CRIME THRILLERS-A Box Set (31 page)

He reached to turn down the squelch on the CB radio. The roar of the big rig's engine filled the cab. Cruise brushed aside Edward from the engine cover so he could see Molly better. "I want you to take a look at my arms the next time we stop."

She jumped at his voice. She must have been dreaming while awake. "What?"

"My arms are bothering me a lot. They feel so tight it's like they're covered with elastic bands cutting off the blood. My hands keep going numb."

"What's wrong with them?"

"I don't know! It started happening at Lannie's house. I tried to do something about it, but nothing helps."

"What do you want me to do about it? Maybe you should see a doctor."

He smiled sadly. "You know I can't go to a doctor."

"Cruise, this is no good, you know that, don't you?"

"What do you mean?"

"This running. Hiding. You can't escape now. They know about you."

"We were talking about taking a look at my arms." He turned to watch the road. From the corners of his eyes he saw the Indians, see-through apparitions on painted ponies that dogged the truck every mile of the way. In the sleeper Edward and the truck driver commiserated over their similar deaths.

It was funny. He couldn't see or hear the ghosts too well. They were muted in form and sound, but it was obvious they were there at the periphery of his hearing and vision. He didn't think that incongruous. He had always believed in them. The odd thing might be that they had never showed themselves before now.

"Okay," Molly said. "I'll look at your arms for you."

"Will you?" He sounded like a petitioner. He cleared his throat. He had a notion that the persona he had spent years sculpting was changing in several pertinent aspects. But then it would since the day had come that he was hunted.

"Sure," she said. "Why not."

"We have to get off this freeway."

"Why's that?"

He could tell by how she replied that she knew why. "You know why. They'll be looking for me. You said so yourself."

"I also said this was no good now, Cruise. You should think about that. They're going to get you sooner or later. You've killed too many people."

"More than you know," he said softly.

His arms were singing an improvised melody, a rhapsody in a minor key. He rubbed them each in turn while handling the big round steering wheel that kept the truck in the inside lane. Cruise could sense the mechanical beast lying in wait for the release of power. There was more horsepower beneath the hood than in a herd of wild Indian mustangs. If he wanted, if he dared, he could make the truck fly down the freeway like an eagle on a downdraft.

"
Not yet
," he murmured.

"What?" Molly asked, leaning toward him.

"Not yet," the ghosts in the sleeper chorused for him. "It isn't time yet."

Molly let it go. He knew she thought he was going crazy and maybe he was.

"Let me tell you about a guy I once knew," he said to drown the whispers at his ear. He thought he saw Molly slump dejectedly into her seat, but that didn't stop him. He told her the story anyway to keep them both occupied during the darkest hours across the state of Arizona.

#

Mark had to have one of the truckers help him install the CB and antenna. It didn't take but a few minutes. "Channel Nineteen," the truck driver said. "That's the one we use. Channel Nine, that's the emergency channel the police monitor. Good luck, man. I'm going to tell everyone on the road about this son of a bitch. We'll all watch for him."

Mark was on his way again, the CB squawking and blaring as he drove east toward dawn. He thumbed the mike, said into it, "I'm looking for a bobtail rig. I don't know what kind it is, but it's dark blue. The man driving it is wanted by the police for murder. He's got my daughter hostage."

He let go the thumb button on the mike and waited for a response. Static roared. He turned the little knob that had the word "squelch" beneath it. The static died into a ringing silence. Just as he was about to send out his message again, a voice came over the CB so loudly it sounded like an amplifier was on the dash. "What's your name? Whose this driver you're trying to find?"

Mark glanced into the oncoming lanes. He counted three tractor trailers. Ahead of him was one. He looked in the rear view mirror and saw another three cars behind. One of them was talking to him.

"I'm Mark Killany. I've been following the trail of a man who just killed a truck driver at Guthrie's Truck Stop outside of Tucson. He dropped his trailer and took the rig. An eyewitness saw my daughter waving inside the cab." He didn't add that he
suspected
it was his daughter.

The voice returned fast. "This guy's bob-tailing it, is he? And you don't know the make of truck? Was it a Peterbilt, a Mack, an International?"

"I don't know what it was. The boy who saw it said it had a snub nose. It was a ... cab-over, that's what he called it. And it was blue, dark blue."

"Probably an International," the disembodied voice said. "International's got most of the cab-overs. What are you driving, come back?"

"I'm in a white Chevy, a Caprice."

"I got you in the rocking chair. I'm coming up on your left. I'll keep out an eye for the son of a bitch. He never should have killed a trucker. We'll run him off the fucking road."

"Don't do that. My girl's with him, remember. At least she was when he was last seen in Tucson."

"Got it covered, Mr. Killany. I'll pass on the word, try to help get your girl back. You hear that, boys? We're going to a rodeo. Over and out."

A huge truck bore down next to Mark and honked as it passed.

Mark thought he might have a chance with the truckers helping him. He'd have dozens of pairs of eyes watching for the stolen rig. Someone would have to spot it. You couldn't hide a vehicle as large as a goddamn semi-truck. Not on the interstate highway system.

Every few minutes he'd send out his message over the CB. The radio was supposed to get out pretty good, with a long range. The antenna carried his voice as far as three miles in all directions. He hoped to hear from someone coming west who had seen the blue bobtail.

He picked up the mike, depressed the button, began again to plead for help. At least this way he was doing something more than driving blind. He prayed to God it was going to do some good.

#

No matter what anyone said to the contrary, time had a way of speeding up. Cruise pondered the idea that he might be imagining everything, but discarded it finally. Time really was moving him into the slipstream. As he watched the white center lines in the highway they began to blur. While he drove, holding onto the rig's steering wheel with both hands now, cars zoomed past from the oncoming lanes until their headlights turned into one long beam of light the way he'd seen them appear in time-release photographs.

The engine shook and roared so that he constantly bounced in the air-cushioned driver's seat. He looked at the speedometer to see how fast he was going. Fifty-five, is that all he was driving, fifty-five miles an hour? He tapped the face of the speedometer with his forefinger to see if it would change. No. It registered his speed accurately. Then it wasn't the truck that was taking him speedily forward. It was time that must be doing it, moving him so rapidly into the future that reality fell behind in his wake.

It left him a little short of breath. He never drank, never took drugs, but having tried both when he was younger he knew that time telescoped the way it was doing now. He wanted to believe that his perception was scrambled from some other influence--a mental one?--but that notion did not ring true when he tried it out.

Time. Speed. Moving him toward what?

"I've got to stop," he said aloud. Only then did he remember he had a witness along. He turned to her and said again, "I've got to pull over and stop."

She didn't say anything.

He took the next exit that loomed in the headlights. It led to a cross road and he turned north, taking a ramp over the freeway. He had trouble going through the gears. The truck jumped and leaped and spit like a bronco under loose rein. He saw no other traffic on the road. He found a way to slow the truck and pulled it over to the shoulder. He took it out of gear and hit the button that released the hissing air brakes. He sat still a moment. The white lines in the road had stopped moving past. The world had slowed. He sighed with relief.

Think
, he told himself. Hunted. They would know he had stolen the truck soon. Would know what it looked like. What
he
looked like.

He turned in the seat. All his bottled water was in the Chrysler, dammit. But he needed water to shave the beard and mustache. Truckers must carry water. He crawled onto the engine cover and searched the sleeper. In a deep shelf on one end of the sleeper he began pulling out crumpled paper grocery bags to glean their contents. One held two apples and an old orange that was beginning to smell. Another contained a box of crackers, a jar of peanut butter, a half loaf of crushed white bread. He pulled out another. He found two cans of Dr Pepper and a quart of mineral water. Ahhh.

From the other end of the sleeper he drew his travel bag and rummaged in a side zipper pocket for his razor and shaving foam. Holding the prizes to his chest, he backed like a crab into the driver's seat.

"What are you doing?" Molly asked.

"I'm shaving."

He rolled down the window and angled the rectangular side mirror until he could see himself in it. He found the switch on the dash for the inside lights and hit it. The interior was flooded with a yellowish light. He sprayed a handful of the shaving cream into the palm of his hand. He paused before slapping it onto the hair of his face. He wouldn't know himself once he did this. He'd be someone else, someone new.

They'd never recognize him. He might even cut his long hair.

No. He couldn't do that. That was going too far, asking too much. Where could he hide the little knife if he cut his hair? Impossible.

He lathered his face, grinning into the side mirror so that his teeth showed. Pulling a long face, he took off the mustache first with careful strokes of the razor. He cleaned the razor between swipes by pouring water from the quart jug over it outside the window. There went his hair onto the earth. His upper lip cooled in the night air. Naked. Naked now. Almost.

He began on the beard. He started at the top of his face, near his cheekbones, taking down the hair from first one side and then the other. It was a long process, delicate. He cut himself more than a few times unused as he was to shaving. Holding out his chin, he worked diligently and as carefully as he could to finish the job. As the skin of his face was revealed, a new man emerged in the side mirror. It was a man with a square, hardy face, sensitive lips even though it seemed to him the upper lip was a little too full, but to offset it he had a strong chin. The face in the mirror was a handsome man were it not for the cold look of the eyes. They stared straight out upon the world without the camouflaged face to disguise them. They were hard, unrelenting, the eyes of a predator of the night. He thought he saw the little man in the depths of his eyes gesturing to him, but he dismissed that with a wave of his hand.

Cruise turned to face his witness, to gauge her reaction. "What do You think?"

He saw her bite her lower lip in contemplation. She didn't want to say. He didn't blame her. He had seen the new naked person's face, and handsome as it was, the cool green eyes could freeze a flowing river within its banks.

"Never mind," he said, putting away the shaving gear in the grocery bag and stowing it on the sleeper bed behind him. He ran a hand over the smooth cheeks and chin, trying not to smile. He knew it would scare her even more if he were to give himself over to the urge.

After realigning the side mirror, rolling the window tight, and flicking off the interior lights, he sat with his hands on the wheel while the engine idled like a chained beast. "Now let's see if I can get this rig turned around so we can get back on the freeway. We'll get off for good in New Mexico. It isn't far."

He talked to hear himself speak. Did the words come out easier now he had shed the facial hair? He thought that they did. He
sounded
cleaner. Neater. Surer.

Would this change stop time from speeding beyond his grasp? He didn't know yet. He hoped for all things to fall into place the way they should.

Before grinding the transmission into first gear he said to Molly, "I guess you're stuck with me to the end. I'm going to need someone to see me through it. I wouldn't want to be alone if they caught me."

He thought she might have sighed in relief, but he couldn't be sure. By then he was hauling on the big wheel to turn the rig around in a half circle that would take them south again to the I-10 entrance ramp.

The next miles were covered in split seconds. A sign at the state border welcomed them to New Mexico. The white center lines blurred. The oncoming cars made one endless ribbon of colored light. The slipstream had him firmly in tow.

During the next hundred miles Cruise turned on the radio and found out the body of the truck driver had been discovered at the Arizona truck stop. They knew he drove off in the blue semi-cab, leaving the trailer behind. Even as fast as he moved away from his pursuers, he knew they might catch him. He had to flee the freeway, get off I-10 completely.

At Deming he took 180 north. When he saw the sign for highway 61 east he turned again, no true destination in mind except that of escape.

#

Mark Killany was twenty miles west of Deming, New Mexico, when he got a break. He had just broadcast his plea for help from the truckers for maybe the hundredth time without effect when the CB static broke up and a voice said, "Hey there, Killany, this is Gold Nugget. You talking about a blue cab-over? Dark blue bobtail?"

'"That's right. It could be an International. There's a man driving and my daughter is his passenger--she's a hostage."

"I didn't get no look at who was in the cab, but I saw a blue bobtail about fifty miles back on Highway 180. I remember because not many trucks take that route. I was surprised to see anyone and when I sent him a hello, he didn't answer me. Must not have had his ears on."