I thought about how long it had been since I had touched a woman. Agnes is really like a sister to me, or maybe a buddy, and Deputy Janice is business. And business is business, another irrefutable little lesson from my long apprenticeship. Having a real woman again could be a fine thing. But it was a luxury I couldn’t afford right then. It was already too much that she knew my real first name and that I had been to Redrock to see Uncle Fred. If she also saw where I lived, it would be a disaster.
“You’re a big girl,” I said. “You can leave any time you want, find a man any place you go. What do you need me for?”
“That’s easy for you to say. It’s not so easy for a woman, you know?”
“No, I don’t.”
“There are places you can’t go unless you at least look like you’re with a man. Being alone is like having a sign on your forehead that says ‘Victim.’”
“And what makes you think I’m going any of those places?”
“Hey, I give up. Where are you going, anyway?”
“If I’m honest about it, I don’t know.”
“That’s a good place. I can help you find it.”
“No.” I tried to make it sound more final this time, but it didn’t come out that way, so I tried something else.
“You don’t know anything about me,” I said.
“I know enough.”
“Oh, really? For all you know, I have a body in the trunk of my car.”
“Better than a bale of hay.” She had a point.
“I could be a psycho-sadist, with half the cops in the country looking for me, and a compulsive gambler and woman-hater and a closet vegetarian, to boot.”
“You could be, but you’re not. You’re on the run from something, but you’re not an asshole or a loser.”
“Is that what you found out from your phone call?”
“No, I figured it out, all by my lonesome. I’m not stupid, Herman.”
“I didn’t think you were. So what are you doing in a dump like this? You from here, originally?”
“For a while. I ran away when I was sixteen, to the big city. You know, to get the things you can only get in a real city?”
“Including an abortion?”
“You’re not stupid, either, are you, Herman? See? I was right about you, from the get-go. Anyway, I kept moving for fifteen years. Good times or bad, I never even thought about coming back here. My asshole of a father died, and I sent a THANK YOU card to the funeral parlor. Then my mom died, too. I came home to bury her, and I got suckered in by the prospect of inheriting this joint, free and clear. It seemed safe, you know? Easy, for a change. Like safe and easy is something you should give a rat’s ass about. Now I can’t even spit in the owner’s eye and walk out. I’m losing my edge, big time. If I don’t get out soon, I never will.”
“I can see that,” I said. “But it’s not my problem, and I can’t let it be.”
“Sure you can. It’s simple: when you get your own little problem solved, you’re going back to where you come from. You can leave me wherever we happen to be when that happens, no complaints. Meanwhile, we help each other down the road.”
“Really? And how are you going to help me, exactly?”
“Can you travel on plastic?”
“Don’t have any.”
“Bullshit. You have it, but you don’t dare use it. That’s why Numbers said not to charge you for the heat.”
Well, I did say she wasn’t stupid, didn’t I?
“We can travel on mine,” she said. “I’ve got a lot of it, and the bills all come here, where I’m never coming back, where I want a reason why I can’t come back. It’ll work, Herman. I don’t exactly have a Sunday-school past, but I’m not wanted anywhere.”
“Except by the doofus with the bad haircut and the Trans Am.”
“Put your finger right on it, didn’t you? That should be his problem, entirely. But he’s trying hard to make it mine, and sooner or later, he’ll do it. When that happens, I’m going to have to kill him, no choice.” She turned and studied my face. “You believe that?’ she said.
I looked in her eyes and saw about eight hundred yards of stare now, the threshold of the place where consequences don’t matter any more. “Yes,” I said.
“Much better all around if I’m just not here, wouldn’t you say? Come on, Herman, what have you got to lose? Don’t you ever need somebody to hold, just to keep away the night?”
I had to admit, she knew which buttons to push. But that didn’t make the whole proposition any more sensible. “It’s not a good time,” I said.
“It’s never a good time, unless you make it one.”
“I’m sorry. I really am.”
“You’ll be sorrier when you’re a hundred miles down the road, in a world of trouble, and all by yourself.”
“Could be, but that’s the hand I was dealt.”
“You trying to break my heart?”
“See you, Laura.”
“You could, but you won’t. And that is definitely your loss.”
“I’m prepared to believe that.”
“And?”
“Goodbye.”
“I was wrong; you are a loser.” She flung the plate of fries away with an angry flick of dark-enameled nails. They crashed against the kitchen door just before she went back through it for the last time.
I didn’t call after her.
Travels With Rosie
I chewed on the gristly burger for a while and argued with myself. I had definitely done the right thing, but why did I feel so shitty about it?
Herman, my man, what you feel and what you’ve got to do are two completely unrelated topics. You learned that a long time ago, remember?
I remembered.
So, why are you still here? Do you really like that burger?
No, I didn’t, much.
Then get your sentimental ass out of here.
I picked up my pie box and got.
***
I hadn’t noticed that the café was especially dark, but when I stepped outside, the sunlight hit me like an industrial strength flashbulb. I stopped on the sidewalk and fished in my jacket pocket for my shades. Over by my rented car, I heard the unmistakable noise of the gravel-voiced hick, telling me I wasn’t going to get away completely clean, after all.
“There he is, Pud.”
“I see him, Ditto.”
Well. Not Homer and Jethro, after all, but Pud and Ditto. Very original, these rustic folk.
“Hey, Slick,” the fat one again this time, “You’re pretty good at sniffing around old Laurie in there. You any good at anything out here?”
I swear, the little one, Ditto, said, “Hee, hee, hee.” Gomer Pyle, psychopath. Just what I needed.
“I’m good at leaving,” I said. “And that’s what I’m going to do, okay?”
“Not with her, you ain’t.”
With the shades on, I could see that they both had knives, ugly, curved things, too big to have been in their pockets. I wondered if they were called “corn knives.” It would be a shame if they weren’t. They had gone out to the car to arm themselves, apparently. And along the way, they had run into the waitress. The young goon had her pushed up against my car now, a meaty hand folded around her throat and an ugly knife held against one cheek. The knife didn’t worry me so much, but a cop once told me that going for the throat was a very bad sign. On the ground nearby was a small suitcase that I assumed was hers. Not such an easy woman to brush off, after all. Her eyes were wide, but she looked more outraged than afraid. Outraged and determined. And that, I have to admit, made all the difference.
I composed myself and gave them the same smile I had used in the café. Then I turned and walked away from them.
“Hey, where the fuck you think you’re going?”
I reached in my pocket again and grabbed my lighter.
“We’re talking to you, asshole.”
I didn’t turn around or pause, refusing to let them show me what they wanted to do to the woman. Instead, I went straight over to the blue Trans Am.
“What in hell does he think he’s playing at?”
“Oh, dear, sweet Jesus, no. Not my car!”
There were some grunts and squeals then, and some scuffling noises, but I still didn’t turn around. The hay bale was nicely dried out, and it lit like fine kindling. I had been going to start on one end and work my way across, but one spot turned out to be enough. The whole thing went from wisps of white-blue smoke to a full inferno faster than you could say, “Gaw-lee gee, Pud.”
When I turned back, the fat man was running towards the Trans Am, eyes bulging and belly bouncing, gravelly voice shouting something incoherent. The younger guy was still back by my car, only now he was lying on the ground in a fetal position. He had blood on his face, which matched a blotch on the waitress’ elbow. She stood over and behind him now, fire in her eye, methodically kicking his kidneys and spine. Enough of anything for any man, yes, indeed. Quick and possibly lethal, too. And God help me, I was about to go down the road with her.
I unlocked the rental car and got in. “You coming?” I said. “Or have you got better things to do now?”
“Just one little spot I missed,” she said. No need to ask where that might be. I heard a meaty “thunk” and a prolonged, “Aaagh,” and then she and her bag were in the car with me and we were gone.
***
Three minutes later, I slowed at a blacktop crossroads and asked her which way the nearest big town was.
“South,” she said, “the way we’re going, but I don’t want…”
I hooked a hard left and put the pedal down.
“This is east,” she said.
I nodded. “If the gas tank on that wreck was going to blow, it would have done it by now, and we would have heard it. If it didn’t, your two fine friends might come after us for a bit of instant replay. We’ll go a direction they won’t expect you to pick.”
“Nice,” she said. “Always a pleasure, dealing with a professional.”
“I’m a bondsman.”
“Are you, really?”
“For years.”
“What a trip. We’ve only just met, and already you never cease to amaze me.”
“There’s a lot of that going around.”
We drove in silence for a while, and finally I said, “Your name isn’t really Laura, is it?”
“That’s what they know me as, back there. Your friends at Redrock know me as Rosie. I’ve had a lot of names over the years. Changing them seems to come naturally to me. Maybe I’m part Gypsy.”
“Good Lord, not you, too.”
“Not me too, what?”
“Everybody I meet lately seems to have something to do with Gypsies. All my problems keep pointing me back to them, and until a couple days ago, I didn’t even know there were any left in the modern world.” Or was it a couple of years?
“You want to learn all about them?”
“No, but I’d damn well better.”
“Well, then, there’s only one place to go: Skokie.”
“Is that a place or an adjective?”
“Three fourths of the Gypsies in the country live within ten miles of Skokie, Illinois.”
My turn to be amazed. “Why on earth?” I said.
“Beats me, but they do. I learned that from a bartender at a strip jo…um, a place in Chicago where I worked for a while. He wasn’t exactly my type”—she made an exaggerated limp-wrist gesture—“but we were friends, and he knew a lot of things, and nobody else ever talked to him. He was sort of a disinherited Gypsy. Or excommunicated, or something like that.”
I couldn’t think of a thing to say to any of that.
“Didn’t I tell you I’d help you find your way?”
“Oh you told me, all right. You have any idea where this Skokie place is?”
“More or less. North of Chicago.”
“Then you can more or less drive.”
I pulled over onto the gravel shoulder and changed places with her. She adjusted the driver’s seat, fastened her harness, and checked the mirrors. Then she peeled off like a stock car driver. All around, a formidable woman, this former prairie flower, gun moll, stripper, café owner, martial arts expert, and God knew what else. “So, what do I call you?” I said.
“Call me Rosie. That’s the one I always liked the best.”
“Good night, Rosie.” I tilted the seat back as far as it would go, pulled my jacket up over my chest and chin, and closed my eyes. Except for the nap in my office after the Proph brought me back, I hadn’t had any sleep in the last thirty hours or more, and it was starting to weigh on me. “If you decide to drive into Lake Michigan, wake me up first, will you?”
“Herman?”
I opened my left eye and looked over at her. She had the crooked smile again, this time with wrinkles in the corners of her eyes to match. She was having a good time.
A lunatic fleeing the asylum. Wonderful.
“I’m unconscious,” I said.
“I did good back there, didn’t I?” The way she said it, it was a gleeful boast, not a question. I didn’t know if she was talking about kicking the hick in the nuts or about getting me to take her along, and I decided not to ask.
“You did good, Rosie.”
Do better: let me sleep
.
“You’re going to be glad you took me along. I know it.”
That made one of us.
“Where do you want to stop for the night?”
“Someplace near an outside phone booth and a terminal where I can get on the Internet,” I said. “Other than that, I couldn’t care less.”
“Sounds like you have a plan.”
“It does sound like that, doesn’t it?” Sometimes these things just sneak up on you.
***
The subdued hum of the machine, the road noise, and the gentle breeze from Rosie driving with her window down were better than a hot toddy and a massage. Magic. I felt my consciousness drop like a submarine on a crash dive, and I made no attempt to slow its descent. Somewhere on the way to the bottom, it passed some whales that looked a lot like violins with flippers and tails, and a mermaid that looked a lot like Rosie, but we plunged on past, to the depths that even the light can’t penetrate. Somewhere down there, answers were waiting for me. Answers and a real plan. And oblivion. And even if I was wrong about the rest, the oblivion was enough for now.
We stopped at least once for gas and whatever, I think, but it didn’t seem worth waking up for. Later I cracked an eye open briefly to see the light dying on a landscape of featureless prairie that probably looked better in the dark anyway.
Land that only a farmer could love
, I thought.
A place where he’s got lots of room to park his two-acre, all-in-one rolling factory that Cyrus McCormick would never recognize
. It made me miss the city more than a little kid at summer camp. I had never been to summer camp myself, but I figured I knew the feeling. St. Paul wasn’t exactly Detroit or Chicago, but at least it wasn’t open flatlands. I drifted back off. After a second stop, I woke slowly to the smell of coffee and garlic, with maybe a touch of tomato paste for counterpoint. I put the seat back up, threw my jacket in the back, and lit a cigarette.
“Do you have to do that?” she said.
“No, but I’m going to.” If she had an aversion to smoke, I could find a way to accommodate that. But if she turned out to be a closet do-gooder and health nut, this was going to be a very short-lived partnership. I rolled my window partway down and tasted a bit more of my newfound waking state.
“You have any other nasty habits that I ought to know about?”
“Now’s a hell of a time to ask.”
“Well, we had other things on our minds, back in New Salem.”
“Which you, of course, did nothing to cause.”
“Why Herman, whatever are you accusing me of?”
“You seemed to have had a bag packed awfully conveniently.”
“Oh, is that all that’s bothering you? ‘Packed’ is the word, all right.”
“What does that mean?”
“Have a look, if you want to. It’s on the back seat.”
I unscrewed two or three of my vertebrae from their sockets, twisting around in the seat, and popped the latches on the old fashioned overnight case. Inside was a leather purse, a lot of loose money, and the three other guns she had described to me back at the café. The revolver looked like a cannon with a handle. There was also something dark that could have been a ski mask. I didn’t even want to think about that.
“Good grief,” I said.
“I only took the important stuff,” she said. “You can see, it really was a spur-of-the-moment thing. Well, mostly. A marriage of convenience, you could say.”
“If that was convenience, I’ll pass on the harder parts. And don’t even think about using that other word.”
“Have it your way. Anyway, I need to do some shopping.”
That was one of the things she needed, all right. A good therapist also came to mind. “What’s the smell?” I said.
“Dark coffee and pepperoni pizza-flavored egg rolls.”
“Classy.”
“BP Roadside Gourmet, the sign said. Not the chef’s choice, though. He tried to sell me Ding Dongs. Says they don’t mess up the steering wheel so much.”
“Clean steering wheels are highly overrated. Especially if somebody else is driving.” I threw the cigarette out the window and tried an egg roll. It actually wasn’t bad. The coffee tasted more like Dow-Corning than Colombian, but it wasn’t bad, either. I must have been ready to come back to life. Outside, the prairie was giving way to sodium floodlights and buildings. Better. The outskirts of Chicago, I decided, though it looked less like the threshold of a great metropolis than a compacted bunch of 1950s suburbs. One and two story businesses of no architectural style were jammed together with modest houses just as nondescript. The only way you could tell you were getting close to a major city was that the spaces between them kept getting smaller and the traffic denser and less polite. The chief industries seemed to be auto parts stores and unclaimed freight marts, with an occasional bowling alley or laundromat. If there were any libraries, parks, or public buildings, they were underground. Civilization, like prosperity, never really trickles down very far from its citadels. But there was an undeniable pulse to the streets that quickened as we got closer to the unseen lake and the famous skyline, and it was infectious.
We passed a small strip mall with a row of hotels across from it, and Rosie looked over at me and arched an eyebrow. I pointed at a Kinko’s in the middle of the strip. We stopped, and I bought a couple hours on one of their PC terminals.
“Do you need any help with it?” The clerk was decked out in pimples and improbable studs.
“I just need to send and receive some email.”
“Email or e-messaging?”
“Is that a trick question?”
“If you have a registered handle, you can do e-messaging, get an instant reply back.”
“If I had a handle, I’d be using a CB.”
“Gee, I don’t know that technology. Sorry.”
Sometimes I get very sick of being a dinosaur.
Rosie interrupted us to ask if she could go do some shopping and book us a room for the night.
“Sure,” I said. “Where shall I find you?”
“I’ll check back here once. If that doesn’t work, look for me in the bar of that hotel.” She pointed to the fanciest one of the row across the street, one that looked like it had maybe started its life as an Embassy Suites. I took her elbow and moved her aside, out of earshot of the gawking techie, and told her that if they asked her to write down the license number of the car, she should reverse the last two digits.
Her eyebrows tried to merge into a face-wide frown, but they didn’t quite meet at the center. “Whatever for?”
“If somebody is checking to see if the car belongs in their parking lot, they’ll just assume it was a mistake in writing it down. But if somebody is doing a computer search for the car, they’ll come up empty.”