stuffed into his waistband. The butt dug into his stomach as it jumped from his laughing, rubbing the skin underneath raw. He let it.
'I mean it, Eric,' Tracy continued, easing herself to the floor of the Xerox room which Blackjack had turned over to them. It was one of the few actual rooms in the building with a real door that even locked from the inside. Eric locked it behind him. Blackjack had called this the settlement's honeymoon suite because its use was alternated every night by different couples. They had a sign-up sheet attached to a clipboard hanging on a nail outside the door.
'What's to think about, for Christ's sake,' Tracy added. 'Let's get our canoe and get the hell out of here.'
Eric didn't answer her right away. He was thinking. Not about Blackjack's offer or Angel or Rhino or Alabaster or Liar's Cove. He was back to The Centurion and that woman he'd killed. Crow, they'd called her. She'd been singing outside their stateroom door.
'Every day, it's a gettin' closer, goin' faster than a roller coaster…'
Eric backed against the long wooden table with its three-hole Hunt-Boston paper punch and green paper cutter still resting where it had before the quakes. He couldn't get that song out of his head.
'Love like yours will truly come my way…'
He remembered Buddy Holly, his mom sneaking him into a concert when the Crickets played Tucson. Eric was nine. Everybody else's mother was always dragging him to hear Frankie Laine or Pat Boone. But Eric's mother liked to dance, to move. That night his father had remained on the Hopi reservation to haul a few more wheelbarrows of rocks from the mountain he was carving to resemble one of their legendary chiefs. His father didn't like Buddy Holly because of his black thick-rimmed glasses. 'Makes him look like a busboy in an Oklahoma roadside diner.'
'Come what may, do you ever long for true love from me-ee-ee?'
That was 1959. Three months later Buddy Holly died in a plane crash. Also on board was Ritchie Valens and J. P. Richardson. Eric's mother had cried, worn a black arm band while teaching her archeology class at the university that afternoon. At the end of class she played 'Rave On' on a tinny old record player from the audiovisual department. That night Eric's father brought out his finest block of granite and started sculpting a bust of Buddy Holly for her. It took three years for him to finish and it was not very good because, though he was an enthusiastic artist, he was not very talented. But Eric's mother kept it on her piano long after Eric's father died.
Eric smiled at the memory, savoring it a bit. Good memories were so hard to recall these days, when one came he sometimes couldn't decide if it was of something that really had happened or if he was just making it up.
'Hey, earth to Eric. Come in, please.' Tracy was waving at him.
'A little static, Houston Control. Can't copy.'
She smiled. 'Try an emergency landing, pal, 'cause Rod Serling has taken over down here. He's got us holed up in some flooded building that's been transformed into a farm. He's got us negotiating with some giant ex- pediatrician who claims he's a pirate, while avoiding an ape with a melted face and his companion, a Vietnamese Mata Hari with a kinky streak. And now-boy, Rod's really outdone himself this time-now he's got our heroes, Eric and Gimpy, discussing the possibility of kidnapping the aforementioned Vietnamese vixen from under the nose of said custard-faced ape in the midst of some thieves' and murderers' hideout called Liar's Cove. California just ain't the mellow place it once was. On second thought, don't return to earth. Catch us on the rerun.' She sighed, adjusting her hip for some comfort.
Eric laughed again, clapped his hands in appreciation. 'I can't wait to read your book on this whole experience when we get off of here someday. A combination of Franz Kafka and Woody Allen.'
'Well, I can't believe you actually told him we'd consider his scheme.'
'Why not? It makes sense. We help out, in a purely advisory capacity, and get a free ride up to Santa Barbara on his ship. That alone will save us a lot of paddling. Think about your scabby little knees kneeling in that canoe for a few more days, paddling until your arms ache as if they'd been gnawed on by an alligator.'
'Sweet talker.'
'And with your hip, it'll be even worse. Plus we get as much fresh food as we want and the choice of weapons from the cache. There might be a few things there to help even the odds against Fallows and his bunch.'
'I want to free Timmy, too, Eric, but-' Tracy started to protest when someone knocked on the door.
'Who is it?' she asked.
'Nurse Havczech. Got something for you.'
Eric tilted the gun in his waistband for a fast draw, then opened the door.
'Howdy,' she said, walking into the room. With both hands she held a steaming mug which she offered to Tracy.
Tracy leaned forward to take it, smelling the steam as she leaned back again. She made a face. 'Thanks, but what is it?'
'Don't ask, honey. It'll go down better that way.'
Tracy sniffed it again, wrinkled her nose. 'You sure I'm supposed to drink this and not use it to scrub the bathroom tiles?'
Nurse Havczech laughed as she turned to Eric. 'She's quite a card, your lady.'
'Keeps me in more stitches than an eight-inch knife wound.'
Nurse Havczech stared dumbly at Eric. 'That supposed to be funny?'
'Don't mind him,' Tracy explained. 'He's the ayatollah of comedy.'
Nurse Havczech would have doubled over with laughter if her stomach hadn't been in the way. 'You're a crack-up, lady. What my mom used to call 'the genuine article.''
'It's nice to be appreciated,' Tracy said, winking at Eric.
'Now you go and drink up that concoction, honey. Help you relax and get some sleep. Doctor sent it over.'
'Blackjack?'
Nurse Havczech made a face at that name. 'Yeah, that's what he calls himself.'
Tracy frowned at the steaming mug.
'Now, don't fret. It's just a little distilled maple syrup made into a tea. We use it around here as an anesthetic.'
Tracy looked at Eric, who shrugged. 'Kind of a Mickey Finn,' he said.
'Yeah, that's right, honey. Knock you on your ass for a few hours and give that hip of yours a chance to relax.'
Tracy held her breath while she sipped the hot liquid. It slid across her tongue and down her throat with a soothing warmth. She took a breath. 'Not too bad. Tastes a little like sweet and sour pork. I'm surprised he didn't send a few joints of grass along.'
Nurse Havczech made a stern face like a mother defending her child. 'Doctor might be a little bizarre, young lady, but he's still a damn fine medical man. He was one of the best in the state before this whole crazy mess and I won't hear anything bad about him.'
'But just when his medical skills are most needed he's thrown them away to become a pirate.'
Nurse Havczech sighed. 'Peculiar, sure. But there's a lot about the situation you just don't know. Can't understand.'
'Like what? Help me understand why a mature man with any ethics would do what he's done. Become what he's become.'
'Can't,' she said with a finality that left no doubt. She pressed her wrinkled lips together as if to demonstrate her inflexibility.
Eric lifted the only chair in the room, a gray metal folding chair, and slid it next to Nurse Havczech. 'How bad is his cancer?'
Nurse Havczech stared at Eric, and he could see the pain in her old watery eyes. She deflated a few inches with another heavy sign and sat down. 'How'd you know?'
'Guessed. His baldness is a little patchy, like someone who's been through chemotherapy. And the marijuana. He didn't seem to enjoy it as a recreational treat. He seemed to need the relief.'
'We grow some upstairs just for him. He'd never smoked before, so he's still getting used to it.'
Tracy looked stunned. 'That explains what he said before. That the quakes are the best thing that could have happened to him.'
