“What’s the car?”
“One I rented down the line a piece. I have a plane parked down there.”
I said, “Well, anyway, I’m glad we’re friends. If we hadn’t been, you might have got sore and decided not to tell me anything.”
He laughed at that. The driver half turned, then pivoted his head back so his eyes were on the road.
The car roared into high speed, taking a series of dips in the road so fast I could feel the body lurch and sway on its springs.
I settled back into the corner and wrapped myself in silence. Kleinsmidt bit the end from a cigar and smoked. There was no sound save the noise made by the cold desert wind as it whistled around the car, and the sound of the motor. Once or twice we went through streaks of sifting sand hissing across the highway in long tendrils of drifting white.
The pitted crescent of an old moon came up when we had been traveling about half an hour, and a few minutes later the car slowed.
Ahead, a square of multicolored lights marked the location of a landing-field. The driver slowed the car, searched for a turn-off road with a spotlight, found it, and approached the field. Almost at once, I heard the roar of an airplane motor and saw lights come on on a plane.
Kleinsmidt said to the driver, “I’ll want a receipt for this so I can turn it in on expenses.”
The driver took the money Kleinsmidt gave him and scrawled out a receipt. Kleinsmidt opened the door, grabbed my bag, and we stepped out into the cold. The driver of the car backed it around and started back for the highway. The motor on the plane was turning over with clicking regularity. I could hear the coarse sand crunching beneath our feet.