One of Us. Michael Marshall Smith

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СКАЧАТЬ the way back to the border I tried to call a friend of mine in the Net, a guy called Quat, but there was no reply. I left a message for him to get in touch with me as soon as possible, and then just concentrated on not driving into the sea. I was pretty calm by then, telling myself the Mexican cops had just been fishing, rousting a conspicuous Americano for kicks.

      Just outside Tijuana I stopped to get some gas from a run-down place by the side of the road. I could have waited until I got the other side of the border, but the station looked like it needed the business. While the guy was gleefully filling my car up I took the opportunity to throw the remaining packets of Kims in the trash, and get some proper cigarettes at contraband prices.

      I also elected to make use of their men's room, which was a questionable decision. The gas station claimed to be under new management, but the toilets were evidently still under some old management, or more probably governed by an organization which predated the concept of management altogether. Possibly the Spanish Inquisition. The smell was bracing, to say the least. Both of the urinals had been smashed, and one of the cubicles appeared to be where the local horses came when they needed to empty their backs. If so, someone needed to introduce them to the concept of toilet paper, and explain where exactly they should sit.

      The remaining cubicle was relatively bearable, and I locked myself in and set about what I had to do. My mind was on other things, like what the hell I was going to do when I got back home, when I heard a knock on the door.

      ‘I'll be out in a minute,’ I said, zipping myself back up. Maybe the guy was just worried he wasn't going to get paid.

      There was no answer. I was groping through the same sentence in pidgin Spanish when suddenly I realized it wouldn't be the gas jockey. He had my car keys. I wasn't going anywhere without them.

      The knock came again, louder this time.

      I looked quickly around, but there was no way out of the cubicle – except, of course, through the door. There never is. Take it from me, if you're ever on the run, a toilet cubicle isn't a great place to hide. They're designed with very little functional flexibility.

      ‘Who is it?’ I asked. There was no answer.

      I had my gun with me, but that was no answer either. I'd like to think I've grown up, but it could just be that I've got more frightened. I was never a big one for firearms, and encouraging situations in which I might get my head splattered across walls had even less appeal than it used to. The gun's little more than a souvenir, and I haven't fired it in anger in four years. I've fired it in boredom, as my old CD player would testify, but that's not really enough. You have to keep in practice at senseless violence, otherwise you forget the point.

      Extreme politeness was the only sensible course of action.

      So I pulled the gun out, yanked open the door and screamed at whoever was there to get the fuck face down on the floor.

      The room was empty. Just dirty walls and the sound of three taps dripping out of unison.

      I blinked, and swivelled my head both ways round the room. Still no-one. My eyes prickled and stung.

      ‘Hi Hap,’ said a voice, from lower than I would have expected. I slowly tilted my head that way, bringing the gun down with my gaze.

      The alarm clock waved up at me. It looked tired, and was spattered with mud.

      I lost it.

      ‘Okay, you fuck,’ I shouted hysterically, ‘this is it. Now I'm finally going to blow you apart.’

      ‘Hap, you don't want to do that …’

      ‘Yes, I do.’

      The clock backed rapidly towards the door. ‘You don't. You really don't.’

      ‘Give me one good reason,’ I yelled, racking a shell up into the breech and knowing that nothing the machine could come up with would be enough. By now we were back out in the lot, and I was aware of the gas guy standing by the car gaping at us, a smile freezing on his face. Maybe it wasn't fair to take the situation out on a clock, but I didn't care. It was the only potential victim around apart from me, and I was bigger than it was. I was also fading it big time. My temples felt like they were full of ice, and a patch of vision in my right eye was turning grey.

      The clock knew that time was running out, and spoke very quickly. ‘I was trying to tell you something down in that smelly place. Something important.’

      I aimed right at the AM/PM indicator. ‘Like what? That I have a haircut booked at four?’

      ‘That I'm good at some things. Like finding people. I found you, didn't I?’

      Finger on the trigger, one twitch away from sending the clock to oblivion, I hesitated. ‘So? What are you saying?’

      ‘I know where she is.’

       Two

      I got into it the same way as most people, I guess. By accident.

      It was a year and a half ago. I was staying the night in Jacksonville, mainly because I didn't have anyplace else to be. At the time it seemed like whenever I couldn't find a road to take me anywhere new, I wound up back in that city, like a yo-yo bouncing back to the hand that threw it away in the first place. I was planning on getting out of Florida the next day, and after my ride set me down I headed for the blocks round the bus station, where everything costs less. Last time I'd worked had been two weeks ago, at a bar down near Cresota Beach, where I grew up. They didn't like the way I talked to the customers. I didn't care for their attitude towards pay and working conditions. It had been a brief relationship.

      I walked the streets until I found a place going by the inspiring and lyrical name of ‘Pete's Rooms’. The guy behind the desk was wearing one of the worst shirts I've ever seen, like a painting of a road accident done by someone who had no talent but an awful lot of paint to use up. I didn't ask him if he was Pete, but it seemed a fair assumption. He looked like a Pete. The rate was fifteen dollars a night, Net access in every room. Very reasonable – yet the shirt, unappealing though it was, looked like it had been made on purpose. Maybe I should have thought about that, but it was late and I couldn't be bothered.

      My room was on the fourth floor and small, and the air smelled like it had been there since before I was born. I pulled something to drink from my bag, and dragged the room's one tatty chair over to the window. Outside was a fire escape the rats were probably afraid of using, and below that just yellow lights and noise.

      I leaned out into humid night and watched people walking up and down the street. You see them in every big city, mangy dogs sniffing for a trail their instincts tell them must start around here someplace. Some people believe in God, or UFOs: others that just round a corner will be the first step on a road towards money, or drugs, or whatever Holy Grail they're programmed for. I wished them well, but not with much hope or enthusiasm. I'd tried most types of MAKE $$$ FAST!!! schemes by then, and they had got me precisely nowhere. Roads that begin just around corners have a tendency to lead you right back to where you started.

      Though I grew up in Florida, I'd spent most of the previous decade on the West Coast, and I missed it. For the time being I couldn't go back, which left me with nowhere in particular to be. It felt like everything had ground to a halt, as if it would take something pretty СКАЧАТЬ