Don Winslow - A Long Walk Up the Waterslide

“How did you find this place?” Withers asked in amazement as they pulled into the driveway. “I didn’t know this even existed anymore. It looks like something out of Shane.”

The house sat by itself in the broad expanse of the valley. The land gradually sloped east down to the tree line along Sandy Creek and then up into the jagged, rocky peaks of the Toiyabes. Some cattle wandered in the sagebrush and a few crows perched on the barn roof, but they were the only signs of life.

Neal didn’t answer the question. He turned to Withers and urged, “Look, at least let me go in first and warn her.”

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”

“Fine,” Neal said with all the petulance he could muster. “Come on.”

He got out of the car and slammed the door behind him. He could hear Withers’s footsteps on the gravel behind him.

Neal knew the door would be unlocked even though Shelly was off at college and Steve and Peggy were running around seeing Europe. Ranchers left the houses unlocked in this country, in case anyone got stranded. It wasn’t all that critical on a September day when the weather was benign, but the practice had saved more than one life on a January night. With houses sometimes ten and fifteen miles apart, most people would rather take the chance of getting robbed than having even a stranger die on the road.

Neal let himself in the back door and stepped into the kitchen. He jerked the microphone out of the shortwave radio that passed for a telephone out here. Then he opened a cabinet door under the sink and pulled out a half-full bottle of Wild Turkey and set it on the counter.

Walter Withers looked at him curiously.

“I expect that you’ll behave like a gentleman in the house, Mr. Withers,” Neal said. “I’ll send someone out for you in the morning. Your car keys will be at Brogan’s.”

Withers blinked.

“You wouldn’t abandon me in this wilderness, would you, my boy?”

“I wouldn’t if I had a choice, but…”

Neal stepped out of the door and trotted to the car. He heard Withers holler, “You’re a bastard, Neal Carey!”

What can I say, Mr. Withers?

“Let’s get this over with,” Chuck said, using an understated, matter-of-fact tone to hype the drama.

Culver yawned and picked up the mobile phone. He was used to squadrons of adrenaline-crazed DEA types-their jaws grinding and knees twitching-gripping solid-steel two-man battering rams, M-16s, and automatic pistols as they readied themselves to rush a cocaine fortress that was usually better armed than they were. Culver had Vietnam vet drug agents order him to call in a tactical air strike on a crack house, and once or twice he had actually requested one over the phone just to settle them down. So Culver wasn’t too impressed with the upcoming assault on a single woman whose most desperate act to date had been to file a lawsuit.

Nevertheless, he picked up the phone and faithfully spoke the words Whiting wanted: “We’re operational.”

Chuck Whiting checked the knot on his tie and gripped the Bible in his hand. Although Whiting had never done a lot of undercover work-in fact, he hadn’t done any-he did recall the old axiom about keeping your cover as close to the truth as possible. But he just couldn’t bring himself to mock his faith by going to the door as a Mormon missionary-he had spent two happy years in Uruguay doing just that.

So he went as a Jehovah’s Witness.

Karen answered the door and opened it a crack.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Ma’am,” the man said politely, “do you know where you’ll spend eternity?”

“Well, I sat through The Sound of Music,” Karen told him.

The man laughed politely and said, “I’d like to come in and share a few things about the Bible that you may not know.”

“Uhhhh,” Karen said, trying to look over his shoulder, “the prison chaplain did a pretty good job of that, you know, before my appeal went through.”

“Oh?”

This would be a good time to come home, Neal.

“Yeah,” Karen said, “and sitting on death row for all those years, I had a lot of time to read and everything…”

“If I could just come in and pray with you,” he said.

“I don’t pray well with others.”

The man scratched his head and looked down. Then he leaned on the door and said, “Look, enough is enough. I’m coming in the house.”

The man is big, Karen thought. If he wants to come through this door, I can’t stop him.

“I don’t think so,” she said as she tried to close the door.

Neal was at the bottom of the hill when he realized he’d forgotten the home-pregnancy test.

He thought about skipping it. He needed to get back, call Graham, and get Polly out of there, but this pregnancy test could provide important information, either way it went. So he turned the car around and parked it outside of Brogan’s.

He locked it up and went into the bar. Brogan was asleep, so Brezhnev settled for a low, threatening rumble as Neal came in. Neal set the keys on the bar and retreated.

It took him about three minutes to find what he was looking for in the store and another three minutes to get enough nerve to take it to the counter. He picked up a bottle of Coke, a package of chocolate-chip cookies, and some oven cleaner to make the pregnancy test blend in.

Evelyn arched an eyebrow at him.

“The oven’s dirty,” Neal said.

The eyebrow arched a little higher.

“And I’m thirsty,” Neal said.

Evelyn leaned over the counter and grabbed his wrist.

“Neal Carey,” she said, “you should marry that girl.”

“You’re right,” Neal said.

He paid for his purchases and started to walk back to the house.

Karen tried to shut the door, but the man stood his ground in the doorway.

Then another man came over the top of him and slammed the door back open. Karen was about to punch him when she saw the woman standing on the doorstep behind him.

“What are you doing here, Mrs. Landis?” Karen asked.

Candy held up her hands and said, “I want to see the cheap tart who says she’s been sleeping with my husband.”

Polly stepped up behind Karen and raised her hand.

Candy flushed, summoned up her nerve, and said, “My husband has a disgusting nickname for the sexual act. What is it?”

Polly looked her square in the eye and enunciated, “Jack-in-the-box.”

Candy Landis looked at the teased hair, the stiletto fingernails, the mascara, the eyeliner, and the skintight black outfit and asked the eternal question of the wronged wife: “What do you have that I don’t?”

Polly looked at Candy’s chiseled hair, her plain nails, her white blouse buttoned up to the neck and tied with a bow, and her tailored business suit that looked like a piece of armor.

Polly rolled her eyes and sighed. “Where to begin?”

Overtime watched this scene, put his car into a K-turn, and retreated down the street. He blessed his good fortune as he recalled one of Chairman Mao’s old sayings: “All is chaos under the heavens, and the situation is excellent.”

Levine pulled the plastic lid off the cardboard cup and frowned. He set the cup down on his desk and looked at the young accountant, who was taking his own coffee out of the bag.

“Does this look black to you?” Ed asked.

The accountant looked into Ed’s cup and said, “No, it looks regular.”

“Maybe you have the black.”

The accountant took the lid off the other cup and gave Ed the bad news. “Regular.”

“What did you tell the guy?”

“I told the guy one black, one regular.”

“He gave you two regulars.”

“Do you want me to go back?” the young accountant asked. He was afraid of Levine.