Part 17 (2/2)

But I must go now, he realized.

He had his own fields to farm...

Back, back, he sailed. Back out of the hot meat of the earth, back to the lackl.u.s.ter terrain of his forebears, back to his wretched human vessel.

Back- Like blood sucked up by a sponge, his flesh reclaimed his glorious vapor.

Ona. Ona. I give thanks to thee for such sights, such heralds, such righteous and holy gifts.

I live to serve thee...to the ends of the earth.

The Reverend opened his eyes.

And sighed.

”Jesus Christ!” Phil shouted. ”You scared the-”

”The s.h.i.+t out of you, I know. Sorry.”

Phil, in his shock, had weaved across the yellow line, then veered back over to the shoulder. When the shadow had risen from the back seat, he freaked...

But the shadow...was Vicki.

”I just-I just needed someone to talk to,” she explained. ”I'm sorry if I startled you.”

Phil put the car in park on the road's shoulder. ”Yeah, fine,” he acknowledged. ”But did you have to hide in the back of my friggin' car?”

She hesitated. ”Well, yeah. I guess so.”

”Why?”

She swept s.h.i.+ning red hair off her brow. ”Let's just say I had a bad day.”

Phil gave his heart a moment to slow down-actually, several moments. ”I didn't see you in the club tonight. What, day off?”

In the rearview, he saw her glance down. ”Something like that. It's best if you don't ask.”

All right, Phil instructed himself, Don't ask. But he had to ask something. ”I was hanging out with Eagle Peters. Do you know him?”

”I know who he is,” Vicki said. ”When you're in my line of work, you don't really know anybody. You're not allowed to. It also makes things a lot easier.” Then, as if premonitory, she asked, ”You made it to the back room yet?”

”Uh, yeah,” he admitted. ”That's some show. Jesus. Kind of feel sorry for the girls.”

”Don't bother. No one else does.” She got out of the back and then got into the front. The door chunked closed.

Christ, Phil thought.

She wore cut-off shorts, sandals, and a tight, bright-pink halter top. Coltish, perfect legs inclined. Her hair s.h.i.+ned like some kind of rare metal.

”I didn't see your husband at the club either,” Phil pointed out.

”He's busy tonight.”

”Yeah?” he queried, though a hundred other questions occurred to him. Like, Busy? Busy doing what? Dealing with a dust distributor? Killing cowboys moving on his turf? Buying your next rail of cocaine? But none of these questions could he ask. Not without jeopardizing his cover. He'd have to deal with Vicki the same as he was dealing with Eagle. Slowly, discreetly, for snippets of information.

”I just wanted to talk,” she said. ”Maybe that sounds pathetic, but you don't know how long it's been since I've actually had a normal conversation with someone. It's not easy, you know. Under the circ.u.mstances.”

Phil could imagine what she meant. A good-sized chunk of her humanity was erased now, or turned into something fairly useless. She wasn't a real person anymore as much as she was a pretty painting hanging in a rogue's gallery. Only these paintings you could rent, if the price was right. As a prost.i.tute, and a stripper, how could she ever really relate to anyone anymore? And being married to someone like Cody Natter? It must be h.e.l.l...

”Why don't you just tell me what's wrong?” he said.

She was looking out the window, into the woods and the night's profusion, but he knew what she was really looking at was herself. ”Sometimes I feel like I'm falling apart,” she said more under her breath than to him. ”Sometimes I wake up, and I can't believe what's happened to me. I can't understand how I could ever let this happen to me. It must've been a pretty big shock for you.”

”What do you mean?”

She laughed cynically. ”Oh, come on, Phil. Stop trying to be such a gentleman all the time. The last time you saw me, I was a police officer. Ten years later, you come back to town to find out that I'm working in a strip joint and turning tricks. Probably not quite what you expected.”

”Well, if there's one thing I've taught myself, it's that I should never have expectations about people. Especially about myself.”

”Yeah? And what's that supposed to mean?”

Now it was Phil's chance to laugh. ”You're not the only one who's taken a fall since the old days. I didn't exactly come back to Crick City better off than when I left. I came back because there was no where else to go.”

”What happened?” she asked him. ”You never really told me. All I remember is hearing bits and pieces. Something about a shooting. Something about a kid.”

This was Phil's chance. Here he knew he could mix lies with truth and have it work to his advantage. He could win her confidence, like he did tonight with Eagle, by pretending to have turned into a typical town sc.u.mbag. Working undercover, that was his job. Time to let some bulls.h.i.+t fly. ”We were taking down a PCP lab one night. It was cut and dry; in fact, the whole thing went off without a hitch. Only problem was there was this p.r.i.c.k named Dign.a.z.io who had it in for me. He shot a kid, a spotter, with illegal ammo and made it look like I did it. It was a sham, a frame-up. But I got s.h.i.+tcanned all the same.”

She looked at him sympathetically. ”Why did this guy have it in for you?”

Here was his cue, the perfect place to start his cover story, his lie. ”I was stringing out; Dign.a.z.io was the only guy who knew that, and he wanted me out of the picture. Only problem was he couldn't prove it without turning on his own stools.”

Her stare fixed on him in the dark. Sure, she was a prost.i.tute, but she was also an ex-cop, and she knew the language. ”You were strung out? You?”

”That's right,” Phil lied. ”By then, I'd been free-basing crystal for a few years. Then I switched to dust 'cos it was the only way I could get off the ice.”

This fabrication, he knew, would build a new bond between them, however phony. By demonstrating a weakness that she could directly relate to. Vicki knew she was on a road to ruin; if she believed Phil was on the same road, he'd have her. And from there-with some luck-he could get a real line on Natter's lab and operation.

”Now,” he continued, ”I'm trying to get off the dust, but I can't. It's a real b.i.t.c.h.”

”Tell me about it,” she said. ”I've been trying to get off c.o.ke for two years now. Can't do it. I try real hard all the time but...”

”I know,” Phil said. ”You don't have to tell me. I guess it's all the same in a way. c.o.ke, dust, ice, booze-it's all a kick in the a.s.s, but what can you do? A habit's a habit.”

A pause drifted between them, but Phil sensed it was a natural one. She was letting some serious things air out here, another good sign that his pitch was working. They lounged back in the darkness, watching the fireflies, listening to the crickets. Phil thought he'd delivered his lines well, and he knew that she believed him when, a moment later, she snapped open a small wrist purse.

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