“First thing tomorrow.”
“Can I come with you?”
“No.”
Lucy felt a lump swelling in her throat. “Don’t you like me?”
“Of course,” Orson said. “But I can’t take you with me, I’m sorry.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“That’s for you to figure out. Are you going home?”
“No. And my car’s booted. I only have a hundred and fifty dollars and my guitar case.”
Orson reached into his pocket, opened his wallet, pulled out a roll of bills. “Here,” he said. “This should get you started.”
Lucy thumbed through the money. Almost five hundred dollars.
“Thank you,” she said, but the sadness was still there. “How am I supposed to get anywhere? I don’t have a car.”
“You could hitchhike,” Luther said.
“That’s dangerous.”
“You’ll have to be careful,” Orson said. “Although, I have a feeling, it’s the poor people who pick you up that we should be more concerned for.”
Luther laughed. “You need to get your hands on some painkillers. Oxycodone. Something hard-hitting that you can drug people with. That’s the only way you’ll be able to overpower someone bigger than yourself. And let’s face it. Everyone’s bigger than you.”
“Seriously.” Orson reached across the table and touched Lucy’s hand. “You have to be careful. You have to learn to read people. One day, you’re going to meet someone out there like me and Luther, only they may not be so hot to take you under their wing. They might rather hang you up in a shower.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“How?”
“I won’t trust anybody.”
“Good.”
Lucy squeezed his hand. “Thank you, Orson,” she said. “I’m glad I met you. You too, Luther.”
Luther smiled. It was still scary, but for the first time, he didn’t look like he was thinking about killing her.
They walked Lucy through the lobby and out the revolving doors of the hotel. Bellhops were stacking suitcases on luggage carts and hailing cabs.
“You could stay one more night,” Orson said.
“Thanks, but I’m ready to go.” She wrapped her arms around Orson and squeezed him. “I’ll never forget you.”
He knelt down in front of her. “You’re a special girl, Lucy. You know what you are, and you’re not afraid of it, and I admire that. I admire the hell out of it.”
She turned to Luther and shook his hand, then lifted her guitar case and walked away from the hotel, out onto the sidewalk into the night.
Lucy had walked ten blocks before the first pair of headlights appeared in the distance.
She dropped her guitar case on the pavement, a small pit of nerves tightening in her stomach.
The car was getting closer.
She could hear its engine, and for the first time in her life, but certainly not the last, she stuck out her thumb.
A minivan pulled over to the curb and the front passenger window rolled down, a thirty-something woman smiling under the dome light.
“You need a ride, sweetie?” she asked.
Lucy conjured up a smile. “If it’s not too much trouble. It’s really cold out here.”
“I’ve got groceries in the front seat, but you’re welcome to climb in the back.”
Lucy pulled open the side door and stepped into the minivan, stowing her guitar case on the floor and sitting down beside a car seat, where an infant slept.
The woman looked back between the seats at Lucy.
“Just try to keep it down, if you don’t mind,” she said quietly. “As you can see, my little angel is sleeping.”
“No problem,” Lucy whispered, staring down at the baby, thinking, No Luther, not everyone’s bigger than me.
Wisconsin, 2007
1
Taylor liked toes.
He wasn’t a pervert. At least, not that kind of pervert. Taylor didn’t derive sexual gratification from feet. Women had other parts much better suited for that type of activity. But he was a sucker for a tiny foot in open-toed high heels, especially when the toenails were painted.
Painted toes were yummy.
The truck stop whore wore sandals, the cork wedge heels so high her toes were bent. She had small feet—they looked like a size five—and her nails matched her red mini skirt. Taylor spotted her through the windshield as she walked over to his Peterbilt, wiggling her hips and wobbling a bit. Taylor guessed she was drunk or stoned. Perhaps both.
He climbed out of his cab. When his cowboy boots touched the pavement he reached his hands up over his head and stretched, his vertebrae cracking. The night air was hot and sticky with humidity, and he could smell his own sweat.
The whore blew smoke from the corner of her mouth. “Hiya, stranger. My name’s Candi. With an i.”
“I’m Taylor. With a T.”
He smiled. She giggled, then hiccupped.
Even in the dim parking lot light, Candi with an i was nothing to look at. Mid-thirties. Cellulite. Twenty pounds too heavy for her skirt and halter top. She wore sloppy make-up, her lipstick smeared, making Taylor wonder how many truckers she’d already blown on this midnight shift.
But she did have very cute toes. She dropped her cigarette and crushed it into the pavement, and Taylor licked his lower lip.
“Been on the road a long time, Taylor?”
“Twelve hours in from Cinci. My ass is flatter than roadkill armadillo.”
She eyed his rig. He was hauling four bulldozers on his flatbed trailer. They were heavy, and his mileage hadn’t been good, making this run much less profitable than it should have been.
But Taylor didn’t become a trucker to get rich. He did it for other reasons.
“You feeling lonely, Taylor? You looking for a little company?”
Taylor knew he could use a little company right now. He could also use a meal, a hot shower, and eight hours of sleep.
It was just a question of which need he’d cater to first.
He looked around the truck stop lot. Pretty full for late night in Bumblefuck, Wisconsin. Over a dozen rigs and just as many cars. The 24 hour gas station had a line for the pumps, and Murray’s Eats, the all-night diner, appeared full.
On either side of the cloverleaf there were a few other restaurants and gas stations, but Murray’s was always busy because they boasted more than food and diesel. Besides the no-hassle companionship the management and local authorities tolerated, Murray’s had a full-size truck wash, a mechanic on duty, and free showers.
After twelve hours of caffeine sweating in this muggy Midwestern August, Taylor needed some quality time with a bar of soap just as badly as he needed quality time with a parking lot hooker.
But it didn’t make sense to shower first, when he was only going to get messy again.
“How much?” he asked.
“That depends on—”
“Half and half,” he cut her off, not needing to hear the daily menu specials.
“Twenty-five bucks.”
She didn’t look worth twenty-five bucks, but he wasn’t planning on paying her anyway, so he agreed.
“Great, sugar. I just need to make a quick stop at the little girls’ room and I’ll be right back.”
She spun on her wedges to leave, but Taylor caught her thin wrist. He knew she wasn’t going to the washroom. She was going to her pimp to give him the four Ps: Price, preferences, plate number, parking location. Taylor didn’t see any single men hanging around; only other whores, and none of them were paying attention. Her pimp was probably in the restaurant, unaware of this particular transaction, and Taylor wanted to keep it that way.