Laney pulled down a couple of belts and compared them to the loop of string. One was close enough that she believed it would work. She called to Mitch.
“What?” He stepped back into the office. “Find it?”
“I think so.”
“Good.”
“You didn’t find the attendant? Did you check the rest room?”
“No rest room,” Mitch said.
“There’s got to be one.” Laney looked at the belt in her hand. “This thing doesn’t have a price on it.”
“Can’t be more than ten bucks.”
Laney frowned at Mitch. “Well, I’m not leaving ten bucks if the damn thing only costs three ninety-five. Did you look around back?”
“Yeah, I checked during an out-of-body experience,” Mitch said.
“You don’t have to be a snot.”
Laney led the way out and around the broken-down building, pausing to look across the desert in the direction of town. Behind the station was a door marked “Wash.” Laney knocked and fell back a step.
“Go on inside,” she said to Mitch.
Mitch looked at her.
“In case he’s in the middle of something.”
“I don’t want to see him if he is,” Mitch said.
“Go on. Don’t be a baby.”
Mitch opened the door, leaned inside a bit, and came back. “Oh, fuck,” he said.
“What is it?” Laney moved forward to the doorway and saw the red-covered floor. “God. Is that blood?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.” Mitch turned away and let the door close.
Laney looked all around, feeling dizzy, her heart racing. She studied two derelict cars some yards away in the sage. Mitch was looking around, too.
“It’s a gas station rest room,” he said. “The blood doesn’t mean a thing.”
Laney and Mitch went back to the front of the station and into the office. A lizard on the counter startled Laney. It was then that she noticed the blood on the floor behind the desk.
“Mitch, look here.”
Mitch did and shook his head. “This is bad. We’d better call the cops.”
Laney reached for the phone and listened for a tone. She looked at Mitch and shook her head. She watched Mitch run out across the yard, past the pumps to the phone booth. He held the receiver and severed cord in the air for Laney to see before throwing it to the ground.
Laney felt exposed. Mitch walked back to her.
“What do you think?” he asked.
Laney looked at the pump belt still clutched in her fist. “We can go back and get the truck, then drive to town for the police or we can just walk to town from here. Same amount of time. Probably take longer to go to the truck and put this thing on.”
Mitch looked at the road. “I’m not sure about walking out there either way, you know?”
“It’s one or the other, Mitch. We can’t just stay here.”
“Shit.”
Laney went to the fountain and drank more water. “I say we go back to the truck.”
“Why?”
She shrugged and thought for a while, looking at the road. “No cars passed us either way. So they must have gone in the direction of town.”
Mitch nodded. “Yeah, that sounds right. Okay, let’s get going then.”
Laney drank more water, drank until she was full. She licked her lips and said, “I suggest you drink some more, too.”
Mitch did.
They started walking back in the direction of Laney’s truck. Laney became aware again of the belt in her hand. She considered hiding it under her shirt. If there were a crook or killer and he drove by and saw it, he’d know she’d been to the station. She was also troubled by the fact that technically the belt was stolen. What if the police found them and decided they had something to do with whatever the hell had happened at the station? She carried the belt close to her side and away from the road. The rubber was slimy against her sweating palm.
A big brown Oldsmobile came toward them on its way to town. Laney waved for the car to stop, but the elderly couple tightened visibly, swerved to the other lane, and kept going at an increased clip. The idea of being blamed for some crime seemed less farfetched as she imagined the old couple finding the blood in the wash room. She walked faster.
“I don’t like this,” Mitch said, sounding close to tears.
Laney decided she hated Mitch and she hated herself for being with him, for allowing him to be with her. So, he had ridden a bull. Big deal. Besides, he had been thrown before the gate was fully open. Trying not to think about the present situation, though, she spoke to him, “Mitch, what do you want to do with your life?”
He was silent for a few seconds. “I don’t know.” Then he smiled. “Drink beer and get lucky.”
“You know,” she said, “somewhere there’s a twit with half a brain and big tits who would think that’s funny. And between the two of you, you’d have half a brain.”
“Fuck you.”
“You wish.”
“Hey, you know, this stuff ain’t my fault.”
Laney shook her head. He was right; it wasn’t his fault. But that didn’t make him any less despicable and sad, it didn’t make him any less like the string of duds Laney had found herself with in recent years.
“This is your fucking brother’s fault,” Mitch said.
“Shut up.”
“If the little asshole hadn’t run off and gotten drunk, then …”
“And if your father hadn’t poked your mother,” Laney said and then was sorry she’d said it.
“That’s the mouth I’m talking about,” Mitch whined.
“Sorry,” Laney said.
They walked on another forty or fifty yards.
“It’s no big deal,” he said. “We just put that belt on and drive to town and tell the cops what we saw. That’s all there is to it.”
“Okay.” A chill ran through her.
Mitch reached for her hand.
“Don’t touch me.”
Laney heard the car coming up behind them, a loud engine in need of a muffler. It came from the direction of town and slowed as it approached. She was afraid to look back, but afraid not to look. If it was the police she didn’t want to appear guilty. She was confused by the fact that she felt guilty. She glanced back and saw a rusty yellow mid-seventies LeMans. A man with long blond hair was driving and a man with a shaved head was trying to lean out of the partially lowered rear window. She saw that Mitch was looking at them, too.
“Don’t look at them,” Laney muttered.
Mitch looked forward as they kept walking.
The car was now beside them, matching their walking speed. Laney looked again.
“Gotta problem?” the driver asked, leaning out of his window, his free arm hanging down loose, his hand seeming to be mere inches from the pavement.
“No, no problem,” Mitch said.
“Why you walking?” the driver asked.
“Yeah, why you walking?” the bald man in the back seat echoed.
Laney and Mitch kept walking. “Just walking,” Laney said. She tried to hide the pump belt against her side.
“Just walking,” said the man in the back seat, laughing. Laney didn’t look, but imagined him bouncing up and down. Bouncing up and down just like her brother did when he was with his rowdy friends. Thinking of her brother in connection with these thugs made her feel bad, then more frightened.
The car rolled a few yards ahead of them and Laney saw the man sitting beside the driver for the first time. His face was buried in a dirty red beard.
“You married?” the driver asked.
Laney stopped and looked right at them. “Just leave us the hell alone.” She remembered the belt and tried to conceal it.
The men hooted.
“Yeah, we’re married,” Mitch said.
“You’re a lucky man,” the driver said. “Where you walking to? Want a ride? We’ll give you a ride.”