Chapter 17 Chapter 17 Renault
She ushers me into the living room, steps back and circles around, asking me if I like her new dress.I said I like it.She explained that the color was called champagne and what the side charms were, before concluding: "Do you really think I look good in this?"
"You've always been good-looking," I said. "Lu Yard and Finn Pete went to visit old Elihu this afternoon."
She made a face at me and said, "You don't care about my new dress. What are they doing there?"
"A meeting, I guess."
She looked at me through her eyelashes and asked, "You really don't know where Max is?"
Now I know, but there's no need to admit I didn't know until just now.
So I said, "It might be at Wilson's. But I'm not too interested in that, and I haven't had time to be sure."
"You idiot! He has too many reasons to hate you and me. Listen to mom, if you want to live, and mom and me, go and catch him."
I laughed and said, "You don't know the worse. Max didn't kill Noonan's brother. Tim wasn't talking about Max before he died. He wanted to talk about McSwain, but he didn't say anything." And die."
She grabbed my shoulders and tried to shake my one hundred and ninety pound body.She was strong enough to almost succeed.
"Damn it!" The hot breath from her mouth hit my face.Her face became as white as her teeth, making blush and lipstick as harsh as red stickers stuck to her cheeks and mouth. "If you set him up, and got me involved, you must kill him—now!"
I don't like being treated so roughly by someone, even if the person looks like a mythical fiery goddess.I take her hand off my shoulder.
"Stop worrying indiscriminately. Aren't you living well now?"
"Yeah, but only 'now.' I know Max better than you do, and I know the chances of those who plot against him have a long life. It's bad enough we didn't knock him out, but—"
"Don't make a fuss about it. I've counted millions of people, and they're still alive and well. Get your hat and coat, and we'll go out and eat, and you'll feel better when you're done."
"You think I'm going out, you're crazy. I don't want to—"
"Come on, dear sister. If he's that scary, he'll catch you no matter where you are. What difference does it make?"
"Yes—do you know what you're going to do? Stay here until Max gets caught. It's all your fault, so you have to take care of me. Dan hasn't come back yet, he's in the hospital."
"No, I've got work to do. You're just getting agitated, and maybe Max has forgotten all about you by now. Go get your hat and coat, I'm starving."
She brought her face closer again, and those eyes looked as if they had found something terrible in my face.
"Oh, you're so bad," she said. "You don't care about my safety. You use me like you use anyone else—as if you wanted dynamite. I believed you so much."
"Yeah, you're dynamite, but the rest of that stuff is kind of silly. You look better when you're happy. You've got deep features, and anger makes you look pretty savage. I'm starving, dear sister."
"Just eat here," she said. "Don't make me go out after dark."
She walks the talk.Immediately changed the champagne dress, put on an apron, and looked at the stock in the refrigerator.There were potatoes, lettuce, canned soup and half a fruitcake.I went out and bought some steak, rolls, asparagus and tomatoes.
When I got back, she was pouring gin, vermouth, and orange bitters into a quart shaker, leaving little room for shaking.
"Did you see anything?" she asked.
I laughed at her kindly.Then we took the cocktails to the restaurant and played a game of toasts while we waited for the food to be cooked.The wine made her much happier.By the time we sat down to eat, she had almost forgotten her fear.She's not a very good cook, but we ate with gusto.
Finally, we poured some gin and ginger ale over the dinner we ate.
She decided to go out and do something.No nasty little bum can keep her in the house.She had been more honest with him than anyone else, until he suddenly changed his face for no reason.If he doesn't like what she's doing, he can climb a tree or jump into a lake.We're going to the "Silver Arrow" where she was going to take me, because she promised Raynor to come to his party - in God's name, she must go, and anyone who thinks she won't be crazy, like a cat Like pet cuckoos, don't you think?
"Who's Raynor?" I asked.She was pulling her apron tighter because the straps were going the wrong way.
"Reynold Starkey. You'll like him, he's a good man. I promised to go to his party, and I'll go."
"Celebrate what?"
"What's up with the rotten apron? He was just released this afternoon."
"Turn around, and I'll help you. Why did he go in? Stand still."
"Blown up a safe six or seven months ago-Torak the Jeweler. Raynor, Putt Collins, Black Boy Whalen, Hank O'Mara, and a lame kid called Step and a Half. They The backstage was tough - Lu Yard - but the Jewelers' Guild detectives tracked them down last week. Noonan had to put on a show, but it didn't make much sense. They got out on bail at five o'clock this afternoon, and the case It's over and no one will ever talk about it again. Raynor is used to it and he's got three counts of bail. I'm going to tuck myself in while you make another drink."
Silver Arrow is located between Bosheng City and Mok Lake. "That's a nice place," Dinah said to me as Little Marmont led us closer. "Polly DeVotto's a good boy, and she sells you good things—except bourbon. Well, that thing always tastes a bit like a soaked corpse. You'll like her. It doesn't matter what you want to do in there as long as it's not noisy. She can't stand the noise. Here you go, see those red and blue lights behind the tree Yet?" We pulled out of the bushes and came into sight of a roadside hotel—a brightly lit faux castle set close to the road. "Didn't you say she couldn't stand the noise?" I asked as the Pistols thumped outside. "Something went wrong." The girl murmured and stopped the car. Two men and a woman ran out the front door of the hotel and disappeared into the darkness.A man jumped out of the side door and disappeared.The gunshots continued to sing, but I didn't see the flames. Another man rushed out and disappeared behind the house. A man leans out of a second-story window, a black gun in his hand. Dinah gasped for breath. There was a flash of orange fire on the fence beside the road, aiming at the man by the window.There was a downward flash from the man's gun and he leaned out again, but there was no second flash from the fence. The man by the window stepped over the window sill with one leg, bent down, raised his hands high, and jumped down. Our car suddenly rushed forward.Dinah bit her lower lip. The man who had jumped from the window was getting up on his hands and knees. Dinah put her face in front of me and screamed, "Reno!" The man jumped up and faced us.When we got in front of him, he jumped onto the road in three steps. Before Renault could reach the pedal of my side door, Dinah had already opened the door.I put my arms around him and got him into the car, nearly dislocating him.He was leaning out desperately trying to counter the bullets that kept coming at us, which made my situation even worse. And then it's all over.We escaped the range, left the chaotic scene of the Silver Arrow, and hurried away from Bosheng City. Renault turned around and steadied himself.I pulled my arm back and found that all the joints were still intact.Dinah was busy driving. Raynor said, "Thanks, boy. I just needed to get out." "You're welcome," she said to him, "so that's your party?" "An unexpected visitor. Know Tanner Road?" "Know." "Go there, it leads directly to the mountain road, and we can return to the city from that road." The girl nodded, slowed down slightly, and asked, "Who are those uninvited guests?" "Some ignorant punks." "Do I know you?" she asked casually, while turning the car onto a narrow bumpy road. "Don't ask, boy," Raynor said, "get out of this wretched road." She drove Marmon again, fifteen miles an hour.She had to keep trying to keep the car from going off the road, and Renault had to take care not to be thrown out of the car.Neither of them spoke again until the car drove on a relatively flat road. Then he asked, "You dumped the Whisperer?" "Ok." "They said you betrayed him." "Of course they would say that. What do you think?" "It's okay to dump him, but it's a bit unreasonable to throw him to the note and ruin his good business. It's too unreasonable, if you ask me what to think." He looked at me as he spoke.He was in his mid-thirties, tall, big and solid, but not fat.His eyes were large, brown, glassy, and set far apart in a long, yellowish pony face.This is a serious face, indifferent but not annoying.I looked at him and didn't speak. The girl said, "If you think so, you can—" "Be careful!" Renault snorted. Our car drew a big circle, and there was a black long van in front of it—a roadblock. Bullets are flying around us.Raynor and I were busy firing bullets while the girl tamed her pony Mammoth. She first forced the car to the left side of the road, raised the left wheel to ride on the shoulder of the road, then crossed the road again with the weight of Renault and me in the car, and shifted the left wheel to the right shoulder.At this time, the car was able to slide into the middle of the road regardless of our weight, with the car's butt facing the enemy.We managed to evacuate just as we ran out of bullets in our guns. Many shots were fired by many people, but so far no bullets have injured anyone. Leno put his elbows against the car door, put another round in the automatic, and said, "Nice job, boy, that little car drives like a real thing." Dinah asked, "Where are you going now?" "The farther the better, drive all the way. We'll have to figure it out, they don't want us to go into town. It's fucking bad!" We were ten or twelve miles away from Bosheng, passing a few cars, and it didn't look like we were being pursued."Turn right at the top of the hill," Reynolds said as they passed a short rumbling bridge. We did.A dirty path winds among trees growing among boulders.Ten miles an hour is fast on this kind of road.After five minutes of crawling, Renault gave the order to stop.All around was silent and empty.We sat in the dark for half an hour, and then Raynor said, "There's a hut a mile down the road, and how about we spend the night there tonight? It doesn't look like we'll be able to force our way into town tonight. " Dinah said she would do anything as long as she stopped being made a living target.I said I didn't mind, but I'd rather try another route back to town. We continued cautiously down the dirt road until the headlights illuminated a wooden cabin.The house looks like it's in desperate need of paint. "This is it?" Dinah asked Raynor. "Well. Stay where you are, I'll go check it out first." He left us, and soon reappeared at the door of the shed, illuminated by headlights.He fumbled for the key, inserted it into the padlock, unlocked it, opened the door, and entered the house.Soon he appeared at the door again and shouted: "It's all right. Come in and feel comfortable!" Dinah turned off the engine and got out of the car. "Is there a flashlight in the car?" I asked. She said "yes", gave it to me, yawned and said, "God, I'm exhausted. Hope there's something to drink in this hole." I said I had a tin of whiskey, and the news made her very happy. There was just one large room in the shed, and in it was a camp bed covered with a brown blanket.A deck of cards and some dirty chips lay on a card table.There was also a brown iron stove, four chairs, a kerosene lamp, pots and pans, three shelves full of canned goods, a pile of firewood and a wheelbarrow. Renault was lighting a lamp when we walked in.He said, "It's not too bad. I'll go hide the car and we'll be all right until morning." Dinah went to the camp bed, threw back the blanket, and reported, "Maybe there's something in there, but at least it's not alive. Now let's have a drink!" I unscrewed the flask and handed it to Leno when he went out to hide the car.I took a sip after she drank it. The whine of Marmon's engine grew quieter.I opened the door and looked out, and could see the white headlights flickering in and out of the trees and grass on the downhill road, fading away.When I couldn't see it any more, I went back inside and asked the girl, "Have you ever tried to walk home before?" "what?" "Renault drove away." "Bitch! But thank goodness there's a bed where he dropped us." "That's useless." "Useless?" "It's useless. Raynor has the key to this shitty place. Nine out of ten people who chased him knew that. That's why he left us here. He wanted us to clash and buy him time to escape." Annoyed, she got up from the camp bed, cursed Reynolds, me, and all the men from Adam onwards, and finally said unpleasantly, "Now that you know everything, what do you do next?" "Let's find a comfortable place in the wild, not too far from here, and wait and see what happens." "I'm taking these blankets with me." "One may be fine, but taking too much may expose our intentions." "Fuck your intentions!" she grumbled, but took only one blanket anyway. I blew out the kerosene lamp, put on the padlock and crawled through the bushes with the help of a flashlight. On the mountainside above, we found a small depression, where we could see the road and small huts. As long as the flashlight was not turned on, the thick grass blades around were enough to block our tracks. I spread out the blanket and we sat down on the spot. The girl leaned against me, complaining that the ground was too wet; that it was cold despite the fur coat; that her legs were cramping; that she wanted to smoke. I gave her another sip of the wine in the tin can, and brought myself ten minutes of silence. Then she said, "I'm going to catch a cold. When someone comes—if anyone comes—I'm going to sneeze and cough so loudly that the whole town can hear it." "Just once," I said, "and you'll be strangled." "There's a mouse or something crawling under the blanket." "Probably just a snake." "are you married?" "Come on this." "That's the end?" "No." "I bet your wife is happy." I was trying to find a suitable way to change the subject when a beam of light illuminated the road in the distance.The lights went out when I reminded the girl to shut up. "What's wrong?" she asked. "There was a light, but now it's gone. Our guest left the car and was going to walk the rest of the journey." After a while.The girl shivered, her warm cheek pressed against mine.We heard footsteps, and saw several shadowy figures moving along the road, circling the shed, but could not be sure if they were the ones we were waiting for. A flashlight illuminated the halo at the front door, clearing our doubts.A thick voice said: "Let that woman come out first." Half a minute of silence, they waited for an answer inside.A thick voice asked, "Come out?" There was a longer silence. Gunshots - the most familiar sound tonight - broke the silence.Someone is banging on the door panel with something. "Come on," I whispered to the girl, "while they're making a fuss here, we'll get their car." "Leave them alone," she said, pulling down on my arm as I was about to stand up. "I've had enough of this evening. We're fine here." "Go." I insisted. She said, "I'm not going." She didn't move, and when we were arguing, it was already too late.The guy below kicked open the door, found the cabin empty, and yelled a few times at their car. The car drove up, took eight more people, and followed Lei Nuo's whereabouts down the mountain. "We might as well go back," I said, "it looks like they won't be coming tonight." "God bless you still have some whiskey in that jug," she said when I helped her up.
Silver Arrow is located between Bosheng City and Mok Lake. "That's a nice place," Dinah said to me as Little Marmont led us closer. "Polly DeVotto's a good boy, and she sells you good things—except bourbon. Well, that thing always tastes a bit like a soaked corpse. You'll like her. It doesn't matter what you want to do in there as long as it's not noisy. She can't stand the noise. Here you go, see those red and blue lights behind the tree Yet?" We pulled out of the bushes and came into sight of a roadside hotel—a brightly lit faux castle set close to the road. "Didn't you say she couldn't stand the noise?" I asked as the Pistols thumped outside. "Something went wrong." The girl murmured and stopped the car. Two men and a woman ran out the front door of the hotel and disappeared into the darkness.A man jumped out of the side door and disappeared.The gunshots continued to sing, but I didn't see the flames. Another man rushed out and disappeared behind the house. A man leans out of a second-story window, a black gun in his hand. Dinah gasped for breath. There was a flash of orange fire on the fence beside the road, aiming at the man by the window.There was a downward flash from the man's gun and he leaned out again, but there was no second flash from the fence. The man by the window stepped over the window sill with one leg, bent down, raised his hands high, and jumped down. Our car suddenly rushed forward.Dinah bit her lower lip. The man who had jumped from the window was getting up on his hands and knees. Dinah put her face in front of me and screamed, "Reno!" The man jumped up and faced us.When we got in front of him, he jumped onto the road in three steps. Before Renault could reach the pedal of my side door, Dinah had already opened the door.I put my arms around him and got him into the car, nearly dislocating him.He was leaning out desperately trying to counter the bullets that kept coming at us, which made my situation even worse. And then it's all over.We escaped the range, left the chaotic scene of the Silver Arrow, and hurried away from Bosheng City. Renault turned around and steadied himself.I pulled my arm back and found that all the joints were still intact.Dinah was busy driving. Raynor said, "Thanks, boy. I just needed to get out." "You're welcome," she said to him, "so that's your party?" "An unexpected visitor. Know Tanner Road?" "Know." "Go there, it leads directly to the mountain road, and we can return to the city from that road." The girl nodded, slowed down slightly, and asked, "Who are those uninvited guests?" "Some ignorant punks." "Do I know you?" she asked casually, while turning the car onto a narrow bumpy road. "Don't ask, boy," Raynor said, "get out of this wretched road." She drove Marmon again, fifteen miles an hour.She had to keep trying to keep the car from going off the road, and Renault had to take care not to be thrown out of the car.Neither of them spoke again until the car drove on a relatively flat road. Then he asked, "You dumped the Whisperer?" "Ok." "They said you betrayed him." "Of course they would say that. What do you think?" "It's okay to dump him, but it's a bit unreasonable to throw him to the note and ruin his good business. It's too unreasonable, if you ask me what to think." He looked at me as he spoke.He was in his mid-thirties, tall, big and solid, but not fat.His eyes were large, brown, glassy, and set far apart in a long, yellowish pony face.This is a serious face, indifferent but not annoying.I looked at him and didn't speak. The girl said, "If you think so, you can—" "Be careful!" Renault snorted. Our car drew a big circle, and there was a black long van in front of it—a roadblock. Bullets are flying around us.Raynor and I were busy firing bullets while the girl tamed her pony Mammoth. She first forced the car to the left side of the road, raised the left wheel to ride on the shoulder of the road, then crossed the road again with the weight of Renault and me in the car, and shifted the left wheel to the right shoulder.At this time, the car was able to slide into the middle of the road regardless of our weight, with the car's butt facing the enemy.We managed to evacuate just as we ran out of bullets in our guns. Many shots were fired by many people, but so far no bullets have injured anyone. Leno put his elbows against the car door, put another round in the automatic, and said, "Nice job, boy, that little car drives like a real thing." Dinah asked, "Where are you going now?" "The farther the better, drive all the way. We'll have to figure it out, they don't want us to go into town. It's fucking bad!" We were ten or twelve miles away from Bosheng, passing a few cars, and it didn't look like we were being pursued."Turn right at the top of the hill," Reynolds said as they passed a short rumbling bridge. We did.A dirty path winds among trees growing among boulders.Ten miles an hour is fast on this kind of road.After five minutes of crawling, Renault gave the order to stop.All around was silent and empty.We sat in the dark for half an hour, and then Raynor said, "There's a hut a mile down the road, and how about we spend the night there tonight? It doesn't look like we'll be able to force our way into town tonight. " Dinah said she would do anything as long as she stopped being made a living target.I said I didn't mind, but I'd rather try another route back to town. We continued cautiously down the dirt road until the headlights illuminated a wooden cabin.The house looks like it's in desperate need of paint. "This is it?" Dinah asked Raynor. "Well. Stay where you are, I'll go check it out first." He left us, and soon reappeared at the door of the shed, illuminated by headlights.He fumbled for the key, inserted it into the padlock, unlocked it, opened the door, and entered the house.Soon he appeared at the door again and shouted: "It's all right. Come in and feel comfortable!" Dinah turned off the engine and got out of the car. "Is there a flashlight in the car?" I asked. She said "yes", gave it to me, yawned and said, "God, I'm exhausted. Hope there's something to drink in this hole." I said I had a tin of whiskey, and the news made her very happy. There was just one large room in the shed, and in it was a camp bed covered with a brown blanket.A deck of cards and some dirty chips lay on a card table.There was also a brown iron stove, four chairs, a kerosene lamp, pots and pans, three shelves full of canned goods, a pile of firewood and a wheelbarrow. Renault was lighting a lamp when we walked in.He said, "It's not too bad. I'll go hide the car and we'll be all right until morning." Dinah went to the camp bed, threw back the blanket, and reported, "Maybe there's something in there, but at least it's not alive. Now let's have a drink!" I unscrewed the flask and handed it to Leno when he went out to hide the car.I took a sip after she drank it. The whine of Marmon's engine grew quieter.I opened the door and looked out, and could see the white headlights flickering in and out of the trees and grass on the downhill road, fading away.When I couldn't see it any more, I went back inside and asked the girl, "Have you ever tried to walk home before?" "what?" "Renault drove away." "Bitch! But thank goodness there's a bed where he dropped us." "That's useless." "Useless?" "It's useless. Raynor has the key to this shitty place. Nine out of ten people who chased him knew that. That's why he left us here. He wanted us to clash and buy him time to escape." Annoyed, she got up from the camp bed, cursed Reynolds, me, and all the men from Adam onwards, and finally said unpleasantly, "Now that you know everything, what do you do next?" "Let's find a comfortable place in the wild, not too far from here, and wait and see what happens." "I'm taking these blankets with me." "One may be fine, but taking too much may expose our intentions." "Fuck your intentions!" she grumbled, but took only one blanket anyway. I blew out the kerosene lamp, put on the padlock and crawled through the bushes with the help of a flashlight. On the mountainside above, we found a small depression, where we could see the road and small huts. As long as the flashlight was not turned on, the thick grass blades around were enough to block our tracks. I spread out the blanket and we sat down on the spot. The girl leaned against me, complaining that the ground was too wet; that it was cold despite the fur coat; that her legs were cramping; that she wanted to smoke. I gave her another sip of the wine in the tin can, and brought myself ten minutes of silence. Then she said, "I'm going to catch a cold. When someone comes—if anyone comes—I'm going to sneeze and cough so loudly that the whole town can hear it." "Just once," I said, "and you'll be strangled." "There's a mouse or something crawling under the blanket." "Probably just a snake." "are you married?" "Come on this." "That's the end?" "No." "I bet your wife is happy." I was trying to find a suitable way to change the subject when a beam of light illuminated the road in the distance.The lights went out when I reminded the girl to shut up. "What's wrong?" she asked. "There was a light, but now it's gone. Our guest left the car and was going to walk the rest of the journey." After a while.The girl shivered, her warm cheek pressed against mine.We heard footsteps, and saw several shadowy figures moving along the road, circling the shed, but could not be sure if they were the ones we were waiting for. A flashlight illuminated the halo at the front door, clearing our doubts.A thick voice said: "Let that woman come out first." Half a minute of silence, they waited for an answer inside.A thick voice asked, "Come out?" There was a longer silence. Gunshots - the most familiar sound tonight - broke the silence.Someone is banging on the door panel with something. "Come on," I whispered to the girl, "while they're making a fuss here, we'll get their car." "Leave them alone," she said, pulling down on my arm as I was about to stand up. "I've had enough of this evening. We're fine here." "Go." I insisted. She said, "I'm not going." She didn't move, and when we were arguing, it was already too late.The guy below kicked open the door, found the cabin empty, and yelled a few times at their car. The car drove up, took eight more people, and followed Lei Nuo's whereabouts down the mountain. "We might as well go back," I said, "it looks like they won't be coming tonight." "God bless you still have some whiskey in that jug," she said when I helped her up.