CHAPTER 33

Where to go? That was the question. Maybe over into Nevada. There were places in Nevada that were isolated, small towns connected to the mining industry and even Basque sheepherders who grazed thousands of sheep on arid hillsides. I would, once again, have to depart without notice, slip away in the night and find a place where Winslow’s thugs couldn’t track me down. But I wasn’t quick enough. The big man showed up again.

I saw him in the driveway, standing at the street, and Mrs. Carlson’s description was accurate. He was built like a truck; wide shoulders, no neck, arms that hung down his sides like big fenders, a waist nearly as wide as his shoulders, and no belly on him. Nothing but muscle. He wore oversize denims and a khaki shirt and his head was shaved clean, and gleamed in the sun. He stared at the house. I took the Glock out of the toolbox, made sure there were bullets in the magazine and chambered one of them. I crouched at the small window next to the front door and watched. He stood for a long time and then Mrs. Carlson appeared on her front porch. She called out something to the man and he turned to face her. He didn’t reply. At least his lips didn’t move. Then he turned and walked back up the street, away from the house. He didn’t exactly walk, it was more of a roll, his legs working in short strides, his stocky body erect and solid and imposing. He was more than six feet tall, a giant of a man. No wonder Mrs. Carlson was worried. Don’t call the sheriff, I said to myself. Don’t bring the sheriff into this.

I set about packing things up. My tools were all in the car except for the toolbox. It only took a few minutes to fill the duffle bag. There was no point in leaving during the daylight. He could easily spot me and follow. Better to leave in the small hours of the morning. I would drive down 395 and turn into Nevada, then go north toward Contact. It would be easy to see if anyone was following me on those empty roads. And in Contact I would trade cars, buy another used car, pay cash. There had to be somebody in a town that small and isolated who would be willing to take my Toyota off my hands and, for an exchange of cash, give me something else to drive. Something without California plates.

I left a hundred dollars cash in an envelope for Mrs. Carlson with an apology for leaving without notice. Just after midnight I put my bag and the toolbox in my car. I put the Glock under the driver’s seat where I could reach it. I drove out of Susanville toward the east, hooked up on 395 and drove south. There were no headlights behind me. The road was empty, but I was sure that they hadn’t just let me drift off into the night without noticing. If they had gone to the trouble of tracking me down in Susanville, then they would continue to keep track of me.

At Alturas I went east into Nevada, took the highway south until I came to Interstate 80 just east of Sparks. By now it was three o’clock in the morning and the only other vehicles were the occasional eighteen-wheelers on an allnight run. Interstate 80 was easy, little traffic, and I kept the old Toyota at a steady seventy miles an hour. In Winnemucca I stopped, put gas in the car, and drove on toward Wells. I reached Wells at five, and stopped at a huge truck stop, idling big rigs surrounding me. Inside was a twenty-four hour café, and I had a trucker’s breakfast, went to the toilet, splashed water on my face, and took Highway 93 North out of Wells. It was an empty two-lane road. Nothing behind me, no cars coming my way for more than an hour. Eventually I saw signs for Contact, and when I reached it, the sun was up. Contact was virtually empty. It had obviously once been a nice little town, but it was largely abandoned, empty shops, and I drove on toward Jackpot, the last town before Idaho.

Jackpot was more promising. Lots of motels and several casinos and the big lure seemed to be gaming for people who dropped down over the state line from Idaho. I found a motel for forty bucks a night, and collapsed.

The next morning I put my original license plates back on the car and I looked for a car dealer. There were none. But there was a tire shop and when I asked, the fat guy behind the counter said, “You trying to sell your car? Had a run of bad luck?”

His words were a stroke of luck. “Yes. What I’d like to do is trade down, maybe get a bit of cash in the bargain.”

He took a look at the Toyota, checked the tires, asked if he could drive it. He got behind the wheel and we toured what little there was of Jackpot.

“I’ve got a Ford Explorer,” He said. “It’s got a hundred and fifty thousand on it and the four-wheel drive is broke, but the tranny is good and the engine is OK. I can give it to you with five hundred cash for this Toyota.”

It was a rip-off, that much I knew. But he was used to gamblers down on their luck and I decided to play the part.

“How about six hundred?” I asked.

“No. Five hundred is my limit.”

The Ford Explorer had a crack in the windshield, but the shift was smooth and the engine seemed smooth as well. The seats were well-worn. Somebody had used this vehicle heavily. Still, it had Nevada license plates, ran OK, and I would be shed of the Toyota.

“OK, I said. It’s a deal.”

Inside his office he got out some papers and asked to see my California license.

“Can we do this on a cash basis? Let me do the paperwork? All you have to do is file a quit claim and you’re no longer connected to it.”

He looked at me. “You got the papers for the Toyota?”

“All of them. Pink slip, ownership. But I’d like to keep my name out of this.”

“I can do that,” he said. “I’ll file a lien against you for non-payment for a set of tires. You give me an address, and I’ll send the letter and the car becomes mine, no questions asked. That suit you?”

“Perfect,” I said. There was no doubt he had done this before.

“Is there any place I can hole up here in Jackpot for a while?”

“Not likely. You’d be better off in Twin Falls.”

“How far is that?”

“Less than fifty miles.”

“What about the Nevada license plates?”

“We get Idaho plates here all the time. They get Nevada plates. Nobody pays any attention.”

So I went farther north. The landscape was desolate until I got into Oregon, then it began to green up a bit. The Snake River Canyon ran along the edge of the town, and the town limit sign told me there were forty-four thousand people living there. Surely it was a town where I could get lost. I drove around a bit. The Perrine Bridge, a massive steel structure spanned the Snake River Canyon and the Shoshone Falls spilled in cascades just outside of town. I stopped at a Chamber of Commerce booth on one of the tree-shaded downtown streets and asked about housing.

I found a room in a lodging house, and settled in. Two days later there was a note under my windshield wiper. “YOU CANT ESCAPE YOUR FUCKED,” it read in block letters.

They had, somehow, found me. Perhaps the tire dealer in Jackpot had been paid off. Or they had put a tracking device in the Toyota and that was how they traced me to Jackpot. Whoever was doing the tracking knew their stuff.