NIGHT CRUISING (16 page)

Molly let out her
breath. She inhaled. She said, "Yesss."

Cruise smiled into the
dark beyond the top of her head. He could feel the dead all around
them sleeping in their graves, giving up a collective sigh. They
would not be asked to welcome a new member among them tonight. Not
until tomorrow when the family of Riaro brought him in a plain wooden
casket and lowered his cold body into their company would they be
disturbed in their slumber.

"Let's go back."
He let her go, turned her from the cemetery, and pushed her gently on
a path between the graves back the way they had come. She did not
talk again on the walk to the hotel. He let it be. She'd passed his
test and he was well pleased. He must not push his luck. It was
jubilation enough that she'd just saved her own life.

"Get some sleep,"
he said at her door.

He stood in the hallway
and stared down the corridor at a window opening onto the silver
lightening of the morning sky. He felt a chill that raised goose
bumps along his arms. It wasn't the night that should frighten people
so much. It was those scorching, blinding sunny hours where
everything was laid bare to the eye.

It had been a long
night. He meant to sleep it off. If he didn't wake up for eighteen
hours he wouldn't be a bit surprised.

In his own room he
slipped off his shoes, took his belt from the loops of his slacks,
and fell onto the bed without drawing back the covers. He couldn't
sleep yet. His mind turned over the kill the way a farmer with a
shovel turns over rich earth for spring planting. Down one row, up
another until an entire patch of ground has been tilled.

His thoughts took him
down the street, into the conversation with Riaro beside the Rockola,
down the street again after his prey, then up close, tight shot of
Riaro's look of betrayal, his comprehension of his dilemma, his
sprint for freedom.

The fight. The suction
of Cruise's fist as he withdrew it from Riaro's torso. The fall. The
quick death. The blood...

#

Molly stood shivering
in the dark just inside the door of her room. She listened
breathlessly for Cruise to leave. Bands of moonlight marched across
the floor from the far window--a ladder of yellow beckoning her to
climb it, to escape by it.

He was insane. That's
all she could think. It was the sole explanation for what happened
tonight. Even though the Mexican had pulled a knife, it was Cruise
who pursued him, Cruise who ripped open his belly and left him to die
in the street.

Then that creepy little
walk outside of town to the cemetery. All the weird talk of the dead
being better off. The strange pledge of loyalty to his ideas that he
demanded from her before he would let her go. She had been so afraid
she thought she might wet all over herself. That or faint outright in
his arms. She knew what he wanted to hear and suspected violence had
she not said it. She knew she must agree with him.

If he wanted to make
her feel safe and secure, he had gone about it like no other man
would have. He committed murder without a qualm, apparently without
any remorse whatsoever. He had been composed enough to enter the
cantina afterward and wash his hands. His actions were like those of
a mechanical man, a computerized automaton with a fairly intelligent
brain, but a soul made of silicon chips and soldered connections.

What had she done
taking a ride with him? She knew with a certainty that came from
intuition rather than any past experience beyond the scene she had
witnessed tonight that he was extremely dangerous. He inspired a fear
in her that left her wordless.

She didn't know how
long she had been standing next to the door straining to hear any
sound. Surely Cruise had left by now. She must escape before he woke
at dusk to drive them out of town. She had to call her father and ask
what she should do.
She needed help
. She had to get away from
Cruise before something terrible happened to her. Something fatal.

She wanted to reach out
a hand to the door and open it, but for long seconds her arm felt
paralyzed. She knew that uncontrollable desperation shimmered right
at the edge of her thought processes. She also understood that if she
wasn't careful, if she wasn't strong and diligent in containing that
fear it could permanently disable her.

If she'd only not taken
a lift from Cruise. If only she'd not fallen into his web.

Home.
She had to
call Daddy. She had to ask him what she must do to save herself.

She made her arm move,
forced her hand to close over the doorknob. She turned it, moved to
the crack and peeked out, let out a breath when she found the hall
empty.

Wait! She needed to
take her clothes bag. She rushed across the room to the bath and
snatched up her things. Colgate toothpaste, orange toothbrush, blue
bottles of Finesse shampoo and conditioner. Secret solid stick
deodorant. He'd said she smelled like baby powder. It caused her to
shiver inside to think she'd been attracted to him because when he
finally took her into his arms, she knew her life was in jeopardy. It
repulsed her now that she had thought of him as a potential lover.
She must have been crazy.

Then in the bedroom she
found her purse on the dresser, threw the hot pink hairbrush into it,
snapped it shut. Stuffed her dirty clothes into the blue bag, zipped
it, hurried again to the door.

Couldn't get her
breath. Couldn't think
. Paused at the open door, clutched her
purse and bag in her arms.
What if he was near the elevator?

She stuck her head into
the hall and looked. No. He wasn't there. He had gone to his room and
was asleep by now. If she didn't find a way to control her thoughts,
she'd never make it out of the hotel.

She drew in a deep
breath and stepped into the hall. Closed the door behind her. Walked
along the carpeted hall to the elevator. Saw that it wasn't in use.
Punched the down button. When the doors slid open she jumped. The
noise was unbearable. Surely everyone in the entire hotel could hear
the cables of the elevator working as it came to fetch her. She was
ready to turn and run the opposite direction. For just a second she
imagined Cruise in the elevator staring down at her sadly. Saying
something crazy like,
"You're not going anywhere, little
girl."
She must get her imagination under control.

She ran inside the
elevator and pushed the button for the lobby. She had to find a
phone, get someone to help her. She hadn't any idea how she was going
to do that, but she must.

Empty lobby. No one
behind the registration desk. She flew across the room, stood up on
tiptoe to look behind the desk and into a hallway that led off from
the area. "Anyone here?" she called. She looked behind her,
saw the elevator doors closing. Had someone called for the elevator?
Was it Cruise?
Oh, God. Oh, God.

"Hey! Anyone?"
No one came forward. It was a ghost hotel. She didn't see a phone on
the counter or behind it. She couldn't get high enough, even by
standing on the brass foot rail, to see over onto the back of the
counter.

In the lobby again she
wandered around looking at the flocked wallpaper, beginning to feel
disjointed. Where were the pay phones? Didn't they have them here the
way they did in the States? She went a little ways down two separate
hallways that must have led to the closed dining room and the bar
looking for a phone or someone to ask.
Damn
. Nothing.

The doorman was missing
from the door. Where had everyone gone? She ran out and down the long
wide steps to the sidewalk. Sunrise painted the east a dusty
pink-violet. Birds sang morning chorals somewhere along the red-tiled
rooftop of the hotel. All the stars were gone and the moon was no
more than a smudge in the sky.

She'd find something
open. A store. A cafe. She'd beg them to let her use the phone.

It was eerie to listen
to her lone footsteps on the sidewalks. Now that day was coming she
could see what the town really looked like. It wasn't a place she'd
want to spend any time. Weeds grew to the edges of the sidewalk.
Paper cups and beer cans littered the curbs along the poorly paved
street. The storefronts were dust-covered and looked hurriedly
painted. Everything had a temporary look to it as if the people could
pick up and leave on the spur of the moment. It was more of an
encampment than a real town.

At the cafe where
Cruise had told her to wait all the chairs had been turned upside
down on the tabletops. A mangy gray cat sat beneath one of the tables
eating something that looked green and moldy. The hungry feline
hissed as Molly neared so that she had to go to the edge of the
sidewalk to avoid an attack.

"Bitch,"
Molly whispered at the cat. "You're no help unless you happen to
know where I can find a phone."

The cat growled and
showed its teeth, hair rising along its spine. Molly went on down the
sidewalk, eying the locked doors, the barred and shuttered windows.
The farther away she got from the imposing structure of the hotel at
the end of the street, the easier she found it to breathe.

But everyone was
asleep. She hadn't yet seen a soul on the street. Every bar was
closed. Curtains fluttered in open windows on second floors.

At the corner she
turned left. More closed shops, cafes, bars. Ahead, though, she saw
houses. Since this street ran north and south, on one side the houses
were in shadow, on the other weak morning sunlight threw the shacks
in relief. Some of them looked as if they might fall down when a
strong wind came. The roofs were made of every imaginable substance
from sheets of corrugated tin to raw planks in varying lengths and
widths. She stepped up her pace. She'd knock on a door, find someone
with a telephone, call her father...

...she thought she
heard someone walking behind her. She whirled around so hard her hair
covered her eyes. She pushed it out of the way and stared back where
she'd come. She saw no one, but she was almost sure she wasn't alone
now. Someone else was up, moving about the town. She waited for him
to turn the corner and follow her to make sure it wasn't Cruise, but
she couldn't hear footsteps any longer. She turned back to the task
at hand. Might as well try any door, she thought. It was a good
possibility that few of the Mexicans had private telephones, but she
must try to find one regardless. Until the stores and cafes opened
she hadn't any choice.

She crossed the street
to the nearest house and knocked loudly. She heard animal sounds and
wondered where they were coming from. It was a
hea-hea-hea
sound,
not like a cat or dog, but some animal she didn't recognize.

She started to knock
again when the door opened. It swung back on great noisy hinges. A
little boy in white briefs stood looking up at her. His eyes were
big, wide awake, black as soot.

"Please, do you
have a telephone?" She pantomimed using a phone, holding the
receiver in her hand to her ear. If they didn't understand her
English she'd move on to the next house. She hadn't any time to lose.

The boy was moved
gently aside by a man. His thick black hair rose in a three-inch
pompadour and sideburns grew down each brown cheek. He was
bare-chested, but wore a slouchy pair of brown pants that he held up
with one hand. "Senorita?"

"I need a phone. A
phone? Telephone." Again she pretended to be dialing a phone,
lifting a receiver to her ear.

"I have to call my
father in the United States. In Florida? I'm in trouble and I
need..."

The man hadn't moved or
given any indication he had understood her. She stopped talking when
a gray and white spotted goat nudged aside the man's leg. It stuck
its triangular head up at her and bleated plaintively. She saw the
pink tongue, the white even bottom teeth, the black marble eyes.

"Shoo!" the
Mexican said, pushing back the goat with his knee. "Come in,
lady," he said to Molly. "I have a telephone for you to
use, please. It's early, si? We were sleeping."

She wondered fleetingly
why his hair had stayed so perfect even in bed sleeping.

"I'm so sorry to
bother you, and I wouldn't except it's really important. But you do
have a phone? That's'great. Thanks a lot. I couldn't find a pay phone
anywhere in town..." Again her sentence trailed off as she
entered the dark little house. A fetid smell assaulted her and she
wanted to gag. The reflex hit her throat, the contraction came, but
she forced herself to breathe, to control the urge. She looked down
and saw the floor was made of earth. She had accidentally stepped
into goat dung. She scraped her rubber-soled sneaker in the dirt to
get it off. All around her swarmed goats. Big ones with horns.
Smaller ones, the females, she supposed. Baby ewes, downy-haired,
little perked ears, all those shiny marble eyes. There must have been
a dozen of them altogether. Some were of one solid color, others were
speckled, patched with browns or grays or blacks. When her vision
adjusted to the lack of light inside the house she saw not only
goats, but people--the man's family. A woman sitting on the side of a
drooping cot in a cotton nightgown. Three children. All boys under
the age of ten including the little one who had answered the door.
They were trying to get the goats away from her and corralled into
one corner of the room. An old man and an old woman, probably the
grandparents, were buttoning shirts and fastening pants and skirts,
slipping on sandals. The room was a circus, crowded, smelly, close,
and disorderly. Molly couldn't speak.

"In here,"
the Mexican said, leading her by the hand through the goats and
children, through a printed cotton curtain into what appeared to be a
kitchen of sorts. There was a brick oven in an outside wall, wooden
counters along two other walls, pots and pans hanging from the
rafters, a huge pottery bowl of flour. The smell of grease and cooked
food drowned the scent of the goats from the other room. Next to a
big water barrel with a tin dipper hanging from the side stood an old
stool and on it sat an ancient black dial phone, the kind Molly had
seen only at antique markets. The telephone wire also went up to the
open rafters, was looped on hooks across the room to the open window.
It evidently hooked up directly to a pole outdoors.