The man’s hand massaged her exposed flesh.
Suddenly it rose up and spanked down.
The slap was audible.
The woman wiggled.
Then she said something.
It sounded like, “Forty-two.”
Waverly held her breath, waiting for the next spank. It didn’t come for a long time, but when it did it was hard, with two more right behind it.
The woman flinched but made no effort to get off.
Then she wiggled her body seductively.
Her head was to the left where she couldn’t see the window even if she turned.
The window was an anonymous portal.
If either of the people inside turned, Waverly and Su-Moon would have plenty of opportunity to duck down. They were invisible. Because of that, they were in no hurry.
The spanks went to a hundred.
Then the woman slid down between the man’s legs and worked her mouth.
Waverly tugged on Su-Moon’s arm and they tiptoed off.
Twenty steps down the dock Su-Moon said, “Her dress was red, did you notice that?”
“Yes I did,” Waverly said. “We need to find out who she is.”
“Why?”
“Because we may have to warn her.”
27
Day One
July 21, 1952
Monday Night
River let out a war cry that shook the night, so pissed at January for leaving him stranded that every fiber of his body ached. She’d regret it, oh how she’d regret it. She’d learn a lesson about screwing with him. She’d learn a lesson she’d never forget, not in a million years.
The keys to all the boxcars were on same ring as the car key.
She had full access to everything.
Right now she was probably rifling through his stuff, grabbing everything that had even a snippet of value.
He walked north at a brisk pace, trying to remember how far it was to that Sunoco station they passed way back.
Ten miles?
Even then, it would be closed.
All he could hope for is that it had an outside phone booth.
Ten miles.
That would take him two and a half hours.
A mile down the road he wandered into the terrain for fifty steps and threw the shovel away, far enough that it wouldn’t be associated with the buried bikers.
The night was black but the road was detectible.
Every so often he turned the flashlight on and shined it around.
The topography was always the same-dirt, rabbit brush, prairie grass and rocks.
Half an hour farther down the road when he flicked the light on, something unexpected happened. A red reflection came from something off the road.
As he got closer, the reflection took the shape of a taillight, two taillights actually.
He headed that way, shining the light on the ground and keeping a lookout for snakes.
A car came into view.
His car?
It looked like it.
He picked up the pace.
Damn it, it was his car.
What the hell was it doing out here?
He trotted to it and got in.
January wasn’t there.
The keys weren’t in the ignition.
They weren’t on the floor or up in the visor or in the glove box or anywhere else.
He slammed his fist on the dash.
Goddamn it!
Then he heard a muffled sound from somewhere outside. It turned out to be a weak voice coming from inside the trunk.
“Help me …”
“January is that you?”
It was.
“River, help me …”
The lid was latched solid.
He shined the flashlight on the ground and found no keys, not there or all the way around. The passenger side door and front fender were smashed in.
He grabbed a rock the size of a gorilla’s fist and beat on the latch.
Wham.
Wham.
Wham.
It dented in but didn’t unlatch.
He beat on it more but still couldn’t bust it.
Then suddenly on the last smash something broke and the lid popped.
Inside was January. Her dress was filthy and ripped to shreds. Her panties were gone. Dried blood was on her face and her eyes were raw and wet. As soon as River bent down, the woman wrapped her arms around him and held on with the strength of someone being pulled from the grave.
28
Day One
July 21, 1952
Monday Afternoon
Wilde’s worst fear materialized when he got back to the office. The door was wide open, no one was inside and the map was gone. He’d screwed up before but never this badly. This was a new personal best. Suddenly the toilet flushed in the adjoining room and Alabama walked in. She looked at his hat, still in hand, not yet thrown at the rack and said, “What’s wrong?”
“There was a map on my desk.”
She scouted around.
“Is that it?”
She pointed to a piece of paper on the floor.
Wilde picked it up and smiled.
Then he tossed his hat at the rack, forgetting to aim to the left. It flew out the window, not a corner of the window, either, smack dab center-nothing but air.
“Ringer,” Alabama said.
“Can you run down and get it for me?”
“Me?”
“Please.”
“I don’t type, I don’t fetch hats,” she said. “We settled that on day one.”
Wilde could argue but he’d lose.
He ran down, got it and brushed the dust off on the way up, stopping at the door and taking aim for the rack. This time he threw to the right. It curved left, grabbed the rack by the edge and stuck.
Alabama was sitting on the desk wiping spilled coffee off the map.
“That’s better,” she said.
Wilde lit a Camel, put the map in his top desk drawer and said, “So how’d it go with the clothes?”
“You got me a sexy red dress,” she said. “You spent more than I wanted you to, but there was nothing I could do to stop you.”
Wilde frowned.
“I’m talking about Secret. Was she in when you got there?”
Alabama nodded.
“She was.”
“And?”
“And, wow. I didn’t know they built them like that on this planet.”
Wilde pictured it.
“What’d she say about the clothes?”
“On that front, I have some good news and some bad news,” she said.
Wilde’s chest tightened.
Bad news.
Damn it.
Bad news was never good.
“Tell me the good news first,” he said.
“Well, the good news is that she absolutely loved the clothes. She changed into them right in front of me. That woman has a body like you can’t even believe. The clothes fit perfectly, thanks to my incredible shopping abilities. I told her you wanted to pick her up at 7:30 and she told me to tell you she was looking forward to it.”
She stopped to sip coffee.
Wilde wrinkled his forehead.
“So what’s the bad news?”
“The bad news is that you’re a good looking guy, Wilde, but you’re not good looking the way Secret is,” she said. “You’ll never land her.”
“That’s the bad news, that I won’t be able to land her?”
She nodded.
“We’ll see about that.”
“I can already tell you, it won’t happen.”
“We’ll see.”
“If you had a better personality, that might get you up to a one in ten chance. But you’re you and you always will be. Therein lies your problem.”
He smiled and blew smoke, then told Alabama about his conversation with Michelle Day, the bartender at the El Ray Club. “She’d never seen this guy before, the one who looks like Robert Mitchum and even has the same first name. I’ve never seen him around either.”