Especially when the moonlight revealed the outline of a pickup with a wooden frame.
By then it was too damn late.
She thought of the old joke, What’s the difference between a good ol’ boy and a redneck? A good ol' boy throws his empty beer bottles in the back of the pickup- a redneck heaves ’em out the window.
She was hoping for the former.
The headlights washed over her. A pickup wasn’t what she had in mind. Not at all. She waved anyhow.
And the truck rolled right on by.
“Jesus!” she said.
She couldn’t believe it. How the hell dare he?
She whirled and ran to the front of the Taurus. “You asshole!” she yelled.
The truck slowed.
Stopped.
Sat there idling thirty feet away.
Oh, shit, she thought. Now you did it. He fucking heard you.
You better get that goddamn tire iron after all, she thought, and started digging in her purse, watching the compartment of the cab, a man’s silhouette inside, waiting for the driver’s door to open and the light to come on, which would mean he was coming out to god knows what purpose and praying that he’d just start moving again, get moving and go the hell away and then she had the keys out and was headed toward the trunk fumbling for the right one. As the truck moved slowly into reverse and started rolling back, taillights stalking her like glowing eyes.
And then suddenly she was stabbed into bright light again and a horn blared long and loud behind her.
She turned to see a station wagon in the process of slowly passing, pulling up alongside the Taurus and stopping, and she glanced at the pickup and saw it start to roll again-this time forward, this time in the right direction. Inside the wagon the driver leaned over and pushed open the passenger-side door and she saw that the driver was a woman smiling at her and she damn near leapt inside.
“God! Thanks!”
“No problem. Car died on you, huh?”
She shut the door. “That truck. He was coming after me.”
“He was? The sonovabitch. You want to go after him?”
“God no.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay. We’ll just drive.”
Janet looked at her. A woman of about her own age. Tight jeans and a tight pale yellow short-sleeve blouse, braless, her long hair pulled back in a lush dark ponytail. Rings on every finger of her right hand and hooped costume-jewelry bracelets, at least half a dozen, dangling from each wrist. A good strong profile, a little too much mascara maybe but still, she thought, quite attractive in her way. And then the woman turned to her and smiled again as they pulled away, and she saw the slightly crooked left incisor.
“Marion? Marion Lane?”
It was the woman’s turn to stare now.
“I’ll be good-goddamned! It’s Janet, right? Janet… wait, don’t tell me. Don’t tell me. I can’t believe this… hold on a minute… Harris! Janet Harris!”
“Close. Morris.” She smiled.
“Morris! You lived…?”
“Plainfield Street.”
“That’s right, Plainfield Street! Up where the money was. Hell, where the money still is. God! I mean, look at you! Jesus, what’s it been?”
“Since high school? A long time. A very long time.”
“No, really… I guess it’s got to be, what…?” “Seventeen years.”
She laughed. “Oh my god. Seventeen years. Seventeen goddamn years ! You know how long that is? Hell, we were only what? eighteen when we graduated? I mean, that’s half a lifetime ago!” She laughed again. “Damn! I think I need a drink,” she said. “Maybe a few drinks.”
She gave Janet’s leg beneath the skirt a light slap. “Hey, it’s good to see you!”
“Good to see you too. You don’t know how good. That guy was starting to scare me.”
“Forget the bastard. Someday he’ll pick up the wrong lady, know what I mean? Where we headed?”
“You know Ellsworth Road? Just outside of town? I’m living over there now.”
“Sure I do. No problem.”
She watched the road ahead wash away beneath their wheels. The pause between them was only momentary but still a little awkward. She really hadn’t known Marion well in high school. They’d traveled in wholly different circles. Janet was definitely college-bound. Marion hadn’t been. She wondered whether or not she’d ultimately made it there anyway but decided that at least for now it would be wrong to ask.
“Listen. There really is half a bottle in there.” She pointed to the glove compartment. “That jerk give you the willies? Open it up and have a hit or two. Good for the nerves.”
“No, thanks.”
“Go on.”
“Honestly. I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, really.”
“Well, dig it out for me then, okay?” She laughed again. “Seventeen years! Jesus!”
She really didn’t want to. Not only was it against the law but it was dangerous as hell. She’d seen the results of drinking and driving plenty of times. Enough to know what a fundamentally stupid thing it was to do. But Marion was saving her ass here, for all she knew in more ways than one. And she hadn’t smelled any liquor on her breath thus far so this one might well be her first. It was still illegal but she guessed it was safe enough so long as she kept it down to one or two. She pressed the button to the glove compartment and watched the door fall open and the light come on inside.
She saw the flat pint bottle of Kentucky Bourbon. And behind it the. 22 revolver.
When Ray Short leaned back in his chair and neatly lifted the wallet from the baggy jeans of the passing Saturday Night Cowboy, Emil Rothert was almost finished with his fifth beer and just drunk enough not to be seriously pissed at him for waving it around the table like some kind of goddamn trophy, smiling, looking for Emil’s approval, and Billy’s too, he guessed. Even though the barman could have seen him or any one of the five guys sitting at the bar or the four in back by the pool tables. Not seriously pissed but still pissed.
He had to give him his due, though. Ray was good with his hands.
“Put that goddamn thing away,” he said.
“Yeah. Jeez, Ray, you want to get us comprehended? ”
Rothert sighed and shook his head. Sometimes Billy amused him and sometimes not. Sometimes he thought Billy Ripper was a spaceman only just learning how to appear human.
Ray’s smile faded. “You guys are no damn fun at all.”
“We’re drunk, Ray. What do you want from us?”
He finished his beer.
“I’ll have another, though. You’re buying.”
Rothert watched him walk to the bar. Sitting to his left was a guy in a rumpled gray suit drinking what looked like whiskey neat. The guy was facing straight ahead into the rows of bottles but he still hoped Ray had sense enough not to pay out of the stolen wallet.
“Three more,” he heard him say to the bartender, and then the bartender said something back that must have been three more what? because Ray said beers and then the bartender must have asked him what kind of beers? because Ray turned around with a look of annoyed confusion just as the girl walked in. He saw her register on Ray’s face- one helluva looker -and he turned and she was a looker all right and too young he thought to be walking into a place like this alone, probably underage in fact, long blond hair and cutoffs and tank top straining across her tits. Yet here she was, alone, moving past his table toward the back like she owned the joint.
Willie Nelson stopped singing “Blue Hawaii” and the place went silent so that he could hear the bartender and Ray.