Maybe a visitor dropped by and stopped the fire.
Maybe, somehow, the candle blew out.
If the candle blew out, maybe the bodies hadn’t been discovered yet.
He couldn’t take that chance. He’d better just act as if the car is hot, and get himself a new one.
He swung it onto a dirt turn-out, the tires flinging up clouds of yellow dust. He got out, opened the hood, and leaned under it, waiting.
Soon he heard the sound of an approaching car. He stayed under the hood and reached toward the fan belt. The car sped past. It kept going. He tried the same tactic with two more cars. Neither stopped.
The next time he heard an engine, he leaned under the hood until the car was close, then stood up and made a frustrated face, and waved. The driver shook his head. His face said, “Not a chance, buddy.”
Roy yelled, “Fuck you, too!”
When the next car came, he simply stuck out his thumb. He saw the woman passenger shake her head at the driver. The car kept going. So did the next.
He slammed the hood.
As he stepped to the car’s rear, a van approached. A sunburst was painted on its front. The driver was a woman with straight, black hair. She wore a headband, and a leather vest. He saw her right arm point him out. He waved. He liked the looks of her.
But he didn’t like the looks of the man who called out the passenger window. “Car trouble?” The man’s voice was raspy. He wore a faded, sweatstained cowboy hat, sunglasses, and a black, shaggy mustache. His blue Levi’s jacket was sleeveless. His upper arm bore the tattoo of a dripping stiletto.
“No trouble,” Roy called. “I just stopped to take a leak.”
“Power to you.” The man saluted him with a clenched fist, and the van pulled away.
Roy waited until it was out of sight, then opened the trunk. Joni looked up at him. The hot dog he’d bought at Stinson Beach and tossed into the trunk earlier that morning was gone. The can of Pepsi lay open on its side, empty. Must’ve been tricky, he thought, drinking it in the trunk.
“Climb out,” he said.
He helped her and shut the trunk.
Joni looked around as if wondering where they had stopped, and why. She didn’t seem to find the answer. She looked up at Roy.
“We need a new car,” he said. “You’re gonna help us get it.”
He led her along the roadside. When they were fifty or sixty feet from the rear of his car, he told her to lie down in the northbound lane.
Joni shook her head.
Just as well. He really couldn’t trust her, anyway. She would probably try to run.
He tried to think of a way to do this without hurting his hand: a rock, a club of wood, or his knife handle would do fine. Maybe too fine. He didn’t want to take a chance on killing her. Not yet. So he decided on his hand. Gripping the neck of her blouse, he jerked her forward. As she stumbled toward him, he slammed his right fist against her temple. Her legs went out. He dragged her partway into the road, and set her down. Quickly, he arranged her arms and legs so she looked awkwardly sprawled. Then he returned to his car, ducked into the nearby trees, and waited.
The wait was short.
He grinned, amazed by his good fortune as he watched a black Rolls-Royce round the corner. A man was driving; a woman passenger sat beside him.
The car swerved to miss Joni, then slowed, and pulled behind Roy’s Pontiac. The driver stepped out. Leaving his door open, he walked quickly back toward Joni. He was a big man, well over six feet tall, and at least two hundred pounds.
A goddamn football player!
Shit.
The big man knelt beside Joni. He touched her neck, probably trying to find a pulse. The Rolls was about twenty feet from Roy. All the windows were up. The woman, turned away, was looking through the rear window.
The man began to pull off his sports jacket.
Roy lunged from behind the trees. His boots crushed underbrush. The man glanced over his shoulder. The woman began to turn her head. Leaping, Roy’s boot thudded onto the hood of the Rolls. The car lurched under his weight. The man was standing. Roy jumped down between the side of the car and the open door. The woman screamed as he thrust himself onto the driver’s seat. He pulled the door shut, and locked it a moment before the man arrived.
The screaming woman threw her shoulder toward the passenger door. Roy jerked the neck of her blouse. It ripped, but it stopped her long enough for Roy to grab her hair. He pulled her toward him. Her cheek hit the steering wheel. He forced her head down to his lap, then chopped her neck with the edge of his hand.
The man’s face pressed the window, rage in his eyes, fists pounding the glass.
Roy realized that the car was still running. He shifted into reverse and stepped on the gas pedal. The car shot backward. The big man, staggering after a quick leap aside, looked at him through the tumbling cloud of dust.
He seemed to know.
Roy shifted to drive. As the Rolls sped forward, the man jumped onto the Pontiac’s trunk. Roy braced himself. He hit the Pontiac hard. The man’s legs flew out. He dropped heavily onto the hood of the Rolls. With a quick shift to reverse, Roy jerked the Rolls backward and tumbled the man off.
Right off the front.
He sped forward. The car made a satisfying bounce, passing over the man.
Easy as rolling over a log. Roy grinned.
The grin stopped at once.
What if another car comes along?
The woman across his lap was unconscious, maybe dead.
He left the car running, and got out. The man’s body lay conveniently close to the rear of the Pontiac. Roy opened its trunk. He didn’t want to look closely at the body, much less touch it—not with the way the head had been mashed. But he had no choice. Something made splashy, plopping sounds as he lifted the body. He dropped it into the trunk, and vomited onto it. Then he slammed the trunk shut.
Running back to the girl, he looked down at himself. His shirt and pants were dripping gore. Though he gagged, he kept running. He lifted Joni, smearing her with the dead man’s blood, and carried her to the Rolls. He set her down on the backseat. He ran to the Pontiac, grabbed his backpack, and threw it into the Rolls beside Joni. Then he climbed into the front and swung the car onto the road. 3.
Roy drove the Rolls for nearly an hour before he found a side road he liked. It led over bare hills to the left. He was sure it would take him to the ocean, so he turned onto it.
Joni was conscious in the backseat, but so far she had just stayed there, lying on her side, staring forward. The woman in the front seat was dead. Roy didn’t like the way her head lay on his lap, but he decided against trying to set her upright: though there was no blood, the struggle for air had left her face hideously contorted. Her skin had a gray-blue tint. If he had her sitting up, people might notice. So he simply accepted the repulsive weight of her head on his lap, just as he accepted the blood on his hands and shirt and pants. He had to accept them, at least until he could find a deserted stretch of shoreline.
This up ahead looked promising.
The road ended a hundred yards from the shore. He parked in the shade. There were no cars in sight. A few cows grazed on the hillside. He got out. Just to the left of the road, the ground slanted down, forming a gorge choked with heavy bushes. A footpath along the edge of the gorge led to a beach.
He would like to get the woman’s body into the water, tow it far out, and let it go. But carrying it to the water would be tough. Dangerous, too. Forget it.