sharply he thought for a second they were going to overturn. There was a hideouscrunch that sounded like part of the frame hitting rock, and then they were jolting safely down the road again.
“God damn,” Crow said flatly. “Don’t you ever do that again.” He was shaking. “You’re fucking crazy!” he added, more emphatically.
“Your fly is unzipped,” Annie said, amused.
He hastily tucked himself in. “Crazy.”
“You want crazy? You so much as look at another woman and I’ll show you crazy.” She opened the glove compartment and dug out her packet of Kents. “I’m just the girl for you, boyo, and don’t you forget it.” She lit up and then opened the window a crack for ventilation. Mentholated smoke filled the cabin.
In a companionable wordlessness they drove on through the snow and the blinding sunlight, the cab warm, the motor humming, and the monsters screaming at their back.
For maybe fifty miles he drove, while Annie drowsed in the seat beside him. Then the steering got stiff and the wheel began to moan under his hands whenever he turned it. It was a long, low, mournful sound like whale- song.
Without opening her eyes, Annie said, “What kind of weird-shit station are you listening to? Can’t you get us something better?”
“Ain’t no radio out here, babe. Remember where we are.”
She opened her eyes. “So what is it, then?”
“Steering fluid’s low. I think maybe we sprung a leak back down the road, when we almost went off.”
“What are we going to do about it?”
“I’m not sure there’s much wecan do.”
At which exact moment they turned a bend in the road and saw a gas station ahead. Two sets of pumps, diesel, air, a Mini-Mart, and a garage. Various machines of dubious functionality rusting out back.
Crow slammed on the brakes. “Thatshouldn’t be there.” He knew that for a fact. Last time he’d been through, the road had been empty all the way through to Troy.
Annie finally opened her eyes. They were the greenest things Crow had ever seen. They reminded him of sunlight through jungle leaves, of moss-covered cathedrals, of a stone city he’d once been to, sunk in the shallow waters of the Caribbean. That had been a dangerous place, but no more dangerous than this slim and lovely lady beside him. After a minute, she simply said, “Ask if they do repairs.”
Crow pulled up in front of the garage and honked the horn a few times. A hound-lean mechanic came out, wiping his hands on a rag. “Yah?”
“Lissen, Ace, we got us a situation here with our steering column. Think you can fix us up?”
The mechanic stared at him, unblinking, and said, “We’re all out of fluid. I’ll take a look at your underside, though.”
While the man was on a creeper under the truck, Crow went to the crapper. Then he ambled around back of the garage. There was a window there. He snapped the latch, climbed in, and poked around.
When he strolled up front again, the mechanic was out from under the truck and Annie was leaning against one of the pumps, flirting with him. He liked it, Crow could tell. Hell, even faggots liked it when Annie flirted at them.
Annie went off to the ladies’ when he walked up, and by the time she came back the mechanic was inside again. She raised her eyebrows and Crow said, “Bastard says he can’t fix the leak and ain’t got no fluid. Only I boosted two cases out a window and stashed ’em in a junker out back. Go in and distract him, while I get them into the truck.”
Annie thrust her hands deep into the pockets of her leather jacket and twisted slightly from foot to foot.
“I’ve got a better thought,” she said quietly. “Kill him.”
“Say what?”
“He’s one of Eric’s people.”
“You sure of that?”
“Ninety percent sure. He’s here. What else could he be?”
“Yeah, well, there’s still that other ten percent.”
Her face was a mask. “Why take chances?”
“Jesus.” Crow shook his head. “Babe, sometimes you give me the creeps. I don’t mind admitting that you do.”
“Do you love me? Then kill him.”
“Hey. Forget that bullshit. We been together long enough, you must know what I’m like, okay? I ain’t killing nobody today. Now go into the convenience there and buy us ten minutes, eh? Distract the man.”
He turned her around and gave her a shove toward the Mini-Mart. Her shoulders were stiff with anger, her bottom big and around in those tight leather pants. God, but he loved the way she looked in those things! His hand ached to give her a swat on the rump, just to see her scamper. Couldn’t do that with Annie, though. Not now, not never. Just one more thing that bastard Eric had spoiled for others.
He had the truck loaded and the steering column topped up by the time Annie strode out of the Mini-Mart with a boom box and a stack of CDs. The mechanic trotted after her, toting up prices on a little pad. When he presented her with the total, she simply said, “Send the bill to my husband,” and climbed into the cab.
With a curt, wordless nod, the man turned back toward the store.
“Got anymore doubts?” Annie asked coldly.
Crow cursed. He’d killed men in his time, but it wasn’t anything he was proud of. And never what you’d call murder. He slammed down the back of the seat, to access the storage compartment. All his few possessions were in there, and little enough they were for such a hard life as he’d led. Some spare clothes. A basket of trinkets he’d picked up along the way. His guns.
Forty miles down the road, Annie was still fuming. Abruptly, she turned and slammed Crow in the side with her fist. Hard. She had a good punch for a woman. Keeping one hand on the wheel, he half-turned and tried to seize her hands in one enormous fist. She continued hitting him in the chest and face until he managed to nab them both.
“What?” he demanded, angrily.
“You should have killed him.”
“Three handfuls of gold nuggets, babe. I dug ’em out of the Yukon with my own mitts. That’s enough money to keep anybody’s mouth shut.”
“Oh mercy God! Not one of Eric’s men. Depend upon it, yon whoreson caitiff was on the phone the very instant you were out of his sight.”
“You don’t know that kind of cheap-jack hustler the way I do-” Crow began. Which was-he knew it the instant the words left his mouth-exactly the wrong thing to say to Annie. Her lips went thin and her eyes went hard. Her words were bitter and curt. Before he knew it, they were yelling at each other.
Finally he had no choice but to pull over, put the truck in park, and settle things right there on the front seat.
Afterward, she put on a CD she liked, old ballads and shit, and kept on playing it over and over. One in particular made her smile at him, eyes sultry and full of love, whenever it came on.
It was upstairs downstairs the lady went Put on her suit of leather-o And there was a cry from around the door She’s away wi’ the raggle taggle gypsy-o To tell the truth, the music wasn’t exactly to his taste. But that was what they liked back where Annie came from. She couldn’t stand his music. Said it was just noise. But when he felt that smile and those eyes on him it was better than three nights in Tijuana with any other woman he’d ever met. So he didn’t see any point in making a big thing out of it.
The wheel was starting to freeze up on them again. Crow was looking for a good place to pull off and dump in a few cans of fluid, when suddenly Annie shivered and sat up straight. She stared off into the distance, over the eternal mountains. “What is it?” he asked.
“I have a premonition.”
“Of what?” He didn’t much like her premonitions. They always came true.
“Something. Over there.” She lifted her arm and pointed.
Two Basilisks lifted up over the mountains.
“Shit!”
