“I don’t think so. You’ve stayed well back. He hasn’t seen us.”
“I’m going past it anyway.”
He did, not turning off at the blacktop, glancing down it as they drove by to see if the truck had pulled over, to wait for them.
But it hadn’t: the white eye was getting smaller as the truck lumbered down the blacktop.
Crane turned around on a side road and went back. Followed the truck down the blacktop.
Or tried to.
“This time I did lose him,” he said. “I got overcautious, damnit.”
“Keep going.”
“It’s no use. I blew it. He’s gone.”
“What’s that?”
“What?”
“There’s a sign up there.”
And there was: white letters on green, SANITARY LANDFILL, with an arrow to the right, and another blacktop.
Crane pulled in. Slowly. Just around the corner was a second sign, black letters on white: DEAD END.
He paused. “What do you think?”
“We’ve come this far,” she said.
He drove down the narrow blacktop. The clear, moonlit night gave them a good view of the land on either side: at the right the land was flat, with bare, black clay, ground that had been turned over, like farmland prepared for planting; at the left another stretch of similar ground dropped off into a deep man-made gulley, the earth scarred by bulldozer tracks, the ground ripped at various seams, as if the aftermath of an earthquake.
“Cut your lights,” Boone told him.
He did.
They came around a bend and the road ended and opened out into a graveled area, just in front of a chain-wire fence with gates and two signs, a small one — ALL TRUCKS MUST BE COVERED — and a larger one — SANITARY LANDFILL, with a permit number listed underneath, operating hours (8 AM to 4 PM Monday thru Friday, 8 AM to Noon Saturday), and regulations (Public access during operating hours only; Scavenging not permitted; Unauthorized disposal punishable by $100 fine). Beyond the chain-wire fence were a couple of tin sheds, a large one at left for equipment storage, probably, a smaller one at right that was apparently the office. Several bulldozers stood unattended. At the left and right were high ridges of earth that blocked anything else along the horizon from view, from this vantage point at least. In the center was the drop-off of a landfill ditch.
The flatbed was already inside the chain-wire fence. The two guys from the truck — the bruiser in the thermal jacket and his partner, a tall skinny guy in denim work clothes and heavy gloves — got down out of the truck and were joined by a couple of guys in hard hats and work jackets. One of the hard hats began using a small forklift truck to unload the fifty-five-gallon barrels from the flatbed. The truckers helped him, guided the drums onto the forklift. The other hard hat watched and waited.
Boone used her Nikon.
It took over an hour to unload the truck and haul each drum over and dump it. Crane wondered why he and Boone hadn’t left yet; but she was still taking pictures, onto her second roll, now.
Then the hard hat who’d been standing, watching, climbed up on one of the bulldozers and started it up. It rumbled over to the landfill ditch. From where Crane and Boone were they couldn’t see it, exactly, but it was clear what the bulldozer was doing: the drums were being covered with a layer of dirt.
“Those truckers won’t be needing to hang around,” Crane whispered. “We better take off before they do.”
“Okay,” Boone said, still snapping the Nikon.
Crane backed out, around the corner, turning the car around in the road in five long, slow turns, expecting the headlights of the flatbed to bear down on them momentarily.
But that didn’t happen.
And they exited the blacktop onto the other blacktop and drove and, as they neared the four-lane that would lead them to the toll bridge and New Jersey, Boone said, “There’s a motel over there. What do you think? I’m dead.”
“I wouldn’t mind stopping myself,” he said.
They took a room. It had two double beds. Boone took a shower, came out in a towel and discreetly got into one of the beds. She then began snoring.
He smiled. He didn’t blame her for being tired: it was four-thirty in the morning, and the intensity of what they’d just been through had been draining.
He didn’t bother with a shower; he was too exhausted. He got in the other bed and was just about asleep when he heard a truck out on the highway. Just a truck going by.
He went out to the Datsun, got the gun out from under the seat, and slipped it under the bed.
Then he slept.
Chapter Fourteen
Her voice woke him.
She wasn’t talking to him; she was on the phone, checking in with the neighbor she’d left Billy with, another young divorced woman who’d been very nice about looking after the boy from midnight till two each night, no questions asked. Boone had explained to her friend that any one of the nights might turn into an all-night thing, as it had yesterday.
“Billy got off to school all right?” she was saying. “Good. Thank you, Kate, you’re a pal.”
Boone was sitting on the edge of the bed Crane was in, using the phone on the nightstand between the two beds. Her back was to him. Bare back.
Soon she hung up and went over and got back in her own bed, sitting up, blankets down around her waist. She stretched and yawned. Scratched her head. Her hair was tousled. Her breasts were not large, not small. Firm white breasts, delicately veined; pert pink tips. He noted this through eyes that pretended to be shut.
She smiled at him. “You’re awake, aren’t you, Crane?”
He opened his eyes. Smiled sheepishly.
She didn’t cover her breasts.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Hi,” he said. Sitting up.
She got out of bed and walked bare-ass into the bathroom. Water ran in the sink.
She came back out, smiling. Her body was very lean, with a high, rather bony rib cage, making her breasts seem larger than they were. Her pubic triangle was wispy, like a young girl’s.
She sat on the edge of the bed, hands on her knees. “Go rinse out your mouth,” she said. “You’ll feel better. It’s not like having toothbrush and paste, but it’ll help.”
He did so. He was in his shorts but still felt embarrassed walking in front of her, knowing she was looking him over just as he had her. When he came back, she was in bed. His bed.
He got in with her and kissed her, tentatively. She kissed him back, not at all tentatively, and put one of his hands on one of her breasts. The nipple hardened. He was already hard. They kissed and stroked each other for a while. Made love.
It was over rather quickly, too quickly, and he rolled off her, feeling empty.
“Sorry,” he said.
“What are you apologizing about?” she said. “That was nice.”
He sat up in bed and stared at the blank TV screen across the room.
A minute went by, and she said, leaning on an elbow, studying him, “You’re going morose on me, aren’t you?”
“What?”
“You’re feeling guilty. You’re thinking about Mary Beth and feeling guilty.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“You think you cheated on her, don’t you?”
“Boone, please.”
She touched his shoulder. Not wanting to, he looked at her. Her smile was faint, sad, understanding; it was a smile he couldn’t evade.
He looked away and said, “Don’t be with anybody else, she said. ‘Don’t be with anybody but me.’ I can still hear her saying it.”
“She’s gone, Crane.”
“No. Never.”
He cried for a while; she kept her hand on his shoulder.
She said, “This was the first time I’ve done it since Patrick.”