The Falling Away (14 page)

“I know.”

“So where's that leave us?”

“Right where we are.”

22

Andrew stepped through the front door of Liquid Lennie's and looked around. Two guys bellied up to the bar, getting in their morning quota. Behind the bar sat Eddie, reading the newspaper. Probably for the third or fourth time of the day.

He approached the bar, nodded. “Eddie.”

Eddie looked up from his paper. “Andrew. What brings you over this direction? Not your usual paper route.”

Andrew nodded at the
Billings Gazette
, folded and refolded on the counter. “Looks like you're already a happy subscriber, anyway. I'm actually here to pick up something.”

Eddie barely registered a reaction. “From Dylan?”

Bingo. “Yeah. From Dylan.”

“Come on back.” Eddie led him to the back of the bar, unlocked a door, showed him the rucksack and backpack on the floor.

“Well,” Andrew said. “Looks like Dylan was planning to do a little hiking in the wilderness. Maybe the weather caused him to change his plans.”

“Surprised you're here for the pickup, cousin.”

He looked at Eddie. “Why are you surprised? You know I get around. I have business over this direction. Not always over to take care of it myself, but you know, sometimes you go the extra mile. Give it that personal touch.” He slipped the rucksack over his shoulder, picked up the pack, heard the contents shifting inside.

“Well,” Eddie said, “this Dylan guy said he figured a white boy would swing by to pick up this stuff.”

“You know the White Man, Eddie. Can't ever trust him.”

Eddie laughed, followed him out of the back room, locked the door again.

“I'll be right back,” Andrew said. He hefted the bags out the front door, barely raising an eyebrow on the regulars' faces. As if people walked through this bar all the time lugging backpacks.

Andrew locked the merchandise in the front of his Ram, turned, and went back inside.

“Any mobile phone reception around here, Eddie?” he asked.

Eddie shrugged. “Here and there. Mostly there.”

“Okay, I'm just gonna make a call in the back here, then.” He went to the pay phone by the restrooms, picked up the receiver, punched in the code for his calling card, and rang Krunk's number.

“Hello?”

“Krunk. Andrew here.”

“Whatcha got?”

“Well, that's just the thing. I got nothing. My contact in Malta went to Liquid Lennie's just like you said, called me back, cussed me out for playing a joke on him.”

“A joke?”

“Said the bartender told him there wasn't any kinda package waiting for anybody. Thought I was pulling a fast one on him. I know the bar, so I made some calls, got in touch with Eddie—guy who tends bar there, and happens to be on shift right now—and he told me the exact same thing. So, what gives? You trying to trick your friendly neighborhood Indian Andrew, make him chase his tail? You made me look bad.”

On the other end of the line he heard Krunk's heavy, phlegmy breath quickening. Andrew turned, nodded at Eddie behind the bar.

“Okay, Andrew. Sorry about the mix-up. I'll take care of it.”

The line clicked dead.

This was working out very well for Andrew indeed. Soon Dylan would use his cell phone, and Doze would track it. Doze would call him, let him know where Dylan was. Then he would turn Krunk loose on Dylan, but when Krunk killed Dylan, he wouldn't find any of the money or the drugs. Mainly because they were sitting in the front seat of his pickup.

After that, he'd just make another quick call to Prince Edward up in Canada, tell him Krunk had found Dylan, taken the money and junk from him. Sit back and watch the fireworks fly.

It was perfect, all so perfect. And all Andrew had to do right now was drive back home to Great Falls and wait for all the pieces to fall into place.

23

Quinn turned the defrost knob another notch on the ancient green Plymouth Satellite, trying in vain to keep the cold from seeping into the vehicle's many cracks and leaks.

Sure, Quinn could choose a new vehicle. Something white and nondescript—a Toyota Camry or a Ford Taurus—that was forgettable and therefore invisible. Certainly it would make sense, considering what she did. But Quinn held on to the aging Satellite; the old bit of Mopar Muscle was solid, despite its many age-related flaws and odd color. She couldn't just abandon it, leave it to rot into nothingness.

Quinn turned up the volume and adjusted the squelch on the police scanner, making it easier to hear over the roar of the defroster.

Dylan was on the run, for sure. If he went east to the Dakotas, or even north to Canada (something Quinn doubted), it would take her a few days to find the trail and catch him. Bad.

But if he were headed anywhere else, he would probably go through Eddie's Corner. At the intersection he'd be able to turn south, catch the I-90, or head farther west to the heavy woods of western Montana. So really, sitting and waiting at Eddie's Corner was all she could do today. Maybe, just maybe, it would be a matter of the right place at the right time.

She had been listening to all the emergency frequencies, hoping for anything that might offer a clue. None had come in the forty-five minutes since she'd been here at Eddie's Corner. Another hour, at the most, Quinn would have to assume Dylan was headed east, try to track him into the Dakota Badlands.

The scanner emitted a burst of static, followed by a man's voice calling dispatch. Quinn listened, picking up the letters MHP from the transmission. Montana Highway Patrol. A plate check on a red Ford Ranger.

A red Ford Ranger. Quinn smiled, turned the defrost down a notch to hear the scanner clearly. The trooper listed his location as five miles west of Lewistown on 191/87. That was only a few miles away. Yes, they were running Quinn's direction . . . just an hour or two behind her guesstimation. A detour? A stop? No matter. There would be time to find that out later.

Depending on how long the trooper took to issue a speeding ticket, Dylan was within twenty minutes of Eddie's Corner. Smiling, Quinn eased the Satellite into gear, wheeled out of the parking lot, and headed east. She didn't want to wait and meet them at Eddie's Corner, where truckers and locals congregated; it would be too . . . messy . . . to work in front of an audience like that. Better to meet Dylan on the road.

And ironically, it would all happen within just a few miles of the HIVE community.

Crazy how life worked sometimes.

24

Dylan and Webb passed a sign telling them they were five miles from the junction with Highway 3. Eddie's Corner. The last several miles, since just before they'd hit Lewistown, the snow had become heavier; it had slowed them down on the way into Lewistown, but since turning west and heading for Eddie's Corner, the road had cleared. Evidently the snowplows were working this section, which was probably why Friendly Trooper Evans had been working it as well.

Ahead of them, a car's emergency flashers began to resolve in the haze of snow. The first car they'd seen on this lonely stretch since leaving the patrol car a few miles back.

They both stared, slitting their eyes to get a better view as they approached. The car, an odd green seventies-vintage four-door, was parked on the other side of the road, its hood up and the driver's door hanging open.

Dylan slowed as they came closer to the vehicle.

“What are you doing?” Webb asked.

“I'm gonna stop, see if anyone needs help.”

“Yeah, we're regular Dudley Do-Rights. Whenever we're not transporting thousands of dollars in drugs or shooting people.”

Dylan ignored Webb and kept a light foot on the brake. Behind the open door of the puke-green vehicle, a figure came into view: someone on hands and knees, hunched over as if in pain.

“Great,” Webb said. “Looks like someone had a bit too much barley soda, and now his stomach is hitting reverse.”

A puddle of pink stained the snow in front of the figure, wrapped in a hooded black parka. Webb was probably right.

But just as Dylan thought it would be better to drive away from this mess, not get involved with someone who'd brought this upon himself with too much liquor, the figure lifted its head.

A woman's face peered at them, blood streaming down her forehead. Dylan instantly realized the snow on the ground was stained pink from the woman's blood, not vomit.

Once again, scenes of Iraq came flooding back. How many people had he seen, soldiers and civilians, bloody and injured in the pothole-laden streets of Baghdad? Too many.

The woman raised her hand to them in a weak plea for help, tried to stand, slipped to the ground again.

“I think she's hurt,” Webb said. Captain Obvious.

“Yeah. You still just wanna drive by?”

Webb stayed quiet as Dylan pulled the truck to a stop and opened his door. “Hey,” he said, looking at the woman. All he could see was the top of her head now, the dark hood, as she hunched in the snow on all fours. She offered no response; she might not have heard him over the wind. He raised his voice. “You okay?”

She turned her face to Dylan, fixed an oddly vacant stare on him. “Yeah. I . . . I don't know what happened.”

Dylan stepped out of the pickup, walked across the pavement. Maybe it had been plowed recently, but new snow was already laying white fingers across the road in small drifts. “You must have had an accident. Looks like you hurt your head.”

He kneeled beside her, moved slowly, touched her shoulder. He knew from experience that you didn't just walk up to an injured person and start pressing and prodding. Often, pushed into a momentary panic by injuries, people started flailing, creating more injuries for themselves. Or you. It was dangerous, in the way that trying to save a drowning person can be dangerous. One wrong move and you could be pulled under.

“You're probably in shock,” he said.

She flinched at his touch, but made no move to push away his hand. She put her hand to her head, came away with a bit of blood on her ungloved fingers, stared at it intently for a few seconds. To her credit, the sight of her own blood didn't seem to be pushing her over the edge.

Dylan had been examining the scene, and nothing seemed to fit together. The woman's head injury and the broken-down car seemed to be pieces from different puzzles. Looking at scenes such as this, analyzing what had happened, came naturally to him now; programming that had been drilled into his brain after hundreds of missions in Iraq. You looked for things that didn't fit.

“Can you remember what happened?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I . . . car stalled, so I pulled over to take a look and . . . can't remember.”

He looked at the open hood. “Epilepsy?” he asked, thinking she might have had a seizure, hit her head.

She shook her head, stared at the ground again.

“Diabetic?”

“No.”

Okay. Maybe she'd accidentally hit her head with the hood while opening it. Old cars like this tended to get a bit of rust in the metal, became harder to work.

But if that had happened, why wasn't she still out by the hood? Maybe she'd crawled back to her door?

“I . . .” she said. “Maybe you could give me a ride. We're pretty close to Eddie's Corner, I think.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure. You've probably got a mild concussion—you'll want to get checked by a doctor. You never ignore head injuries.”

“Okay,” she said. “If you can just help me to your truck.”

“Yeah. Just take my arm.” She looped her arm through his as he started to guide her across the highway.

“Dylan,” Webb shouted from his pickup.

Dylan looked at Webb, still perched in the front seat of the pickup, and followed his gaze to the road behind them. In the distance, a vehicle was approaching. After a few seconds, Dylan recognized it: the highway patrolman. Friendly Trooper Evans.

This initially struck Dylan as good news, a rare bit of fortune in this already-long day. Trooper Evans could take over, get the woman some medical attention. They could continue on to . . . whatever they were continuing on to.

But as the cruiser flashed its lights, as Dylan took stock of his current situation, he knew that was all just wishful thinking. Trooper Evans didn't need a possible DUI to haul them back to Lewistown now. He had an injured motorist, and good reason to think the motorist had been injured in an accident or near-accident with Dylan's pickup. He had more than enough, racial profiling or not, to haul them to Lewistown, and Dylan was quite sure Trooper Evans would be more than happy to take that chance. Especially now.

The woman, for her part, had stopped when she saw the patrol car's red and blue lights strobing. She gazed at the approaching vehicle as she and Dylan stood, arm in arm, in the middle of the highway.

Time seemed to stop as the highway patrolman rolled up behind the pickup. His door opened, and Trooper Evans crouched to the ground behind the door, gun drawn.

“Everybody just stay right where you are,” Trooper Evans said.

“No problem,” Dylan called.

“Ma'am,” Trooper Evans shouted. “If you'd just step away.”

“I—it's okay,” she stammered. “He's going to—”

“I have reason to believe these two men are dangerous. Please step away.”

“No, no,” she said. “You don't—”

“Step away now,” Trooper Evans interrupted, more forcefully.

The woman looked at Dylan, then down at the ground. He heard her mutter something under her breath, then raise her own hands and begin walking toward Trooper Evans. She moved steadily, forcefully. The hesitation, the confusion she'd exhibited, drained away instantly.

One more piece of the puzzle that didn't fit.

“Okay, ma'am. If you'll walk this way, please step behind me and get in the backseat of my vehicle.” The trooper's gun was still trained on Dylan, who stood in the roadway with his hands on his head.