So Pippa had taken off with no one?
Of course, I’d tried calling her several times. Of course, it sounded like her phone was turned off. Out of desperation I even texted her.
Pippa. I need to talk to you, to explain.
But explain what? I had no fucking idea.
I had been sent to kill her. I had decided against it almost immediately.
But are those really mitigating circumstances? “Well, yeah, I fucking admit it. I was sent with a hit on your back, but when I saw your excellent rack, I changed my mind”? I absolutely couldn’t blame her for running far, far away from me. She might already be on a flight back to Pure and Easy to collect her things and move to a new town.
Lytton. That was the one guy I hadn’t seen. He answered on the first ring.
“Hey. I’m in our room with June. Where are you?”
“Out in the parking lot. Listen, I’ve lost track of Pippa. I’ve asked everyone, and no one has seen her.”
Lytton consulted with June. “June saw her go into a bar with Tobias.”
Tobias. That guy hadn’t occurred to me because he wasn’t an official Bare Bones charter member. I also instantly knew why she was going into a bar with Tobias. “Okay, listen. Shoot me Tobias’ number when you get a chance. I’ve got a bead on Phil Din. I’ve got to take off right now or the moment’s lost forever, if you know what I mean.”
“I get it. Are you coming back to my place when you’re done?”
“Absolutely, man. Abso-fucking-lutely. If you see Pippa, just give her a vague reason why I had to split. You don’t need to go into detail. She’ll get it.”
“Godspeed, man.”
I pounded it as fast as I dared back to 80 east where I’d hang a south at Battle Mountain. Once I got through the network of bikes coming and going from Winnemucca, it was clear sailing. I had changed out the plates on my Panhead in case it wound up a Road Warrior type of deal with Din on the highway, but I didn’t think it’d come to that.
Tobias must have come up with intel on Pippa’s sister, the intel I had not been able to provide. I kicked myself for not having warned Tobias long ago to refrain from giving Pippa any intel. It was too dangerous for her to even be caught calling her sister. I was intimately familiar with the pain of being unable to call a sibling. Especially since her predicament was none of her doing, I agreed there had to be a way for her to call Shelda. She could call from one of Lytton’s burners, for instance.
Shit like this was flying through my brain as I cleaved the desert in half. I had Street Viewed the Atomic Inn in Beatty. Some woebegone, rundown midcentury crap house with a cardboard alien out front to draw in the nuclear crowd. There were some empty hills immediately to the northeast of the shithole. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
I wanted to ask Jones what in the name of a strongly worded Human Resources sensitivity training memo he was thinking, putting another sicario on my tail. He obviously didn’t trust me, but did he mean for Phil Din to kill me? If Phil was reporting back to Jones, it was pretty painfully obvious he’d told Jones that I’d been seen in very close proximity to the mark, Flavia Brooks. I felt trapped—in an almost worse dilemma than when I had to run from New Mexico.
I had been preaching to Pippa and anyone who’d listen that the best way to predict the future was to create it. I felt I was creating it right now, but what sort of future did Pippa and I have? Especially if she ran from Pure and Easy.
It was pretty bright out by six in the morning. I quietly scoped out the downtrodden motel, pleased that the electric blue Corvette was parked there. I went around by the Chamber of Commerce, cutting off on the dirt bike road I’d seen in the satellite image.
Perfect. I lowered my bipod and set my rifle on a slight embankment that even had a sandy depression where I could lie and wait. I estimated I was at three hundred yards, and the rangefinder proved me correct. Good ol’ Phil Din would have never heard the report of my rifle at a hundred yards, but at three hundred I had to be careful. I had customized my tactical rifle beyond belief—a special barrel, trigger, and bolt action—all made to fit me alone. The scope was sighted in so accurately I’d hit the same spot every time.