2,000 Miles to Open Road (Barefield)

by Trey R. Barker

  One of them could have been Shawn. Shorter than Shawn and with blond hair rather than red, but her eyes were just an intense, her cheeks just an angular. And when she smiled at the brunette, it was the same smile.

  "Is that--"

  Hal shook his head. "Looks a helluva lot like her, don't it?"

  "Hal, what's going on?"

  Hal swallowed. "This whole disk is murder, Theresa. That's what Trenton collects. You better get on outta here."

  Instead, she put her hands on Hal's shoulders and Hal felt as though he had become the chunk of wood doctors used to put in patient's mouths just before surgery started.

  The Shawn-lookalike stood near the black leather couch, dressed in baggy jeans and a loose T-shirt, an obvious attempt to hide her body. And yet she didn't move as though self-conscious about herself. She moved easily, as gracefully as a ballet dancer.

  She said something to the other woman. The brunette, dressed exactly the opposite--tight jeans and a tight tank top shirt--smiled and shrugged and handed over a small roll of bills. Her mouth moved and she squeezed her legs together.

  A moment later and the two women were at each other. Kissing, touching, slowly undressing each other. The camera shook and bumped once or twice as it zoomed. Yet even as erotic and beautiful as it was to see two women enjoying each other--even if one was bought--Hal wasn't excited. Far from it. The longer the tryst went, the more scared he got.

  "Who's running the camera?" he asked quietly.

  When both women were naked, tied up together in a tangle of arms and legs and tongues, the third party came from behind the camera. Already naked. His dick rock hard, jutting out like a conquering sword.

  "Fucking Trenton." Hal ground his teeth together.

  "That's the man who tried to kill you?"

  "Yeah. He knew he was on this disk. That's why he didn't want me taking it to Hanford." Hal pounded a fist into his knee. "Damnit."

  "Yeah, but he's back in Nueva Rosita." She sounded more hopeful than certain.

  "No, he's in Huntsville. He knew all about Hanford. He got it from Shawn. Or maybe he already knew. Dogwood and Templeton knew. Brooks knew. Shit, every low-life in the country knew where I was going. Damnit."

  He should have been more circumspect. He should have kept his mouth shut, kept everything to himself as much as possible. He had been blowing, blowing just to make himself sound better.

  Blowing gonna get you killed someday. Not his brother this time but another guy, an arson investigator he'd known once. Man had played everything so close to the vest you'd have to climb inside his clothes to see if he was even there. He'd said it to Hal over a beer once when Hal had been telling everyone in Barefield how he was nailing the married county coroner. Now that blowing, while looking for this disk, had put one last obstacle between him and Hanford and a free, clear drive to Mexico.

  On screen, Trenton was going at it with the two women. One on his groin, the other on his face. Lots of sex, lots of open mouths and grinding and yet neither of the women's faces seemed particularly interested. When Trenton reached under the couch, Hal's stomach tightened. He reached up to press stop.

  "No," Shawn said. "Let it play."

  She stood in the doorway, her face as white as it had been when Hal had awakened in the church and she'd been zonked on heroin. "That's my sister."

  "She looks just like you," Theresa said.

  "So does her daughter." Shawn chuckled bitterly. "The Three Musketeers."

  "I can't watch this," he said, his finger still near the stop button.

  "This is one of the answers, Hal," she said. She stepped forward, her eyes never leaving the screen. "One of the answers I found in the crack pipe. Remember? She's my sister. There were only two answers in that crack pipe and this is one. This was the first one."

  "But--"

  "Let it play. I've seen your sin…the death of that 13-year-old girl, now you can see mine."

  "How'd you know she was only 13?"

  "Hal, I knew everything that was on that disk before you knew it even existed."

  As though in a trance, her eyes riveted to the screen, Shawn knelt in front of the TV and slowly put a hand to her sister's face. Half a second later, Trenton jerked a knife from under the couch and ripped it through the sister's face. He must have hit an artery in the neck because blood flooded out, seemed to cover everything at once.

  "Oh, God," Theresa said weakly. She turned away, tears already pooling in her eyes.

  Even with no sound, Hal was sure he could hear the scream. The woman's mouth was open and when she turned a certain direction, it seemed she was spitting blood.

  Trenton slashed again. Again and again and the brunette stumbled out of the way. She stood in the far corner, turned partially away, neither smiling nor shocked.

  Shawn's sister fell backward over the table. Blood ran off the leather couch, soaked the white carpet, even splashed to the white curtains. Her hands waved uselessly in front of her. Trenton cut through them like a Chamber of Commerce wonk at a new business ribbon cutting.

  "I am so sorry," Shawn said. She kissed the screen before turning to Hal.

  "Can we turn it off now?"

  Boom and the screen was black.

  "He killed your sister," he said.

  "She came to Vegas after I told her how cool it was. This was after I failed the academy. She came out and I introduced her to some of my friends and this is what happened."

  "Trenton was your friend?"

  She eyed Hal. "I had no idea who Roby Trenton was until later." Her finger trailed down the darkened TV screen. "This is what drove me to the pipe. Crack, dope, heroin, whatever I could get my hands on."

  "God, why didn't you go to the cops?"

  Instead of answering, she pressed play, went to the third track on the disk.

  The screen blinked back on. A darker room this time, maybe a back room with a futon. A man sat, stupid grin on his face. A second later, Shawn--as Apple Valley--danced into view. She preened and turned for him, held her breasts out and bent over so he could get a clear view.

  And the one time she turned her face full to the camera, Hal knew why she couldn't go to the cops.

  She was completely gone, obviously miles beyond high. There was no light in her eyes. There were only two black holes.

  The next thirty seconds was of her running a Jack The Ripper scene on the customer. It was worse than her sister. More blood, more violence. More of everything. Until it was a bad Hollywood movie where the props guy had simply used too much ketchup on the actors.

  After he was done, long after he was dead, she kept stabbing, slicing bits and pieces off and tossing them aside.

  And through the entire mess, her face never changed. Until the end, when she was on the floor, in his blood, jabbing a needle into her arm that'd she'd pulled from her boot. At the end, when the heroin was streaking through her, she gave the camera the tiniest smile before giving it the bird.

  The screen went black.

  "Holy God," Theresa said. She stood at the door, her face awash in tears, her hand in front of her mouth.

  "No cops because you're on that disk, too." Hal kissed Shawn gently on the forehead while Theresa took the DVD from the machine and stuffed it into a pocket.

  "See what you needed to, CIA man?" the counter clerk asked when they came out a moment later. His eyes betrayed him, he didn't believe Hal's story and maybe never had.

  "Yeah. Thanks for the help, your President appreciates it."

  "Didn't vote for him so piss on his fascist ass," the man said.

  Theresa ran back to the table and dropped a few bills. Hal and Shawn headed outside to the truck. For a long while the three of them stood near the hood. No one said anything but the surrounding traffic was as urgent as everything Hal felt inside. If he had spoken, it would sound like the traffic--harsh and complicated, disorganized.

  Eventually, they climbed in the truck and they got back on the highway, merging into the chaotic traffic.
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  120 Miles

  The truck drove shitty. It rattled and banged, wheezed. Anything over seventy and it shimmied and sometimes just randomly swerved left or right, taking them across the divider or onto the shoulder. But every sound it made reminded Hal it was chipping away at the miles. Wasn't much left now, call it thirty miles to Houston, another ten or twenty through town, and seventy more to Huntsville. Two and a half hours, which would put him there just about sunrise.

  And then what? You can't just go waltzing up to Hanford's job. Everyone he works with knows what's going on and Natalie sure as hell won't give you any slack if you call. And what's to say he'll even be at work when you get there? Hal had no clue in hell where Hanford lived, no idea what his home phone number was but he damn sure knew it would be unlisted.

  So what then? Smoke signals to let him know you're in town? Or Morse code to Natalie? Maybe she'd let that through.

  Next to him, Theresa snored.

  Maybe she was the way to go. Send her into Hanford's job. No one knew her, wouldn't have her arrested on sight. Then again, if she just showed up, Natalie probably wouldn't let her have a meeting with Hanford. And if she dropped Hal's name, the whole shitting mess would get worse.

  Unless he handed Theresa Shawn's badge, let her go in that way. But of course that offered its own set of nasty questions and answers. And let's don't forget about impersonating an officer, should the entire thing go south.

  Hard to see how that was even possible. Bad as things had gotten a couple hours ago, hard to imagine how it would be worse.

  Other than Trenton being in Huntsville, of course.

  "He will be in Huntsville, won't he?"

  Shawn nodded. "Yes. For the millionth time, I'm sorry, I--"

  "I ain't worried about that, Shawn. You did what you had to do."

  "I thought he was going to kill me."

  "Yeah." Hal tried to say it compassionately. He wasn't mad at her. Maybe he had been, but that disk turned everything sideways. Drugs? Shitty deal but she'd seen her sister killed. More drugs? Again, shitty way to go but she was a murderer.

  "You told me you ain't never killed nobody."

  "No, I didn't. What I said was I was pretty sure I'd remember killing someone. Trust me, there isn't any way I'll ever forget it."

  A loud breeze came in through the opened driver's window. Hal leaned into it, as though it might blow everything past him. "Seems pretty convenient, don't it?"

  "What?"

  "That my murder and your murder and your sister's murder are all on the same disk."

  "It's not a conspiracy, Hal, it's just how things came out. My two murders are related and they're on that disk because Trenton wanted them on there. Yours is on there because he liked watching it."

  The truck shimmied a little beneath them. Hal let up on the speed and the needle dropped down to about sixty-eight.

  "What were you doing? With Trenton?"

  She snorted a giggle. "At first, I thought I could get a copy to Brooks. I wanted some justice for my sister. I thought if I took it to Brooks, let him be the stud who broke open a national snuff ring, he'd leave me alone."

  Hal shook his head. "Don't seem like that kind of guy."

  "No shit."

  They drove in silence for a few miles, each mile on the odometer tightening Hal's gut and head a bit more. He grabbed a few aspirin from the bottle they'd bought at a 7-Eleven and ate three. They were bitter and nasty as shit and Shawn grinned at his face.

  "Guess I'm wondering how you got to him," Hal managed to say. "He whacks your sister and then suddenly you're a junkie who's killing."

  She took a deep breath and told Hal she'd been working a club, stripping to old ZZ Top. A man had asked for a lap-dance, any redhead would do. She danced for him and he'd freaked out.

  "Why?"

  She stared at him, the answer all over her face.

  Hal nodded. "He'd seen the murder. Thought you were back from the dead."

  "He got mad because he had paid for snuff and there I stood."

  The man had yelled that he'd been screwed with fake footage had shoved her off his lap, and stomped on her while she was on the floor. Drunk, enraged, he stood over her, trying to fight his way through the bouncer who'd suddenly appeared. He screamed he would beat her but after two drunken swings, the bouncer showed him out.

  "I had no fucking clue what he was yelling about," Shawn said. "Then two nights later, Roby Trenton was at the club."

  He'd bought her for a night, she said, and took her to his apartment. Eventually, she'd seen the disk.

  "I'd asked her to come with me and she had and then she was dead," Shawn said quietly. "My notion of getting some justice was bullshit. Within in a month I was buying smack from Trenton."

  "Then you were killing for him."

  "Yes."

  Theresa stirred between them. She'd been awake for a few minutes. "I don't understand this at all. How can you two guys live in that kind of world?"

  Hal squeezed her thigh. "It ain't living, Theresa, it's surviving and it's why we want out."

  "Uh-huh."

  "We ain't the only ones and you know it," Hal said. "Domingo lives here, too."

  "Yeah," she said. "But he's an idiot. You're smarter than that."

  As they passed a highway sign--HOUSTON 10--Hal took a deep breath. "Then why am I going to Huntsville?"

  "So you won't see Tyler or Missy anymore," Theresa said quietly. "You're doing the right thing, Hal."

  "Right thing." He snorted. "Shit, I'm gonna get arrested and I'll be lucky if I'm outta prison by the time I'm 100."

  "You didn't kill that girl." Theresa held his hand.

  "True enough," Shawn said. "But there have been a few things on the road."

  Hal sighed.

  "Well, show your brother the disk and get out of town," Shawn said. "Make sure you don't do anything the cops'll stop you for."

  "Hal?" Theresa said. She glanced from Shawn to Hal.

  "Not now, Theresa."

  "But, you have to tell--"

  "Yeah, yeah." Hal nodded. "I will."

  "What?" Shawn's face had gone pale, obvious even in the green dashboard light.

  "Nothing," Hal said. "Don't sweat it. Ain't nothing to worry about."

  "Everything is something to worry about."

  "Maybe so, but it ain't anything you need telling right now."

  "Damnit, Hal, don't you hold out on me."

  Hal's eyes went wide. "You kidding me with this? Don't hold out on you? You've been fucking holding out on me since you got in my car. Don't hold out on you? Piss off, junkie bitch."

  "Hey, ease up, Hal," Theresa said. "No call for that."

  "More call than you know," Hal said.

  Shaking her head, she settled back in the seat while Shawn's glare burned him like a heat lamp. He kept his eyes on the road, tried to shut her out. Eventually, the heat lamp turned off and they drove in silence through the far western edge of Houston.

  He'd been to Houston how many times in his life? Enough to know damn well what was here--petroleum plants, strip malls, cheap housing. Yet at night it was indistinguishable from itself. There was no specificity to anything. He saw no outlines, no shapes or shadows. Everything was hidden in one shadow, hidden in one shape. Everything, he realized, was part of something else. This entire trip had been that way.

  "Hal?"

  "Yeah, babe?"

  "We've got to stop at a Kinko's or copy shop or something." Theresa opened her purse and pulled out an address book. "I've got to get some notes to the principle because I'm pretty sure I won't be in school tomorrow."

  "Gonna get a substitute?"

  She shrugged. "I don't know, maybe he'll teach it himself. Either way, I need to fax over some notes."

  Twenty minutes later, Shawn waited in the car while Theresa sat behind a computer. Hal stood over her shoulder.

  "Give me the disk," she said.

  "What?"

  "Give me the disk."

&
nbsp; There was no question in her voice. He handed it to her, aware of how his time on the road, or maybe his life in general, made him distrustful even of her.

  "Why?"

  "You aren't the only one this disk can save, are you?"

  She didn't mean Tyler. She was talking about Shawn and as he watched, she loaded the disk into a CD burner. She was going to burn just the murder of Shawn's sister, nothing else. Just enough to get Shawn the justice that drove her to smack.

  As she worked, a pasty-faced older man came over. "Anything I can help you with, sir?" he asked. His name tag said 'Grover.'

  Hal led him away from the computer. "Yes, we're traveling to Nacogdoches," Hal said smoothly. "I wonder if you can tell me the easiest way to get there."

  The clerk smiled. "That's no problem. It's just north on Highway 59. Hour and a half, something like that." He pulled an American Atlas off a shelf near the front window and handed it to Hal.

  "Thank you. Sounds easy enough."

  "You guys came in at a good time. During the day, those computers are always full. People going on-line and burning pictures onto disks and writing sales proposals and what not. But they're usually empty at four in the morning."

  "Usually?"

  The man shrugged. "Sometimes we get people in at odd hours."

  "I guess."

  With a nod, the man went to the front window and gazed out. The place was empty except for them and Hal thought the guy was maybe lonely. Hard shift to work, the overnight, didn't matter what kind of business.

  "Damn," Theresa said quietly.

  Hal looked over as her fingers tapped at the keyboard. A frown furrowed deep between her eyes. "Theresa?"

  "Nothing. I'm fine."

  In the Atlas, Hal laid out his return toward Nueva Rosita. They wouldn't go back the same way. Innocent or not, he didn't want to spend that much time on the big highways. Texas State Patrol, crawling on the highway, no doubt had some sort of bulletin out on him. At the same time, chances were good the local guys on the farm-to-market roads between Huntsville and Mexico wouldn't pay much attention.