Day One
July 21, 1952
Monday Afternoon
The two dead bikers posed a problem, and so did the third one-the live one-for that matter. River didn’t want to be a person of interest in the killings even though everything he did was in self-defense. He didn’t want the cops snooping around in one part of his life where they might accidentally stumble on another part. Equally important, he didn’t want to be associated with that particular corner of the universe. He still wanted to use the graveyard tonight and needed to keep his name a hundred miles away from it.
The biker woman could ruin everything.
She could go to the cops.
Ordinarily he wouldn’t be too concerned about it, but he’d punched her in the face and killed her boyfriend. She might seek revenge any way she could.
More to the point, she might bring a gang back to hunt him down.
He could eliminate that problem by killing her.
Instead he decided to keep her close until he could get a better read.
As they walked back to the road he said, “You got a name?”
She did.
“Tatt.”
“I’m not talking about that,” River said. “I’m talking about a real name.”
“That is a real name,” she said.
River shook his head.
“I’m not calling you Tatt,” he said. “From now on until you answer my question, your name’s Susan.”
“What’s it matter? You’re going to kill me anyway.”
“I’ll be honest,” River said. “That’s going to be up to you.”
The next hour was busy. They drove the choppers three miles down the road and into the terrain on the opposite side of the road where they couldn’t be seen from the asphalt in a hundred years.
No one saw them.
They walked back.
A few cars passed and a few startled heads turned at the sight of people out in the middle of nowhere on foot, but no one stopped.
Now they needed to bury the bodies.
That was a problem.
River opened the trunk and found nothing even remotely capable of digging except perhaps a tire iron.
He closed the lid, opened the passenger door for the woman and said, “Get in.”
“Where we going?”
“To my place.”
Underway, he lit two cigarettes, handed one to the woman and said, “Thanks for not darting off on the bike.”
“It’s not like I had a choice.”
“Sure you did,” he said. “You could have made a break for it.”
She flicked ashes out the window.
“You had the faster bike,” she said. “We both knew that.”
River smiled.
“You’re smarter than I thought.”
“Tell me something,” she said. “If I would have made a break for it, would you have killed me?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe.”
She nodded.
“Fair enough.”
River took a long drag, blew smoke and said, “The more I think about it, we’ll bury them tonight after dark. You never told me which one of them you were with.”
“The asshole.”
“The one with the chain?”
“Yeah, him.” A pause, then she said, “My name’s January, if you’re still interested.”
River looked over to see if she was messing with him.
“January? Like the month?”
Right.
That.
“January James,” she said. “You can call me Susan though if you want.”
“January’s fine,” River said. “Actually, I like it.”