DARK THRILLERS-A Box Set of Suspense Novels (22 page)

He wanted to be like them. He wanted to hide out in Mexico. He wanted Heddy more than he wanted us.

As if we’d never existed.

It was like he’d died on me. The daddy I had known, as bad as he sometimes was to my mother, had died somewhere between Missouri and Texas. It was just his body that kept going. Now Mama and I were really on our own. It made me feel so lonely that I wanted to die.

#

CROW walked away from the van while Jay changed the flat tire. At least their hostage was good for something, he reflected. Hell, if
he
wanted to change goddamn tires in the middle of the day with the sun like a furnace. He did not, no sir, like scut work.

Hugging the road was a shallow, dry, pebble-lined ditch. He crossed it and walked into the desert land that rolled into the distance with small hills dotted with scrub brush. There wasn’t a fence here the way there usually was on land running beside a highway. Overhead the sun burned with blinding white light so that the horizon in the great far distance was hazy, a gray icing on the lip of the world. Between the horizon and where Crow walked shimmered heat mirages that danced no more than a foot above the beige cracked ground.

Crow stopped. He took a deep breath of hot air. He had never been in the Southwest before, never walked onto such a large section of dry land, never imagined how far he could see, as if to the rim of eternity. The sky was so wide and pale that it was oppressive. With only a little imagination he could feel himself tentatively anchored to the planet while it twirled crazily in space.

He had been told by a guy in prison, Prentice, that the Earth revolved at a thousand miles an hour and it was only gravity and God’s grace that kept man from being flung off into the void. Prentice read science magazines and tattered copies of science fiction novels. He was a pretty smart guy.

Crow hadn’t paid much attention to Prentice then, nodding and playing a game of checkers with him very competitively, hated to lose. But now he could feel it, what Prentice said. Out here in the Texas heat, overcome by the wide expansion of sky, the horizon standing open and empty, he knew just how insignificant he was and how fragile his existence.

He spit on the ground and frowned. Best not to think about it, about motion, about moving through space even when he couldn’t feel it. It made him too jittery. The hit of speed didn’t help, of course. He shouldn’t have done so much of it. He’d hoped getting away from the van and the others would calm his nerves. The muscles in his jaw jumped like gear wheels with missing teeth.

He squatted and picked up a handful of sand and rock to jiggle up and down in his palm. Would Mexico be this hot, this desolate? Goddamn, he’d hate it. He let the gritty sand drift through splayed fingers. How any of the scrubby, ground-hugging trees lived in this soil just amazed him.

He glanced over his shoulder to check Jay’s progress with the tire. He saw him standing, talking with Heddy. Something wasn’t quite right with the scene. Usually Heddy was exasperated with their hostages, especially Jay. About the only thing she ever said to him was to shut up. Yet now they stood like two old friends in the exercise yard at Leavenworth, shooting the shit.

Crow squinted and from holding so still felt the sun scorching his back through the material of his shirt. He turned back and stared at the sand between his knees. Heddy and Jay. Talking. Big buddies. Taking time in this fearsome heat with the sun squeezing the moisture out of their pores, talking while he was away from them. Secret talk. And about what, he wondered? What if they were discussing the missing money?

That’s what they were talking about!

He stood abruptly and moved toward the road and the van. What did this mean for him if Heddy had a thing for Jay and she didn’t trust him anymore? If she thought they were going to share the loot with him, she had another think coming. He wouldn’t even share it with
her
if she decided to bring Jay in on the deal.

On top of which, he absolutely loathed the man. He silently wished they had never run into the family at the caverns. He wished they had never taken their car and then brought them along for protection and security. Not this far. Too far! First it had been at Heddy’s insistence and now it was at his. They’d both made a big mistake.

The whole trip had been muddled up because the Andersons were along. He and Heddy had to watch them, feed them, tie them up, take them to the bathroom. They’d turned into babysitters. He didn’t care that Jay had saved their asses at the fishing camp. Hell, he would have thought of something. Or Heddy would have. He didn’t have to be beholden to a cop, for fuck’s sake.

As Crow neared the van, Jay was just letting down the jack and beginning to put away the tools. Heddy had already moved around the van to the driver’s door. Crow said to Jay’s sweaty back, “She’s some piece of work, huh?”

Jay flinched, not having heard Crow’s approach from the ditch. He held still before saying, “You’re howling up the wrong tree, Monkey Man.”

It wasn’t the name he’d been called that caused Crow to respond so instantly and violently. It was Jay’s tone of voice, a mocking, go-to-Hell tone. Before he knew he’d done it, Crow sucker-punched the other man in the kidneys. It was enough of a shot to take him to his knees. He didn’t stay down, though, and Crow wasn’t ready for the complete explosion of fury that whirled up from the ground into his face. Jay got him in the left eye, knocking him flat on his butt, scraping the palms of his hands in gravel as he caught himself.

Crow howled. Lights bloomed in his field of vision before receding to allow him to see Jay standing nearby, fists clenched. Crow scrabbled to his knees, to his feet, and went in toward Jay’s stomach with his head low. He’d really hurt the motherfucker now. He’d kill him! This was his chance to make everything right again.

Jay stepped aside at the last moment and this caused Crow to barrel headlong into the rear of the van. It knocked him back a step and brought back the burst of lights.

Someone had him by the arm. He twisted to lob a swing and checked it by one second when he saw it was Heddy who had hold of him. She was screaming something at him, but his head still rang from the fist in the eye and the thud his head took from the van.

He shook himself, glared at Jay. “I hate this son of a bitch.”

He could hear Heddy now. “You stop it, stop it right now, Crow. We’ve got to get on the road. I won’t have this fighting, do you hear me? You’re slowing us down, you’re just fucking up, Crow, that’s all you’re doing.”

“
I hear you, but I don’t fucking believe you. Why are you taking up for this bastard?”

Heddy’s gaze flicked away from him to Jay. He read it all in that one action. She was moving away from him, her emotions were swaying toward the other man; she was being won away. What a goddamn luckless thing to happen.

“
He’ll fuck you over, Heddy. Don’t you know that?”

“
Why don’t you let me worry about it. Last time I looked, you didn’t own me. Now get in the damn van.”

He watched her stalk off, gave Jay one last scowl and left him standing at the back of the van. Inside, sitting next to the little girl, he shook with anger. His eye was already swelling shut and it hurt, it hurt like holy hell. He could hardly see out of it for the tearing. “Whatta you looking at?” He said to the kid. “Look somewhere else.” He ran a hand over the sparse hair on his shaved scalp.

Emily scooted away from him on the bench seat. The front passenger door opened and Jay slipped inside.

“
Next time, I kill you,” Crow said to him softly.

“
Not if I kill you first.”

Heddy started the van and pulled onto the road. “Shut up,” she said. “Both of you shut the fuck up.”

#

IT was after midnight before Heddy had driven them south across the state to the border at Brownsville, Texas. They had tried to find another vehicle to switch to, but nothing looked available. Heddy stopped twice for gas and to let everyone use the bathrooms. She wouldn’t stop for food, making them eat service station fare consisting of chips and stale packaged cookies.

By the time they rolled into Brownsville, Crow was wide awake, his insides jangling from not getting a regular hit of speed. He twitched where he sat on the edge of the seat, watching the signs taking them into the town. “Let’s stay in a hotel and cross over tomorrow,” he said.

“
Sounds okay to me,” Heddy said. “My legs are cramped and I feel like I’ve driven around the world.”

It was simple to get Heddy to turn in the parking area for the Dupravado Hotel. The building stood in the center of the sleeping town along the main drag. It was an older, three-story structure made of earthy brown brick. A neon sign hung before the entrance, half the letters burned out. It wasn’t exactly a high class joint, but it was within walking distance to the border crossing and that’s what mattered. One of the Mexican inmates in Leavenworth had told him about it. “I come from dere, man,” he said proudly, meaning Brownsville. “The Dupravado, she right smack in de center of town and close to the border.”

Before Heddy hardly had the van in a parking slot nosed in next to the building, Crow was out the sliding side door. “I’ll go sign us in and try to get two connecting rooms if they have them.”

He sprinted across the white gravel lot toward the entrance. His moon shadow flitted before him like a nervous ghost. He had to make it inside before Heddy could see him pick up the package waiting at the desk. That meant hurrying, hurrying, practically jogging.

The hotel clerk was Hispanic, very dark, almost black. He seemed to understand Crow’s urgency--just as if he’d seen this furtive anxiety before. One eyebrow rose in query when he handed over the package that had come in the mail last week. Crow thanked him and hit him with a ten spot. The clerk smiled and stuffed the bill into his pocket. Money made everything smooth, Crow noted; it made the world his fat oyster.

While Crow forced the manila package into his large leather satchel, eyeing the door all the while, the clerk began to fill out the register in the name of Craig Walker. Crow grabbed the register suddenly and said, “Let me change this.” He took the pen from the clerk and changed the name to read: Howard Bradley. When he turned the pad back around for the clerk, he smiled widely.

The clerk just glanced at the name and said nothing. Crow waited and finally it came clear to him. The clerk was waiting for more dough. Changing a name in the register cost.

Crow hauled another ten from his pocket and handed it over. "There. Think that’ll cover it?”

The clerk smiled revealing crooked bottom teeth and closed the registry. He did not ask for identification. This was Brownsville where illegals crossed over the river from Mexico in the dead of night to head for the interior of Texas. Whether the guest was Hispanic or white, there wasn’t any point in taking down Ids, most of which would have proven false if checked out. Management didn’t care about much but the nightly fees.

The clerk took the money from Crow for two connecting rooms before glancing at the door to see a man, two women, and a child enter the front door. “Your party?” He asked, amused. Crow wondered what he’d been expecting, a few grungy gangster types?

“
Yeah, that’s them. You got the keys?”

The clerk handed over the keys and said, “You look familiar. Ever been on TV?”

Crow gave him a fishy eye. “How ‘bout I talk to you about that later?” It was a promise that given time and privacy, the clerk would get more than the twenty bucks. Only if he kept his mouth closed, of course.

Crow joined the others and led them to the elevator at the end of the lobby. He hoped Heddy wouldn’t notice the extra bulge in his bag. The only way she’d get hold of the money was to kill him first. And that prick, Jay, would certainly never get it.

He almost stopped in his tracks, so taken aback was he by the random thought. Was that what she was up to with Jay? Using Jay to dispose of him so they could share the stash? He
hated
thinking paranoid thoughts like that. Heddy was his partner. Without her he wouldn’t even be here. He wished he could trust her again,
goddamn it
, he wished things were clearer to him.

When Heddy asked him in the elevator what floor button to push, he snarled at her, “Two.”

“
What’re you biting my head off for?”

She was tired from driving and in no mood for his antics, he knew that. He tried to smooth it over. “I need some sleep.”

“
Well, you’re not the only one, stop being such a jerk.” She added, “You get two rooms?”