Suspects

by Thomas Berger

  “You got that scratch on your face,” Molly said. “Look under the seat. There’s a first-aid box there, with some antiseptic spray. It won’t hurt. They put something in it that numbs you, you know.”

  “I think it’ll be all right. I got it shaving. I took care of it.” The subject made him uneasy, and he sought to distract her. “Do you talk much on that CB?”

  “Not really, except to get road conditions. I’m not all that sociable when I can’t see who I’m talking to. What my dad hates is if I pick up somebody off the road, like with you. See, he owns this rig and would still be driving it if he hadn’t gotten hurt. He says, ‘I could care less about you, Moll, but where’d I get another rig if some hitcher took that one off you?’” She produced a peal of laughter. “You got to know my dad. He’s comical. He’s not kidding about it, though, in one way: insurance rates are so damn high for these things, he takes a lot of deductibles to keep down the cost, but then if something happens he’s got to eat the losses.” Meanwhile she had brought the truck cacophonously up through the gears to speed and what felt like well beyond. Suddenly there was no nearby traffic except that going the other way on the opposite side of the four-lane highway.

  “You get to see a lot of the country, I bet,” Lloyd observed, peering down at the road from a higher elevation than he had ever experienced in a vehicle. The truck was mountainous. To control it was no small thing. No wonder the men who drove them exuded a certain arrogance, but a girl was something else. Yet for all her bulk, Molly seemed completely feminine, even attractive.

  “I could see more if my dad let me. We could get lots of loads for California if he’d take them. He used to drive as far as Oregon in the old days, before he got hurt, but he don’t want me that far from home, so I don’t argue when it comes to that. If it was just him worrying about me being in danger, though, I wouldn’t go along with it.”

  Lloyd unaccountably found himself representing her father’s case. “I guess he’s right about how dangerous it is. There are real bad people roaming around who probably can’t be handled like you did that college kid.”

  “Don’t I know it,” said Molly, flashing a white grin his way. “For those guys I got me a three-fifty-seven mag.”

  Lloyd felt the slightest hint of fear, as he always did when guns were mentioned. His mother had hated them so much that he was not even allowed to own toy versions as a child, which lack embarrassed him greatly with such playmates as he had. He asked, “Got a license for it?”

  Molly set her jaw. “It’s for self-protection.”

  Lloyd felt he had lost face by the question. As if he had a personal interest in public regulation. “You’re right. … I know you got into driving through your father, but how would somebody do it from scratch?”

  “You see those schools advertise on TV? I guess they might work. But the only real way is learning the road, mile after mile. I started out when I was pretty young, riding shotgun with my dad. My mom passed away when I was twelve. When my dad was driving, which was most of the time, I had to live with my aunt and uncle. Because of school I could only go on short runs until summers came. But I missed a lot of school too, which is why I’m so ignorant. I’m not proud of that, but what are you gonna do?”

  She had turned the subject back on herself, but Lloyd did not mind. She was doing him a favor. “What do you mean, ‘ignorant’? You can operate this big thing.”

  “I’m not dumb. I just don’t know a lot of things. Half the time I don’t have any idea what they’re talking about on the TV news. I couldn’t find a lot of countries on a map of the world, I’ll admit that.”

  “I barely got through high school myself,” Lloyd told her, exaggerating a little.

  Molly was amazed. “You sure don’t talk like it.”

  “My mother believed in correct English.”

  “I guess they felt sorry for me, letting me graduate. It’s a small town, where everybody knows you. Still, school was wasted on me, I guess.” She tossed her head. “But somebody smart like you doesn’t even try.”

  “Why am I smart?” asked Lloyd. “Just because I don’t say ‘ain’t’?”

  “It’s just a feeling I get.”

  They were overtaking some traffic on their own side, most of which stayed to the right, but a little red sedan was immediately ahead on the left and going much more slowly than Molly. She made two melodious but strident blasts of the multiple horns, and the red car found a space in which to insert itself into the right lane.

  “I guess you always know where the cops are,” Lloyd said when the road was their own again.

  “You drive a lot, you store up information, like where they put the radar. For example, it won’t go through a hill from the other side. Some place it might be is in a supposedly disabled car, pulled off onto the shoulder. There are areas where they use helicopters. You get to know those and the times of day they are up. And there’s usually some kind of markings along particular stretches of road, so they can time you from the air, where they don’t use radar. And so on. Now there’s laser, too, but you get on to the tricks of the trade. You compare notes with other drivers at truck stops. It’s like any other job, probably. As you go along you keep learning and you get better at it.”

  “I rarely have stuck at anything long enough to reach that stage,” said Lloyd.

  “You have to find something that appeals to you. It’s no mystery.”

  “You sound like somebody else I know.”

  “Your mother.” She smiled benignly at the windshield.

  “Someone else. My mother’s been dead for a while.”

  “I’d be lost without my dad, I know that. I’ve always missed my mom, but I never wanted any substitutes. I hated any woman I thought he might be interested in. I know that might be unfair, but what isn’t? Of course now, with me on the road, he’s got to have some help around the house, with him in the wheelchair, but I’m the one who hires them.” She grinned at him. “I been on the road since five A.M. It’s almost eleven now. Time for my lunch. There’s a truck stop in a couple miles. You can come along if you want or you can wait, but not in the cab, which I got to lock up, no offense. I just wanted to get that out of the way first. And another thing: the food here’s not very good, and it costs too much. It’s not true you get a good cheap meal where truckers eat. My dad told me there was something in it thirty, forty years back, but too many people found out about it. But drivers still go to such places because you get to know the folks who work there and then you see your friends in the same line.” She sniffed. “Then for the men, there’s the hookers who hang around. I don’t mind ‘em, because they keep some of them jerks offa me. Be surprised how many of those guys are horny early in the day. Damned if I get it, but then I’m not a man—nor want to be, it might surprise you to hear.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because of the way I dress and how I earn my living!” she cried. “That’s what some fool will say if I turn him down: I’m a bull dyke, and so on.” Her facial expression became briefly sullen. “And I can’t punch him, because that would only prove the sonbitch’s point!” Having said which, she paused a moment for effect, burlesquing a bitterness she was incapable of maintaining for long, then laughed heartily.

  As it happened, Lloyd thought she was nice-looking, all in all, but he would not have known how to tell her as much at this point without seeming like a phony, a preoccupation of his, so he said only that he had eaten a late breakfast and would wait outside the truck.

  But when she had pulled into the vast parking lot behind the restaurant and among the scores of vehicles found a slot into which to fit her rig, Molly turned off the engine and said, “C’mon, I’m buying. I know you might of ate an enormous breakfast but you’re so skinny you make me uncomfortable.”

  He really was not hungry, but knew he would be lonely, and he saw no serious defense of pride in refusing.

  They deboarded from their respective sides, but did not meet on the ground f
or a while, Lloyd going around the front, past the towering radiator, while Molly apparently had gone in the other direction. He found her making a check of the back doors of the trailer, after which she continued on to complete an inspection tour around the entire vehicle. She was taller than she had seemed when seated and much less hefty when her upper clothing was no longer bunched up. The wide leather belt was cinched around a waist that looked positively slender. She had left the baseball cap behind. Her short blond hair was tousled, and the sunshine brought out a saddle of pale freckles across her nose. Her eyes were almost on the same level as Lloyd’s, who was five-five.

  They entered the gymnasium-sized eatery, which already was crowded and clamorous, mostly with men, though here and there was a woman, usually looking middle-aged, with a lined and grainy face. Near the entrance, at the long counter, sat two state troopers. Molly led the way to a couple of free stools down near the other end, where the counter made its turn toward the wall. Men at tables en route ogled her, and a few shouted. She waved to some of these, whom presumably she knew.

  When they were seated side by side, she leaned to though not against Lloyd and said, in an undertone he could hardly hear, what with the general din, “I never brought a guy in here before. They’ll be talking now.” Louder: “Take a menu if you want. There’s also that stuff up there, specials for the day.” She indicated the notice boards posted on the wall above the grills. “I always take something that can stand being cooked hours ago and kept warm, like stew, you know, or soup. The green vegetables are hopeless, and their salad will just make you cry if you let it, lettuce all wilted and tomato that’s just red and wet.”

  They were sitting closer than in the spacious cab of the truck. He was surprised to catch a faint bouquet of perfume when she leaned toward him. “Stew sounds fine to me.”

  “I don’t know,” Molly said, carefully perusing the notice board just above them. “I might be in the mood for chili. One thing they do nice here: they put cheese on top and run it under the broiler. Chili’s kind of spicy, though, and they don’t serve beer.” She waved her hand airily. “Be in trouble if they did. ‘Course, you can have your own, in the rig, and you can smoke and sniff or whatever too, but you don’t want to get caught at it. That’s no problem for me, but some of these characters claim they can’t drive the long hours unless they got some kinda buzz on. Well, maybe sometimes I need a sugar high, but that’s all.” She jerked her head. “See those cops up front? That’s why you don’t see no girls. The ones not already working inside the rigs are hiding out in the ladies’. Which reminds me, I got to go. Hope there’s room in there to get in the door. When Dee comes, order me a beef stew and a cup of coffee, and get what-ever you want for yourself—well, I draw the line at steak, which doubles the price, but you’d only be sorry anyway if you got one here; you’d need a hacksaw to eat it, and I’m not talking about the bone.”

  Molly had not gone long when the fortyish waitress arrived. She had bright yellow hair and wore glasses with some kind of decoration at the hinges and a name tag on which was printed DEE. “What’s yours, hon?”

  “Two beef stews, two coffees.”

  “For yourself or you got a partner who’s making a visit?”

  At his answer she scribbled rapidly on her pad and put out two sets of clean but use-dulled stainless-steel utensils and two squat glasses filled with ice cubes. There was a pitcher of water within reach and a dispenser of paper napkins.

  By the time Molly was back, the waitress showed up with the plates of stew and said, “Oh, it’s you, Molly.”

  Molly grinned up and said, “How’s tricks, Dee?”

  “Don’t I just wish, Molly! But when you’re old, you got to sling hash for a living.” After putting down their plates, she produced, from under the counter, smaller ones holding slices of bread and a wrapped square of margarine each.

  “Don’t give me that,” Molly laughingly cried, “when you own the place.”

  Dee leaned over the counter and winked in close-up. “I used to make a lot more with less work.” She went away.

  Molly leaned in to Lloyd and said in a confidential tone, “Dee used to be one of the hookers, you know, until she married the old guy who owns the joint. She does work like hell, I’ll say that. They’re open twenty-four hours, and it’s rare to come in here any time day or night and not see her. That’s her own idea. She says she spent enough time on her back.”

  “The cops are leaving,” said Lloyd.

  “Know what’s in their paper bags? Steak sandwiches. Not the lousy kind you get if you order one, either, and it’s on the house. All they pay for is the coffee. I don’t blame Dee at all. You wanna keep on the good side of cops these days, or nobody will show up when there’s a holdup or hijacking.”

  “You bring your gun with you?”

  “In my belt in back,” Molly said. “Had to remember that in the ladies’, so it didn’t fall in the can.” The plaid shirt that when bunched up had made her look so heavy was capacious enough in back to give no hint of the weapon. “Billy McCoy, I said hi to him on the way in? Redheaded guy? He was jumped a couple months ago, right near his rig. It was parked in the back rank, because it’s quietest back there, and he wanted to catch an hour or so sleep. He had been on the road for twenty-four straight. They got his money, but another driver spotted ‘em and pulled his twelve-gauge out, and they had a car back there and jumped in it and run off.”

  Lloyd had little appetite for the meat, though it was tender enough, but he forced himself to eat something, because if he did not, Molly would undoubtedly take note and badger him. He found the coffee easier to handle, because it was so weak to begin with and then he diluted it further with milk.

  “Ever had to use your gun?”

  Molly, eating, shook her head. “I let some guy know I carry it, though. He had a few too many. There’s a kind of drunk who won’t take no for an answer.”

  Lloyd grimaced. “I never even had an air rifle as a kid. My mother was scared of guns. She had lots of horror stories about them, people getting killed cleaning them, and so on.”

  “Well,” Molly said comfortably, forking in food, “you should respect your mom’s memory. I sure do. People would act better in this world if they all did. But the main reason I carry a pistol is the people nowadays who don’t respect anything or anybody.” Despite her having talked almost continuously since sitting down, she was already finishing the last of the food on her once-loaded plate. Yet she had eaten gracefully, unlike the heavy-shouldered man on the far side of Lloyd who made loud animal noises.

  At least half of Lloyd’s stew remained, though he had made a manful attempt on it. He patted his stomach in extenuation. “It’s good, but I had a rough night. I should probably fast all day.”

  Molly buttered both her slices of bread, which until now had gone untouched, rolled them together into one thick but easily compressed cylinder, and with it mopped her plate so forcefully that the china showed a high gloss. But even this was done with deftness and delicacy.

  She asked, “You want some dessert? Know what’s good here? The pie. It’s not really homemade, but it’s that kind that’s like homemade.”

  She had the kind of small-featured face that probably had not changed that much since childhood. There was something babyish about her, as well as something motherly.

  “No, thanks,” Lloyd said. “I’m really not hungry. You go ahead and have some pie.”

  “Not today. I’m trying to watch my weight.” She peered impatiently up and down the counter. “Now where’s that Dee?” Referring to the other waitresses on view, she added, “She won’t let anybody else give out the checks, even to their own customers.” She leaned against Lloyd and said into his ear, “That’s the whore in her: she don’t trust anybody.”

  He took a chance on her not being offended and asked, “How would you know?”

  She thought about it for an instant and then laughed even more heartily than usual. “You got me there. If I sai
d I did, what would that make me?”

  Lloyd on the other hand considered himself something of an authority on the subject, if at second hand. The only women with whom he was not impotent were prostitutes.

  7

  Molly was back behind the wheel of the tractor-trailer, reinvigo-rated by the stew. “Food’s what keeps me going on a run this long. I don’t sleep at all if by not sleeping I can deliver within twenty-four hours. You’re supposed to, so you just don’t admit it if you talk to the troopers, and naturally you fix the log. You got to work fast or you’ll lose the business. People don’t realize that who don’t drive a big rig. We got schedules to keep, and I tell you they get tighter and tighter when the competition is what it is.”

  Lloyd politely simulated an interest in her comments, though within a few miles he had lost his immediate impulse on meeting her to consider trucking as a profession he might try. The road was not that fascinating to him, and he would not have wanted to be responsible for a piece of equipment so big and expensive. He liked Molly, however, and apparently she liked him. Previously, truck drivers had rubbed him the wrong way, but they had all been male.

  “So.” She grinned over affectionately at him. “Were you kidding about not having any destination at all? Not going to see a girl someplace, are you?”

  The question surprised him. “No, I don’t have a girl. I’m just trying to get a new start. I was in a dead end back there.” He looked anxiously at her. “You’re probably wondering how it is I don’t have any money.”

  Molly laughed deep in her throat. “What I figure is, if you’re some kinda crook, you’d have money, right? You wouldn’t have to hitch.”