Authors: Ken Douglas
* * *
Lila had been driving hard, driving fast for the past three-quarters of an hour. A couple miles past the flaming wrecks, she stopped, got out, made the man in her passenger seat as comfortable as she could, raised the ragtop.
“
Shit,” she muttered. With everything that had been going on—the helicopter crashing into the semi, the wounded man who’d shot it down—her adrenaline had been sparking on overdrive, the only thing she could think about was the task at hand. Now that she was safely away, she saw the damage to her car. The back of the Jag looked like it had been through a war. It was covered with dings, divots and scratches where debris from the explosion had hit it. One of the taillights was broken.
“
Someone’s going to pay.” She wasn’t muttering now. She was mad.
Back in the car, she got back on the road, keeping the speed at a constant eighty-five, till she got to McCloud, where she slowed to fifty-five through the small town, then back up to eighty-five.
She passed two logging trucks as if they were standing still just before she came to Highway 5, the freeway that went from the Mexican border in Southern California all they way through the Golden State to Oregon, Washington and Canada beyond. Which was where she’d be heading if she were Izzy Eisenhower. Lots of space to get lost in up there.
On the freeway, she had to hold her speed down to seventy-five, because unlike the two lane highway she’d just turned off of, it was crawling with cars and trucks and well monitored by the Highway Patrol and the last thing she wanted was to get pulled over. Even if all kinds of government bad guys weren’t after her—and right now being paranoid seemed appropriate—she’d have a hard time explaining the bloody man riding shotgun.
She was hungry, wanted to stop at Micky D’s in Yreka, but she kept on. At the Oregon border, the speed limit dropped to fifty-five and she slowed to sixty-five as she started up toward the Siskiyou Pass.
“
So, have you taken me prisoner?”
“
You’re awake.” She sighed. “I didn’t know if you were going to make it.”
“
Take more than a little explosion to take me out.”
“
Tough guy, huh?”
“
Been called that once or twice.”
“
How’s your hearing?”
“
Okay, I covered my ears as I dove away.”
“
Been in a situation like that before?” Lila said.
“
Two tours in Vietnam when I was a kid. Some things you don’t forget.”
“
Okay, so you’re hearing okay. I just got mine back. For a while there I thought I might be permanently deaf. Ears are still ringing, though.”
“
That’ll stop.”
“
So, how are you?”
“
Beaten up, back hurts.” He shifted in his seat. “But I’ll be okay.”
“
Awful bloody.”
“
Something hit me just before I hit the ground, metal, glass, I don’t know. Punched me like there was no tomorrow.” He reached a hand behind his back, under his field jacket, pulled it back out. “Nothing there. Cut me though. Bleeding has stopped, so it’s not bad. I’m guessing it was a metal fragment, big enough to knock me down and out and bounced off. That’s good, though. If it would’ve been smaller or if it would’ve been glass, it would’ve penetrated and that would’ve been bad.”
“
Sorry about your rig.” She moved into the fast lane, passed a couple trucks.
“
Yeah, that’s a bummer.” He winced. It hurt more than he was letting on. “Lucky I was traveling empty. No paperwork about destroyed cargo.”
“
But you lost your truck.”
“
That’s gonna be hard to explain, but I’ll figure something out. Maybe I stopped because the engine sounded funny. Helicopter hits my truck. Good Samaritan picks me up, takes me to a hospital.”
“
How come you didn’t call 911.”
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No phone.”
“
How come we didn’t stop in Yreka?”
“
We didn’t?”
“
Behind us, we’re in Oregon now.”
“
Really? You didn’t head straight to the nearest hospital?” He winced again. “You are in trouble.” He looked out the window. “Yeah, we’re in Oregon, sure enough.”
“
You shot that helicopter out of the sky. That was pretty cool. You were pretty cool.” She was at the top of the pass now, passing several trucks which had pulled off in the brake test area. “But what I don’t understand is why?”
“
Actually, I shot the pilot. His passenger had a Mac 10. In my experience guys with Mac 10s in low flying helicopters don’t take prisoners.”
“
But is wasn’t your fight.”
“
Anytime there’s a damsel in distress, it’s my fight.”
She glanced over at him and he hit her with a smile so real it was as if she’d been smacked by a ray of sunshine.
“
I’m Black,” he said.
“
No shit,” she said.
“
It’s my name.” He laughed. It came from his belly. “Last time I introduced myself that way to a young lady, who said what you just did, ‘No shit,’ it changed my life. She was a gunslinging girl in trouble, too.”
“
Katie?”
“
Yeah, Katie. She was fast on the draw, hit what she shot at and when she killed a man, she didn’t look back, didn’t cry over it. Course, those she killed had it coming.”
Lila gave the man a glance, put her eyes back on the road, shifted into the fast lane and passed a truck on the winding road down into Ashland.
“
Don’t believe me?” His voice was low now, conspiratorial, almost a whisper. “No reason you should. Most folks who carry concealed never use their weapon. Most are braggarts or cowards, trying to impress with their gun or trying not to be afraid. Of course, most are men. Most women I’ve met are against guns.”
She gave him a scowl, then put her eyes back on the road as she slid back into the slow lane, in front of the truck.
“
Don’t look at me like that, just stating facts.”
“
Whose facts?”
“
Mine. My opinion, based on my experience.” He laughed again, a chuckle this time. “Women who carry are either in trouble or deal in trouble. Either way, someone crosses them better look out, because unlike a lotta men with a gun hidden in their clothes, a woman with a gun is a mighty dangerous animal.”
“
I think I resent that statement, Mr. Black.”
“
It’s just Black.”
“
First or last name?”
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Both, I only got the one name.”
“
Like Cher?”
“
No, she’s got two names, Cher Bono, everybody knows that. I only got the one.”
“
On your birth certificate, you only have one name?”
“
Yep, just the one.”
“
Cool.” She swung back into the fast lane, passed another truck. Moved back to the right as the road turned straight, Ashland ahead, then Medford. She’d be there in fifteen or twenty minutes. Then she’d have to figure out how to lose Black and deal with Izzy Eisenhower. “So, tell me about Katie.”
“
Ah, Katie. She was, is, one for the record books. But I don’t think I want to talk about her. She’s been out of the limelight for a long time.” He sighed. “I’ve said too much.” Again a sigh, heavier this time. “You can drop me in Medford. I got a friend owns a little music store by Harry and David’s.”
“
Out of the limelight?” She turned to look at him, met his eyes for longer than it was safe, considering she was driving. “You can’t be talking about Katie Sullivan.”
The look in his eyes and his silence confirmed it for her.
“
You are, aren’t you?” She put her eyes back on the road, slowed some as she was closing on a black SUV with government plates. “Tell me about her.”
“
I can’t.”
“
You don’t have to tell me where she is or even if she’s still alive. I just wanna know about her, what kind of person she was. How she survived what she did.” She took the first Ashland offramp.
“
This ain’t Medford?”
“
I’m starved.” She pulled into a McDonalds parking lot. “Fancy a Big Mac?”
* * *
For the last quarter hour Izzy had been sitting on the edge of the bed, eyes glued to the flat screen TV. Other than the photo of her, the police didn’t seem to know any more than they did when she saw the story back in McCloud.
She had to do something.
But what? And what about Amy? Whoever was after her would eventually get Amy. That wouldn’t be good.
One thing for sure, she couldn’t go flying off the handle. Just getting in the car and driving wouldn’t be smart. She needed a plan. She needed help, too. Maybe it hadn’t been such a bright idea, dropping the girls off in Susanville. Amy couldn’t be much help, because now they shared the same face, but her friend Alicia would’ve been.
She thought about going back, recruiting the girls, but she’d dropped them there for a reason, because she’d wanted Amy safe. But now, with the stories on the news, she wouldn’t be. What if her daughter-in-law saw the news and called the police? She probably wouldn’t. She’d be afraid she’d lose the money. But it was possible.
Izzy had to go back. But first she had to eat. She called reception. Asked for the number of the quickest pizza place in town and ordered a large Hawaiian, extra ham and no pineapples on one side. She’d split it with Hunter, then get on the road.
* * *
Lila pulled into the drive thru behind a police car. Cops gotta eat, too, she thought. At the window, she ordered a Big Mac meal. Black did the same, but added an extra burger. Lila paid, then pulled into the parking lot. She thought about lowering the top, it was a gorgeous day, but seeing that cop made her decide against it.
“
So, Black, you knew Katie Sullivan. I find that hard to believe, but a few hours ago I’d’ve never believed a trucker I met by chance would shoot down a helicopter and save my life. The odds of us sitting here together are a bazillion to one, because I have worshipped Katie Sullivan ever since she killed those cops and disappeared. I know in my heart they were after her somehow. That they were somehow connected with that serial killer Ronny Stark. And since it’s come out that the cop she killed in El Paso was about to rape his stepdaughter, that makes Katie a hero in my book, not a cop killer.”
“
Mine too,” Black said.
“
But they never caught her. And Ronny Stark, who’d raped her and left her for dead, stopped killing and they never caught him either.”
“
What’s your point in all this.” Black bit into his burger, took almost half of it in one bite.
“
I don’t want to know where she is or anything like that, but I’d like to know if she’s doing okay, if she ever got her revenge, if she got the bastard.”
“
Her story is pretty unbelievable and better left untold,” Black said. “Safer for her.”
“
I’m not the kind of girl who tells.” She took a bite of her burger, small compared to his, but big for her. She was hungry. After a few seconds of silence, she said, “I’ve got a pretty unbelievable story of my own to tell.” She smiled. “How about if I tell you mine, you at least tell me if Katie Sullivan is doing alright, if she killed Ronny Stark.”
“
Your story have anything to do with a helicopter that recently crashed into my truck?”
“
Yes it does.”
“
Then you tell me your story and I’ll see after if I can trust you with Katie’s secret.”
“
Fair enough.” And she told him everything. She told him about her rotten childhood, about her stepfather and how she’d just killed her mother and her latest husband. She told him about the Waynes, Tucker and Mansfield. She told him how Mansfield had rescued her, then turned her into his private killer. She told him about Izzy Eisenhower and how she was all of a sudden young again. She told him about the dead back in Reno. She told him how she was supposed to get five million dollars for delivering Izzy alive to Mansfield Wayne. She told him how she thought Wayne had double crossed her. How she thought he’d called in his government pals, that that’s who she thought was up in that helicopter, government spy types who were off the books, or on them, she didn’t know for sure. She told him too much, more than she’d ever told anybody about herself. Something was happening to her and she wasn’t exactly sure what it was.
“
Real Coast to Coast AM kind of stuff,” Black said.
“
Yeah, weirdness to the extreme.”
“
Any of it true?”
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Every last word.”
“
You want to know something funny?”
“
Yeah?”
“
I believe you.”
“
Really? Why?”
“
I had a radio in that truck. I know the official version about what’s going on in Reno. You story kinda jibs with that.”
“
But that’s not why you believe me, is it?”
“
No, it’s not. I believe you because I do. You don’t look like a liar to me. Besides, only an idiot would sit here and spin a yarn like that if it weren’t true and you don’t seem like an idiot. Then there’s that helicopter.”
“
So are you going to tell me about Katie?”
“
Do you know where Dr. Eisenhower is now?”