End Time (58 page)

So that was the deal—people who'd given up on life hooking up with those that wanted to live no matter what; ready, willing, and able to suck them dry.

The male nurse smiled smugly at Billy through the grimy bus window and patted the skinny rump of the female donor. He threw a corner of the white sheet back over her face, covering her head to toe once more.

“What can we put you down for?” Mr. Scrubs asked quietly.

Billy Shadow stepped away from the Winnebago. He planted his hand on the large .357 Magnum, giving fair warning. The genial fellow in the pale blue scrubs stepped back, not particularly alarmed, but deeply disappointed.

“Is there anything we can do to ease your mind? It's painless.”

Billy climbed into the minivan. Key in the ignition, foot on the gas; the engine roared. The van leapt through the toll slot snapping the barrier. The two other cars right behind him put pedal to the metal, bumper to bumper. The yellow 4Runner's bike trailer clanked like tin cans on its tail. The getaway cars shot past the Riverdale patrol cruisers before the pursuit officers could slap their cars into drive. In another half second the whole crew blasted over the Harlem River, up Route 9A, passing the residential apartment houses of Riverdale, Seton Park, and Fieldston. The two patrol cars gunned close, lights flashing.

In the yellow Toyota, Cheryl felt the trailer shimmy; she took her eyes off the road for a split second. The motorcycle had tipped but hadn't shaken free yet. Flashing lights lit up the inside of the yellow SUV. She snapped her eyes back on the road. The big curve at Fieldston Road came up like a roller coaster, and she could feel the 4Runner wanting to ski on two wheels like a stunt car. She hit the brakes to hold the curve. No brake lights.

One of the cop cars zoomed up behind.

The cruiser tapped the trailer, and the whole rig clanged like a bell. The motorcycle jumped the chock.

That first patrol car took it right in the grill. The cycle skated over the hood and took out the windshield. The patrol car went sideways on the Fieldston curve, caught his buddy's fender, and both cruisers did 360s, grinding glass and squealing tires.

Cheryl didn't look back.

She felt the motorcycle trailer shimmy again and cry for mercy. When the yellow Toyota glided under the Mosholu Parkway overpass, the trailer disengaged and said
adios
. The yellow Toyota leapt free. Cheryl fishtailed onto the Saw Mill River Parkway right behind Big Bea, the whole escape—from the bike jumping the chock to losing the trailer—no more than eight seconds.

Beatrice hit the transmission button on the walkie-talkie. “You okay?”

Cheryl was soaked in sweat.

“Yeah, I'm fine. But I'm real low on gas,” she croaked.

Her eye caught Rachel sitting in the back, smiling broadly. You'd think her grinning ex might have gone
Boo!
to freak out the coppers—but no.

“Nice work, Sister,” Rachel remarked. “That was totally swank.”

Alone in the car, Cheryl could now talk to her private spook. “Do you want to sit up front?”

Rachel shook her head and grew a trifle embarrassed, as if she wasn't supposed to say anything. “Uh, no. Bhakti's sitting in front.”

Cheryl couldn't help swerving the car, w
hoa-whoa!
She gained control and kept her wheels between the lines, then glared into the rearview mirror.

“You can't see him because he's not here for you,” Rachel explained.

A fearful look had come to Rachel's eyes. “He is
not
a happy man, Cheryl. God help whoever crossed him.”

Cheryl instinctively reached across the empty passenger seat as though to pat Bhakti's arm or comfort him in some way. A deep cold bathed her fingers. Steadily the cold reached her wrist, then her forearm, and Cheryl knew if she left the hand there in Bhakti's invisible lap, the cold would freeze her heart.

“I'm sorry, Bhakti,” she whispered to the empty passenger seat.

“I'm so sorry.”

The Saw Mill River Parkway swept them up a long hill. To the west, rows of houses climbed a steep slope like a broad stairway of ticky-tacky boxes. A red glow lit the sky and low clouds. Yonkers was burning.

A few miles farther on the vehicles left the parkway and converged at the Elmsford Exxon station. Billy emerged from the white Dodge minivan, his face white where the airbag had deployed after his blast through the toll barrier. Sensitive things. The bag had torn apart as Billy swept it from his eyes, spreading white talc-like dust over his face, in his hair, leaving only the wet gash of a mouth.

Beatrice limped out of the Gran Torino and leaned heavily on the hood, trying to keep the weight off her braced leg. She rubbed the soft spot behind her ear, her face grown pale again. Nausea, dizziness, exhaustion—all the old dings and dents. She shook her head a little as though to clear a ringing in her ears. She glanced at Billy's pancake face.

“Ghost dancing?” she asked weakly.

“And how,” the powdered red man said. “It's better if you don't swallow any.” He tore the remnants of the airbag from the steering column and took a wet nappy from his first-aid kit.

When Billy started to miss spots, Beatrice stopped him. “No, no, let me.” He struggled like a little kid with a dirty face. “Just stay still,” Big Bea scolded. He stopped fussing.

For a few moments they all looked around the Elmsford Exxon. The gas station had been around in one form or another since forever. Cheryl remembered her dad calling it “the Esso on the Saw Mill” whenever they drove down from Poughkeepsie. That's how long, from before Exxon. The orange sodium lights cast strange shadows around the cars and gas pumps. The cramped convenience store attached to the flat red, white, and blue canopy was dark too; the glass doors were padlocked from the inside.

Beatrice popped the Gran Torino's trunk and dug around for the fuel pump crank, her face still gray. She glanced weakly about, trying to distinguish the diesel underground tanks from the gasoline underground tanks by their metal fuel covers: gasoline yellow, diesel red, nearly indistinguishable under the orange sodium lights. The large woman gave up and went back to leaning on the car.

“No gas fumes for me right now,” she panted at Cheryl. “Think you can handle it, Gorgeous?”

“Maybe we don't have to,” Cheryl replied.

In the dark cubby of the convenience store, two faces seemed to float behind the glass doors. Two terrified faces, husband and wife, the proprietors of the Elmsford Exxon. Jet black eyes and hair, just like Bhakti's; the wife's head covered by a scarf. They peered out at the three cars by the pumps like a couple of squirrels cowering in the hollow of a tree.

“Let's wave money at them,” Cheryl suggested. “They might turn on the pumps.”

That's all it took. Billy collected money from everyone and shoved a wad of bills under the crack in the glass double doors. The display light in the gasoline pump went
bing,
and the thirsty cars got a long drink.

Ten minutes later, they were back on the road again.

After another hour on the road, drooping heads made them pull over in the empty parking lot of the Danbury Fair Mall for a couple of hours of shut-eye. When they woke with crusty eyes, dawn approached the world in a bluish cloak and the cars had grown cold.

A huge black
X
spray-painted on the mall entrance doors showed quarantine, but the place was unlocked and they had no trouble getting in for potty call and splashing cold water on their faces from the restroom sinks. They took turns standing guard in the food court, Cheryl first. Big Bea appeared fresh from the ladies' room, cheeks pink and face washed, and a lot less pale.

“Let's scrounge up some Dramamine for you before we leave,” Cheryl suggested. The tough gal nodded,
Good idea
. “It comes and goes. Mostly when the weather turns, low pressure. Rain or sleet. I'm just a walking barometer.”

As they returned to their cars, Cheryl voiced a concern that had been troubling her. They were going to meet Bhakti's wife pretty soon, and his sister-in-law. “I don't know how we're going to explain everything to Bhakti's family.…”

The statement hung in silence.

“I'm open to suggestions.”

No suggestions, no bright ideas. As Cheryl approached the yellow Toyota 4Runner she heard buzzing from inside. Bhakti's BlackBerry shimmied across the dashboard. Caller ID showed Guy and Lauren Poole, Bhakti's in-laws. Four bars, a strong signal.

Cheryl stared at Janet's ashes, the Nambe metal urn sat in the black canvas miniduffle, zipper open, as it had since Bhakti first placed it there two thousand miles ago. The way he wanted her to ride, so she could be with them. Cheryl opened the passenger door, hefted the miniduffle, and placed it on the front passenger seat. Bhakti's seat. Bhakti should sit with her now. His last words came back:
“I want you to give Janet's ashes to Eleanor. Promise you'll do that for me.”
She'd never actually promised. The phone kept buzzing.…

“Better let me explain to the family,” Cheryl said. “I rode with him longest.”

Neither Big Bea nor Billy argued. Cheryl finally took the call, sitting in the yellow Toyota by herself. The signal held, the battery lasted, and Cheryl talked for a long, long time.

 

32

You Gonna Trust Me—Or Your Lying Eyes?

The cheerful chimes of the Good Humor truck were still playing when Lattimore reached the aerospace building's ground floor. The fire stairs brought him to the side of the Cosmos Café; a viewing slit in the door let him see the whole reception area.

Mildred the cashier struggled over a load of purloined sirloin and frozen burgers by the café's glass wall. The folding cart from the Good Humor truck had gotten away from her, boxes of frozen food sliding every which way. But as Lattimore watched through the fire door, the matronly woman stopped struggling with the frosted boxes and shrank against the transparent wall of the canteen, her face very frightened.

Security Chief Walter Nash had come to help, only not in a good way. The security man held a gun, waving it vaguely in the middle-aged lady's direction. His other hand gripped a box cutter. He slit open the nearest box, a jumbo pack of Red Baron frozen pizzas, and greedily crouched over it. “I know you have some,” he insisted. “Just tell me where. Tell me, and I won't hurt you.”

Nash's voice rose in anger. “Just tell me.”

Suddenly the man went berserk, slashing open one pizza box after another. Tearing off the sealed plastic wrapping, he pawed frantically at the naked pie, bringing cheese to his lips and scattering the shredded mozzarella over the floor. Nash pointed the gun at Mildred, his sanity critically fractured. “
Just tell me!”

The poor woman cowered against the glass, trying to shrink herself to nothing.

Cautiously, and with no plan, Lattimore opened the stairwell door and stepped into the lobby. Security Chief Nash whipped around. Shreds of mozzarella cheese clung to his face, his nose. God, he had actually
tried
snorting frozen cheese, hoping it was drugs.

In a flash Lattimore understood. The Good Humor man used to be the local rainbow-dust delivery guy, hooking you up with strawberry shortcake Dalekto. Mildred had just picked the wrong truck to carry her vittles. Unlucky Mildred; the middle-aged lady shivered against the Cosmos Café wall terrified and confused. Worse for Walter Nash, the Red Baron pizzas were simply that—just pizza dough, pizza sauce, and grated cheese. The big black gun aimed directly at Lattimore's chest. Any point in reasoning with Nash?

Through the glass-and-bronze doors of the aerospace building Lattimore saw snow beginning to fall. Why notice this all of a sudden with a crazed man ready to drill you for his last fix? Who could say? Maybe the snow falling outside was simply easier on the eyes than the dark hole of a gun muzzle. Stranger still, Lattimore caught sight of an animal outside. A jackrabbit cautiously hopped along the sidewalk, then hopped off the curb and out of sight. You saw squirrels, sure; but rabbits—those were rare. The curious sight took the edge off addressing an unhinged man with an itchy trigger finger and shredded mozzarella cheese on his face.

Lattimore heard his own voice coming out sane and rational:

“It's all gone, Walter. No more is coming. Mildred doesn't have any. I don't have any. If I did, I'd give it to you. If I knew where the Good Humor man lived, we'd go there.”

Security Chief Nash sobbed in despair. “Don't you think I know where he lives? I
went there
. Don't you think
I'd know
?”

Nash brushed the shredded cheese off his face. Looked at a few shreds clinging to his suit jacket sleeve and shook his head at the pure idiocy of his behavior; the crazy things desperate men do at the end of their rope. Then the rope slipped from his grip. Security Chief Nash gently slumped to the glass wall of the Cosmos Café. Tears ran down his cheeks.

“I just wanted one more hit. Just one last time.”

Mildred wasn't scared anymore, just pitying. She approached the poor man to comfort him. “It's okay, Mr. Nash. We'll get you better. Just a week or so to clean up. Isn't that right, Mr. Lattimore? We can help Mr. Nash get through it.”

“Of course we can, Mildred. We'll help you straighten out, Walter. We both will.”

The security man thought for a moment, glanced at the gun in his hand.

“Yeah, straighten me out,” Nash said with a bitter smile. He put the gun to his head.

“No, Walter, no!”

*   *   *

Upstairs, Mildred went to a shelf in Lattimore's library and stared at the decanters on a silver tray: bourbon, cognac, rye, gin. She stared at the liquor as if she really wanted a drink. “I almost never…,” she said, but didn't finish the sentence. Instead, she talked about her husband, Paul.