Free Death Will Have Your Eyes by James Sallis Page B

Lowell:
    Ð²ÑÑ‚ал в пустоту, что осталась от роста Πетра.
    â€œYou were ensconced, shrouded, in that space. But then it began to seem as though the space might be no longer vacant, the hollowness filling. Rumbles of far-off thunder made their way to me. Rumors, unexplained occurrences, movements on the horizon. All of which led me inexorably to this assignment. To you. And thereby to the end of one career.”
    We stood near a huge plate-glass door plastered over with travel stickers. Our breath pedaled out into the chill morning air. A middle-aged couple on a Gold Wing pulled up at the curb and sat with engine idling, studying separate maps, he in half-moon reading glasses, she holding the map out away from her, squinting.
    â€œI had assumed it was my career that was supposed to end,” I said. “And my life.”
    â€œSo, apparently, had others.” Michael looked into the café. The waitress looked back at him from behind the counter. They both smiled.
    â€œI must tell you: I am not at all certain that I recognize the game pieces in use here, or that I know their proper moves. And the board itself seems a most peculiar, oddly shaped one. I hope that you will take particular caution, my friend.”
    He held out his hand and we shook.
    â€œHow very strange to call you that: friend. You have been central to my life for much of it. Yet I’ve not met you until this day. And now will have no reason to see you again.”
    â€œUnless you come simply as a friend.”
    I stood for a moment watching through a tiny map of Texas on the door as he reentered the café and sat at the counter. A cup of coffee was put before him. The waitress, apparently, was on break; she came and sat beside him.

21
    For the remainder of that day and much of the next—presumably until someone got around to discovering Michael’s apostasy—I was a solo act. Sailing free and alone on the interstate and through adjunct towns, at peace with myself and surroundings.
    Then about three in the afternoon, roughly alongside a stretch of fiberglass hot tubs turned on edge like huge jigsaw pieces and another service-road store selling “chainsaw art” (totemlike figures of bears and other wildlife liberated waist- or haunch-up from tree trunks), with acquisition of a sporty little white job and a moose-like Pontiac—countertenor, bass—I became a trio.
    They took the Datsun out an hour or so later.
    There wasn’t a lot I could do. We’d cat-and-moused for thirty miles or more on the straightaway before nosing into a cluster of tight, contradictory curves. The Pontiac had lugged up hard on my outside then, holding me in the curves and crowding close against me while the sports car, a Fiat, nipped and nibbled at the inside like a good cow dog.
    It was all timed perfectly, almost balletic. And when finally I did leave the road—more or less electively, as it happened, taking what I decided might well be my last chance—for a moment, just before the rear wheels lost purchase, I thought I’d done it, thought I might actually have pulled it off.
    The Datsun hit the far bank and paused, listing for an interminable moment during which several Latin American nations changed their names, political ideology and rulers at least once, then, very rapidly, gaining speed all the while, began rolling.
    After six it all seemed academic and I quit counting.
    So I started rolling, myself: out of the tight ball I’d tucked myself into and out of the car in a single ongoing motion. Then let momentum carry me onto my feet and sprinted between billboards for steak houses, motels and wrecker services into nearby trees.
    I was on a limb high overhead when they finally talked themselves into coming in after me. I could see their cars pulled into a gap-toothed V back at roadside. There were only the two