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After a moment of paralyzed indecision, she raced back up and grabbed Hank’s cage. It was all she could do to hold on to it and jog along the slippery ground. Thanks to the mountainous roadway, the car was still making its way down the winding path toward the airstrip when she burst through the doorway of the shed.
The young guy standing on a chair playing the air guitar didn’t look up. The sound of hard rock emanated from his ear piece and a red licorice rope dangled from his lips. He stomped his feet on the cracked vinyl of the chair seat.
“Hey,” Maria said. “I need some help.”
The kid continued to play, flipping his long hair out of his face with zeal. He switched from air guitar to drum solo.
Maria put the cage on the floor and pulled on the guy’s sleeve.
He looked down with a start and fell off the chair. When he righted himself, the hair drooped over his eyes like a curtain. “Man. You scared me. I think I might have had a heart attack. Where did you come from?”
She suppressed the urge to shake him. “From the plane that landed an hour ago on your runway over there. Do you have a phone?”
“Uh, yeah. But it doesn’t work. You don’t have a cell?”
“Mine’s dead.”
He chewed a section of the candy rope and gestured to the mountains. “Doesn’t matter anyway. Probably wouldn’t get a good signal here. It’s like living in the bottom of a well.”
She looked out the filthy window. The black sedan pulled onto the runway. She turned back to the kid, reading the name tag on his jumpsuit. “Look, Jacko. I’m in a lot of trouble and I’ve got to get out of here now. I need a car, truck, motorcycle, anything. Can you help me, please?”
His eyes widened. “You must be in deep. I can give you a ride on my moped at quitting time. How ’ bout that?”
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the two men get out of the car and head toward her plane.
“No, no. I need to take off right now. Please. Isn’t there a car I can borrow? I thought I saw one out back. It’s really important. I promise I’ll return it.” Her voice trembled.
“Out back? Oh, you mean the Demon.”
Maria’s breath became shallow and her hands started to sweat. The men were entering her plane and when they figured out she’d opened the box they would head for the shack. She knew their secret. There was no way they’d let her get away. She looked around frantically. Where could she hide? There was nothing but an old card chair and a two-drawer filing cabinet overflowing with papers.
Jacko extracted a bottle of Gatorade from a foam cooler and took a slug of the green liquid. “Let me think a minute.” His eyeballs did a 360. “Yeah, that might work. That’s my cousin Duke’s car out there. He’s in jail for another six months, probably, not likely to get paroled early on account of he’s not a model prisoner. Maybe you could borrow it, if you get it back here by November.”
Her excitement soared. “Yes, yes. I’ll take anything.”
His eyes narrowed. “Wait just a minute. You got some money? Duke would want something for his wheels. He’s gonna need some start-up cash when he gets out of the joint. The car’s a collectible you know. It’s a ’72 Dodge Demon. Sweet ride, great interior, the works.”
She dug into her backpack with trembling hands and came up with a hundred-dollar bill. “How’s this?” Out of the corner of her eye she could see bags of kibble and kitty litter hurtling out of the open plane hatch. They split open on impact, sending debris flying everywhere.
“Oh, I don’t know. A hundred bucks? That doesn’t seem like much for a classic automobile. Plus gas. Gas ain’t cheap now, lady. Fortunately, Duke filled it up right before he got arrested. He’s gonna expect it that way when he shows up. And then there’s wear and tear, of course, and the oil will need to be changed when you return it.”
She tossed another fifty. Her voice rose to a near scream. “Please. That only leaves me a few bucks. You don’t want the rabbit to starve, do you? The poor guy only has three legs.”
He twirled the red rope thoughtfully as he regarded Hank. “Three legs? Weird, man. Reminds me of my uncle Vic. He’s only got three fingers on his left hand. Great bowler though. The league champion in Chauncy. I watched him last weekend and he was smokin’. Won a trophy and everything. I guess one hundred fifty will be okay.”
Jacko fished around in a desk drawer. “Here are the keys. Have a nice trip, lady. Don’t forget to bring it back before November.”
Maria grabbed the keys and the cage, and raced out the back door. The rain was coming down in sheets. Hank hunkered into a soggy ball wedged in a wooden corner. The electric-blue car was parked under a spindly tree. It was caked with dirt but the tires were good, she noted with a surge of relief. She jammed the keys in the lock and turned. It wouldn’t budge.
“So much for a collector’s car, you rusty piece of junk.” Another savage twist and the door opened. She flipped the front seat forward and shoved Hank’s crate in the back. Duke wasn’t going to appreciate the gouge in his leather upholstery but he was the least of her worries. The sound of angry voices floated through the door of the shack.
Maria turned the key in the ignition. The engine turned over and sputtered to a stop. “Come on, come on. Start, car. Please, please, please.” She twisted the key so hard she was afraid it might snap off.
The door of the shed opened, and two burly men stepped into the rain. They scanned the area. Maria crouched as low as she could manage and tried again. “God, I’m going to need some help starting this car.”
Her fingers were clammy as she gritted her teeth and turned the key again. The motor sputtered to life. “Yes!” she shouted. “Hang on, Hank. This is going to be bumpy.”
The men swiveled their heads toward the noise. The taller one reached inside his jacket. The shorter one with the build of a fire hydrant broke into a run.
Maria slammed the car into drive and peeled out from under the tree.
Through the smear of dirt and moisture on the windshield, she could see the men’s mouths drop open in surprise. The tall one had a couple of teeth missing on the bottom. He shouted something that she couldn’t decipher.
The car screeched around the side of the shack, tires slipping on the wet gravel. The men turned to follow her progress. A sudden whistle of air rushed through a round hole in the passenger’s-side window. Two more appeared in the front windshield.
Her jaw dropped open as her brain fought to make sense of the situation. “They’re shooting at us!” She wheeled the car onto the tarmac and floored the gas pedal. For a moment she considered doing a tight U-turn and driving right back into Tall Man and Fire Hydrant. That would really teach them a lesson. Of course, that would also give them a splendid opportunity to kill her and Hank. Just take the chance God gave you to survive, Maria. Get out of here now.
She squished down as far as she could in the seat, expecting at any moment the agony of a bullet crashing into her skull. Then she headed toward the only way out of the nightmare: the winding road that the murderous men had taken on their way in.
As she started up the grade, she looked at her plane in the rearview mirror. The thought of leaving it sent a twist of pain through her heart. She had worked so hard for that beautiful machine, and it was everything to her: freedom, independence, escape. She hoped Jacko would at least close the hatch.
She dashed the tears from her cheeks. “Goodbye, old friend. I’ll come back for you as soon as I can, I promise.”
The rabbit sneezed from the backseat.
“It’s okay, Hank. We escaped from those guys, and we’re on our way…somewhere.” There was only one option at the moment so she pushed ahead as fast as she could. The grade grew steeper and more wooded as the Dodge bounced along.
Far below, the sedan was just leaving the runway.
Like an ugly black insect it began a merciless march up the slope, heading right for them.
TWO
Duke must be quite a character, Maria thought in the midst of her frantic getaway. The wobbling plastic flamingo swayed on the blue velvet dashboard. She wiped her damp palms on her pants and glanced down at the gas gauge, continuing to push the car as fast as she dared on the steep road. Three-quarters of a tank. That would be enough to get them to some kind of help, provided she wasn’t overtaken before she reached it.
The black sedan was a bigger car and she knew it wouldn’t take the grade as well as the Demon, but the men had determination stamped all over their shady mugs. The whole thing was ridiculously surreal, like a cheap dime-store novel. Did they really work for Shell, or was he an innocent in all this, too? Why were they still after her anyway? Surely they’d found their box of drugs. Did they need to kill her because she could identify them? She swallowed hard. If that was the case they would continue hunting her like a prized duck.
She gripped the wheel and pushed the car a little faster. There wasn’t any chance to turn onto a side road to lose them. She was hemmed in on both sides by dense shrubbery and massive pine trees. There was only one way out of the predicament and that was to get to the top of the mountain before they did. Hopefully there would be some sort of civilization on the other side. Or at least a working phone.
The sky was still heavy with moisture, but the rain had slowed to a trickle.
She knew they were rumbling through the foothills of the Cascades, but that was all she could be certain of. Mount Hood was the only other landmark, but the fog obscured the horizon under an impenetrable blanket.
The engine temperature gauge edged into the hot zone as they wheezed to the top of a steep grade. Maria used the wipers to clear some of the muck off the windshield. Drops of moisture made it through the bullet holes, and she wiped them away with her sleeve.
In a couple more yards she would have a good vantage point to see what lay below. There had to be a town, a gas station, something. Her excitement mounted as they crested the top. She leaned forward to get a better view of…
Nothing.
Nothing except for a vast expanse of wooded hills, a thin ribbon of dubious road and acres of spring wildflowers in a palette of pastel hues. If it hadn’t been so beautiful she would have cried. She flipped open her cell phone only to remember the battery was almost dead.
Resisting the temptation to smash her head against the steering wheel, she rolled down the window and listened, ignoring the mist that dampened her face. Maybe the men had given up. Maybe their car had died several miles back or they’d decided to return to the plane, figuring she’d head back to the airstrip.
The sound was soft but unmistakable, the faint clatter of an approaching motor. Her hands clenched the steering wheel. “This is bad, Hank. Really bad. We don’t have any choice. We’re going to have to make a break for it or we’re both going to be murdered.”
She hit the accelerator and took off down the road.
A quarter tank of gas later, they came to a turnoff. The signpost directed travelers to a series of small towns she had never heard of. One of the signs was pockmarked with bullet holes, making it practically unreadable. Her choices were few. Should she stay on the main drag or venture farther into no-man’s-land? She looked at the mucky road that led away into hills as green as cut emeralds. Gently she eased the Demon onto the turnoff.
Time ticked by in agonizing slow motion. It was pouring when the sun slowly mellowed into the horizon. Maria’s jeans were damp from the water coming in the windshield holes, her skin chilled.
“Does it ever stop raining in Oregon?” She blinked hard, trying to ward off the heavy blanket of fatigue. She longed to be back in Los Angeles, warm and completely insulated by a blanket of smog. Was it really only one day since she’d left her tiny apartment in California?
Three hours later she was…where? In backcountry Oregon during a torrential downpour, driving a car with a velvet dashboard and holes in the windshield. This whole thing had to be a bad dream, a nightmare really.
There had been no sign of the scary sedan men for the past few hours. She probably outwitted them with her “road less traveled” trick. Another bit of good fortune came when she’d found the phone charger in her backpack, the one with an adapter that fit into the cigarette lighter of Duke’s car. Hopefully she’d be able to make a phone call in a few hours as soon as she made it past the mountains, and the whole sorry nightmare would be over.
A rickety store nestled on the side of the road as they rounded a tree-lined curve. The sign read Food, Sundries and Gas. Her mood brightened. She wasn’t sure what a “sundry” was but the food part was definitely a welcome thought and she figured topping off the tank wouldn’t be a bad idea, either. Who knew how far it would be to the next gas station?
“Okay, Hank. Let’s get something to eat and some gas. Plus, I’ve got to make a phone call.”
She eased out of the car and tried to unkink her back.
The man behind the battered cash register was skinny, his bald head shone in the light of the bare fluorescent bulb. He looked up at her approach, eyeing disapprovingly the water that coursed off her jacket onto the tile floor.
“Hi,” Maria said, shaking the rain from her hair and giving him a bright smile. “Quite a storm. Looks like the worst has passed.”
He bobbed a chin at her.
“Uh, do you have a phone I could use? My cell is dead.”
He jabbed a finger at the door. “Pay phone outside.”
She fished around in her damp pocket and handed him a bill. “I’m going to need some gas. Could I get some change for the phone, too?”
“Not unless you’re buying something else.” His shaggy brows knitted as he read the newspaper.
A real gem, Maria thought. She looked at the bins of vegetables and picked a plump carrot for Hank. From the crowded store shelf she grabbed a package of chocolate doughnuts and a soda.
The surly man rang up her purchase and handed her the change.
“Thank you,” she said.
He didn’t answer.
She dashed outside to the rickety gas pump and refueled.
Another foray into the rain brought her to the phone booth. She plunked a couple of coins in the slot and waited for the operator, plotting out her approach. She’d call the police in Los Angeles and tell them the whole story and then alert the authorities in Oregon to rescue her, and her plane while they were at it. Her mind was so busy planning out the conversation that it took a few moments for her to notice the lack of dial tone.
She jerked the change lever. Nothing came out and she slammed down the receiver. “Great. I didn’t even get a dial tone before it ate my money.”
Maria decided there was no point in telling the store clerk about the problem.
She sighed and slogged back to the car, water soaking her socks over the top of her sneakers. Inside she cranked the heater and gave Hank his carrot. The rabbit immediately began to munch, his slender teeth clicking a staccato rhythm. She put her own chattering teeth to work wolfing down the chocolate doughnuts.
An odd beeping noise startled her. Her cell phone was ringing.
“Hello?” she said.
“Hello, Maria. It’s Marty.”
She was so happy to hear his voice she almost cried. “Mr. Shell. I’m so glad you called. You’ll never believe what happened.”
“I’m sorry things didn’t go as planned at the airport. Again, I apologize for my guys being late. Promptness is not a cultural norm anymore. Sad. Ah, well, it’s hard to find good help.”
“No, no. It’s not that. There was a package of drugs on my plane. I’m going to call the police and get this thing straightened out.”
There was a pause on the other end. “Oh, my. That was supposed to be a little secret.”
Her mouth dropped open. “A…secret? You…you…knew about the drugs?”
“A small sideline of mine, Maria. No need to trouble yourself about it.”
The shock that coursed through her veins began to melt away as anger took its place. “Are you out of your mind? You had no right to use my plane to smuggle drugs.”
“I hired your plane to deliver cargo.”
“Pet food, not cocaine. I never would have agreed to that.”
He chuckled. “Well, you did carry pet food, dear, plus two tiny extra packages. No need to get huffy about it.”
She gritted her teeth. “I’m way beyond huffy. I want my plane.”
“Excellent. I would be happy to reunite you with your plane as soon as you give me back my property.”
“What property?”
“The drugs that were hidden in the cargo.”
“I didn’t take the box. It’s still there.”
The sound of breathing filled the line. “Maria, you’re a good girl, an honest girl. I know you were surprised to find my extra packages, but let’s not make a big mistake here. I know you took one of them. All will be forgiven if you return it to me. I am nothing if not a fair man.”
“You are nothing if not a drug dealer.” Her mind reeled. “What does your wife think about your second job?”
“My wife?” He sounded puzzled. “What does she have to do with this? I am discussing business here. My package. It was stowed in your plane. My men tell me half of the goods are not there now.”
“I did not take your drugs. Maybe your gun-toting friends did. Did you think about that? They shot at me, you know.”
