“Okay,” said Wednesday. “Now increase your speed to thirty. And don’t slow down from that.”
One of the cars behind them turned on its lights and siren and accelerated toward them. “Do not slow down,” repeated Wednesday. “They just want us to slow before we get to the roadblock.” Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
They crested the hill. The roadblock was less than a quarter of a mile away. Twelve cars arranged across the road, and on the side of the road, police cars, and several big black SUVs.
“There,” said Wednesday, and he put his chalk away. The dashboard of the Winnebago was now covered with rune-like scratchings.
The car with the siren was just behind them. It had slowed to their speed, and an amplified voice was shouting, “Pull over!” Shadow looked at Wednesday.
“Turn right,” said Wednesday. “Just pull off the road.”
“I can’t take this thing off-road. We’ll tip.”
“It’ll be fine. Take a right. Now!”
Shadow pulled the wheel down with his right hand, and the Winnebago lurched and jolted. For a moment he thought he had been correct, that the camper was going to tip, and then the world through the windshield dissolved and shimmered, like the reflection in a clear pool when the wind brushes the surface, and the Dakotas stretched and shifted.
The clouds and the mist and the snow and the day were gone.
Now there were stars overhead, hanging like frozen spears of light, stabbing the night sky.
“Park here,” said Wednesday. “We can walk the rest of the way.”
Shadow turned off the engine. He went into the back of the Winnebago, pulled on his coat, his Sorel winter boots, and his gloves. Then he climbed out of the vehicle and waited. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Wednesday looked at him with amusement and something else—irritation perhaps. Or pride. “Why don’t you argue?” asked Wednesday. “Why don’t you exclaim that it’s all impossible? Why the hell do you just do what I say and take it all so fucking calmly?”
“Because you’re not paying me to ask questions,” said Shadow. And then he said, realizing the truth as the words came out of his mouth, “Anyway, nothing’s really surprised me since Laura.”
“Since she came back from the dead?”
“Since I learned she was screwing Robbie. That one hurt. Everything else just sits on the surface. Where are we going now?”
Wednesday pointed, and they began to walk. The ground beneath their feet was rock of some kind, slick and volcanic, occasionally glassy. The air was chilly, but not winter-cold. They sidestepped their way awkwardly down a hill. There was a rough path, and they followed it. Shadow looked down to the bottom of the hill, and realized that what he was looking at was impossible.
“What the hell is that?” asked Shadow, but Wednesday touched his finger to his lips, shook his head sharply. Silence.
It looked like a mechanical spider, blue metal, glittering LED lights, and it was the size of a tractor. It squatted at the bottom of the hill. Beyond it were an assortment of bones, each with a flame beside it little bigger than a candle-flame, flickering.
Wednesday gestured for Shadow to keep his distance from these objects. Shadow took an extra step to the side, which was a mistake on that glassy path, as his ankle twisted and he tumbled down the slope as if he had been dropped, rolling and slipping and bouncing. He grabbed at a rock as he went past, and the obsidian snag ripped his leather glove as if it were paper.
He came to rest at the bottom of the hill, between the mechanical spider and the bones.
He put a hand down to push himself to his feet, and found himself touching what appeared to be a thighbone with the palm of his hand, and he was…
…standing in the daylight, smoking a cigarette, and looking at his watch. There were cars all around him, some empty, some not. He was wishing he had not had that last cup of coffee, for he dearly needed a piss, and it was starting to become uncomfortable.
One of the local law enforcement people came over to him, a big man with frost in his walrus moustache. He had already forgotten the man’s name.
“I don’t know how we could have lost them,” says Local Law Enforcement, apologetic and puzzled.
“It was an optical illusion,” he replies. “You get them in freak weather conditions. The mist. It was a mirage. They were driving down some other road. We thought they were on this one.”
Local Law Enforcement looks disappointed. “Oh. I thought it was maybe like an X-Files kinda thing,” he says.
“Nothing so exciting, I’m afraid.” He suffers from occasional hemorrhoids and his ass has just started itching in the way that signals that a flare-up is coming. He wants to be back inside the Beltway. He wishes there was a tree to go and stand behind: the urge to piss is getting worse. He drops the cigarette and steps on it.
Local Law Enforcement walks over to one of the police cars and says something to the driver. They both shake their heads.
He wonders if he should simply grit his teeth, try to imagine that he is in Maui with no one else around, and piss against the rear wheel of the car. He wishes he weren’t so utterly pee-shy, and he thinks maybe he can hold it in for longer but he finds himself remembering a newspaper clipping that someone had tacked up in the lounge in his frat house, thirty years before: the cautionary tale of an old man who had been on a long bus ride with a busted rest-room, who had held it in, and, at the end of his journey, needed to be catheterized in order ever to piss again…
That was ridiculous. He isn’t that old. He is going to celebrate his fiftieth birthday in April, and his waterworks work just fine. Everything works just fine.
He pulls out his telephone, touches the menu, pages down, and finds the address entry marked “Laundry” which had amused him so much when he typed it in—a reference to The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and as he looks at it he realizes that it’s not from that at all, that was a tailor’s, he’s thinking of Get Smart, and he still feels weird and slightly embarrassed after all these years about not realizing it was a comedy when he was a kid, and just wanting a shoephone…
A woman’s voice on the phone. “Yes?”
“This is Mister Town, for Mister World.”
“Hold please. I’ll see if he’s available.”
There is silence. Town crosses his legs, tugs his belt higher on his belly—got to lose these last ten pounds—and away from his bladder. Then an urbane voice says, “Hello, Mister Town.”
“We lost them,” says Town. He feels a knot of frustration in his gut: these were the bastards, the lousy dirty sons of bitches who killed Woody and Stone, for Chrissakes. Good men. Good men. He badly wants to fuck Mrs. Wood, but knows it’s still too soon after Woody’s death to make a move, so he is taking her out for dinner every couple of weeks, an investment in the future, she’s just grateful for the attention…
“How?”
“I don’t know. We set up a roadblock, there was nowhere they could have gone and they went there anyway.”
“Just another one of life’s little mysteries. Not to worry. Have you calmed the locals?”
“Told ’em it was an optical illusion.”
“They buy it?”