It would be an anchor without draining too much of the battery. It would let him gauge how far he’d gone.
He headed as straight away from the road as he could, sweeping the flashlight from side to side, trying to memorize the patterns of the rabbit brush and yucca and rocks.
Off in the distance a coyote howled.
He got a hundred steps in.
Then he took a second hundred.
He turned and looked at the taillight to find it wasn’t much more than a red speck. He guessed he was about the right distance in but had to admit he could easily be off by fifty steps, a hundred even.
Suddenly a sharp pain came from the bottom of his foot.
He toppled.
The flashlight dropped and went out.
River pulled his shoe off.
With it came a thick, two-inch cactus needle.
He pulled it out of the shoe, made sure there were no broken ones lurking around and put his shoe back on. The pain was still there although not quite as sharp.
His foot was already swelling.
The terrain was darker than death.
He felt around until he found the flashlight and flicked the button to no avail.
It was ruined.
He couldn’t see two feet.
He had no option except to get back to the bike and bring it out into the terrain. That would give him a 99 percent chance of ending up with a flat.
How would he get back to the city?
Screw it.
He’d worry about it later.
Right now what he needed to do was just get the damn bike out here and find January.
He turned to find the taillight and get his bearings.
He didn’t see it.
It wasn’t there.
It was gone.
All he had in every direction was darkness.
106
Wilde stopped pacing long enough to light a new cigarette from his old one, then continued his back and forth trek from one wall of London’s living room to the other. London watched him from the couch, saying nothing. On the coffee table in front of her was a telephone. Next to it was a fake map. It was two minutes to eleven. If the universe worked the way it was supposed to, the phone would ring before Wilde finished his smoke.
Today had been a bust.
Crockett Bluetone was nowhere to be found. Wilde stopped by the man’s office a dozen times. Each time he was out and no one knew where he was, at least that’s what everyone said including the redhead receptionist, who Wilde believed. He wasn’t at his house either. That meant the original map was somewhere out in the universe and the game had to be played tonight without it.
Equally bad, Tarzan hadn’t shown up at his lair all day.
Wilde searched the boxcars and every adjacent inch of space and found no signs of Alexa Blank, current or past. No one had been held prisoner there in recent history, either that or all traces had been meticulously erased.
Wilde looked at his watch.
Eleven o’clock on the nose.
The phone rang.
He looked at London.
Her forehead was tight and her eyes were dark.
He picked the receiver up and sandwiched it between his ear and London’s.
“Hello,” she said.
“Do you have the map?”
The voice was a man’s, the same one as before.
“Yes.”
“You’re going to get one chance and only one chance to do this right,” he said. “It’s important that you understand that. It’s important that you do exactly as I say, not an ounce more and not an ounce less. Do you understand?”
She exhaled.
“Yes.”
“Good,” he said. “Are you alone?”
She hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Did you call the police?”
“No.”
“Think carefully about that answer,” he said. “Because if you called them, I’ll know it. I’ll see them following you. If that happens, the devil comes to pay a visit to your little friend-her first, then you later. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“I hope so, I really do.” A beat then, “Here’s what you’re going to do. After we hang up, go to your bedroom and look under the pillow. You’ll find two keys there. One key fits a padlock where your little friend is being kept. The other fits a handcuff that has her fastened to something. Put those keys in your pocket. Don’t put them in your purse. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, good,” he said. “Take the map and put it in your purse. Does your purse have a zipper?”
“Yes.”
“Be sure it’s zipped tight,” he said.
“Okay.”
“There’s a cab parked outside your house right now with the lights out. Go to the window and make sure it’s there.”
She did.
It was there.
Her heart raced.
“It’s there,” she said.
“Here’s what you’re going to do,” he said. “When we hang up, you go get into the back of that cab. Here’s the important part. Don’t say a word to the driver. He’s been instructed that if you say anything, even one word, he’s to pull over to the side of the road and let you out. If that happens, we get back to the devil part of the equation. Do
