paused again.
Nick said nothing.
K.T. took a step closer. “You look… different. Your eyes… Are you off the flashback shit?”
“I think so,” Nick said softly. “The last nine days or so have been too busy for me to think about the drug.”
“Nine whole days,” said K.T. There was some sarcasm in her tone—there always was—but Nick could also hear the serious question beneath the derision.
“It’s a beginning, partner,” said Nick. He remembered when he’d helped her go off both painkillers and cigarettes in the months after a minor shooting—the nicotine being harder to kick than the narcotics. Dara had understood when he’d sat up nights with his partner, listening to her moan and bitch. He knew that K.T. also remembered it.
“Maybe,” she grunted. “But this car thing is a nonstarter, Nick. For one thing, the city just held their annual auction of impounded vehicles
a few weeks ago. The lots are mostly empty.”
“You’ll find something for me, K.T.”
“God damn it,” she snarled, balling her hands into fists. “Quit doing that to me, you asshole. I don’t owe you anything.”
Nick nodded assent but K.T. looked down, almost panting in her anger, and said to the ground, “Except my life, Nick. Except my life.” She raised her head. “If I find a car—which I don’t think I can—where do you want me to deliver it? Your cubie mall?”
“No,” said Nick and thought fast. It had to be someplace public but also fairly safe from thieves. Someplace with security nearby but a non-noisy security. “The Six Flags Over the Jews parking lot,” he said. “As far on the south side as you can park it. They don’t check the vehicles until the end of the visiting hours about nine p.m., but the guards at the main gate sort of keep an eye out on the cars in the lot. Just park it as far south as you can but not so off by itself that it’ll be noticeable.”
“How will you know which car it is?” muttered K.T., checking her watch again.
“Text me. And park it, you know, the opposite direction of other cars in the row.”
“Where do I put the key fob for this car I won’t be able to get for you?” she asked. “Over the visor?”
Nick produced the small metal box he’d got from Gunny G. that morning. “This is magnetic. Set it inside the left rear wheel well… like in the Mad Max movies.”
“Right, like in the Mad Max movies.” She took the little box, clicked it open and shut, and rolled her eyes at the nonsense.
“Never mind,” said Nick. “Just don’t get the box anywhere near your phone or other computer stuff… that powerful magnet will wipe the memories clean.”