How to Disappear(40)

He wants old school, fine. I take his arm.

If this happened in a movie, you’d be chomping on your popcorn and moaning, Oh, HELL no.





43


Jack


I know this place from when I wanted a beer, and the checker at Ralph’s in El Molino looked from Gerhard’s license to my face and said no. I wanted the beer. The candidate most likely to ignore drinking age was a biker bar. This worked a couple of times in Nevada. Twenty miles out of El Molino, you can take your pick.

But last time it was morning and easy to drive up to the emptiest one.

In the almost darkness of the gravel parking lot, the idea of approaching the cinder block building with Nicolette on my arm seems like less of a plan.

When I lean down to open her door, there’s a chill along my spine, fighting the hot night air. I’m not sure if this is the kind of cue reasonable people know not to ignore or me turning into a wuss who buys shots for his prey.

She swings her pack over her shoulder.

There are guys standing outside the door, lighting up, girls sticking to them, the acrid smell of weed in the air. There’s a blast of music and shouting every time the door to the bar opens and people fall in or out.

I say, “This might not be the right place.”

She leans against the car, arching her back. “Without a Harley, you mean? Or without biker mama arm candy?” She unbuttons her massive shirt, and I’m staring down a tank top. She says, “It’s hot out. Do you mind?”

I force my eyes up to her face, her chin tilted back, her hair curling around the edges of her forehead.

She puts her hand on my arm, grasping it. I’m acutely aware of where we are, where I’ve brought her, and how stupid this is.

I say, “Let’s get out of here.”

She wriggles all the way out of the shirt until she’s all bra straps and tank top and skin.

“Just trying to fit in,” she says.

I can’t tell if she’s making the best of a shit date or teasing.

“You come here a lot?” she asks, not waiting for an answer. “Not that a lot of bikers in zero-cylinder electric cars don’t come here.”

“Get back in the car! And it’s a hybrid, not electric.”

She resists, and after what happened in my apartment, I’m not about to exert any physical pressure, not even to hold her hand tightly.

She nods toward the side of the bar, where it’s pitch-black shadow, the back of the place verging on dark bleak empty farmland and the creek bed that winds through the town. “Or we could go over there and get high on fumes.”

“No, we’re leaving.”

She yanks on my arm. “That was a joke! Don’t be so master-of-the-universe!”

“You stop undressing at a biker bar! Get in the car!”

A sloppy drunk guy heading to a pickup says, “This little shit bothering you, miss?”

We say no simultaneously.

He seems to be turning back toward his truck, but he’s just swiveling wide toward us, straight on.

I hold out my arm like a crossing guard.

She says, “I’m fine. We were just going.”

“This boy pressuring you? You said no and he don’t get it?”

I say, “She’s fine! Back off.”

He keeps coming. You could light his breath on fire.

She says, “Oooookay, look, I’m getting in the car. Everything’s fine. Don’t turn this into a B-movie, all right?” I’m not sure if she’s saying this to him or to me.

He says, “You’re fine. You’re a little movie star.” Still coming.

One chop to the neck right now, and he won’t be bothering girls again for a while. But he just seems like a drunk *, not a threat.

She says, “Oh crap,” and pulls on the door handle. Things turn instantly. All of a sudden we’ve got the Prius behind us and this guy advancing on us.

He reaches out for her, and without any thought, I land a punch on the side of his face, swivel his head. It should be enough to knock over a drunk guy, but it’s not.

I assessed my target, but I assessed wrong.

He’s grabbing for her, tearing at my shirt to reach her, pushing me down to get to her. I land an uppercut to his chin, then I go for his eyes. But he’s fast, and I’m paying too much attention to where she is. He’s got hold of my belt; he kicks the outside of my knee. I’m in the gravel, and he’s pounding my face. I’m in that state of combat where nothing hurts too much for you to keep going, or even distracts you.

I tell her to run, but she’s frozen against the Prius, rifling through her pack, which, unless she’s got a bazooka in there, isn’t going to do us much good.

“Will you run?”

I dig an elbow into the gravel and push the drunk guy with my other shoulder, unbalance him, roll on top, go for a knockout punch. Blood pours out of his nose, and then there’s a knife: his knife. The blade is curved and moving fast.

I remember mine, lying useless in the trunk. This is a bloodbath of poor calculation. I go for the hand with the knife, throw my weight into getting it down and keeping it down. Because this guy can’t get up. He’s not getting to her. If he stabs me and I die, he takes her—not on my watch. His arm is bent, the blade’s six inches from my face. My left hand versus his right arm, and every molecule of energy in every cell of every muscle in my body is pushing him down, pushing a lead oar through a river of molten lead. I’m not dying in a parking lot, not adding myself to the Manx legacy’s body count.