Root (15 page)

I was back on the road by noon, after grabbing
a quick bite at a Waffle House. I set the truck on cruise control,
right at the speed limit—sixty-five—and planted myself in the right
lane, riding the bumper of a moving van like a pilot fish on the
ass end of a shark.

I had one tense moment near the border when a
state trooper came screaming up behind me with his lights flashing.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!” I was hyperventilating and already
veering into the breakdown lane, ready to be cuffed and booked, but
he blew right past me, his sights set on a little black Mercedes
that must have been doing ninety-five.

When I passed them pulled over in the
breakdown lane, I tweaked my speed up to sixty-eight. I had been
getting passed like nobody’s business so I figured there was no
harm in quickening up my pace. I remembered what Jared had said
about sticking out going too slow.

I made good time across Georgia. I listened to
some talk radio but turned it off when this tea party guy and his
brainless callers couldn’t stop blaming people like Mom and Dad for
losing their own homes. It was Freddie Mac this and Fannie Mae
that. I couldn’t decide whether they were really that stupid, or
just evil.

I hated politics, I really did. I couldn’t see
a whole lot of difference between the two sides. It seemed just a
matter of degree. How do you like your soup, Mr. Moody? Cold or too
damned cold? Maybe I was an anarchist at heart?

It was a shame, really. Now that I was old
enough to vote, voting in this country had become irrelevant to
me.

I stopped for an early dinner at a Subway in
Richmond Hill, getting a foot-long meatball sub to go. There was a
Super 8 hotel across the street, but it was way too early to stop.
I was thinking of driving straight through to Cleveland from here
on, counting on Jared’s Ritalin to get me through the night. That
would save a few bucks and ease my anxiety about getting there on
time.

The truck chortled and spewed out a blue cloud
of smoke when I tried to start it up. That was a bit disconcerting.
It had never done that before. Dad had bought the truck new in
2003. He had babied it all its life, though there were a
hundred-fifty thousand miles on the odometer.

I got out and checked the oil, finding it a
little low, but not too bad. Just a little seepage around the
pistons, nothing to be too concerned about.

I topped up the oil, turned the engine over
and everything seemed okay. I filled the tank at a Sunoco and got
back on the road. One more fill-up after this and I would be
cruising into Ohio.

The incident sent my nerves jangling again.
But the truck accelerated just fine up the ramp. I presumed it was
just some fleeting thing. Once I was back on the road, the whole
affair shifted off my front burner.

I tweaked the cruise control to a hair above
seventy, which was still only barely keeping up traffic. Dad’s Ron
Paul bumper sticker would probably confer a little bit of immunity
to the state cops. My out of state plates made me stick out a
little bit, but it could have been worse. Mom’s car had a Darwin
fish.

Halfway across South Carolina, I got onto
Route 26 and made a quick stop at the next exit for a Snapple and
an ice cream sandwich. Before I knew it, I was in Columbia, leaving
26 for Route 77, chewing up the miles like a winged
demon.

At this rate, I’d be crossing into North
Carolina by midnight. I was well ahead of schedule. I’d make it to
Cleveland with a twelve hour cushion. I might even have time to
catch a nap at Uncle Ed’s before meeting up with Jared’s
buddies.

Ten miles from Rock Hill, I was bopping to
some college station punk, feeling calm, confident and even cocky
about my prospects, when steam began spewing from the seams along
the edge of my hood. Before I could even react, something exploded
beneath the hood. Frothy, green sludge splattered against the
windshield and the world disappeared from view.

Chapter 17:
Hosed

The glass turned opaque with slimy, green
foam. Turning on the wipers only smeared the gunk around and made
things worse.

I strayed off the passing lane onto the rumble
strip. I jerked the wheel right and nearly clipped a van. A car
whizzed by, its horn bellowing.

I slammed on the brakes. My tires hopped a
curb. I skidded to a halt on a patch of sand and scrubby grass.
Heart thumping, I sat there, my hands still gripping the
wheel.

No biggie, it was just a little lost coolant,
nothing mechanical. Maybe a hose had popped off. I could clamp it
back on, refill the radiator and be on my way.

I stepped out of the truck. Thunderheads
billowed along the horizon, piling up against the low hills. A hot
and swirly wind blew up from the south.

I hadn’t paid attention to the signs, but
figured I must be pretty close to the North Carolina border. It
looked at first like I was stuck in the middle of nowhere,
surrounded by nothing but pine and scrub. But there was an exit
just ahead, and through the trees a surface road ran parallel to
the highway. Just up a little ways was a house and a
barn.

I popped open the hood to reveal a steaming,
sopping mess. The upper radiator hose had blown, tearing right
through an embolism-like bulge below the clamp. Hot antifreeze
sputtered out of the hole like a spent geyser.

I undid both clamps with the screwdriver on my
Swiss Army knife, wrapped a rag around it and yanked off the mass
of searing rubber, passing it from hand to hand like a hot potato.
I threw it down on the sand to cool.

I considered using the phone Jared had given
me to call for a tow, but he had been adamant about me not using it
for anything but direct communications with him. And there was no
sense in calling him yet. It wasn’t as if drug cartels offered
24-hour roadside assistance. Why freak him out? I had plenty of
time to set things right and get back on the road.

I wrapped the rag back around the destroyed
hose and tucked it under my arm. With that exit just ahead, there
was a likely a town nearby. Surely there would be a garage or parts
store where I could pick up a replacement hose. Ford F150s were
probably as common around these parts as pine trees.

I cut through the trees and down a slope to
the surface road. As I got close, I could see that the house I was
heading for was in horrible shape, with shutters dangling off their
hinges and the paint all peeling. The shades were drawn. It didn’t
look like anyone lived there, though the fields behind it were
plowed and planted with hip-high corn.

On a whim, I walked up the front walk and rang
the doorbell. I heard nothing but the wind and some distant
thunder. I was about to walk away when the door swung open and a
hunched old woman in a tattered sweater appeared, her eyes boring
in like lances. She looked to be about ninety.

“
Brian ain’t home,” she
shouted.

“
Who? Um, no ma’am, I’m not looking
for Brian. You see, my car broke down on—”

“
He ain’t here. But he’ll be comin’
home for supper. Come back around five, then you can talk to
him.”

“
Ma’am, you wouldn’t know of auto
parts stores nearby?”

“
Heh?” She screwed her face at me
like I had said something preposterous about otters.

“
You know, like a
garage?”

“
Ask Brian when he comes. He’ll know
what to tell ya.”

“
Okay.” Well, thanks. You have a
good day.”

She nodded and attempted a smile, but it
turned into more of a scowl. She slammed the door and locked
it.

I continued down the road, crossing over a
culvert with a muddy creek running through it. An empty two liter
Pepsi bottle bobbed in an eddy. I scrambled down and tucked it
under a bush so it wouldn’t float away. This would be my source of
coolant once I got my new hose. Why waste ten bucks on anti-freeze?
Water would do. It was freaking July.

I glanced back at the highway and nearly shit
my pants. The lights of a police cruiser were blinking blue and
bright as it swooped down like a vulture on my poor
truck.

I ducked down behind some milkweeds buzzing
with bees and watched him climb out and examine the slick of
radiator fluid beneath the grill. He went back and poked around the
junk in the back, looking under the mattress. I cringed and ducked
down lower.

To my eye, there was nothing suspicious about
the truck, no bulges that made it obvious something was stashed
below the liner. Jared’s people had done a pretty good job. But a
state cop knew what to look for—a telltale scrape or stripped screw
might tell him that this bed liner had been installed more than
once.

I thought for sure that this marked the end of
my drug-running career; that the only running I’d be doing was
through the piney woods with helicopters chasing after me. But the
cop didn’t mess with the liner. He went back to his car, got a
bright orange sticker, scribbled something on it, stuck it on the
windshield and went on his way.

I spend a good five minutes in those milkweeds
re-learning how to breathe.

***

The surface road met up with a larger cross
road near the end of a highway exit ramp. A sign pointed left to an
overpass and a town called Alford. To the right was nothing but
scrub oak and pine. I went left.

Alford wasn’t much of a town, just a small
cluster of houses and two-story office buildings. But there was a
garage with some old-style gas pumps and a weedy lot crowded with
rusting hulks. It looked abandoned, but I headed for it anyway.
What choice did I have?

I cut across a vacant lot to get there, which
turned out to be a mistake, because I got mired in ankle deep mud
trying to hop a ditch. Pickerel frogs watched me with mocking
stares from the green slime coating the slow-flowing
seep.

The phone in my pocket buzzed. I jumped like
there was a snake in my pants and nearly stumbled back into the
ditch. I dug the phone out of my jeans. It had to be Jared. Who
else knew this number?

“
Yo.”

“
Holy cow man, you’re almost in
North Carolina!”

“
H-how did you know
that?”

“
A little bird told me.” He
chuckled. “Jeez, guy, take it easy on that pedal. You got plenty of
time.”

Jared’s guys must have installed some kind of
tracking device when they were taking out the bed liner. I kind of
doubted they had any kind of in with our all-knowing, almighty
God.

“
Don’t worry. I’m not speeding. I’ve
been careful. I’ve just kind of been driving straight
through.”

“
Yeah, except for last night,” said
Jared. “Saw you took a break in Jacksonville. Got a girlfriend
there or something? Hey man, that’s cool. Good to have you well
rested. But if you’re gonna stop, just pick someplace busy is all.
Stay out of them small towns. Cops are damned nosy in those
places.”

They had probably stashed a GPS transponder
somewhere on that truck. But where would they have put it? It
really bugged me to know every step of my progress or lack thereof
was being watched from afar. I wanted to find that thing and smash
it.

“
James? You okay, man? You’re not
very talky.”

“
I’m … tired.”

“
Well go and take your break.
Remember, the guys in Ohio ain’t expecting you till five o’clock
tomorrow.”

“
Five? You said I had forty-eight
hours. That would make it more like eight.”

“
No worries, guy. I don’t see how
that’s a problem, seeing as you’re almost in Charlotte.”

“
No. It’s no problem. It’s
just—”

“
Then forget about it, man. I was
just checking in. Making sure everything was alright. Everything is
fine, right? You sound a little nervous.”

“
Oh yeah. Everything’s
cool.”

“
Hey. You ever want to do this
again, James. Do a good job and there’s more work like this out
there. I’m just saying.”

“
I’ll keep that in mind.”

I ended the call. So the Ohio folks expected
me at five the next day not eight. No big deal. That was still a
good twenty-four hours away. I’d be back on the road in an hour or
two if all went well.

As I got closer to the gas station, I could
see merchandise on the shelves. It looked like the place was still
in business, but closed because it was Sunday. I went up to the
service bay and pressed my nose against the glass. Along the side
of each service bays, taunting me, was a wide assortment of
mufflers, fan belts and radiator hoses, one of which I was certain
would fit a Ford F150.

I read the hours on the door. “Open M-F 8-5,
Saturday 10-4.”

It was five o’clock. The place wouldn’t open
for another fifteen hours. It wouldn’t take long at all to replace
a hose. Sixteen hours or so cut off my cushion wasn’t exactly fatal
to my chances of getting to Cleveland on time, but I would have to
get that hose put on first thing in the morning. Maybe I could have
the truck towed here and save some time. I could conceivably be out
of here by nine. That would give me eight hours to cross three
states. Was that even possible? Maybe if I went ninety the entire
way.