NIGHT CRUISING (19 page)

Molly nodded.

He wanted to act cool.
Courteous. His moods kept changing faster than the weather in Texas,
but he was trying with all his might to court Molly's favor. She
didn't have to be a prisoner if she'd just shape up.

"So you're not
going to talk to me, huh?"

"Are witnesses
supposed to talk?"

She sounded as if she
just wanted to know. She didn't say it with any sarcasm.

"You don't have
to. I'm not particular."

"Good."

Great. She was in her
hard-ass mode. She fidgeted and fussed with the collar of her blouse.
Miss Rebel without a cause. He could live with that, actually
preferred it.

Once they were outside
of town and in the desert land that lay between Adolpho's city and
Juarez, Cruise felt like telling a story.

"I knew a couple
of women one time..." He paused when he heard Molly sigh. "What?
You don't want hear it?"

"I don't care."

"Don't be like
that. Let me tell you about these friends of mine."

"Whatever."

"They were driving
down from Boston. The woman in the passenger seat had short black
hair. She had her cat with her, a long-haired black cat she carried
in her lap." They were passing lots of semis, you know, and
these guys are all staring down into the car. It's about dusk, that
gray time when things aren't too distinct."

He peeked a look at
Molly, saw that she appeared interested in his tale despite herself.

He continued, "Well,
the woman is driving and she's talking and they're discussing the
cat. The cat hears its name, gets a little rambunctious so the driver
reaches over and starts rubbing the cat's fur. Before you know it
they've got truck drivers honking their horns cutting up like crazy.
Some they pass are swerving a little in their lanes, then they're
laying on the horns. 'What do you think they're carrying on about?'
the driver asks her friend. She's still petting the cat in the other
woman's lap. Suddenly it comes to her. 'You know what?' she asked. 'I
bet they're looking down in the car and you've...' She started
laughing hysterically. 'You've got black hair,' she said. 'And I'm
reaching over there petting a black cat. It looks like I've got hold
of your...your
pussy
!'"

Cruise laughed like
crazy, and Molly stared at him with a blank look on her face. He
thought maybe she didn't get it. He sobered and stared down the road
ahead. Molly wasn't going to be any fun from now on. She'd be a
challenge, though, and he liked that just as well.

He had to maneuver the
car around the worst potholes to keep from ruining the undercarriage
of his car. He had hoped he could cheer Molly up, but it wasn't
working. The petting-the-pussy story was about the funniest one he
knew. If she didn't find that amusing, nothing was going to bring her
out of the doldrums."You won't have to be tied up if you'll just
cooperate," he said.

"How long are you
going to keep me?"

Well, well. He might
get a dialogue going after all. "Not long," he promised.

"You've killed
people before last night, haven't you?"

Cruise shrugged. She
knew and didn't want to know.

"Doesn't it mean
anything to you?"

Cruise smiled, but he
knew the beard and mustache would hide it. "Sure, it means
something."

"Why do you do
it?"

"Why did you run
away from home?"

"It's not the same
thing!"

"I didn't say it
was."

"Then what's the
point? Leaving home has nothing to do with killing people. God."

"Here's the
connection. You left home because you felt you had to, didn't you?
Well, didn't you?"

"I guess so..."

"That's why I
kill. I have to."

"Why?"

Cruise made an
exasperated movement with his right hand. "I just told you. I
have to. You changed your life, I change mine."

"Is that it?"
she asked. "Killing is some kind of ...some...sort of...change?"

"I guess that
describes it pretty well."

"But, Cruise, you
can't kill people for a reason like that. It's dumb. It's..."

"Crazy?"

She was silent. Maybe
she knew she'd gone too far.

Cruise admired her
restraint. He wasn't angry with her, in fact he found the
conversation intriguing. When they probed this way, he had a good
time with them. "Most people think it's crazy," he
admitted. "I don't think so. It's just a difference of opinion.
And my reasons are reasonable to me."

"I've heard about
people like you," she said. She didn't spit the words out, but
they were coated with slime just the same. It sounded like it made
her sick to say them.

"Like me? There's
no one like me, Molly. Don't make a mistake in judgment."

"You're right. I
don't think there's anyone like you."

He smiled to himself
again. Now she was catching on.

Not understanding, but
at least feeling the slightest empathy for his actions. It was a
beginning.

"There's Juarez.
I'll stop for tacos or something."

He had to watch her at
the border. If she tried signaling to the border guards, he'd have to
kill her. It could be a messy business. He couldn't tie her, they'd
see. He had to make his warning convincing. He didn't want a
misadventure spoiling the trip.

In Juarez he parked the
car near a portable stand covered by a rainbow-colored umbrella to
shield the sun in the day, the moon at night. These were roach
coaches, ptomaine domains, but what the hell. He wasn't in the mood
for going into a four-star mariachi-band restaurant.

"Get out of the
car," he said.

"Why?"

"Do what I tell
you," he said, not unkindly.

He came around the
front grille and walked Molly with him to the food cart. "What
do you want?"

"I don't care."

"Be that way."
He ordered tacos, bean and red chili burritos, and two canned Cokes
from the cart tender. "Lose that sombrero, friend," he told
him when he paid the bill. "You look like a clown."

Back in the car Molly
said, "That was mean."

"You've seen me
meaner. Here, eat your dinner." He handed her a taco and a
burrito from the sack.

They sat in the car
with the windows down watching the passersby on the street. Unlike
Adolpho's city, Juarez had a sprinkling of Americans intermingling
with the natives. Nearly all of them carried bags with their
purchases poking from the top. Clacking wooden snakes. Hand-carved
walking sticks. Polyester lace tablecloths. Embroidered dresses.
Leather goods. Multicolored blankets. Cheap stuff they thought were
real bargains.

The place was running
over with pedestrians. They haggled with shopkeepers, ate colored
flavored ices from paper cones, begged on street corners, and picked
pockets.

Cruise finished off the
food, the Coke, and turned in his seat to face Molly. He had to
lecture her. She wasn't going to like it. She had told him that's all
her father ever did, lecture.

"They're going to
stop us at the border. They'll probably inspect the car. They'll ask
where you were born."

"So?"

"Don't get smart
with me. I'm talking to you."

"I can hear you.
Talk already."

"If you make a
squawk, if you give any signal that something is wrong, if you say
one single thing that makes them suspicious, I'll kill you where you
sit." He heard her intake of breath although she wouldn't face
him. He saw her jawline tighten down, the milky skin smooth against
the bone. "You know what I can do with my knife." He moved
his hand to the back of his head. Touched his hair as if smoothing it
down. He knew she could sense his movements without looking directly
at him. "I don't want to have to do that, Molly. But no one's
ever taking me to jail. Ever. I promise you that. So if you get the
urge to make a play, suppress it. Before you can make a move, blink
an eye or utter a word, I'll slit your throat from ear to ear."

Molly looked down at
her hands in her lap. She had them clutched together in a small
knuckly ball. "I get it," she said, her voice barely
audible.

"You're a good
girl. Now let's get moving. I hate fucking Juarez."

He watched her closely
at the border crossing. It all went peacefully. She trembled a little
and her voice cracked when she said where she had been born--Dania,
Florida--but other than that, it went fine. Once on the road in the
darkness, he said, "You performed that duty as well as could be
expected. I'm proud of you. I think I'll tell you about a guy I knew
once who crossed over into Mexico to get him a whore for the
night...''

He settled into his
driving and storytelling. Molly was going to be the best witness he'd
ever taken.

The miles rolled away.
I-l0 took them past Las Cruces, New Mexico, and back into the night.
There was Deming, then Lordsburg came next and was soon behind them.
They were across the state line into Arizona. All Cruise
ever
remembered on his travels across New Mexico was that the rest areas,
the pickle parks, were pristine as sun-bleached bone. He filled the
gas tank at a Chevron station off the freeway just east of Bowie,
Arizona. He kept watch on Molly. She asked to go to the bathroom when
he replaced the gas nozzle. He walked her to the rest-room door on
the side of the station and waited outside for her. When she exited,
he held her arm, pushed open the door, and checked the stall walls,
the floor, the mirror over the sink for any notes she might have
left. He knew all the tricks. The girls he took almost always tried
to leave behind messages. Molly didn't.

"You knew better,
didn't you?" he asked, smiling genially.

"Knew better about
what?"

"Never mind. It's
not important." He didn't want to give her any ideas she didn't
already have.

He sent her to the car
while he paid the station attendant for the gas. She was in his line
of sight every second.

On the highway again he
gave her the news. "We're getting off the freeway about seven
miles from here."

"Why?"

There was a high panic
in her voice. He loved being able to produce that shaky, unsure note.
"I'm taking Route 666 north to 70. We go through Globe, then we
get a bunch of little shit-kicking roads north to Flagstaff. We're
stopping off to see my sister. And my father," he added.

"666? Is that for
real?"

"It is. Funny,
huh?"

"What's your
sister's name?"

"Evelander.
Lannie. Not that it matters. She's not going to help you." He
saw Molly visibly sag in the seat. There was no point in letting her
hopes rise just to be deflated. Lannie wouldn't help her. He'd taken
little friends by her house before. She was too scared of him to lift
a finger without his permission. Lannie
knew
him. Her house
was the only place in the world he could crash without fear of
discovery. It was his safe house, his haven, the single rest stop in
all of America where he didn't have to worry about running into
someone he'd have to kill. Lannie looked straight through the kids he
brought by on his constant trips across country. She rarely even
spoke to them. And she never asked him to untie them or let them go
free. She just knew it wasn't a request he'd honor.

"Does Lannie make
a habit of murdering people too?" Molly asked abruptly,
startling Cruise from reverie.

Cruise was left
wordless for once. He didn't find the question funny. It was just
odd. No one had ever asked him such a thing about his sister before.
The thought had never crossed his mind. Lannie
kill
? He would
laugh if he wasn't so shaken by the query.

"What makes you
ask something like that?" He wanted to sound angrier, but he
couldn't get any backbone in it. The kids surprised him sometimes.
You'd think he'd get used to it.

"Well, if she
wouldn't help me out, maybe she helps you do what you do."

He realized she had
phrased the reply without using the words
murder
or
kill
.

"Lannie's not in
this." he said. "Now let's drop it."

"I don't want to
drop it. What about your father? He know you go around cutting people
open? That you keep hitchhikers as prisoners so they can watch you
work?"

"My
father...doesn't know anything."

"Why not? Can't he
see what you're doing? Is he blind?"

"Molly, that's
enough." He nearly reached across the car to smack her across
the face. His arm trembled with the effort it took not to hit her.
That cold rage that came over him when he did kill now crept closer.
It wrapped him in its frosty sheath, coated his mind with a rind of
ice. He was looking up from beneath ice floes at a still, dead world.
He clenched his jaws. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. He
saw he was weaving across the dividing line on the highway and had to
bring the car into his lane again.

Something about his
changing demeanor must have leaked into the car between them because
Molly didn't repeat the questions. She stared out the window as if
she'd never asked them, as if the answers didn't concern her one way
or the other.

Cruise fought to halt
the fury that was trying to possess him. He didn't want to kill
Molly. He liked her. He liked her more than any of the others he had
captured in the past ten years. He knew he had to kill her eventually
and was conflicted about that. But one day, one night, sometime, he'd
have to do it. Only not now, not if he could stop the avalanche of
his emotions.

He clamped the wheel,
took the exit for 666 north, his gaze scanning the roadside for
something, for someone on whom to vent the building anxiety. He drove
for thirty-two miles to the Highway 70 turnoff at Safford in a trance
Molly would not have been able to penetrate had she tried. During the
next hundred miles that took them to the copper-mining town of Globe,
Arizona, Cruise concentrated his whole being on driving the Chrysler.
He listened to the wind whistling past the lowered windows. He was
intoxicated by the drone of the big engine, the swish of the tires on
pavement, the steady hum of movement through space and time. Overhead
he saw there was cloud cover. The moon peeked sporadically from the
shifting rims of black mountain fortresses. It looked like rain,
smelled like it. There was a sharp taste to the cooling mountain air.
They were entering the Mescal Mountains. Once outside of Globe they'd
travel into the Sierra Anchas and the Mazatzals.