As Jack eased the massive semi through the narrow gate, Frank caught a glimpse of a dark smudge, far down the highway. “Hold it,” he snapped and jerked the binoculars up.
But instead of a squad car, Frank stared at a turd brown station wagon that had been manufactured sometime during the Carter administration. Someone had jacked it up into a four-wheel drive, and now the doors sat nearly four feet off the ground. It looked like some six-year-old’s idea of a really cool Matchbox car. Frank was suddenly acutely aware of the black smoke he could see in the semi’s side mirror. The smoke bled up into the nearly white sky, growing thicker and darker by the second as flames consumed the cheap insulation and pressboard of the house trailer. “Shit. Somebody’s watching us.”
“Who? Cop?” Jack asked.
“No. Some kind of four wheel drive station wagon.”
Jack snatched the CB from the cradle as Sturm pulled out away from them, picking up speed on the blacktop. “We got a problem here, Mr. Sturm. Don’t know how, but them fucking Gloucks followed us. They’re watching.”
Brake lights flashed on the back of Sturm’s pickup.
Pine’s voice broke in. “Those fuckers. Let’s go say howdy.”
Jack nodded slowly, watching the car, maybe a mile distant. “Might be a good opportunity here, take care of that goddamn family once and for all,” he said into the mike. “Nobody’s around.”
Chuck agreed. “Fuck yes. Let’s go settle them right now. Nobody’ll know.”
But Sturm voice came back, quick and harsh, “No. Leave ’em be. We got these animals to get back home. Worry about them people later. They’ll get what’s coming to ’em. Don’t you worry. Now let’s go home.”
And with that, the pickup accelerated, and slowly, slowly, the convoy followed, gathering speed as they rolled through the desert. For the first time, the zoo was quiet, empty except for the alligators. Frank hoped the starvation took a long time, until they finally started to turn on each other, boiling the tank in the frothing madness of hunger and blood.
* * * * *
They followed the highway north, along Frank’s original route, without incident. Once, they had spotted a sheriff’s car, coming the opposite way, but it had sped past without slowing. Frank was glad once they hit I-80, because of the extra traffic. A few semis with livestock trailers would blend in with the blur of all of the other trucks. Around noon, Sturm’s right blinker began to flash, and the convoy took the off ramp, pulling into the same rest stop where Frank had cracked the trucker in the head.
“Why are we stopping?” he asked, keeping his voice level and unconcerned.
“Can’t cross the state line in daylight,” Jack said. “We’re gonna have to stop here and wait it out. Soon as its dark, we’ll cross.”
They parked all over the place so as not to make it obvious the trucks were traveling together. The place was busier than last time, full of semis, tourists squeezing in one last trip of the summer, and students headed for college. Frank hoped the tranquilizers would hold; he didn’t want some family in a minivan getting curious and one of the big cats chewing off a toddler’s groping hand.
Frank got out to stretch. He slowly walked along the line of rumbling semis, easing the kinks out of his back and shoulders. There was a sharp, twisting pain in his right side and he wondered if he’d pulled something while whipping the fence post over his head. It didn’t feel serious, but it was enough to make him catch his breath.
He squatted in the thin shade of a few dusty trees and looked back at the semi. Heat waves danced on the trailer’s roof. Frank realized the temperature inside the trailer had to be over a hundred and ten. Maybe a hundred and twenty.
He found Jack eyeballing a carload of sorority girls. “We gotta cool these animals down somehow,” Frank said. “They’re gonna cook.”
The girls giggled and cast tentative glances at Jack, eyes full of lust and fear. Jack never looked away from their car. “Then take care of it. You’re the vet.”
Frank couldn’t argue with that. He should have known better. He walked the length of the grassy area on the outskirts of the parking lot and found what he needed. After grabbing a wrench, a hammer, and a screwdriver from Sturm’s toolbox, he had the automatic sprinklers on in under a minute. Like machine guns, the sprinklers spit arcs of water out in precise bursts, first spraying the grass, then the trucks once Frank adjusted their aim.
The cats weren’t happy. Still not fully awake, they pressed themselves into corners, turning their faces away from the water. Except one. It lay sprawled near the back and never flinched even as drops of water rolled down the matted fur. Frank watched the sharp ridges and valleys of the cat’s rib, but it wasn’t breathing. “Shit,” Frank whispered.
He went looking for Sturm and saw the poster instead.
It was up near the vending machines, tacked up over the maps. Frank recognized the trucker’s face from over fifteen feet away. Glancing around, he saw that the posters had been put up everywhere. Something cold grabbed at his heart. People pushed past, ignoring the poster and Frank. He went and stood next to it, pretending to study the map. Above the stark red “INFORMATION WANTED” was a grainy, black and white picture of the trucker’s face, apparently from his driver’s license. Below, it read, “Please contact the Nevada State Police with any information regarding the death of Randall James Stark, 32, murdered on August 13th.” There was a phone number, but Frank had turned away, ice spreading throughout his body despite the sizzling midday temperature. Three men in three days.
When he finally looked up, he saw Sturm, on the far side of the rest stop, taking down one of the posters, carefully folding it and stowing it safely away in the inside pocket of his duster.
* * * * *
Someone yelled. Frank heard honking and saw a woman wave a chicken nugget towards one of Sturm’s trucks at the far end of the parking lot. The two chimps were scrambling across the top of the trailer in their swaying, bowlegged run. They swung down from the exhaust stack, nimbly scurrying away from a diving tackle from Jack, and darted across the parking lot before disappearing behind another truck.
Frank half-jogged through the vehicles and met up with the clowns. The chimps had taken off in a loping run through the sprinklers and across a dry field beyond the rest stop. Chuck burst around the corner of the trailer, panting, holding a rifle. He jerked it to his shoulder, but Sturm stopped him with a sharp whistle. They turned, and saw Sturm standing at the edge of the parking lot, maybe thirty yards away. He shook his head, patted the air in front of him.
Chuck mumbled, “Shit,” under his breath and lowered the rifle, looking around to see if anyone had seen him. But everyone’s attention was focused on the bounding figures, now just hazy specks in the distance.
Frank inspected the trailer doors. One was slightly ajar, but the rest of the monkeys were still sleeping soundly, bound in their canvas sacks. He had no idea how the chimps had managed to get the door open, and he wondered how pissed this would make Sturm. And even if it did affect his final payment, Frank was glad the chimps had escaped. He wished them luck as he refastened the wide doors. Pine didn’t waste any time jumping in the cab and pulling away, just to avoid any questions. He’d wait for the rest of the trucks farther down the road.
The rest of the afternoon and evening passed quietly. Sturm went and picked up some burgers and fries and brought them back for the clowns. A flask was surreptitiously passed around, scratching the itch in the back of Frank’s throat. He even managed to forget about the poster of the dead trucker in Sturm’s pocket for a while.
* * * * *
Around ten that night, they started leaving in fifteen-minute intervals. Somewhere before the border, the trucks left the freeway and followed a series of dusty gravel roads that cut through farm fields. Frank felt exhaustion creeping through him, filling his pores like spongy seaweed that was revealed at low tide after the high, surging adrenaline-filled waters had receded. He stared out at the moonlit fields, watching the sprinklers, giant wheels, each connected by a long, thin axle, slowly rolling across the alfalfa fields, feebly spitting out warm water, turning slower than the second hand of Sturm’s pocket watch. Frank’s head bobbled with the rhythm of the dirt roads, and he finally fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, sleeping even through the twisting, turning logging roads where the trucks crossed over the mountains.