In the convenience store, he bought half a dozen small cans of tomato juice and a box of crackers. Leaving the store, stowing the food inside his jacket, he turned toward the truck parking area but then veered away again. They had a guard on it.
A lot of these places had trouble with minor thefts out of the trucks while the truckers ate or slept or showered. Or screwed. So the gas station would hire a guard, just a big dumb guy with a billy club to walk around among the trucks, keep them safe. He was always a guy guaranteed to be bored enough to welcome the rare opportunity to use the club; though he might ask one or two questions while reaching for it.
Parker had meant to get inside a truck that looked to be headed eastbound, but not if it meant leaving a dead guard outside. So he turned away and walked over to one of the concrete picnic tables nobody ever uses, and waited.
He knew what he was waiting for. A couple, in their forties or fifties. More and more, the owner-driven big rigs are operated by couples, people whose kids are grown or who never happened to have any. Wife and husband share the driving and take turns sleeping in the cot behind the main bench seat. They own the truck together, so nobody’s an employee. It keeps her out of the house and him out of trouble, and it works out better than two guys going into a partnership.
He wanted a couple because he needed to be invited aboard. A singleton trucker might not like the look of Parker as a passenger, might be more curious about him than helpful toward him. A male pair wouldn’t want another male in their midst. But for a husband-wife, with nothing but each other and the radio for all those miles and all those days, it would be like inviting somebody onto their porch. A little conversation, a little change of pace.
He waited twenty minutes, watching people go by, getting a few inquisitive stares. He drank one of the cans of tomato juice and went over to toss the can in the trash basket, then went back to sit and wait some more.
Then here they came. He knew they were right the instant they walked out of the cafe. Midfifties, both overweight from sitting in the truck all the time, dressed alike in boots and jeans and windbreakers and black cowboy hats, they were obviously comfortable together, happy, telling each other stories. Parker rose and walked toward them, and they stopped, grinning at him, as though they’d expected him.
They had. “I knew it,” the man said, and said to his wife, “Didn’t I tell you?”
“Well, it was pretty obvious,” she said.
Parker said, “You know I want a lift.”
The man gestured at the building behind him. “We saw you sitting out here, speculated about you.”
The woman said, “We don’t have that much to distract us.”
“You were here too long to be waiting for a partner,” the man said. “Or a wife. So you want a lift. But you let half a dozen fellas go by. I said to Gail here, ‘He’s looking for a couple, cause he knows we won’t turn him down.’”
“After I saw you throw the tomato can away,” she said, “and not litter, I said, ‘All right. If he asks, we’ll say yes.’”
“If you’re headed east,” the man said.
“I am,” Parker said, and put his hand out. “My name’s John.”
“I’m Marty,” the man said, “and this is Gail.”
They started walking, Parker beside them, and Marty said, “Where you headed?”
“New Jersey.”
“Well, we’ll get you to Baltimore, and you can work it out from there.”
“I could walk it from Baltimore,” Parker said.
16
Their truck was a blue Sterling Aero Bullet Plus, one of the biggest long-haul tractors on the road, with room enough to stand upright in the sleeper box behind the seat, and a separate door to that area on the right side, behind the regular passenger door. No one would be using the bunk right now; Gail would drive, with Marty in the middle on the wide bench seat, and Parker on the right.
“We’re still on California time,” Marty said, as Gail started them up, “which is why the late lunch. We probably won’t want dinner until late, either.”
“That’s fine,” Parker said.
The truck nosed out of its place, Gail turning the big wheel, and as they followed the truck lane around behind the station building, headed for the interstate on-ramp, Parker saw a state police car moving slowly along an aisle over in the other parking area, the one for cars. He didn’t turn his head to watch it, and neither Marty nor Gail seemed to notice it.
It was a different experience, being up here in this high cab, streaming straight eastward toward the night, the remnants of red sun low to the horizon behind streaks of cloud and pollution. You looked down on the tops of cars, across at other truckers, and it felt as though the load in the trailer was pushing the cab rather than the cab providing the power. Gail set the cruise control button on the steering wheel to 77, and they ran smoothly in the river of moderate traffic.
Once they were up to speed, part of the flow, Gail said, “There we are. Anybody want the radio?”
“Not now, Gail,” Marty said. “You get tired of local news.” To Parker he said, “Don’t you?”
“Yes, I do,” Parker said.
Marty said, “You don’t mind my saying so, you don’t seem like a man spends much time in parking lots, looking for a ride home.”
“I’m not,” Parker said. He’d known he’d have to explain himself, and was ready. Everybody on the highway believes the country-and-western songs, so he’d sing them one. “I’m embarrassed to tell you,” he began. “Usually — excuse this, Gail — usually I got good instincts when it comes to women.”
“Ho ho,” Marty said.
“Well, there I was in Vegas—”
“Ha ha!” Marty said.
Gail, looking at him past her husband, said, “I thought they cleaned Vegas up.”
“Maybe so,” Parker said. “But Vegas cleaned me out I hope you don’t mind, I don’t want to go through the details—”
“Not at all,” Gail said.
“I learned my lesson, this time,” Parker assured them. “Back in Jersey, I got a car, and a house, and a bank account, so I’ll be okay.”
“Good,” Gail said.
“Just don’t introduce me to anybody between here and there,” Parker said. “You know what I mean.”
“Hah,” Marty said.
Jouncing woke Parker out of therapeutic sleep, and when he lifted his head, oriented himself in the dashboard lights, they were leaving the highway, bouncing down a badly maintained off-ramp toward a small country road. Parker had been sleeping against the right door, and Marty was now at the wheel, Gail nowhere in sight, the curtain closed over the sleeper box. Parker swallowed. “What’s up?”
“Oh, could be delays, up ahead,” Marty said. “Seemed like a good idea, go around it.”
“Go around what?”
“A few fellas coming the other way,” Marty explained, “mentioned on the radio, there’s a roadblock a few miles up ahead.”
“Roadblock?” Parker shifted in the seat, trying to get more comfortable after sleeping in his clothes. “After drunk drivers?”
“Probably,” Marty said. “They always take the opportunity, long as they’ve got you stopped, check every goddam thing they can think of. Looking for drugs, illegals, overweight. Check your license, your manifest, your log. You can kill an hour, one of those places, just on line, waiting your turn. Better to get off, take one of these slow roads, come back up on the highway a little later.”
“Well,” Parker said, “drunk drivers can be trouble.”
“Sure they can,” Marty agreed. “Get em off the road. But it could be anything, up there. Maybe they’re looking for somebody escaped from prison, that happens sometimes, I even heard it on the local news, somewhere along here, the trip out.”