The car's headlights came on, flashing from the Ariel's mirrors into my eyes, and began following us. I cranked Peggy Sue up to eighty and held her there, but the Jaguar kept pace, staying within a half mile.

Almost a hour later, after our road had bypa.s.sed Winfield and Arkansas City and had taken us into Oklahoma, the headlights were still shining in the mirrors.

I'd had enough of them. Peggy Sue and I took a sharp left onto a strip of blacktop with a sign that said TO KAW RESERVOIR. A forest crowded both sides of the road, and the Ariel's headlight beam threw crooked shadows among the trees.

The road curved back and forth as the leafless forest became thicker, and I had to reduce our speed to keep us from jumping off the blacktop and ramming a tree trunk. During a rare stretch of straight road, I glanced at a mirror and saw the Jaguar's headlights emerging around the previous curve.

The road was angling down toward the reservoir. I sped up a little despite the danger, hoping to put at least two curves between us and the Jaguar, but the headlights never dropped back quite far enough for me to pull over and hide in the trees.

The forest ended abruptly, and the road was swallowed by a wide, sloping ap.r.o.n of asphalt. As Peggy Sue and I pa.s.sed through on open gate onto the ap.r.o.n, the bike's headlight beam wavered among the aluminum masts of sailboats docked at a marina. The sky was still covered with a thick sh.e.l.l of clouds, so neither moonlight nor starshine broke through to gleam on the water. The lake was an unbroken sheet of black stretching toward the horizon.

I turned the Ariel around and accelerated back onto the road. Then I braked hard, kicking down the stand at the same time, and dismounted, running back to the open metal-bar gate. I pulled the gate across the road and jumped back onto Peggy Sue just as the Jaguar came around the last curve. Its headlights almost blinded me, and I had to guess whether the Ariel and I had enough room to shoot past without running off the road.

The bike's left mirror sc.r.a.ped against the driver's side window, and then we were past and running hard.

I heard the Jaguar's tires squeal, but I didn't look back to see whether it had hit the gate. Either way, the driver would have to get out and open the gate so that he could drive onto the ap.r.o.n; the road was too narrow for the Jaguar to turn around.

I remembered where most of the curves were, so the bike and I were able to go faster than we had coming down to the lake. When we had almost reached the main road, with no sign of the Jaguar behind us, I stopped, killed the Ariel's lights, and rolled her into a clump of trees and dead brush on the inside ofa tight left-hand curve.

The Jaguar came by about thirty seconds later. Its tires shrieked on the curve and its lights shone into the trees across the road from us, and then it was past. A moment later I heard it burn out onto the main road and roar an angry twelve-cylinder roar-heading south, I thought. The driver was pushing it hard.

We waited until I couldn't hear the Jaguar anymore, and then we waited a few minutes longer. The sound didn't return.

I whooped and slapped Peggy Sue on the tank, then pushed her out of the trees and remounted. If I could continue to be devious for a few more days, we might make it to Lubbock after all, especially since I was starting to get used to riding in the cold.

We went out to the main road again and headed south, but I started looking for more obscure side roads so that we could start zigzagging. I didn't want to risk running into the Jaguar again.

Miles of back-road zigzagging later, after having pa.s.sed ghost towns and windowless farmhouses, darkened bait shops and abandoned filling stations, I saw a pair of headlights in the rearview mirrors.

They were several miles behind us, but even at that distance they looked familiar.

I twisted Peggy Sue's throttle, and as we sped faster and faster, the headlights behind us dropped back farther and farther. I relaxed a little and slowed to a safer speed. The occupants of the vehicle behind us didn't care who we were or what we did. Those headlights didn't belong to the Jaguar, but to some rural vehicle carrying its occupants home from a late night in town.

A few miles later we reached an intersection with a north-south state highway, and I decided to risk it.

The back rounds were rough, and my b.u.t.t was sore. I knew that Peggy Sue appreciated the smoother pavement, too, because she began running better than she had since leaving home.

That gave me the confidence to pull in at a convenience store/gas station in one of the myriad small towns that dot eastern Oklahoma. Since Peggy Sue was in such a good mood, she would probably start again if I shut her off for a few minutes. I checked my watch as we stopped beside the Regular pump and saw that it was 12:30 A.M. The Ariel had been running for over six hours since leaving the motel in El Dorado. Almost twenty-four hours had pa.s.sed since Buddy Holly had first appeared on my Sony.

As I filled the tank and tried to get the kinks out of my knees, I realized that while I wasn't especially cold, I was starving. Not only had it been almost twenty-four hours since Buddy had appeared, but it had also been almost twenty-four hours since I had eaten anything-and that had been a couple of handfuls of microwave popcorn. I needed carbohydrates, and I needed them now. Junk food was the only answer.

I finished refueling Peggy Sue and then went into the shop, removing my gloves but leaving the helmet on, and saw that I was in the right place. Nowhere in the world can you find a wider variety of empty calories than at any American convenience store. While the clerk was busy waiting on a man who was paying for a tankful of unleaded and a pouch of Red Man, I strolled up an aisle and stuffed the pockets of the Moonsuit with as many brightly colored bags and rectangles as they could hold.

By the time the clerk looked up, I had the pockets zipped and four dollar bills in my hand. Casually, as if it had taken me this long to make up my mind, I selected a bag of CornNuts and took it to the register.

"That and gas be it?" the clerk asked. He was nineteen or twenty and bored out of his skull. He wouldn'thave cared if I had shoplifted the ice-cream freezer and the cash register.

"Yeah, unless you've got some contact lens soaking solution," I said. My eyes were stinging again, although the sharper pain behind my left eye had not come back. Eluding the Jaguar had made me feel good. Even my feet were comfortably warm.

"Sorry," the kids said as he took my money. "You ought to wear gla.s.ses. Less expensive, less trouble."

He tapped his own wire frames.

I grunted, thinking of my black plastic-framed gla.s.ses lying entombed in a dresser drawer at home. I had put them away in 1978.

"Twenty-three cents your change," the kid said, shoving the coins across the counter.

As I looked down at the counter, I saw the stack of Tulsa newspapers beside the register. The one on top had a headline reading SUSPECTED MARXIST AGITATOR TAKES OVER TV AIRWAVES.

Below the headline was a reproduction of a photo from the last Cowboy Carl's employee party. A red circle surrounded my head.

"Want a paper?" the kid asked.

I pocketed the twenty-three cents and looked up. "Nah," I said, trying to sound indifferent. I was glad I had left my helmet on. Even so, I felt exposed, and I had to stop myself from putting a hand in front of my faceplate. "Nothing but bad news anyway."

"Got that right," the kid said, a faint light of interest brightening his eyes. "Say, do you know whether that TV stuff is true? I'm working a double shift, so I ain't seen any tube since yesterday evening."

"Me either," I said, turning to go.

"You come back now," the kid said, not caring whether I did or not.

As I turned, I found myself faceplate-to-chin with a fierce-eyed young woman with curled, dark blond hair. She was more than three inches taller then me, making her at least six-one. She was wearing worn Reeboks, red nylon warm-up pants, and a blue tank top that left her arms and shoulders bare. Her skin was goose-pimpled, and her muscles and veins stood out in tight cords. She looked as if she could bench press a tractor. She had a backpack slung over one shoulder, and I had the impression that it was filled with cannonb.a.l.l.s.

"You," she said, jabbing me in the chest with a forefinger.

Even through the Moonsuit, the jab left a dune-size spot of pain below my collarbone. Worse than that, though, was the look of contempt on the woman's face. She knew me. She knew who I was. I was dead.

I tried to run down an aisle, but she sidestepped to block me.

"You own that putrid motorcycle?" she asked. Her voice was a normal woman's voice except for the edge it had, the edge that said,Answer politely or I'll break your wrists.

My next thought was that this woman was the driver of the Jaguar that had been following me. I hadunwittingly committed some offense against either her or her car, and she had been following me ever since to exact payment. Either that, or she really did know my ident.i.ty and was just making sure before bashing me unconscious and hauling me off to the Authorities.

"Uh, I'm sorry," I said. "Which motorcycle is that?"

I had never before seen a sneer of such loathing. "There's only one here, roadapple," she said. "The one that's blocking the Regular pump so that I can't get my truck to it."

Relief made me chuckle. The woman didn't know who I was. She was nothing more than a powerfully muscled grouch who would hurt me if I didn't move Peggy Sue. Now.

Her eyes narrowed to predatory green slivers. "Something funny?"

I shook my head, the helmet strap sc.r.a.ping across my chin. "No, ma'am," I said. "I'm sorry I took so long. I'll get my bike out of your way right now."

She jerked a thumb at the door. "So hurry up. You cycle jerks are the most inconsiderate cruds in the world."

"I'm sorry," I said again, starting toward the door. I held my bag of CornNuts out to her. "Want some?"

She s.n.a.t.c.hed the bag from me, opened it, and poured the contents into her mouth. "Fangksh," she said, handing back the empty husk.

I went out and dropped the bag, watching it slide away with the breeze. I was already a fugitive and a thief, so I didn't think I could do much more damage to my soul by becoming a litterbug.

The woman came out and ran after the bag. "Rancid pukebucket!" she yelled back at me, spewing CornNuts onto the concrete. Her vocabulary was starting to remind me of Julie "Eat s.h.i.t and die, Oliver"

Calloway.

I walked into the pinkish-yellow glow of the lights that hummed over the gasoline pumps and pulled on my gloves. Peggy Sue was waiting on front of a dinged-up white GMC pickup that looked as bad as the ones I'd seen at the salvage yard behind the FIFTY-FOUR MOTOR INN REASONABLE RATES.

The bike's exhaust pipes were making soft ticking sounds.

I was still ten feet from the Ariel when the headlights came on across the highway and a V-12 engine bellowed. I put my head down and ran.

The black Jaguar squealed across the highway and into the convenience store lot, stopping broadside in front of Peggy Sue just as I reached her. The driver's door opened, and a bald man wearing a long gray coat emerged. He was big. The Jaguar growled.

I had never seen the bald man before, and I had no idea who he was. I didn't want to either, so I jumped onto Peggy Sue and kicked the starter. The Ariel sputtered and chugged to life, but the stranger grasped the Moonsuit and yanked me from the bike before I could put her into gear. While Peggy Sue coughed helplessly, the bald man dragged me toward the Jaguar.

Scrambling, I got my feet under me and threw an off-balance punch at my captor's face. I knew that he might be an Authority, but he hadn't identified himself as one. So as far as I was concerned, I was beinga.s.saulted, and I was within my rights to defend myself.

Bulls.h.i.t. I was terrified. I would have swung at him regardless.

My gloved fist hit the man's cheek, and I elbowed him in the ribs with my other arm. He paused and glared at me, so I swung my fist again. This time, he let go of the Moonsuit and blocked the punch with a forearm. Simultaneously, his free hand shot under my helmet and gave me a stiff-fingered jab in the throat.

It was as if a grenade packed with nails had gone off in my larynx. I stumbled back against the Regular pump and clawed at my helmet's chin strap, then slid down and sat on the concrete island.

The bald man kicked me in the helmet, and I fell onto my right side. Then he leaned down, grasped me under the armpits, and began dragging me toward the Jaguar again. I struggled, but I couldn't get my feet under me. The inside of my head sounded like a chain saw, and the spikes in my throat were cutting off my breath.

In the midst of the noise and pain, I heard a woman's voice ask, "What do you think you're doing, bozo?"

I'm being killed, that's what,I tried to say, but all I could do was wheeze.

The voice came again. "Could you stop s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around and move your car? I've been waiting a long time. I mean, try to overcome your slime-licking alpha-male instincts and show some consideration...."

The chain-saw buzzing began to subside as the woman talked, and I was even able to swallow past the nails. I could tell that the bald stranger was ignoring the woman.

"What is it, anyway? Just because you guys have b.a.l.l.s you think that the poison they put into your systems ent.i.tles you to act like walking porta potties?"

I had an inspiration. I sagged forward as if I had become unconscious, and then I snapped my head back and up. My helmet rammed into the stranger's crotch with the desired effect: He dropped me.

I rolled away, lurched to my feet, and ran for the idling Peggy Sue. The muscular woman with the backpack was standing beside her pickup truck with her arms crossed.

"I've just about had it," she said.

I was. .h.i.t from behind and fell facedown, my helmet bouncing off the pavement. The stranger landed on top of me, grabbing my right wrist and pulling my arm behind my back. Only the thickness of the Moonsuit kept him from twisting it out of its socket.

A pair of Reeboks walked past my face. "I'll move them both myself, you adolescent armpit kernels,"

the woman said.

The stranger yanked me to my feet, which hurt a lot, and spun me so that I faced the Jaguar. The muscular woman was entering the car.

"No!" the bald man shouted, shoving me aside so that I collided with the Regular pump again. I grabbed the pump to keep from falling, and then I turned to try to get to Peggy Sue. As I did, I saw that the man had produced a pistol and was aiming it at the woman, who was now behind the wheel of the Jaguar.

She didn't wait to find out what he would do next, and neither did I. She ducked, and the Jaguar bellowed and sped backward. I jumped onto Peggy Sue, kicked her into first gear, and opened the throttle.

The stranger fired his pistol as Peggy Sue and I rammed him. A small hole appeared in the Regular pump, and the bald man hit the concrete. Peggy Sue ran over his arm, and the pistol skittered away.

The Jaguar laid rubber in reverse in a semicircle around the gasoline pumps, and I glanced at my right mirror just in time to see the car crunch trunk-first into the GMC pickup's right front fender.

At that point, Peggy Sue and I missed the driveway and dropped into the ditch, adding a bitten tongue to my aching head and throat. I hung on tight as the bike churned up to the highway, spraying dirt and dead gra.s.s. By the time I regained control, we were a few hundred feet down the road. The mirrors showed me that the Jaguar, with the muscular woman at the wheel, was whipping out of the convenience store lot in the correct fashion, via the driveway.

Well, if she wanted to steal an Authority's car-if the bald manwas an Authority-that was her business, and her problem. Peggy Sue and I accelerated and got the h.e.l.l away from there.

And the Jaguar kept pace with us. No matter how fast we went or what side roads we ducked down, those headlights wouldn't fade away. I tried to pray for them to disappear, but my throat and tongue were too sore to sing.

SHARON.

Notes on client Oliver Vale, continued...

12:46 A.M. Bruce and I are in bed in a Ramada Inn in Wichita. He is angry with me for a number of reasons. One of these reasons is that I have just told him where we are going and why, and he does not like it. Neither does he like the fact that we are using one of his firm's Chevrolet Celebrities. He tells me that to use it for this purpose is unethical.

I disagree. After all, Oliver will almost certainly become Brace's client once we find him, so we are at least partially on legitimate business.

What Bruce is most angry about, though, is the fact that I have cajoled him into this trip but do not want to make love. After all our time together, he still has not managed to grow beyond the notion of s.e.x-as-reward. His att.i.tude seems to be that as long as he is doing something for me that he does not want to do in the first place, the least I could do in return is give him head.

I'm not in the mood. I too am angry. I'm angry because he insisted that we stop here after traveling such a short distance. At this rate, Oliver will reach Lubbock, do something foolish, and be arrested long before we can get there. I have to dosomething to help Oliver, though, so I am watching Oliver/Buddy perform on the room TV.

I keep hoping that he will do or say something that will give me an insight into how best to direct his therapy.

Not much luck so far. But, my G.o.d, can he play the guitar and sing!

Can that really be Oliver?

I am beginning to wonder.

RICHTER.

He rose from the pavement and watched the Jaguar's tail-lights disappear down the highway. Vale and his motorcycle were somewhere ahead of them.

Richter looked down at his right arm and probed it with his left hand, then flexed his right fist. The forearm was going to bruise where the motorcycle had run over it, but nothing was broken or sprained.

He would still be able to squeeze a trigger.

That was one thing he would do sooner next time, he promised himself as he stooped to pick up his plastic pistol from where it had fallen.

This was for the second mistake he had made in twenty-four hours, and it had been far more serious than the first. He had lost an opportunity to apprehend Vale, who now knew him by sight and would be watching for him. Worse still, he had allowed a bystander to interfere with his duties. She had even stolen his Jaguar, which was government property... although it couldn't be traced as such.