Брайан Гарфилд - Recoil

At El Centro the convoy stopped for gas and breakfast: Caruso made a phone call; after a while they were on the road again.

Ronny became restive; Jan gave him her place by the window but everything was shut tight, the air-conditioner feebly holding back the desert heat. The land was painfully bright, mirages in the road ahead, blinding slivers darting at them from the chrome of passing cars.

They crossed the Colorado River into Arizona and the temperature kept climbing. Twice the convoy left the Interstate and went two-laning along straight country roads, into the cotton and citrus towns, all dusty pickups and slow-moving tractors and endless irrigation hoses. The outrider cars ahead and behind were never out of sight. There was no pursuit but Caruso was obeying instructions.

The detouring and doubling-back ate up hours. At noon they were at a drab oasis somewhere near Buckeye and he tried to revive himself by splashing cold water in his face in the flyspecked lavatory. The overcooked hamburger kept coming back at him through the afternoon.

The procession took a roundabout route through the Phoenix suburbs; as the traffic thickened the outriders moved in closer like mother quail. One of the marshals spelled Caruso at the wheel of the Plymouth; Caruso slept with his head lolling while Mathieson and Jan kept Ronny occupied with Twenty Questions and Botticelli; after a while the boy grew tired of word games and took to counting telephone poles.

East past the Superstition Range, Florence Junction, up the grades through the smelters of Superior, the mines of Miami and Globe, the dark red earth of the Apache reservation. They switchbacked down the limestone cliffs of the Salt River Canyon, crossed the bridge and stopped at the filling station for gas and Nehis.

Going up the north cliff one of the cars overheated and they waited in the scenic overlook until it could cool down enough to empty a Thermos of water into the radiator. Caruso sat on the stone retaining wall and stiffened whenever a tourist car pulled into the parking strip. Ronny ran from point to point, plugged Mathieson’s money into the coin-telescope, read the embossed metal legends about Indian battles and Spanish explorations.

Mathieson took Jan’s hand and they stretched their legs. It was bright and dry but the altitude was enough to take the heat out of the air and there was a mountain breeze.

Above the canyon Caruso took them off the highway and they wound through the back roads of the reservation through Whiteriver and up the twisting bends of the Mogollon Rim into piney woods, with a trout lake on the left, and for the first time Jan gave Mathieson her slow smile. “Almost there.”

They reached Showlow at suppertime. Caruso said, “End of the line, everybody out,” and they trooped into a roadside steak house made of lodgepole logs. A heavyset Apache sat in a chair on the porch and tipped his head back to peer at them under the brim of his curled cowboy hat; he did not smile.

Mathieson pulled out a chair for Jan and then settled at the table. “All right. Tomorrow we start house hunting.”

George Ramiro had blue jowls and a belly on him; he was comfortable in his fat.

Ramiro was smoking a Cuban cigar when he came into Ezio’s office. His suit must have cost the better part of a thousand dollars but he made it look baggy. One jacket pocket bulged where he’d wadded his necktie into it; his shirt collar was open to the second button with coiled-wire hair bursting through the vee; his pot had puckered pleats into the shirt where it sagged out of his waistband.

“Mr. Pastor sent me over.”

“Got a job for you, George.” Ezio reached for the file. He opened it and glanced through it mechanically as if to remind himself of its contents, though he had committed it to memory. He pushed the file across the desk, picked a leaf of tobacco off his tongue and sat down.

Ezio said, “How’s Alicia?”

“Fine, fine.” Ramiro was married to Ezio’s half sister. She was not a likable woman; the question and the answer were ritual; no further discussion was required.

“Justice Department agent,” Ramiro said. He turned a page and held up the photograph, squinting at it.

“We’ve got a line on him,” Ezio told him. “I want you to go out to Los Angeles and take charge personally.”

“Take charge of what?”

“This guy Bradleigh, he’s the one who’s keeping Edward Merle under wraps.”

“OK, I got you.”

“The reason we’re sending you, George, you were in the courtroom the whole time he was testifying, you know the guy’s face. We can’t have mistakes on this.”

“Sure, Ezio. I don’t mind. Getting too fat and lazy anyhow — I can use a little work.”

“You make contact out there with a guy named Fritz Deffeldorf.”

“Who?”

“Free-lance contractor. He’s been on this a while. Don’t step on him unless you have to, but he understands you’ll be taking charge.”

“He the guy that blew it the last time?”

“He’s one of them.”

“That’s nice.”

“He knows the setup, he’s on top of things out there. I can’t run in a whole new crew on this, George, we need people who know the Los Angeles area. Deffeldorf’s the one who got us this line on Glenn Bradleigh. You work with him, all right?”

“Just so he knows who’s running it.”

“He knows.” Ezio got the airline ticket out and pushed it across the desk. “You still carry that Magnum, don’t you?”

“Sure.”

“The license is no good for a plane. Leave it home. Deffeldorf will give you another piece when you get out there.”

“When do I go?”

“Here’s the ticket. Flight leaves La Guardia at one. You’ve just about got time to throw things in a suitcase and get out there.”

“Miss my lunch.” Ramiro gathered the file and reached for the airline ticket. He opened it and smiled wryly. “Glad to see it’s round trip.”

Ezio laughed quietly and watched him walk out of the office.

Jason W. Greene, he thought. Remember it. Born April 1930 in Binghamton, New York. Antioch class of ’52. Investment counselor, retired, had a minor heart attack, came out West for my health, writing a book, as he told the realtor who had come out to settle the lease.

He watched the realtor’s Buick roll away — down the ruts of the driveway and a left turn into the road, past Caruso’s car and quickly out of sight in the pines. Caruso waved to Mathieson from the front seat of the car. Mathieson saw him turn a page in his paperback.

In the kitchen Jan inspected the cabinets. She had a dinner plate in her hand, upside down. “South Korea. But they’re not bad, are they.”

“Sure you can hack this place?”

“For the rest of the summer at least.”

“It’s better than a motel. God knows. If we don’t mind the winter we can look for a place of our own next spring.”

“And otherwise?”

“Well, ma’am, I reckon we’ll just drift on till we find a place that sizes up right.”

Her smile was distracted. She turned a slow circle, looking at things. “All the mod cons.” Her voice was a little dry. The refrigerator must have been twenty years old; the furniture was sturdy but battered — Salvation Army style. The uncovered log walls were self-consciously rustic and the high fireplace that separated kitchen from living room lent it a hunting-lodge flavor.

Ronny came in the back door. “That’s a freaky old plow in the barn.”

“It’s a disk cultivator.”

Jan said, “You’ve got grease on the knees of those Levi’s and you just put them on an hour ago.”