Don Winslow - A Long Walk Up the Waterslide

The little bones looked as if they were going to pop right through his skin.

“The danger came precisely from her proximity to that… tramp,” Chuck said.

“Agreed. You could have put that on the wreath,” Neal said. “Look, I don’t know what your feelings for Mrs. Landis are, but if you really want to help her, you’ll let her work this out.”

Chuck looked legitimately puzzled.

“Work what out?”

“See, that’s the thing,” Neal said. “You don’t know and I don’t know, so how can either of us help her? The best thing we can do is step away a little bit and let her do what she needs to do.”

And besides all that good stuff, she’s my trump card and I might need her handy.

“I don’t think this is the time for feminist rhetoric,” Chuck said.

“You’re right,” Neal said. “So try this: If Candice was a devious shit like me or you, she would have come here, found out what she needed to know, gone back to hubby, kept her mouth shut, and let him think everything was hunky-dory. And if you weren’t so much in love with her, you wouldn’t have made that call to Jack and blown what might have been a tremendous advantage. But she’s not cold-blooded enough to be a mole in her own bedroom, and you’re so jealous and so angry at Jack that you couldn’t resist showing him the ace in the hole.

“Now Jack gets to calculate his next moves with the knowledge that Candy is no longer an ally, but an adversary-information that I’d have preferred he didn’t have, but never mind-and we’re left groping around in the fog as to his thoughts and intentions.”

And I’m going to omit the happy news that Jack is apparently cheek-to-cheek with a known gangster who has caravans of empty trucks making deliveries to Candyland, because I don’t know if you and Mrs. Landis already know that, and I don’t want you to know that I know.

“I am not in love with Mrs. Landis,” Chuck said.

“Whatever.” Neal shrugged. “But I need your help and so does Mrs. Landis. Are you going to work with me on this, or what?”

Neal finished loading the jeep and walked back into the house. He’d hammered out a deal with Chuck, who left with the storekeeper-Evelyn, Brogan, and Brezhnev, so he was anxious to get moving.

He went back into the living room and said to Karen, “If the Sisterhood is ready to depart…”

“Funny,” she answered. “Funny boy.”

Polly asked, “Can’t I just take my-”

“No,” Neal answered for the fifteenth time. “There’s not a lot of room and we have to travel light.”

“Yeah, but I need-”

“We can buy things,” Neal said.

We have lots of cash, he thought.

Karen drove because she was the better driver and so Neal could concentrate on what was outside. The first few minutes would be the worst. If someone was going to make a try at Polly in the jeep, he’d have to do it before or near the first possible turn, so Neal held his breath until they were headed west on Route 50 and out of town.

Karen turned down the dirt road that led to the Milkovsky place. Jackrabbits and the occasional coyote scampered from the headlights. The moonlight turned the sagebrush silver. Neal usually loved to drive through this country at night, but now the effect was eerie and frightening.

“Where you taking us, the moon?” Polly cracked, then with genuine alarm asked, “Hey, we’re not going camping, are we?

“Keep your head down like I told you to and shut up,” Neal said. Polly seemed to have recovered her spirits, which was a mixed blessing.

Neal had Karen stop at the turnoff to the Milkovskys’. He felt a little edgy about making a stop there, since Withers knew about it and might figure they’d run there.

“How fast can you drive up to the house?” he asked Karen.

There was no point in sneaking in, and he wanted to give anyone inside as little time as possible to get ready.

“Please,” she said. She stood on the gas pedal and the little jeep hurtled, bounced, and leapt toward the house. She hit the brake and the jeep fishtailed to a stop in the gravel driveway.

“Are we there yet?” Polly asked.

“We’re just looking for a place to park,” Karen answered.

“Shut up!” Neal hissed.

“I’ve got to pee,” Polly whined. “Those bumps…”

Neal glared down at her and then listened.

He didn’t hear a sound, which didn’t mean much, but he got out of the jeep anyway and stepped up on the porch of the house. He walked around to the kitchen door and let himself in. The house was dark and quiet.

Neal felt the tingling sensation he always got in his arms when he was going into a dark and potentially hostile room. He wondered whether he was ever going to get over that. Joe Graham’s opinion was that if he ever got over it, he should get out of the business.

I should get out of the business, anyway, Neal thought. If something’s going to happen, it’s going to happen now.

He reached over and flipped the light switch.

Nothing.

Neal opened a drawer under the countertop and found two sets of keys. He used one to open Steve’s gun cabinet. Steve wasn’t big on pistols, but Neal found a. 44 revolver that was bigger than he wanted but would have to do. The pistol in his hand, he walked through the rest of the house and found it empty. He went back out on the porch and hollered, “If you want to use the bathroom, now’s the time to do it!”

While the women were thus engaged, Neal went back to the gun cabinet and selected a lever-action Winchester. 30–30, a twelve-gauge pump, and found the matching ammunition.

“You think you have enough firepower there?” Karen asked.

“I hope so. Give me a hand with this, will you?”

They loaded the rifle and shotgun, carried them out to the open shed that served as a garage, and arranged them under the front seats of Steve’s new Laredo. Neal backed it out of the shed, they transferred the bags, and Karen pulled her jeep into the shed.

“Think we’ll be back before Steve and Peggy?” she asked.

“I hope so.”

Neal took the wheel this time. He turned south toward a fifty-mile stretch of rugged dirt road that was the loneliest part of the High Lonely. It would take him straight down the Reese River Valley, then west over the Shoshone Mountains, then down into the low desert. He had driven it many times in daylight and never seen a single other car, and he sure didn’t want to see one tonight.

“Where are we going?” Polly asked.

“God knows,” Neal answered.

Polly thought a few seconds before she asked, “Is that in California?”

No, Neal thought. Las Vegas.

Marc Merolla opened the door before the bell stopped chiming.

Ed liked the door, black exterior enamel with a brass knob at waist height. The refurbished mock-Federal door epitomized the recent Yuppie homesteading in the old neighborhood on Providence’s east side. Once shabby and bohemian, it was becoming the place to be for young doctors, lawyers, and business types who could buy an old house cheaply and put the money they saved into renovations. The general rule seemed to be that the new owners would freshen up the exteriors, leaving the Colonial flavor intact, and gut the insides. Behind the tranquil quaint facades, contractors knocked down walls, exposed beams, sank tubs, and installed kitchen islands over which to hand stylish copper pots and pans that were much too expensive to mess up with food.

“Ed, hello,” Marc said. “Come in.”

Marc was a small man, compact and trim. His thick dark brown hair was short and he wore a neat mustache. His eyes, almond-shaped and deep brown, were soft and expressive, betraying the basic component of Marc’s personality-kindness.