The Night Parade(92)

He came awake as if pulling himself from quicksand. His head hurt and his neck was stiff. He was in a car, but he wasn’t driving . . . and this realization set off his internal panic alarm, causing him to bolt upright in his seat.

“Hey,” said the woman behind the wheel. “Take it easy, okay?”

Her name was Ganymede, David recalled. He rubbed his eyes, then wiped the scum from his lips. It was still dark. The glowing green numerals on the dashboard clock read 3:11. Rubbing at a kink in his neck, he turned and saw that Ellie was still asleep, sprawled out across the Caddy’s backseat.

“Pleasant dreams?” Gany said. She had her window cracked and was smoking a cigarette.

“Do you think I could get one of those?”

She handed him her lit smoke, then dug a fresh one out of the pack that was wedged in the console between an empty cardboard cup and a pair of mirrored sunglasses. A road map was tucked down into the space between the console and the driver’s seat.

He sucked the life out of the cig, relishing it. A sweet mentholated air permeated his lungs. “Ah, Jesus,” he muttered.

“Better than sex, isn’t it?” Gany said.

Again, David peered into the backseat to make sure his daughter was sleeping. Then he sighed. “Goddamn, it really is.” It was almost enough to take his mind off the throbbing ache in his left arm. He extended the arm, bent it at the elbow, straightened it again. The bandage-work Heck Ramirez had done was holding up—there was no blood seeping through the gauze—but the pain, he feared, had intensified while he slept. The whole arm felt tender and hot.

“There’s some Tylenol in my purse, if you need it. Back there.” Gany nodded toward the backseat.

Her purse was on the floor, a slouching gray satchel that looked like the gutted carcass of an armadillo. He fumbled through it until he located the tiny white bottle of tablets. He shook three into his hand, popped them into his mouth, and dry-swallowed them.

“I’m going to need you to take over for a while,” Gany said. “I’m running on fumes here. You okay with that?”

“Yeah. I gotta take a leak, though.”

She pointed to the empty cardboard cup in the cup holder.

“You serious?” he said.

Gany laughed. “No. I’m messing with you.”

She pulled over on some bleak and hopeless stretch of highway so they could switch seats. The air smelled of tree sap, and David could hear running water—a waterfall?—somewhere off in the distance. They hadn’t passed another vehicle since he’d woken up. While he urinated in the bushes, he took his time to breathe in the air and observe the untouched, expansive surroundings. Being out here, you could almost trick yourself into believing that the world is fine and everything is okay.

Back on the road, David behind the wheel, he said, “How much farther do we have to go?”

“We should get there around eight in the morning or so.” Gany snapped her seat belt into place, then curled onto her side so that she faced the passenger window.

“How do I know where to go?”

“There’s a map stuck down by your seat.” She yawned.

He tweezed the map out with a thumb and forefinger then spread it across the steering wheel. It wasn’t even a MapQuest printout, but an actual road map, with their route highlighted in bright yellow marker. There were handwritten notes in spidery print near their destination, telling him what back roads to take once they got off the main highway.

“Tim did all this?” he asked.

“Mmm-hmmm.”

“I get the sense that this is his usual MO, and not just because of . . . well, my situation.”

“He’s a cautious fella,” Gany said. “Now, will you keep quiet so I can catch some z’s?”

“Sorry.”

“There’s CDs in the glove compartment. Classic rock. And I don’t mean the new classic rock, I mean the legit shit. Have at ’em. Just keep the volume down.”

“I think the silence will be just fine.”

Gany didn’t respond. Judging by the deepening of her respiration, David guessed she had already fallen asleep.





50


According to the map, they were only about an hour from their destination—Tim’s so-called Fortress of Solitude—when the early morning sunlight glinted off a collection of chrome bumpers farther up the road. David slowed down. Gany leaned forward in the passenger seat and said, “What is this, now?”

“Daddy?” Ellie said, sitting upright in the backseat.

“It’s okay, hon. Looks like a fender bender, that’s all.”

“I don’t see any fender bender,” Gany said. She rolled down her window and stuck her head out. The morning air swooped into the car. It was downright cold.

Five or six cars stood in a queue behind a single vehicle that was parked slantways across both lanes of the road. The car—a pine-green Corolla with rusted quarter panels—did not appear disabled. Whatever had occurred, it must have just happened, because there were no police on the scene yet, and as David pulled up to the rear of the line, a few people got out of their cars and began to wander over to the Corolla.

“Should we see if they need help?” Ellie said. She was peering between the front seats now, gazing at the wreckage ahead of them.