slowly down the wide street. 'We'll take the back roads for a while. Stay off the interstate. Maybe use the Pearblossom Highway. Love that drive. Have you seen Hockney's painting of it?'
'Move it, Joe.'
'It's only a four-banger.'
'Here we go!' said Ozburn.
He released the lap harness and jackknifed his body and scrunched into the leg space as far as he could, his back buckling and his legs aching while the LASD cruisers whined past them with their lights flashing.
'Looks like two more coming up,' said Leftwich. 'And one has a headlight out. That's amusing.'
Ozburn felt the top of his head pressing against the glove box and his back rippling with pain and he stared down at the floor mat. Balled tightly as he was, his sunglasses steamed up as two more sirens shrieked and two more sets of lights flashed by overhead. He growled. He felt Father Joe's small hand on his back, rocking him gently, and heard his soothing voice: Be still, my son. You have performed good acts and defeated evil.
'I feel like my body is being eaten,' said Ozburn.
'You are overtired. Delia was like that as a child. You need rest. They're gone, Sean. You can come up.'
Ozburn flung himself upright against the seat and again fumbled for the lap harness and again Daisy licked the back of his neck with great enthusiasm.
'Delia?'
'My sister. The woman you saw that night in the restaurant.'
'She's pretty.'
'She's a very bright person, too. Troubled, at times. Now, tonight you should stay at my place. I've got a very nice little double-wide right up here in Phelan. On half an acre and neat as a pin. And I'll be busy elsewhere for the next few days, so you'll have the run of the place. I'll be gettable by phone. Oh, and there's a rather old Chevy Malibu in the carport but it runs well and you're welcome to it.'
Ozburn groaned and leaned his head against the rest and squinted through his sunglasses at the oncoming headlights, bright and merciless.
They rode in silence for a long while, looping around the regional airport in Palmdale and picking up the Pearblossom Highway toward Phelan.
'Sean, you've done some very fine work these last few weeks. There have been some unexpected setbacks, but a man's character is revealed when he's challenged more than when he's triumphant. I'm honored to have helped you in my own small way. You know what I'd like? I'd like to for you to tell me what you're planning to do with those guns in the trunk.'
Ozburn rolled his head to the left and took a long look at the priest. 'My job.'
'Your job? Oh, you're going to sell them to bad men and let ATF swoop in?'
'Roger.'
'You are a delight to know and a delight to work with.'
'Step on it, Padre.'
'We're almost there.' Later that night after Leftwich had driven off, Ozburn sat on the couch in the trailer with Daisy at his feet and listened to the wind skid across the high desert and nudge the trailer. He thought it was like a lion nosing a mouse. He drank Father Joe's Irish whiskey. For a long while he sat with his head back looking up at the ceiling and he could feel nothing at all in his body. Not one sensation, not the awareness of a limb or a pulse or the taking of a breath. He willed his feet to move and they did not. He willed his head to lift off the couch back but it did not lift. In this state, emptied of the physical, he thought of Seliah, imprisoned by sleep like a butterfly in amber. Where did her mind go? Somewhere pleasant? Surely she dreamed. He thought of the first time he'd seen her in the winter quarter freshman comp class at the U of A in Tucson, walking in with one of her swim team friends, both of them tall, pretty girls wrapped up against the desert cold in Wildcats Swimming sweatshirts, their hair greened by the hours of chlorine, faces tan and lovely. The friend had caught his eye first, but then he looked at Seliah and she smiled back and he elbowed the dive-team buddy beside him and said: Look! He thought of the swimmer-diver parties they'd had and a long hike they took up Sabino Canyon in the spring where he'd plucked her a handful of wildflowers and this had moved her far more than he'd thought it would, and later, when he took her arm and stopped her as a big Western diamondback inched across the trail in front of them he had felt her shiver; then she pulled him back down the trail and clamped her body onto his and kissed him hungrily for what seemed like an hour. Ozburn thought of watching Seliah get third in the women's freestyle at the Pan Am Games, of the wild grad party, and of meeting her folks in Boulder, their wedding day and honeymoon and the day he got his acceptance notification from ATF. He thought of the good years, then the undercover assignment, his disillusionment, his rebirth near the volcano, his acceptance of the mission that he himself never really understood. The terrible good acts. Defeating evil. Monstrous desire. The loss of faith in everything he had ever been faithful to. The sickness and the madness and the killing. What happened, he wondered. What?
Later he felt his body return and he got up for another whiskey and retrieved his laptop from the duffel and he wrote an e-mail to Seliah even though he knew it might be a while before she could read it. From: Sean Gravas [[email protected]] Sent: Monday, October 31, 2011 11:49 p.m. To: Gravas, Seliah Subject: for when you wake up Dear Seliah, Welcome back to the land of the LIVING, sweet woman! You must be exhausted! The important things are to rest and eat right and get up and move around as SOON as you can. You might want to do it in the water. If you're right about that virus, then your aversion to water would be attributable to it, and now that you've awakened and BEATEN BACK that virus, you can return to the water that you always loved. Three alleged wise men PROMISED me that you would live if I repented and I did repent though the whole thing seemed pretty much beside the point. When you've done and seen what I have, does your contrition really matter? To who, and why?
I don't know what happened. I know they can take me but they CAN'T take away my love for you. It will live until the last beat of my heart. And if, as some people say, what we do in life can reach beyond our deaths, then my love WILL touch you someday when you least expect it! I wish it could have been through a daughter or a son. I'll try to get Daisy back to you, though a dog isn't much of a substitute for a child. So listen for me in the silences and I'll be there, standing off to the side, waiting in the shadows, TOUCHING you like the wind, invisible but present. You're young enough to START again and to have it ALL. I want you to have it ALL. Remember me fondly and keep open a comfortable room in your heart for me. I'll be there and I won't be a bother. Live well. Love well. Multiply. The world needs more of you. I'd be honored if you named your first son after me. With Love Everlasting, Sean
A few minutes later Ozburn called Paco's number and gave the time and place to him.
'Bring Silvia or there is no deal, Paco.'
'But if there's no deal, we will kill Silvia.'
'Paco, evolve. Bring Silvia or you'll never get the guns. I'll take her from there. I'll get her home.'
After a long silence Paco agreed.
Next Ozburn called Hood and gave him the same place but an earlier time.
'I heard about Lancaster,' he said.
'What a mess, Charlie. LASD?'
'Yes. Two of them died. And three of Herredia's couriers. The other one is critical.'
'They tried to take me out, Charlie. I figured someone had tipped the deal to the Gulf Cartel. So I did what I had to do to survive. But I've got your guns. And I've got the Gulf Cartel's money. All I need is a ribbon to tie it all up with. Day after tomorrow, Charlie. Will you be there?'
'I'll be there.'
'They'll have a girl named Silvia with them. I saved her from death and she lives in Agua Blanca. Promise me you'll get her home.'
'I promise.'
'It's been a good run. I'm tired.'
'I can see Seliah right now,' Hood said.
'What is she doing? How does she look?'
'Sleeping. She looks far away.'
'When will they bring her out of it?'
'Soon. The antibody counts are almost there. She's almost fought it off.'
Ozburn felt his throat constrict and the tears come to his eyes. They burned hot and spilled over. 'It's hard to talk right now.'
