by Iain Levison
He checked himself in the mirror, to see if he looked normal, one of the crowd. He didn’t. The suit helped, but there was something about him he would have noticed right away. It was his expression: hard, unforgiving, as alert as an animal of prey. It was possible he looked like a businessman, but he was a businessman who seemed to be waiting for the person next to him to pull a shank out of a sock. Dixon tried to soften his expression, relax his face, think like a businessman. I’m just a guy on his way to a business meeting who needs some gas. The resulting facial contortion made him look like he’d just eaten a lemon.
He took a deep breath and pulled into the gas station, where a teenage kid was waiting by the pumps. A few drops of rain appeared on the windshield, and Dixon knew immediately what it meant. Rain was good. Rain caused accidents, gave the cops something else to do. He prayed for a massive downpour. The kid looked expectantly in the window as Dixon rolled the window down.
“Fill ’er up,” Dixon said.
“What kind of gas you want?” The question took Dixon by surprise. What kinds were there?
“Unleaded,” he said.
“Yeah, I know that,” said the kid. “What octane?” Dixon didn’t want this conversation. It had already gone on too long. Now he was noticed. Two or three words and you were fine, anonymous, forgotten, but twelve or fifteen and people would remember you. What the fuck was octane? Was this a jet? He hadn’t bought gas for a car in fifteen years, had spent most of the time in one cell block or another. “You pick it,” he said.
“There’s a price difference,” said the kid, warming to the topic. “A nice new car like this probably doesn’t need . . .”
“The cheapest,” said Dixon. If the fucking bank manager was ever going to get this car back, it wasn’t going to be with a tank full of primo gasoline. Fuck that asshole. Blue Maxima, my ass. One word like that could have got Dixon killed. “Whatever the fuck you got.”
He had blown it. People in business suits didn’t talk like that. The kid had noticed something, too. He was a sharp kid, Dixon could tell, the type who noticed everything. He was only about seventeen or eighteen, but he could already tell some stories. He might have worn handcuffs, lived like an animal for a bit himself. He might have been a junkie. Maybe he still was. But he noticed things, and now he was noticing there was something not right about Dixon.
“I’ll give you the standard,” the kid said.
Now Dixon had to mention that all he had was hundred dollar bills and that he would need change. Could the kid make change? Dixon looked into the laundry bag to see if there were any twenties or fifties in there, and didn’t see any. Just a big beautiful pile of stacked, fresh hundreds. He looked up, startled, to see the kid staring through the window.
“Sir, you have to open the door.”
“The what?” He was going to say “fuck” again but controlled himself. “Why do I have to open the door?”
“The gas tank door. The little door. You should have a lever in there.”
Jesus Christ, when did buying a fucking tank of gas become such a nightmare of decision-making and technology? In the old days you could just pull up at a gas station and fill up. Now you had to have a conversation about octane and levers. Almost panicked now, he looked around the car’s interior for a gas-tank lever. The kid was pointing down.
“It should be down by the seat.”
Dixon looked down and saw a little lever with a logo of a gas pump on it, and out of relief he pulled it so hard that it came off in his hand. Oh well. At least the kid didn’t see that. He was already filling it up.
How much damage had been done? Obviously, the kid had figured that this wasn’t Dixon’s car, if he didn’t know about the gas-tank lever. And it was a no-brainer that Dixon didn’t belong in a business suit. But where could he go with that information? Perhaps Dixon was just a foul-mouthed businessman who had borrowed someone’s car. Raindrops began to pelt down on the roof and windshield, and the kid stepped back under an awning while the tank filled automatically. The rain turned into a downpour. Beautiful. Soon he would be out of this damned gas station, away from this kid, cruising and listening to the radio and losing himself amid traffic and rush-hour city drivers. There would be car wrecks from here to Philly and New York City, plenty to keep the troopers busy. Cops didn’t like to get out of their cars and snoop around in the rain, either. Easier just to sit in your cruiser and wait for crime to come to you. The loud drumming on the roof gave him a warm feeling of contentment, driving away the anxiety of the last two hours. He reached into his pocket and lit a cigarette, cracked the window slightly to let the smoke out. He blew a long stream of smoke out the cracked window.
The kid was gone.
There was a state trooper coming up on the side of the car with his gun drawn.
“Motherfucker!” Dixon shrieked. He started the car and he heard someone yelling as he slammed into drive. The car jerked forward and drove as if the parking brake were on, and in the instant it took him to figure out this was because the gas hose was still connected to the car, the back window exploded. They were shooting at him. The car broke free of the pump and Dixon careened across the gas station, with six feet of black gas hose trailing after him. He was about to head back out onto the highway when he saw a local cop car come up and block the entrance, and he slammed on the brakes.
Decision time. What to do. Two cops, one state trooper and one local. There would be more, but only two for now. He turned the Maxima so it faced the local cop car and slammed on the accelerator. The cop had just started to open the door, quickly closed it and dove over into the passenger seat as the Maxima screeched right up to it. Dixon slammed on the brakes a second before contact, and jerked the Maxima into reverse. He drove back about thirty feet, turning the wheel so he was facing the other cop, the state trooper he had first seen, who was now crouched and out in the open, with his drawn gun pointing right at Dixon. There was a flash from the muzzle of his pistol and the windshield spider-webbed, a hole the size of his fist appearing. Dixon felt something solid whiz past his left ear. Back into drive. He ducked under the dashboard and shot forward, until he was just under the pump, with its torn hose spilling gas out onto the stained grey concrete and mixing with the rain. The gasoline showered down on the Maxima. Dixon tossed his cigarette out onto the hood of the car and watched as an instant fireball erupted on the hood.
Now what? Decision time again. The state trooper who had fired at him was trying to get a better shot, maneuvring round to the side, looking for cover. How had he gotten here? There must be a state trooper vehicle somewhere. Dixon noticed it through the flames, behind a dumpster at the carpet outlet next door. He slammed the car into drive and, with his head down and fire and debris showering the front seat, he drove the Maxima over a curb and into the carpet outlet’s parking lot.
Now he was between the state trooper and the vehicle. There was no way the cop had taken the keys out. Dixon slithered over into his passenger seat and in one smooth movement booted the door open, grabbed his laundry bag and gun, and fell onto the tarmac. He rolled away from the Maxima, which was now becoming a ball of flame. He darted behind the state trooper’s car, opened the door, threw his bag and gun on the passenger seat and started it up. He saw the state trooper staring at him as he backed it around the side of the carpet outlet, then slammed it into drive and careened out onto the highway.
There was an explosion and Dixon saw a plume of smoke in the rear-view mirror as he gunned the cop car up to ninety. That would be the end of the Maxima. The other car wasn’t even pursuing – maybe the cops were trying to prevent the entire gas station from going up. Dixon was flying down a long, clear access road, nothing on either side of him, a sign for a highway up ahead. He could hear the radio crackling, some calm voices giving addresses. Up ahead, a red light, one lone van sitting at the light, its left turn signal on. Dixon looked down and saw a field of toggle switches, one of them marked “whoop”, another “red and blue lights”. He hit th
em both and pulled up behind the van.
WHOOOOOOOP, went the siren. He slammed on the brakes behind the van, took the keys out the ignition, grabbed his laundry bag and his gun, and went up to the driver’s side door. The van driver was an unshaven man of about forty, staring at him with wide eyes.
“What’s going on, sir?” he asked, trying to sound jovial.
“Get the fuck out of the van.”
“I didn’t do anything,” the man said. “I wasn’t speeding.” Then he looked at Dixon, noticed his singed suit with smoke coming off it, saw the gun and the laundry bag, and knew there was something more than a little wrong with this scene.
Dixon pointed the gun at his head. “If you’re still in this van in three seconds you’re a dead man. Three . . . two . . .”
“Aaaaaargh . . . OK, OK,” the man was screaming, fumbling for the door latch. He opened the van and nearly fell out onto the pavement. Dixon hopped in, put the van in drive and blew through the red light before the door was even closed.
OK . . . think . . . think. Dixon took a couple of deep breaths. The guy was going to go into the state trooper vehicle, and use the radio. Or maybe he had a cellphone in his pocket. Should have put a bullet through the radio. Too late now. The guy would tell them what kind of van to look for. There was an access ramp to a highway coming up, and off the exit ramp, Dixon could see two state trooper cruisers coming in the other direction. He soared up the access ramp just as the cruisers sped down the exit ramp going towards the gas station. He had three, maybe four minutes in this van tops. The second he got onto the highway, he noticed another exit ramp. Exit 383, Wilford. He took it, and found himself on another long road, this one full of businesses. Plumbing supplies, a DMV office, a fast-food place. The first traffic light he went through was green, and there was a small Dodge in his way, so Dixon swerved around it, going about seventy now. Up ahead, a small bank. With a cash machine. A woman in her mid fifties had stepped out of her car to use the machine.
Dixon squealed into the parking lot and slammed on his brakes right next to the lady. She had turned around to look at him as he threw his money bag through her open window. The car was running. Beautiful.
“You take that,” he said, pointing to the van.
“No no no,” the stunned woman was yelling as she watched him climb into her brand new maroon Cadillac and screech off. He glimpsed her in the rear view mirror, standing beside the cash machine with the money in her hand, staring like a statue as he screeched back out onto the highway.
OK, now what? The woman would go into the bank and call the cops. Five minutes max and they’d have an APB out on a maroon Cadillac. He drove about three blocks, then slowed down. An old diner, with seven or eight trailer trucks parked in a huge parking lot. He drove around the back and parked behind the trucks.
He exhaled. For the first time since the gas station he could hear himself breathe. His breathing was fast but not panicked.
The parking lot was quiet, the brief rain shower had let up, and Dixon sat in the Cadillac and listened to the occasional car hiss by, tires on wet pavement.
He wiped his face. He was covered in sweat, rain and gasoline. Look around, what do you see? The backs of several trailer trucks. He got out of the car, stealthily walked between two of the trucks, and stepped up and tried the passenger door on one of them. It was open. He hustled back to the car, got his laundry bag of money and his gun, and climbed into the truck’s sleeper.
The sleeper was dirty and old, and the blankets and mattress smelled like sweat, but the truck was gloriously dark and quiet. He pulled the curtains shut, and, holding the gun across his chest, resting his head on the laundry bag, he began to relax.
Within minutes, he heard the door open, and the driver got in. Dixon was waiting with his gun pointed straight at the curtains, expecting the driver to look into the sleeper for something, but he heard the man making himself comfortable in his seat and then the engine fired to life. The whole truck vibrated as it was idling, while the driver sat in his seat doing paperwork. Dixon breathed quietly, aware that any slight gurgle or sneeze or bump of his head against the metal sides of the sleeper might invite a curious peek into the sleeper. Then he heard the driver cough, mumble something to himself, and put the truck in gear. They were moving off.
Elias White was running his fingers through Melissa Covington’s hair as they lay naked on the floor of his living room, watching her watch the muted TV. He felt completely at peace, as if he and Melissa were lovers on their honeymoon.
So that was it, he thought, sex. That was what was missing from his life. In all those red-wine-soaked evenings sitting at his computer, feeling abandoned and miserable and as if he didn’t measure up to the ideal of a college professor, that was really the only thing he was missing. He had thought it was Ann, who was off studying in Heidelberg and communicated with him far less than he wanted, and whose communications, when they came, lacked any warmth. Sometimes he imagined he could read in her letters some relief at last to be rid of him. Perhaps it was just his insecurity that made him read and re-read each of her e-mails looking for telltale signs of actual fondness. Perhaps Ann was thinking of him at this very minute, sitting alone in her chilly German apartment with a view of a grey brick wall. For the first time in months, the notion of Ann being out and about and enjoying herself didn’t fill him with a stab of anxiety, because he could feel Melissa’s warm body curled up next to him.
He felt Melissa’s hand slide between his ass and the carpet and he arched his back with a laugh. “What are you doing?”
“I need the remote,” she harrumphed. “Where’d it go?”
Elias looked quickly around the room, saw the remote by one of the overturned couch cushions on the other side of the room, where it had ended up during their initial passionate first kisses. In the excitement of her acceptance of his advance clawing at her clothing while she moaned softly, he had thrown the little device off the couch. As he nuzzled her neck, he’d been wondering if this was a nightly occurrence for her, slipping over to someone else’s house and banging a virtual stranger. He’d wondered, as he unsnapped her bra, how many other lovers this high school girl had taken on in after-school trysts like these. Was this his official welcome to the neighborhood? Had Mr Cuthbertson, the fifty-ish accountant who was always tending to the rosebushes at the end of his driveway, been the recipient of a Melissa Covington after-school visit at some point in the last few years? The intensity of the sex had convinced him, for a moment, that there was some special connection between the two of them, but now, as she flipped through the news channels looking for something more entertaining, he found himself wondering again.
“What channel are you looking for?”
“MTV,” she said. “You only live next door, but it’s like your cable system is totally different, or something.”
“I have satellite.”
“How do I get MTV?”
“I have no idea. I never watch it.”
She flipped past a few more channels, each one showing something Elias would have happily watched, growing more and more frustrated. Finally she tossed the remote down and said, “I’m going home.”
Elias was suddenly filled with the desire to stop her, to not be alone. Almost brutally, as if panicked, he grabbed the back of her hair and pulled her towards him, kissing her hard on the mouth, and was surprised when she responded with a pleasant moan, began to stroke his chest. Then she straddled him and smiled devilishly. “My parents will be coming home soon,” she said.
“Fuck ’em,” he said, suddenly realizing that this was the role expected of him, the rough and tough guy who lived next door and didn’t care. Didn’t care that he was banging his next-door neighbor’s underage daughter while trying to get himself on the national scene as a college professor published in respected journals.
Melissa Covington giggled and pressed her mouth against his. “I like you,” she said.
Dixon lay still, the gun across his chest, fe
eling the truck hit every bump, sliding from one end of the sleeper to the other every time the truck took a turn, actually bumping his head when the turns were sharp. He never uttered a peep. Once, when the driver had to apply the brakes forcefully, Dixon felt himself nearly being pitched through the curtain; he came to a merciful stop just an instant before he was flung onto the gearshift. He lay still after that, able to see the driver through the crack in the sleeper curtain, watched him curse the “darned four-wheeler” in front of him that had necessitated the sudden stop. For a few moments, he didn’t slither quietly back to the rear of the sleeper, enjoying this moment of voyeurism, the rare chance to see another person completely unaware of being observed. When the driver picked up the CB and called another trucker, Dixon shifted cautiously back to the rear of the sleeper to listen to the conversation.
“Hey, Jojo, what in God’s name have you been doing in this cab?” the trucker called out. “It stinks of gasoline.”
“Gasoline?” came the reply.
“Yeah. What’s up with that?”
“I got no idea, pardner. Didn’t smell o’ nothin’ last time I was in it.”
There was a confused silence after that, and for a second Dixon was fearful that the curtain would come peeling back and he would be forced to confront the driver searching for the source of the smell. But the truck was still barreling down a road of some kind, apparently a mountain slalom course from the way Dixon was being flung around, and when the conversation started up again, it was, of all things, about the Bible.
“This is what you may eat of everything that is in the waters: Everything that has fins and scales,” the trucker yelled into the CB.
“Everything in the waters that has no fins and scales is a loathsome thing to you,” responded the other trucker. It was some kind of game they played, one of them quoting a passage from the Bible and the other responding with the next relevant passage. They were Texans all right. Or Oklahomans. Dixon thought about the Bible-thumpers he had known in prison, sycophantic ass-lickers so desperate to grovel before the Parole Board that they would actually learn these passages in an attempt to prove themselves cured. They were complicit in indulging the Parole Board’s fantasy that getting raped in the shower, getting yelled at and beaten by the high-school dropouts employed as correctional officers actually cured you of anything. Dixon stifled an urge to leap from behind the curtain with his pistol drawn and scream, “BOO! I’m God!” The only thing stopping him was the certainty that the shock would cause the trucker to go careening off whatever apparent winding mountain pass they were on.