I hunched forward and cleared my throat, a signal for Jade or Lu to explain what we were doing at this awful roadie watering hole (a place Dad and I would go to great distances to avoid; it wasn’t unheard for us to take a twenty-mile detour simply to avoid breaking bread with “men and women who, if one squinted, resembled piles of tires”) but when they still said nothing (Lu, too, was stuffing her mouth with licorice now, chewing goatishly) I realized it was one of those things they couldn’t put into words. Putting it into words made it real and they’d be guilty of something.
For ten minutes, the only sound was an occasional door slam — some loot-stomached trucker coming, going, starving, stuffed — and the angry hisses of the freeway. Visible through the dark trees edging the parking lot was a bridge with an endless bullet-fire of cars, red-and-white sparks shooting into the night.
“Who’ll it be?” Jade asked blandly, looking through the binoculars.
Lu shrugged, chewing her licorice cud. “Don’t know.”
“Fat or skinny.”
“Skinny.”
“See, I think pork this time.”
“She doesn’t like pork.”
“Yes, she does. They’re her Beluga. Reserved for special occasions. Oh.” Jade jolted forward, banging the binoculars on the windshield. “Oh, fuck me…shit.”
“What — is he a baby?”
Jade’s mouth was open. Her lips moved, but there were no words. Then she exhaled heavily: “Ever seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s?”
“No,” Lu said sarcastically, putting her hands on the dashboard and leaning forward to survey the two people who’d just emerged from the restaurant.
“Well”—without looking away from the binoculars, Jade’s right hand plunged into the bag of chips and stuffed a clump into her mouth—“it’s that awful Doc person. Only ancient. Normally, I’d say at least it’s not Rusty Trawler, but in this case I’m not so sure.” She sat back, swallowed, and, with a grim look, handed Lu the binoculars. “Rusty has teeth.”
After a quick glimpse (a revolted expression spilled all over her face), Lu handed me the binoculars. I swallowed and pressed them to my eyes: Hannah Schneider had just left the restaurant. She was walking with a man.
“I always hated Doc,” Lu said softly.
Hannah was dolled up as I’d never seen her before (“painted,” they’d say at Coventry Academy) wearing a furry black coat — I guessed rabbit, due to its teenybopperish look (the zipper graced with a pompom) — gold hoops, dark lipstick charring her mouth. Her hair recoiled from her shoulders and sharp, white high heels peered out of the cuffs of her Saran-tight jeans. When I shifted the binoculars to inspect her companion, I immediately felt sick, because in comparison to Hannah, he was shriveled. Wrinkles Etch A Sketched his face. He was in his late sixties, maybe even early seventies, shorter than she and skinny as a roadside curb. His torso and shoulders were meatless, like thick plaid flannel had been chucked over a picture frame. His hair was pretty thick, his hairline not eroding (his lone, remotely attractive feature). It mopped up whatever light was around, going green as they passed under the floodlight, then an oxidized, bicycle-spoke gray. As he moved down the steps after her — Hannah was walking swiftly, unzipping a weird pink fur purse, searching for her car keys — his bony legs jerked out to the sides like a retractable drying rack.
“Retch, you going to let anyone else look or what?”
I handed Jade the binoculars. She peered through them, gnawing her lip.
“Hope he brought Viagra,” she muttered.
Lu slouched down in her seat and froze as they climbed into Hannah’s car.
“Oh, for God’s sake, you idiot, she can’t see us,” Jade said irritably, though she, too, sat very still, waiting for the Subaru to move out of its space, sneaking behind one of the semis, before starting the car.
“Where are they going?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“Fleabag motel,” Jade said. “She’ll bang the guy for a half-hour to forty-five minutes, then throw him out. I’m always surprised she doesn’t bite off his head like a praying mantis.”
We followed the Subaru (maintaining a polite distance) for three, maybe four miles, soon entering what I assumed was Cottonwood. It was one of those skin-and-bone towns Dad and I had driven through a million times, a town wan and malnourished; somehow it managed to survive on nothing but gas stations, motels, and McDonald’s. Big scablike parking lots scarred the sides of the road.
After fifteen minutes, Hannah switched on her blinker and turned left into a motel, the Country Style Motor Lodge, a white flat arc-shaped building sitting in the middle of a barren lot like a lost pair of dentures. A few maple trees sulked close to the road, others slouched suggestively in front of the Registration Office, as if mimicking the clientele. We pulled in thirty seconds after her, but quickly swung to the right, stopping by a gray sedan, while Hannah parked by the office and disappeared inside. Two or three minutes later, when she reappeared, slimy light from the carport splattered her face and her expression scared me. I saw it only for a few seconds (and she wasn’t exactly close) but to me, she looked like an off TV — no breathy soap opera or courtroom drama, not even a wan western rerun — just blank. She climbed back into the Subaru, started the car, and slowly pulled past us.
“Shit,” squeaked Lu, slipping down in the seat.
“Oh please,” Jade said. “You’d be the crummiest assassin.”
The car stopped in front of one of the rooms on the far left. Doc emerged with his hands in his pockets, Hannah with a minute grin spearing her face. She unlocked the door and they disappeared inside.
“Room 22,” Jade reported from behind the binoculars. Hannah must have immediately pulled the curtains, because when a light flicked on, the drapes, the color of orange cheddar, were completely closed, without a splinter through them.
“Does she know him?” I asked. It was more a far-flung hope than an actual question.
Jade shook her head. “Nope.” She turned around in the seat, staring at me. “Charles and Milton found out about it last year. They were out one night, decided to swing by her house but then passed her car. They followed her all the way out here. She starts at Stuckey’s at 1:45. Eats. Picks one out. The first Friday of every month. It’s the one date she keeps.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know. She’s pretty disorganized. Well, not about this.”
“And she doesn’t…know you know?”
“No way.” Her eyes pelted my face. “And don’t even think about telling her.”
“I won’t,” I said, glancing at Lu, but she didn’t seem to be listening. She sat in her seat as if strapped to an electric chair.