“You gonna get that?” Stu said, pointing into the pit.
“Shit,” Clem said. “We can’t leave that on him. Someone might hear it.”
“How they going to hear it through four feet of dirt? Not that anyone’s gonna come out to this fucking dioxin fiesta in the first place. Whole place reeks of acetone or some damn thing.”
“We’re not leaving it on him, Stu. Go get it.”
Stu climbed into the pit, carefully straddling the body. He cut open the garbage bags with a pocket knife and rooted around until he found the phone. He handed it up to Clem and climbed out. Clem put it in his pocket and reached for his shovel.
“Don’t seem right to just dump him like this,” Stu said. “You think maybe we should say a few words?”
Clem made the sign of the cross and cleared his throat. “Here lies a dead guy,” he said. He looked over at Stu, then back to the green package below them. “End of story.”
ELEVEN
Sabrina sat in front while Owen drove and Max took his siesta in the back bedroom. It was unlawful to be out of the seats while the vehicle was travelling down a highway at sixty miles an hour, but it was useless to try and talk Max out of it. The afternoon nap, according to Max, was just one of many things he and the great Winston Churchill had in common.
The desert rolled by on either side. They passed the turn-off to Laughlin, and the huge letter C that marked the town of Chloride. They sailed by Kingman, and then it was miles and miles of cactus.
“They look fake,” Sabrina said. “They look just like the plastic ones, except they’re all different sizes.”
The temperature gauge said it was 104 Fahrenheit outside; the air conditioner was working overtime. Owen became acutely aware of the scent Sabrina was wearing, something incomparably fresh and clean that increased his desire to bury his face in her graceful neck.
“Those are the Hualapai Mountains,” he said, just for something to say.
“So that’s what the Hualapai Mountains look like.”
“You’re making fun of me, aren’t you.”
“Why, yes, Owen. I am.”
He tried to find a music station that wasn’t playing country, and finally gave up. Sabrina pulled out an iPod with an FM attachment, so for the next stretch they listened to Dido.
“I like her,” Sabrina said. “She’s a bitch, but vulnerable-like me, I guess.”
“Don’t say that.” Owen pulled out to pass a spavined Buick that was belching black smoke. “You may be vulnerable, but-”
“Tell me something, Owen.” She turned her whole body round to face him. “What’s a grown boy like you doing travelling around the desert for the summer with his uncle?”
Owen smiled and pulled back into the slow lane. “Pretty weird, huh?”
“Tell me, though. Isn’t he too old to be your uncle?”
“He’s my great-uncle. But really he’s more like my stepdad.”
“What happened to your parents?”
“It’s kind of like what you went through, only I was younger. I was ten.” Owen told her the story of the car crash, and his brush with foster care.
“God,” Sabrina said. “I don’t think I would have recovered from something like that.”
“It turned out Max was the only relative I had. When he heard about my situation, he applied for guardianship and I’ve been with him ever since.”
“Pretty eccentric guy.”
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it.”
“Well, if he loves my dad, he’s got to be a crook. Made you part of the life, right?”
Owen looked at her, her green eyes bright, daring him to admit it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. You’re forgetting how I grew up.” She touched his knee, warm palm through denim, quickly gone. “It’s okay. You don’t have to pretend around me. You do these, uh, road trips every year?”
“This is the last one. I mean, I like to see the country and all-it’s been a real education-but I’d like to spend at least one summer just hanging out.”
“Listen, don’t you have a girlfriend back in New York? She must hate it when you take off like this.”
“No girlfriend. Not at the moment. What about you? You said Bill was not a boyfriend.”
“Nope. Haven’t had one of those in years, and I don’t want one. Boys are just too … too everything. Personally, I find females a lot easier to take. Which is why I’m a total lesbian.”
“Get outta here,” Owen said. “You are not.”
“How the hell would you know?” A sudden deep furrow between her eyebrows hinted at an as yet unexpressed temper.
“Because there’s nothing about you that says lesbian. Everything about you says guys, guys, guys.”
“Oh, really. Here you are driving across country in a trailer with an old man who’s not your father, you want to be onstage, and you’ve got no girlfriend. Do you ever have just the tiniest suspicion that you might be gay?”
“No, actually, I don’t.”
“Uh-huh. And tell me how exactly it is you know you’re not gay?”
“Very simple.” Owen sat up straight and looked out at the highway. He cleared his throat, thinking how best to put this. Finally he said, “I know I’m not gay, Sabrina, and I’ll tell you exactly why: if you were to disappear right now, this instant-if I was to never see you again for the rest of my life, never hear from you, never again have any contact with you whatsoever-no matter how many girls-women-I might meet and be friends with over the years, no matter how pretty they might be, how smart or how sexy, I will never, ever forget how you look in that red tank top right now.”
Sabrina looked down and shook her head slowly from side to side, but Owen could see the dimple of a smile in her cheek.
“I’m not exaggerating, Sabrina. You and your red tank top are in my head for all eternity.”
“And that’s how you know you’re not gay.”
“That’s how I know I’m not gay.”
“Well,” Sabrina said, “despite how I may or may not look to you, I personally find women a whole lot more attractive than men. Men are such lunks, so completely insensitive. All they want to do is drink beer and watch sports. And let me tell you, despite what the movies might have you believe, they are perfectly terrible in bed.”
“And how’d old Preacher Bill take the lesbian news? Bible-thumpers aren’t usually too forgiving when it comes to loving your gay neighbour.”
“I never discussed my sexual preferences with Bill.”
“Good choice. Not worth getting stoned to death.”
“The reason I didn’t tell him was because he was so obsessed with me, and obsession just gets worse the more obstacles you put in the way-or didn’t you ever notice that?”
“I have to tell you the honest truth,” he said.
“What’s the honest truth, Owen?”
“I’ve always had a real soft spot for lesbians.”
“Yes, sir,” Sabrina said. “I bet you have.”
Bill Bullard stood in the dining room of his compact little bungalow and read the note for the fourteenth time.Dear Bill,I’m sorry to leave you like this, especially with such a nasty bump on your head, but it’s time for me to go. You’ve been kind, but you’re just too nuts about me, too nuts in general, and too fond of hitting people.Please don’t try to find me. Let’s just remember the good times, okay?I wish you nothing but the best,Sabrina
Bill set the note down on the dining room table. He was a security man, for Pete’s sake, he carried a gun, he was good at hitting people, he used to be a cop. In short, he wasn’t supposed to cry. But he wanted to, he wanted to bawl like a baby. He rubbed a hand over his scalp and felt the gauze taped around his skull. In the mirror he didn’t look as bad as he felt. The bandage sat at an almost jaunty angle, and it made his eyes look bigger and more sensitive. Noble even. The total effect was kind of war veteran, though he had never been in the armed forces.