The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists

FOUR

Provo Sam was stunned, but otherwise okay. Jack drove north, alone. He tried to guess how far he’d travel before the call came in over the radio.

It didn’t matter. Not really. All that mattered was that the call would come. Jack was certain of that. You didn’t impersonate someone without getting under his skin. If you were really good, you could slip into your subject’s head and see the world through his eyes. That’s the way it was with Jack Mormon and Howard Hughes.

From the beginning, Jack had spotted the patterns. Howard Hughes was an excitable guy, a guy who took too many chances. He took them with airplanes, with women, with movies that leeched his money… and, once upon a time, he’d even taken a desperate chance with a Japanese magician who wasn’t at all what he seemed to be.

Jack shook his head, pushing the limo’s big engine for all it was worth. The whole deal was amazing. By all rights, Hughes should have died long ago. Crashing an S-43, or an XF-11, or some big albatross made out of wood. The funny thing was, a guy like Hughes probably would have been perfectly happy to make his exit just that way.

Howard Hughes was his own worst enemy. That was why, like it or not, Hughes needed someone like Jack Mormon, a guy who’d protect him from himself. That was a full-time job, and it was obvious that some changes were necessary. Vegas was just too big. The time had come to move somewhere a little more secluded, where there would be less attention from the gentlemen of the press.

Nassau. Paradise Island. With a little luck, the move could be made very quickly. The plan had been simmering on Mormon’s back burner for a while, and now seemed as good a time as any to bring it to a boil.

Jack was really getting in tune with the idea when the call came

“We got him. He made it as far as the Valley of Fire. He crashed into a sandstone formation, but he’s okay.”

“Good. Get him out to Nellis. We’re moving.”

“Tonight? What if he gives us a problem?”

“He won’t.”

“How can you be sure?”

“We’ve got two hours until daybreak. He’ll roast to death in the sunlight. If he lived through his latest crash, he’s not going to want to go out like a piece of meat on a rotisserie. Not when he’ll have a whole new set of scars that he can brag about.”

“You’re amazing, Jack.”

“I’m just a good employee.” Jack laughed. “And when you come right down to it, that’s just a simple matter of understanding the boss.”

Jack signed off, made a quick U-turn, and headed toward Nellis.

Yep. It was just that simple. You didn’t impersonate someone without getting under his skin. If you were really good, you could slip into your subject’s head and see the world through his eyes.

But what happened, Jack wondered quite suddenly, when you looked through those eyes, and you couldn’t even blink anymore?

Jack laughed at the crazy thought. He glanced at the rear-view mirror, and for just a second he confronted a wide-eyed little boy who liked to stare at two steel rails that ran through the Utah desert. Then he blinked and once again found himself staring into Howard Hughes’ eyes.

He saw all the crazy things that Hughes had made of himself — the human things… and the inhuman things. The bats, and the bloody kite, and the other horrors Jack had seen but never shared with another living soul.

Jack pulled over to the side of the road. Howard Hughes. Always running away, but never getting anywhere, because there was no way he could escape the things inside him.

Very suddenly, very clearly, Jack saw himself driving fast, piling into a sandstone formation somewhere out in the desert, and he laughed and laughed and laughed until his ribs started to hurt.

He got his breath, put the car in gear, and lead-footed it into the night. God, this was crazy. He twisted the rear-view mirror at a useless angle, so that he couldn’t see anything at all.

He should go to Nellis. Should, hell. That’s what he had to do. There were arrangements to make. Deals to cut…

There was the road, unfolding before him.

“Y’know” he said to no one in particular, “once upon a time you were a pretty nice guy.” And then he rolled down the window and sent Howard Hughes’ fedora tumbling into the night.

In the distance, somewhere beyond the November wind, came the low whistle of a train riding steel rails.