Bleeding Hearts (44 page)

‘I know what you mean.’

‘You need a cigarette?’ He offered me one, and for some reason I took it. He decided this had broken sufficient ice for him to get out of the car. Once out, he lit both our cigarettes. He had an ex-boxer’s face and a few faded blue tattoos on his arms. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt with a row of pens in the breast-pocket. ‘You ever wonder how many people are dying in there while you’re waiting outside, huh? How many are throwing their guts up or haemorrhaging? You get in a fight or what?’

I touched my face. ‘Yeah, sort of.’

‘Jesus, what did he hit you with, a tyre-iron?’

‘Actually, it was his fist.’

The cabbie whistled. ‘Big fuck, huh?’

‘Huge.’

He flexed his shoulders, wondering if he could have made a better job of my opponent.

‘Have you ever boxed?’ I asked him.

‘Yeah, I used to do some.’

‘I thought so.’

‘You?’

‘I’m a man of peace.’

‘Well, in my estimation, everyone’s a man of peace until he gets steamed up about something. I had a lot of aggression in my youth. What was I going to do, be a public nuisance or step into a ring? Step into a ring, all that aggression is licensed. It’s entertainment.’

‘You enjoyed it, huh?’

‘I didn’t much enjoy getting beat.’

I wasn’t listening any more. I was watching the entrance. A few people had just come out of the hospital and were standing on the steps. I recognised Kline first. It took me another moment to recognise Bel.

Kline was looking up and down the street. At first I thought he was looking for me, but in fact they were waiting for a car. One of his men, the passenger from the front car in Oban, spoke into a radio. Bel was staring at the ground. Kline had a hand on her arm.

‘Hey, you okay?’

The cigarette had dropped from my mouth. I turned away from the cabbie and walked quickly to the van. I went into the back, opened a cupboard, and brought out the Colt Commando. It was pre-loaded and ready for action. Then I got into the driver’s seat and started the van. The cabbie was wide-eyed as I passed him, one hand on my steering-wheel and the other gripping the gun.

Kline’s car was just arriving. They’d brought Bel down to the kerbside. I speeded up and hit the kerb, bouncing the van on to the pavement. Kline and his men looked surprised, then scared. They dived out of the way as I let rip with a few rounds. Bel didn’t need to be told what to do. She opened the passenger door and clambered in.

‘Hey, Kline!’ I roared. ‘We need to talk.’

He was crouching behind the car. ‘Fuck you!’

I fired another burst to keep them down, then reversed back on to the road, hit first gear again, and roared forward.

‘Get down!’ I yelled. I fired a burst up into the air, but they weren’t scared any more. The initial shock had worn off and they’d found their pistols. I felt rounds thumping into the side and rear of the van. But they missed the tyres. We took a hard right into another street, ran a red light and took a left. I didn’t know where the hell we were, but I knew we were out of range.

‘We don’t seem to be having much luck with our vehicles,’ I said. I was thinking: at the very least now they’d know that I was seriously armed and driving a VW van. They might even have got the licence number. It was only three letters and three numbers, easily memorised. I kept checking in the rearview, but there was no sign of pursuit. I slowed down a bit until I’d got my bearings. Soon we were back on 99 and heading north.

‘Don’t you want to hear what happened?’ Bel said. She was shivering. I wound my window back up, then realised that wasn’t why she was shivering.

‘So what happened?’ I was more than angry with her, I was furious. I’d told her not to go, I’d known it was a stupid idea. Yet I hadn’t stopped her. I was furious with myself.

‘They must have been in the reception area, only I didn’t see them. I asked where I could find Sam Clancy, and the woman on the desk pointed me along a corridor. Only, halfway along they grabbed me. They had a good look at me, and then Kline told me to say something.’

‘You tried your American accent?’

‘Yes. The bastard hit me. So I started swearing at him, and all he did was smile. Then he told me he knew who I was and he asked me where you were.’

‘What did he call me?’

‘Weston.’

‘Not West?’

‘No, Weston. Or maybe West. I don’t know. Jesus, I was petrified, Michael.’

‘Did you say anything else?’

‘I told him I knew he killed my father and I was going to kill him for that.’

‘Well then, you’ve told him pretty much all he needs to know. He can’t let either of us live now.’

She bit her lip. ‘Thanks for bailing me out.’

I managed to smile at her.

I passed the motel without stopping, turned at a fast food place, and waited for a minute by the roadside. No one was following us.

‘Tomorrow we have to move again. For tonight, we sleep in shifts. The other one keeps watch from the window. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

As it turned out, I didn’t have the heart to wake her. It was all my fault she was here in the first place. What had I been doing taking her to London with me? Of course, if I hadn’t taken her with me, they’d probably have killed her when they killed Max. This thought pushed away the guilt. I sat in a chair by the window, and went out to the vending machine occasionally for ice-cold Coke and chocolate bars. I crunched a few caffeine tablets until my heart rate sounded too high. I knew every inch of the parking lot, every scrap of trash blowing across it. The sodium glare hurt my eyes. I wanted to close them, to wash them out. Then I closed them for a second too long.

I slept.

It was morning when I woke up, and not early morning either.

Through the window I saw the maid’s cleaning cart. She was looking at me, so I shook my head and she pushed the cart along to the next room, knocked, and then went into it.

My watch said 10.15. I got up from the chair and stretched, shrugging my shoulders free of their stiffness. I needed a shower.

‘Bel,’ I said. ‘Time to wake up.’

She rolled over, exhaled, and then lifted her head from the pillow. Like me she was almost fully dressed.

‘What time is it?’

‘It’s gone ten. Come on, get up. You can take first shower.’

I watched her as she slunk into the bathroom and closed the door. I knew our options now had narrowed considerably. We were no longer the hunters but the hunted. Worst of all, I still didn’t know what was going on. I could think of one man who knew: Jeremiah Provost. But Kline would have Provost covered. Kline would have everything covered.

I had enough quarters left to buy us a couple of breakfast Cokes. I had a head full of mud and my body felt like it was dragging weights. The vending machine was next to the ice-box in a little connecting alley between the back of the motel and the front. There was a concrete stairwell up to the rooms on the first floor. I’d sat there last night for a while, listening to traffic. Now, as I got the second can from the machine, I heard tyres squeal out front. I looked around the corner and saw a car sitting next to the motel office. A man was getting out of the passenger side, buttoning his jacket as he walked to the office. He wore sunglasses and looked around him. I didn’t recognise the man, but he didn’t look like a typical resident. He looked official. I ducked back into the alley and flew to our room.

‘Got to go!’ I called. Bel came out of the bathroom dressed and rubbing her hair with a towel. ‘Got to go,’ I said. When she saw me throwing stuff into a bag, she took the hint, threw down the towel, and started packing.

‘What’s the problem?’

‘Bad guys at the office. They could be asking about VW vans.’ I took hold of the Smith & Wesson. ‘Here,’ I told her, ‘take this.’

She didn’t say anything. It took her a moment to make up her mind, then she snatched the pistol from me. She checked the clip, slapped it home and made sure the safety was on. I didn’t have time for a smile.

They say discretion is the better part of valour, but we were anything but discreet leaving the room. We ran to the van, heaving bags into the back. Bel was toting the pistol, and I had the Colt Commando by its carrying handle. I’d taken off the flash-hider. When I’d used the Commando last night, the noise without the hider had been impressive. It had made people duck. So the hider stayed off.

Now we were in the van, I hesitated for a second. What were we supposed to do? Cruise past the car with a nod and a smile? Play hide and seek around the motel? Or leave the van and take to the streets? I certainly didn’t want to leave the van, not just yet. So the only thing to do was drive ... drive, and see what happened. I knew I could tell Bel to split, to run off on her own, or stay holed up in the room. It was me they wanted. But of course they’d want her too. We were a package now; she knew everything I did. Besides, she wouldn’t stay behind. It wasn’t her style. I turned to her.

‘Tell me about yourself.’

‘What?’

‘You said I should ask you some time when you weren’t expecting it.’

‘You’re crazy, Michael.’ But she was grinning. I realised she was probably readier for this than I was. I started the engine.

‘It’s just, it’d be nice to have known you before we die.’

‘We’re not going to die.’ She raised the pistol. ‘I love you, Michael.’

‘I love you, too. I always have.’

She flipped the safety off the semi-automatic. ‘Just drive,’ she said.

I drove.

We took it slow out of our parking bay and around the side of the motel, then speeded up. I saw that the car was still parked. Worse, it had reversed back to block the only ramp into and out of the car park. I brought the van to a stop. The passenger came out of the office and saw us. He pointed us out to the driver, then took a radio from his pocket. With his other hand, he was reaching into his pocket for something else. And when the driver got out of the car, I saw he was holding a machine-gun. I risked a glance over my shoulder, but all I could see were walls.

‘Come on, Michael, let’s do it.’

‘Do what?’

‘What do you think?’ She pushed open her door, readying to get out. The driver was taking aim against the roof of the car. I opened my door and steadied the Commando.

Then I saw it.

It was a flat-bed pick-up with a cattle bar on the front and searchlights on top of the cab. I don’t know where it came from, but I could see where it was going. It mounted the pavement and kept on coming. Hearing the engine roar, the car driver half-turned, saw what was happening, and pushed himself away from his vehicle, just as the cattle bar hit it from behind. The pick-up’s back wheels lifted clean off the ground from the force of the collision, but that was nothing compared to the car. It jumped forward and then spun, looking like a wild horse trying to throw off its rider. Its boot crumpled and then flew open, its rear window splintering. Both driver and passenger had hit the ground. Now a shotgun appeared from the pick-up’s passenger-side window and blasted two rounds over the heads of the men, shattering the office window. Then the pick-up reversed back down the short ramp and out on to the road, stopping traffic.

‘He’s waiting for us!’ Bel yelled. She was back in the van now, and slammed shut her door. I drove out past the wrecked car, keeping the Commando aimed out of my window in case the two men decided to get up. The pick-up was already moving, so we followed it, stalled cars complaining all around.

‘Who is it?’ Bel was shouting. ‘Who’s in the truck?’

I had a grin all over my face. ‘Who do you think it is? It’s Spike, of course.’

26

The pick-up seemed to know where it was going.

We followed it east on to I-5 and then south through the city till we connected with the I-90 east out of town.

We were headed for the interior.

‘Why doesn’t he stop?’ Bel said.

‘I don’t know.’ I’d flashed my lights a couple of times, but all I’d received in return was a wave from the window. We crossed over Mercer Island, retracing the route we’d taken into Seattle when we’d arrived. Soon we were on a wide road with wilderness either side. This really was frontier country. Few tourists or holidaymakers ventured into the interior. It was hot and dry, and if you didn’t like hills and trees there wasn’t much in the way of scenery. That this was logging country was reinforced by crudely made roadside signs denouncing government policy, foreign timber imports, owls and environmentalists. Not always in that order.

We came off the Interstate at Snoqualmie. I was wrong about the tourists. A lot of cars had come to see the Snoqualmie Falls. The pick-up signalled into the car park and we followed. The only space left was a dozen cars away from the pick-up. I could hardly turn the ignition off quick enough.

I sprinted back to the pick-up. There was no one in the cab. Then I saw Spike. He was crouched in front of the vehicle, examining the damage to his cattle bar. He stood up and grinned at me, showing gorgeous white teeth.

‘You look like hell,’ I said.