Ahead were nearly three thousand miles of unfamiliar road. He couldn’t imagine how many days of travel that meant. He’d heard of people driving it in a few days without stopping, splitting shifts at the wheel, but he didn’t see how he could possibly manage that alone. He had a pocket full of Black Beauties now, thanks to Earl, but you could only ask so much of amphetamines. Eventually the body would enforce its need for sleep.
They had, as Lenore suggested, dragged his mother back to her car; she was breathing drunkenly but steadily, and his fear of concussion had gradually eased. Michael didn’t want to leave her car in the driveway, since he had good reason to make sure no one came around the house for as long as possible, so he’d given in to Lenore’s insistence that she was able to drive. He had driven his mother home in her own car, and Lenore had followed in the Beetle.
Earl was watching TV in his pajamas and bathrobe when Michael hammered on the door, but he’d pulled on a pair of boots and slogged out into the rain to help carry Michael’s mother into the house. They laid her on the bed, snoring now, while Michael explained how her car had come crashing into the driveway and he’d found her there unconscious, apparently having cracked her head in a minor crash. Earl didn’t ask too many questions, and Michael was anxious to get going. Then he remembered what he needed.
He’d already dug into his mother’s purse to take her gas station credit cards; she retained quite a collection from her crosscountry perambulations. He’d also taken what little cash she carried. But he needed more than that.
“Earl, I wonder if you could help me out.”
He had never asked Earl for anything before, and he could see that it warmed the man, as if they were coming closer together, Michael playing the role of son.
“Sure, boy. What can I do for you?”
“I’m not sure how to say this—I really don’t want her to know.” He gestured at the body laid out on the chenille bedspread.
“Well, then, she doesn’t have to.” He put a hand on Michael’s shoulder, easing the door shut. “Come on now, you can tell me.”
“Lenore and I are driving up to Manhattan to see some old friends for a few days.”
“Yeah? That sounds like a blast. Sure wish I could leave the state; I could use a vacation myself. What’s the problem, you need some money?”
Michael hunched into himself but managed to nod. It pained him to ask, but they needed something, and even sucking their checking account dry tonight at an ATM, before leaving town, wouldn’t get them very far. “I sure could use some,” he said. “But I also need some… some of what I saw you selling.”
Earl’s smile was wide and slow. “Well, well, boy, nothing escapes your notice, does it? I heard you had a taste for that sort of thing, but I never saw a sign of it. I thought you were clean.”
“Well… not that clean,” he said.
“No wonder you didn’t want your ma to know. I’d be glad to help you out on both accounts.” He went over to a little writing desk in the living room and opened one of the lower drawers. Inside were bags and bottles and a triple-beam scale-Michael tried not to look. “How many you think you want? Black Beauties, right? I got other stuff too.”
“Just the Beauties. Could you spare, uh, fifty?”
“Fifty? Jesus!” He howled. “You thinking maybe to make a little profit up there?”
“I was thinking about it, yeah.”
“Well, shit. Tell you what, why don’t you take a hundred?”
“A hundred?”
“Sure. Sell what you don’t use, get what you can for ‘em, and if you make a profit, it’s yours. Finance your trip, right? Now be sure you ask top dollar—whatever the market’ll bear up there. These are pure pharmaceutical—clean stuff.” He tossed Michael a big plastic canister with a child-proof lid. “That’s a hundred right there. Now… the cash.” He walked into the hall. Michael made a point of not following; he heard the door of the hall closet creaking.
Earl kept talking. “This isn’t all mine—I still owe my man. But I’ve got a bit put by, and you kids need yourselves a good vacation, don’t you? Stay in a nice hotel or something, treat yourself. You can pay me back in your own time; or, hell, consider it my gift. I never did get you no wedding present. When’s your anniversary?”
“Uh… it was last month.”
Earl walked back into the living room with a rubber-banded stack of bills. Fives on the top, hundreds on the bottom. Grinning, he started peeling from the bottom.
“Wow, Earl, that’s—that’s way too much.” He looked up in amazement, but his surprise dwindled into horrified dismay.
In the flickering light from the TV, he could see a faint round yellowish glow around Earl’s head, like a huge pale happy-face beaming at him.
“Happy anniversary, son!”
Michael had swallowed one capsule about thirty miles back and was nearing amphetamine midstream, gliding on the rush, taking everything easy even through his underlying panic. His thoughts were calmer and more ordered than they’d been all night or the day before, and he wasn’t gritting his teeth or any of that. It was exceptionally clean stuff. He felt like he could eat a gallon of ice cream, but other than that he was fine.
I’m steady, I’m safe, he told himself as the first full day of their journey dawned.
Then a blue cop-light flashed in his rearview mirror.
There was no mistaking it for the rising sun; his heart struck a new rhythm at the sight, and every bit of habitual drug paranoia rose up in him. He began to grind his teeth uncontrollably and gulp at a thick paste that coated his tongue and throat.
The tailing car was plain blue, unmarked; the blue beacon flashed from the dashboard. He could see the silhouette of the driver as the car pulled closer and filled the Beetle’s rearview mirror. He dimly remembered passing the car on the upgrade several miles back, looking over and seeing an ordinary clean-cut guy in a business suit at the wheeclass="underline" Joe Commuter getting an early start to Knoxville. The fact that the guy was wearing dark glasses before sunrise should have tipped him off.
He glanced over at Lenore. Her eyes were closed. She’d been sleeping since they left Cinderton, Scabby the cat curled up in her lap. It had been Michael’s idea to bring the cat, since otherwise he’d have been abandoning her with no food and no master; Lenore hadn’t asked him to explain. Scabby had licked herself clean of blood, and now, tired of howling to escape, she slumbered peacefully, as if she had lived all her life in a car.
He braked slowly, angling off the road. There was scarcely any shoulder; he was afraid of scraping up against the icy rocks. The oncoming lanes were worse, though: nothing there but a low rock wall, and beyond it a river chasm full of rising mist and sparse trees clinging to sheer walls in what looked suspiciously like desperation.
Lenore began to mumble. Scabby put her head up.
Michael looked back and saw the driver getting out. Gray suit, white cuffs and collar, black tie; his black hair was greased back and looked stiff as a helmet. Michael held his breath through the interminable approach, gravel crunching louder and louder under black wingtips, until finally the man was leaning against the door, bellowing steam and motioning for him to lower his window. Michael let the window down a few inches, which was enough to let most of the preciously hoarded heat escape. The engine ticked, cooling, as he tried to read the badge the man held loosely in front of his face. He could hardly focus on it, he was so worried about Lenore and the sounds working down in her throat.