“I don’t think so.”
When they opened the doors, heat blasted in on them. They got out, the young man carrying the bag of sandwiches and beer. He sat down on a large rock. The woman sat beside him.
“I hope you like the sandwiches. They’re corned beef with Swiss cheese.”
“Sounds good.” He handed one of them to her and opened the beer. The cans were only cool, but he decided that cool beer was better than no beer at all. As he picked at the cellophane covering his sandwich, he asked, “Where’s your husband?”
“What do you mean?”
She looked down at the band of pale skin on her third finger. “We’re separated.”
“Oh? How come?”
“I found out that he’d been cheating on me.”
“On you? No kidding! He must have been crazy.”
“Not crazy. He just enjoyed hurting people. But I’ll tell you something. Cheating on me was the worst mistake he ever made.”
They ate in silence for a while, the young man occasionally shaking his head with disbelief. Finally, his head stopped shaking. He decided that maybe he’d cheat too on a grown woman who gets her kicks stealing cactus. Good looks aren’t everything. Who wants to live with a crazy woman? He drank off his beer. The last of it was warm and made him shiver.
He went to the car and took the shovel from the floor in back. “You want to come along? Pick out the ones you want and I’ll dig them up for you.”
He watched her wad up the cellophane and stuff it, along with the empty beer cans, into the paper bag. She put the bag in the car, smiling at him, and saying, “Every litter bit hurts.”
They left the car behind. They walked side by side, the woman glancing about, sometimes crouching to inspect a likely cactus.
“You must think I’m rather strange,” she confided, “picking up a hitchhiker like I did. I hope you don’t think...well, it was criminal of that man to leave you out in the middle of nowhere. But I’m glad I picked you up. For some reason, I feel I can talk to you.”
“That’s nice. I like to listen. What about this one?” he asked, pointing at a huge prickly cactus.
“Too big. What I want is something smaller.”
“This one ought to fit in the trunk.”
“I’d rather have a few smaller ones,” she insisted. “Besides, there’s a kind in the Saguaro National Monument that I want to get. It’ll probably be pretty big. I want to save the trunk for that one.”
“Anything you say.”
They walked farther. Soon, the car was out of sight. The sun felt like a hot, heavy hand pressing down on the young man’s head and back.
“How about this one?” he asked, pointing. “It’s pretty little.”
“Yes. This one is just about perfect.”
The woman knelt beside it. Her shirt was dark blue against her perspiring back, and a slight breeze rustled her hair.
This will be a good way to remember her, the young man thought as he crashed the shovel down on her head.
He buried her beside the cactus.
As he drove down the road, he thought about her. She had been a nice woman with obvious class. Crazy, but nice. Her husband must’ve been a nut to cheat on a good-looking woman like her, unless of course it was because of her craziness.
He thought it nice that she had told him so much about herself. It felt good to be trusted with secrets.
He wondered how far she would have driven him. Not far enough. It was much better having the car to himself. That way he didn’t have to worry. And the $36 he found in her purse was a welcome bonus. He’d been afraid, for a moment, that he might find nothing but credit cards. All around, she had been a good find. He felt very lucky.
At least until the car began to move sluggishly. He pulled off the road and got out. “Oh, no,” he muttered, seeing the flat rear tire. He leaned back against the side of the car and groaned. The sun beat on his face. He closed his eyes and shook his head, disgusted by the situation and thinking how awful it would be, working on the tire for fifteen minutes under that hot sun.
Then he heard, in the distance, the faint sound of a motor. Opening his eyes, he squinted down the road. A car was approaching. For a moment, he considered thumbing a ride. But that, he decided, would be stupid now that he had a car of his own. He closed his eyes again to wait for the car to pass.
But it didn’t pass. It stopped.
He opened his eyes and gasped.
“Afternoon,” the stranger called out.
“Howdy, Officer,” he said, his heart thudding.
“You got a spare?”
“I think so.”
“What do you mean, you think so? You either have a spare or you don’t.”
“What I meant was, I’m not sure if it’s any good. It’s been a while since I’ve had any use for it, you understand?”
“Of course I understand. Guess I’ll stick around till we find out. This is rough country. A person can die out here. If the spare’s no good, I’ll radio for a tow.”
“Okay, thanks.” He opened the door and took the keys from the ignition.
Everything’s okay, he told himself. No reason in the world for this cop to suspect anything.
“Did you go off the road back a ways?”
“No, why?” Even as he asked, he fumbled the keys. They fell to the ground. The other man picked them up.
“Flats around here, they’re usually caused by cactus spines. They’re murder.”
He followed the officer to the rear of the car.
The octagonal key didn’t fit the trunk.
“Don’t know why those dopes in Detroit don’t just make one key that’ll fit the doors and trunk both.”
“I don’t know,” the young man said, matching the other’s tone of disgust and feeling even more confident.
The round key fit. The trunk popped open.
The officer threw a tarp onto the ground and then leveled his pistol at the young man, who was staring at the body of a middle-aged man who obviously had class.
Self-published in July 1971
Self-published in September 1971
Originally Published in Debonair, February 1976
It was a case of “The best laid plans of rapes by men going oft astray...”
tan answered the ringing telephone. “Wide World Travel, Mr. Dallas.”
“Hello. I’m Cindy Hart, and I’m calling in reference to your want ad in the Times. The secretarial position.” The girl’s voice had a quiet, feminine quality without a trace of the cold steel he heard so often in women calling about his ads. Cindy Hart sounded like a warm, open woman. One of life’s winners.
“Would this morning be convenient for an interview?” Stan asked.
“That would be just fine, Mr. Dallas.”
“Very good. We’re located at 110 Weston Avenue, Suite 1408. That’s on the fourteenth floor. Does eleven o’clock sound all right?”
“Just fine. That’s 110 Weston, Suite 1408, at eleven?”
“Right. I’ll look forward to meeting you Miss Hart.” Stan hung up, wiped the sweat off his hands, and stepped out of the telephone booth.
His car was parked at the curb. He got inside and took a deep, trembling breath. Then he looked at his wristwatch. 10:10. Fifty minutes to kill. No, not to kill—to savor. With shaking hands, he lit a cigarette.