“Why are you doing all this? Why didn’t you go for the twenty-five thousand dollars?”
“I don’t know. Impulse? My romantic illusions, maybe.”
But then he says, “That’s not true. Not altogether. The way you looked standing on the side of the road with the baby in your arm-Madonna and child. But I’m not a teen-ager any more. I don’t operate on sentiment. You know what it was? It was because you trusted me. I couldn’t let you down.”
“I was too tired not to.”
“Well I don’t care why you did it.”
Later at 65 mph on the Interstate she climbs down into the passenger seat and has a long conversation with Ellen after which she puts the baby to sleep in the bed. Then she says to the truck driver: “Last night I was going to outbid the opposition. I was going to offer you thirty thousand dollars to save me and my daughter.”
“Jesus. Why didn’t you?”
“I just forgot.”
“Maybe that’s because you had an instinct that you didn’t need to.”
“You’re coming on awfully strong as the good Samaritan.”
A quick glance at her out of the side of his eye. “You really don’t want to trust anybody, do you. It’s very hard for you.”
“The last man I trusted-”
There’s no need to finish it. She subsides and peers forward through the windshield: streams of cars on the highway; grey sky. He’s got the air conditioning on and she feels chilled.
Her mind drifts. They run on into the afternoon. Occasionally she risks a glance toward him. The truck-driving dreamer in daylight; after a while she decides that he seems to have a deep understanding of silences.
68
“Where are we now?”
“Out of Chicago, headed for Minneapolis-St. Paul.”
“What time is it?”
“Nine, maybe nine-thirty.”
“What night is this?”
“Friday. I forget the date. It’s the damn Labor Day weekend. Sunday drivers all over the place.”
“Thanks for stopping to let me buy these clothes and all.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“You expecting to stop again soon?”
“We could take a break next service area if you want. I’m already half a day behind-another few stops won’t make much difference. We’re taking a route a little farther north than they’d guess from my manifest. That’s just in case somebody happens to be looking for this truck, I mean. I doubt they are but what the hell.”
“I don’t know how to begin to-”
“Don’t. You hungry again or what?”
“I’ve got to make a phone call.”
“Okay,” he says. Then after a little while: “Want to talk about it?”
“It’s something that came on me just a little while ago. You know how a fresh idea sometimes will pop into your mind when you’re half asleep?”
“I get some of my songs that way.”
“I’ve been running away for months. The baby and I are still running right now. I’m tired of it. Hell, I’m just tired period.”
“You can talk about it if you like. I’m a good listener.”
“You really are. And I probably owe you some truth. It’s the least I can do. Who knows. Maybe you can turn it into a song.”
“And sell it to Willie Nelson and make my fortune. You go right ahead. We’ve still got a couple thousand miles to go.”
“How do you keep awake? Do you take pills?”
“I used to. Went to cocaine for a while too. Lucky I never freebased but once or twice-but even so spent three months in a rehab program getting off everything. Now I settle for coffee, a little No-Doz now and then. I get tired I go to sleep. I’ve got a funny metabolism though-I can go a long time without sleep sometimes.”
“I tried cocaine once. Made my nose run for three days.”
“You’re lucky if that’s all the contact you had. Stuff can turn you inside out. You get real paranoid.”
“I know. I’ve seen it. I’m a prude about it.” She hesitates. Then: “I left my husband when I found out he was dealing coke.”
“This the guy that’s after you now?”
“The same. I don’t mean street-corner peddling-I’m talking airplane loads. He’s in the importing business. The wholesale end, you might say.”
“You married this man?”
“I married him. Had his child. This feels awkward but I like telling you about it. I’ve never talked to anybody about it.”
“You just go right ahead. I’m starting to write that song already. Make up for that twenty-five thousand dollars I didn’t collect.”
“There’s not so much to tell. I decided to take the baby away from him and raise her myself. I knew he’d try to find us. He’s got a lot of money to spend on detectives and whatever it takes. It seemed obvious we wouldn’t have much of a chance unless we had a lot of money to spend on keeping out of his reach.”
“You mean it’s not just the baby he’s trying to get back. You took his money too.”
“It was her money. He owed it to her. Not to me, but the baby.”
“Well you’ve got her now. That’s what counts.”
“You’re very trusting. You haven’t even heard my husband’s side of the story. I stole his money and I stole his child. I don’t feel guilty and I have no sympathy for him. What does that make me?”
“I don’t want to hear his side of it. I believe you.”
“Why? I’m a total stranger.”
“Look here: the only way you can find out whether you can trust somebody is to trust him.”
“You mean trust someone and see what happens.”
“You trusted me. See what happened? Got yourself a ride fit for a queen in this luxurious Cadillac limousine.”
She’s thinking of Bert with a smoking rifle in his hand and the flailing body of a deer whirling against a tree. She says, “I know how the drug business operates. It can’t exist without people getting killed. I don’t know if he’s ever pointed a gun and shot someone dead. But he’s capable of it.… I stole from him. I guess that doesn’t make me the good guy. You have such a nice simple belief in things. I trusted someone else recently and it didn’t work out so hot.”
“What happened?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve been trying to replay it in my mind. Do you know anything about helicopters?”
“Happens I do. When I was nineteen I used to work on them in the navy. Engine mechanic. Why?”
“There’s the service area coming up. Can we stop at a phone?”
“You bet.”
She’s looking at the shotgun. He’s wedged it up into the foot-well on the passenger side where it’s out of reach of the baby’s curious proddings. With her eyes focused on the trigger she says, “You know I hate the son of a bitch. I want my revenge. It came to me a little while ago how I can fight back.”
69
Trusting Doug to look after the baby, she changes five dollars into coins and gets the phone numbers from directory assistance for the New York State Police and the Clinton County sheriff’s office and the appropriate branch of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, which turns out to be in Burlington, Vermont.
It’s best to call all three, she’s decided, because knowing Bert’s penchant for paying people off he may have bribed one or another of them and it only makes sense to cover all the bases. At least one of them is bound to take action.
She tells each of them more or less the same thing:
“Never mind who I am. Take this down. Got your pencil? Ready? There’s an unregistered private landing field on federal land two miles east of Albert LaCasse’s house on the Fort Keene road. An airplane will land there at midnight tomorrow to deliver several million dollars’ worth of narcotics. Albert LaCasse and his men will be there to accept the delivery personally, and you can catch them red-handed. You’re welcome and good night.”