Midnight Haul (10 page)

Boone opened the glove compartment and got the zoom lens out and began attaching it to the Nikon. Crane got a glimpse of something else in the glove compartment, something that, although metallic, didn’t look anything like a camera attachment.

“Have you got a gun in there?” he asked her.

She didn’t look up from the Nikon she was fussing with. “I might have.”

“You
might
have a gun in there.”

“Okay, I have a gun in there. All right?”

“How’d it get there? Or did it just grow there, organically?”

“I put it there, what do you think?”

“Boone, that’s it. That’s the end.” He started turning the key in the ignition.

She reached for his hand and stopped him. Gently.

“The gun used to be Patrick’s. He left it with me.”

“He took the furniture, and left the gun. What a guy.”

“He didn’t leave it on purpose. He forgot it. Look, I don’t like the damn thing. I never liked it when Patrick kept it in the house.”

“Which is why you keep it in the car.”

“Crane, think. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t figure there was a good possibility Mary Beth was murdered.”

He said nothing.

“And if that
is
what happened to Mary Beth,” she continued, “and if those other ‘suicide’ victims were murdered, too, then looking into it, like we’re doing, could be a little risky, right?”

He said nothing.

“So,” she said, “we just might have to protect ourselves.”

She took the gun—a .38—out of the glove compartment.

“Give me that!” Crane said.

She did.

“This isn’t loaded, is it?” he asked.

“Of course it’s loaded.”

He stuck it under the seat.

“You got a choice, next time,” he said, his face feeling hot. “You can bring me along, or the gun. Not both.”

“There’s the truck again.”

He turned and looked back at the loading area. The flatbed, its tarp tied over a full load, was wheeling out. No one, not even the hard hat that had been there before, was around; no one checked them out: the clearing booth was still empty.

Boone sat recording all this with the Nikon.

The truck turned right onto the blacktop, away from them.

“I better drive.” Boone said.

“No,” said Crane. “I can handle it.”

He waited a few minutes and then pulled out of the Kemco lot, after the flatbed.

“One of its back lights is broken,” Boone said, pointing.

Ahead, one of the taillights on the rig glowed white.

“That’s a break,” she said. “You can stay back and still not lose sight of him.”

Crane sat forward, back straight, hands gripping the wheel, intensity squeezing the nervousness, the fear, right out of him. A couple times he felt himself creeping up too close on the truck—which was going a nice legal fifty-five—and Boone eased him back. There were a few other cars on the road, and occasionally he was able to put one of them between him and the truck, the tarp on the back of which was flapping loose a bit, giving them a glimpse now and then of the black drums of waste sitting bunched in the back like illegal immigrants.

“Don’t sweat losing him,” she said. “I think I know where he’s headed.”

And she did.

From the blacktop that wove through Garden State farmland, the truck went to a four-lane highway, where it was easy to stay way back and not lose track of the white light on the truck’s tail.

“You know where he’s headed now?” Crane asked Boone.

“Maybe,” she said.

Soon the truck turned off onto a toll bridge.

They pulled off. Waited till the truck was across. Then followed.

Once over the bridge, Boone said, “Welcome to Pennsylvania, Crane.”

They were still on a four-lane.

“I’ve lost him,” Crane said, hitting the steering wheel with the heel of his hand.

“No,” said Boone, pointing. “He’s just turning off. Up to the right. See him?”

And there was the white light of the rig as it turned onto an off-ramp.

Crane followed suit.

After fifteen miles of sporadic two-way traffic on a primary road, the truck turned off onto a blacktop.

“Has he spotted us?” Crane asked.

“No.”

“He could be leading us out into nowhere to deal with us, you know.”

“I don’t think so. You’ve stayed well back. He hasn’t seen us.”

“I’m going past it anyway.”

He did, not turning off at the blacktop, glancing down it as they drove by to see if the truck had pulled over, to wait for them.

But it hadn’t: the white eye was getting smaller as the truck lumbered down the blacktop.

Crane turned around on a side road and went back. Followed the truck down the blacktop.

Or tried to.

“This time I did lose him,” he said. “I got overcautious, damnit.”

“Keep going.”

“It’s no use. I blew it. He’s gone.”

“What’s that?”

“What?”

“There’s a sign up there.”

And there was: white letters on green,
SANITARY LANDFILL
, with an arrow to the right, and another blacktop.

Crane pulled in. Slowly. Just around the corner was a second sign, black letters on white:
DEAD END
.

He paused. “What do you think?”

“We’ve come this far,” she said.

He drove down the narrow blacktop. The clear, moonlit night gave them a good view of the land on either side: at the right the land was flat, with bare, black clay, ground that had been turned over, like farmland prepared for planting; at the left another stretch of similar ground dropped off into a deep man-made gulley, the earth scarred by bulldozer tracks, the ground ripped at various seams, as if the aftermath of an earthquake.

“Cut your lights,” Boone told him.

He did.

They came around a bend and the road ended and opened out into a graveled area, just in front of a chain-wire fence with gates and two signs, a small one—
ALL TRUCKS MUST BE COVERED
—and a larger one—
SANITARY LANDFILL
, with a permit number listed underneath, operating hours (8
AM
to 4
PM
Monday thru Friday, 8
AM
to Noon Saturday), and regulations (Public access during operating hours only; Scavenging not permitted; Unauthorized disposal punishable by $100 fine). Beyond the chain-wire fence were a couple of tin sheds, a large one at left for equipment storage, probably, a smaller one at right that was apparently the office. Several bulldozers stood unattended. At the left and right were high ridges of earth that blocked anything else along the horizon
from view, from this vantage point at least. In the center was the drop-off of a landfill ditch.

The flatbed was already inside the chain-wire fence. The two guys from the truck—the bruiser in the thermal jacket and his partner, a tall skinny guy in denim work clothes and heavy gloves—got down out of the truck and were joined by a couple of guys in hard hats and work jackets. One of the hard hats began using a small forklift truck to unload the fifty-five-gallon barrels from the flatbed. The truckers helped him, guided the drums onto the forklift. The other hard hat watched and waited.

Boone used her Nikon.

It took over an hour to unload the truck and haul each drum over and dump it. Crane wondered why he and Boone hadn’t left yet; but she was still taking pictures, onto her second roll, now.

Then the hard hat who’d been standing, watching, climbed up on one of the bulldozers and started it up. It rumbled over to the landfill ditch. From where Crane and Boone were they couldn’t see it, exactly, but it was clear what the bulldozer was doing: the drums were being covered with a layer of dirt.

“Those truckers won’t be needing to hang around,” Crane whispered. “We better take off before
they
do.”

“Okay,” Boone said, still snapping the Nikon.

Crane backed out, around the corner, turning the car around in the road in five long, slow turns, expecting the headlights of the flatbed to bear down on them momentarily.

But that didn’t happen.

And they exited the blacktop onto the other blacktop and drove and, as they neared the four-lane that would lead them to the toll bridge and New Jersey, Boone said, “There’s a motel over there. What do you think? I’m dead.”

“I wouldn’t mind stopping myself,” he said.

They took a room. It had two double beds. Boone took a shower, came out in a towel and discreetly got into one of the beds. She then began snoring.

He smiled. He didn’t blame her for being tired: it was four-thirty in the morning, and the intensity of what they’d just been through had been draining.

He didn’t bother with a shower; he was too exhausted. He got in the other bed and was just about asleep when he heard a truck out on the highway. Just a truck going by.

He went out to the Datsun, got the gun out from under the seat, and slipped it under the bed.

Then he slept.

Her voice woke him.

She wasn’t talking to him; she was on the phone, checking in with the neighbor she’d left Billy with, another young divorced woman who’d been very nice about looking after the boy from midnight till two each night, no questions asked. Boone had explained to her friend that any one of the nights might turn into an all-night thing, as it had yesterday.

“Billy got off to school all right?” she was saying. “Good. Thank you, Kate, you’re a pal.”

Boone was sitting on the edge of the bed Crane was in, using the phone on the nightstand between the two beds. Her back was to him. Bare back.

Soon she hung up and went over and got back in her own bed, sitting up, blankets down around her waist. She stretched and yawned. Scratched her head. Her hair was tousled. Her breasts were not large, not small. Firm white breasts, delicately veined; pert pink tips. He noted this through eyes that pretended to be shut.

She smiled at him. “You’re awake, aren’t you, Crane?”

He opened his eyes. Smiled sheepishly.

She didn’t cover her breasts.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Hi,” he said. Sitting up.

She got out of bed and walked bare-ass into the bathroom. Water ran in the sink.

She came back out, smiling. Her body was very lean, with a high, rather bony rib cage, making her breasts seem larger than they were. Her pubic triangle was wispy, like a young girl’s.

She sat on the edge of the bed, hands on her knees. “Go rinse out your mouth,” she said. “You’ll feel better. It’s not like having toothbrush and paste, but it’ll help.”

He did so. He was in his shorts but still felt embarrassed walking in front of her, knowing she was looking him over just as he had her. When he came back, she was in bed. His bed.

He got in with her and kissed her, tentatively. She kissed him back, not at all tentatively, and put one of his hands on one of her breasts. The nipple hardened. He was already hard. They kissed and stroked each other for a while. Made love.

It was over rather quickly, too quickly, and he rolled off her, feeling empty.

“Sorry,” he said.

“What are you apologizing about?” she said. “That was nice.”

He sat up in bed and stared at the blank TV screen across the room.

A minute went by, and she said, leaning on an elbow, studying him, “You’re going morose on me, aren’t you?”

“What?”

“You’re feeling guilty. You’re thinking about Mary Beth and feeling guilty.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“You think you cheated on her, don’t you?”

“Boone, please.”

She touched his shoulder. Not wanting to, he looked at her. Her smile was faint, sad, understanding; it was a smile he couldn’t evade.

He looked away and said, “Don’t be with anybody else, she said. ‘Don’t be with anybody but me.’ I can still hear her saying it.”

“She’s gone, Crane.”

“No. Never.”

He cried for a while; she kept her hand on his shoulder.

She said, “This was the first time I’ve done it since Patrick.”

He looked at her again. “No kidding?”

She wiped his eyes with a corner of the sheet, smiling, her chin crinkling. “No kidding.”

“I thought you hippie types slept around.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear. I was with two other boys, before Patrick. Nobody since. Until now.”

“I’ve never been with anybody but Mary Beth. Till now.”

“No wonder you’re feeling guilty.”

“I’m not feeling guilty. Exactly.”

“I know you loved her, Crane. And me, you don’t even like, exactly. But this was bound to happen, and I’d rather it happen here than at home where Billy might see us.”

“Now who’s sounding guilty?”

“I just want it clear that when we get back to the house, you’re to keep to your sleeping bag across the hall.”

“Fine. I like sleeping on the floor. It’s natural. Organic, even.”

“Smart-ass. I’m not saying it won’t happen between us again. Billy’s at school all day, you know.”

He leaned over and kissed her, briefly. They exchanged friendly smiles.

“Looks like we’re starting to get along,” he said.

“Why not? We’re quite the team. We’re about to bring a corporate giant to its knees.”

“Are we?”

“I think so. I think we really got something last night.”

“The ‘smoking gun’ you said you needed.”

“Exactly.”

“So where do we go from here?”

“I admit I’m tempted to sit on this, save it and use it in my book, not break it till then. But the right thing to do is contact the proper authorities.”

“Which are?”

“There’s a couple of possibilities. New Jersey’s a heavily industrialized state. It has more than its share of problems of this sort, but it’s also ahead of a lot of states in dealing with those problems.”

“So you’ll be taking your photographs and your suspicions to a state agency, as opposed to the feds.”

“The Environmental Protection Agency, you mean? They basically just provide guidelines to state agencies, though in a way they’re who I’ll be going to. I plan to go to the Hazardous Waste Strike Force, in Princeton.”

“That sounds like a cop show.”

“It is, sort of. It’s an investigative unit, a joint effort by the EPA and the state of New Jersey. They’re doing some good things.”