The Salmon of Doubt

He could tell him immediately—another still point in the scurrying airport. He was a large, fat, sweaty man with an ill-fitting black suit and a face like a badly laid table. He stood a few feet back from the foot of the escalator, gazing up it with an inert but complicated expression. It was as well that Dirk had been ready to spot him because the sign he held, which read D. JENTTRY, was one he might otherwise easily have missed.

Dirk introduced himself. The man said his name was Joe and that he would go and get the car. And that, rather anticlimactically, Dirk felt, was that. The car drew up at the curbside, a slightly elderly, black stretch Cadillac, gleaming dully in the airport lighting. Dirk regarded it with satisfaction, climbed into it, and settled into the backseat with a small grunt of pleasure. “The client said you’d like it,” said Joe distantly from his driving coop as he quietly rolled the thing forward and out on to the airport exit road.

Dirk looked around him at the scuffed and threadbare velveteen blue upholstery and the tinted plastic film peeling from the windows. The TV, when Dirk tried it, was tuned to nothing but noise, and the asthmatic air conditioning wheezed out a musty wind that was in no way preferable to the warm evening desert air through which they were moving.

“The client,” said Dirk, as the great rattling thing cruised out onto the dimly lit freeway through the city.

“Who exactly is the client?” “An Australian gentleman, he sounded like,” said Joe. His voice was rather high and whiny.

“Australian?” said Dirk, in surprise.

“Yes sir, Australian. Like you.”

Dirk frowned. “I’m from England,” he said.

“But Australian, right?”

“Why Australian, exactly?”

“Australian accent.”

“Well, not really.”

“Well, where’s that place?”

“What place?” asked Dirk.

“New Zealand,” said Joe. “Australia’s in New Zealand, right?” “Well, not precisely, but I can see what you’re ... well, I was going to say I can see what you’re getting at, but I’m not sure I can.”

“What part of New Zealand you from, then?”

“Well, more sort of England, in fact.”

“Is that in New Zealand?”

“Only up to a point,” said Dirk.

The car headed north on the freeway in the direction of Santa Fe. Moonlight lay magically on the high desert. The evening air was crisp.

“You been to Santa Fe before?” Joe nasaled.

“No,” said Dirk. He had abandoned trying to engage him in any kind of intelligible conversation and began to wonder if he had been deliberately chosen for his shortcomings in this area. Dirk was trying hard to stay sunk in thought, but Joe kept yanking him back to the surface.

“No,” said Dirk. He had abandoned trying to engage him in any kind of intelligible conversation and began to wonder if he had been deliberately chosen for his shortcomings in this area. Dirk was trying hard to stay sunk in thought, but Joe kept yanking him back to the surface.

.

Californication they call it. Hur-hur. You know what they call it?”

“Californication?” hazarded Dirk. “Fanta Se,” said Joe. “All the Hollywood types moving in from California.

Ruining it. Especially since the earthquake. You heard about the earthquake?” “Well, I did, as a matter of fact,” said Dirk. “It was on the news. Rather a lot.” “Yeah, it was a big earthquake. And now all the Californians are moving out here instead. To Santa Fe.

Ruining it. Californians. You know what they call it?” Dirk could feel the whole conversation wheeling round and coming at him again.

He tried to deflect it.

“Have you always lived in Santa Fe, then?” he said feebly.

“Oh yeah,” said Joe. “Well, nearly always. Over a year now. Feels like always.”

“So where did you live before?”

“California,” said Joe. “Moved out after my sister was hit in a drive-by shooting. You have drive-by shootings in New Zealand?” “No,” said Dirk. “Not in New Zealand so far as I know. Nor even yet in London, which is where I live. Look, I’m sorry about your sister.” “Yeah. Standing on a streetcorner down on Melrose, couple of guys drive by in a Mercedes, one of those new ones, you know, with the double glazing, and pow, they blew her away—500 SEL, I think it was. Midnight blue. Real smart. They musta jacked it. You have carjacking back in old England?” “Carjacking?”

“People walk up to you, steal your car.”

“No, but thanks for asking. We have people who clean your windscreen against your will, but, er ...”

Joe barked with contempt.

“The thing is,” explained Dirk, “in London you could certainly walk up to someone and steal their car, but you wouldn’t be able to drive it away.” “Some kinda fancy device?”

“No, just traffic,” said Dirk. “But, er ... your sister,” he asked nervously.

“Was she okay?”

“Okay?” shouted Joe. “You shoot someone with a Kalashnikov and they’re okay, you’re gonna want your money back. Hur-hur.”

Dirk tried to make sympathetic noises, but they wouldn’t form properly in his throat. The car was slowing down, so he lowered the peeling window to look at the desert night.

A passing road sign flared briefly in the car’s headlights.