Distraction - Bruce Sterling [133]
She had been gassed unconscious—twice—and had lived through a car wreck and a firefight. Then she’d been abandoned in a locked and armored vault. Greta needed a hospital. Some nice safe hospital. A hospital would be an excellent idea for both of them.
“Dewey, how far is it to Buna from here?”
“Buna? About thirty miles as the crow flies,” Dewey allowed.
“I’ll give you three hundred dollars if you’ll take us to Buna right now.”
Dewey thought about the offer. It didn’t take him long. “Y’all hop on in,” he said.
Oscar’s phone couldn’t find a proper relay station this far from Buna. They stopped at a grocery in the tiny hamlet of Calvary, Texas, where he bought some first-aid supplies and tried a local pay phone. He couldn’t get through to the lab. He couldn’t even reach the hotel in Buna. He was able to restore Greta to consciousness with a cautious application of temple rubbing and canned soda, but she was headachy and nauseous. She had to lie still and groan, and the only place available for lying down was the back of Dewey’s truck, next to the salvaged wreck of a motorcycle.
Oscar waited in anguished silence as the miles rolled by. He had never much liked the lurking somnolence of the East Texas landscape. Pines, marsh, creeks, more pines, more marsh, another creek; nothing had ever happened here, nothing would ever be allowed to happen here. But something important had finally happened. Now its piney hick tedium crackled with silent menace.
Four miles from Buna they encountered a lunatic in a rusted rental car. He raced past them at high speed. The car then screeched to a halt, did a U-turn, and rapidly pulled up behind them, honking furiously.
Dewey, who had been chewing steadily on a rocklike stalk of sugarcane, paused to spit yellow flinders through his wind vent. “You know this guy?” he said.
“Does that gun work?” Oscar countered.
“Heck, yeah, my rifle works, but I ain’t shooting anybody for no three hundred dollars.”
Their pursuer stuck his head out the window of his car and waved. It was Kevin Hamilton.
“Pull over,” Oscar said at once, “he’s one of mine.”
Oscar left the truck. He checked briefly on Greta, who was doubled over in the truckbed, racked with car sickness. He then joined Kevin, who had thrown his door open and was beckoning wildly.
“Don’t go into Buna!” Kevin yelled as he drew near. “It’s hit the fan.”
“It’s good to see you, too, Kevin. Can you help me with Greta? Let’s get her into the backseat of the car. She’s all shaken up.”
“Right,” Kevin said. He gazed at the truck. Dewey had just decamped from the driver’s seat, carrying his rifle under his arm. Kevin reached below his own seat and pulled out an enormous chromed revolver.
“Cool it!” Oscar told him. “The kid’s on the payroll.” He stared at the handgun in alarm. He had never suspected Kevin of possessing such a thing. Handguns were extremely illegal, and a source of endless trouble.
Kevin hid his gun without another word, then limped out of the car. They helped Greta out of the truck, across the dirt, and into the backseat of Kevin’s ratty, ill-smelling rental car. Dewey stood beside his truck, chomping sugarcane and waiting patiently.
“What’s with the handgun, Kevin? We’ve got problems enough without that.”
“I’m on the lam,” Kevin told him. “There’s a counter-coup at the lab—they’re trying to put us all away. I’m not staying there to get busted, thank you. I had a lifetime’s worth of encounters with the properly constituted authorities.”
“All right, forget the handgun. Do you have any money?”
“As a matter of fact, yeah. Lots. I kinda took the liberty of cleaning out the hotel till this morning.”
“Good. Can you give this kid three hundred dollars? I promised it to him.”
“Okeydoke.” Kevin reached behind the driver’s seat and produced a well-stuffed Yankee carpetbag. He looked at Greta, who was stirring on the backseat in a futile search for comfort. “Where are your shoes, Dr. Penninger?