Dark Rivers of the Heart

apology.
        "Accepted," Spencer said.
        On the street, in the Explorer again, Spencer said, "Actually, I'm proud of you, pal."
        Rocky cocked his head.
        Starting the en The, Spencer said, "You're getting more sociable every day. If I didn't know better, I'd think you've been raiding my cash supply to pay for some high-priced Beverly Hills therapist."
        Half a block ahead, a mold-green Chevy rounded the corner in a highspeed slide, tires screaming and smoking, and almost rolled like a stock car in a demolition derby. Somehow it stayed on two wheels, accelerated toward them, and shrieked to a stop at the curb on the other side of the street.
        Spencer assumed the car was driven by a drunk or by a kid hopped up on something stronger than Pepsi-until the doors flew open and four men, of a type he recognized too well, exploded out of it. They hurried toward the entrance to the apartment-house courtyard.
        Spencer popped the hand brake and shifted into drive.
        One of the running men spotted him, pointed, shouted. All four of them turned toward the Explorer.
        "Better hold tight, pal."
        Spencer tramped on the accelerator, and the Explorer shot into the street, away from the men, toward the corner.
        He heard gunfire.
        BULLET SMACKED INTO the tailgate of the Explorer. Another ricocheted off metal with a piercing whine. The fuel tank didn't explode. No glass shattered. No tires blew out. Spencer hung a hard right turn past the coffee shop on the corner, felt the truck lifting, trying to tip over, so he pushed it into a slide instead. Rubber barked against blacktop as the rear tires stuttered sideways across the pavement. Then they were into the side street, out of sight of the gunmen, and Spencer accelerated.
        Rocky, who was afraid of darkness and wind and lightning and cats and being seen at his toilet, among a dauntingly long list of other things, was not in the least frightened by the gunfire or by Spencer's stunt driving.
        He sat up straight, his claws sunk into the upholstery, swaying with the movement of the truck, panting and grinning.
        Glancing at the speedometer, Spencer saw that they were doing sixty-five in a thirty-mile-per-hour zone. He accelerated.
        In the passenger seat, Rocky did something that he had never done before: He began to bob his head up and down, as if encouraging Spencer to greater speed, yes yes yes yes, "This is serious stuff," Spencer reminded him.
        Rocky chuffed, as though scoffing at the danger.
        "They must have been running audio surveillance on Theda's apartment."
        Yes yes yes, yes.
        "Wasting precious resources monitoring Them ever since last November?
        What the hell do they want with Valerie, that's so damned important that it's worth all this?"
        Spencer looked at the rearview mirror. One and a half blocks behind them, the Chevy rounded the corner at the coffee shop.
        He had wanted to get two blocks away before swinging left, out of sight, hoping that the trigger-happy torpedoes in the mold-green sedan would be deceived into thinking that he had turned at the first cross street rather than the second. Now they were on to him again. The Chevy was closing the distance between them, and it was a hell of a lot faster than it looked, a souped-up street rod disguised as one of the stripped-down wheezemobiles that the government assigned to Agriculture Department inspectors and agents of the Bureau of Dental Floss Management.
        Though in their sights, Spencer hung a left at the end of the second block, as planned. This time he entered the new street in a wide turn to avoid another time-wasting, tire-stressing slide.
        Nevertheless, he was going so fast that he spooked the driver of an approaching Honda. The guy wheeled hard right, bounced up onto the sidewalk, grazed a fire hydrant, and rammed a sagging chain-link fence that surrounded an abandoned service station.
        From the corner of his eye, Spencer saw Rocky leaning against the passenger door, pushed there by centrifugal force, yet bobbing his head enthusiastically: yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
        Pillowy hammers of cold wind buffeted the Explorer. From out of several empty acres on the right, dense clouds of sand churned into the street.
        Vegas had grown haphazardly across the floor of a vast desert valley, and even most of the developed