They entered southern West Virginia around noon. “Look, we still got the rest of today,” he said. “If there’s any fucking way possible, I want to shoot another roll of film before we get home, something good.” They had pulled into a rest stop so he could check the oil in the car.
“Go ahead,” Sandy said. “There’s all kinds of pictures out there.” She pointed out the window. “See, there’s a bluebird just landed in that tree.”
“Funny,” he said. “You know what I mean.”
She put the car into gear. “I don’t care what you do, Carl, but I want to sleep in my own bed tonight.”
“Good enough,” he said.
Over the next four or five hours, they didn’t come across a single hitchhiker. The closer they got to Ohio, the more agitated Carl became. He kept telling Sandy to slow down, made her stop and stretch her legs and drink coffee a couple of times just to keep his hopes alive a little while longer. By the time they drove through Charleston and headed toward Point Pleasant, he was filled with disappointment and doubt. Maybe the ex-con really was a sign. If so, Carl thought, it could mean only one thing: they should quit while they were ahead. That’s what he was thinking, as they approached the long line of traffic waiting to go over the silver metal bridge that would take them into Ohio. Then he saw the handsome, dark-haired boy with the gym bag standing on the walkway seven or eight car lengths up ahead. He leaned forward, breathed in the car exhaust and the stink from the river. The traffic moved a few feet, then stopped again. Somebody behind them in the line honked his horn. The boy turned and looked back toward the end of the line, his eyes squinting in the sun.
“Do you see that?” Carl said.
“But what about your fucking rules? Shit, we’re heading back into Ohio.”
Carl kept his eyes on the boy, prayed that nobody offered him a ride before they got close enough to pick him up. “Let’s just see where’s he’s going. Hell, that can’t hurt nothing, can it?”
Sandy took off her sunglasses, gave the boy a closer look. She knew Carl well enough to know that it wasn’t going to stop with just giving him a ride, but from what she could see, he was maybe nicer than anything they’d ever come across before. And there certainly hadn’t been any angels this trip. “I guess not,” she said.
“But I need you to do some talking, okay? Give him that smile of yours, make him want it. I hate to point it out, but you been dropping the ball this trip. I can’t do it alone.”
“Sure, Carl,” she said. “Anything you say. Hell, I’ll offer to suck him off as soon as he plops his ass down in the backseat. That ought to do it.”
“Jesus, you got a filthy mouth on you.”
“Maybe so,” she said. “But I just want to get this over with.”
Part Seven — Ohio
47
IT SEEMED THAT THERE MUST BE a wreck up ahead, as slow as the traffic was moving. Arvin had just made up his mind to walk across the bridge when the car pulled up and the fat man asked him if he needed a ride. After selling the Bel Air, he’d walked out to the highway and caught a lift through Charleston with a fertilizer salesman — rumpled white shirt, gravy-stained tie, the stink of last night’s alcohol seeping from his big pores — on his way to a feed and seed convention in Indianapolis. The salesman let him off on Route 35 at Nitro; and a few minutes later, he got another ride with a colored family in a pickup truck that took him to the edge of Point Pleasant. He sat in the back with a dozen baskets of tomatoes and green beans. The black man pointed the way to the bridge, and Arvin began walking. He could smell the Ohio River several blocks before he saw its greasy, blue-gray surface. A clock on a bank said 5:47. He could hardly believe that a person could travel so fast with just his thumb.
When he got in the black station wagon, the woman behind the wheel looked back at him and smiled. It seemed like she was almost happy to see him. Their names were Carl and Sandy, the fat man told him. “Where you going?” Carl asked.
“Meade, Ohio,” Arvin said. “Ever hear of it?”
“We—” Sandy began to say.
“Sure,” Carl interrupted. “If I’m not mistaken, I think it’s a paper mill town.” He took his cigar out of his mouth and looked over at the woman. “In fact, we’re going right by there this trip, ain’t we, babe?” This had to be a sign, Carl thought, picking up a fine-looking boy like this who was headed for Meade clear down here among the river rats.
“Yeah,” she said. The traffic started moving again. The holdup was an accident on the Ohio side, two crumpled cars and a scattering of broken glass on the pavement. An ambulance turned its siren on and pulled out in front of them, barely avoiding a collision. A policeman blew a whistle, held his hand up for Sandy to stop.
“Jesus Christ, be careful,” Carl said, shifting in his seat.
“Do you want to drive?” Sandy said, hitting the brakes too hard. They sat there for another few minutes while a man in coveralls hurriedly swept up glass. Sandy adjusted her rearview, took another look at the boy. She was so glad that she had gotten to take a bath this morning. She’d still be nice and clean for him. When she reached in her purse for a fresh pack of cigarettes, her hand brushed against the pistol. As she watched the man finish the cleanup, she fantasized about killing Carl and taking off with the boy. He was probably only six or seven years younger than she was. She could make something like that work. Maybe even have a couple of kids. Then she closed the purse and started peeling the pack of Salems open. She’d never do it, of course, but it was still nice to think about.
“What’s your name, honey?” she asked the boy, after the policeman waved them on through.
Arvin allowed himself a sigh of relief. He thought for sure the woman was going to get them pulled over. He looked at her again. She was rail thin and dirty-looking. Her face was caked with too much makeup, and her teeth were stained a dark yellow from too many years of cigarettes and neglect. A strong odor of sweat and filth was coming from the front seat, and he figured both of them were in bad need of a bath. “Billy Burns,” he told her. That was the fertilizer salesman’s name.
“That’s a nice name,” she said. “Where you coming from?”
“Tennessee.”
“So what you going to Meade for?” Carl asked.
“Oh, just visiting, that’s all.”
“You got family there?”
“No,” Arvin said. “But I used to live there a long time ago.”
“Probably ain’t changed much,” Carl said. “Most of them little towns never do.”
“Where is it you all live?” Arvin asked.
“We’re from Fort Wayne. Been on vacation down in Florida. We like to meet new people, don’t we, hon?”
“We sure do,” Sandy said.
Just as they passed the sign that marked the Ross County line, Carl looked at his watch. They probably should have stopped before they got this far, but he knew a safe spot nearby where they could take the boy. He’d come across it last winter on one of his drives. Meade was just ten miles away now, and it was after six o’clock. That meant they had only another ninety or so minutes of decent light left. He had never broken any of the major rules before, but he’d already made up his mind. Tonight, he was going to kill a man in Ohio. Shit, if this worked out, he might even do away with that rule altogether. Maybe that’s what this boy was all about, maybe not. There wasn’t enough time to think about it. He shifted in his seat and said, “Billy, my old bladder don’t work like it used to. We’re gonna pull over so I can take a leak, okay?”