The Quest of the DNA Cowboys (3 page)

‘Wanna lift?’

The truck was a huge semi, with an immaculate matt black paint job on the cab and huge bonnet, it was trimmed in white. Huge chrome blowers reared from the top of the hood, and all the accessories, the wind horns, the military spots mounted high on the cab, the headlights on the fenders were also chrome. The sides of the trailer were of matt finish aluminium, and JETSTREAM WILLIE was lettered on the cab door.

Reave and Billy climbed up the steel ladder on the side of the truck and ducked inside the cab. The driver sat in a high bucket seat behind a huge steering wheel. The dash panel was a mass of instruments. A pair of rabbit’s feet on a thin silver chain dangled from the top of the windscreen. There was a long bench seat, upholstered in white leather with black piping, beside the driver’s seat. Reave and Billy sat down on it. Billy grinned up at the driver.

‘Some truck.’

The little lizard guy threw the truck into gear.

‘Sure is. Seven speed, four pod 5-0-9, blown through. Hits three hundred when I floor her.’

He went through the gears like a master, and was soon at a speed that made Billy and Reave dizzy. Billy swallowed and grinned again.

‘Is that your name painted on the side?’

‘Sure is. Jetstream Willie, that’s me.’

He swivelled round in his seat to show them the same lettering on the back of his black leather jump suit, and the truck swerved so alarmingly that Reave and Billy grabbed for the edge of their seats. Jetstream Willie laughed and accelerated even more.

‘Where you boys from?’

‘Pleasant Gap.’

‘I never heard of a place of that name, not on the road.’

‘It’s not on the road.’

‘Whadda you mean it’s not on the road? If it ain’t on the road, then how the fuck did you get here?’

Billy pointed out to the side of the truck.

‘We walked through the grey stuff.’

‘Through the nothings? That ain’t possible.’

Billy held up his porta-pac.

‘Had these.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Miniature generator.’

Jetstream Willie shook his head in disbelief.

‘You two got to be crazy.’

Without waiting for an answer, he punched a button on the dash, and country and western music blared from concealed stereo speakers.

‘ “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash. Finest music the world ever known.’

Billy and Reave both nodded. They didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. The truck seemed to be going at a suicidal speed, but Jetstream Willie held the wheel with one hand and went right on talking.

‘So where are you crazy guys headed?’

‘Anywhere. We’re just drifting.’

‘Drifting, hey? Long time since I picked up any drifters. I can take you as far as Graveyard.’

Reave looked puzzled.

‘What’s Graveyard?’

He found he had to shout to make himself heard abave the roar of the engine, and the country music. Jetstream Willie looked amazed.

‘You don’t know what Graveyard is? You must have come out of the nothings. Graveyard’s the end of the road, It’s the truck stop. It’s the wheelfreaks’ paradise. That’s where I got my camper, and that’s where my little woman is, just a-waiting for me to come back. A-waiting in that them transparent neglig-ay that she got from the Stuff catalogue. A-waiting to give me something hot with my dinner, or, at least, she better be, or I’ll kill the bitch.’

Reave waited until the tide of poetry had stopped.

‘What’s a wheelfreak?’

Jetstream Willie looked shocked.

‘You asking what a wheelfreak is? You don’t know nothing. You’re looking at one. Us wheelfreaks are the lords of creation. We’re the boys who ride these rigs, we’re the only ones who got the balls. We haul them from Graveyard clear down to no man’s land.’

‘What do you carry in these trucks?’

‘Carry? We don’t carry nothing. Ain’t nothing in the back of here ‘cept one ol’ big generator. How else do you think we keep this road together, wouldn’t stop turning into nothing for an hour if we weren’t gunning these ol’ boys up and down.’

He fumbled in the pocket of his leather jacket and produced a green plastic box, and popped a little white pill into his mouth.

‘Yes sir, there wouldn’t be no road or nothing if it wasn’t for us, I can tell you.’

He offered the box to Reave and Billy.

‘Have a benny.’

Each of them dutifully took a pill and settled back in his seat. They didn’t want to ask any more fool questions, and risk upsetting a lord of creation.

Another truck flashed past in the opposite lane, going in the other direction. Briefly, as it passed, all its lights came on, and it shone like a Christmas tree. Jetstream Willie hit buttons on the dash, and his own lights came on in reply.

‘That’s Long Sam. He’s a good ol’ boy.’

Jetstream Willie cut the lights, and pointed to a set of sockets on the dash panel.

‘If you want to recharge them portables of yours, you could try plugging them in there, takes power from the engine.’

Reave and Billy unclipped the pacs from their belts and did as he indicated. Willie seemed to have lost interest in them because he now stared straight in front of him, and sang along with the music. It consisted of the same song, over and over again.

After an hour of this, by the dash panel clock, he swung the truck on to a slip road. Without apparently slackening speed, he jockeyed the truck up a steep ramp and out on to a huge expanse of flat, smooth, concrete. He cut the engine and let it roll to a stop at the end of a line of about a dozen other huge baroque vehicles. They were of the same general shape and massive size, but each was unique in its elaborate design and paintwork.

Jetstream Willie caught them staring at a vast gold monster with black trim and enormous balloon tyres.

‘That’s Dirty Marv’s, sure is a fine-looking machine, but it’s all show and no go. I can shut him down with a ten minute head start before he’s even hit the quarter line.’

They unplugged the porta-pacs, gathered up their bags and swung down from the cab. The truck still seemed to hum slightly, and Reave looked at it curiously. Jetstream Willie provided the answer.

‘Always leave the generator on, all helps to keep things straight.’

At first sight Graveyard looked like one huge parking lot surrounded by buildings, and that, in fact, was what it was. Far over on one side was a row of trailers, with smoke curling up from chimneys and lines of washing hanging out to dry. They were dwarfed by the odd truck that was parked among them. On the other side of the lot, right by where Jetstream Willie had parked, was an immensely long single-storey building made of glass and chrome that stretched for a whole side of the roughly square lot. On its flat roof was mounted a huge replica of an ice-cream soda, which rose into the air for sixty or seventy feet. The cherry on the top was illuminated from inside, and it flashed on and off like a beacon. Flashing in time with the cherry was a red and yellow neon sign that occupied most of the rest of the roof, and spelled out the words Vito’s Cozy Drop-In in twelve-foot letters. It was towards this structure that Jetstream Willie led. As they pushed through the revolving glass door, Willie looked at them warmly.

‘You better keep yourselves to yourselves in here, some of the boys might not take too kindly to the way you look.’

The Cozy Drop-In was decorated in black and orange plastic. There were lines and lines of tables and seats. A bunch of men, all with similar suits and cropped haircuts to Willie’s, queued at a long counter waiting to be served by a team of blonde girls with jutting breasts and short yellow tunics. Willie pointed at a table away over in the corner.

‘You best go and sit yourselves down there, and I’ll bring you something over.’

Reave and Billy did as they were told, while Jetstream Willie joined the other men in a flurry of back slapping and hee-haw laughter. Like their trucks, the wheelfreaks’ suits were all basically similar, but each one had its own colour and design.

While they waited for Willie to come back, Billy and Reave looked cautiously round the room. One end of it was dominated by a vast juke box, as tall as a man and maybe eight feet across. Coloured lights kept changing the patterns of reflections on its elaborate chrome face and it seemed to be playing the same ‘Ring of Fire’ record that Willie had had in the truck. Another wall was filled by a row of pinball machines, but again they were much larger than anything that Billy and Reave had ever seen. Instead of standing in front of it, the player sat in a kind of pilot’s chair that had complex flipper controls set in the arms.

Jetstream Willie came back with a tray of coffee and donuts. He banged them down on the orange plastic top of the table.

‘Here you go, get some of that down you.’

He jerked his thumb towards the waitress who had served him.

‘There’s a hot little number. Sure like to crawl into her jeans.’

He winked and pushed a hand into the leg pocket of his suit.

‘Might as well put a kick into this here coffee.’

He produced a bottle wrapped in brown paper. Reave looked at it curiously.

‘What’s that?’

Willie grinned and touched the side of his nose with his index finger.

‘Good ol’ crank-case gin. Put hairs on your chest.’

He topped up each coffee cup, and Reave and Billy both took a tentative sip. They coughed as the raw spirit hit their throats.

‘Strong stuff that.’

Jetstream Willie winked.

‘Sure is.’

He gulped down his coffee in one, took a bite at a donut, and then a hit from the bottle.

‘Listen, boys, can’t hang round here all day. Got my little woman waiting there at home.’

He stood up.

‘See you both later.’

‘Yeah, thanks for the lift.’

‘That’s okay, see you all.’

They watched him walk away. It was strangely sad, somewhere beneath the wheelfreaks’ frenetic confidence there seemed to be something doomed. Billy and Reave looked at each other, and there was a long silence. Then Reave let out his breath.

‘So what do we do now?’

Billy shrugged.

‘Hang round Graveyard and see what turns up. I don’t have any ideas.’

As it happened, something turned up before they’d even finished their coffee.

A huge fat man in a scarlet leather suit with blue and white stars and the words Charlie Mountain in white across the back, sauntered over and placed a heavy boot on the seat beside Reave.

‘You the boys that came in with Jetstream Willie?’

They both nodded.

‘Yeah, what of it?’

Charlie Mountain put two huge hands on the table and leaned forward threateningly.

‘It’s lucky that you came in with Willie, else we’d be doing something about you right now. As it is, I wouldn’t stay too long if I was you. You don’t fit in around here, we don’t need your kind in Graveyard. You know what I mean?’

Billy and Reave said nothing, and Charlie Mountain straightened up and strolled away. They looked round and saw that every eye in the place was on them. Reave leaned close to Billy.

‘Let’s get the fuck out of here. I don’t like this.’

‘Yeah, you’re right, but take it easy. We want to do it with class. If we run, they’ll probably come after us.’

Billy leaned back in his seat, took a small thin cigar out of his pocket and lit it. He signalled to Reave.

‘Okay, let’s go.’

Slowly, they both stood up and walked carefully towards the revolving doors. Just as they reached them, one of the wheelfreaks sounded off behind them.

‘Will you guys just look at those sweet things!’

Billy and Reave were left in no doubt as to who was being talked about. They hurried through the swing doors and out on to the lot. The white sky was still as bright and shining as it had been when they’d first come out on to the highway. They were both tired and Reave began to wonder if there was any day or night in this truckers’ paradise. Billy put on his dark glasses, and they walked across the lot.

A.A. Catto hadn’t slept at all that night and now watched the sun come up through the clear bubble of the roof garden. It was only fitting that the Con Lec tower generator could produce day and night. It was a pity that after a while even that became tedious. She turned her back on the view and trailed her silver nails in the water of the fountain.

It was very quiet in the roof garden. The only sound that could be heard was that of the dying party in the mirror room. Somewhere in that party was De Roulet Glick. He was aching to have her again, and as far as she was concerned he could ache. She had made the mistake of sleeping with him once, about a year earlier, and he disgusted her by talking too much and coming too quickly. She had no reason to suppose a second time would be any improvement.

The sounds from the party increased, it seemed as though they were coming out into the roof garden. A.A. Catto retreated towards the rose bushes that concealed the lift entrance, and pressed the call button. The voices grew louder. She thought she heard Glick. The lift doors opened with a hiss, and she stepped inside. Behind her Glick called out.

‘A.A., wait a moment.’

She laughed as the lift doors closed on his stupid, eager face.

Inside her apartment she unsnapped the metallic dress she had worn for the party and stepped into the shower. The needle jets seemed to wash the tiredness out of her body, and after the warm air vents had dried her, she stepped out and looked at herself in the full-length mirror.

There was no mistaking the fact that her body and face were almost perfect. It was little wonder that fools like Glick fell over themselves to try and get to her. The only trouble with her perfection was that no one man in the five families could in any way match her desirability. She was wanted, but for the most part she didn’t want. Even the guests that arrived from the other citadels usually amounted to little more than a temporary exploration. A brief period of amusement that usually proved to be indistinguishable from all the others.

She pulled on a robe and debated with herself whether to remain awake for the rest of the day, or to sleep until evening. She picked up a small ornate case from a side table and looked at the two injectors; dormax, which would guarantee her eight hours’ uninterrupted sleep, and altacaine, the alternative shot that would see she remained lively and talkative until late the following night.