T. Boyle - The Harder They Come

“Colter,” she said musingly, lingering over the r . “Is that a nickname? Or an online moniker or what?”

He wouldn’t answer and they were silent for a while. There was just the buzz and thump of the radio, the whoosh of the breeze and the sibilance of the tires catching and releasing the road. She wanted to instruct him, wanted to tell him she felt the same way he did about the corporate police in their jackboots and shiny patrol cars and let him know about the Uniform Commercial Code and the Sovereign Citizens’ Movement and the straw man and all the rest, but she kept her peace — at least for now — because a plan was already forming in her head. By the time they hit Willits and turned south on 101 for Ukiah, it was as firm as it was going to get. “You know,” she said, and they were the first words she’d uttered in the past fifteen minutes, “when we get to Ukiah? I mean, before I drop you off at, where was it, the sporting goods place?”

He didn’t turn his head, but he was listening, she could see that.

“It won’t take five minutes,” she said, watching him now, even as her eyes darted back and forth to the road ahead of her. “One quick stop, that’s all.”

HE WAS GOING TO cooperate — he liked the idea, she could see that — but he insisted she had her priorities backwards. “You take me over to Big 5,” he said, “and then we go to the animal place.” It was the longest speech he’d given since he got in the car. “Because I don’t want to get hung up here, you understand?” He was looking at her now, actually looking at her, as if he’d come out of a trance.

“They close at five,” she said, “and I’m not going to leave my dog in there one more day, no way, José—”

“Look,” he said, pointing to the clock on the dashboard. It showed one-forty-five. “There’s a ton of time.”

“But my dog’s in there, don’t you get it? Every minute he’s locked up is like driving nails into my flesh. No, I’m sorry, but Kutya’s first—”

He shook his head. “You want my help, it’s Big 5 first. You don’t, you can let me off anywhere. Here. You can stop here.”

They were on the outskirts of Ukiah now, traffic thickening, the sun glaze brushed over everything like a coat of varnish. Big 5 was on East Perkins, more or less in the middle of town, and Animal Control was on the far side, heading south. She was recalculating — she needed help if she was going to get Kutya back, and nobody else, least of all Christabel, would be willing to go through with it because she was afraid, they were all afraid, everybody she knew — when he reached into the back for his canteen, unscrewed the cap, took a long swallow and offered it to her.

She tried to brush it away. “No thanks,” she said. “I’m not thirsty.”

“You know what you need?” he said, pressing it on her. “You need to relax. Go ahead, take a hit.”

What she was trying to do was stay focused and humor him at the same time, because those were the cards she’d been dealt, so she took the canteen and lifted it to her lips. She’d expected water or maybe a sports drink, but that wasn’t what she got — it was alcohol, booze, a quick sharp burn of it in her throat. “Jesus,” she said, and the surprise of it made her laugh, “what is that — jet fuel?”

“One fifty-one.”

“What? Rum, you mean?”

And now he was smiling for the first time. “Gets you where you’re going. But here, turn here, that’s East Perkins—”

They went into the store together, as if they were on a date or something, and if that felt a little strange, she didn’t mind. She needed to keep an eye on him. If she was attracted to him on some level she told herself it was only because he was malleable — or potentially so — and she was willing to ride with that. No harm, no foul. Once they were done here they’d see to her problem and once that was over she could foresee offering him a lift back as far as Willits, and if he wanted to come in and see where she lived, maybe drink some wine and sit out on the porch, that was okay too. Omelets. She could make omelets. She had eggs and cheese, red pepper, tomatoes. And she could always whip up a salad. That was what she was thinking as the automatic door swung open for them and they stepped into the artificially illuminated cavern of a place that smelled of pigskin, gun oil and saddle soap. And plastic, plastic in all its thousands of guises.

“Wait here,” he whispered as they came through the door, and he had his head down, as if he was afraid of being seen or called out. Then he was gone, slipping down the aisle toward the fishing and hunting section where the fiberglass rods poked up like antennas and the rifles glinted in their display cases. There was hardly anybody else in the store, aside from the checkout guy — young, short, dark hair, his earlobes distended by a pair of shining black plugs — and two teenage girls trying on running shoes. The thought came to her that he was going to rob the place — or at least shoplift — but she put it out of her head. He was Sten Stensen’s son. And yes, he was trouble. But he wasn’t going to do anything crazy — and if he did she’d cut him loose in an eyeblink, just slip out the door as if she’d never seen him before. She wandered over to a display of biking gloves and matched her hand size to the hard plastic package that read Women’s Medium .

It didn’t take him ten minutes. She’d moved on from the gloves to a display of detachable water bottles, reflectors and helmets for all your biking needs, though she didn’t own a bike, and when she looked up he was at the cash register, pretending he didn’t know the guy with the earplugs. He set two handbaskets on the counter, the one filled with expensive freeze-dried meals, the other with what looked to be an outdoor cook kit and a hunting knife in a fancy strap-on sheath that probably ran ninety or a hundred dollars. Not one word passed between him and the checkout guy. He paid with a crumpled twenty and the guy rang something up, popped the cash register, and gave him back a ten and a five. Adam ducked his head, shot him a grin—“You have a nice day,” he said — and then the guy wished him a nice day too and Adam was out the door, his back to her, striding briskly for the car. She gave it a minute, taking up one of the water bottles and then replacing it on the display stand before making her way to the door, trying not to look at the guy with the earplugs, but she wavered just as the door pulled back for her and saw that he was studying her, with interest.

Adam was already in the car when she got there, stuffing the silver-foil packets of food into his backpack. She slid in beside him and shut the door. “Got a good deal, huh?” she offered, turning the key in the ignition and ignoring her seatbelt, which she could do with impunity because she’d long since disabled the dinger or nanny buzzer or whatever you wanted to call it.

“Let’s just say I have a connection.” He gave her a smirk, tearing at the packaging that housed the cook kit (more hard plastic) and casually dropping it out the window. By the time they were rolling out of the lot, he’d slipped the shining aluminum kit into the pack, along with the knife, which he didn’t even glance at, and he was lifting the canteen to his lips again and again offering it to her.

“No,” she said, “not now. Not till we get Kutya.” She smiled. “Then we can celebrate.”

“Party,” he said, and his voice had gone mechanical, as if he were thinking about something else altogether, as if he weren’t even there. “Party on.”

Was he drunk, was that it?

“I’m a party animal,” he said in the same detached voice. “A real, a super, party animal.”