The Hammer of Eden

town.”

“Aw, shit, that’s great. How did you find out?”

“He passed me on the street, early this morning, headed for El Paso.”

“Why the hell didn’t he call me?”

“Too embarrassed about letting you down.”

“Well, I just hope he keeps going across the border and doesn’t stop until he drives into the goddamn ocean.” Lenny rubbed his eyes with his knuckles.

Priest began to improvise. “Listen, Lenny, he’s got a young family, don’t be too hard on him.”

“Hard? Are you serious? He’s history.”

“He really needs this job.”

“And I need someone to drive his rig all the damn way to New Mexico.”

“He’s saving up to buy a house with a pool.”

Lenny became sarcastic. “Knock it off, Ricky, you’re making me cry.”

“Try this.” Priest swallowed and tried to sound casual. “I’ll drive the damn truck to Clovis if you promise to give Mario his job back.” He held his breath.

Lenny stared at Priest without saying anything.

“Mario ain’t a bad guy, you know that,” Priest went on. Don’t gabble, you sound nervous, try to seem relaxed!

Lenny said: “You have a commercial driver’s license, class B?”

“Since I was twenty-one years old.” Priest took out his billfold, extracted the license, and tossed it on the desk. It was a forgery. Star had one just like it. Hers was a forgery, too. Paul Beale knew where to get such things.

Lenny checked it, then looked up and said suspiciously: “So, what are you after? I thought you didn’t want to go to New Mexico.”

Don’t screw around, Lenny, tell me yes or no! “Suddenly I could use another five hundred bucks.”

“I don’t know.…”

You son of a bitch, I killed a man for this, come on!

“Would you do it for two hundred?”

Yes! Thank you! Thank you! He pretended to hesitate. “Two hundred is low for three days’ work.”

“It’s two days, maybe two and a half. I’ll give you two fifty.”

Anything! Just give me the keys! “Listen, I’m going to do it anyway, whatever you pay me, because Mario’s a nice kid and I want to help him. So just pay me whatever you genuinely think the job’s worth.”

“All right, you sly mother, three hundred.”

“You got a deal.” And I’ve got a seismic vibrator.

Lenny said: “Hey, thanks for helping me out. I sure appreciate it.”

Priest tried not to beam triumphantly. “You bet.”

Lenny opened a drawer, took out a sheet of paper, and tossed it over the desk. “Just fill out this form for insurance.”

Priest froze.

He could not read or write.

He stared at the form in fear.

Lenny said impatiently: “Come on, take it, for Christ’s sake, it ain’t a rattlesnake.”

I can’t understand it, I’m sorry, those squiggles and lines on the paper just jump and dance, and I can’t make them keep still!

Lenny looked at the wall and spoke to an invisible audience. “A minute ago I would of swore the man was wide awake.”

Ley, tor, pur-doy-kor …

Priest reached out slowly and took the form.

Lenny said: “Now, what was so hard about that?”

Priest said: “Uh, I was just thinking about Mario. Do you suppose he’s okay?”

“Forget him. Fill out the form and get going. I want to see that truck in Clovis.”

“Yeah.” Priest stood up. “I’ll do it outside.”

“Right, let me get to my other fifty-seven friggin’ problems.”

Priest walked out of Lenny’s room into the main office.

You’ve had this scene a hundred times before, just calm down, you know how to deal with it.

He stopped outside Lenny’s door. Nobody noticed him; they were all busy.

He looked at the form. The big letters stick up, like trees among the bushes. If they’re sticking down, you got the form upside-down.

He had the form upside-down. He turned it around.

Sometimes there was a big X, printed very heavy, or written in pencil or red ink, to show you where to put your name; but this form did not have that easy-to-spot mark. Priest could write his name, sort of. It took him a while, and he knew it was kind of a scrawl, but he could do it.

However, he could not write anything else.

As a kid he was so smart he did not need to read and write. He could add up in his head faster than anyone, even though he could not read figures on paper. His memory was infallible. He could always get people to do what he wanted without writing anything down. In school he managed to find ways to avoid reading aloud. When there was a writing assignment he might get another kid to do it for him, but if that failed, he had a thousand excuses, and the teachers eventually shrugged and said that if a child really did not want to work, they could not force him. He got a reputation for laziness, and when he saw a crisis approaching he would play hooky.

Later on, he had managed to run a thriving liquor wholesaling business. He never wrote a letter but did everything on the phone and in person. He kept dozens of phone numbers in his head until he could afford a secretary to place calls for him. He knew exactly how much money was in the till and how much in the bank. If a salesman presented him with an order form, he would say: “I’ll tell you what I need and you fill out the form.” He had an accountant and a lawyer to deal with the government. He had made a million dollars at the age of twenty- one. He had lost it all by the time he met Star and joined the commune — not because he was illiterate, but because he defrauded his customers and failed to pay his taxes and borrowed money from the Mob.

Getting an insurance form filled out had to be easy.

He sat down in front of Lenny’s secretary’s desk and smiled at Diana. “You look tired this morning, honey,” he said.

She sighed. She was a plump blonde in her thirties, married to a roustabout, with three teenage kids. She was quick to rebuff crude advances from the men who came into the trailer, but Priest knew she was susceptible to polite charm. “Ricky, I got so much to do this morning, I wish I had two brains.”

He put on a crestfallen look. “That’s bad news — I was going to ask you to help me with something.”

She hesitated, then smiled ruefully. “What is it?”

“My handwriting’s so poor, I wanted you to fill out this form for me. I sure hate to trouble you when you’re so busy.”

“Well, I’ll make a deal with you.” She pointed to a neat stack of carefully labeled cardboard boxes up against the wall. “I’ll help you with the form if you’ll put all those files in the green Chevy Astro Van outside.”

“You got it,” Priest said gratefully. He gave her the form.

She looked at it. “You going to drive the seismic vibrator?”

“Yeah, Mario got homesick and went to El Paso.”

She frowned. “That’s not like him.”

“It sure ain’t. I hope he’s okay.”

She shrugged and picked up her pen. “Now, first we need your full name and date and place of birth.”

Priest gave her the information, and she filled out the blanks on the form. It was easy. Why had he panicked?