Factories were becoming overcrowded as workers refused to return to their dormitories. In London, Labour leaders were blaming the Tories for failing to deal with the crisis, and the Tories were blaming Labour. Skinheads had burst into Parliament and had chain-whipped M.P.s regardless of party affiliation.

Reports from Warsaw and Moscow suggested that Polish and Soviet citizens were enjoying the change of programming.

Six Flags Over Texas had been overrun by entertainment-starved Dallas Yuppies.

Movie theaters everywhere had been reduced to rubble by throngs battling for tickets.

Burbank was being sacked.

The reports were horrifying, hilarious, bizarre, and devastating. The more we listened, the more it seemed as if it all had to be a colossal joke-but the picture on the TV in Pete's hand proved otherwise.

Buddy was in his Jovian heaven, and all was wrong with the world.

Besides which, the Oklahoma Kamikaze had been sitting behind a rural oil tank for over thirty minutes, and neither the cops nor Peggy Sue had pa.s.sed by. I was beginning to feel SkyVue tugging at me, telling me that it had the answer I needed if I would only hurry up and take a look....

"Let's go to El Dorado," I said.

Pete started the Barracuda, and we left our hiding place just as a constellation of headlight beams appeared from behind the evergreens to the north. Pete killed the Kamikaze's lights and tried to back up, but it was too late. The first of a gang of fifteen motorcycles and pickup trucks had already turned onto the pumper's road, and there was nowhere for us to go.

Gretchen grabbed her tire iron and jumped out of the car as it stopped. "If I die because of you, Vale,"

she yelled, "the ghost of Buddy Holly is gonna be the least of your worries!"

Pete shut down the Kamikaze and smiled in the glare of the approaching headlights. "She's a b.i.t.c.h," he said. "I like her." He got out, and I followed.

The gang's lead vehicle was a monster Harley. It stopped twenty feet from the Kamikaze and sat idling, pinning us with its beam. Several more bikes and three pickups crowded behind it, and their combined noise was like the growl of a tiger the size of a 747.

Gretchen swung her tire iron as if she were warming up for batting practice. "Come on!" she yelled.

"None of you weenies needs a head anyway, right?"

I stepped forward, hoping to intervene before Gretchen could get us shot, or worse. "Listen," I shouted to the gang, "I know that everybody blames me for what's happened, but I'm innocent! Have you seen The Ox Bow Incident? Same deal!"

"p.i.s.s on that!" Gretchen yelled. "Wimp!"

A ma.s.sive shadow detached itself from the Harley and strode toward us. "Where'd you find her, Vale?"

a booming voice asked. "She seems f.u.c.kin' dangerous."

"Come a few steps closer, s.h.i.theap, and find out how much," Gretchen snarled. She raised the tire iron. Pete reached inside the Kamikaze and turned on its lights, and then I saw that the man who stood before us-his red hair wild, his crescent wrench gleaming in the bib pocket of his overalls-was Boog Burdon.

"Heard a rumor on the radio that you were heading this way again," Boog said, "so I thought I'd bring fourteen of my closest friends to give you an escort, if you want one."

"Rave on!" a voice behind the cl.u.s.ter of headlights cried, and a dozen others answered, "Rave on!"

"Throwback city," Gretchen said, lowering her weapon. "What have we got here? A bunch of middle-aged beer-guts who all think they're Fonzie?"

I moved between her and Boog. "Boog Burdon, meet Gretchen Laird and Pete Holden."

"f.u.c.kin' pleasure." He squinted and looked from side to side. "Hey, where's the Ariel?"

My chest twinged. "The last time I saw her, the Bill w.i.l.l.yites had her."

Boog scowled. "Some of those snake-handling pud-knockers are having a prayer meeting at the drive-in a few miles north. That's why I wanted to find you. You either need to have some protection or avoid 'em altogether."

I considered. I didn't want to deal with another mob of folks who thought I was the Antichrist, but whatever secret was hidden at the theater was tugging hard now, as if it were the magnetic heart of the planet and I were the needle of a compa.s.s. I had to go there.

"I'll take the protection," I said. "If I can get into SkyVue, I think I may be able to help Buddy." Although I didn't know how.

Boog's eyebrows rose. "b.i.t.c.hin'. Me and the boys ain't been in a good fight for three or four hours."

I turned toward Pete, who was sitting on the Kamikaze's hood. "I can ride with Boog from here. You've done too much already, and your kids are going to wonder what the h.e.l.l's happened to you. And, Gretchen, well, you've got to get on to Houston. I've messed up your life enough."

"Big of you to admit it, roadapple," she said.

Pete entered the Kamikaze through the windshield gap. "Oliver," he said as he buckled himself in, "I trust Laura and Mike to take care of themselves. I'm not turning back until I see you dead or in jail."

Gretchen rolled her eyes. "That could take hours. I'm not going to stand here and wait."

"So let's rock 'n' roll!" Boog shouted.

"Rock 'n' roll!"his gang roared back.

"Bunch of microcephalic sixties goobers," Gretchen muttered.

She and I joined Pete, and the Kamikaze followed Boog's Harley to the county road. The other vehicles fell in beside and behind us, and we accelerated toward El Dorado. If I survived SkyVue, I told myself, I wouldn't mind going to jail... because if I lived that long, I was sure to have found some answers.

If, on the other hand, Boog and his brigade couldn't keep the Bill w.i.l.l.yites from burning me at the stake- Then that would be the will of Fate, or of whoever was in charge. Maybe John. Maybe Elvis. Maybe Sam. Maybe Buddy. Maybe, baby. In that case, I was ready to go to the Spirit Land. Mother could fix a pot roast. I had my army and my G.o.ds around me, and despite the loss of Peggy Sue, I was no longer afraid. No more crying. No more waiting. No more hoping, I had indulged in enough of that for one life.

Now it was time todo something.

SHARON.

Notes, continued...

Bruce drove as if possessed, but so did the man on the motorcycle. The one time that we almost caught up, a Datsun cut across the median in front of us. If we had not been wearing our safety belts, both Bruce and I would have gone through the windshield. A man leaned out of the offending car and shouted at us, but I could not hear what he said over the things that Bruce was shouting himself. I suspected that the people in the Datsun had recognized Oliver's motorcycle and had decided to pursue it, either for a reward or for the opportunity to do Oliver physical harm.

Soon thereafter, Bruce thought that he saw the motorcycle leave the interstate for a two-lane highway; in any case, the Datsun did so. Although I had not seen the Ariel, I decided not to protest Bruce's decision to take the exit. He had become a wild man. His face was peppered with black-and-blond stubble, his hair was tousled, and his eyes were wide. I hoped that I would not have to restrain him from killing Oliver when at last we encountered him.

We zigzagged up and down highways and back roads until well after dark. I could see the Datsun's taillights, but nothing from the motorcycle. Bruce insisted that it was just out of the range of my vision.

"I can count all seven Pleiades," he told me in an excited rush when we stopped for gasoline. "Trust me, baby, that bike's there. And we're gonnaget it."

I wanted to ask whom he thought he was calling "baby," but I was busy running for the rest room. When I came out, Bruce stuffed a twenty-dollar bill into the nozzle of the gasoline hose, dropped the nozzle to the pavement, jumped back into the car, and was accelerating before I had both feet inside. The entire refueling stop, including my trip to the rest room, had taken perhaps forty-five seconds.

"Too long!" Bruce cried, pounding his fist on the steering wheel. "We'll have to go ninety to catch up!"

He proceeded to go ninety, and I wished that I had stayed in Topeka and let Oliver take care of himself.

We encountered the stopped Ariel on a desolate stretch of road in Kansas. The Datsun had apparently gone on. As we pulled up behind the motorcycle on the dirt shoulder, the machine itself was all that could be seen.

I feared that the occupants of the Datsun had captured Oliver.

Bruce left our car idling and stepped out to have a closer look at the motorcycle. "The engine's still hot,"

he called. "Maybe he's just taking a whiz in the field."

As Bruce spoke, the driver's door of our car opened, and a bald man got inside. He must have been hiding on the other side of the road. He was not Oliver. I shouted.

The bald man produced a pistol and pointed it at me. The greenish light from the dash instruments gleamed along its barrel. "Out," the man said.

I exited the car. Bruce had noticed that something was wrong and was starting back, but it was too late.

Our Chevrolet started toward him, forcing him to jump into the ditch, and then sped off to the north.

After he climbed back to the road, the first coherent words out of Bruce's mouth were, "Was that your little piece of s.h.i.t friend Vale? If it was, he's a G.o.dd.a.m.n dead man." In the dark, I couldn't see Bruce's face, but I imagined that it looked like that of an enraged anthropoid ape.

"It wasn't Oliver," I said. "But he was bald, so it was him that we saw on the motorcycle."

"Oh, gee, really?" Bruce said, bitterly sarcastic. "Tell me something I don't know, like why did the son of a b.i.t.c.h stop here?" He went to the Ariel and sat astride it, turning on the headlight.

"I would guess that he either had engine trouble or became too cold to ride farther," I said.

"Well, his a.s.s is gra.s.s," Bruce said. "We're gonnaget the c.o.c.ksucker." He began kicking the Ariel's starter.

"I think you should see a colleague of mine when we return to Topeka," I said.

"I'm not going back to Topeka," he said, breathing heavily as he continued to kick the starter. "Not until Iget that ball of putrid spit." He stopped kicking. "Hah! The d.a.m.n thing's just out of gas!"

"I fail to see how that's any better."

"It's better," Bruce said, "because that d.i.c.khead didn't know jack about bikes. The reserve tank's good for twenty or thirty miles, so as soon as I find the valve-hah!" He kicked the starter three more times, and the engine sputtered to life.

"Since when did you know anything about motorcycles?" I asked.

"Since before law school, baby!" he cried. "Since before I started my life of c.r.a.p! Now get on or walk!"

I was wearing a skirt, so I had to hitch it up. I climbed onto the seat behind Bruce and put my arms around his waist, hating what was about to happen.

The motorcycle accelerated hard, and I almost fell off. The wind cut through me like icicles. My only saving thought, my mantra, was that the town of El Dorado was less than twenty miles ahead. Bruce would have to stop there for gasoline, and then I would end our pursuit. Bruce's firm's Chevrolet hadbeen stolen; Bruce himself had reverted to his white trash ancestry; civilization was crumbling; and Oliver could be anywhere from Lubbock to Topeka.

I was going to cut my losses and call it quits. Even being a good psychologist has its limits.

RICHTER.

He had almost killed the man and woman in the Chevrolet, but now he was glad that he hadn't wasted the bullets on either them or on the Datsun that had whisked past earlier. Judging from the sight ahead of him, he might need all three of his extra clips.

The motorcycles and pickups were spread out over the width of the blacktop so that he couldn't pa.s.s, but when one of the pickups shifted so that he could see the white Barracuda, he was content to stay behind the cl.u.s.ter. He had overtaken his quarry. No matter what his superiors believed, he was still the best. The thought warmed him, driving away the chill he had caught on the motorcycle.

Richter counted three heads inside the Barracuda. One of them was Vale's. It was too bad that he couldn't get a clear shot now, but if he had been able to wait this long, he could wait a little longer. El Dorado was not far ahead. He hoped that they would stop there.

Several of the bikers were turning to give him glares of warning, so he dropped back to quell their suspicions for the time being. There would be plenty of opportunity to eliminate any of them who interfered with him later.

He counted twelve bikers and three pickup drivers. Even if he used two rounds apiece, he would have more than enough ammunition. When the time came, though, he would try to be more conservative than that.

He was, after all, a conservative man.

CATHY AND JEREMY.

The government agent was dismounting the motorcycle as Cathy and Jeremy approached. He raised his arms to their Datsun as if in supplication.

"Oh, sure," Cathy said. "We stop, you shoot us. I don't think so." She drove past.

"What a break!" Jeremy exclaimed. "Lucky for Oliver Vale that he doesn't maintain his motorcycle well.

If he did, Baldy would still be after him."

"Baldy's only been slowed up a little."

"Maybe, but Vale and his friends aren't even in sight." Jeremy frowned. "Of course, that's bad for us. If only we had Ringo..." He put a thumb and forefinger on his dog-eye and jiggled it. "I'm sure that I felt the link being replaced a while ago, but it still isn't working. It almost feels as if Ringo is willing a transmission block." "Can he do that?"

"I dunno. He's a dog. He might as well be an alien."

"As usual, you're full of excuses," Cathy said. "But we don't need Ringo to track Vale, because I know exactly where he's going. You've been so busy fiddling with your eyeball that you haven't even been paying attention to where the chase has taken us."

Jeremy looked outside. "It's dark. The ground is flat. I see oil pumps. It could be anywhere from South Dakota to South Texas."

"Try South Kansas. We're near the ancient physical site of our city, on the same road that we took out of El Dorado on the way down. That means-"

"Oh, no!" Jeremy cried. "Vale's going to SkyVue!"

"What's wrong with that? If we know where he's going, we know where to find him. Our pro-flesh cousins won't dare interfere with us."

"It's not them I'm worried about. Don't you remember the words on SkyVue's marquee? There's a Willard rally there tonight!"

Cathy looked stunned. "How can I have forgotten that?" She glared at Jeremy. "Your stupid brain design, that's how!"

She pressed the accelerator to the floor, but the Datsun would go no faster than sixty-five.

"Oh, please, please, don't let them shred his flesh before we can help him!" Cathy pleaded.