The Falling Away (13 page)

Quinn had felt a certain camaraderie with the deep-sea divers, instinctively knowing, as the movie progressed, that it was possible to feel that kind of bone-crushing pressure above sea level. In fact, it was quite possible to have that kind of pressure build up inside you, threaten to inflate your skin to hideous, balloonlike proportions, and eventually make you explode. The opposite of deep-sea divers, really; for them, the outside pressure threatened to collapse their bodies. For Quinn, the inside pressure was the danger. Maybe someday, without a deep-sea diving suit, Quinn could just sink beneath the surface of the ocean. Find the equalization depth, the perfect balance between the ocean's pressure and Quinn's own body pressure.

Cutting had been the only way. At least to start. After a time the cuts weren't enough; maybe they were too superficial, too easy. Deep cuts didn't seem to do any better, and Quinn instinctively knew this was . . . dangerous. Quinn wasn't crazy, not in that huge, put-me-in-a-padded-room-because-the-little-green-guys-are-out-to-get-me way. Only in this small way. Quinn knew when the cuts were going too deep, going too far.

One day, working at the ankle with a pocketknife (Quinn didn't know why—the ankle was a bad place to cut, because it was all bone), the tip accidentally broke off beneath the skin. Just a nick of the tip, really.

Quinn had stared at the knife, stared at the oozing wound . . . and felt the pressure deflating. Almost heard it leaking away.

That had lasted a couple months, much longer than any of the superficial cuts had ever lasted. So when the pressure became overwhelming again, when it threatened to swallow everything, Quinn found a staple, flattened it, and pushed it into the fleshy part of the left palm, just beneath the thumb. Once again, the pressure began to equalize, almost instantly.

It had been all embedding since then.

The voices inside began to cycle to a higher volume, individual lies combining to form waves that crashed over Quinn's mind, threatening to drown it completely.

Quinn had to find Dylan, neutralize him before he was discovered by HIVE, because Dylan entering the HIVE was far more dangerous than any of the mindless drones the community spat out. But first, she had to relieve the pressure.

Quinn began to unfold the paper clip.

21

Just past Lewistown, Dylan started mapping his next route. He had options, limited as they were, from here. South . . . well, that would take him toward Billings. Too expected. Probably better to continue west toward Great Falls. He knew a couple people there; maybe he could get in touch with them, find a way to hole up for a few days.

Sure, he'd dropped the money and drugs. He'd even told Krunk, truthfully, where to find them. But he didn't believe for a second Krunk would just leave it at that. Or whoever got hinked on the deal in Canada.

That's why it was important for Krunk, or anyone connected with Krunk, to think he was running east. Then they wouldn't be looking for him in Great Falls. Yeah, Great Falls would be good.

If they could just get somewhere safe, somewhere underground, for a few days, they might have a chance to figure out their next steps.

“You gonna stop at Eddie's Corner?” Webb asked, yawning. Some of the color had returned to his face.

“For what?”

“I don't know. For a few minutes.”

Something caught Dylan's eye in the rearview mirror, and he glanced at it, frozen by what he saw there. “I think we're going to be stopping a lot sooner than that.”

Behind them, a Montana Highway Patrol cruiser was flashing its lights, signaling them to pull over.

Webb turned and looked, then groaned. “This day just keeps getting better and better.”

“What happened to Mr. Glass Half-full?”

“The glass got shot this morning.”

Dylan pulled to the side of the road, activated his emergency flashers, watched as the trooper opened his car door.

Dylan rolled down his window as the trooper approached.

“License, registration, and insurance, please,” the trooper said as he bent and looked through the window. All business. The trooper was tall and thin, face marked by acne scars, hair shaved military-style under the wide-brimmed hat that was part of the uniform.

A soldier wannabe, Dylan guessed immediately. Good chance he'd tried to join up at some point, but had been rejected for poor eyesight or some physical condition before sliding to plan B at the patrol academy. Dylan knew this type pretty well, had run into more than a few of them in bars around Billings. When he started chatting with them and they found out he was a vet, they were always good for a few drinks. The kind of guys who said “thank you for your service” with every round and regaled you with the stories of their own coulda shoulda woulda, if they'd only been allowed to serve their country.

Mostly harmless, in a bar setting. But they tended to gravitate toward law enforcement, border patrol, maybe even security guards. They had a serious need for any position that let them wear a uniform. They craved the authority it represented because it slaked their internal insecurities. By wearing the clothes of a person who was Large and In Charge, they themselves would grasp control, power, and respect.

Their fatal flaw, of course, was an overarching need to be liked by others in uniform. Maybe Dylan could use that to his advantage.

“Anything wrong, sir?” he asked. “I don't think I was speeding.”

“License, registration, and insurance,” the patrolman repeated, leaning to get a better look at Webb.

“Sure, sure,” Dylan said. He leaned across the seat, felt his seat belt holding him back, unbuckled it, and opened the glove compartment in front of Webb, fishing out the license and registration. He handed them to the trooper. “Had this pickup since high school, you know,” he said, trying to make casual conversation. “Sat for a couple years while I was in the army. Couldn't just get rid of it after I was discharged.”

The trooper was studying the registration and insurance, and didn't rise to the bait. “Can I see your license?” he asked without looking up.

“Sure, sure.” Dylan retrieved his wallet from his back pocket, pulled it out of the sleeve, and handed it to the trooper.

The trooper studied Dylan's license behind his dark sunglasses, the lenses clouding with each breath from his slightly opened mouth. In this kind of cold you didn't just breathe through your nose; if you did, your nasal passages became tunnels of ice.

“You're a vet, then?” he said, looking at Dylan. Or so Dylan thought; it was difficult to know with those big sunglasses.

Bingo. “Yeah. One tour of duty in Iraq. One Purple Heart.” Dylan smiled. The Purple Heart was a good bit; it would be the hook that landed the trooper.

“Hold tight for a moment, gentlemen,” the trooper said finally. “I'll be right back.” He returned to his cruiser, obviously wanting to run a check on Dylan's license and paperwork.

“You weren't speeding,” Webb said slowly. “Your reg and insurance legit?”

“Of course.”

“No outstanding warrants for me. You?”

“No. No outstanding warrants.”

“We're golden then. We just play it cool . . . if you have to, let him say we were speeding and pay the ticket so he hits his monthly quota.”

“Don't think we're looking at a speeding ticket,” Dylan said, watching the patrolman's activities in the rearview mirror. He was still on his radio.

“Yeah. Fine. Whatever. We're still golden.”

Dylan shook his head. “Look at the floor, genius.”

Webb's gaze dropped to the floor, where the torn and muddy paper bag from the bar now held just two cans of Coors. Webb had dropped each of the four empties on the floor in plain sight.

Dylan saw him pause, as if trying to catch a whiff of alcohol. Pretty hard not to. “No big deal,” Webb said. “I'm the one drinking—you haven't had any. That's why you're driving.”

Dylan shrugged.

“So you don't think you have one of those trustworthy faces,” Webb said.

Dylan wasn't sure if he detected any sarcasm in the statement, but he answered anyway. “I think I got a face that's Indian, right on a driver's license next to an Indian name: Dylan Runs Ahead. The military service might do us some good—that's why I hit it pretty hard. But I'll bet you money this patrolman grew up on a farm somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and I'll also bet he didn't have many Indians in his close circle of friends.”

“You're not drunk. I'm not even drunk.”

“No, but that doesn't keep him from giving me a field sobriety test. Or, if he wants, hauling us into Lewistown for blood tests. Maybe no DUI, but it's hard to get away from a DWI.”

“DWI?”

“Driving While Indian.”

Webb paused. “Even so, you haven't been drinking. So you're good.” As if repeating the same line over and over gave it more force.

“Well, Webb, we got some scrip bottles from Canada stashed in here, couple thousand in cash. You got some antibiotics for pigs, along with a gunshot wound in your shoulder. I got a .357 in my pocket, and I'm sitting on a box of ammo.”

Dylan heard Webb's breathing stop for a few seconds, then return at a faster pace.

“No, no, no,” he said. “We're okay.” But he didn't sound okay.

In the rearview mirror, the trooper had stepped out of his cruiser and was walking back toward the truck.

“Yeah,” Dylan said as he watched the patrolman approach. “Everything's great.” He rolled down his window once more, looked at the patrolman.

“Can you step out of the car, please?” the patrolman asked.

Well. So much for Dylan's amateur psychoanalysis of the trooper. The whole vet thing hadn't made any difference at all. Or if it did, it hadn't made as much difference as the Indian thing.

“Sure, sure. What, exactly, is the problem?”

“I see some empty beer cans in vehicle, sir. That gives me probable cause to administer a sobriety test.”

“It does,” said Dylan amiably. “But I can demand a blood test.”

The patrolman seemed to rock on his heels for a few seconds. “That means we go to Lewistown.”

“You do your field sobriety test, you'll just decide you want to haul me into Lewistown for processing anyway.” Dylan smiled. “I'll wait for the blood test and save us some trouble.”

Dylan now sensed the proper handle for the particular trooper, and it wasn't the handle he'd first envisioned. Trooper Evans, as his name badge indicated, had probably confirmed Dylan was an honorably discharged vet when he ran his license, and that hadn't made any difference in his demeanor. He was your basic By-the-Book Guy. By-the-Book Guys were always concerned about their own record of conduct.

Dylan went for the throat. Nothing to lose. “Can you tell me, Trooper Evans, why you pulled us over this morning?”

“Speeding.” Patrolman Evans scratched at his nose. Classic behavior for a lie.

“I don't think so,” Dylan said. “I bet you didn't have your radar on, but even if you did, we were safely under the limit, especially with the conditions. I think your dash cam will probably back me up on that.”

Trooper Evans glanced back at his cruiser, then back to Dylan's face again, eyes still hidden by the dark lenses of his sunglasses. Probably thinking about the dash cam in his car, which automatically recorded every stop he made. Probably wishing the cam wasn't recording this particular stop.

“I think,” Dylan continued, “maybe you saw an Indian behind the wheel of a pickup, and you thought you'd make a stop based on that. Don't know what they call that in highway patrol circles, but my attorney likes to call that racial profiling.”

He paused, and the patrolman ran a slow hand across his mouth.

“So, you tell me, Trooper Evans. You think you got probable cause, I demand a blood test. We can all head to Lewistown, and you can do a blood test and find out I don't have a drop of alcohol in my system, and then I think I'll have pretty good cause to call my attorney. Or we can all forget this ever happened, and the problem goes away for everyone.”

Trooper Evans took a deep sigh, looked down the empty highway ahead of them. He crouched down a bit farther, looked at Webb, who had gone as white as the snow swirling outside the windows.

“Okay,” the patrolman finally said. He handed back the license, registration, and insurance card. “Thank you for your service,” he said icily. He tapped the roof of the pickup and turned to walk back to his cruiser.

Without waiting, Dylan wheeled out onto the highway and accelerated. No need to wait around for the patrolman to rethink his position. Or to get mad enough to forget reasoning. Bubbas like that weren't always the most logical creatures.

Webb breathed for the first time in five minutes. “Thought you were going to get us shot there.”

Dylan smiled. “Too late for you,” he said.

“Funny. You're a regular Jim Carrey.”

Dylan glanced in his rearview mirror, watching the patrol car fade behind them.

Webb made a show of picking up his Coors empties and putting them back in the paper sack, maybe just to keep himself occupied. Dylan noticed he kept his injured right arm close to his body, not using it, but not seeming to grimace too much.

“So what now?” Webb asked after he pushed the empties under the seat.

“Good question. I'm open for suggestions.”

“Gotta lay low.”

“I know.”

They drove in silence for a few minutes, light snow swirling around them. Even though the empties were under the seat now, Dylan could still smell the sharp tang of beer in the cab—a smell that gave him no desire for a drink. Oddly, though, it made him crave another Percocet. Or two. He briefly considered fishing the bottle out of his pocket and popping a few pills to take off the edge, but resisted. For now.

“Can't be with anyone we know—we'll be too easy to find,” Webb ventured.