Ben shifted into motion. He kept telling himself that if he had any sense he would throw her out. “Listen. I’ll take you as far as the city limits. After that you’re on your own.”
“Where are you headed?”
“I’m on a run. I have a delivery to make in Minnesota.” “Isn’t that a city somewhere?”
“It’s a state. You’re thinking of Minneapolis, which is a city in Minnesota. Right next to St. Paul. They call them the Twin Cities.”
“Minnesota?” Space rolled it on her tongue as if tasting it.
“Are the people there nice?”
“If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, you can forget it.”
Space looked at him. “You’re nice. You’re trying to act all tough, but you’re giving me a lift out of Seattle out of the goodness of your heart.”
“Girl, I don’t know why in hell I’m doing this.” Ben was sincere. Ordinarily, he would open the door and give her a push.
“I don’t like people much.”
“All people? Or just white folks?”
Ben and Semper Fi’s gears growled at the same time. “Don’t even try to lay that on me. I’m no bigot. I don’t hate whites just because they’re white. Although a lot of them hate me because I’m not.” He came to another intersection and wheeled to the left.
“When I say I don’t like people, I mean all people. Black, white, red, yellow, polka-dot, you name it.”
“That’s harsh. You got a reason or is it you were born a grump and just got worse as you turned antique?”
“I’m thirty-four, girl. That’s hardly antique.”
“It’s more than twice as old as me,” Space said. Suddenly she pointed. “Look out!”
Ben had taken his eyes off the street. He glanced ahead, swore, and hit the brakes, hard. Another traffic jam took up most of the next block. A policeman was moving among the vehicles, gesturing and giving orders, apparently trying to get everything moving.
“Looks like we’ll be stuck here for a while.”
“Not if I can help it.”
Another alley offered a way out. When the cop turned and started back the other way, Ben wasted no time in taking advantage of it. But he had barely nosed the truck in when he had to hit the brakes again. This time there wasn’t just one Dumpster; there were five.
“God doesn’t like you.”
Ben didn’t care if there were twenty. “God helps those who help themselves,” he retorted, and gave her a demonstration of why Semper Fi was the next best thing to a bulldozer. All the Dumpsters were on wheels, so it was easy enough. The first pushed the second and they pushed the third, but the fourth spun and lodged against a wall. An extra tamp on the gas pedal, a loud crunch, and Semper Fi was out of the alley with Dumpsters rolling every which way.
A horn blared, and a compact car went flying past, the driver shaking a fist in fury. “You made a friend there.”
“Hush.” Ben had traffic to contend with. He turned up the radio, hoping for a traffic report. Instead, there was a bulletin; Israel had unleashed more nukes on her enemies.
“Just like in the Bible,” Space said.
“Read it, have you?”
“Ouch. Is your middle name Sarcastic? That reminds me. What is your name?” Ben told her.
“Well, you got it right. I hardly ever read, period. But I had grandparents. And Grandmom never went anywhere without her Good Book. She read parts to me every night when she tucked me in. And one of the books, I think that’s what they call them, is about the stuff that’s going down right now. About the end of the world.”
“Not going to happen,” Ben said, checking his rearview mirrors.
“What isn’t?”
“What are we talking about? The end of the world, dope. It’ll be bad, but the world will go on.” “Oh. I didn’t know you were an expert.” “Two words, smartass. Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
“Who?”
“Don’t you know anything? World War Two? The cities we bombed. With atom bombs?”
“Oh.” Space nodded. “I’ve heard of them. I just didn’t remember what they were called.”
“I guess you didn’t hear that fifty years after the bombs were dropped, both cities were fine. The people were healthy, the parks had flowers and trees, the water was safe to drink.”
“So what are you saying? That we can bomb the hell out of the planet and fifty years from now things will be peachy?”
“Fifty. A hundred. I can’t say how long it’ll take.” Ben shrugged. “Look at the past. Look at all the volcanoes, all the earthquakes, all the wars. You name it. The world will recover.
The world always recovers.” “I wish I had your confidence.”
Ben concentrated on driving. He wanted to get on the Greenway as close to where it crossed to Mercer Island as possible, on the theory that he’d have less congestion to deal with. To the best of his memory, that meant taking 167 and merging. He worried that he would find one or the other impassable, but for once things went smoothly.
Space pressed her nose to her window. “Is that Lake Washington down there?”
“What else would it be? The Pacific Ocean?”
“I only asked, smartass, because water makes me nervous. I can’t swim.” Space tore her gaze from the scenic splendor and shuddered. “I’ve always had this secret fear that one day I’ll drown.” She held up a hand. “I know. I know. But I can’t help how I feel.”
“You can breathe easy. I’m not about to drive through the guardrail. My truck can’t swim, either.”
“Funny.”
Ben didn’t let himself relax until they were past Lake Sammamish. By then they were rolling along at the speed limit.
The traffic was heavy but not as bad as in the city.
“Don’t we have mountains to go over?”
“There are a lot of mountains between here and Minnesota,”
Ben answered. They had seventeen hundred miles to cover, give or take, across some of the most rugged terrain on the continent.
World War Three was raging across the globe and all sorts of lunacy and mayhem were breaking
