Body Rides (32 page)

What’s she planning to do, move in with me?

When Neal stopped for gas, Sue said, ‘I’m gonna see a feller about a dog.’

‘Huh?’ he asked.

‘Gonna go and take a
pee
. Ain’t you s’pose to be a writer? Don’t ya know what it means when someone’s goin to see about a dog?’

‘I guess not.’

‘I don’t wanta be castin no dispersions on yer intelligence, or nothin, but
jeezle!
’ She reached down between her knees to pick up her sack. ‘See ya in a shake,’ she said as she opened the door. She climbed out of the car and headed for the gas station’s mini-mart, swinging the sack by her side.

Neal, still behind the wheel, slipped the bracelet off his wrist and put it into a pocket of his trousers. Then he reached out to turn off the ignition.

He suddenly imagined himself driving off. Right now. Without Sue. By the time she realized what was happening, he’d be gone.

Why would I want to do that? he wondered.

Because she knows about the bracelet
.

But she also knows about my involvement in the murder, he reminded himself. And she knows who I am, and where I’m going.

The bracelet’s going to be a real problem. She’ll be wanting to use it all the time. Maybe she’ll even try to steal it
.

He never should’ve let her touch it.

I could ditch her right now. She might not know my last name. I could change my destination
. . .

‘Yeah, right,’ he muttered, and pulled the key and climbed out of the car.

No matter how much trouble might be saved by ditching Sue now, Neal knew he wasn’t capable of such a thing.

Leave her stranded at a gas station in the middle of nowhere?

He supposed that Sue would probably get along just fine. Probably be stranded for all of five minutes before finding a ride with someone else. But he couldn’t do it.

He studied the gas pumps, trying to find a sign that might tell him to pay before pumping. He didn’t see one. Not unusual. Away from places like Los Angeles, gas stations often let you pay
after
filling your tank. They trusted people more, out in the boonies. Not as much experience dealing with barbarians.

Pleased, Neal took down a nozzle and started to pump.

Maybe I should just let Sue use the bracelet as much as she wants, as long as she’s with me. Take her back to Mojave in a few days and drop her off at Sunny’s. After that, I’ll have the bracelet all to myself again
.

Unless she steals it
.

Might even want to kill me for it
.

No, he told himself. Not Sue.

Though she apparently found the bracelet interesting – and a useful tool for getting to the truth – she didn’t act
enthralled
by it. Considering the magic of the thing, which she’d experienced twice, she seemed quite nonchalant.

Might be an act, Neal thought.

I need to get into her head with it
.

Sue hadn’t returned by the time the nozzle clicked off. Neal hooked up the nozzle, made sure to put the cap on his gas tank, checked the pump number and price, and headed for the mini-mart.

After paying at the counter, he went into the men’s room. As he locked the door, he realized he was alone.

He could use the bracelet, pay a visit to Sue.

‘Yeah,’ he muttered. ‘It went so well, last time.’

If he hadn’t tried to use the bracelet in the restroom at Sunny’s, it would’ve been in his pocket when he went back out to his car and Sue wouldn’t have seen it.

He left the bracelet in his pocket.

When he was done urinating, he washed his hands and studied himself in the mirror. He looked okay except for his mussed hair. He ran a dry comb through it, then left.

Stepping out of the mini-mart, he saw Sue in his car. Not in the passenger seat, though. In the driver’s seat.

He opened the passenger door and peered in.

Instead of the white, short-sleeved blouse of her waitress costume, she now wore a blue chambray work shirt. It was faded and its sleeves had been taken off at the shoulders. It wasn’t tucked in. It hung down past the waist of her skirt. The skirt looked like black leather. It was tight and very short. Her white socks and sneakers were all that remained of her waitress outfit.

She watched Neal stare at her. After a few moments, she said, ‘Want me to drive for a while? Ya been at it a long time.’

‘Sure. Okay. Thanks.’ He climbed in, being careful not to step on her big paper sack – which now, he assumed, held her waitress costume. ‘I see that you changed.’

‘Yup.’

He shut the door and fastened his seatbelt. ‘You do have a driver’s license and everything, don’t you?’

‘Don’t know about
every
thing, but I got me a license. Wanta see it, just open up the bag and look in my purse.’

He looked down at the paper sack.

Maybe I should, he thought.

‘Do you mind?’ he asked.

‘Help yerself. I got nothin to hide.’

As Sue drove away from the pumps, Neal picked up the bag. He opened it on his lap and looked down into it. Except for the denim strap, her purse was out of sight under the clothes. Reaching in, he pushed aside Sue’s skirt and blouse. And her bra.

Don’t think about it, he told himself.

Oh, man, she took her bra off when she changed
.

Who cares, he told himself. No big deal. I’m not interested.

Good thing she isn’t in me now
.

Taking a deep breath, he pulled out Sue’s purse and set the sack on the floor. The zipper across the top of the purse was shut. ‘You’re sure it’s all right for me to look?’

‘Snoop all ya want.’

He looked at her. She grinned at him.

He unzipped the purse. Spreading it open, he glimpsed a folded wallet, a hair brush, a couple of tampons, an emery board, packs of gum and mints, lipstick . . .

He took out her wallet, then quickly zipped her purse shut.

God knows what else she’s got in there
.

Neal didn’t want to know. He felt as if he’d invaded a private place – like Marta’s bathroom medicine cabinet – and he was blushing.

He considered putting her wallet away.

‘Go on,’ Sue told him.

A very thick wallet, red leather, worn at the corners.

‘What’ve you
got
in here?’

‘All kinds of stuff.’

Neal opened it.

‘There’s my license.’ Sue reached over with her right hand and tapped it.

The license was incased in a cloudy, gray plastic cardholder.

She tapped the photo. ‘That’s me.’

‘Appears to be.’

‘It
is
me. Who
else’d
it be?’

‘Says it’s Barbra Sue Babcock.’

‘I don’t let nobody call me Barbra. I think it stinks. But I reckon I’m stuck with it, so I just been goin by Sue.’

‘Ah,’ Neal said.

The license gave a Mojave address for her.

‘After making sure the license hadn’t expired yet, he glanced at her date of birth.

‘You’re only eighteen.’

‘Gonna be nineteen this time next month.’

‘Jeez.’

‘So ya got a problem with that?’

‘You’re just . . . so young.’

‘So what’re you, ninety?’

‘Pretty near.’

She laughed.

‘Anyway,’ Neal said, ‘I guess you’re a legal driver.’

‘What’d I tell ya?’

He shut her wallet and unzipped her purse.

‘Don’t ya wanta look through the whole thing?’

‘No, that’s okay. I just wanted to make sure about the license.’ He slipped the wallet into her purse and quickly shut the zipper again. Then he lowered the purse into her brown paper bag on the floor, and folded down the bag’s crumpled top.

She smiled at him. ‘I’m a good driver, too. Ya noticed?’

‘Well, I noticed you haven’t crashed yet.’

‘I aim to get me a brand-new car all my own, one of these days, I been savin up. Gonna get me one of them Jeep Cherokees with the four-wheel drive, and go all over the whole country in it. On all the backroads, much as I can. Can’t see nothin on these dang freeways. Gonna try out all the backroads, and stop in and visit folks.’

‘Relatives?’

‘No! Gonna drop in on folks I don’t know. Just to say howdy and see what they’re like. Chat with ’em, ya know? Then I’ll just move on, and they’ll watch me drive off and say, “That was a nice girl. Wish she coulda stayed.”’

Neal stared at her.

She frowned at him. ‘
Well?
What’s wrong with that?’

‘Nothing.’ He shook his head. ‘Nothing at all.’

She stared forward for a while. Then she sighed. ‘That’s if I ain’t a broken-down ol’ cripple by the time I scrape up enough to buy me that Jeep.’

‘I guess you don’t make much at Sunny’s.’

‘Nope.’ She looked at him and knitted her eyebrows. ‘I been considerin a life of crime.’

He laughed.

‘You think I’m kiddin?’

‘I
hope
you’re kidding.’

‘Well, I am,’ she said, as if annoyed at herself. ‘I ain’t no Bonnie and Clyde. Ya ever see that movie?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Ya see how ol’ Bonnie ’n Clyde got perferated, there at the end?’

‘Yeah. In slow motion.’

‘It’s
always
slow motion, ya ever notice that? Same goes with ol’ Thelma and Louise when they went off the Grand Canyon. Slow motion. Always slow motion. Anyhow, I don’t aim to end up like none of them. Ya get into the life of crime, yer just as likely to get yerself killed, and where are ya then? Dead. What’s the gooda havin a four-wheel-drive Jeep Cherokee if yer dead?’

‘Not much,’ Neal said.

‘Anyhow, who’m I gonna rob? Where’m I gonna find someone to rob, that I ain’t gonna end up feelin sorry for? ’Cause it’d really
be
their
money, ya know? I got no right to it. It’d just make me feel bad.’

‘If you feel that way,’ Neal said, ‘you might as well forget about a life of crime.’

‘I know. It’s disgustin.’

‘You’re a good, decent person, that’s all. Nothing to regret.’

‘Well, can I regret I ain’t likely to land my hands on a four-wheel-drive Jeep Cherokee till I’m older than Methusalum?’

‘Yeah, I guess.’

After that, Sue stopped talking for a while. Lips pursed, she moved her head and shoulders slightly as if she had a tune in her head.

Neal was about to reach for the radio, but she suddenly spoke up again. ‘Ya know that bracelet?’ she asked. ‘I’ll bet there’s a whole lotta money ya might make off somethin like that.’

‘I’m not really planning to sell it,’ Neal told her.

‘No, I don’t mean sell it. I mean . . . it’ll getcha into people’s
heads
, ya know? Ya thoughta that?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Gotta be a
hundred
ways to make money outa that. Ya know? We’re gonna be in Nevada. They got gamblin there. What if we can figure a way so we can win at somethin? Ya know? By bein in somebody’s head.’

‘Are you serious?’

She cast him a look as if she questioned his sanity, and made a loud ‘
Pfffff!
’ sound with her lips.

‘You are serious,’ Neal said, as if translating.

‘You betcha.’

‘If we
could
figure a way, wouldn’t that be theft?’

‘It’d just be winnin.’

‘But cheating.’

‘Well . . .’ She shrugged.

‘Besides,’ Neal said, ‘I’m not sure there’s even a way to do it. You couldn’t have any effect on things like the slots. Not on roulette or craps, either . . . nothing that relies completely on chance, or machines. I don’t even know how
keno
works, but I doubt if being able to read someone’s mind would make you able to win at it. The only . . . card games. Blackjack, poker, that kind of thing. You might be able to win at some of those with the bracelet. It’d still be cheating, though.’

‘I don’t mind cheatin. It ain’t the same as robbin people.’

‘You draw fine distinctions.’

‘How ’bout you?’

‘Basically, I’m opposed to anything like that.’