“That’s good, him getting caught,” said Kate. “Right?”
“Hot Heads made the news.”
“What are hot heads?”
“Whitey’s got arrested last night.”
“Whitey?”
Tony cleared her throat and spit on the ground. “One that killed the gasoline man with my gun. He’s on TV. They say he’s get charged as an adult. He hasn’t confessed but Leroy says it’s just time.”
Kate knelt beside Mistie and rubbed her head. She reached in her pocket for the box of Tylenol, ripped it open, and took out three pink tablets. “Mistie, can you chew these?” Mistie nodded and put the tablets in her mouth, held them there. “Chew, hon.” Mistie chewed.
“Is that what you wanted?” asked Kate, looking up at Tony. “You wanted him to get caught?”
Tony banged the receiver on the steel side of the phone box. Her toe of her right boot patted the gravel rapidly. “Yeah. No, not exactly. Asshole!”
“Why?”
“We was supposed to be talked about, wondered about. We was supposed to be worried about, all over the county. We was supposed to be the gang everybody was scared of but nobody knew our names. Like the big gangs in the big places, ones that shoot up stuff and people and write ‘don’t fuck with us’ on walls but nobody knows exactly who did the shoot-ups ‘cause they’re quick, man, they’re smart and they don’t get caught. But Whitey shot that bastard and now he’s arrested. He’s gonna talk you can bet. Bark like a dog. All the Hot Heads going down, except me, ‘cause I’m here in fucking Texas.”
Kate stood and put her hand on Tony’s arm. Tony jerked away. “Why you touching me?” she demanded. “Don’t fucking ever do that!”
“He’s arrested. Okay. He killed the gasoline man, he should be arrested. Don’t you think?”
Tony scratched at the back of her ear. “He’ll get the needle over in Jarratt if they try him as an adult, you know. It could have been me. I could have shot him, and got arrested. I could have been the first girl on death row in Virginia. Know that? People don’t think girls got it in them, but fuck, they do.”
Kate spoke slowly. “Is that what you want, Tony? I don’t get it. What is it you want out of all this?”
Tony slammed the receiver into the steel box and then down onto the cradle. She put her mouth on her arm and bit down. Kate could hear the air drawing through her teeth.
“Don’t, Tony.”
Tony let go and smiled, her incisors streaked in blood. Her arm bore the angry and jagged imprint of the teeth, outlined in bright red. Already the skin was rising in defense of itself, puffing up against the assault. Tony held the arm out to Kate. “Tastes good! Better than mouse shit I bet! Wanna try? Now if I go down fighting, they’ll be able to ID me from my dental records! Ha!”
“Tony, what do you want?”
“I want a dare from you.”
Kate shook her head. “Let’s get in the truck and go on. I’ve got a map. We can find Lamesa. It might not be much farther.”
“Got a dare for you,” said Tony.
“No more dares.”
“A dare. I know too much about your fucking life as it is for any more damned truths. So here’s the dare. Call your husband. And he better be at the office.”
Kate felt a click in the back of her throat. “Tony, let’s leave him out of this. You know we aren’t into pedophilia rings. You know that was way off base.”
The knife appeared, and waggered in the air like a steel mosquito ready for the bite. “Call him. Want me to get him on the line for you? I’ll say I’m you. ‘Collect call from Mrs. Kate McDolen, rich bitch moron who licks mouse shit!’”
“I will go with you to Lamesa. You don’t need to threaten me anymore. I’ll drive you to your dad’s ranch. But just let Mistie and me alone. Let us go on our way when it’s done. There is no reason to call Donald.”
“Ronald McDonald!” said Tony. “Call him, bitch, or Mistie’s gonna sport a new tattoo, a nice set of teeth marks like mine here, only deeper.” She yanked Mistie back by the arm, and held the girl beside her, knife running through the girl’s hair. “How deep ‘til you hit bone and come out the other side? My sister Darlene was digging to China. Think she’s there yet?”
Kate picked up the phone. Her head itched furiously. She probably had Tony’s head lice. One eight-hundred collect. She pressed the numbers, waited for instructions, spoke her name. On the back of her left leg, the tickling of blood in a warm pattern down through the stubble of hair.
Lisa answered the phone.
“Lisa, it’s Kate.”
“Collect again? Honey, you are having phone trouble!” A small and distant chuckle. Kate couldn’t tell if Lisa was really trying to be funny or if she sensed something was off-balance. “How are you?”
“Okay. Lisa, is Donald in?”
“Sure is, Kate. Just hang on one dilly-dally moment, okay?”
Kate couldn’t say okay. God, but her leg was throbbing now, and both were shaking. I don’t want to talk to Donald. Maybe he’s in the conference room, maybe he’s out in the hall. Please, let his voice mail pick up.
“Hello, Donald McDolen speaking.”
“Donald….”
“Kate! Where are you? I found your note. God knows I’ve respected your request to let you be awhile, but I thought you’d at least call, to at least touch base, for Christ’s sake. Are you all right?”
Kate looked at Tony, who whispered, “Tell him you kidnapped Mistie. Tell him you’re in Texas with one of the Hot Heads, running from the law.”
“Kate? Are you still there?”
“I’m here, Donald.” I’m not far from Mexico, no matter what I tell him, Tony doesn’t know I’m going to Mexico. “Here, in Texas.”
“Texas? You’re kidding, right? What in the world did you think you’d find in Texas?”
“Tell him the town,” said Tony.
“Nacogdoches, Texas,” said Kate.
“Whatever you say. Is the air good there? All that, what, nice dry heat to clear you head? Is there a counselor there to work on…your issue?”
Fury flared up the back of Kate’s neck. Son of a bitch! My issue? Am I getting help?
“No.”
“I covered you, Kate,” said Donald. She could see him as he told her his this, one arm locked over his chest, the elbow of the other resting on top of the balled fist, sitting on the edge of his desk. The gray hair, neatly cut and neatly moussed, now just a little frizzy around the edge with anger. “I called Stuart Gordonson and asked him to let the school know you’d be out a short while. Of course, you didn’t say how long, so I felt a bit the fool on that count.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re on your way home now, am I right? I can tell Gordon you’ll be this week, yes? By, say, Wednesday at the latest? I can tell Gordon that?”
“Tell him what you did,” said Tony. She picked at a front tooth with her knife, wiped the blade on the side of her camouflage shorts, then pointed it back at Mistie. “C’mon, now, you’re talking on his dime.”
“I…I have a girl with me.”
A pause back across the many miles in Virginia. “A girl. What do you mean?”
He’s thinking I’ve got a lover, thought Kate, some kind of Texas cowgirl lover. The thought was nearly enough to bring on a dry laugh. Nearly. “A girl from my school. A second grader.”
“Her name,” whispered Tony.
“What’s her name?” asked Donald.
Mexico, a few hours, tops. We’ll be okay, we’ll make it. “Mistie Henderson,” said Kate.
“Henderson,” said Donald. “There was something in the local paper about a Henderson girl not showing up at her trailer park. They weren’t sure if she’s an abductee or a runaway. The residents thought she was a runaway. You…have her?”
“I do, Donald. Let me explain….”
Then Tony pinched her nose and wailed, “Help! I’m Mistie! She grabbed me and threw me in her white car! Help me…!” Then T
ony snatched the receiver; slammed it down, and hopped back with a little skip-jump. She laughed loud and long, rocking back like a hyena in a Disney cartoon.
“What did you do that for?” cried Kate. “That’s not how it happened!”
“It don’t matter how it happened,” laughed Tony. “It happened. You’re a kidnapper, you said so yourself! And now your husband knows it, too!”
“He won’t believe it. Not the part about throwing her in the car. He’ll think I’m the one kidnapped. He’ll think I was forced to make the call. Do you know how fake you sounded?”
“But he’ll wonder, he’ll doubt! You left him in the first place, didn’t you, and wrote a note to tell him go were going? I heard that! So he’s gonna know something’s screwed up.”
“He won’t believe what you said.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But the police believed it.”
Kate paused, gaped, wiped sweat from her eyes. Her heart stopped one beat, then another, then picked up again. “The police…believed it?
“After I talked to Leroy, I called the police. Right here in whatever the hell this town is called, I forgot. It was easy, got an operator, didn’t even need the one-eight hundred collect. Asked for the city police department. Said my name was Tony and I was with a kid and woman from Pippins, Virginia. Said I’d robbed an Exxon back home and you’d stole a little kid named Mistie. Said they could check up there and know I was right. They wanted to know why I called to confess, and I said what’s the fun of nobody knowing? And I hung up real quick.”
“Tony, we’re this close to Lamesa! You could have gotten with your dad!”
“I still will, but its better this way!”
“You’ve lost your mind!”
“You think I ever really had it, bitch?”
Kate looked over her shoulder at the road. How long until they have photos of the missing Mistie from Pippins? How long until they check out the story on the Exxon robbery? “You didn’t give them my name?”
“Sure.”
This will be FBI. This will be federal. God. God.
“The truck we’re driving?”
“I said it was a tan truck. I’m not stupid enough to tell them everything like thelicense plate or anything, shit, they gotta do some of the work.” Tony grinned, wiggled her eyebrows. “Guess we should get going. How far’s Lamesa?”
God, we have to hurry!
Tony put out her hand as she slammed the passenger’s door behind her and turned on her butt to Kate at the wheel. “And I hope you got something good to eat in that store back there.”
57
The aspirins tasted okay, the crackers tasted okay, and her head didn’t ache as much as it had, but Mistie wanted to go home. She was tired and she hated this truck. She wanted to see Mama, to see Daddy. Daddy did stuff she didn’t like but she still liked Daddy. He never hit her like one of the old men did his little boy Jake back at MeadowView. Daddy never “punched out her lights” like that other Daddy did his boy.
Mistie rubbed her crotch until it grew real warm. She licked cracker crumbs off her hand and then whined because she was really, really thirsty and the teacher hadn’t gotten anything to drink back at that store.
“What’s the matter, Mistie?” asked the teacher. She was driving. Her hands were tied up again, one on the wheel and the other on the stick thing on the floor.
“I’m thirsty. I want to go home.”
“I’ll look for a water fountain soon. There has to be one in one of these towns.”
“I want to go home.”
“She wants to go home,” said the girl with the knife.
“Honey, I can’t do that. It would be wrong. I’m going to make the wrong right.”
Mistie put her hands over her ears and repeated, “Mama had a baby and its head popped off, Mama had a baby and its head popped off.”
“Shh, Misite, it will be okay,” said the teacher.
“Mama had a baby and its head popped off.”
“Shhh.”
58
Farstone looked like a real Texas town. Tony had her head out the window, blinking in the warm wind and sucking it all in. Clinging to Route 180, the town was three blocks long and four to five blocks wide, with trailers and shacks and two greasy-windowed lounges (the “Gila Monster” and “Blue Star Lounge, Adults Only”) making up the bulk of the place. This was the kind of town Tony would have expected to see sheriffs with hip holsters and horses tied to hitching posts and tumbleweeds careening along wooden walkways like runaway rabbits. Here, Tony could have expected to see Tony Perkins standing with his arms crossed beneath an elm tree on a high and dusty knoll, one boot propped up against the base of the trunk, his head turned out across the vast stretch of barren land, not a single emotion showing on his face.
There were no gun-slinging sheriffs or hitching posts here, but there could have been. The town was dusty and brown and even the air tasted like cattle and barbed wire. The landscape was flat, the dogs sleepy, and the trees bent and haggard. This, Tony knew, was the Wild, Wild West.
“Look,” Tony said to Mistie, nudging her with her elbow as they entered the town limits and passed a cluster of little white houses surrounded by billowing clothes on clotheslines. “I think that’s a roadrunner out there, see? You like T.V., you’ve seen the roadrunner, right? Beep beep!”
Mistie looked out the window and nodded at the small blur of brown that darted across the rocky ground between the white houses. She didn’t seem so sick anymore, not since they’d stopped for a drink from a gas station water hose back about an hour ago in town called Carbon. The kid had eaten the whole pack of peanut butter crackers the teacher had stolen from the store and then half the crackers in another pack. She had listened with what seemed like a real interest in the stories Tony wove about her father and the Lamesa ranch.
“When we get there,” Tony had told the girl, “my dad will probably let you stay a little while. If you’re good. You can’t be fussing or anything, though, you hear me? And you can’t be doing that rubbing thing, it’s gross. Okay?”
Mistie had nodded.
“He has horses. You ever ride a horse? They’re wild, you know? Maybe he has a pony. A pony would be better for you.”
Mistie had said, “I like ponies. Princess Silverlace has a golden pony.”
The stories of the ranch at Lamesa seemed to keep the kid’s mind off being hungry and tired. It was worth it to Tony to bullshit with the kid so she wouldn’t start whining again.
There was a stoplight in the center of Farstone, and it was red. The teacher slowed the truck and waited. There were no other cars to be seen, save the few parked along the main stretch through town, but here was a stoplight. It was mid-afternoon, and dry, and very warm. Nobody was outside except some dogs, and they were hiding in the shade under bushes. Maybe this was a town full of Mexicans. Mexicans took siestas.
“Guess some city council had to fight hard to get that stoplight put up,” said the teacher.
“Whatever,” said Tony. “How far we got left?” Tony nodded at the trip-o-meter. “Looks like another hundred thirty miles. Not bad.”
A motor scooter with a white-haired old lady at the handlebars putted up the road on the left and crossed over to the other side.
“Now I see why they got the light,” said Tony. “Heavy traffic.”
“They’re looking for us now, you know,” said the teacher. “One hundred thirty miles across open land isn’t good odds for anyone trying to stay hidden.”
“We’ll get to the ranch,” said Tony. “Texas cops ain’t much brighter than Virginia cops, I’ll bet. But they know who we are, all right. I bet we’ll make the news tonight. Interstate crime. Try that radio again.”
The stoplight turned green. The teacher worked the clutch and the gas, grimacing as she did. The truck picked up its pace again.
“Radio!” said Tony.
The teacher turned on the radio and pushed the “search” button. Nothing but country music and a pop stat
ion. “It’s not the top or bottom of the hour,” the teacher said. “News comes on then.”
“Might be a flash bulletin.”
“Maybe.”
The music was some kind of twangy music with banjos. Tony waved her hand. “Cut that shit off.”
The teacher cut the shit off.
They’d left Nacogdoches yesterday, sneaking out of the city by way of every skeezy alley and strip mall back lot they could find. Last night had been spent parked behind the crumbling brick snack bar of the “Clifton Drive-In,” which no longer had a big white screen and no longer had ground-mounted speakers but still boldly proclaimed its name on a sky-high white and blue sign that still offered the double feature of “Ghostbusters” and “Ghostbusters II.”
Tony had secured the teacher and kid inside of the truck and had gone on a little scavenger hunt. The teacher had said, “I’m not running away, Tony. You no longer need to tie me up. I will go with you to Lamesa. I’ll help you get there.” Tony’d laughed at the woman, but it was odd because the teacher had really seemed to be telling the truth.
But truth could be lies.
She’d hiked only a half-mile or so up a dirt side road before finding a small farm with its own gas pump just outside a tractor shed. A collie had run up to her, barking and snarling, but she’d pretended to have something in her hand and the dog had wagged its tail until jumped on its back and slit its throat. She’d carried a couple gallons back to the truck in a bucket she’d discovered in a tool shed, and made a funnel out of a tattered newspaper she’d peeled from the wall of the snack bar.
In the middle of the night, Tony and the teacher had awakened to the sound of a siren out on the road. Tony had held her breath, counting, not moving even to scratch the lice. The cruiser passed the drive-in, lights flashing, the wailing key of the siren shifting lower as it got farther away.
“After a speeder,” Tony’d said.
“Possibly,” said the teacher.
They’d awakened hungry. But there was no money, no time, and Tony didn’t want to do anything but get to Lamesa. They could eat then. They could fucking wait to eat. The kid whined about wanting something to eat until Tony started telling stories about the ranch.
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