《Dolans_Cadillac》(13)

No sign of Dolan.

I looked at my watch. 11:25 A. M. If he was going to show up, it ought to be very soon. This was prime time.

The hands on my watch moved slowly around to 11:40 and there was still no sign of him. Only a late-model Ford and a hearse as black as a raincloud.

He's not coming. He went by the Interstate. Or he flew.

No. He'll come.

He won't, though. You were afraid he'd smell you, and he did. That's why he changed his pattern.

There was another twinkle of light on chrome in the distance. This car was a big one. Big enough to be a Cadillac.

I lay on my belly, elbows propped in the grit of the shoulder, binoculars to my eyes. The car disappeared behind a rise... re-emerged... slipped around a curve... and then came out again.

It was a Cadillac, all right, but it wasn't gray - it was a deep mint green.

What followed was the most agonizing thirty seconds of my life; thirty seconds that seemed to last for thirty years. Part of me decided on the spot, completely and irrevocably, that Dolan had traded in his old Cadillac for a new one. Certainly he had done this before, and although he had never traded for a green one before, there was certainly no law against it.

The other half argued vehemently that Cadillacs were almost a dime a dozen on the highways and byways between Vegas and LA, and the odds against the green Caddy's being Dolan's Cadillac were a hundred to one.

Sweat ran into my eyes, blurring them, and I put the binoculars down. They weren't going to help me solve this one, anyhow. By the time I was able to see the passengers, it would be too late.

It's almost too late now! Go down there and dump the detour sign! You're going to miss him!

Let me tell you what you're going to catch in your trap if you hide that sign now: two rich old people going to LA to see their children and take their grandkids to Disneyland. Do it! It's him! It's the only chance you're going to have!

That's right. The only chance. So don't blow it by catching the wrong people. It's Dolan!

It's not!

"Stop it," I moaned, holding my head. "Stop it, stop it."

I could hear the motor now.

Dolan.

The old people.

The lady.


Chapter Fourteen

The tiger.

Dolan.

The old.

"Elizabeth, help me!" I groaned.

Darling, that man has never owned a green Cadillac in his life. He never would. Of course it's not him.

The pain in my head cleared away. I was able to get to my feet and get my thumb out.

It wasn't the old people, and it wasn't Dolan, either. It was what looked like twelve Vegas chorines crowded in with one old boy who was wearing the biggest cowboy hat and the darkest Foster Grants I'd ever seen. One of the chorines mooned me as the green Cadillac went fishtailing onto the detour.

Slowly, feeling entirely washed out, I raised the binoculars again.

And saw him coming.

There was no mistaking that Cadillac as it came around the curve at the far end of my uninterrupted view of the road - it was as gray as the sky overhead, but it stood out with startling clarity against the dull brown rises of land to the east.

It was him - Dolan. My long moments of doubt and indecision seemed both remote and foolish in an instant. It was Dolan, and I didn't have to see that gray Cadillac to know it.

I didn't know if he could smell me, but I could smell him.

Knowing he was on the way made it easier to pick up my aching legs and run.

I got back to the big DETOUR sign and shoved it face down into the ditch. I shook a sand-coloured piece of canvas over it, then pawed loose sand over its support posts. The overall effect wasn't as good as the fake strip of road, but I thought it would serve.

Now I ran up the second rise to where I had left the van, which was just another part of the picture now - a vehicle temporarily abandoned by the owner, who had gone off somewhere to either get a new tire or have an old one fixed.

I got into the cab and stretched out across the seat, my heart thumping. Again, time seemed to stretch out. I lay there listening for the engine and the sound didn't come and didn't come and didn't come.

They turned off. He caught wind of you at the last moment anyway... or something looked hinky, either to him or to one of his men... and they turned Off.

I lay on the seat, my back throbbing in long, slow waves, my eyes squinched tightly shut as if that would somehow help me hear better.

Was that an engine?

No - just the wind, now blowing hard enough to drive an occasional sheet of sand against the side of the van.

Not coming. Turned off or turned back.

Just the wind.

Turned off or turned b... No, it was not just the wind. It was a motor, the sound of it was swelling, and a few seconds later a vehicle - one single vehicle - rushed past me.

I sat up and grabbed the wheel - I had to grab something - and stared out through the windshield, my eyes bulging, my tongue caught between my teeth.

The gray Cadillac floated down the hill toward the flat stretch, doing fifty or maybe a little more. The brake lights never went on. Not even at the end. They never saw it; never had so much as the slightest idea.

What happened was this: all at once the Cadillac seemed to be driving through the road instead of on it. This illusion was so persuasive that I felt a moment of confused vertigo even though I had created the illusion myself. Dolan's Cadillac was hubcap-deep in Route 71, and then it was up to the door-panels. A bizarre thought occurred to me: if the GM company made luxury submarines, this is what they would look like going down.