Six Bad Things_ A Novel - Charlie Huston [71]
We go around a bend, and the guns Rolf stashed in the hole with me slide across the wood and bang against my knee.
BETWEEN JEAN and Sloan, about twenty miles outside Vegas, Sid has Rolf pull a couple dozen yards off the highway, takes the garbage bag full of our clothes and a fold-up camping shovel, and gets out of the bus. Rolf sits in the driver’s seat. I sit behind him on the bench seat. We watch Sid, illuminated by one of those multipurpose emergency lights, as he digs his hole. The Westphalia screens the light from the drivers on the highway. I climb into the front passenger seat, roll down a window, and stick my head out to look up at the stars. Nothing, clouds. Rolf has put in an Allman Brothers tape. I pull my head back in and light a smoke and listen to “Melissa.”
—Rolf?
—Yeah?
He’s focused on his lap, where he has several roaches and scraps of shake spread out on a back issue of Rolling Stone. This is the last of his stash, he’s rolling a couple joints to get him through until he can score some more in Vegas.
—What about Leo and Pedro?
—Dude?
—Do you think they knew who I was? Who I am?
—Who knows what they know, dude? Those guys, are like the. That thing they have in the desert?
—What?
—The thing that doesn’t talk? Napoleon’s soldiers shot the nose off of it?
—The Sphinx?
—Yeah, dude, Pedro and Leo are like the Sphinx, who knows what they know?
He has half the grass scooped onto the cardboard flap of a pack of Zig-Zags. He dumps it into a creased rolling paper he’s holding in his other hand. I check on Sid: still digging.
—Think they’ll get hassled much? Over me?
—Hard to say, dude. Figure those Federales were working on their own, but sooner or later some dude that’s been at The Bucket’s gonna see your pic on TV and remember you. Then who knows what goes down?
I finish my smoke, toss it out the window, and reach in the kangaroo pocket of my pullover for another. My hand slides across cold steel. I feel the cigarette box, take it out, and look inside: three left. I light one and keep the box in my hand.
Rolf is right. My photo is on cable news along with the sketch. That means it will be seen all over the world. A Mexican cop will remember me from Chichén Itzá, or somebody from the beach will see it and call the police. Sooner or later they’ll find the connection between the sergeants and me.
—Will they hook Leo to the dead Federales?
The joint is rolled, he’s scraping the rest of the grass together to make a second.
—Nah, I don’t see why they would, dude. I mean, dude, you’re Henry Thompson. After they trace your movements around and talk to people and investigate you for that Russian guy’s death? They’ll finger you for the Federales, and the doctor, too. Why make it harder than it has to be?
Once again, other people’s dead bodies piling up in my account.
—Sorry ’bout that, by the way. Not the way I planned it, dude. But whatever.
—Yeah. Whatever.
He has the second scoop of grass resting in a paper, and holds it while he presses a fingertip onto little flakes still on the magazine cover and flicks them into the unrolled joint. I drag off my cigarette.
—Dude, you need to, like chill out now. Leo and Pedro are total survivors. Their shit might get messed with, but it’s not like they’ll do any time or anything.
He rolls the second joint, tucks it behind his right ear, pulls the first one from behind his left ear, puts it in his mouth, and lights it.
—Want to mellow out?
—I’ll pass.
He tokes the joint and reads Rolling Stone by the light of his Bic. Sid has tossed the bag in the hole and is filling it in. I take a last drag, flick my butt out the window. I slip the cigarette box back in my pocket, and fill my hand.
—So, Rolf, what am I doing with you guys?
He’s still looking at the magazine.
—Dude?
—I mean, why should I stay with you?
He turns his head to look at me and sees Danny’s pistol in my hand, pointed at him.
—I mean, what is it you’re