'Yes. It's safer.'
'You mind if I sing `California Here I Come' as we roll along?' I said.
'You're in a weakened condition,' Susan said. 'It's better if you rest.'
'I'm just thinking of you,' I said. 'It's a long ride.'
'Remember I got a gun,' Hawk said.
'You'd shoot me if I sing? Your brother?'
'Shoot myself,' Hawk said, 'you sing a lot.'
Pearl stopped lapping my neck finally and settled against the backseat and looked out the window. 'We're not flying because someone might see us?' I said.
'And also because we can't leave the baby behind,' Susan said. 'It will take you a long time to rehab… and she obviously isn't going in a crate in the belly of an airplane.'
'Of course not,' I said. 'Why Santa Barbara?'
'It's far away, it's not a place anyone would look for you. It's warm. I have a friend who knows a person who knows a real estate broker out there. I was able to rent a house.'
'In your name?'
'Mr. and Mrs. James Butler Hickock,' Susan said.
I jerked my head toward Hawk. 'Who's he,' I said, 'Deadwood Dick?'
'That ain't what the ladies call me,' Hawk said.
'Are you guys going to talk dirty all the way across the country?' Susan said.
'I was planning to,' Hawk said.
'Me too,' I said.
'Oh, good,' Susan said.
'What about your patients,' I said.
'I have two colleagues covering for me,' she said. 'I've had a bit of time to arrange things.'
'Good we didn't adopt that kid yet,' I said.
'Yes.'
We were on the Mass Pike now, heading west slowly in heavy traffic. The dashboard clock said 5:27. It had been dark for nearly an hour.
'What route we taking?'
Susan said, 'Hawk?'
'Out 84 to Scranton. Down 81 to Knoxville. Turn right, take Route 40 across. Figure to reach Scranton tonight.'
'Route 40 replaces stretches of the old Route 66 west of Oklahoma City,' I said. 'I know all the lyrics to `Route 66.''
'Bobby Troup be glad to know that,' Hawk said. We crept into the toll booths in Weston and Susan picked up a toll ticket. Then we were through them and the traffic thinned as the commuters peeled off into the western suburbs.
''You go to St. Louie, Joplin, Missouri, and Oklahoma City is mighty pretty…''
We slept in Holiday Inns. Me and Hawk in one room, Susan and Pearl next door. I felt that Pearl was getting the better of the deal. With Hawk holding my arm, I could shuffle in and out of the hotels and rest stops and Petro Stations.
''See Amarillo; Gallup, New Mexico; Flagstaff, Arizona; now don't forget Winona; Kingman; Barstow; San Bernardino… ''
Susan and Hawk took turns driving. Susan drove faster than Hawk, and maybe faster than Mario Andretti. Pearl and I sat and gazed in semicatatonia out the window at the American continent as it scrolled past. Pearl had, quite early in the trip, edged over closer to Hawk whenever he was in the back, and leaned heavily into him and with her head on his shoulder.
'She ain't heavy, she's my sister?' I said.
Hawk sighed.
'Be a long trip,' he said.
''Get hip to this friendly tip, when you take that California trip…''
Chapter 37
THE HOUSE WAS in Montecito, white stucco and red tile, up in the subtropical hills, off East Valley Road, surrounded by greenery, with the hills continuing up past it and eventually easing into the Sierra Madre Mountains. From the upstairs balcony you could see the Santa Barbara Channel, with the Channel Islands in the background, and the Jurassic-looking oil platforms marching along off the coast. Around us were expensive homes and gated estates, redolent with orange trees and palm trees and vines with red flowers and vines with purple flowers. The houses weren't that far from each other, but the vegetation was so dense you couldn't see your neighbors. The streets had no streetlights, you rarely saw anyone walking along, and at night you could hear coyotes calling, and
