CRIME THRILLERS-A Box Set (7 page)

other way to get across the bastard.

"You can hang out in the store or the restaurant while I sleep," he said, hooking a thumb at the one-story building. "Just don't talk much to the truckers. They'll think you're..."

"Hooking. I know."

"Sure. You'll be okay."

As he parked he heard her yawn. "Sleepy?" he asked.

"Yeah, I think I'll snooze out if you don't mind. I'm still beat."

"Pull the lever beside your seat and the back will recline."

Cruise made his own seat into a half bed, covered his eyes with the towel from the floorboard and sighed with satisfaction.

Molly was coming around nicely. What a great little kid.

Car and truck lights washed over the blue Chrysler as vehicles from the interstate pulled into the truckstop for a rest or food or fuel. From the back lot the rhythmic thump

and drone of the idling truck engines soothed Cruise's ears. It sounded to him like one giant heartbeat. The sound raised and lowered with the pulse in his wrists and in his temples. Through the cracked window the scent of smoke came to his nostrils. In the smoke he could distinguish the aroma of fried foods, diesel exhaust, and a faint hint of tar and rubber. Road smells. The scent of freedom.

It didn't surprise him to hear, after a bit, Molly's light snore. That soothed him too. He wanted her happy to be with him, feeling easy, unafraid. They had been together two nights. He was closer to enjoying her confidence. He hadn't made a move toward her,nothing threatening. Had said nothing to alarm her. Had made her identify with his way of life, at least a little. At least a
part
of his life. If she slept until nearly noon, she'd be awake more come night again. She'd be better company to him. She'd get closer to revealing her real self.

Then he'd take her to Mexico. He had made up his mind. Texas always made him want to run away run completely out of the country. It'd just be a foray, a stopover. They wouldn't have to stay long, thought he could really stay as long as they wanted once he talked Molly into it.

He knew a town across the border just east of glitzy, westernized Juarez, one owned entirely by Mexican drug lords. They knew him there from his frequent visits. There he was treated kingly. As long as he performed a few chores for the boss. The money from it wasn't bad, either.

Shit.
Always that. He had forgotten his money was running out. He would have to do something to get more, preferably something for Ramirez. With or without Molly knowing about it, though he preferred that she witness whatever he must do to get the cash.

He yawned big and had to re-drape the towel over his face.

No use worrying about it. Never had before. If he wanted a Mexican whore, and if he wanted to show Molly the extent of his traveling experience, then he would simply do what he must do, what came naturally.

Besides, it was time. It had been days, maybe a week, maybe more, since he did the girl in Charlotte, North Carolina. His fingers itched to touch the knife hidden under his hair. Touch and fondle it, renew himself with its power.

He heard a truck's air horn blast and twitched. It came from the back lot, though, nothing he must get up and see about. Beyond his closed eyelids and the folded towel he could still see the bright wash of car lights swing past the car window though it was almost daylight.

The world was alive, teeming with night people, many of them winding down now as the dawn slipped catlike over the land. He must be asleep by then. Before the sunrise.

Before the world was brimming fire and the land revealed its seams and cracks, its underlying ugliness and squalor.

He replayed the life and death of the doomed Hollywood scriptwriter, and drifted softly into a comforting dream.

#

Mark Killany unlocked the door to room 202 at the Holiday Inn just west of Beaumont, Texas. At his back and below him stretched the lobby with the waterfall in its center. Rising high above him on three sides were balconies dripping long green vines. The air was misty and green. A few people in the lobby sat in club chairs watching a big-screen television. It looked like a situation comedy was playing. Two patrons were belly-up to the bar, neither of them giving attention to the other.

Mark ignored the activity behind him and slipped quickly into his room. He dropped his suitcase near the bed and went into the bath, turned on the shower full force, waited for the temperature to get to the proper degree while he undressed.

It was turning into a long, lonesome trip. He wasn't used to the melancholy mood that was upon him. It cramped his style, made him lapse into periods of self-pity. All his life he'd been in control of his own destiny. He knew what he wanted out of the military and worked hard to get it: authority, security, respect. He had met Molly's mother after he made lieutenant and knew he wanted her in his life. She never complained about compound housing, official politics, or his dedication to his job. She gave him what he needed. Unconditional love, loyalty, and a beautiful, intelligent daughter. She had given her life, he realized in regret, to bring a child into the world.

And he had always thought Molly intelligent, that is, until she'd pulled this stunt of running away from home. Now his destiny was uncertain, his life in a chaos not of his making, and evidently beyond his control. Molly had usurped his authority, left him to worry himself sick over her. While he drove sometimes he felt the anger coming like a runaway train. Molly was a spoiled, selfish creature unfit to be called his daughter. She'd learned nothing from his examples, rejected those values and beliefs he felt she needed most.

Other times sadness invaded him, that quality of melancholy that filled him like pie in a pastry shell, and he moaned aloud, wishing to be anywhere, in any situation except this one. Dealing with a teenager was turning out to be like defusing a bomb. It took iron will, steady hands, unswerving patience, and skill. All those characteristics he lacked except for the will. And that had been too muscular, not limber enough for the job at hand.

He stepped into the shower's spray and let it cascade over his bowed head. He closed his eyes and breathed through his mouth.

He was neither angry nor sad right now. Just beaten. No telling how far ahead she was. She might have changed cars, hitched with another driver. She might have decided not to go to the West Coast, and at this moment was on her way back east or north or even to the Midwest. The United States was a big country, all spread out., thousands of places to hide or get lost in. She might have stopped off in one of the towns along the route he traveled, and was now melting into New Orleans or Lake Charles, vanishing like a wisp of fog.

It was sheer misery that drove him to continue. He needed rest. A few hours in a bed. But then he'd be on his way again, heading west, asking his questions, showing Molly's picture. He knew no other way to live with himself. Even if he hired private investigators, they might take months and come up with nothing. The agencies looking for runaways were swamped with calls from frantic parents looking for kids. He knew there was little hope in that direction.

Hell, look at the pictures of missing kids on the sides of milk cartons. It was an epidemic; no one knew what to do. He must go forward and hope Molly headed for California the way she'd told her Florida friends. If she'd lied, if she'd changed her mind, he was shit out of luck. It might be years before he found her. Dammit.

He washed, shampooed his short, crew-cut hair, rinsed, and stepped from the shower stall. After drying off, shaving, brushing his teeth, donning the bottoms of a pair of plain white pajamas, he threw back the covers on one of the two double beds and flopped onto his back. He had a wake-up call for five-thirty. He should do a few sit-ups--it was harder to stay in shape since his retirement--but sleep pulled him into its silky depths.

He slept with the table lamp on, his mouth open, his hands straight at his sides. He never moved a limb all night. And if he dreamed, the dreams fell over the precipice of his subconscious and were lost the way the waterfall in the lobby fell from its great height and disappeared in the foaming aquamarine pond at its sculpted base.

THE THIRD NIGHT

Molly floated in a flushing pink dream of sex. Hormone typhoon, she thought at the edge of waking.
Stop it
, she thought,
dream something else
. But the dream was too exciting and blessedly real for her to stop it. She felt every inch of her body ripe and full to the bursting point with lustful feelings. Her muscles clenched and unclenched creating a wave of yearning that washed down through to her core.

She fantasized a lover with long, silky hair that swung on each side of his face as he moved above her, his weight familiar, his warmth increasing her own. The hair of his legs slid along her own bare calves and inner thighs and she sighed in her sleep, twisting a little to better position herself to open and receive him.

Then a car door banged shut nearby and Molly came up from the reclining seat of the Chrysler like a shot. She was trembling, the heat that had been spreading outward from

her thighs now creeping into her cheeks. She looked over quickly to where Cruise lay peacefully sleeping. She sucked in a breath and rubbed her eyes against the afternoon sun beating through the windshield. It felt like midsummer here in Texas. Hot as a griddle.

Her heart beat fast and strong in her chest. She felt as if she'd used up as much energy as she might have running laps around a football field. She'd been dreaming of making it with Cruise. A whole truckload of shame suffused her. Guilt at the betrayal of her body made her bring her arms in close to her sides and squirm in the car seat. She sometimes had these disturbing sexual dreams. She'd never had the nerve to ask other girls if they too sometimes woke from naps or in the night after experiencing vividly detailed romps with men. She was afraid they'd tell her no, and then she'd know for sure she was abnormal, her sexual appetite too large for so young a girl, so inexperienced a girl.

Before losing her virginity--or rather, before giving it away--she had these same dreams, but they were what she called "baby" sex dreams once she knew better. She fantasized being touched, kissing, fondling in the dark. She would wake to find herself rocking belly down, massaging herself against the mattress. She didn't know what it felt like to make love.

After having sex the dreams changed completely. They had little to do with foreplay, with kissing or snuggling or touching. They got right down to the crux of the matter where she dreamed of penetration, of the slick thrust and pump of the act itself. She dreamed of being filled. Of reaching for orgasm and nearly missing each time she woke dripping sweat, her small breasts tingling, nipples swollen, a fire burning down below. Sometimes when she was too excited to forestall it, she masturbated, gently with her finger, probing, then furiously until she came, her breath caught in her throat, her hand lodged between her legs, back arched.

She wished fervently to be rid of these kinds of fantasies that plagued her, that brought along with them guilt and sometimes shame at a runaway subconscious. Yet about once a month or so they returned like bold demons sharing her bed, driving her crazy with unfulfilled longing.

She'd die if Cruise knew she'd dreamed of him that way. She peeked a look at his body. Let her gaze travel from heavy black lashes lying on his cheeks, down to his lips hiding beneath mustache and beard, over his muscular chest stretching at the material of his shirt, down to the belt in his slacks, the bulge in his crotch. Lingered there before traveling on down his legs to his feet.

A trembling thrill rolled down her. Again she sucked in a breath and held it.

Crazy. She had to get out of the car before she did something incredibly stupid like reaching for him. She could already feel his big hands on her. She began to burn again, to squirm uncomfortably in the seat. She grabbed the door handle and jerked open the door, scrambled out into the fresh air. She shut the door quietly, just until it clicked, leaning down to stare through the window at Cruise's sleeping face to be sure he hadn't wakened. She smoothed her hair as well as she could. She composed herself, trying to quiet the hidden hunger. She would go into the truck stop and wash in the ladies' room. She'd drink some coffee and get over this mad rush of maniacal lust.

What was wrong with her? Is this what it was to be an adult, to feel this uncontrollable, aching fire take you even as you slept innocent and pure?

She noticed most of the day was gone. The sun was falling down the sky, sinking fast to the flat horizon. It was a shock to think she'd slept most of the daylight hours away. Getting just like Cruise. But what could she expect with him telling her stories all through the night, keeping her captive with his melodic voice. She suspected that's what he wanted-to rearrange her sleeping rhythms. Well, he was the boss on this particular joyride.

She looked up at the sign perched on the edge of the roof of the restaurant and read the name. The White Elephant Cafe. A fat dirty white elephant sat back on his haunches and trumpeted at the sky. Hah. Out here in the middle of God knew where, that's all they could think to call it, she guessed. It was a low-slung job in mud-red brick. The trim was painted brown and white. It could be torn down and no one would lose money.

She went through a glass door and found herself in a small store. Refrigerated cases of beer and soft drinks, milk, cheeses, luncheon meats. Aisles of trucker stuff. CB mikes and connections, logbooks, envelopes, every over-the-counter medicine ever put on the market.

A dull, wrung-out rag of a woman manned the cash register. She filed her nails, not bothering to look up as Molly entered.

To the left was a hallway with rest rooms. Molly headed for the ladies and held open the door for a big woman dressed in tight jeans and a blue workman's jacket. She must be a trucker, Molly assumed. Looked the part anyway. Didn't look like anybody's momma.

After relieving herself, washing her face, hands, neck, and upper arms with soap and water, she tried to get a brush through her red frowsy hair. Giving up trying to get it to lie down and behave, she scooped water into her hands and smoothed it over her head. The natural curl coiled into even tighter ringlets that fell around her pale face like corkscrewed ribbons. She patted them into place with a brown paper towel. Satisfied she was presentable, she left the rest room to find the cafe.