2,000 Miles to Open Road (Barefield)

by Trey R. Barker

  Theresa held him a second longer and he could have disappeared in that moment. He could have fallen into those eyes and never climbed out. They were where he wanted to be for each and every moment he had left before he climbed outta his body and it turned to dust.

  "That's a pretty ferocious love you've got there, Hal," Theresa said.

  "Yeah, about his eyes on the road?"

  Her fingers, so tightly around his chin one second, were gone the next. He faced the road and relaxed when he felt those same fingers on his arm.

  Ahead, a pile of highway signs jumped at them from nowhere. Big ass green signs, nine million different highways and exits and how many miles away, but he was looking for a single one.

  "277," Shawn said. "Two miles."

  "90," Theresa said. "Next right."

  Hal clicked on the blinker and moved the truck toward the exit. When he turned, Tyler and Missy were, for the time being anyway, gone.

  340 Miles

  An hour later, they were outside Uvalde and it was getting to him. Yeah, he'd probably morally done the right thing, but it was still damned scary. Theresa's love was a great thing, yeah, but there were lots of men in prison with loving women on the outside. Probably lots of them in the Death House with loving women on the outside, too. That alone wasn't going to get him dick when it came to the cops.

  Or to Roby Trenton.

  He might'a run out that back door, but he wanted his disk. He'd made that pretty clear. And he sure as hell knew where Hal was headed. It was pretty clear he'd beaten it out of Shawn.

  So…cops and a collector.

  And what, exactly, was going on with that collector? Yeah, he wanted his disk back, but why work so hard to get it? It was a collection of random movies, pictures and video streams. Shit, it had been Hal, he'd have written it off long before this.

  Hanford had been a collector once. Comic books. The scary ones. Monsters and vampires, shit like that. Spent his allowance all the time on the damned things. Had to build special bookcases in his bedroom, and then in the garage, just to hold them all. Collected in college and in fact, made some pretty shrewd buys to help pay for college. Shrewd enough to get Hal interested in the market. Of course, Hal's version was mostly cons and scams and he'd lost his shirt behind some garbage comics he'd been sold.

  But the thing about hardcore collectors of comics and books and movies and whatever was that they almost always thought they could do better. Hanford had been no exception. He had tried to write the stories and then draw the pictures. Nobody bought his stuff and eventually, he just published them himself. Man, he had gotten killed. The critics, and Hal was still surprised there were people who were critics for comic books, hated them and nobody who bought the things was much impressed, either. Hardly any of them sold. Went back to strictly collecting pretty quick.

  The disk sat on the dash.

  You a hardcore collector, Roby-boy? You get into your collection enough that you thought you was maybe better at it than other folks? Fifty grand was a lot of scratch for something that you said was just a copy. If it was a copy of some dead bodies, why bother?

  But if it was a copy of some dead bodies with him killing them, that was a whole different thing, wasn't it?

  He glanced at Shawn. She was asleep again, her entire face twitching this time. Bad ass dreams, he thought. And I'll bet you even money Trenton is in them.

  Trenton had said Shawn owed him dough. Hal assumed that was for smack, but there might well be something else going on here. She'd lied so far, best to assume there were still some truths she hadn't coughed up.

  Which made it cops, collector, and junkie.

  Call it another five, maybe six hours to Huntsville. Goddamn he was close. But as his watch clicked over to 12:33 a.m., he looked at Shawn--cops, a collector, and a junkie--and thought, fuck, six hours and the day's still young.

  232 Miles

  San Antonio was half an hour behind them. Seguin was on their doorstep. And Hal's bladder was pretty close to splitting right the hell open. "We gotta stop."

  "I could use something to eat," Shawn said.

  Hal grunted and squeezed Theresa's thigh just enough to wake her up.

  "We're stopping," he said. "This is Seguin."

  "I missed San Antonio? Damn, I wanted to see the Alamo again."

  "They ain't usually open this late," Hal said.

  "There is that, I guess."

  Slowly, like a Gila monster stirring itself from a sunny rock, the truck's cab woke up. Theresa cleared her throat, coughed, began to comb her hair. She'd been leaning against Hal and so when she moved, he readjusted his seat belt, put the disk in his pocket, rubbed his sore shoulder a bit. Shawn rubbed her finger across her teeth, looked in the tiny mirror hanging from the sun visor at her bruises.

  They'd all been lost in their own places for the last few hours and now, as the highway sign pointing them to the business district rolled up, they gently entered the world they shared.

  Hal passed the sign.

  "Aren't we going to stop?" Shawn rolled the window down a bit. A breeze grabbed at her hair.

  "I wanna find a truck stop," Hal said.

  "Any particular reason?" Shawn asked.

  "Yeah."

  But he said nothing more. Not much further up the road, a giant neon sign beckoned them. 'Rosie's Place for Truckers,' it said. In spite of the shitty name, it actually wasn't too bad. Looked clean from the outside. Not huge, only space for maybe fifty trucks, maybe sixty. Right now there were only ten or twelve in the lot. Probably every damn one of them with a trucker in the sleeper.

  Wouldn't mind a sleeper on this crappy pick-up, he thought. Curl up, get Theresa in a clinch, get my ass sleeping for twenty or thirty years. But in spite of how tired he was, how exhaustion pulled at him, he was excited, too. Shit, another three, maybe three and a half hours, and he was in Huntsville.

  Excited and terrified.

  It was all going to end there. With or without his brother. With or without Roby Trenton. With or without whatever, it was all going to end. He would come out the other side either free and clear or getting measured for a pine box.

  You ain't nothing if not melodramatic, Hal, he thought. He shut the truck off, climbed out and stretched. His muscles were still sore from the laundromat, from crawling around on the floor and then being so damned tense when he was dropping off the shot-up car.

  "Why'd you want a truck stop?" Theresa asked. She slammed the driver's door behind her.

  "No reason."

  "That's crap. Everything you do is for a reason."

  He swept her into his arms, pressed her tightly against his chest. "You are the only reason for anything I do." He waggled his eyebrows. "Pretty good line, huh?"

  Her eyes rolled. "Oh, yeah, you are Mr. Suave and Debonair."

  For that moment, when everyone laughed--and it didn't even matter that they were laughing at him--things were good. Things were right and would always be right. He shoved everything else out of his head and lived in that moment. He strung it out, hung on to it, refused to let go, until it died long after it should have, like an old man left on life-support too long.

  Finally, the trio headed inside.

  It was a standard restaurant at a standard truck stop. It smelled like eggs and sausage and chicken-fried steak and truck stop perfume. The faces that looked back at them could have been their own faces. Tired, surprised that anyone else was out at three in the morning, deadened by the cheap florescent lighting. Everyone in the place, just like at the place in San Simon, Arizona, was just marking time until the next thing.

  Hal swallowed, shook his head, and nodded to a waitress. A big part of him didn't want to see the next thing. He wanted to jump to the thing after the next thing, the thing that put them in Mexico on the Pacific.

  "What can I get you?" the waitress asked, stubby pencil at the ready.

  "One order of Pacific ocean, hold the violence and murder warrants, please."

  Her eyebrows rose,
her eyes back and forth between Hal and a bruised Shawn. "What?"

  Hal felt the heated rush of blood to his face. "Guess you've never seen that movie, huh?"

  Still puzzled, the woman shook her head. "I like love stories."

  "So does he," Shawn said. "He just doesn't realize it."

  The waitress nodded. "Ah, one of those."

  "One of those?" Hal frowned.

  "Just some scrambled eggs for me, please," Theresa said. "And some milk."

  "Ditto." Shawn leaned back in the booth.

  "What does that mean, 'one of those?'" Hal asked. Theresa elbowed him and pointed to the menu, which was taped to the table beneath a clear plastic cover. "Uh, yeah, a burger. And a beer."

  "You're driving," Theresa said.

  "Make it two, then," Hal said.

  "Ah, one of those," the waitress said. "Got it. Burger and a soda."

  When she left, Hal touched the DVD through his shirt pocket. He'd wanted a truck stop rather than a McDonald's or Burger King because he figured there'd be a computer or an employees' DVD player for when things were slow.

  "I'll be back," he said. "I gotta hit the head."

  He left the women and headed into the store. Behind the counter sat an older man, his face handsome but beginning to take on the flab that would soon hang itself easily on his bones.

  "You guys got a DVD player or computer or something like that around? I got a disk I need to play."

  The guy looked at him. "You need to play a disk here? At Rosie's?"

  "That a problem?"

  "I guess not. 'S just that most drivers got their own players in the trucks."

  "In the trucks?" Hal asked. "How can they drive while they're watching movies?"

  The man snorted. "Shit, most of the guys come through here couldn't drive even if they were watching the road." He jerked a thumb toward a door marked 'Employees Only.' "Back there's a TV and player, knock yourself out."

  It was a small room, lockers along one side, a sink and microwave and trashcan along the other. Two small tables filled most of the room. The TV and DVD player were a combo unit and sat on a rickety looking stand in the corner.

  The TV came to life quickly but Hal hesitated to put the disk in. Yeah, this might help him figure out what's what, but it might also stick shit in his brain he couldn't ever get out. Gotta watch it, he told himself. Gotta know what the hell Roby-boy wants it for. It got the right things on it, might be worth a few bucks.

  "Yeah, fifty fucking grand."

  Licking his lips, Hal shoved the disk into the player. A second later, the black screen suddenly showed him the room.

  "You get it okay?" the guy asked. He barreled into the room, his eyes on the TV screen.

  "Oh, uh, yeah." Hal quickly hit 'stop.' The barest beginning of Missy's body, still clothed, faded into a black screen. "Can I help you?"

  "I'm just getting something to eat," the guy said. But his eyes never left the screen. "You can go ahead and watch, don't mind me."

  Hal chuckled, in spite of his clammy skin, in spite of the lump in his throat. "It ain't porn, buddy."

  The man's face colored. "I didn't think--" Then he grinned. "Always hoping, you know? So what'choo got?"

  Damnit, get outta here. This is it, don't you get that? This is what all this has been about. Now let me fucking watch it. Instead he grinned. "Well, it's just from my brother. He's…uh…he's in the Navy. Sends me disks time to time."

  "Really? Small world. I was in the Navy, too."

  Hal kept the shock out of his face. Had to choose that one, huh? Stupid son-of-a-bitch, did you forget how to read people? How did you miss that freakin' Navy tattoo on his arm?

  "U.S.S. Meridian. Destroyer stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin." He smiled. "I'd love to see it, bring back some memories."

  "I…uh…wow, I'm really sorry, buddy. Can't do it. See, my brother's a navigator on one of the nuclear subs. There's probably classified stuff in the background and what not."

  The man frowned. "You ever been in the Navy, buddy?"

  "Uh…no."

  "Then chances are pretty good I'm cleared higher than you, aren't they?"

  "Well, true, except…." Hal sighed. "I really didn't want to have to do this, but you give me no choice." Gritting his teeth, hoping the guy saw it, Hal pulled Shawn's badge wallet out of his pocket. A quick flash, not enough to really see what it was. "State Department. I suspect my clearance is a wee bit higher than yours."

  "No shit? State Department? Wow, that's cool." The man nodded. "Yeah, you probably have better clearance. Sorry, buddy…uh…sir, I had no idea." The man headed for the door.

  "No problem."

  When he was gone, Hal wiped his face and turned the machine back on. His finger hesitated over the play button. Last thing on earth he wanted to do, see this DVD.

  Wishing desperately for a touch of the amber…Beam's, Daniel's, fucking homemade Mexican brew for all it mattered, he pressed play. The black screen snapped into something else, and his bowels turned to water.

  232 Miles (Still)

  He watched for less than fifteen seconds. Then he held his head in his hands and tried to keep his gaze somewhere else.

  During Tyler's trial, Hal had continually checked in on the Barefield Industrial-Times' website. He had followed that trial as closely as he could while running from Johnny Law, and without even looking, he knew the room. Twenty feet to a side, nothing but a simple wooden chair. The walls were all painted a soft, pastel green. Missy was drugged. He had known that but knowing a thing and seeing a thing are two different things. Her head lolled side to side. A couple of times, her eyes--dead empty--caught the camera.

  "Freakin' prosecutor never mentioned that," Hal said.

  How could he? He hadn't known there was a movie of the murder. He'd known the room, described it perfectly, and known there was a chair. He described it perfectly, too. But he hadn't known about Missy's eyes.

  And he hadn't known about the men.

  He had described two men but those guys were Hal and Tyler, not the blood-drunk thugs walking into frame right now. They were naked, hairy, overweight. One was maybe sixty-five. Call the other one mid-twenties. Both had drool on their lips and their cranks in their hands.

  The other thing that punk-ass prosecutor, strutting in court every day in his $1,000 suits and shiny boots, hadn't known about was the whips. Or the bloody stockade on wheels the two hairy-bellied men were rolling into the room right now. Or the cattle prods and clothespins.

  And how could he have known how terrible the sound of the voices was?

  "Missy? Do you like this?" A hard voice, full of maleness and malice.

  "No." Barely more than a squeak, full of pain and Hal thought for a minute maybe that was what Jesus sounded like when He asked God why He'd been forsaken.

  "What was that?"

  "I mean…yes. Please do it again."

  And then the crying. Hers. And eventually, Hal's.

  ***

  Much later, someone stopped the DVD and then a soft hand touched his arm. "You didn't do this, Hal." Theresa held him from behind, pressed her face against his back. "You didn't kill her."

  He was unsurprised she had come in. Without knowing it, he had desperately wanted her to. He wanted her to see that it wasn't him. "I did, too."

  "You were not in that room."

  "I was there. I was at that place."

  Theresa nodded slowly. "Why?"

  "It was…nothing…just a--Damnit, Theresa, it was booze, okay? I had a line on a semi of Daniel's. I was going to hijack the thing, slip away into the night, sell it in the streets and make a killing." He winced at his choice of words. "Make some money."

  She nodded at the screen. "But this came along first."

  "Sweet Jesus it did," Hal said. "I saw her get taken back there."

  "Which means he brought her in strictly to give to someone else," Theresa said.

  On screen, there was black, as though none of it had existed. As though it h
ad been a horrible dream. Or a fucking nightmare.

  "She didn't have any tears." Hal touched the TV screen.

  "What?"

  "When she cried, there weren't any tears." He looked at Theresa.

  "She was probably used to it. She had probably cried herself out."

  "Don't tell me that, Theresa. Please, God, don't tell me that."

  Roughly, she grabbed his face and jammed it close to hers. "Damnit, Hal, you didn't kill her. Okay, so you were there. What could you have done? Could you have shot them? Or stabbed them? Honestly, what could you have done?"

  "I could have tried."

  "Tried what? I mean, come on, did you even know what was happening?"

  He didn't answer for a moment. Then he nodded. "I think I did, yeah."

  Slowly, with a gentleness that seemed like an apology, she kissed him. "Then you failed, my lover."

  He nodded.

  "And now you'll set it right."

  "Pretty scared, though."

  "You ought to be, Hal. This is scary stuff."

  "You don't seem so scared. You a better man than I am?"

  She flexed her shapely arms. "That's obvious, isn't it? My dear, sweet man, I am more terrified than you will ever know. For you, for me, for all of us. But what else can we do? We have to set this right."

  "Ho-kay." He said it with as much command as he could muster. Wasn't much at all.

  Then he turned the DVD player back on and went to the second selection on the disk. The screen was black for a moment, then snapped into a bright, white room, lit by sunlight pouring through massive windows. Three windows were visible, each of them four feet wide and who knew exactly how tall. Maybe six, maybe eight feet. White, billowy curtains hung on ornate rods and danced with a slight breeze that came through the open windows.

  White carpet but black leather and dark oak furniture. Dirty brass fixtures and metallic art and music. A trumpet and some soft bass and piano. Hal turned to Theresa. "Lots of money in this picture."

  "I have a bad feeling about this."

  "Who don't?"

  For thirty or forty seconds, there was nothing. The sound was still down but Hal didn't turn it up. If there was any screaming going on, he didn't want to hear it. Eventually, two women swished into view and Hal almost choked.