Wild Horses (27 page)

“Can you read lips?” she said. “You know what they’re saying, don’t you? What they’ve been saying in most of these places?”

“Oh sure.” Although he didn’t need any special talent. “‘The bitch must’ve had it coming.’”

*

As they ate, she wondered if she wasn’t talking too much. If she’d told more about herself than she should have, dropped her guard too low. In three days she had given Thomas St. John more hints about her distant past than she’d given Boyd in nine months. Although hints to Boyd were like acorns dropped in sand — no depth there to take root in the first place.

She hadn’t wanted to admit it at first, but there really was something deserving about Tom; some decency worthy of more than lies of convenience, sins of omission. Any man who collected books for children he only hoped to have someday should be met halfway in trust. And he liked her, too; she could tell from the way he watched when he thought she wouldn’t notice. From anyone else this would be something only to discourage, but he was so obviously fighting it himself that he needed no help from her. All the same, ego demanded that she regard this as something of an affront. What was so wrong with her, from where he was sitting, that he had to battle his feelings? Admittedly, though, the gun and her habit of sleeping with it in the van extended little welcome.

She’d done some watching of her own, and was better at doing it on the sly. He had an artisan’s hands, Tom did, strong and precise in their movements, heavily veined and nicked by mishaps in the shop, a few short, thin scars pale against the darker skin. Another scar, not as easily explained away, made a small comma out from the corner of one eye, but seemed at home on a face that had seen a lot of sunshine, and lots of rain, and hadn’t turned from either.

Why couldn’t their paths have crossed last year instead of now? The playwright again, nothing ever coming easy, or at the right time. A year ago she might not have turned him away as she’d have to now, having no right to make him into the same kind of murderer that she was probably going to be after a few more days.

“What is it?” she asked, noticing his face. He seemed to have forgotten about his last bites of barbecue.

“That guy over by the counter. I know I’ve seen him before. Just can’t remember where.”

With a subtle turn of head she spotted him, something almost Aryan about him were it not for the darker shade of his skin. His right eye was masked by a white gauze bandage. He was receiving a handful of change after buying a bag of chips off a rack by the register, and idly glancing in their direction.

“Not with me you didn’t see him. Definitely I’d remember the eye patch.” She fought an urge to stare. “That hair. I wonder if he dyes it. Does that look like a bleach job to you?”

Tom grinned toward his plate. “What do you say we give him the benefit of the doubt. He doesn’t look much like the dyeing kind to begin with, does he?”

“You’d be surprised. I never met anyone yet who didn’t want to change some God-given thing about themselves.”

“God.” Tom seemed to muse the word over as if he had never heard it before. “Is that big g, or little g?”

“It’s just figure-of-speech g. Don’t go changing the subject like that.” When she saw that he was about to proclaim innocence, Allison wagged a finger. “Yes, you were. Because you knew I’d have to ask what you’d change about yourself.”

What a bashful thing he could be. If there was anything more endearing than a grown man who could still blush, she didn’t know what it might be.

“As long as you’re talking about dye jobs,” he said, “you can’t not have noticed I’m a little … um … prematurely gray.”

“And you don’t think that adds character?”

“Character I have no problem with. I was just hoping it might work itself out along a little different timetable, is all.” He challenged her with a direct look. “Your turn.”

“I always thought I could do with a smaller derrière. Mine’s always looked a few degrees too wide to me.”

“And you don’t think
that
adds character?”

She fished an ice cube from her water glass and flicked it across the table. “You’re more devious than you let on, throwing my words back at me like that.”

“Like you left me any choice?” He shook his head. “That hind-end talk, Allison, that’s dangerous ground. Why do women do that? Put a man in a position where he’ll hang himself no matter what he says? I’ve always wondered that.”

“I’m not allowed to tell.”

He pushed back from the table. “In that case, I’m excusing myself for a few minutes. See if you can keep from coming up with any more flaming hoops for me to jump through while I’m gone.”

Allison watched him bow out, toward the rear of the diner, where a faded arrow promised rest rooms and neutral ground.

Alone with an empty plate, she realized that she’d lost track of the man with the bandaged eye and maybe-bleached hair. But his purpose had been served already. That was the worth of strangers — they gave you something to talk about, compare yourself to.

A moment later Allison heard a baby begin to cry, and looked instinctively for the sound, toward the doorway.

*

The bulb in the ceiling belonged in an interrogation room, blasting the toilet with a wretched glare. Tom washed his hands while someone grunted over in the stall. Its wooden partition was thick with white paint, full of gouges and graffiti — crude boasts, pleas for company, the occasional agnostic prayer.

In Magic Marker, black and bold:
This fucking life had better be worth it.

Wet-handed, Tom looked into a mirror turned cruel by the light. Flaws were exaggerated and assets nullified. Still, it only worked with what it was given. Squint lines when there was nothing to squint at. So would he do away with them if he could? Shed a few years, smooth out that character? Some mornings, why, he had so much character he hardly even recognized himself.

She was drawing him in, even if she hadn’t meant to. That which could hurt was always more appealing than that which could not. Three days, and everything Allison had brought with her into his van on the first was still there, only more of it: Her smile was warmer, her laughter louder, her silences sadder, and her curiosity sharper. And somewhere in that purse was her gun.

Final rustlings from the stall — hoisted pants and shuffling shoes, a loud flush. The wooden door banged open and there stood the man from the counter, one eye bandaged and the other staring as if startled. He clutched a bag of Doritos.

Tom nodded, took a step away from the sink to give him room, plucking brown paper towels while the man wet his hands under the faucet. Every move looking too forced, too mannered.

“Have we met before?” Tom couldn’t help asking. “Because I know I’ve seen you someplace before.”

The man was coaxing a palmful of pink soap from the crusty dispenser. “That your usual pickup line?” He tilted his head toward the graffiti. “Write an ad on the wall next time, why don’t you. It’ll weed out the straights.”

“My mistake.”

“Course, it might bring out the fag-bashers instead. But that’s the chance you people take.”

“My mistake, I said. I don’t know you.”

“Fucking-A right you don’t know me.”

But he did. From somewhere, he did, and this guy knew it. Tom was getting a strange read on the situation, something off balance here. He could either walk away and keep wondering, or stir the pot to see what churned up. And walking away was no good — too many uncertainties in life already.

Tom wadded his damp towels and tossed them into the trash. “Maybe you can settle a bet I got going out there.”

Now the guy looked confused, on unsure ground. “A bet.”

“A bet, yeah. The woman I’m with, she’s dying to know.” Tom pointed at the blond brush cut jutting from the man’s head. “Is that color natural, or is that a bleach job?”

The cyclopean eye blinked rapidly. “Is this for real? What kind of question is that, you ask another guy that in a toilet?” He was shaking his head now, indignant. “You’re worse than some fudgepacker, man, you are
rude
. But you wanna know so bad? Yeah, it
is
my color!” He stopped, face pinched and inquisitive. “Which were you betting on?”

“Me? Bleach.”

Then Tom had it, memory connecting the man with another café not very different from this one. No eye patch and with a woman whose own red hair had looked equally improbable. Only a few days ago. What were the odds of this?

“Arizona,” Tom said. “Coyote Ridge.”

“Shit,” the man said, rolling his head about in disgust. When he thrust one hand beneath his sport coat, Tom began to wonder if he hadn’t stirred the pot a little too hard this time.

CHAPTER 17

The crying baby was slumped to one side of his stroller as if beset by all the miseries that ever were. His mother was trying to maneuver the stroller through the café’s door with one arm while supporting a sluggish toddler upon her hip with the other. As her third child, a boy a year older, strayed ahead outside, oblivious, the stubborn door jammed against one of the stroller’s wheels.

“Jacob!” his mother called. “You get your little bottom back here and—” But he was gone. Allison could see him through the window, prancing across the parking lot.

She was farthest from the door but first to move, the others in the café pretending not to notice, or saving face with false starts now that it was taken care of.

“Thanks,” the woman said after Allison freed the stroller and took over pushing it for her. The baby might have been no happier for it but his mother certainly was. “I keep telling God he should have us grow another arm for every one of these critters we carry to term, but so far all I’m getting’s a big fat no.”

“It’d just be more hands to wring,” said Allison.

“So how old are yours, then?”

“Three and five,” she said, the words so smooth and natural they didn’t even feel like a lie.

This woman appeared younger than Allison by several years, and already three children under age four. It agreed with her, though, and if she looked tired, it was not with regret. Her sandy hair was functionally short, her clothes durable. Allison wondered what her days were like. What her last thought was before sleep and her first upon awakening; what dreams she dreamed in between. And if, when she prayed, she said thanks.

Will I ever…?
Allison wondered, and didn’t finish.

The sleepy middle child was belted into the car, the stroller folded while Allison held the baby. He wiggled against her arms, squirmed against her stranger’s breast, then began to relax as she gently rocked and twirled. Tears dwindled to snuffles, and she kissed his porcelain forehead, smooth and moist and sweet.

His mother smiled back over her shoulder while leaning half into the car. “You’ve not lost the touch, that’s for sure.”

“No,” said Allison. “Nothing’s ever lost.”

Jacob had been circling them, arms extended like the wings of a plane, and his mother got him to land in the backseat. Oklahoma plates hung on the car, its fenders creased with old scrapes. One headlight held in place with duct tape. Allison handed over the baby boy and said goodbye and watched the car roll off the lot, too aware of the sudden emptiness in her arms.

She turned to rejoin Tom back inside, and caught sight of a familiar face peeking at her from another car several yards away. Its owner tried to duck from sight again, not quite fast enough, and if she wasn’t the last person in the world Allison expected to see right now, Madeline DeCarlo ran at least a very close second.

*

Gunther couldn’t understand why it was coming down this way. In the toilet of a cruddy diner in some flyspeck Texas town? It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. All he’d wanted was a closer look at this St. John guy, some chips, and a chance to peacefully unload breakfast. These were not extravagant wishes. So Thomas St. John and Allison Willoughby wanted to eat? Gunther praised their timing — he could take care of all his humble needs in one stop.

Except now the leather freak had somehow recognized him.

It went deeper than the face. He’d recognized intent, knowing in the same instant as Gunther that they wouldn’t be walking out of here like two civilized strangers. Thomas St. John was fast on the uptake, you had to give him that.

Gunther went for steel, yanking the Arizona deputy’s gun from his waistband, remembering too late he hadn’t finished washing his soapy hands. The pistol squirted from his grip, slick as a melon seed, and smashed against the mirror. It fell toward the sink, to bounce amid a brittle shower of glass and the crunch of Doritos.

They both lunged for it, Gunther throwing a rough shoulder to slam St. John against the rest room door, St. John thrusting with a piledriver blow using the heel of his hand. No street brawler’s move — it looked to have been delivered with all the authority of the U.S. military, and caught Gunther along the side of the jaw with a jolt verging on dislocation.

He punched short and hard into the center of St. John’s black shirt, just below his breastbone. If a man can’t breathe, he can’t do much else. Somebody must’ve taught St. John this, too, although to go for the throat. Gunther averted his head barely in time to absorb on the side of the neck a glancing chop from the knife edge of St. John’s hand. A solid hit might have caved in his entire voicebox. Suddenly this was a bit more truculence than he really cared to handle.