Giles Blunt - No Such Creature

“ Star Trek? ”

“Star Trak. T-R-A-K.”

“What is a Star Trak when it’s at home?”

Owen hit the button. The little screen lit up with the Star Trak logo.

“I’ve got their home page. It’s probably going to want a password … No, wait, he’s got it set to remember his password for twenty-four hours.” He clicked another button. “It’s like MapQuest or something. For finding directions. No, wait, it’s a GPS outfit. Max, you were right! He’s been tracking her on GPS. He must have put a unit in her suitcase.”

“How absolutely diabolical,” Max said with admiration.

“It’s pointing to US 80. See, he probably had this screen open on his computer and now the other guy’s got it.”

“Not a moment to lose, then. Exeunt all, in sombreros.”

Owen and Max had left the Rocket in the trailer park and were now barrelling along US 80 in the Taurus, the iPhone clutched in Owen’s fist. The GPS readout didn’t tell them Sabrina’s speed, but she wasn’t wasting any time.

She seemed to be choosing her route at random, sometimes sticking to the scenic highway, other times bounding onto the interstate. They tracked her across Louisiana, through two hundred miles of woody hills and Biblical injunctions. Caution: Jesus has you on his radar , one warned. Are you ready for the Rapture? inquired another. And Max’s favourite: How about a little (make that eternal) swim in a lake of fire? The towns alternated between industrial wastelands and hamlets so microscopic they weren’t on any maps.

They passed the boarded-up storefronts of Shreveport, and Max howled when they had to forgo the Riverboat Casino, which was not in fact a riverboat but a four-storey structure built to look like one.

“Are we closing in on her, boy? How are we doing?”

Owen checked the iPhone again. The tiny map showed Sabrina maybe sixty miles ahead.

“We’re definitely closing the gap.”

They stopped for gas in Gibsland (population 1,224), which, Owen informed Max, was the town where Bonnie and Clyde had met their grisly end. He even found a stack of postcards of their bullet-riddled bodies next to a news rack displaying the latest issues of Edged Weapons and Varmint Masters .

“Thank you for sharing,” Max said when Owen handed him one of the postcards.

“Criminal history’s our theme this year, Max. I don’t see why that should change.”

Bonnie and Clyde were nothing like the movie, Owen added when they were back in the car. “They killed a lot of people and didn’t think twice about it.”

“Is that meant to make me feel better?”

“It’s just a fact, Max.”

“Fact me no facts, boy. You’re dealing with a big-picture man.”

They drove past the shotgun shacks of Monroe, and not long after that they were in Mississippi. Only positive Mississippi spoken here , the road signs warned them.

“Only positive criminal history spoken here,” Owen said. “So I guess you’d have to say Bugsy Siegel was a pioneering hotelier and Bonnie and Clyde were excellent drivers.”

“You have a sarcastic side, lad. It somewhat mars your otherwise sterling character.”

They stopped to pick up coffees at a roadside diner. Across the highway, a fly-blown storefront offered evangelical services. Serving God 24/7 , the sign informed them. You welcome, Jews .

Owen fiddled with the iPhone, poking at the tiny buttons until the screen changed again. “She’s about forty miles east of Vicksburg. Not so far now.”

Not long after, they too left Vicksburg and Jackson behind.

“She’s at Hickory now,” Owen said. “Heading for Chunky.”

“There’s a town called Chunky? Why would they call it Chunky?”

“It’s where they make peanut butter.”

“I sense a falsehood.”

A forest sprang up out of nowhere. Thick, dark woods lined either side of the highway. Roadside shrines began to appear. One was constructed entirely out of pop bottles, another out of seashells. All were decorated with Biblical verses and attended by furtive men who modelled their wardrobe on the Unabomber’s.

They paused for meal at Mr. Waffle, which amounted to a three-course dessert, sweet enough to make Owen feel ill.

“American cuisine,” Max pronounced, “cannot be faulted.”

Owen wasn’t listening. “She’s stopped. Hasn’t moved for the last little while.”

Max’s cellphone, which was next to his coffee cup, began to vibrate and skitter across the table.

“Get that for me, boy, would you? I’m digesting.” In fact, he was thoughtfully probing his teeth with a toothpick.

Owen picked up the phone. “Hello?”

A familiar voice said, “How many possible phone numbers are there in any given area code?”

“Roscoe?”

“Seven million, nine hundred and twenty thousand.”

“Roscoe, where are you? What happened to you?”

Max stopped picking his teeth and reached for the phone, but Owen dodged him.

“All you need to know, kid, is that if the Subtractors didn’t exist before, they do now. At least, one of them does, and he’s looking for some girl who stole your stash, or so he says. Guy named Zig.”

“Zig is a Subtractor?”

“Bastard owes me two toes. He’s killed at least two people and probably Pookie too. I would have called sooner, but they took my cellphone and I couldn’t remember Max’s number. I’ve tried about six million of those seven million combinations.”

Max grabbed for the phone again and this time Owen let him take it. He signalled for the check and put some money on the table. After what seemed like an eternity, Max hung up.

Owen was already at the door of the restaurant, holding it open. “Max, for God’s sake, hurry. It’s Zig-and he’s probably right on her tail.”

“I am hurrying, boy. Consult your astrolabe. Where is the witch?”

As far as Zig was concerned, you could take Mississippi and shove it down the wood chipper. He was definitely not liking what he was seeing. For one thing, the accent was way too Southern for his taste. People sounded like the kind of yahoos just itching to whip a slave. If a catfish could talk, it would sound like a Mississippian.

The girl had got quite a head start. First he’d wasted time trying to find Jeopardy Joe, and then he’d had to deal with the guy in the hotel. Zig caressed his upper left arm where Bill had shot him. It was a through-and-through, but it hurt like hell.

And then there was the heat. Absolutely disgusting weather in this state. Las Vegas, Arizona, California too, it could be climbing to ninety degrees and you’d be dry as a bone. Here, even though it was only about eighty-five, Zig’s shirt was drenched in sweat.

He smacked the wheel of the Explorer and cursed it. This was his back-up vehicle. He’d had the thing custom-boosted by the best car thief he knew, got it repainted a tasteful sky blue, and now the first summer he’s driving it the a/c quits on him. Last service station he’d stopped at said it wasn’t a matter of the fluid, the whole unit had to be replaced, and it just made him sick. You tried to maintain a certain standard of living while at the same time buying-well, all right, stealing-American, and you end up with a piece of crap. May as well have settled for some Korean rustbucket.

Having a taste for quality, Zig knew, was a double-edged deal. He’d once shared a cell with a guy doing hard time who had studied the Eastern philosophies to help him through it. One day Zig had expressed a longing for a pitcher of margaritas and an afternoon of teenage pussy, and his cellmate-Ozzie Starr was his name-told him, “Zig, there is no greater calamity than exorbitant desire.”