“What’s that noise?”
“What noise?”
“That.”
“I don’t hear anything,” he says, lamely.
“Listen. That.”
He glances over at her. She’s sitting up tall in her seat, listening intently. “I think there’s something in there.”
“What?”
“An animal or something. I hear something.”
It’s too late to lie so he says, “I know. I hear it too.”
“What is it?”
He looks over at her and can see her fear.
She says, as if she already knows, as if his answer doesn’t matter, “There’s somebody in there, isn’t there?”
“It’s not what you’re thinking.”
All at once, she moves toward the door and gathers her things. “Stop the car.”
“What?”
“Stop this car right now.”
He pulls over. Before he’s even come to a stop she’s out, holding her bag, walking alongside the empty road with her thumb out. Not that there are any cars at this hour, Sunday at the crack of dawn.
“Daisy! What the hell are you doing?”
“Leave me alone.”
“Daisy!”
“I’m going back to L.A.”
“What?”
“I knew this was a mistake.”
“Honey, wait. I can explain.”
“I trusted you.”
He catches up to her, takes her hand. “Good, you should. You should trust me.”
“What’s in there?”
“I swear I don’t know.” He raises his hand like a pledge.
“It’s your car, isn’t it?”
“Actually, no. No, it’s not.”
“It’s not your car?”
He shakes his head, apologetically. “I stole it.”
“You stole that car?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry I lied. I didn’t think you’d go with me if I told you.”
She mulls this over. “You stole a car with a body in it?”
“I think so.” He looks at her. “Just my luck.”
“What are we gonna do now?”
“Get ’em out. Only the lock’s busted. You don’t got a knife, do you?”
“No.”
“We need a crowbar, then.”
“We better hurry up and find one.”
Back on the road she gets quiet. He can see the child in her face. She doesn’t trust him now. Trust is the whole deal in life, he thinks. Something he learned in the war. Without it you have nothing. Trusting somebody with your life is a big deal.
“Hey,” he says, and she looks at him and smiles and he is grateful for the smile.
This is the desert. The road is empty. Nothing on it. No strip malls, no gas even. They are like the last people on the planet. Just the sand, the distant canyons. The gritty light. Daisy puts her hand on his leg and he feels like the bad thoughts from before have disappeared.
About ten miles from Death Valley, a cop pulls out behind them. Except for a couple of semis screaming past there’s nobody else on the road.
“Fuck.”
Daisy turns around. “He’s coming. He’s got his lights on.” Her voice is screechy, like a violin. “What do you think he wants?”
“I have to stop.” He glances at her. “Stay cool.”
“I’m sorry about before. Okay?”
He nods at her with his heart beating. It makes him sick and a little crazy, how much he loves her right now. “Yeah, okay.”
He pulls onto the shoulder and rolls down the window. The cop gets out, saunters up. Denny watches him in the side mirror as he adjusts his hat. The cop leans over, looking into the car. “License and registration.”
Denny takes out his wallet. Everything seems real slow. He can feel them both watching him, the cop and Daisy. She sits there ready to spring like a boney stray cat. He takes out his license and opens the glove box and sifts around in the junk. “It’s not here,” he tells the cop. “I must have misplaced it, officer.”
“Is the car insured?”
“Yes, sir,” Denny tells him.
“Sure is a nice car,” the cop says leisurely. “She’s real fine.”
“Yes, sir.”
The cop stands back up, squinting at something in the distance. Denny follows his gaze and sees the empty road, the wavering heat, the suddenly bright sunshine. The cop glances at Denny’s license, then steps away from the car and starts walking around it, taking a good look at Daisy as he rounds her side. She shifts her hips, pulling her dress down over her thighs. Then the cop gives him a look, trying to figure out how some lowlife hood like Denny fits into this picture.
“Fuck,” Denny mutters, watching the cop walk back toward the trunk. “This isn’t good.” The cop stands there, looking down at the trunk with a curious expression on his face. Fuck, this is it. Fuck.
The cop comes back to his window. “What all are you carrying?”
“Sir?”
“In your trunk.”
“Nothing special.”
“Step out of the car for me.”
“What?”
“Get out.”
The cop is middle-aged, around the same age as his uncle Hector. Denny figures he has a wife and kids at home. Pulling him over was a mistake, but the cop doesn’t know it yet.
“Go,” she whispers.
“I’m going.” He gets out.
The cop leans backward on his heels, listening again to what’s coming from the trunk. “Step over here.” He motions him over to the trunk. “Do you hear that?”
“Yes, sir. I hear it, sir.”
“Would you mind telling me what that is?”
“It sounds like somebody’s in there.”
“Yes, it does, doesn’t it? Do you want to tell me what somebody is doing in your trunk?”
“No, sir.”
“You want to be smart with me, boy?”
“I’m not sure, is what I meant to say. It’s not my car.”
“Whose car is it?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Are you saying you stole it?”
“I borrowed it.”
“Who’s the girl?”
Denny thinks for a minute. “My sister.”
But the cop frowns, dissatisfied. “I’m gonna have to ask you to put your hands on the car.” He pats the roof of the car and steps behind Denny to search him. Denny weighs his options. No way in hell he’s going anywhere with this cop. It’s not like he wants to hurt him, but he doesn’t see he has any other choice. Muscle memory kicks in and his body starts to move. He is a well-trained soldier, a warrior. He is not to be fucked with. He whirls around so fast the cop doesn’t have time to get his face out of the way. The cop reels back and staggers, blood gushing out of his nose, doubling over. “Son of a bitch.”
Moving quick, Denny opens the door of the cruiser and rips out the cop’s radio; just fucking yanks it right out of the dash. Then he gets back into his car and pulls out. In his rearview mirror, he sees the cop hobbling to the cruiser, his hands full of blood. Denny’s a good five hundred yards ahead, but the cop pulls out quick to catch up, turning on his siren. Maybe the buzzards hear it, Denny thinks, flooring the pedal, thinking how you couldn’t drive fast in the war, it wasn’t possible. They drove in convoys slow as elephants. Dump trucks; tanks; Humvees; heavy diesel trucks. The tanks were sluggish and dumb. You didn’t get out of any place in a hurry. But this car is fast—it’s a machine. Watching the needle hit 120 fills him with a mad excitement. He’s never driven this fast before and it’s like a fucking airplane, like they’re about to take off. Daisy is laughing nervously, clutching the seat, leaning back like a kid on a roller coaster. The cop has balls, he has to admit, and the next time Denny looks in the mirror the cruiser’s up on his tail. It smacks into his bumper, draws back, then rams up and does it again. Denny hits the gas, but the car won’t go any faster, and there’s something about the physics of the situation
that pulls the cars together. The cruiser hits him again and the trunk flies open. It flaps up and down like the wing of some enormous bird. There’s a stop sign up ahead. No way in hell he’s stopping. Instead, he twists the wheel and drives off the road, onto the sand—a whole ocean of it—and the cop turns too. The cars stir up the dirt and sand, clouds of it, and he can’t see very well, and he would bet the cop can’t see either. Sweat rolls off his forehead, into his eyes. It burns. He wipes it on his arm, but it just keeps coming. The car heaves and lurches over low brush, shrubs. Jackrabbits flee and scatter. Not too far ahead is a barn, a trailer off to the side, a pickup truck. Some bad thoughts find their way into his head. Like sometimes when they killed civilians. There was never any point except you were already there, collateral damage and whatnot. To finish things off and make everything quiet. He just wishes things were quiet now.
A glare cuts across the windshield. Through the dust a barn materializes. Someone’s shirts on the line, bouncing like ghosts. He drives right through them, heading straight for the barn.
“You’re gonna crash, Denny, you’re gonna hit that barn!”
At the last second he veers off to the side of it, scraping the corner of the barn with his rear fender, creating just enough of an angle to send the cruiser headlong into it, timbers falling across its hood. Dust and smoke. Feathers.
Daisy screams, jumping around in her seat. Denny pulls the car behind the barn, where no one will see it from the road, and cuts the engine. “Just hold on now,” he says, gently. “Just stay calm.”
Slow motion, like he’s under water, like nothing’s real. He reaches under the seat for his gun, loads the clip. The sight of the gun frightens her. She shouldn’t be here, he thinks, not now. Another mistake that’s going to catch up with you. Just like everything else catches up. After a while there’s no escape, you’ve been designated by the higher powers, you’re fucking toast. His throat goes tight and he sucks in some air. Stay cool, soldier. “Wait here,” he tells her, and she curls up on the seat, shaking, and nods. He gets out. Slowly, he sidles up to the barn, listening. Silence. Dead chickens. Splattered chicken blood. More feathers. The cop is bent over the wheel, blood pouring out from some place. Could be dead, Denny thinks. Just slap another felony on, see if I care. Let them come looking. Doesn’t matter now. It’s not like he meant to kill this fucking guy. “Fuck, this is one hell of a mess.” He moves up close to the car. Cop’s not moving, but he’s breathing. “You’ll live,” he whispers.
At least he isn’t dead. Knocked out pretty good, but not dead. Big difference.
Distantly, he remembers the dead in Iraq. You have to respect the dead, even the ones you kill. During an invasion, death is intoxicating. For a period of time, you subsist on it like some freak drug in your bloodstream. It’s a hard thing to explain. Primal maybe. This mission to kill. You get this energy inside you, like a thousand volts. It’s not something you can talk to people about. Nobody wants to hear it. But then afterward. The intense quiet. The aftermath of a massacre—an almost immaculate silence. And the orderly blessings for the dead that follow. It brings about a change. The whole mess of it over and done with. And then you’re out, and everything’s different, your body, your volume, your weight, the light, sounds—everything—just different.
But the cop—he’s alive. Time to go.
By now Daisy has gotten out of the car and is bent over the trunk looking at what’s in it. “She’s alive, Denny.”
It’s a woman, a scrawny thing, reaching out for him. “Holy fucking Christ.”
The woman’s eyes flare with terror.
“It’s all right. I ain’t gonna hurt you.”
“Someone’s coming.”
Across the dirt yard, a man in coveralls comes out of the trailer with a rifle. He calls out, “Hey! Whatchu doin’ on my land?”
Denny’s leg starts to hurt. The ghost hole, he calls it. Let him come, he thinks, examining her bloody wrists, pulling the tape off her ankles. “I’ll tell you what,” he says gently, “you are one brave lady.” She’s trembling all over, glistening with sweat, burning up with fever. He lifts her out of the trunk and tries to set her down, but she goes limp as a rag doll and passes out. “Open that door,” he tells Daisy, and, glad to be useful, she does what he asks. With some effort, he eases the woman onto the seat, walks around to the other side, opens the opposite door and pulls her flat. “She needs water.”
Daisy hands him her water bottle and he cradles the woman’s head and tries to get her to drink, but she’s out of it and it just drips down her chin. “She’s in bad shape. We need to get her to a doctor.”
“You ain’t goin’ no place.” The old man addresses them from behind his rifle. “Get your hands where I can see ’em.”
“Simmer down, old man.”
“Whatchu all doin’ out here on my land? Ain’t you seen that no trespassing sign?”
“We had an accident is all. You might want to call an ambulance. There’s a wounded man in your barn. Get in the car, darlin’.” He watches the girl get in the car. “It would be a real friendly gesture if you’d lower your rifle.”
“Get your hands up in the air.” The old man has a wormy face and mean little eyes. Denny ignores him and gets into the car and starts the engine. “I said: Hold it right there!”
Denny shifts into drive and pulls out toward the road. They need to put some distance in before that cop wakes up. Next thing he knows there’s a sound—loud—and the car lurches. The old fucker’s blown out a tire. Before he can do anything to stop him, he blows out another. And another after that. Now Denny’s pissed; he slams into park and gets out. “What in hell are you doing?”
The old man fires again. Denny feels the bullet whizzing past his shoulder. He’s been shot once, it’s not gonna happen a second time, especially not here, not now. He lunges at the man, gets him on the ground. They roll around in the dirt and it’s like wrestling with a rabid cat, the old man’s fragile bones, brittle whiskers—only takes one punch to knock him out. Old geezer’s not so tough after all. Denny hands Daisy the rifle. “Hold onto this for me, darlin’.”
Next he drags the old man over to the trailer, up the steps, pulls him inside onto the linoleum floor. The old man moans, starts to come around. Denny hits him again, out cold. He looks around the place. To his surprise, there’s a woman in the bed, sleeping, hooked up to an oxygen tank. Sick. Something grips his belly, remorse. He yanks opens drawers, looking for some rope, finds an extension cord, uses that. Ties up the old man. He ain’t goin’ nowhere. Then he stands over the wife a moment, listening to her snore. Pills on the night stand, drugs, sleeping pills, syringes for insulin. White hair scrambled on the pillow. A shriveled sickly thing, yellow as an onion. Taped to the oxygen tank is some extra tubing. That’ll do just fine, he thinks, and takes it, grabs a handful of syringes. Next he opens the fridge, looks around. Not much there. Christ, what do these people eat? But he finds what he needs: baking soda, a bottle of Coke, and in the cabinets some sugar and salt. He dumps out the Coke in the sink and washes out the bottle. Only thing else he needs is sterile water. None here. No telling where there’s a pharmacy around. He finds a pot, fills it with water, turns on the stove.
“What the hell are you doing in there?” Daisy asks, coming inside, looking around with alarm. “You didn’t shoot him, did you?”
“No, I didn’t shoot him. The most he’ll have is a headache. A bad one.”
“What’s on the stove?”
“Boiling some water.”
“What for?”
“Sterile water. For the woman. She’ll die if we don’t get some fluid into her. Do me a favor, will you? Keep your eye on that pot. Boil it good. Then put it in the fridge to cool. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“What’ll I do if he wakes up?”
“Hit him with something.”
On his way out, he takes the keys to the old man’s pickup.
On its one good tire, Denny drives the BMW back ar
ound behind the barn where it was before. He takes out the keys, the old rabbit’s foot, and puts them in his pocket. He’s going to miss this damn car.
The woman in the back isn’t moving and if he didn’t know any better he’d think she was dead.
Moving quickly, he runs back over to the old man’s truck and gets in and pulls it around to behind the barn and up alongside the car, then goes around and opens the passenger door. Then he gets the woman out of the car and carries her over to the truck and sets her down real gentle on the seat. “You’re gonna be all right,” he tells her. “I’m gonna fix you up. You ain’t dying on my watch, so don’t get any ideas.”
This one time a car had exploded on a Baghdad street, a young girl had been hit. She lay there, unconscious, but he could see she was alive—a sniper someplace shooting at anything that moved. Still, he couldn’t leave her there. So he ran in and got her just seconds before some asshole tossed a mortar, blew the shit out of the whole street.
He didn’t like to brag, but saving that girl had made his day.
Out on the road, an eighteen-wheeler roars past, reminding him to hurry up.
He gets back in the truck, drives up to the trailer, and goes back inside. Like a good little nurse, Daisy takes the pot out of the fridge. He adds the salt and sugar, the baking soda, and pours the mix into the Coke bottle, seals it tight with the cap. Then he pours the remaining liquid into some freezer bags to take along for the ride. Using the extra tubing he found, he attaches a syringe to either end of it, then pierces the bottle with the needle, fashioning an IV. “It’ll have to do.”
A Stranger Like You Page 22
