‘Swiss.’
‘Fries?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Fried egg on top?’
‘Of the fries?’
‘Burger.’
Ian shakes his head.
‘Sure?’
‘Yeah, no egg.’
‘All right. Coming up.’
He turns left, peels a patty off a stack of them, and tosses it onto his waiting grill. While that’s going, he pulls out a bun, smears it, drops some fries into the fry basket, and gets to humming what Ian thinks is supposed to be ‘Under My Thumb’.
Somewhere a toilet flushes, and a moment later a door opens. A woman walks out, saying, ‘We’re low on toilet paper, Uncle Hal. A whole roll in a day. Someone needs to change their fucking diet!’ Then she sees Ian standing there and blushes. It makes her pretty. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I didn’t realize.’
‘Quite all right. Monica or Betsy?’
‘Monica. Betsy’s with a. . checking on a room.’
Ian nods.
Monica’s in her thirties with reddish-brown hair set atop a pale and freckle-spotted face. She is shaped like a twig, no hips at all, and wearing a denim skirt and a T-shirt.
Ian finds her unaccountably sexy. But he has always been attracted to unconventionally pretty women.
‘I see Uncle Hal’s already cooking.’
‘Cheeseburger and fries.’
‘Fried egg on top?’
Ian shakes his head.
‘Want anything to drink?’
‘What do you got?’
She pokes her thumb over her shoulder, toward the small glass-doored refrigerator humming dully against the wall.
‘Couple Buds, I guess, and a bottle of water.’
‘All at once?’
Ian nods. ‘Thirsty.’
‘Will you be staying with us tonight?’
‘Yeah, if you got the space.’
She lets out a brief laugh. ‘Yeah, I think we can squeeze y’in. Just you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘It’ll be seventy-two forty-five,’ she says. ‘Plus I’ll need a credit card on file. We got pay-per-view.’
‘I won’t use it.’
Monica smiles. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but if we trusted every stranger walked through the door we’d’ve been broke a long time ago. Ain’t that right, Uncle Hal?’
‘Sure is, Monocle.’
‘I reckon that’s true,’ Ian says. ‘Monocle your nickname?’
‘Don’t get any ideas.’
‘Mean anything?’
Monica shakes her head. ‘Just an Uncle Hal-ism.’
He pays with a credit card and puts a five-dollar bill in the tip jar (an emptied tub of red vines with a few loose bills floating around the bottom).
Monica hands him a key.
‘You’ll be in room four, first trailer on the left, door on the left.’
Ian nods.
Monica turns around and pulls open the fridge. When she turns back, she has his two beers and his water. She sets them on the counter next to a tub of ostrich jerky.
‘You can sit wherever. I’ll bring your food when it’s ready.’
‘Thanks.’
He grabs his drinks and walks to a table by the fly-specked window. He sits down and looks out at the desert. A truck hauling groceries rumbles past, and then emptiness. After another five minutes a 747 roars by overhead, shaking the windows in their frames. And then more silence. Ian’s eyes sting. He closes them.
‘You want some TV?’
Ian is about to say no, thanks, I don’t reckon there’s anything much on right now, anyway, but Monica doesn’t wait for a reply. She grabs the remote from the counter, aims it, and presses a button. The TV comes to life, and a situation comedy flickers across the screen, all set-designed studio and laugh-track laughter. Ian pops a beer and takes a swallow. It is good and cold and soothing on his dry throat. He wonders if he shouldn’t be drinking. Alcohol thins the blood. Fuck it. It’s only beer and he’s only having two.
He nods to himself.
‘Fuck it,’ he says, aloud this time, and takes another swallow.
‘Excuse me?’
Ian shakes his head, nothing, sorry, and turns back to the smudged window. The right half of his body is throbbing with pain.
What if that was Henry Dean pulled over to the side of the road back near Sierra Blanca? Maybe he was arrested and even now is sitting in a Hudspeth County jailhouse. Maybe Debbie is on her way now to pick Maggie up. Maybe there’s a message on his answering machine telling him all about it. ‘Where the hell are you, Ian? I’ve called your cell twenty times but it keeps going to voicemail. You’ll never believe what great good fortune we’ve had. Henry Dean was-’
No: that isn’t how it happens.
His stomach tightens at the thought of it happening that way. He isn’t sure why.
Because you want to run toward oblivion and this gives you an excuse. You know exactly why, Ian, so stop lying to yourself.
He pushes that thought away. He will not accept that.
Even if that were true, it wouldn’t-
‘You’re a million miles away, aren’t you?’
Ian jumps and a startled grunt escapes his throat. After a silent moment of nothing, he laughs at himself.
‘Guess I was,’ he says.
‘I didn’t mean to scare you,’ Monica says, setting down a white plate with a cheeseburger and fries on it.
‘I know it,’ Ian says.
‘Mind if I sit down? Betsy’s back so I can kick up my heels a minute.’ She gestures toward the counter. Ian didn’t even hear the bell above the door rattle, but there she is, Betsy, standing behind the counter, sipping a Cactus Cooler and looking up at the TV in the corner of the room. She’s a little younger than Monica, and a little bit prettier, and a little bit curvier, but obviously her sister.
Ian pushes a chair out with his foot. ‘Take a load off.’
‘Thanks.’ She sits down.
Ian flashes her a brief smile, then turns back to the window. The desert stretches on and on, dotted here and there with creosote bushes. Hills float in the distance.
‘Nothing out there worth looking at,’ Monica says.
‘You don’t think so?’
She shakes her head. ‘Just desert and glimpses of people going to and from places you’ll never see yourself. Every once in a while, maybe they stop in, maybe they tell you a little bit about where they’ve been, but it’s just a story you heard, and then they leave again.’
‘Is it that hard to pick up and go?’
Monica shrugs. ‘Harder than it should be. I’ve packed my bags a dozen times.’
‘Yeah? How come you never went?’
Monica is silent for a long time. Then: ‘I guess I don’t want to talk about that.’
‘Okay.’
Ian takes another swallow of beer.
‘What about you?’ Monica says.
‘What about me what?’
‘Where you headed to?’
‘California.’
‘Los Angeles? Hollywood?’
Ian shakes his head. ‘No,’ he says, ‘not this time.’
‘But you been before?’
Ian nods.
‘Do you know anybody famous? Is it glamorous?’
‘No. It’s just a big suburb surrounding pockets of city.’
‘No, I bet it’s glamorous.’
Ian shrugs.
‘I was in a play once. A school play. Macbeth, I think. Is Macbeth the one with the witches in it?’
‘It has witches in it,’ Ian says, ‘the weird sisters.’
‘Yeah,’ Monica says. ‘I played one of them.’
‘Do you remember any of it?’
‘Oh, God.’ She looks far away for a moment, and then a smile lights up her face. ‘ “When the hurly-burly’s done, when the battle’s lost and won.” That’s all I remember. I always wanted to go to Hollywood and be famous.’
‘It’s never too late,
’ Ian says.
‘You really think so?’
Ian doesn’t answer for a moment. Then: ‘I guess I don’t.’
‘That’s what I thought. What are you going to California for?’
‘It’s my turn to not want to talk about it.’
‘I didn’t mean to pry.’
Ian shakes his head. ‘You didn’t.’
He picks up a couple fries and shoves them into his mouth. They taste good. Warm and salty and over-cooked by normal standards, which is how he likes them.
‘It’s so lonesome, isn’t it?’
Ian looks at Monica. She is staring out the window at the desert landscape.
‘I guess it is.’
‘Do you ever get lonesome?’
‘Doesn’t everybody?’
‘You married?’
Ian shoves a couple more fries into his mouth and holds up his left hand. There are no rings upon his finger. ‘I was once. Well, thrice, actually. None of them stuck.’
‘You were married three times?’
He smiles. ‘I believed the vows every time, too.’
‘Wow. Do you miss it?’
‘What?’
‘Being married.’
‘Sometimes. Mostly at night.’
‘Do you think you’ll miss it tonight?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘’Cause we could pretend.’
‘I’m sorry?’
She puts her hand on his knee. ‘We could pretend. I could. .’ she licks her lips, ‘we could lie together.’
Ian smiles at her, suddenly understanding. But after laying his hand upon hers and letting it rest there a moment, he pushes her hand away. Gently. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘It would only be seventy dollars. We work it out where we charge for an extra room. You could use your credit card.’
‘It’s not you, Monica. I have a medical condition.’
‘What, like herpes?’
Ian is so startled by the question, and the blankly serious look on Monica’s face, that he actually laughs. The laugh turns into a cough, but he manages to stifle it early. He clears his throat. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘No, not herpes. It’s just-it’s not a good idea.’
‘Okay,’ Monica says. ‘Do you mind if I still sit with you?’
‘No,’ Ian says. ‘In fact, I’d like that.’
He’s just eating the last of his dinner when a local news program comes on. After some talk of little or no import a brunette woman with her hair in a bun, big brown eyes, and a tight-fitting blouse says, ‘Just under three hours ago, on Interstate 10, outside the small Texas town of Sierra Blanca, a Hudspeth County Sheriff ’s Deputy, Deputy Pagana, was killed during a routine stop. The incident was captured by the deputy’s dashboard-mounted camera. Police have released the footage to the media in the hopes that it will lead to information on the whereabouts of the perpetrator of this crime. We would like to warn you that the following footage is of a disturbing nature and may be inappropriate for children.’
An awkward pause during which the newswoman blinks at the camera, and then a cut to grainy footage seen through a dirty windshield. The footage is in color, and has audio, though the audio is tinny and hard to hear. Mostly just background noise with the occasional rumblings of a voice you can’t understand. It is dated and time coded. For a moment all that’s visible is the back of a gray Dodge Ram pickup truck. Ian can see Maggie through the rear window. She is looking back at the car, seemingly at the camera, at him, then a hand, Henry’s hand, grabs her and turns her around. A uniformed sheriff ’s deputy then walks along the left side of the frame. He reaches the truck. Ian’s Mustang passes by on the road behind him. There is some talking. Then, without warning, the deputy pulls out his gun. He steps back. He looks scared. He yells. He pulls open the truck’s door and yells some more. He wipes sweat off his face with his shoulder. And then a flash from the truck. A red explosion from the deputy’s hip. He staggers backwards several steps, out of frame. A red mist hangs in the air. Then another flash from the truck. Henry steps into the daylight, breaks open his sawed-off shotgun and pulls shells from it. He drops them to the asphalt. He reloads, points the gun at something out of frame, and yells. Sounds like he’s telling someone to get out of their car. He curses and the curses are censored by beeps. He walks out of frame toward the person at whom he was yelling. A moment later Maggie slides out of the truck and onto the asphalt. There she is, the bravest person he has ever met. She looks around with frantic eyes, and then runs around the front of the truck and disappears. The gray truck wobbles slightly. Perhaps someone getting out of the passenger side. That side is not in frame. A woman’s voice tells someone named Sarah to stop. Henry runs across the frame and around the front of the truck. Toward Maggie. The program cuts back to the woman at the news desk. She looks very serious.
‘Police believe Deputy Pagana’s killer is a man named Henry Dean,’ she says, ‘who is already wanted for questioning in connection with several kidnappings and murders in Tonkawa County, Texas. He is believed to be traveling with his wife, Beatrice Dean, and a young girl named Magdalene Hunt, who, police believe, Mr Dean kidnapped from her home over seven years ago. If you have any information as to the whereabouts of Mr Dean, please call Detective Roderick with the Hudspeth County Sheriff’s Department or Detective Sanchez at the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s El Paso field office.’
Phone numbers appear onscreen.
Ian steps out into the dying light. He walks to his car, grabs a duffel bag with clothes in it and the sawed-off shotgun he got from the police station. He squints out at the gray asphalt of the interstate and past it to the desert landscape.
The entire right side of his body throbs with pain. He feels sweaty and sticky and dirty and sick.
After a moment he turns away from the road and makes his way around back of Motel/Food to find his room.
Picture yourself standing on a road beneath the white sun. Sweat trickles down your face. Your skin is overheated and itchy. Your clothes are damp and they stick to your skin. How you got here is irrelevant: you’re here. And you are looking to the northeast, toward Sierra Blanca. You’re looking that way because that’s where it’s happening. .
A blond girl in a dress runs through tall dead grass. She is barefoot, you can see that as her heels kick above the grass, and her feet kick up sprays of dirt as she runs. If the frame included only her bare feet cutting through the grass the scene could be a happy one: a girl running toward her one true love. It would all depend on the soundtrack. But this is a long shot and you see much more than just the feet, and the soundtrack is raspy breathing and feet pounding against dirt. Behind the girl is a fat older man. You’ve never met him but you know his name. Henry Dean. He runs after the girl. For every two steps she takes, the man requires only one. The distance between them shrinks and shrinks and shrinks, and she screams for help as she nears the town, but help does not come. Then the man is upon her, and he swings with a heavy arm and his fist hits the side of her head like a swinging club, and she is off her feet, in the air, still moving forward, but also sideways with the force of the blow. Then she falls, vanishing into the tall grass.
The ground rushes up at her, oh God how did this happen, I was supposed to get away, and her head smashes against a rock in the ground, and the blow switches off her consciousness like a light-click-and in the dark room of her mind she has only some small sense of what is happening. Warmth against her body: the hot ground upon which she lies. A breeze blows and the tall dead grass rustles around her making sounds like whispers. Hush. Something sticky running into the bowls of her closed eyes. Someone picks her up. A grunt, not her own, for she is silent and silent and silent.
She tries to open her eyes but she cannot. She tries to speak but she cannot. She is locked in the dark room of her mind and cannot see an EXIT sign anywhere, nor a door.
Henry walks back toward Beatrice with Sarah sagging unconscious in his arms. Bee is standing the
re with dirt on her knees looking at him with her mouth open. Her toes point at one another. Her arms hang at her sides.
‘I got her,’ he says. ‘I got her for you.’
‘You shouldn’t’ve hit her.’
‘She would’ve got away.’
‘You shouldn’t’ve hit her. You shouldn’t’ve hit her and you shouldn’t’ve shot them people and you shouldn’t. .’ Her voice breaks and she stops. Finally she looks up at him once more and says, ‘You shouldn’t’ve hit her.’
His first instinct is to tell her to shut her mouth, don’t be stupid, I couldn’t let her get into town, Bee, but he does not tell her that. He closes his eyes and exhales in a long sigh and opens his eyes and says, ‘You’re right. I’m sorry.’
‘Okay.’
‘Now let’s get to the truck and get out of here.’
‘Her head is bleeding.’
‘She fell on a rock.’
‘Will she be okay?’
‘How the hell should I-’
Several cars are stopped on the interstate. People are talking loudly, panic in their voices, surrounding the dead deputy. A woman is on her phone with the police, practically screaming about a murder. The blond woman he almost shot is pointing at them, and other people are now looking. He thinks of the life they left in Bulls Mouth and the few belongings they took with them. Up in the Dodge Ram. It is all lost. Don’t look over your shoulder at what you left behind. It’s best to forget what cannot be recovered.
Henry tastes bile at the back of his throat and swallows it away.
‘Turn around and walk,’ Henry says.
‘What?’
‘Turn around and walk away.’
Nobody follows.
They walk along a dirt road. Henry is looking around for a car or truck left unattended and with keys in the ignition. They’ve walked by five vehicles so far, but all of them were locked. He is getting very nervous. He wants to get into something and on the road before more police arrive, or, at the very least, before the cops have a chance to set up a roadblock. He needs to get out of Texas, but New Mexico is still a couple hours off. If the Texas police get hold of him now, after everything he’s done to Texas lawmen, spending his life in prison will be the least of his worries. He’ll be looking at a death injection.
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