CRIME THRILLERS-A Box Set

by Billie Sue Mosiman

  He had had experience at this before.

  He had had witnesses before.

  What had become of them?

  She frightened herself so badly with that one question her hands trembled where they were tied together in her lap.

  She thought she knew what became of Cruise's witness victims.

  The same thing that happened to the Mexican man in the street the night before.

  The same thing that would have happened to her had she panicked and landed in the midst of the coral snakes when she was a kid.

  She thought she could already feel the torture of fangs sinking into delicate skin, the slow burning sensation of poison seeping into her bloodstream.

  She must learn to fly once more in order to save her life. She must grow invisible wings and perform a miraculous flight above the danger lying in wait on earth.

  #

  Cruise didn't sleep, but he dozed as the pain subsided in his temples. When he felt he could move his head without crying out, he pushed off the pillow and rose from bed. He tested himself by walking to the bath counter to wash his face. It seemed he would live.

  He noticed Molly hadn't said a word to him. She tracked his movements, her eyes following him, but she didn't speak.

  "We'll be on our way now," he said, coming to untie her. He knelt to the side of her feet as he undid the ropes. He repressed an urge to run his hand up the back of her calf to the shadowed warm spot behind her knee. When she was completely free, she rubbed both her wrists and ankles before trying to stand.

  "Are you all right?"

  "I'll be okay."

  "Grab your bag. Follow me to my room so I can get my stuff."

  Molly did as she was told. She walked with a temporary limp. He glanced behind him as they moved down the hall to the next door. Inside he had her stand in the middle of the room while he gathered his things. "Hungry?"

  "Yeah, a little."

  "You haven't eaten all day. I bet you're starved." When she didn't reply, he shrugged and led her to the elevator. They hadn't seen other residents in the hotel and didn't on this trip to the lobby. Cruise waved good-bye to the desk clerk, called out, "Tell Adolpho I'll see him again soon." The clerk had handed him an envelope from the drug king earlier. The money was good.

  The night was full dark by the time they reached the Chrysler. Cruise had brought along the last bottled Coke he had ordered from room service. He drank it down before starting the car. "Warm Coke. Just what the doctor ordered. I'll get you something to eat in Juarez. Think you can hold out?"

  Molly nodded.

  He wanted to act cool. Courteous. His moods kept changing faster than the weather in Texas, but he was trying with all his might to court Molly's favor. She didn't have to be a prisoner if she'd just shape up.

  "So you're not going to talk to me, huh?"

  "Are witnesses supposed to talk?"

  She sounded as if she just wanted to know. She didn't say it with any sarcasm.

  "You don't have to. I'm not particular."

  "Good."

  Great. She was in her hard-ass mode. She fidgeted and fussed with the collar of her blouse. Miss Rebel without a cause. He could live with that, actually preferred it.

  Once they were outside of town and in the desert land that lay between Adolpho's city and Juarez, Cruise felt like telling a story.

  "I knew a couple of women one time..." He paused when he heard Molly sigh. "What? You don't want hear it?"

  "I don't care."

  "Don't be like that. Let me tell you about these friends of mine."

  "Whatever."

  "They were driving down from Boston. The woman in the passenger seat had short black hair. She had her cat with her, a long-haired black cat she carried in her lap." They were passing lots of semis, you know, and these guys are all staring down into the car. It's about dusk, that gray time when things aren't too distinct."

  He peeked a look at Molly, saw that she appeared interested in his tale despite herself.

  He continued, "Well, the woman is driving and she's talking and they're discussing the cat. The cat hears its name, gets a little rambunctious so the driver reaches over and starts rubbing the cat's fur. Before you know it they've got truck drivers honking their horns cutting up like crazy. Some they pass are swerving a little in their lanes, then they're laying on the horns. 'What do you think they're carrying on about?' the driver asks her friend. She's still petting the cat in the other woman's lap. Suddenly it comes to her. 'You know what?' she asked. 'I bet they're looking down in the car and you've...' She started laughing hysterically. 'You've got black hair,' she said. 'And I'm reaching over there petting a black cat. It looks like I've got hold of your...your pussy!'"

  Cruise laughed like crazy, and Molly stared at him with a blank look on her face. He thought maybe she didn't get it. He sobered and stared down the road ahead. Molly wasn't going to be any fun from now on. She'd be a challenge, though, and he liked that just as well.

  He had to maneuver the car around the worst potholes to keep from ruining the undercarriage of his car. He had hoped he could cheer Molly up, but it wasn't working. The petting-the-pussy story was about the funniest one he knew. If she didn't find that amusing, nothing was going to bring her out of the doldrums."You won't have to be tied up if you'll just cooperate," he said.

  "How long are you going to keep me?"

  Well, well. He might get a dialogue going after all. "Not long," he promised.

  "You've killed people before last night, haven't you?"

  Cruise shrugged. She knew and didn't want to know.

  "Doesn't it mean anything to you?"

  Cruise smiled, but he knew the beard and mustache would hide it. "Sure, it means something."

  "Why do you do it?"

  "Why did you run away from home?"

  "It's not the same thing!"

  "I didn't say it was."

  "Then what's the point? Leaving home has nothing to do with killing people. God."

  "Here's the connection. You left home because you felt you had to, didn't you? Well, didn't you?"

  "I guess so..."

  "That's why I kill. I have to."

  "Why?"

  Cruise made an exasperated movement with his right hand. "I just told you. I have to. You changed your life, I change mine."

  "Is that it?" she asked. "Killing is some kind of ...some...sort of...change?"

  "I guess that describes it pretty well."

  "But, Cruise, you can't kill people for a reason like that. It's dumb. It's..."

  "Crazy?"

  She was silent. Maybe she knew she'd gone too far.

  Cruise admired her restraint. He wasn't angry with her, in fact he found the conversation intriguing. When they probed this way, he had a good time with them. "Most people think it's crazy," he admitted. "I don't think so. It's just a difference of opinion. And my reasons are reasonable to me."

  "I've heard about people like you," she said. She didn't spit the words out, but they were coated with slime just the same. It sounded like it made her sick to say them.

  "Like me? There's no one like me, Molly. Don't make a mistake in judgment."

  "You're right. I don't think there's anyone like you."

  He smiled to himself again. Now she was catching on.

  Not understanding, but at least feeling the slightest empathy for his actions. It was a beginning.

  "There's Juarez. I'll stop for tacos or something."

  He had to watch her at the border. If she tried signaling to the border guards, he'd have to kill her. It could be a messy business. He couldn't tie her, they'd see. He had to make his warning convincing. He didn't want a misadventure spoiling the trip.

  In Juarez he parked the car near a portable stand covered by a rainbow-colored umbrella to shield the sun in the day, the moon at night. These were roach coaches, ptomaine domains, but what the hell. He wasn't in the mood for going into a four-star mariachi-band restaurant.

  "Get out of the c
ar," he said.

  "Why?"

  "Do what I tell you," he said, not unkindly.

  He came around the front grille and walked Molly with him to the food cart. "What do you want?"

  "I don't care."

  "Be that way." He ordered tacos, bean and red chili burritos, and two canned Cokes from the cart tender. "Lose that sombrero, friend," he told him when he paid the bill. "You look like a clown."

  Back in the car Molly said, "That was mean."

  "You've seen me meaner. Here, eat your dinner." He handed her a taco and a burrito from the sack.

  They sat in the car with the windows down watching the passersby on the street. Unlike Adolpho's city, Juarez had a sprinkling of Americans intermingling with the natives. Nearly all of them carried bags with their purchases poking from the top. Clacking wooden snakes. Hand-carved walking sticks. Polyester lace tablecloths. Embroidered dresses. Leather goods. Multicolored blankets. Cheap stuff they thought were real bargains.

  The place was running over with pedestrians. They haggled with shopkeepers, ate colored flavored ices from paper cones, begged on street corners, and picked pockets.

  Cruise finished off the food, the Coke, and turned in his seat to face Molly. He had to lecture her. She wasn't going to like it. She had told him that's all her father ever did, lecture.

  "They're going to stop us at the border. They'll probably inspect the car. They'll ask where you were born."

  "So?"

  "Don't get smart with me. I'm talking to you."

  "I can hear you. Talk already."

  "If you make a squawk, if you give any signal that something is wrong, if you say one single thing that makes them suspicious, I'll kill you where you sit." He heard her intake of breath although she wouldn't face him. He saw her jawline tighten down, the milky skin smooth against the bone. "You know what I can do with my knife." He moved his hand to the back of his head. Touched his hair as if smoothing it down. He knew she could sense his movements without looking directly at him. "I don't want to have to do that, Molly. But no one's ever taking me to jail. Ever. I promise you that. So if you get the urge to make a play, suppress it. Before you can make a move, blink an eye or utter a word, I'll slit your throat from ear to ear."

  Molly looked down at her hands in her lap. She had them clutched together in a small knuckly ball. "I get it," she said, her voice barely audible.

  "You're a good girl. Now let's get moving. I hate fucking Juarez."

  He watched her closely at the border crossing. It all went peacefully. She trembled a little and her voice cracked when she said where she had been born--Dania, Florida--but other than that, it went fine. Once on the road in the darkness, he said, "You performed that duty as well as could be expected. I'm proud of you. I think I'11 tell you about a guy I knew once who crossed over into Mexico to get him a whore for the night...''

  He settled into his driving and storytelling. Molly was going to be the best witness he'd ever taken.

  The miles rolled away. I-10 took them past Las Cruces, New Mexico, and back into the night. There was Deming, then Lordsburg came next and was soon behind them. They were across the state line into Arizona. All Cruise ever remembered on his travels across New Mexico was that the rest areas, the pickle parks, were pristine as sun-bleached bone. He filled the gas tank at a Chevron station off the freeway just east of Bowie, Arizona. He kept watch on Molly. She asked to go to the bathroom when he replaced the gas nozzle. He walked her to the rest-room door on the side of the station and waited outside for her. When she exited, he held her arm, pushed open the door, and checked the stall walls, the floor, the mirror over the sink for any notes she might have left. He knew all the tricks. The girls he took almost always tried to leave behind messages. Molly didn't.

  "You knew better, didn't you?" he asked, smiling genially.

  "Knew better about what?"

  "Never mind. It's not important." He didn't want to give her any ideas she didn't already have.

  He sent her to the car while he paid the station attendant for the gas. She was in his line of sight every second.

  On the highway again he gave her the news. "We're getting off the freeway about seven miles from here."

  "Why?"

  There was a high panic in her voice. He loved being able to produce that shaky, unsure note. "I'm taking Route 666 north to 70. We go through Globe, then we get a bunch of little shit-kicking roads north to Flagstaff. We're stopping off to see my sister. And my father," he added.

  "666? Is that for real?"

  "It is. Funny, huh?"

  "What's your sister's name?"

  "Evelander. Lannie. Not that it matters. She's not going to help you." He saw Molly visibly sag in the seat. There was no point in letting her hopes rise just to be deflated. Lannie wouldn't help her. He'd taken little friends by her house before. She was too scared of him to lift a finger without his permission. Lannie knew him. Her house was

  the only place in the world he could crash without fear of discovery. It was his safe house, his haven, the single rest stop in all of America where he didn't have to worry about running into someone he'd have to kill. Lannie looked straight through the kids he brought by on his constant trips across country. She rarely even spoke to them. And she never asked him to untie them or let them go free. She just knew it wasn't a request he'd honor.

  "Does Lannie make a habit of murdering people too?" Molly asked abruptly, startling Cruise from reverie.

  Cruise was left wordless for once. He didn't find the question funny. It was just odd. No one had ever asked him such a thing about his sister before. The thought had never crossed his mind. Lannie kill? He would laugh if he wasn't so shaken by the query.

  "What makes you ask something like that?" He wanted to sound angrier, but he couldn't get any backbone in it. The kids surprised him sometimes. You'd think he'd get used to it.

  "Well, if she wouldn't help me out, maybe she helps you do what you do."

  He realized she had phrased the reply without using the words murder or kill.

  "Lannie's not in this." he said. "Now let's drop it."

  "I don't want to drop it. What about your father? He know you go around cutting people open? That you keep hitchhikers as prisoners so they can watch you work?"

  "My father...doesn't know anything."

  "Why not? Can't he see what you're doing? Is he blind?"

  "Molly, that's enough." He nearly reached across the car to smack her across the face. His arm trembled with the effort it took not to hit her. That cold rage that came over him when he did kill now crept closer. It wrapped him in its frosty sheath, coated his mind with a rind of ice. He was looking up from beneath ice floes at a still, dead world. He clenched his jaws. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. He saw he was weaving across the dividing line on the highway and had to bring the car into his lane again.

  Something about his changing demeanor must have leaked into the car between them because Molly didn't repeat the questions. She stared out the window as if she'd never asked them, as if the answers didn't concern her one way or the other.

  Cruise fought to halt the fury that was trying to possess him. He didn't want to kill Molly. He liked her. He liked her more than any of the others he had captured in the past ten years. He knew he had to kill her eventually and was conflicted about that. But one day, one night, sometime, he'd have to do it. Only not now, not if he could stop the avalanche of his emotions.

  He clamped the wheel, took the exit for 666 north, his gaze scanning the roadside for something, for someone on whom to vent the building anxiety. He drove for thirty-two miles to the Highway 70 turnoff at Safford in a trance Molly would not have been able to penetrate had she tried. During the next hundred miles that took them to the copper-mining town of Globe, Arizona, Cruise concentrated his whole being on driving the Chrysler. He listened to the wind whistling past the lowered windows. He was intoxicated by the drone of the big engine, the swish of the tires on pavement, the steady
hum of movement through space and time. Overhead he saw there was cloud cover. The moon peeked sporadically from the shifting rims of black mountain fortresses. It looked like rain, smelled like it. There was a sharp taste to the cooling mountain air. They were entering the Mescal Mountains. Once outside of Globe they'd travel into the Sierra Anchas and the Mazatzals.

  Arizona didn't get more than two inches of precipitation a year normally. Cruise didn't know how the trees in the national forests were able to grow. If it rained tonight he didn't expect much. A sprinkle. A light shower.

  He was wrong. He came into town just ahead of a gully-washer. Lightning strobed the heavens delineating Globe's tall mounds of coppery dust against an electric-blue back-drop. Thunder pealed over the forested mountainsides and rolled down like boulders into the empty two A.M. city streets. Firs shivered crazily in the wind. Bits of paper and litter were flung into the air, plate-glass windows shimmered from the wind's force, a child's red and green ball rolled from a lawn across the street ahead of them.

  He heard Molly wondering aloud where they were. He refused to answer. He wanted to ask why she didn't read the sign at the city limits, but fuck it, let her stew. Let her be scared. Scared enough to piss her pants. He had become distanced from her on the drive from Safford to Globe. She was no more to him at the moment than a rag doll with a voice, a dog with a bark, an animal with a whine. Given the least provocation he could pull over and do her without a minute's regret. That's exactly the place he had come to.

  He found his turn for Highway 88 north just as the rain let loose. At first it was rain. Big splattering drops that split open on his windshield like fat grapes. Five minutes after he had the windshield wipers going the rain turned to hailstones. The pummeling sounds on the roof, hood and trunk of the car sounded like a truckload of hard-boiled eggs being dumped over them. Cruise got his window up in time, but Molly was making little squeaky noises as she brushed off the hail while trying to get her window cranked shut.

  That was when the wind picked up. The trees covering the slopes of the mountains began to dance insanely in the headlights. The hail was slanted straight at them, missiles in the cones of the car lights, striking the windshield with enough force to make Cruise wince and hunch his shoulders over the wheel. There were no other cars on 88. They might as well have been alone on an alien planet where the weather had turned mean and meant to beat the shit out of any machine that dared move about in it.