The Highway

by C. J. Box

  She reached in and opened the box. The bottom was scored with caramel-colored swirls from where the rolls had been, but that wasn’t what caught her attention. Because in the corner of the box was a small heap of ashes and cigarette butts. Jimmy had obviously used the empty box as a dustpan when he cleaned up that morning. She recognized the Marlboro Red butts as the kind Cody left everywhere.

  Cassie removed the box and carefully poured the contents into a clean paper bag she found next to it.

  She looked inside and counted: eight. Eight cigarettes. She could have them tested for DNA but she had no doubt who’d smoked them. Even Cody wasn’t capable of smoking eight in twenty minutes. Which meant he’d been there much longer than twenty minutes the night before.

  She wondered why Legerski had lied to her. And why Jimmy had gone along with it.

  She decided to question Jimmy herself to find out, but as she walked around from the back of the building she heard a motor start up and a hiss of thrown gravel.

  Jimmy’s old Jeep Wagoneer was sizzling down the highway to the north. He’d hastily hung up a SORRY FOLKS, WE’RE CLOSED sign in the front window.

  32.

  9:47 A.M., Wednesday, November 21

  RONALD PERGRAM WAS AWAKENED BY the burr of his cell phone on his pillow. He grunted and reached to turn it off, assuming it was the dispatcher calling to tell him about his next load, but the number displayed on the screen jolted him awake. It was a temporary number of a prepaid cell phone Legerski used only for emergencies.

  As Pergram rolled to his side in bed the laptop that had been perched on his white belly slid off onto the mattress. He’d fallen asleep watching the DVD he’d selected, even before he got satisfaction from it. He was still bone tired and he’d not come close to having enough sleep.

  “Yeah.”

  “Meet me at the place,” Legerski said. He sounded agitated. Pergram could hear road sounds in the background. Legerski was calling from a moving vehicle.

  “Now?”

  “Fuck yes, now,” Legerski said. “We’ve got problems.”

  Pergram closed his eyes. Pure red anger gathered in his chest and pushed up his throat. But he was wide-awake.

  “Isn’t that your department?” Pergram said. “I do the hunting and run the heavy equipment, and you solve the problems. That was the deal.”

  “Jesus, this isn’t the time. Just get your ass to the place as soon as you can. I called Jimmy and he’s on his way.”

  Pergram’s heart leapt. “Are you talking about a session?”

  “Don’t be a moron. We don’t have time for that until we’re in the clear. I’m talking about a stupid cunt cop snooping around. She doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing but she’s got me worried.”

  His hopes dashed, Pergram slid his feet out of bed and placed them on the cold floor.

  “Okay, I’ve got to get dressed.”

  “Bring the tapes,” Legerski said. “All of them.”

  Pergram glanced down at the collection in the ammo box near the side of the bed.

  “The DVDs too?”

  “Of course the DVDs, too. You know what I meant.”

  “Fifteen minutes,” Pergram said, killing the call.

  Yeah, Pergram thought, I know exactly what you mean.

  * * *

  Before leaving his room, Pergram checked the loads in the magazine of his Taurus .380 ACP and shoved it into his waistband at the small of his back. A blunt two-shot Bond Arms .45 Derringer went into the front right pocket of his Carhartt parka. His sheathed bone-handled skinning knife fitted nicely into the shaft of his right work boot, and a razor-sharp throwing knife went into the left.

  He got back down on his knees and retrieved the “Oh Shit” box and bolted the floorboard hatch.

  Locking his room behind him, he carried an ammo can in each hand and went as quietly as he could through the tunnel of refuse toward the front door. Although he couldn’t hear her, he felt her presence and turned his head sharply. She glared at him from an ancient overstuffed chair in an alcove of boxes and translucent containers packed with items that still had the price tags fixed to them. Her wide feet were up on a stool made of milk crates and the fat from her sides pooled over the armrests. She’d been just sitting here, in the shadows, waiting.

  “Where you going?”

  “Out.”

  “What you got there in your hands?”

  The ammo cans. He didn’t look down at either when she asked, but the handles felt like they were burning his flesh.

  “Might go to the range,” he said.

  “Go ahead and lie to me,” she said. “You’re up to no good. I can see it on your face. I’ve always been able to tell when you’re out causing trouble.”

  The rage hadn’t receded far, and it climbed into the base of his throat again. Three steps and he’d be on her. Three steps swinging two heavy steel containers. He wondered how long it would take them to find her in all the garbage.

  “Not like JoBeth,” she said. “JoBeth never caused no trouble. She was the opposite of you. I still don’t know how the two of you grew up in the same house. It just don’t seem possible.”

  He said, “I’m taking your car again.”

  Her mouth dropped open. The reaction was worth it, he thought.

  “What if I need to use it?”

  “It’ll wait.”

  “I’m going to have to hide the keys from you, Ronald. I swear, I’ll hide the keys.”

  “I’ve got a spare set,” he said, turning for the front door.

  The last thing he heard was, “Put some damned gas in it this time!”

  * * *

  There was a winter storm blowing in from the north and Pergram drove into the teeth of it. The sky was dark and close, the bumpers of the individual clouds tainted slightly green, the clouds themselves blocking out the omnipresent mountains. Thin smokelike waves of snow twisted across the highway, rolling like sidewinder snakes he’d seen firsthand in Texas. The heater in the Riviera wasn’t working worth a damn and the air the vents expelled smelled like radiator fluid. The ammo box filled with tapes and DVDs was on the passenger seat next to him.

  She always brought up JoBeth, he thought. She used JoBeth like a blunt object to beat him with. Thin, lovely, athletic JoBeth, his little sister. Two-sport all-state athlete, honor roll, Future Farmers of America award winner. Somewhere in all that shit back home were her clippings from the Livingston Enterprise, each one of them painstakingly scissored out an eighth inch from the text and pressed into a three-binder scrapbook that used to sit prominently on the front coffee table when it could still be found. JoBeth’s official U.S. Marines induction photo was on the wall, her clear blue eyes gazing out with a sense of purpose as straight as her jawline. When the word had come that the Humvee she was riding in in Iraq was destroyed by an IED, Pergram had mixed emotions. His mother didn’t. She went off the deep end and found some kind of solace in “collecting.” Collecting, Pergram thought, and acting the martyr. Her perfect child had been taken away, leaving her with … him.

  Not for long, he thought.

  * * *

  Out of habit, Pergram checked traffic ahead and behind him on the highway—there was none—before slowing and taking an unmarked two-track that wound through high sagebrush toward the mountains. Tiny pellets of snow rattled across the hood of the car and against his driver’s side window. Twisted fingers of forsaken lone sage scraped the undercarriage of the Riviera as he drove.

  The old road took him through a narrow stand of old mountain ash trees and down a switchback slope. He crossed an ancient bridge constructed of railroad ties that sagged over a creek. Every time he drove the tractor over it he expected it to cave in, but it never did.

  The trees cleared and he topped a rise and the old Schweitzer place was laid out in front of him. It wasn’t really a ranch because it had too few acres—maybe a thousand acres—to feed enough cows to make a go of it, he’d heard. But when crazy old man Schweitzer bought it
in the early 1950s, ranching wasn’t his main priority. His thought then was to find a location that would withstand a nuclear war with the Soviet Union or Red China. That’s why he chose acreage with high mountains on all four sides far away from any population center that might be a target. That’s why he built the bunker beneath his house with three-foot reinforced concrete walls and ceiling. It wouldn’t withstand a direct hit, but humans inside could conceivably live through just about anything else. The air-filtration system was on its last legs but it still worked. They’d know when it failed when they found asphyxiated dead bodies inside. So far, though …

  * * *

  Just get your ass to the place as soon as you can.… Don’t be a moron.… Bring the tapes.

  Pergram reran those words through his mind over and over again. Each time he did he got angrier. He wondered what that woman cop had said to Legerski to cause his reaction.

  He remembered a time a few years before when his secret world was his and his alone. Before Legerski bullied his way into it. Before Jimmy joined them. Things weren’t perfect back then because he was always afraid he’d get caught. But he learned as he went along, got better and more cautious all the time. He’d never been arrested or even questioned. The only person who seemed to suspect him—and blab about it—sat in a ratty old easy chair with her fat feet up back at home. She didn’t know the extent of his secret life and would be shocked to find out. She just knew he was inherently rotten and she didn’t mind sharing that opinion with anyone who asked. Rick Legerski had asked, apparently.

  Things were so much better before, he now realized. At least no one ever called him while he was sleeping and told him to get his ass anywhere. Or called him a moron.

  No one, Pergram thought, had the right of status to say that. No one had the right to treat him like a simpleton, an idiot, a mouth-breather who would do what he was told and not question the reason why. Not unless they’d been through what he’d been through and done what he’d done on the highways. He was the one who had started this, he thought. He was the one who made it happen. He was the one who delivered the goods to people who not only didn’t appreciate it but started to think they were better and smarter than he was.

  Pergram knew there were others out there on the highway, but it wasn’t like they were in some kind of club or association. They didn’t have a Web site where they could share videos or stories or tips. He wasn’t sure he’d even like meeting another one.

  Once, at a bank of urinals in a truck stop out of Valentine, Nebraska, he’d stood next to another trucker who seemed to emanate a certain aura of familiarity. The other driver was pudgy and dark and had dead, ravenlike eyes. As he zipped up, Pergram looked over to find the man staring at him in an unexplainable knowing way. Pergram nodded and the man smiled slightly, then turned away and zipped up himself. They’d exchanged something, a common thread, but didn’t mouth a word to each other. Pergram just knew. He’d waited outside in the hall for the driver to come out. He wanted to ask him about methodology, tactics, disposal. But in the end, he chickened out. He was on the road south toward North Platte before the other driver came out of the truck stop and mounted up.

  * * *

  There was a small white house on the valley floor. Next to it was Legerski’s cruiser and Jimmy’s Jeep Wagoneer.

  He parked next to Jimmy’s Jeep and climbed out of the Buick with the ammo cans from the seat. But instead of walking toward the sagging front door of the house he went to the side where there was a thick concrete abutment emerging from the ground.

  He leaned over and grasped the steel handle of the door and pulled. It was unlocked.

  As he went down the wide stairs, his rage suddenly morphed into absolute calm and he became the Lizard King without even willing it to happen.

  33.

  10:02 A.M., Wednesday, November 21

  DANIELLE SAT WITH HER BACK against the wall near the space heater hugging her bare knees close. Her eyes were wide open but she was in a world of her own. Gracie observed her closely but Danielle didn’t seem to know it or care. Danielle was silently chanting something, her lips moving in a kind of rhythm.

  Gracie tried to figure out what her sister was chanting while she sipped on one of the bottles of water the man had tossed in earlier. Neither had eaten anything that was in the bag except for sharing a package of beef jerky.

  Gracie said, “Danielle?”

  Danielle didn’t look up, didn’t stop her mantra.

  “Danielle, goddamn you!” Gracie shouted.

  Her sister stopped murmuring and slowly looked over. Gracie had never cursed at her sister before that way, and it seemed to have penetrated.

  “What?”

  “What are you saying to yourself?”

  Danielle’s voice was soft and hoarse. “I’ll never fall in love again. I’ll never trust a boy. I’ll never fall in love again. I’ll never trust a boy.”

  “Got it,” Gracie said, alarmed. Then, “What does that have to do with anything?”

  Danielle gestured to their surroundings, as if it answered the question.

  “That’s not the problem,” Gracie said. “The problem is you won’t take any real responsibility, that’s what. We aren’t here because you care so much, Danielle. You blame this whole thing on the fact that you were trying to get to Justin and convince him to come back.”

  “That’s what happened.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Gracie said. “We aren’t here in this place because you wanted Justin and you trusted him.”

  “Please don’t blame me,” Danielle said softly. “I can’t take it if you blame me.”

  “I’m not blaming you,” Gracie said, wrapping the thin blanket over her shoulders. “But you’re not getting it. How about ‘I’ll never lie to my parents.’ Or, ‘I’ll always get my car checked out at the mechanic shop so it won’t die in the middle of nowhere.’ That’s what I mean.”

  The vacant look returned to Danielle’s face.

  Gracie said, “Or maybe, ‘I won’t put my little sister in danger ever again by being stupid.’”

  “We’re going to die here,” Danielle said softly.

  Gracie had no response. The situation they were in was too immense and horrible to think through. Twice in the last twenty minutes they thought they heard sounds from beyond the heavy door. Each time, they stopped talking and stared at it, terrified of it opening. Each time, nothing happened.

  * * *

  “It’s not like we have any weapons or what we could use as weapons,” Gracie said, looking around. The only objects in the room were the cheap space heater and the plastic chemical toilet Danielle refused to use. She wondered how long her sister could hold out before she slipped into madness. Danielle seemed perilously close to just … going away. Gracie thought that if she could somehow engage her sister, create a task—something to keep Danielle in the present—they might have a chance.

  “We can fight them,” Gracie said.

  Danielle arched an eyebrow of doubt.

  “We can kick him in the balls and scratch his eyes out. We bash him on the head with the space heater. We can surprise him.”

  Danielle shrugged.

  Gracie held up a corner of the thin blanket. “We do have this.”

  Danielle said, “A blanket?”

  “It’s really dark in here, especially if you’re coming in from outside. It has to be hard to see at first. Maybe if we were ready for him when he comes back we could hide in the dark and throw the blanket over his head the second he comes in.”

  Danielle simply looked at her.

  Gracie continued, “We knock him down and kick him in the face and balls, then we run out the door. We don’t stay around because he could kill us. We just run. We’re not like Krystyl—we have two good legs.”

  Danielle narrowed her eyes and seemed to think about it. Gracie thought, I’m getting through.

  “If we’re quick,” Gracie said, warming to the idea. “I throw the blanket over his head
and you shove him down as hard as you can because you’re stronger. Then we kick the shit out of him and run. That’s how it would have to work, I think.”

  “Where do we run?”

  Gracie shrugged. “We just run and don’t stop. I think we could outlast him if he chased us.”

  “What if he manages to grab one of us?”

  “The other one keeps running until they can find somebody and call the police. That’s all I can think of. If we stop to help each other, he might get both of us.”

  Danielle nodded. Gracie couldn’t tell if Danielle was still with her or was simply reacting to react. She feared she’d lost her sister again.

  Gracie sat in silence, fuming and fighting tears, then suddenly bolted up and grabbed the tin of Altoid mints. She picked it up, squinted at it, saw how it fit in her palm. The brushed metal on the bottom of the tin reflected the orange bars of the space heater.

  “We’ll use this,” she said.

  Danielle looked up again. “Mints?”

  “No—the tin. Look at it,” she said, holding it up. “It’s the size and shape of a cell phone. It fits in my hand like a phone.”

  Gracie turned it upside down and mimicked tapping out a text on the surface of the tin with her thumbs. “See…”

  Daniella shook her head, puzzled. She was not getting it.

  “It looks like a cell phone from a distance if it’s partially covered by my fingers. What if that driver looks in here and sees you sitting there acting like you’re sending a text? Maybe he’ll panic and think somehow he missed one of our phones when he threw us in here? He’ll think he didn’t miss anything but he may not be absolutely sure. He’ll panic and come rushing in. I’ll be on the other side of that door,” she said, gesturing. “That’s when I throw the blanket over his head and we kick him and bash him with the space heater and run.”

  Gracie paused, her eyes wide and expectant.

  But Danielle shook her head. “That won’t work.”