by Zoey Parker
“So now what?” she asked. “Should we go for it?”
“Maybe,” he said. “The clerk sure looks like he'd be a pushover. But first, we should hang back to watch the place, so we can see how often people show up. Could be we just caught it during a quiet moment.”
Carter untwisted the wires in the dashboard to kill the engine, so it wouldn't overheat the car or drain the battery. They watched the place for almost forty-five minutes. In all that time, no one stopped at the station. Several times, it looked like the clerk might start dozing off.
“All right, this should do it,” Carter said. “Are you really sure you want to do this? Once you do, there's no turning back.”
“That suits me just fine,” Billie said, grinning. “Here, let me get this bandana tied on you.”
Carter shifted around in his seat and Billie folded the bandana into a triangle, tying the ends behind his head so his nose and mouth were hidden.
“All done,” she said.
“Are you sure?” he asked, gently touching the knot.
“Yeah.”
“It feels kind of loose to me,” he said.
“It's fine,” she insisted. “It'll definitely stay there.” She reached into the saddlebag, pulled out the ski mask, and put it on. “What do you think?”
“You look ready for a weekend in Aspen,” he smirked.
She stuck her tongue out at him through the mouth hole.
“We're going to drive up around the side of the place, then come in fast so he doesn't see our approach,” Carter said. “The second we're through the door, you fire straight up into the ceiling. Then you keep one eye on the rest of the store, and the other eye on the door so you can let me know if anyone's coming. I'll keep my gun on him and get him to hand over the cash. If we do this right, we should be in and out in less than sixty seconds. Any questions?”
Billie shook her head.
“Here we go,” Carter said. He twisted the wires together to start the engine, then drove the car across the street and pulled up next to the store.
Chapter 28
Billie
As soon as the car stopped, they both got out and ran to the door of the store, throwing it open. The clerk's bushy white eyebrows jerked up so far they almost reached his hairline. Billie raised her revolver and fired into the ceiling, the sound of the gunshot smacking against her ears like a pair of heavy palms. A thin dusting of plaster drifted down onto her ski mask.
“Keep your fucking hands where I can see them,” Carter yelled. “Empty out the register into a paper bag, and no one needs to get hurt.”
“Okay, son,” the clerk said, popping the register open. “Just stay calm. I ain't gonna give you no trouble.” He tossed the bills into a paper bag, handing it over to Carter.
Billie couldn't take her eyes off Carter as he kept his gun pointed at the clerk. Every muscle in his body seemed tense, electrified. His eyes were blazing above his bandana. The air around him crackled with intensity, and he embodied every cowboy fantasy Billie'd ever had. She felt like tackling him to the ground and making love to him right there.
He'd been right about this. There was so much power in seizing control of a room and everyone in it, forcing them to do her bidding like some kind of hypnotist. She'd never felt so alive before.
Suddenly, Carter's bandana seemed to blink out of existence. Billie squinted, unable to believe her eyes. One second his features were covered, and the next his bare face was exposed.
His hand went up to his face, feeling for the piece of cloth. When he didn't find it, he peered around him, turning.
A ten-year-old black boy was standing behind Carter, holding the bandana he'd snatched off him and staring up at him with wide eyes.
“It ain't Halloween for months yet, mister,” the boy said matter-of-factly. “Everyone knows that.”
Without warning, the clerk snatched Carter's hand, slamming it—and the gun it was holding—down against the counter and pinning it there. Despite his age, his hands were faster than lightning, and from the way Carter was struggling against him, his hands looked like they must be as strong as vise grips.
“Don't you never fuck with no ex-Green Beret,” rumbled the clerk. “Or his grandkid, neither.”
“Thanks, I'll remember that,” Carter said.
He threw the bag full of money directly into the clerk's face. The clerk flinched and jerked backward, allowing Carter to yank his gun free of the man's grip.
Carter grabbed Billie's wrist and yanked her to the door, shoving it open and stumbling out into the parking lot as they ran for the car. There was an echoing boom behind them, and Billie turned to look. The clerk was following them with a shotgun in his hands.
“What are you, some kind of fucking maniac?” Carter yelled to the clerk as he and Billie got into the car. “You're firing when there are gas pumps here?”
“I shut off the pumps,” the clerk called back. “And now I'm fixin' to shut you off, too.”
Billie tasted something like copper on her tongue and realized it was adrenaline. Every muscle in her body felt like it was clenched. She could feel her heart beating in her throat. She wondered if this might be what it felt to be struck by lightning—everything inside of her electrified and on edge.
Yet, she wasn't frightened.
The clerk fired once more as the Chevy leaped forward, hitting the highway and accelerating. The bullet hit the rear windshield, shattering it so they could see the clerk enveloped in their cloud of dust. The boy stood next to him, waving goodbye.
Chapter 29
Billie
Once the old Chevy took them far enough away from the scene of the botched robbery, Carter and Billie left it at the edge of a wooded area so the destroyed rear window wouldn't call attention to them. Carter gathered up his saddlebag and the rest of their items from the car.
“Maybe we should wipe down the interior? Like, to get rid of any prints?” she suggested.
Carter gave her a withering look and walked off into the woods without answering.
Billie rushed to keep up with him. There were lots of cacti standing like mute witnesses, plus sawgrass and scrub brush to trudge through.
After they'd walked for a couple of hours, she asked, “Do you know where we're headed?”
He kept marching forward silently.
“Okay,” she huffed. “I know I fucked up, all right? I was supposed to be watching the rest of the store, and I got distracted. You can't tell me you never had any kind of learning curve when you started doing this stuff.”
Carter let out a growl as he trudged through the dead leaves and underbrush.
“Fine,” she continued. “You're pissed, you don't feel like talking, whatever. But we should probably change into our new clothes and use the clippers on our hair before we hit someplace with people.”
He stopped in his tracks and threw the bags down on the ground. Then he kicked off his boots and started yanking his clothes off angrily, rummaging in the bags for his new ones. Billie stood frozen, her eyes glued to Carter's body as he stripped down to his underwear.
Carter saw her watching and reached into the shopping bags again, tossing the sundress and hat at her.
“Are you going to stand there and watch the show, or are you going to put your fucking clothes on?” he snapped. “This was your goddamn idea.”
Billie picked up the sundress. “Hey, at least you're speaking to me again. Should I change behind some bushes, or...?”
Carter scowled at her.
“Okay, okay,” she said, taking her shirt off and wriggling out of her jeans. Before she put on the dress, she stole a glance over at him to see if he was peeking. But he was sitting on a stump with his back to her.
She felt a pang of disappointment. She knew he was attracted to her too, but if he was refusing to indulge that with even a quick look at her in her undies, she figured he was even more upset than he seemed.
Billie unwrapped the clippers. They came with a pair of batteries
, and she snapped them in place, hitting the switch. The clippers buzzed and she walked over to Carter sheepishly.
“It's a shame to have to cut such beautiful long hair,” she said.
He didn't answer.
She used the clippers carefully, cutting his mane short and evening out the sides and back. When she was done, she shook out the excess strands of brown hair and handed the device to him. “You should probably run this over your face, too.”
Carter gave himself a quick shave. Now that he was short-haired and clean-faced, he almost looked like a different person. He was still handsome, but he looked a lot more tame, like some once-wild dude who'd since gone to AA and found Jesus or something.
“Your turn,” Carter grunted. He stood up and brushed the hair off the stump, gesturing for her to sit.
“Have you ever, uh, cut a woman's hair before?” Billie asked nervously as she sat down.
He ignored her again, and the clippers connected with her hair a moment later, shearing off her long locks until she could feel air on the back of her neck.
Well, no matter how I look, at least I'll look different, she told herself. And that's the whole point, right?
But it didn't dull the anxiety she felt, knowing that a very angry man was cutting her hair.
When he was finished, Billie looked down at her long auburn hair in heaps on the ground. “Thanks,” she said. “Are we still planning to find a motel for the night, or...?”
Carter snatched the bags from the ground and started walking again. Billie rolled her eyes and followed him.
After another hour, they came out the other side of the woods and a found a small area just off the highway with a handful of motels and cheap restaurants. Carter avoided all of the major chains in favor of a tiny, grubby-looking dump called The Dreamland Motor Lodge. The few letters still clinging to its sign boasted “A/C” and “Color TV,” and hookers hung out in the parking lot.
“Guess we don't have to worry about them asking for ID or a credit card, huh?” Billie asked.
Carter walked to the motel. Every surface in the lobby seemed brown and sticky, as though coated by years of tobacco smoke. The rough gray seats and couches were covered with stains, and on the blurry television in the corner, an aging D-list celebrity was advertising adult diapers.
The woman behind the counter looked like a huge moldering peach with frizzy red hair. A massive pair of kooky sunglasses hung around her neck. Her name tag said “Kandie.”
“Hour or night?” Kandie asked, looking them over.
“Night,” Carter said flatly.
“Lucky you,” she replied. She flopped a large binder onto the counter and opened it, pointing to the next blank space on a sheet of lined paper. “Fifty bucks. Plus another twenty-five deposit in case you get piss, shit, blood, or vomit on anything. Write a name there. Real, fake, I don't give a dog's asshole.”
Billie saw Carter scrawl “Robert & Marion Morrison.” She noticed that the rows above it were mostly filled with “Smith” and “Jones,” and that most of the first names were “John.”
Carter rooted around in his saddlebag and found the cash, tossing it onto the counter. With a puffy hand, Kandie handed over a key. Her nails were leopard-printed, and each one looked about six inches long. Billie wondered how she went to the bathroom.
“Room Twelve,” she said. “Check-out time's 11. You stay a minute past that, my husband comes in with his sawed-off and God only knows what happens next.”
Carter nodded and started toward the door of the lobby. As Billie followed, the TV switched from the commercial to an ad for the local news. The reporter at the desk was a woman in her thirties with a bouffant hairdo and far too much makeup.
“Don't forget to tune in at six,” the reporter said. “We'll have Marty Breck with the seven-day forecast, plus Coach Gardner from Texas A&M will be joining us to talk about the big game against the Ragin' Cajuns this weekend. We'll also have more hilarious footage from the foiled gas station robbery up near Odessa...”
Carter didn't stop walking, but his pace slowed deliberately as he listened. “Don't look,” he whispered.
Billie kept her eyes forward.
“...as a grandfather in his sixties and his ten-year-old grandson showed a pair of would-be desperadoes why it's not a good idea to mess with Texas. The identity of the Unmasked Marauder is still unknown, but authorities say we should have that information for you by tonight.”
Behind them, Kandie let out a wheezing laugh. “'The Unmasked Marauder! That's a good one. I hope they find 'em and string 'em up with dunce caps on 'em.”
Carter growled, shoving the lobby door open.
Chapter 30
Billie
Carter slammed the bags down on the bed. Billie followed him into the room, shutting the door behind them and wondering when he'd stop acting so fucking cranky.
The room was filthy, with strange scrapes and smears on the walls at odd intervals. The corners were filled with dust and ghostly tangles of hair. The green carpet was the color of baby puke and looked like it hadn't been vacuumed since the '80s. A dead roach was on its back in front of the television set.
Maybe it laughed itself to death watching our little fuck-up on TV, Billie thought sourly.
Carter went into the bathroom and left the door open. Billie saw him looking in the mirror, running his fingers through what was left of his hair and groaning. She followed him in and took a look at herself.
It was...not quite a pixie cut, though it was certainly short enough. It was kind of uneven and spiky in places, and there was one area near her left temple where she saw that he'd gone a little too far with the clippers and almost exposed her scalp. Still, at least it wasn't totally grotesque, and she definitely looked different.
“Not bad for a first attempt,” she said, brushing at it with her fingers and trying to get the unruly strands to stay down. “I wouldn't register you for cosmetology school yet, but all in all…”
Carter shot her a dirty look and pushed past her into the room.
Billie followed, her resentment finally boiling over. “You know what? I'm done with the silent treatment. I already acknowledged that I fucked up bad, and I apologized for it. If you want more apologies, just give me the number that'll satisfy you and I'll say them. I'm not a mind reader and I don't know what the hell else you want from me, so you're just going to have to use your words like a big boy. You want to keep me around? I'm here. You want to cut me loose? Fine, I'm gone. But unless you're planning to give me a fucking spanking, I'm sick of this whole 'disappointed daddy' routine you're so high on right now.”
“Is that what you want?” Carter exploded. His teeth were bared like a cornered animal, and his eyes burned with fury. “You want a fucking spanking?”
“If that'll put this bullshit to rest, then yeah, you're goddamn right I do!” she shot back.
Carter's powerful arms snaked out, grabbing Billie before she even had time to blink. He jerked her toward him and sat down on the edge of the bed, putting her over his knees.
Jesus, is he really going to do this? she thought.
He yanked her dress up and pulled down her panties, and a moment later, she heard a sharp crack as his palm connected with her backside. The pain came a split-second after, sizzling across her skin like butter in a skillet. She grit her teeth, refusing to cry out.
“I had a fucking plan,” he snarled loudly, raising his arm again.
Crack. The pain erupted again, sharper this time.
“Because that's what I fucking do.”
Crack. Another jolt, the other buttock this time, almost like an electric shock that sent spasms up into the small of her back.
“That's why they ride with me, why they depend on me—because I make plans, and backup plans, and backup plans for those.”
Crack, crack, crack. The sensation had pushed her to the point where her ass felt strangely numb and glassy under his hand, the pain seeming to come to her from a great distance, lik
e the light from the stars.
“And every plan I've made, you've fucked up. Just by being in the fucking bar, by yelling to us from outside the bank, by looking like you look and acting like you fucking act so I can't...”
Crack.
“...just...”
Crack.
“...let...”