"c28" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burt Andrew - Noontide Night)
NOONTIDE NIGHT - Chapter 28
Chapter 28
6:02 P.M., Thursday, February 24, 2000
North of Halifax, Nova Scotia
Nate studied the roadmap of the Maritime provinces he'd,
well, borrowed from a deserted and looted general store outside
of Halifax. He'd also borrowed a bolt of heavy tartan-patterned
cloth (they'd long ago been bought or looted out of sleeping bags
and coats). He'd wanted to pay but... with what? He'd taped an
IOU to the cash register with his name and P. O. box address
saying he'd send the money later. The best place to cross the
border looked like what was labeled as a dirt road leading into
North Amity in Maine. If necessary, he would four-wheel it and
avoid the road entirely. It wasn't as if there was a three-thousand
mile electric fence.
But first he had to ditch the jeep. That'd be pretty obvious if
spotted, particularly crossing the border into the U.S. Nate
wouldn't even consider stealing someone's car; he knew he didn't
have it in him.
Car dealers, on the other hand, weren't people. They were
pond-sucking scum. Especially used car dealers. He'd been young
when he was last suckered by a dealer; twenty-one and just out of
college. He'd been given too little for his trade-in and paid too
much for their lemon. Payback would be sweet.
Nate found his mark in Truro, a small town an hour's country
drive north of Halifax. A Chevy dealership sat adjacent to a strip
shopping center with a McDonalds. The world didn't look so beat
to hell here. There were cars at the shopping center, and a few
people moving about normally, not as if they expected rabid bikers
to blast them with shotguns at any moment. They had power;
presumably fed from the same source as Halifax. But being a small
town mostly surrounded by country, Nate could imagine that
they'd pulled together better here. Less of a criminal element to tip
the scales. Nate had been hypothesizing that thugs' influence was
more than linear; maybe quadratic—two thugs wreaked four times
the havoc, ten thugs a hundred times. Even if the percent of
people who reacted badly were constant—say, one percent—in a
small town that only meant, perhaps, ten people, whereas it might
mean ten thousand assholes in a city, and causing a million times
more destruction. Above some critical mass of population, Nate
figured a city fell into the swirling black pit of chaos; below it,
people squashed the uprising and went on mostly happily.
Halifax had obviously been above the cutoff. Truro was below.
Nate drove back for a quick stop in a toy store to buy a toy
gun, a replica of a German Luger, that from a distance might pass
as a real .22. He stuffed the toy in his large jacket pocket and
headed back to his target, pulling the car into the McDonalds on
the side away from the dealership. He walked into McD's. He
wished he hadn't. There was a sign saying "no hamburgers or
drinks" and only one employee on duty, though he seemed
sufficient enough to handle the light traffic; just a lady with a
couple kids. It was the smell that made him dizzy. The smell of
normality. Greasy fries. A lingering reminder of squashed buns
on thin patties of meat. Special sauce. Kids. Life was sort of okay
here. Nate hated McDonalds' food in general, but today it spun
him around. He wished he'd had more than $8.43. Oh, for a bite
of those foul, foul fries.
Nate paused, smiled wanly at the burger flipper, shook his
head. He strode to the far door, and watched out at the dealership.
Yes! A slime-oozing salesman was standing outside smoking a
butt, exhaled smoke mixing with frosty breath. Nate waited until
the guy was looking up. Much like magic, social engineering
required the audience to see what you wanted them to see. Nate
sauntered over the packed snow to the dealership; not toward butt-smoker, but to an older, red Jeep Wrangler. No, better skip that
one; red's too easy to spot, and if someone reports he drove from
the base in a "Jeep"... Nate peered in, then wandered to the late
model, cream-colored Land Rover. Yeah, this was the car. New
enough (hopefully) to be in mechanically good shape; but used, so
the dirtball dealer would have paid for it in full, not be sliding it
on credit from the manufacturer like they did with new cars.
Maximize their pain.
The sales-slime flicked his butt away, shoved a calculating
hand in his pocket, and eased over to Nate. "Quite a beauty, eh?"
Slimy was tall and boxy, his wavy blond hair brittle from too much
mousse; he was almost square-jawed, except it seemed out of
alignment with his face and was pitted from bad adolescent acne.
Nate almost laughed openly at the one-size too small elbow-patched tweed jacket. Nate knew this guy; this is who childhood
bullies grow up to be.
"Kinda slow these days, huh? I bet you could get me a good
deal on this."
"Haven't seen a car from Detroit this year. So yes sir, I can get
you in this baby for $299 a month whatdya think?"
"Wow, that little?" Nate played stupid. Nate circled the car,
licking his lips and generally trying to convey the body language
of an easy mark. They bantered for a few minutes before Nate
requested the test drive. He hoped the guy would let him take it
out alone, but wasn't surprised when Slimy fumbled on a plate
and jumped into the passenger seat with a "Let's go!"
Nate headed west. He cooed inanely about the leather seats,
the awesome stereo, the smooth handling. Trade in? Yeah, he had
a '97 Jeep Cherokee parked by McDonalds, what would that be
worth? Hard to say? Well, what do you think, ballpark? That
much? Huh. Business been slow since the blackout?
Nate kept up a steady stream of banalities while he headed out
of town. The gas gauge showed at least a gallon, so he figured he
could make it to where the map said was a little dot named Clifton.
He hoped Slimy would just keep focusing on his mouth and not
worry how far they were driving. A few miles out he found a
deserted-looking dirt road to turn down.
Nate suspected it led to a logging area or somesuch. They
bumped down the road, the snow having been plowed off to ether
side, leaving the road dry but deeply rutted. Gentle hills of piney
green and white rose off toward the horizon. A slight breeze blew
the occasional detritus of last Fall's leaves across the path; dead
and already forgotten. A mile or so in he cut the engine. The
bottom of a shallow bowl, they were surrounded by the snowy
forest. The thin cloud of dust drove on past them in silence.
Nate stuck his hand in his jacket pocket in the shape of a gun.
"Get out."
"What the fuck?"
"I said, get out."
"You don't have a gun."
"I do, but the question is, are you willing to risk your life on
that guess? I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or
only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've
kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the
most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head
clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do you feel
lucky?"
"You don't have a gun."
"God. No wonder you're a car salesman. You're too fucking
stupid to be anything else. I don't bluff." Nate took it out,
brandished it under the guy's nose, put it back with a nervous
glance around him, as if he didn't want a sudden crowd to see it.
Slimy got out. "Asshole."
"If it was warmer, I'd make you strip, so count yourself lucky.
Now close the door." Nate reversed up the dirt road. "Asshole."
His choice of vehicle appeared to save him the embarrassment
of being cash-poor. At the gas station in Clifton the grizzly-bearded old attendant, probably the owner, remarked "Nice car."
"Thanks."
The fellow looked down at his credit card terminal and
scowled. "Phone's out 'gain. Here, just sign."
"Thanks again." Nate was glad to see people were accepting
money again instead of insisting on barterables.
It wasn't until Nate was a few miles down the road that he
realized the car still had the dealer's plate on it. He realized with
horror the old guy was probably scared to death and being extra
nice in case Nate was a murderous car thief. Well, at least his
credit card was good for it.
As he drove for hours, forests of fir and spruce his only
company, he planned his next steps. The whole plan had
originally sprung into his mind back on base, fully formed, but not
entirely clear. He couldn't keep using the credit card, since they'd
track that all too easily. He stopped at a 24-hour rip-em-off check
cashing outfit St. John and maxxed out his cash advances at a
couple thousand dollars U.S. He bought several large plastic jugs
which he filled with snow, and all the beef jerky the quick-e-mart
had. Funny how people would rather starve than eat beef jerky;
Nate shrugged. He liked the stuff. He wished he could find a
sleeping bag instead of his bolt of plaid cloth, but those seemed
scarce as hamburgers at a vegan BBQ.
They drove the lightly trafficked roads, hour following hour
with the same inevitable precision that each tree followed another,
marching down the highway. Nate sometimes scanned for radio
stations, but found few, and disgustedly turned those off after a
moment of religious prattle. Gray overcast day gave way to dark
overcast night.
And then he was across. The United States of America. He
expected a swell of music, a starry break in the clouds, a warming
of the air. He'd breezed right through the small border checkpoint,
unmanned at one a.m. He rolled down the window and belted out
a "Woohoo!" Minutes later up Highway 1 he was on I-95 and
speeding west, toward a new day. Toward home.
In the dark, everything looked so normal.
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