He'd never found a pattern to it. And he had no warning now. As fog off a river delta, it quietly enshrouds, lingers, and then drifts on. He was engulfed by a damp gray loneliness, the cries of childhood close to his lips. He was cold, too cold.
There was no fog here, only the Nevada desert. Although mountains blocked his view, he was gazing to the southwest in the direction of Los Angeles. The moon doubled his height in a shadow, blurring the tension in his broad shoulders and short neck.
When he could again taste the crisp, desert air, he took control of his eyes first; he focused on the horizon. The urge was strong to walk to where the bright, brilliant stars were within reach. Instead, he turned back toward the filling station, a sprawling blemish beside the old highway. To the north, light from Las Vegas was a dome of whiteness against the dark sky.
He walked carefully, avoiding broken car fragments abandoned to the desert wind and sand. Skeletons of dead vehicles were silhouetted by the moon. With the station lights off, darkness lent respectability, hiding the flaking paint and rusting walls of the building.
He stopped abruptly. Something wasn't right, but all he could grasp was the wrongness of it. He struggled to bring himself back, as if over a great distance. The station was completely dark. It shouldn't be. Jake couldn't be more than half finished with his nightly bookkeeping chores.
Moving quickly now, he picked his way silently around the far end of the building opposite the office. The side door to the service area was still open. At the doorway, he heard the muffled sounds of voices. He heard Jake moan. He drifted swiftly through the blackness toward the office, trying not to hear the old man's cry on each additional blow. But the sounds soiled the night, each a lonesome, keening wail.
"Hold the son'bitch higher," a man demanded.
"Fuck it. This old fart won't tell us nothin'."
He felt in the darkness among the tools on the wall and picked an open-end wrench. It was eighteen inches long. It had the weight he needed.
"Old man," said a third voice. "We got what ya was fixing to bank. We only need tomorrow's cash. It ain't worth dying for."
He was close enough to hear Jake's faint reply. "Christ. You got it all."
"Hold the bastard. He's slippin'," the first man demanded. "You'll kill him, ya keep hitting like that," the third man commented mildly.
"Fuckin' right I will, if he don't tell me right soon."
As he moved toward the entrance of the office, he was careful to keep the heavy wrench away from the metal wall. In the moonlight filtered through the dusty office windows, he could see the man holding Jake and the larger one as he buried his fist in Jake's gut. This time, Jake made no sound, sagging deeper into the grip of the man holding him. All he could see of the third man was the .38 revolver, pointed in the general direction of the action.
He took a guess at where the knees would be below the weapon gripped the metal doorframe, and brought the wrench from behind him, powering it low through the doorway into the unseen man.
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