standing in front of the curtains made him pause, even as he answered the call.
âJanet!â
Treacly sounds trickled out; he raised the volume, some sort of kiddiesâ song: Felix the Cat, the funderful, funderful cat! The cloying verse repeated again. âJanet!â No Janet. Just the idiotic verses. Eleanorâs voice came at him from the window.
âSheâs not there.â
Bhakti ignored his wife; rushing out the door, he met Wen Chen in the street between their houses. Chenâs iPhone was blatting the same ditty. His oriental eyes were wide and round. âWeâve got a signal, we can locate them!â Chen cried.
But in a bitter crack of his mind Bhakti felt the hollow pit at the bottom of his stomach open like an abyss.
They were grasping at straws.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
The two men roared off down Interstate 10, followed by Deputy Jimmy. A Texas Highway Patrol Ford Interceptor, bubble lights blazing, hooked up with them ten miles west of Van Horn, then took the lead.
Theyâd traced two cell phones about forty miles farther west around the border town of Sierra Blanca. Bhakti sat in the passengerâs seat watching Chenâdriving crash-dummy, expressionless, hands gripping the wheel, eyes dead ahead. Neither man talked. Bhakti cupped his BlackBerry in his hand, still connected. The kiddiesâ tune continued to whimper from the device, the charge bars shrinking from three to two to one. Only moments to go before the thing died. He had forgotten to bring the charge cable from his own car. Even though he hated the sugary tune the humming unit was a connection, a slim thread to Janet. And he clutched the thing, hoping against hope a human voice would come through. When the device finally lost all its juice, he let it quietly die.
Only thing Chen said to him the whole drive, âI didnât want Lila to go. Amy didnât like it either, but we thought it was okay because you didnât seem worried.â Bhakti didnât reply. What was there to say? Iâm your boss? You trusted me? Iâm sorry you feel that way? Nothing good to say.
Chen fished in his pocket and opened his own cell phone. Again, the gritty tune filled the car. âSave your battery,â Bhakti told him. But Chen ignored him.
The Ford Interceptor and Jimmyâs cop car started to slowâthey were reaching their destination.
He had been to this place once or twice before. The desert around Sierra Blanca was just that: white mountains. Sand, dust, scrub. Railroad tracks paralleled the interstate; once upon a time the town served the Texas & Pacific and Southern Pacific. Not much to write home about: a depot museum in a red caboose railroad car, the oldest working adobe courthouse in Texas. And the distinction of once being the largest sewage sludge dump in the nation, on the short end of the stick from places as far away as Detroit or New York City. Municipalities saying, Here we sit, muscles flexinâ, giving our crud to another Texan.⦠Was Eleanor trying to tell him something? Bhakti wondered. Was this the writing on the wall?
A cluster of streets and houses; an in-between border town, neither totally alive nor totally dead. Population 553. Five a.m.; the stars still shone hard and bright in the night sky like distant witnesses. But the horizon glowed purple in the east; dawn soon. The three cars came to a halt on the apron of an abandoned ruin of a truck stop. Square concrete building, spiky weeds had overtaken the place, paint peeled off the awning over the pumps. The plate-glass windows of the storefront were intact, but split with long cracks, the wind and heat taking their toll.
Deputy Jimmy and the Texas Highway Patrolman were already out of their cars; Bhakti and Chen followed the beams of their flashlights lancing over the ground. The patrolman held some sort of cell phone signal locator, and Deputy Jimmy seemed to skip along behind the man looking over his
âJanet!â
Treacly sounds trickled out; he raised the volume, some sort of kiddiesâ song: Felix the Cat, the funderful, funderful cat! The cloying verse repeated again. âJanet!â No Janet. Just the idiotic verses. Eleanorâs voice came at him from the window.
âSheâs not there.â
Bhakti ignored his wife; rushing out the door, he met Wen Chen in the street between their houses. Chenâs iPhone was blatting the same ditty. His oriental eyes were wide and round. âWeâve got a signal, we can locate them!â Chen cried.
But in a bitter crack of his mind Bhakti felt the hollow pit at the bottom of his stomach open like an abyss.
They were grasping at straws.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
The two men roared off down Interstate 10, followed by Deputy Jimmy. A Texas Highway Patrol Ford Interceptor, bubble lights blazing, hooked up with them ten miles west of Van Horn, then took the lead.
Theyâd traced two cell phones about forty miles farther west around the border town of Sierra Blanca. Bhakti sat in the passengerâs seat watching Chenâdriving crash-dummy, expressionless, hands gripping the wheel, eyes dead ahead. Neither man talked. Bhakti cupped his BlackBerry in his hand, still connected. The kiddiesâ tune continued to whimper from the device, the charge bars shrinking from three to two to one. Only moments to go before the thing died. He had forgotten to bring the charge cable from his own car. Even though he hated the sugary tune the humming unit was a connection, a slim thread to Janet. And he clutched the thing, hoping against hope a human voice would come through. When the device finally lost all its juice, he let it quietly die.
Only thing Chen said to him the whole drive, âI didnât want Lila to go. Amy didnât like it either, but we thought it was okay because you didnât seem worried.â Bhakti didnât reply. What was there to say? Iâm your boss? You trusted me? Iâm sorry you feel that way? Nothing good to say.
Chen fished in his pocket and opened his own cell phone. Again, the gritty tune filled the car. âSave your battery,â Bhakti told him. But Chen ignored him.
The Ford Interceptor and Jimmyâs cop car started to slowâthey were reaching their destination.
He had been to this place once or twice before. The desert around Sierra Blanca was just that: white mountains. Sand, dust, scrub. Railroad tracks paralleled the interstate; once upon a time the town served the Texas & Pacific and Southern Pacific. Not much to write home about: a depot museum in a red caboose railroad car, the oldest working adobe courthouse in Texas. And the distinction of once being the largest sewage sludge dump in the nation, on the short end of the stick from places as far away as Detroit or New York City. Municipalities saying, Here we sit, muscles flexinâ, giving our crud to another Texan.⦠Was Eleanor trying to tell him something? Bhakti wondered. Was this the writing on the wall?
A cluster of streets and houses; an in-between border town, neither totally alive nor totally dead. Population 553. Five a.m.; the stars still shone hard and bright in the night sky like distant witnesses. But the horizon glowed purple in the east; dawn soon. The three cars came to a halt on the apron of an abandoned ruin of a truck stop. Square concrete building, spiky weeds had overtaken the place, paint peeled off the awning over the pumps. The plate-glass windows of the storefront were intact, but split with long cracks, the wind and heat taking their toll.
Deputy Jimmy and the Texas Highway Patrolman were already out of their cars; Bhakti and Chen followed the beams of their flashlights lancing over the ground. The patrolman held some sort of cell phone signal locator, and Deputy Jimmy seemed to skip along behind the man looking over his
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