7 Steps to Midnight Page 7

  “Cut it out,” he snarled at his mind.

  For a while, he actually wondered if he should turn back and pick up Veering, question him. Was the old man part of this? How could he be? A transient hitchhiker?

  Still, Nelson had mentioned him. That was the maddening part. What could the CIA have to do with a man like Veering?

  Anyway, he thought, he didn’t have the nerve to speak to the old man. What if Veering said something else, making the nightmare even worse?

  He realized now that he was driving too fast. For God’s sake, he didn’t want to be picked up by a highway patrol officer. He eased up on the accelerator, reducing the car’s speed to sixty. He’d keep it at that. He had to stop soon though. Mind and body were exhausted.

  He had to rest before he could begin to analyze what everything might mean. He trusted his mind to come up with answers if he applied himself to the problem. It always had before.

  But first he had to rest.

  ***

  He drove as long as he could but, by two o’clock that afternoon, he could barely keep his eyes open. He was headed for Los Angeles now. He didn’t know why, except that any direction seemed as good as another; he just wanted to put distance between himself and Arizona. He tried not to think about his problem; it wasn’t time yet. Anyway, his brain felt progressively more stultified by the hour.

  At 2:14 P.M., he pulled up to the office of the Bide-A-While Motel. That’s what I intend to do, he thought. He went inside and used his MasterCard to pay for a back cabin. It was probably a mistake. The CIA might well have a monitor on every credit card company. By now, surely they had to know that he had only the MasterCard and the American Express. It would be simplicity itself to run him to earth.

  Still, what else could he do? He didn’t have enough cash; he was exhausted. Let them find me then, he thought as he signed the slip.

  The woman in the office—tall, lean and as severe-looking as some character in a Dickens novel—made no comment throughout the check-in process, handed him a key, then went back into her apartment. Only later did Chris realize that his unshaven face and the state of his clothes hardly qualified him as a candidate for Guest of the Year at the Bide-A-While.

  He drove to the back cabin and parked the car behind it so it couldn’t be seen from the highway. This struck him as a little stupid since the credit card would give him away if they were on the lookout for its use, as they must be. Still, one must do the logical thing—hide the car. That’s what heroes always do, he thought as he unlocked the door of the cabin and went inside. Except you’re not a hero, his mind responded. You’re a dumb-ass mathematician in flight.

  Inside, he closed all the drapes, then turned on the table lamp beside the bed. The room was hot and stuffy. He switched on the window air conditioner and stood in front of it until a rush of cool air began. Then, with a heavy sigh, he laid down on the bed and closed his eyes.

  ***

  Fifteen minutes later, he opened his eyes. It seemed incredible that he hadn’t fallen asleep yet. He felt exhausted. Yet every time his brain started to do a slow backward somersault into blackness, it seemed to right itself again like some enervated but determined acrobat.

  He looked at the small TV set on the bureau across from the bed. Maybe there was something on the news, he thought. He labored to a sitting position and dropped his legs across the edge of the mattress. Pushing to his feet with a tired groan, he walked over to the bureau and pulled the power button on the TV set. It took almost fifteen seconds for the picture to appear. He twisted the channel selector to see what was available.

  What was available—clear enough to be seen, at any rate—was Channel 8. There was a quiz show in progress. He moved back to the bed and stretched out on it, nudged off his shoes and heard them thump on the carpeting.

  “No help from the audience, please,” the quiz show host requested.

  I could use some help from the audience, Chris thought. The audience or anybody else. Wasn’t there a single person he could turn to for—?

  Gene, his mind interrupted itself.

  He opened his eyes. Yeah, he thought. Of course. They’d gone to college together, been friends for eleven years. Good, he’d call Gene later; after he got some sleep.

  No, call now, his mind insisted. Oh, for Christ’s sake, give me a break, he pleaded. His mind was a pursed-lipped pedant staring him down. Now, it demanded.

  With a groan of surrender, Chris sat up again and reached for the telephone on the bedside table. Actually, it made sense to call now, he allowed. If he slept too long, he’d miss Gene at the paper and he didn’t remember his home number, nor was it listed.

  It seemed to take the stony-faced woman in the office half an hour before she gave him a surly “Yes?” on the line.

  “I want to call The Tucson Herald,” he told her. “I don’t know the number.”

  “How can I call it then?” she asked.

  Jesus, was her life that bad? he wondered. “Information,” he replied as politely as he could.

  “I’ll get you Information,” she said.

  God, she sounded truculent. Well, he could almost posit her life: alone, no strokes, lonely in this godforsaken spot. His smile was humorless. Instant fantasy, he thought. He was good at that. But he couldn’t be that far from the truth, considering.

  “What city?” asked Information.

  “Tucson,” he said. “The Tucson Herald.”

  The woman gave him the number and he memorized it. Thank God his mind possessed that ability, tired or not.

  After a while, the office-woman’s voice said, “Yes?” again. Jesus, lady, I am sorry I am ruining your afternoon, he thought. He gave her the number and she grunted.

  “The Tucson Herald, good afternoon,” a young woman’s voice answered. About a thousand percent more cheerful than mine hostess, Chris thought. “Gene Wyskart, please,” he said.

  “Thank you,” the young woman said. She sounded as though she was on the verge of breaking into laughter. It must be great to enjoy life that much, he thought. Obviously, the fabric of her existence was not unraveling like his.

  “Newsroom,” a man’s voice said.

  “Gene Wyskart, please,” he said.

  “Who’s calling?” the man asked.

  “Chris Barton.”

  “Right,” the man said in much the same tone as the quiz-show host. Now he’d take what was behind the second door and Veering would step out, chortling.

  Chris closed his eyes and groaned softly. His brain was out of control again. It drifted and babbled when that happened. It had been drifting and babbling for some time now. Was it possible he was going insane? Insanity, no doubt, seemed very logical when it actually took place.

  Silence on the line. It disturbed him. He could imagine anyone answering his call now. Gene. Veering. Wilson. The other Chris Barton. His mother.

  “Chris?” said Gene’s familiar voice.

  Chris shuddered with relief. “Yeah,” he said.

  “You shouldn’t be calling me,” Gene said.

  Oh, that I do not understand, Chris thought. He felt a groan coming on. That I absolutely do not understand.

  “You hear me?” Gene asked.

  “Yes, but why?” he demanded.

  “Because they can trace a telephone call, what else?” Gene told him, sounding almost angry.

  Oh, God, not him as well, Chris thought. Was there anybody not involved in this?

  “Look,” Gene said, “the best thing for you to do is get out of the country.”

  “Out of the country?” Chris felt as though the walls were closing in on him. “What are you—?”

  “Listen, Chris,” Gene cut him off, “there’s no time to explain; they could put a tap on this line at any moment if it isn’t on already. Just do what I say. Get out of the country. I mean it, pal. This is serious.”

  “Gene, for Christ’s sake, what are you talking about?!” Chris demanded.

  “Not now,” Gene said. “Do you
have enough money to—?”

  “I don’t have any money at all,” Chris broke in.

  “Where are you then?”

  Chris hesitated.

  “Damn it, hurry,” Gene told him.

  “The Bide-A-While Motel on Highway Eight.”

  “All right,” Gene said.

  “Now, will you please—?”

  His mouth fell open. Gene had hung up on him.

  “Good God,” he murmured. He put down the handset and fell on his side on the bed, drawing up his legs. He sobbed now. He was afraid and confused and lost. What was happening? Each new shock was like a needle jabbing at his brain. Please, he thought. Some answers. Some meaning. Please.

  With that, his brain turned off like a bulb and he felt himself tumbling down into a deep, black pit.

  He didn’t know how long he’d slept when his eyes opened momentarily and he found himself staring groggily at the television set. Disney’s Alice in Wonderland was playing on it. He saw the bustling rabbit looking at his watch while he sang, “I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date!”

  His eyes fell shut and he was falling deep into the pit again.

  10

  He woke as though drugged.

  The TV set was still on. A local talk show. A man in a red ten-gallon hat was talking about his personal barbecue sauce that had bourbon in it.

  Chris looked at him with half-opened eyes for almost a minute. Then he stood and weaved into the bathroom. Turning on the cold water in the sink—it was lukewarm at best—he rinsed off his face. It helped to wake him.

  He soaped his hands and washed them, then his face, rinsing it off again. He stared at his reflection in the cracked mirror above the sink. He looked haggard, water dripping from his nose and chin. I look fifty, he thought.

  He wondered if the hospital had found Nelson; found him in time to save his life. He had enough problems without a death to worry about. Not that it was his fault Nelson got shot. He had only been defending himself.

  He shivered and reached for the bath towel, grunting at the size of it. A bath towel for a dwarf, he thought.

  He went back into the bedroom and sat on the bed while he finished drying his face and hands. “Yessir,” the man in the red cowboy hat was saying, “this sauce will make those ribs of your’n stand up at attention.” He chuckled happily.

  Chris got up and turned off the set. Alice in Wonderland on a local TV station? The thought occurred to him. I thought the Disney Studio didn’t allow that. He yawned. Well, it had to be Veering. Sure, even Disney reality succumbed to him.

  Get out of the country, he thought.

  He frowned. Goddamn it, that’s ridiculous. I’m not going to leave the country.

  Still, what could he do?

  People were after him. People who wanted his life.

  He tried to think. The man in his house. Had that woman really called Wilson? No, that made no sense at all. Wilson would know that something was wrong. He wouldn’t cooperate by sending a man to—

  Chris’s eyes went out of focus, into thought.

  Unless Wilson was a coconspirator.

  But why? Chris shook his head angrily. That was implausible. Wilson knew nothing about this. They’d done it all by working around Wilson. Around his mother; clearly, she’d been fully as perplexed as he was.

  What about Louise then?

  Chris shivered. That was something he couldn’t fathom. It was an element in the puzzle that didn’t fit. That was Louise he’d talked to, wasn’t it?

  He sat in rigid concentration. Was it possible they—whoever in the screaming hell “they” were—had taken over Louise’s house—put someone else on the line with him? Someone who sounded like Louise but—

  “Oh…” Chris twisted his shoulders in aggravation. Christ Almighty, I know my own sister’s voice, don’t I?

  Which brought him inevitably back to total confusion again.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” he mumbled. He looked at his watch. 7:21. He’d slept four hours anyway. If there was a cordon closing in, he’d better clear out before it caught him.

  He went outside, unlocked the car door and got inside; the interior was hot and close. He switched on the motor and let it run, turning on the air conditioner. Would Scotty Tensdale ever get this car back? he wondered.

  He turned on the car lights now, put the transmission into gear and backed out from behind the cabin.

  As he drove past the office, he saw the woman in the doorway, looking at him. Was she suspicious? he thought. He tried to drive slowly so she wouldn’t think he was trying to make a getaway.

  He turned left onto the highway and headed west again. Where was he going? he wondered. Were there authorities anywhere he could safely surrender to? He wasn’t sure there were, not now. Which meant flight. Out of the country? Sure, he thought, with what—twelve dollars in my pocket, credit cards as obvious as bombs?

  Later, it struck him as bizarre that, precisely as he was thinking that, he drove underneath a highway light and, glancing to his right, saw a large white envelope lying on the other seat.

  He cried out hollowly and jammed down so hard on the gas pedal that it made the Pontiac leap forward, throwing him against the steering wheel.

  Carefully then, as though it were the action of a calm, collected man, he steered onto the shoulder and braked. Putting the transmission into park, he twisted the light knob so the overhead light went on.

  He stared at the envelope, not even wanting to pick it up, much less open it. The car had been locked, all its windows raised. Yet someone had placed the envelope on the passenger’s seat.

  How?

  And who? Veering? Another of his little reality-bending tricks? Chris shook his head angrily. Veering was a wandering mendicant with a crumbling brain, no more. He ignored the fact that Nelson had spoken of Veering. He had to ignore that for now.

  Chris sighed and picked up the envelope, turned it over. Blank on both sides, sealed. Letter-size. What was in it? A letter bomb?

  He checked the glove compartment and found a flashlight. Turning it on, he held the envelope against the light. No sign of anything suspicious inside. He turned off the flashlight.

  Still, he hesitated, sensing, somehow, that whatever was in the envelope was going to change his life even more. Had Gene had it put there while he was asleep? It had to have been Gene. If anyone else had known that he was in the Bide-A-While, they’d have picked him up.

  But why not simply slip the envelope underneath the cabin door? Why—?

  Fuck it, open it, he told himself. You’re going to mull yourself into a coma.

  Tearing off one end of the envelope, he pulled out a folder.

  United. A one-way ticket from LAX.

  To London.

  ***

  Chris stared at the ticket. Simple enough. A one-way ticket from Los Angeles to London. First class. Tomorrow morning. Very simple.

  Like the unified field theory.

  He had to smile. Not one of amusement, but that of a mountain climber realizing that his rope is just about to shear at twenty thousand feet, and he either screams in mortal dread or remarks, “Aw, shit.”

  “Aw, shit,” Chris said. What more could happen to him?

  He picked up the envelope and looked inside. There was something else, a folded sheet of paper. He unfolded it and a bill fluttered onto his lap. Picking it up, he stared at Benjamin Franklin’s face. One hundred dollars.

  He looked at the sheet of paper. A note was typed on it.

  For God’s sake, get out of the country! Now! I’m deadly serious! Gene.

  Chris turned off the interior light and slipped the ticket, bill and note back into the envelope. He placed the envelope on the passenger seat, then pulled down the transmission bar and slowly eased back onto the highway, accelerating to fifty-five miles an hour before he set the cruise control.

  Here I am, he thought as the car rolled across the now-dark desert. Driving sensibly. A law-abiding citizen. M
ost commendable.

  For a man being swallowed alive by a nightmare.

  “Jesus Christ!” he yelled. He yelled it three times, each louder than the one before. What in the bloody, goddamn hell was going on?!

  He exhaled hard. The situation was becoming more insane all the time. It had started with a missing car. Now—less than twenty-four hours later—he was being told to get out of the country. He didn’t know Gene that well. Why would Gene pop for a first-class ticket to London?

  Was there really any meaning to all of this or was it hideously simple, a lost wager with Veering? Was his reality changing? No matter how he tried to avoid the idea, his mind insisted on returning to the old man in the baseball cap. He heard the tone in Veering’s voice as he said, “I wager the security of your existence against your assumption that you know what’s real and what’s unreal in your life.”

  He began to shiver convulsively and couldn’t seem to stop.

  ***

  It was when he had driven past a coffee shop and saw a highway patrol car parked in front of it that he knew exactly what he had to do with part of the hundred dollar bill.

  He was now sitting in the last row of the Trailways bus, eyes closed. Scotty Tensdale’s car was parked by the terminal in Yuma. Hopefully, Scotty would get it back in a few days; by the time Chris was in London.

  London, he thought. For God’s sake, London. He’d thought of flying there a hundred times but never under these circumstances.

  He’d tried to settle down his brain and take a nap. It didn’t work. The sleep ritual at home was too entrenched in his system—a long, hot shower, a good, brain-relaxing read and, presently, unconsciousness for several hours.

  The back seat of a bus just didn’t make it.

  He opened his eyes and looked out at the passing desert. Déjà vu, he thought. It was the same view he’d seen from Scotty Tensdale’s car early this morning—the silver-cast sand, the dark forms of cactus and desert trees.

  Was he really going to get on that plane and fly to London?

  He couldn’t make up his mind just yet. He was en route to Los Angeles. That was enough for now. Maybe by the time he arrived in Inglewood, he’d have made his decision.