American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,188

she holds a bloody, empty box, and in the other a rabbit skull. She hears someone crashing through the undergrowth. Then Gracie emerges from the trees at the edge of the clearing.

“What happened?” Mona asks.

Gracie says, “There you are. Are you all right?”

Mona inspects herself. “I think so.”

“Where were you? Were you here this whole time?”

The question is simple enough, but Mona is not sure how to answer.

“I’ve been looking for you for over half an hour!” says Gracie. “I walked by here calling your name, but I swear I didn’t see this place. I don’t remember it being here at all. So—” She freezes, eye drawn to the two cowboy boots poking out from underneath the brush. “Wh… what’s that? Is that—is that man… dead?”

“What?” says Mona absently. “Oh. Yeah.”

“Did you kill him?” asks Gracie.

“Yes.”

“Oh.” She stares at the body, not daring to ask more.

Mona’s still thinking about what Gracie just said—so this whole clearing just went missing when she picked up the skull? She turns it over in her fingers, wondering if it could still pose a threat. She thinks not: perhaps its batteries have been drained, so to speak. A one-shot ticket.

She replaces the little skull in the bloody box, kneels, and hides the box in the weeds. She is not sure what it did to her, but she does not want to carry it any farther. “They were bringing this here,” she says.

Gracie does not answer: she is backing away slowly, her attention fixed on Dee’s body.

“Gracie!” says Mona sharply.

Gracie jumps a little. “Wh-what?”

“They were bringing this box here,” says Mona. “They didn’t come here to attack us. Just to bring this. Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“Has your”—Mona struggles as she wonders how to word this—“ friend heard of it?” She nods toward the canyon.

“He’s never mentioned it.”

Mona turns back to the little bloody box hiding in the weeds. “It took me someplace. When I opened it, it took me and… I think this whole clearing someplace. Somewhere not in Wink. I mean, I know a lot of places in Wink aren’t actually in Wink, whatever that means, but… somewhere even farther than that.”

“Why would they want to do that to you?”

Mona starts back up the hill to the mouth of the canyon. “I don’t think they wanted to do that to me,” she says. “Come on. Let’s go meet your boyfriend.”

CHCAPTER FORTY-ONE

Unlike nearly everyone who works for him at the Roadhouse, Bolan has a vehicle devoid of any overweening masculinity: his chosen chariot is not a neon-colored sports car, or a muscle-y, amped-up truck, but a bland, nondescript Honda Civic whose sole embellishment is satellite radio. Bolan chose to purchase this car the day he drove back to his home in his Camaro with over three-quarters of a million dollars in the trunk, hands jittering all the way as he tried to imagine how he would explain his cargo to any highway patrolman who just happened to pull him over due to a vague dislike for his ride.

No—Bolan does not plan to go out like that. He’d rather drive a nebbishy, emasculated car than get collared that way.

But the Civic has trouble getting to the more remote places here. Bolan never considered that, because he never intended to go into the mountains: he has never wished to go to Wink, never wanted to start down its many winding roads, so he did not choose a car that could handle this terrain. Yet here he is, struggling up an insane incline, wincing as he waits for the road to drop away, when he’ll have to start mashing on the brake.

Finally he comes to the highway crossroads. He has seen this destination only on a map: it is a frequent pickup spot for Zimmerman, and he often comes back with several pounds of incredibly pure heroin. It is a bit surreal to finally see it in real life. He can see the sign welcoming everyone to Wink just a few feet down, and beyond that the crystalline spiderweb of the town.

Bolan pulls off the road, throwing up tons of dust, and gets out.

The headlights turn the dust into a swirling khaki-colored mist. It’s almost impenetrable to the eye. Bolan remembers what the message on the machine said—you will have to look down—and dutifully looks down.

There is just gravel there, of course. But as the dust settles, he sees he’s parked on the edge of a small cliff. He