False Memory

She tried to be quiet, listening for their footsteps, so she might have some advance warning of which side they would approach, but she was forced to gasp noisily for breath, because the air was thick with fumes. Dusty gasped, too, and the desperation in their wheezing was an even more frightening sound than the clatter of the falling stones.

Pitipat, pitipat — not the sound of her heart, because that was booming — pitipat, pitipat, and then a wetness dripping down the side of her face, which made her twitch and peer up toward the bottom of the car. Gasoline was drizzling through the floorboards.

Martie twisted her head, looked behind, and saw three or four other places where fuel was dripping down through the inverted Ford. The droplets caught what little light there was and glimmered like pearls as they fell.

Dusty’s face. Eyes wide with the realization of their hopeless situation.

Stinging fumes pricked tears from Martie’s eyes, and just as her husband's face blurred, she saw him mouth the words Don’t shoot more clearly than she heard him wheeze them.

If the muzzle flash didn’t touch off an explosion — and it would — then the spark from a ricochet was sure to destroy them.

She wiped the back of her hand across her streaming eyes and glimpsed a pair of cowboy boots at the nearest window, and someone began wrenching on a stubborn, buckled door.

The grape-purple ‘59 Chevrolet El Camino was smartly customized: a dechromed, filled, and louvered hood; smoothed, one-piece bumpers; a sweet tubular grille; an air-activated hard tonneau roof; lowered on McGaughly’s Classic Chevy dropped spindles.

Dr. Ahriman waited at the wheel, parked in the street within sight of the exit from the parking lot behind his office building.

Under the driver’s seat was the ski mask. He had checked for it before starting the engine. Good, reliable Cedric.

The weight of the mini-9mm pistol in the holster under his left arm was not in the least uncomfortable. Indeed, it was a pleasant, warm little weight. Bang, bang, you’re dead.

And here came Jennifer in the Mercedes, pausing at the tollbooth only to say hello to the clerk, because the car had a monthly sticker on its windshield. Then the striped barrier rose, and she proceeded to the stop sign at the street.

Behind her, the pickup braked to a hard stop at the booth, all its antennae quivering violently.

Jennifer turned left into the street.

Judging by the length of time they spent at the booth, the two dithering detectives had failed to have change in hand to ensure a quick exit. By the time they reached the street, the Mercedes was turning the corner at the far end of the block, and they nearly lost sight of it.

The doctor had been concerned that seeing only Jennifer and not their true quarry, Skeet and his sidekick would wait in the parking lot for him to reappear or until they died of thirst, whichever came first. Perhaps they were unprepared for the parking toll precisely because they had been debating the wisdom of tailing the car without their target in it. In the end, they had taken the bait, as the doctor had expected.

He didn’t follow them. He knew where Jennifer was going, and he set out for the Mercedes dealership via a route of his own, making use of a shortcut or two.

The El Camino was smartly powered by a 9.5:1 small-block Chevy 350 engine. The doctor enjoyed scooting across Newport Beach with one eye out for traffic cops and a quick hand on the horn for those pedestrians who dared enter a crosswalk.

He parked across the street from the service entrance to the dealership and waited more than four minutes for the Mercedes and the pickup to appear. Jennifer drove directly into a service bay, while the truck parked farther along the street, a few spaces in front of the El Camino.

With the camper shell blocking their view through the rear cab window of the pickup, neither Skeet nor his partner in adventure was easily able to see who was parked behind them. They could have used their side mirrors to scope the street, but Ahriman suspected that because they saw themselves as the intrepid surveillance team, they didn’t comprehend the possibility that they themselves could also be surveilled.

The compact, customized, slab-sided Colt slipped under Martie’s belt and snugged into the small of her back more easily than she had expected.

She pulled her sweater over it and tugged her tweed jacket into shape as the driver’s door was wrenched open with a hard screech-pop of twisted metal.

A man ordered them out.

Desperately sucking fumes, her lungs aching for a clean breath, Martie belly-crawled across the car ceiling, through the door, and into the open air.

A man grabbed her left arm and jerked her to her feet, pulled her, stumbling, after him, and then shoved her aside. She staggered and fell, landing hard on the sandy soil and half in a snagging mass of sagebrush.