How Many Miles to Babylon?

Chapter Two: Three score miles and ten [Asheville to Memphis]

Face’s comment about the road was the only thing he said the whole time; in fact, it was the only thing anybody said the whole time. That was fine with him – well, to be honest, ‘fine’ wasn’t the right word, but he was just as happy not to be talking with the others right now. Murdock was okay, or he would be: at the shelter they’d let him make sure the terrier had a roomy cage and promised they wouldn’t kill it. He’d miss it for a while, then forget it; he’d want a new one when they got back, most likely, but that wasn’t a problem. Face didn’t particularly like dogs, but he wouldn’t mind one if it would make Murdock happy. Right now Murdock was drowsing on and off, tired still, and that was good, because though talking to Murdock wasn’t problematic in itself, talking to him where Hannibal could hear was.

But talking to the other two was problematic. Through the whole BA-laying-down-the-law scene, Hannibal had just stood there watching, looking, one eyebrow lifted. He was going to want to know why Face had let Murdock bring the dog along, and until Face had come up with an answer that didn’t involve lying – lying about the future, at any rate, since there was bound to be some lying – he didn’t want to have that conversation. He wasn’t at all certain why he’d let the pilot bring the dog, and that was the real problem here. He didn’t want to talk to Hannibal until he had things under control.

And BA? In some ways he’d be worse. Hannibal would give him room to run, enough rope – though he had confidence in his ability to get out of any noose and turn it into a rappelling rope to escape with – and he’d wait. History showed that the colonel preferred to wait, if he could, to pick a good time, and that could be used to your advantage if you knew how. The sergeant, though, he picked his time, too, and it always was his time. The only ray of light Face could see was that BA hadn’t lit into him already. But since that was probably just because he didn’t want to upset Murdock any further, it wasn’t necessarily a good sign. Especially since every time he looked in front he saw BA’s dark eyes in the rearview, looking at him.

That was a conversation to be put off as long as possible, even though he knew it was coming. And that it was his own fault it was.

When they reached Asheville it was nearly dark. “Let’s find something that’s not empty,” Hannibal said.

“We don’t want to stand out.”

“There a Motel Six down the road there,” BA said and took the turn.

The Vacancy sign was lit and the parking lot about half full. “This’ll do fine,” Hannibal said. BA turned into the lot and pulled up outside the office. “I’ll get rooms.” Hannibal opened the door. Murdock shoved the seat forward and scrambled out after him. Face wasn’t sure if Murdock was just bored with being in the car or didn’t want to lose Hannibal’s protection. If the latter, if he didn’t think Face could stop BA yelling at him again, then Face had a bit more work cut out for him than he’d thought. He sighed and reached to push the seat out of the way, but BA hadn’t moved yet. Didn’t look like he intended to, either, the keys were still in the ignition. Face was simultaneously wishing he’d gotten them a sedan instead of a coupe and thinking about sliding over and getting out on the other side when BA turned and said something unexpected.

“We should buy us some clothes an’ stuff.”

Face sagged back against the seat. He should have thought of that. “Especially ‘stuff’,” he agreed. “Did we pass a K-Mart?”

“We did,” BA nodded.

“Right.” Face did slide over. “I’ll let them know; be right back.”

He put his head into the small lobby and found the guys – Hannibal at the desk, Murdock engrossed in the display of local tourist attraction pamphlets. He had to admit he didn’t want to deal with that just now; the pilot was a born tourist, look at his infatuation with Venice, and Face wasn’t. He just wanted to get home as quickly as possible, no stops along the way… He spoke quickly before Murdock noticed him. “Going to get gas,” he said.

Hannibal nodded. “Pick up some takeout, too,” he added.

Another thing he should have thought of. Time to get yourself under control, dammit. All told, this had not been a good day. He hadn’t died, but things had gone downhill from there. He ducked out the door without waiting for anything else, and paused outside to take a deep breath. Then he got into the waiting Cougar next to BA.

“We’ll gas it up, too,” he said, “so we can just go in the morning, and get some take-out.”

BA nodded, his neck chains rustling against each other with a sound less like chiming than you’d have thought. Too many of them, Face decided; they made his neck ache to look at them. Then again, anybody who looked less like a sergeant you’d be hard pressed to find… “There’s a chicken place near the K-Mart” was all the big man said.

Face was grateful but wary. True, BA wasn’t dressing him down now that they were alone, but he could feel the other man’s weary disapproval. It stung. It should, he admitted to himself; he wasn’t pulling his weight. He was tired, that was all, tomorrow he’d be on top of things again. But that wasn’t a good excuse, and anyway excuses were never satisfactory. Even reasons weren’t… Shake it off, pay attention. You’re not home yet.

BA turned the car into the parking lot. “Gas first?” he asked.

“Right,” Face said, pulling out his wallet. He had a couple of gas cards in there, might as well use one before they got stopped. Hannibal preferred paying cash, and not just for pragmatic reasons, but getting that was no less problematic, really. And the big oil companies could stand a few gallons’ loss without going under. So he let BA fill the tank and then went inside and handed over the Shell card without a qualm on his conscience, which was the best way. The guy didn’t bother calling it in, just ran the card through the manual imprinter and filled out the form. Face signed, took the card and the dusty carbon copy – as usual, pretty smudgy and hard to read – and finished up the small talk he’d been making about the weather.

“What’s the best way to Shenandoah?” he asked as he tucked away his wallet, listening as the guy told him about the Blue Ridge Parkway. He even took a map before saying thanks and leaving.

Inside the K-Mart he and BA split up. He headed for the Men’s section and began loading up the cart. Hannibal was easy – a couple of short-sleeved shirts and a couple of long-sleeved ones, some casual pants and a pair of jeans – and Murdock even easier – three pairs of khaki pants and four colorful t-shirts. Socks and underwear for the three of them, undershirts for himself and Hannibal… BA could get his own. He spent a few minutes picking over the stock before settling on his own purchases – polo shirts in the best colors they had, their best jeans, a couple of not too dressy pants (not that ‘not too dressy’ was hard in a K-Mart)… well, he wouldn’t stand out. After a moment’s thought he picked up a windbreaker for himself and then a new one for Hannibal – the one the colonel had was suspiciously dirty. He thought about getting himself a pair of loafers but … not here. Not worth the money.

When BA joined him, his cart contained sweats and some overalls, and the basket was loaded with toiletries. Face had to admit the sergeant had a good memory for brand names. Motels didn’t put out stuff the way a good hotel did, just soap usually, so the shampoo and razors and so on would come in handy. And so would the four small suitcases – soft hold-alls, really – that he’d piled into the cart along with his clothes.

Which was one more thing he should have thought of. Left to him, they’d have walked into the Motel-6 carrying K-Mart bags. That wouldn’t have attracted any notice, no, sir. He definitely needed to get himself together. Maybe a good night’s sleep would help.

It better.

They reached the front of the line and began piling stuff onto the belt. “We’re together,” Face told the young man ringing them up.

“You boys going on a trip?” he asked, the slight quiver on the last word registering his sudden realization that the word ‘boys’ might not have been his brightest idea.

BA gave him the fish-eye but didn’t say anything. Face let him off the hook with a bright smile and a cheerful, “Yeah – Shenandoah. On the way to DC, actually.” He made sure to be a little more drawly than the clerk, to match the South Carolina license he was going to show with the card. The clerk was too happy to see them go to even think about checking that, despite their purchase being over the limit. Less than a day after he’d acquired it, it was bound still to be good, but Face wasn’t sorry not to have to put on the air of an unworried man. Who the hell knew whether Richard Dunning hadn’t run up his credit, after all? He took most of the bags and followed BA, who was carrying the suitcases with their flashy ‘Sold’ tape, outside the store into the dusk.

They tossed everything into the back of the car and BA pulled into a far corner of the lot so they could pack the suitcases. BA had bought four colors, and he took the black one for himself. Face put his things into the dark gray one, giving Hannibal the brown one and Murdock the blue. They packed their own bags in silence, and then started on the other two. As BA layered Hannibal’s shirts on top of the trousers Face made himself say, “Buying these was a good idea.”

BA met his eyes for a moment but didn’t speak.

Face nodded. “You’re right. The clothes were a good idea, too. Also the rest of it.” He zipped up his own bag and reached for Murdock’s. “You’ve had a lot of good ideas today.”

“Thanks, man.” BA dropped the bag onto the floor of the back seat and climbed in behind the wheel. Face finished up Murdock’s packing and settled in next to BA. He didn’t have to check his wallet; he always knew how much cash he had. “Let’s use the drive-through,” he said. BA nodded and pulled out onto the service road.

They ordered a 16-piece bucket of original recipe, a big side of cole slaw and another of potatoes and gravy, and some biscuits. Southern sweet tea, milk for BA, and “pull around, please.” BA handed over the money and took the big bags and passed them to Face, who balanced them gingerly on his lap as they headed back for the motel. Except for the thank-you and the chicken-buying, BA hadn’t spoken since they’d left the place. The silence wasn’t oppressive, but it wasn’t just plain companionable, nothing particular to say silence, either. It was a very familiar silence, and Face finally had to break it.

“What?”

“What you mean, what?” was the unencouraging response.

Face sighed, not bothering to try to hide it. “I messed up. Okay?”

“No,” said BA. “You made bad decisions today, Faceman. An’ you missed stuff you shouldn’ta.”

“I know it.” Face kept that plain and simple.

“What else you missed that we didn’t think of?”

Face almost claimed the food as his idea, but then thought better of it. And not just because Hannibal was likely to say something that would give the game away, either. This was one of those conversations that meant they said the truth to each other – rare they were, and painful, but he’d never not gotten good from them. BA might dress him down, but he wouldn’t let Hannibal see it – just like he hadn’t raised the topic of shopping when Hannibal was around. And because he knew that BA would let him take the credit for that idea, he had to let the sergeant know exactly how badly he had, in fact, screwed up – and that he knew that, too. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “If there is anything else, I have missed it.”

BA shook his head. “You off your game,” he said. “You entitled to a bad day every now an’ then, everybody is, but you can’t have one this bad. You got people dependin’ on you.”

“I’m tired.”

“That true,” BA acknowledged, fair as always. But then he added, “But you can’t afford to let that slow you down. You got to learn to sleep even when you worried or got stuff goin’ on. Gotta learn to catnap.”

Face knew it was true. Hannibal could lean back in a corner and grab forty winks at the drop of hat, while waiting to drop out of a chopper into a dark field probably full of people wanting to kill him. So could BA. Him? People wanting to kill him always kept him up nights beforehand... “I’ll work on it.”

“Do that. If bein’ tired slow you down, you gotta learn to stay fresh. But that ain’t the worst of it.”

“What do you mean?” he asked warily.

“Why you let him think he could have that dog?”

Face sighed, looking out the window into the advancing dark. “I told him it wasn’t a good idea.”

BA grunted more than sighed, and then pulled over on the side of the road. They were almost at the motel. Clearly he didn’t want to pull into the parking lot and have Hannibal clock their arrival. And that meant this wasn’t even close to over. Face summoned his best puzzled attitude. “Chicken’s going to get cold.”

“Only if you play games,” BA said. “You know he wouldn’t have brought that dog if you hadn’t let him. So why?”

Face shrugged. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

BA clenched his hands on the wheel and shook his head. “Now you are playin’ games.”

Face almost laughed. He didn’t, because he really had deserved it. “No, really. I don’t know.”

BA regarded him seriously. After a considering moment he said, “That ain’t good, LT. You need to figure that out.”

“I know.” And he did. “I suppose … I don’t know. I didn’t want to say to him.”

“He needed ‘no’ said, though.” BA canted his head, his gold chains doing their chiming rustle again.

Face laughed, hearing how bitter it sounded. “Oh, I did know that. I didn’t want to say it.”

“So I had to.”

“You didn’t mind.”

BA looked long and hard at him. “That ain’t the point.”

“I know.” Face had to laugh again. “I know, I know. But I do know – I really do.”

“You better. An’ you better figure out what’s goin’ on with you and him, an’ you in general.”

“I’ll try.”

“Tryin’ ain’t enough, LT.” There was that again. “You gotta do it. You playin’ with someone’s mind now.”

“I know that,” Face said sharply. “You can’t think I ever forget that.”

“No. I guess you don’t, at that.” BA blew out a heavy gust. “Then you know you gotta get your own head together, and fast.” With that, BA put the Cougar in gear.

“That’s it?” Face couldn’t help asking, though even as he did he wondered why. “For now,” BA growled, looking over his shoulder to pull out onto the road. “You got some time to think. We be days gettin’ back to California.”

Face moaned theatrically. BA laughed and turned into the motel parking lot. “I didn’t pick this car,” he said. “You did.”

Face didn’t bother answering that, just waited for BA to park the Cougar. Then he got out, pushed the seat forward and grabbed one of the bags.

“I got the others,” BA said. “Not that we know which rooms we in.”

But that wasn’t a problem; Murdock had apparently been waiting for them as he flung open the door, a rectangle of soft golden light in the dark. “Where’d you go for the food?” he demanded. “All the way back to Charleston?”

Ah, home, Face thought wryly. He handed one of the bags to the pilot and followed him into the room. Hannibal looked up from the newspaper. An eyebrow rose. “Good thinking, Face. We’ll look like real travelers with those.”

“And we can stay clean,” BA said. “Can’t hurt, as close as we gonna be this week.”

“Nice.” Hannibal stood up and took the bag BA indicated. Murdock had forgotten the food and was rummaging in the blue holdall BA had thrown at him. Hannibal put his down by the door, saying to BA

“We’re next door, sergeant. Murdock, put that down for a while so we can eat.”

Murdock looked up from the t-shirt he was inspecting and grinned. “Sure thing. You know I could probably eat a horse, not just a chicken.”

“Half a chicken,” Face said, taking the lid off the bucket and setting it on the little table next to the tubs of cole slaw and potatoes. He paused and shook his head. “No plates.”

“We don’t need ‘em,” Murdock said, pulling the little packets of plastic silverware and napkins out of the bag. “We can eat out of the containers; we’ve eaten with less formality before, after all.” He dropped the packets on the table and reached for a drumstick.

Hannibal laughed and pulled out a breast, and the others weren’t slow to join in. There was silence for awhile except the sounds of eating and drinking. BA broke it by asking how long they were going to be on the road the next day.

Face shrugged. “That depends, I guess. I figured we could make it to Memphis. That’s -”

“Graceland!” Murdock interrupted. “We can go to Graceland, can’t we? Pleeeeease, Hannibal?”

Hannibal didn’t like rock and roll, but he looked at Murdock benevolently enough. “We’ll see. It depends on when we get there, a few other things. How long a drive is that, Face?”

He shrugged. “Maybe nine hours, maybe a little less. More if we stop for meals.”

“I don’t think we’re in a hurry,” Hannibal said. “We can eat in a restaurant. Even if it’s only a Denny’s or whatever they have out here.”

“I agree, Hannibal,” BA said. “That’s a long drive.”

Face agreed, too, though for a different reason: the later they got to Memphis, the less likely they would end up at Graceland, which surely kept tourist hours. Murdock was eating cole slaw, but he nodded energetically. He wouldn’t want to be cooped up that long, Face knew – and Hannibal most likely did, too. So it was left at that. When they finished eating, Hannibal and BA took their bags and headed for the next room, Hannibal telling them to get some sleep as they’d be leaving first thing in the morning. Face tidied up the table, stuffing the bags full of trash and then the full bags into the trash can while Murdock took a quick shower. Face followed him in that; he usually showered in the mornings, but today had been a long, hard day, and he wanted to be clean.

When he came out of the bathroom Murdock was sitting up in the bed closest to the television bolted on the wall bracket, watching some black and white film. He paused a moment, watching a couple of men in trench coats and fedoras sneak around a dock in wispy movie fog, and then crossed over to the other bed.

“Face, will it bother you if I watch TV for a while? I’ll keep the sound low.”

Face, can I move the TV into the room I’m sleeping in? It’s just … hard to get sleep any more, when it’s dark and quiet.

“No, of course not. I can sleep as well with it on as off.” True enough as far as that went.

He slid under the blanket and turned on his side. The curtains at the window made the room dark despite the lights and the road outside, but the television, low enough that he really couldn’t follow the old movie, kept the room filled with low flickering light that played against his closed eyelids, but not enough to be a distraction. Various thoughts tried to surface, but he refused to let them. He had plenty of experience at not thinking under worse circumstances, and it wasn’t hard to stay in a state of near blank-mindedness if not quite sleep.

Eventually the low sound turned into the white noise of late night static and even later Face fell asleep.