There wasn’t room enough to turn. He put the Jag in reverse, backed all the way to the fork, swung to the right, sped past the barn.
He slid to a stop. A log was lying across the road. He reversed again, backed to the fork again, spun around, took the left turn.
He was in a daze. That wouldn’t do. He wasn’t being – what was the word? – retentive. That wouldn’t do either. This was no time to be stupefied.
Okay.
He closed the Pit’s lid firmly, searched for his cigars. He didn’t have any. They were in the other jacket. He lit a Fine 120.
First of all, he had to make sense out of these fucking roads. Going back the way he came was impossible. Okay. So he had to go forward. Or sideways. Or somewhere.
He passed a pond, a swamp, a smashed billboard. ‘… SHOPPING DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS!’ More ponds. Three or four of them.
Okay. He was looking for a signpost, or some yokel to tell him where he was and how to get out of here. Main highway’s just down thataway a spell, just keep goin past Paw Moonshine’s still and KKK Hq till you come to a statue of ole Stonewall Jackson covered with birdshit …
But there was no one. Nothing.
He drove through a tunnel of thickets growing above the road. He passed the ruins of a church, then a clearing that was once a baseball diamond. Vines covered the bleachers, a gutted tractor was in the middle of the field.
Did he have a head-start? Maybe. She hadn’t seen him, he was certain of that. If he could only get on a freeway, he could be in Tennessee by tonight. Or Missouri or Arkansas.
A freeway! A freeway! My kingdom for a freeway!
The road curved down to a river – or was it the creek again? Or another pond? He drove along the winding bank.
The tarpaulin-covered car blew its horn at him.
He looked back, startled.
It was on the opposite bank, speeding after him, coming abreast of him.
They rolled along together, side by side, the tan rocky water between them.
Okay. What was he supposed to do now? An unidentified object, all wrapped up like a package, was chasing him through never-never land. What about it? Joe? Are you awake? Look alive!
The windshield was swarming with tiny whirling curlicues of light. (That was his augmenting blood pressure. He should be wearing one of Maxie’s patches!)
The bundle on the other bank blew its horn again. Boooop booooop booooop!
Then the road looped away from the river and climbed into more woods.
He was doing 70. The miles and trees flew past the windows.
The curlicues evaporated. He suddenly felt better. He was on the move. That’s all that mattered. He was running. That’s what he did best. Okay. He’d walked stupidly into another trap. She hadn’t come to the casino for him. She hadn’t even known he was there. She’d been looking for Scarlet Jim Payne. Joe Egan’s suicide must have puzzled her for a while, then she’d probably just shrugged and said, one or the other, or both, they’re contrapuntals. (That was a word he hadn’t used for a long long time!) Jim or Joe. Heads or tails.
Well, he’d just have to untrap himself.
Hey!
Up ahead, on the turning of a sharp bend, was a mailbox!
It looked so real! So tangible! Maybe he wasn’t in dreamland after all!
He pulled up beside it.
Leaning against it was a scythe.
He drove on.
She was laughing at him. Playing with him. The whirling curlicues swarmed back into the windshield. Good afternoon, Joe. Behold, all flesh is as the grass and lo! the grass withers and the flower decays. Remember?
I remember. All my other thoughts but that are buried. Everything else is lost and gone.
Well, what of it? She still hadn’t caught him. She could stick her scythe up her ass.
Another bend in the road and there was the tarpaulin bundle, parked in the middle of a beanfield. Four kids were pulling off the canvas.
It was a dented old Buick. Painted on its sides were the words ‘DESTROY!’ and ‘HARD ROCK’ and ‘FUCK!’
They waved to him as he passed.