out.
But that was dangerous, because Tony was beginning to feel the pain.
He knew he couldn’t take it once it hit him full force. He pulled at his bonds. Barbed wire tore his skin and he grunted but made himself pull again. Yucca leaves scratched his flesh and broke loose, skittering down the tree trunk. The great yucca groaned. . and pain seared Tony’s flesh. . pain he could
He eased off, sweating hard now, bleeding from fresh wounds. He sucked a deep breath through his mouth.
That was when he saw it. The canteen. His captor had left it by the tumbledown shack.
Maybe it was empty. Probably it was. But if it wasn’t. And if he could get to it. . oh, how he wanted a drink right now.
Tony closed his eyes. He could do this. He was the heavyweight champion of the world. Despite the broken nose, despite the tortures he had suffered while lashed to the tree, he was strong. He’d been training for six weeks. Running six or seven miles a day in the desert sun. Sparring with guys who could take your head off with a single punch. Pounding the bags, doing drills for speed and endurance. .
During that time, he thought he was training for a fight. Now he knew that he had been training for something else.
This was the main event. In this corner: Tony Katt. And across the ring, in the opposite comer: a fucking yucca tree.
And to the winner? Why, a canteen that might very well be empty.
Tony closed his eyes. In just a minute, he’d hear the bell, and he’d come out for round one.
But he didn’t hear a bell. He heard something else.
Some kind of screech.
Tony opened his eyes.
Above him, circling in the red sky, screeching. .
. . circling lower. . and lower still. .
Vultures.
FOUR
By the time Jack and Angel reached the highway off-ramp, the sky was electric with colors usually only seen in tropical fish tanks.
Jack braked as the Celica reached the spot where pavement gave way to dirt. The windshield was dotted with dead insects, but the sunset was something to see. It painted the hood of the Celica in mirrored tones. The rust spots shone the way they sometimes did under the neon lights of Vegas, like deep pools of Captain Morgan’s spiced rum.
“Beautiful,” Jack said.
“Not now it isn’t,” Angel said. “But it will be later.”
“Later it will be gone.”
Jack punched the trip meter odometer and it registered at zero. The dirt road angled off in a straight line, spearing the great white nowhere called the Mojave Desert. The guy in the plastic-wrap shirt had said that the Lynch sisters lived forty or fifty miles out. Jack wanted to know when he was getting close to the place. He didn’t want the gang to know that he was coming. He didn’t want to stumble in with headlights blazing. If the moon cooperated, he might even drive the last five or ten miles without lights.
Jack shifted into first gear and started out. The first five miles were pretty smooth. Jack accelerated and cruised along in fourth gear, the tac running just a little bit lower than he would have liked.
Then the potholes started.
They weren’t bad at first-Jack held steady in third gear-but as sunset gave way to night the potholes became harder to see. Eleven miles from the highway. Jack took one hard. The front left shock screamed bloody murder, and Angel said, “Slow down, Jack. We’ll get there.”
“Okay,” Jack said. And then it was the low end of third or the high end of second, dodging potholes as they came.
Twenty miles of that and he had a stiff neck from gripping the wheel while the potholes bounced him around. The Celica sure didn’t have four-wheel drive. Not even close. Jack began to feel pretty stupid for bringing it.
“Maybe we should have brought your car, Angel.”
“Uh-uh. I’ve got a rental. Mazda Miata. It’s built low to the ground-a real highway hugger. We wouldn’t have made it this far.”
Five more miles and Jack abandoned third gear altogether. He remembered the Jeep Cherokee parked outside the porno guy’s studio. He wished he’d stolen the damn thing.
A couple more potholes jarred him good and he stopped wishing. Instead, he berated himself for not stealing the Jeep.
Jack didn’t mention the Jeep to Angel, though. He didn’t want to give her the chance to agree that he’d made a mistake.
Jack rolled his neck and strangled the steering wheel. The engine whined in high second gear. No use hitting third, though. The potholes wouldn’t let him hold it, and he was tired of shifting back and forth.
Five more miles. Headlights washed the white road. Jack couldn’t turn them off. Darkness had fallen, but the moon wasn’t up yet. And he had to see those potholes.
Two more miles and Angel offered to drive.
“No,” Jack said. “It can’t be much further.”
He glanced at the trip meter. They’d traveled thirty-eight miles since leaving the highway. Rancho Lynch couldn’t be much further. They had to be-
“Jack!”
WHAM! The undercarriage of the Toyota smacked something hard and the steering wheel seemed to jump in Jack’s hands.
“What was that?” he asked.
“A rock. I think so anyway. A big rock right in the middle of the road. I don’t know how you missed it.”
“That’s the problem. I didn’t.”
But the car seemed okay. Jack kept his hands on the wheel and held tight to second gear.
He hadn’t clicked another tenth of a mile when the engine started to knock badly.
Then the Celica died.
“Shit,” Jack said. “Shit.”
He got out, lay down on the road, and peered under the front end.
The Celica wasn’t going anywhere.
Angel stepped out of the car. “What’s the deal?”
“That rock took out the oil pan. We’re screwed.”
“No we’re not. We can walk. How much further can it be?”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Jesus, Jack. I’m not walking thirty-plus miles back to the highway. If we go to the Lynch place, at least we’ll have a chance of swiping a car or something.”
Jack thought about that. They’d notched thirty-eight miles since leaving the highway. The porno producer had said that Eden’s place was forty or fifty miles off the main road.
They had to be close.
Two miles if they were lucky. Twelve if they weren’t.
Jack grabbed his pistol and jammed extra ammunition into his pockets. Angel did the same.
“Let’s get started,” Jack said.
Eden lay in her bed, wearing nothing but a red satin sheet. Candles made from the rendered fat of a black
