Quicksilver(25)

Perhaps beginning with ants, I came to realize that everything in the world, regardless of how humble it might seem to be, is more complex and fascinating than it at first appears.

Yet nothing I had learned about ants could cure my depression. When I wasn’t studying bugs, I was doing little else than sleeping the sleep of despondency, twelve and more hours each day.

When Sister Theresa deemed that we’d studied ants to the point of diminishing returns, she asked me if I would want to be an ant.

“No,” I said.

“Why not?”

“They don’t do anything but work.”

“That’s the sum of it?” she asked. “You don’t want to be an ant because they work too much?”

“Yeah. And I’d always be scared some kid would step on me.”

Sister Theresa sighed. “All right, then. You’re a hard nut, Quinn Quicksilver, but we’ll crack you. Next we’ll study birds.”





PART 2

DIRTY MONEY, ATTACK DOGS AND SPURTLES





|?11?|

Remaining strictly under the speed limit, we were southbound on I-10 when I sat up in the back seat and stared at traffic speeding past us and at the traffic racing north, at the scattering of lights in the darkness of the Gila River Bapchule Indian Reservation, at a sign announcing the distance to Casa Grande and Eloy and Tucson. As both a proud resident of the Grand Canyon State and a former writer for Arizona! magazine, I would once have found all that as familiar as my own face in a mirror. On this occasion, however, nature’s realm and that of humankind were laced with mystery. Once, I might have idly wondered who occupied all those passing vehicles. Now I brooded instead about what infernal creatures might be traveling the night, what destinations they had in mind, and what outrages they intended to commit.

Bridget retrieved a box of ammunition from under her seat. She began reloading her pistol and the one her grandfather had used.

We cruised in silence for a while. I guess she and Sparky were thinking about how the scene in the restaurant could have played out less advantageously, with the three of us lying dead among scores of other victims. That was for damn sure a consideration that plagued me mile after mile.

Eventually I said, “They must have security cameras. There’ll be video of us.”

“If the quality’s any good,” Sparky said, “we’ll have the ISA on our tail again in a few hours.”

“What about the car?” I asked. “Maybe they’ve got video of us making for the Buick.”

“We’ll have to ditch the car,” Bridget said. “Grandpa, I think I better load two spare magazines.”

“Four,” he said. “We can’t abandon the Buick until we have new wheels, and we’re not likely to find those until we’re in livelier territory. Tucson’s maybe an hour and a half. Once we get in the vicinity, you or Quinn can get behind the wheel, and we’ll see what psychic attraction can do for us.” He glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “We say ‘psychic attraction,’ and you say ‘strange magnetism.’ Po-tay-toes, po-tah-toes; to-may-toes, to-mah-toes.”

“You’ve got it, too?” I asked Bridget.

“It’s useful,” she said, “although it can also be dangerous. Sometimes it takes me to what I need, whether I’m consciously aware that I need it or only subconsciously. But other times it can lead me into big trouble.”

“Like the tiger,” said Sparky.

“No, the tiger was cool. I was thinking of the bomb factory,” Bridget said as she inserted cartridges into a spare magazine.

“Psychic magnetism led you to a tiger?”

“Hey,” Sparky said, “I like that—‘psychic magnetism.’ Says it better than either of the others.”

Again I asked, “Psychic magnetism led you to a tiger?”

She said, “We were taking a little vacation in Georgia—”

“It was peach season. I love their peaches,” Sparky said.

“—and some idiot had illegally bought a tiger cub for a pet. It quickly got big—”

“Peach pie, peach cobbler, peach jam—”

“—and it got away. Scary news story. And, well, I’ve—”

“Peach custard, peach tarts, anything peach.”

“—always been fascinated with tigers—”

“My Jeanette was from Georgia, and she was a real peach.”

“—but I didn’t know the tiger was what I was being drawn to.”

Having exhausted the subject of peaches, Sparky said, “We’re driving along with woods on both sides, and Bridget insists that I pull over. I thought she was car sick.”

Bridget said, “I’ve never been car sick.”

“There’s always a first time. So I pull over, and she springs out of the car and takes off into the woods.”

“It was an extremely powerful attraction. I couldn’t resist.”

“So I ran after her, and when I found her, she had her back to a tree, and the tiger was growling at her, and the only weapon I had was a four-inch rip blade.”

“No melodrama now. Alphonse wasn’t growling, he was purring.”

“He gave me the evil eye,” Sparky said.