Читать книгу Ghosts In the Heart - Michael J.D. Keller - Страница 12
CHAPTER 10
ОглавлениеDid he actually have enough time? The moving second hand on his wristwatch taunted him mercilessly. He might have eight hours, but she was still half a country away. What was the best way to get there? If in whatever dream, hallucination, alternate reality, or dying fantasy, he now found himself, it was 1978, there was no distance devouring TGV train to Lyon. It would not exist for another three years. There would be normally operating rail transportation but at what times? Suppose he were to go to the Gare de Lyon, that elegantly constructed turn of the century station serving as the Paris terminus for trains to Lyon and nothing was scheduled for tonight? Precious minutes would be lost. The same logic applied to air flights. If he were to go to Charles de Gaulle airport, but couldn’t get on a plane, every squandered moment would lessen his chance of reaching his destination, of reaching her in time.
“Pardon, Monsieur, may I help you?” The clerk behind the counter of the tabac sensed there was something distinctly odd about this young man who had bolted through the door with such a visible sense of urgency. Now he stood transfixed, staring blankly at the few newspapers remaining in the metal rack. Better to find out if there was some potential problem taking shape.
The young man did not react to the first inquiry. Then as the clerk began to repeat his question, he suddenly spun around as if something had shocked him back into an agitated awareness.
“Metro? Where is the nearest metro station?”
The clerk took a small step backward. The intensity in the man’s stare, the fierce emotion in his voice cast a chill into the room. He felt an overwhelming desire to answer the question quickly so that this frightening figure would leave. Raising his right arm he pointed to the street outside.
“One street up, turn right, one over.”
The man did not respond, he simply turned and burst out the door. He was gone so quickly it seemed as if he had vanished, as if he had never even been there. The clerk breathed a low sigh of relief before realizing that he had recognized the man’s accent. “Americans!!! - All crazy!”
It was the clerk’s voice that had jolted Mckenzie into movement and forced him to resolve his dilemma. He could not simply stand in a frozen torpor and debate alternatives. He had to go. For good or ill, it was time to take matters firmly into his own hands. His choice was made. Forget the trains or airplanes. Rent a car and get on the road! Go!!
Running now at full speed down the sidewalk, plowing heedlessly through irritated pedestrians, Mckenzie’s earlier sense of unease had vanished. He was no longer caught in a hopeless attempt to harmonize the physical world around him with a collection of dusty memories. He could concentrate solely on solving the problem.
“The problem.” What a choice of words, he thought, as the saw the red sign above the entrance to the Paris Metro system glowing before him. He was trying to define the situation in his usual dispassionate fashion, but he failed. There was a chance in this ghostly dream to save Mireille’s life. His knowledge of another existence ceased to matter to Mckenzie. Until it ended, this was reality now.
He bounded three at a time down the steps of the Metro station to the train platform below. He had considered renting a car when he had been here in 1982. He still remembered a central rental location on the Rue Saint Ferdinard and there had been a Metro station nearby. He looked again at his watch. Twenty six minutes after seven. He still had almost eight hours. There was enough time. There had to be enough time.
In the nocturnal world of nightmares many experience the dream of interminable struggle. Whether it takes the form of a relentlessly pursuing monster that can never be eluded or a physical task that resists all efforts to complete, the dreamer is left frustrated, mocked by a cruel fate with a perverse sense of humor. With his knuckles clenched white with tension as his hands squeezed the steering wheel, Mckenzie wondered whether he was caught up in such a bitter dream. The world itself seemed to be conspiring against him. For a moment, he thought he could hear his father laughing in delight.
The hands on the clock set into the ornate dashboard climbed inexorably toward midnight and he was still almost 50 kilometers from Lyon. He should have passed this point an hour ago. The multi-lane A6 highway from Paris to Lyon covered a distance of just over four hundred and sixty kilometers. The speed limit was 130 kilometers an hour and he had been pushing that limit aggressively. Unfortunately, each step forward was marked with the appearance of a new hindrance, an invisible anchor that dragged him to a crawl, robbing him of precious minutes, irreplaceable time.
At the car rental center back in Paris, the agent had examined him with more than the usual scrutiny. Mckenzie understood the man’s suspicion. A young man with a face still flushed by his dash from the metro station was seeking to rent the last Mercedes sedan on the lot. Releasing such an expensive automobile to someone who did not look like a usual customer had to be troubling. Finally the agent’s latent resistance was overcome by the evident validity of Mckenzie’s American express card, not to mention the one hundred franc tip he had folded over the card. The agent also realized that the would-be renter was an American, a people known to spend money foolishly.
It had taken an extra fifteen minutes but he finally drove off the lot in the Mercedes with renewed sense of confidence. He had a reliable vehicle, the necessary highway maps, and directions to the best route east. A less expensive car would have served just as well, but if this dream world lasted long enough, Marcus would receive the bill for the Mercedes rental. That thought alone was enough to lighten his mood.
His confidence and good humor were both short lived. Within moments, he was enmeshed in the morass that was late evening Parisian traffic. Jammed streets, honking horns, and drivers with inclinations fluctuating between homicide and suicide all combined to block his progress. Even the directions provided by the rental clerk seemed to be of dubious accuracy. He was fast approaching an explosion of frustrated anger when the landmarks and passing streets began to conform to the suggested routes. A few moments more flew by before he found the A6 access. Jamming down on the Mercedes’s accelerator, he roared onto the broad highway. Surely the worst was over.
It wasn’t.
There had been a brief scattering of showers moving down from the north a little earlier in the evening. The rain had not been heavy, but it had been enough to create a sheen of moisture on the highway; just enough to cause careless drivers to slide and slip when changing lanes. None of the accidents Mckenzie encountered were serious, but they all impeded traffic. Twice he found himself locked in a line of waiting cars staring with helpless impatience at flickering taillights stretching away into the darkness. With each delay, he tried to invoke the famous Mckenzie stoicism. With each minute lost from his shrinking reserve, the facade became harder to maintain.
It was well past midnight when he finally reached the outskirts of Lyon. The city was sizable, the second largest metropolitan area in France, and even at this late hour, the traffic might be heavy in the city center. Mckenzie quickly decided to circle eastward, to work his way around the city, and then pick up the A7 on the south side of Lyon.
Once he reached the A7, he would be on remembered ground. Like the A6, it was a multi-lane highway that ran south to Avignon and on to Marseille. He had driven this road in 1982. Familiarity might be comforting but it would not shorten the distance. The clock was still ticking relentlessly. There were still miles to go. Ignoring the speed limit, he pushed harder on the accelerator. The Mercedes raced south.
Another decision was rapidly approaching. Should he turn east at Valence and try to retrace the route to St. Aubert as he had done before? Glancing quickly at the dash board clock, he rejected that choice. It was nearly 2:30 a.m. By the time he reached the little village she might already be on the road. He might find himself behind her and unable to catch up. That was not an acceptable alternative. He needed to reach that long featureless stretch of highway ahead of her. He had to be there in time to stop her.
He could think of but one other option. Stay on the A7 and speed further south another 30 kilometers before turning east somewhere near Bollene. There would still be twisting back roads to cover but at that point he would be ahead of her. He would be closer than she was to . . . to the place she was to die. Mckenzie shook his head in furious denial. No! He silently shouted to the mental image of a crushed and burning automobile. No! She would not die. Not tonight.
It was only after he had exited the A7 that the topography of rural Provence was able to clamp a limitation on his speed that local traffic law could not. The dark narrow roads were largely deserted at just past three in the morning, but the twists and turns, bends and hair pin curves still demanded a more measured pace. He dared not risk losing control and running the Mercedes into a ditch. There was also the new challenge of an altered perspective. Approaching from the south for the first time and in the dark, even the few landmarks he could recall from his previous trip were of little help. Despite that, he could sense a growing certainty about his location. He was getting closer, he would make it in time.
Marcel Portier also thought he was going to satisfy his schedule. Carefully navigating the massive moving van around a tight curve, he frowned at the undisturbed snoring of his helper curled up on the large truck seat. Mustafa could sleep through anything. The young man’s name wasn’t really Mustafa, of course, but Portier tended to call all of the Moroccan immigrants he hired as temporary helpers by that name. Since they were illegally in the country and needed the work, none ever protested.
To Portier the Arabs were all basically interchangeable anyway. His small furniture moving company had most of its capital tied up in trucks like the one he was driving. The employees he hired needed only strong backs, a willingness to work for low wages, and the good sense to keep their mouths shut when they were paid off the books and in cash. Mustafa would do as an all purpose name.
This particular Mustafa was also willing to leave his bed in the middle of the night so Portier could get an early start. The client had bought a renovated farm house in the north and wanted to start moving in early in the morning. A nice bonus had been promised if Portier could have the furniture there by six a.m. Marcel Portier never turned down bonuses.
Portier also never wasted money on vehicle maintenance unless it became absolutely necessary. The tread on the huge van’s right rear tire was getting thin. New tires were expensive, however, and he was sure that this one would last a little longer. His assessment was correct. The tire lasted only a little longer.
The hard right curve put sharply increased pressure on the already weakened rubber. As Portier steered out of the turn, he could see the road straighten ahead of him. Eager to gain a little more time, he shoved down the gas pedal only seconds before the tire blew out. Many things occurred simultaneously - all of them bad. The abrupt loss of the tire caused the van to fish tail. Portier, who was not nearly as good a driver as he believed, was slow to release the accelerator and the wild gyrations of the van gained intensity. As he desperately tried to steer out of the threat to his control, he realized that the ground on the left side of the highway fell away into a dark abyss - a gully of undeterminable depth. Giving way to a panic driven sensation that he was about to slide into that looming menace, he spun the steering wheel back to the right in a massive over correction.
Now utterly out of control, the van turned sideways across the road as it skidded northward. The heavy load of furniture, packed with a hurried disregard for balance, shifted further upsetting the truck’s fragile equilibrium. Almost in slow motion, the right side of the van lifted off the road and it began to topple like a dying ox falling inexorably onto its left side. The quiet country night echoed with the crash of impact and the grinding of metal as the van scraped against asphalt for another few feet before coming to stop.
“Get the hell off me” Portier groaned, moaned and snarled all in one sentence. The joy of finding himself still alive was undermined by the pain of being pinned between the door and the steering wheel by the weight of his young assistant who had been thrown on top of him. Portier’s humor was not improved by the realization that his predicament was entirely his own fault. That perception did not prevent him from venting his anger on Mustafa, who was apparently not seriously hurt.
“Get your door open and climb out of here.”
Grunting with effort, the young man struggled and pushed until he had forced open the van’s side door. After pulling himself up onto the side of the overturned truck, Mustafa reached back inside to offer a hand to Portier. Accepting the proffered assistance with a notable lack of grace, Portier also tried to climb out. As his head emerged into the night air he caught the first whiff of gasoline.
“Oh Merde.” Portier felt his stomach clinch. “Please, please, please, don’t catch fire.” He turned and fumbled in the dark behind the driver’s seat until he felt the metal box containing the emergency kit. Flashlight, flares, some first aid supplies, but Portier didn’t know if any of it was any good. It had been a long time since he had inspected it.
The flashlight still worked, more or less. The batteries were old, but the light was bright enough to let him inspect his battered van. Mercifully, the gasoline smell was coming from a small amount that had leaked around the cap to the tank. There was no immediate danger of fire. The van was scraped and dented but probably repairable. The bonus for early delivery of the furniture was dead and gone. Even his usual fee was in question.
The double blow to his finances had further exacerbated his already poisonous mood. Rather than just wait for another car to come along and send for help, Portier decided to walk to the farm house he had seen about a mile back. Right now, he didn’t want to look at this disaster any longer. “Mustafa get off your ass and set out some flares while I go for help. I don’t want some idiot crashing into it.”
As Portier stomped away back down the road slowly vanishing into the dark, his helper grinned widely. He accepted the possibility that any compensation for today’s work was unlikely with a certain fatalistic good nature. He quietly addressed the darkness. “My name is Karim al-Filistini . . . Asshole.”
Stumbling along on the lonely empty road, Portier regretted leaving the flashlight back at the truck. He regretted it more when his bladder began to protest. Trying to step off the pavement to relieve himself, he tripped and fell over a large unseen rock. Perfect, he thought, just one more shinny ribbon on this fucked up night. Still cursing fate and fumbling with his trousers, Portier didn’t see the Mercedes come racing by until it was too late. The car’s taillights were already gleaming in the darkness before he could even raise his head and try to signal for help.
“Go on you bastard” Portier shouted. “Drive as fast as you want. You aren’t going to get much further on this road.”
The thought that someone else was about to encounter frustration similar to his own raised Portier’s spirits. He grinned and whistled as he continued his trek in search of a telephone.