American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,105

“Aw, damn,” he says. “We forgot about the tire spikes… Jesus, they’re all stuck in his back.”

“I ain’t looking,” Dord says quickly.

“I’m not asking you to. Ah, well. It’s not like he’s going to complain. Come on, let’s get hopping.”

Zimmerman has to pull a three-point U-turn to get going back the way they came. He lights a cigarette, and his craggy, weathered features are reflected in the truck’s window, making it seem some flickering specter is floating outside.

“And Bolan knew just where that guy was gonna be?” asks Dord.

“Kind of,” says Zimmerman.

“How? Did we shoot him? This was a play of ours, wasn’t it?”

Zimmerman gives Dord a pitying look. “Dave, do you have any idea how things work around here?”

“Yeah. Well. Kind of. Kind of, I guess.”

Zimmerman clucks and shakes his head as he makes an abrupt turn. They wind away from the town and the mountains, out into some of the flatter countryside surrounding Wink. The headlights catch stray chamisa sprawling into the road and make them look like bursting fireworks.

“They work the same way here as everywhere, once you think about it,” says Zimmerman. “Because you might think the chain stops at Bolan, but it doesn’t. Bolan’s got his superiors, too.”

“The guy from Wink,” says Dord. He glances over his shoulder. “The guy in the back of the truck.”

“Maybe,” says Zimmerman. “Bolan’s got… let’s say, a phone. He’s got a phone that rings every once in a while, and when he answers it a voice on the other end tells him what to do. But I guarantee you—I just guarantee you—that that voice on the other end’s got someone of his own telling him what to do. Maybe they don’t call him, maybe they have meetings or send letters, who knows. And above that guy, there’s someone else. There’s always someone else. A man tells a man tells a man.”

Dord’s brain feels like it’s bubbling away as he tries to absorb what Zimmerman’s telling him. Everything is crackling: there is dust striking the car, pebbles pinging off the undercarriage, the tarp in the back keeps wrinkling as the dead body (oh my God we have a dead body in the back of the truck) shifts around with each turn. The chamisa leaves blue streaks on his eyes and the country outside the window looks positively lunar, and as Zimmerman’s voice chants in his ear he wonders if the truck will just lift off and go sailing through the stars.

“But here’s the thing—none of them really know what’s going on,” says Zimmerman. “They think they do. They really, really want to believe that. But they don’t. All they’ve got to go on is the say-so of the guy above them. And sure, somewhere way, way up the ladder, there’s a top. A guy at the top of the chain, talking down at everyone. Everyone passing his word along, like gossip. And his word is like the word of God, I guess.”

“Why?” asks Dord.

“Why? Well. I guess because everyone on the ladder has agreed to it. Because it’s easier that way. Because they want to believe the person above them. And they don’t want to know what they’re not supposed to know. And so this guy riding high on the chain gets to say how things are and how they aren’t, what’s to be known and what isn’t, and that’s a lot easier than everyone else doing it for themselves.”

Dord turns this over. “I think that’s bullshit.”

“Oh?” asks Zimmerman.

“It ain’t so organized. I’m at the Roadhouse all the damn time, and all I ever see is everyone running around batshit crazy. There ain’t no chain.”

“Well. Things have been a bit chaotic of late.”

“Chaotic? That don’t hardly begin to describe it.”

“I don’t describe it at all,” says Zimmerman. “Not my job.”

The truck coasts on through the darkness. Then it slows and Zimmerman turns onto a rocky dirt road. Dord can barely make out something ahead: a ravine, it looks like, a big one.

“So where’s your place on the chain?” asks Dord.

“Low. Not as low as you, Dord, but low.”

“And what are you gonna do when the chain falls apart?”

The truck pulls to a stop. Zimmerman shrugs, throws it in park, and gets out. “I don’t know. Find another chain, I guess. Come on. You’re helping me carry our passenger down.”

They each grab a flashlight and walk to the back of the truck. “I’ll let you get his feet,” says Zimmerman. “It’s easier. Watch for the tire spikes, though.”

Dord puts the flashlight