A Long Walk up the Water Slide by Don Winslow

Author:Don Winslow [Winslow, Don]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Neal finished loading the jeep and walked back into the house. He’d hammered out a deal with Chuck, who left with the storekeeper—Evelyn, Brogan, and Brezhnev, so he was anxious to get moving.

He went back into the living room and said to Karen, “If the Sisterhood is ready to depart . . .”

“Funny,” she answered. “Funny boy.”

Polly asked, “Can’t I just take my—”

“No,” Neal answered for the fifteenth time. “There’s not a lot of room and we have to travel light.”

“Yeah, but I need—”

“We can buy things,” Neal said.

We have lots of cash, he thought.

Karen drove because she was the better driver and so Neal could concentrate on what was outside. The first few minutes would be the worst. If someone was going to make a try at Polly in the jeep, he’d have to do it before or near the first possible turn, so Neal held his breath until they were headed west on Route 50 and out of town.

Karen turned down the dirt road that led to the Milkovsky place. Jack rabbits and the occasional coyote scampered from the headlights. The moonlight turned the sagebrush silver. Neal usually loved to drive through this country at night, but now the effect was eerie and frightening.

“Where you taking us, the moon?” Polly cracked, then with genuine alarm asked, “Hey, we’re not going camping, are we?”

“Keep your head down like I told you to and shut up,” Neal said. Polly seemed to have recovered her spirits, which was a mixed blessing.

Neal had Karen stop at the turn off to the Milkovskys’. He felt a little edgy about making a stop there, since Withers knew about it and might figure they’d run there.

“How fast can you drive up to the house?” he asked Karen.

There was no point in sneaking in, and he wanted to give anyone inside as little time as possible to get ready.

“Please,” she said. She stood on the gas pedal and the little jeep hurtled, bounced, and leapt toward the house. She hit the brake and the jeep fishtailed to a stop in the gravel driveway.

“Are we there yet?” Polly asked.

“We’re just looking for a place to park,” Karen answered.

“Shut up!” Neal hissed.

“I’ve got to pee,” Polly whined. “Those bumps . . .”

Neal glared down at her and then listened.

He didn’t hear a sound, which didn’t mean much, but he got out of the jeep anyway and stepped up on the porch of the house. He walked around to the kitchen door and let himself in. The house was dark and quiet.

Neal felt the tingling sensation he always got in his arms when he was going into a dark and potentially hostile room. He wondered whether he was ever going to get over that. Joe Graham’s opinion was that if he ever got over it, he should get out of the business.

I should get out of the business, anyway, Neal thought. If something’s going to happen, it’s going to happen now.

He reached over and flipped the light switch.

Nothing.

Neal opened a drawer under the countertop and found two sets of keys.

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