The Drowning Game (17 page)

 

Chapter 19

I
'VE ALWAYS BEEN
slow to wake up, and Oma loved to make fun of my morning zombieness. She knew never to tell me anything important within thirty minutes of rising. I was especially reluctant to wake up now because I'd been dreaming I was onstage at the Uptown, playing the drums to cheers and applause.

I was reliving the dream as I led Petty through that side door, and it took me a good twenty seconds before I realized what I was looking at.

It was a giant sex toy store.

Blockading us on every side, floor to ceiling, were brilliantly lit displays of neon colored dildos, vibrators, fetish stuff,
DVD
s, books and magazines. There were boobs and genitals everywhere. Truckers browsed magazines and checked out toys, glancing surreptitiously at Petty from beneath their cap brims.

My instant panic felt like the flu—­surreal, delirious, feverish. I had to get Petty out of here before she realized what she was seeing. This might really and truly send her over the edge, and if she pulled a gun in a store like this, we were really and truly fucked.

I hoped since she'd probably never experienced anything like this, none of it would register.

Petty blinked in the unforgiving fluorescent light, and she had that unfocused look she got when she wasn't really present. But it couldn't last, because sooner or later her eyes would light on a big veiny cock and she would figure it out.

Ray watched her face, confused by her seeming indifference. So I stepped into her sight line.

“Petty,” I said in as calm and quiet a voice as I could muster, “this is a sex shop. Let's go right back out the door.”

“It's a what?” she said, in a normal tone of voice. Heads swiveled toward us.

“We need to leave.”

“But I have to use the bathroom,” Petty said. “And I need a—­”

And there it was. Her gaze had landed on who knew what, and her eyes grew round and enormous. Now she saw everything. She turned in a circle, surrounded by the truckers' barely concealed boners.

She ran for the door with me close behind her. In the parking lot, I now saw the sign we had missed on the way in, groggy and exhausted as we were, declaring
ADULT SUPERSTORE
!

Petty paced in front of Ray's semi truck.

“What was that? What was I looking at?” Petty said. “What
was
that?”

I held my hands up as if trying to calm an angry animal. “Take it easy, Petty. I'm sorry you had to see that.”

She paced some more. “Why would they have all that naked . . . the little statues of . . .” She shuddered.

Ray walked out of the door, a big grin on his face. “See anything in there you liked?” he asked Petty.

He reached out to tickle-­squeeze her waist.

“No!” I shouted, but it was too late.

Petty spun around and lunged at the guy. Whip-­quick, she was behind him, had him tipped backward with her arms restraining his. Ray looked completely astounded, a
How did I end up like this?
expression on his goofy redneck face.

“See if he's got any weapons,” Petty said to me.

No more giggling or guffawing from Ray. Only stupefied gasping. “What the fuck?” he said.

I was rooted to the spot, afraid any sudden movement would trigger a violent slash-­fest on Petty's part.

“Frisk him!” Petty said, wrenching Ray's arms as she did so.

He grunted in pain, and his pleading eyes rolled in my direction. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

“You shouldn't have touched her,” I said.

“What the hell kinda whore are you anyway?” Ray choked out.

Petty's head swiveled toward me, her eyes demanding an explanation or a reason not to kill this trailer-­park Casanova. And then it hit me.

“Ray, I think you got the wrong impression about us,” I said. “We're students. We just needed a ride. We're not in
business
. You understand what I'm saying?”

“But you got no bags or nothing . . .”

Petty's mouth dropped open, but she didn't loosen her grip. “You mean—­he thought I was a prostitute? Is that what he thought?”

I nodded.

She squeezed him tighter and he squealed. I held up my hands palms out and almost said her real name. It was automatic. I had to concentrate. “It's a misunderstanding. Let's just go.”

“Not until this guy apologizes.”

“Okay.” To Ray, I said, “How about you apologize to the lady?”

“Sorry,” he said hoarsely.

“Satisfied?” I said.

“I should cut your throat, you sicko,” Petty said to him.

Ray's knees buckled, and the only thing keeping him on his feet was Petty's iron grip. Just then another trucker came walking out the building's side door. He had a large bag of goodies in his hand, which he dropped on his foot when he saw what Petty was up to. He plucked up the bag then reached for his phone.

“Drop it,” Petty said.

He didn't.

“I said drop it.”

He held up the phone to focus the camera.

Petty let go of Ray, yanked her gun out of its holster and pointed it at the guy with the phone, who hadn't gotten his shot framed the way he wanted it yet. He froze with his phone out in front of him.

Ray collapsed to the ground.

“Drop . . . the . . . phone.”

“But—­but it'll break . . .”

“Drop it!”

He did, and it did.

“We're leaving now,” Petty told them. “We didn't hurt anyone. Don't call the cops, or I'll come back here and finish the job.”

Ray and the phone man both nodded dumbly, slack-­jawed and glassy-­eyed.

Petty backed away, aiming the gun with both hands, back and forth, between the two guys. Once we reached the edge of the parking lot, she stuck the gun in her holster and ran.

I could not believe how fast this girl could run. I couldn't possibly hope to keep up. I didn't want to admit it, but a pack a day of Camels had really cut my lung capacity. We ran on the soft shoulder, the cross-­country trucks blasting by us. Petty held out a thumb as she ran.

It seemed like hours had gone by, but I knew it couldn't have been more than twenty minutes or so. I couldn't keep going, in any case. I had a stitch in my side and my ankle was throbbing, so I sat down well back from the shoulder in the soggy, shallow ditch. It was another ten minutes before Petty came running back.

“Why are you sitting? Let's go.”

“I can't keep up with you,” I said.

“We can't stay here,” she said.

“Can we walk?”

“All right.”

We walked the shoulder.

“Petty,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “You can't just pull your gun on someone because he pisses you off.”

“I was defending myself. I was defending us.”

“From what?”

“He was trying to take our picture.” She stopped walking.

I stopped too. We stood facing each other.

“But he didn't threaten you. And Ray
thought
you were a prostitute, but he didn't
do
anything. He's a moron being an asshole. You don't shoot ­people for being stupid assholes, or the human race would be extinct.”

Petty didn't say anything for a moment. “Well, you just stood there and didn't do anything.”

“Right,” I said. “There was nothing for me to do. If he'd threatened you physically, I would have—­”

“You'd have what? Run away? Slowly?”

“We're trying to keep a low profile,” I said, stung and defensive. It hadn't occurred to me that I was the weak link in this partnership, but she was right. I wouldn't have done anything. At least I had a grip on how the real world worked and didn't think I was living inside of a cop show where pulling your piece had no actual consequences. “And Ray was harmless and pathetic. But he and that other fat fuck will never forget you. They'll tell their buddies, and sooner or later one of them's going to decide he wants that Crimestopper reward, and I hope to God we're off this road by then. In the meantime, you need to stop acting like Sarah Connor or you're going to get us caught—­if you don't kill someone first. Like me.” My voice rose throughout my tirade until I was shouting that last bit.

“Fine,” she shouted back.

I followed several yards behind her in silence. I was tired. I was pissed at getting roped into this. Then rain began falling. Perfect.

To distract myself, I ran through Disregard the 9's set list in my mind, playing my part on imaginary drums in front of me. I needed some rehearsal time and badly. I could not screw this up. I had to be on time, I had to be easy to work with this time and not roll my eyes when Chad wanted to play songs I hated.

Not a single vehicle even slowed as they went by. We walked so long I wondered if we'd have to walk the entire way to Denver. We walked so long I began to wish for a cop car to stop and take us to a nice dry jail.

“Petty,” I called.

She trudged on.

“Come on, Petty. I'm sorry, okay?”

She didn't stop.

“Come on. You've got to forgive me.”

She slowed but continued on.

Just before sunrise, taillights pulled to the shoulder ahead of us. Petty slogged resolutely on past it, giving the car a wide berth. But I heard a woman's voice calling out of the open window. “What in the hell are you two doing? You're going to get killed, walking on the shoulder of the interstate!”

I stopped and looked in the open window of the Chevy sedan. The dashboard lit up the driver's face. She was in her sixties at least, with glasses and graying hair in a ponytail.

“You get in this car right now,” she said.

I stood straight and shouted, “Jenny!” Petty kept walking. She obviously didn't remember the fake name I'd given her earlier. “Jenny!”

She stopped and turned.

“We've got a ride.”

Petty put a hand on her hip.

“Come on, it's raining. This nice lady wants to give us a ride.”

Petty stood thinking for a moment then walked back. She whispered, “If she takes us to one of those shops, I'm pulling weapons again. I'm just saying.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

I got in the front seat and Petty got in back.

“Where y'all headed?” the driver asked.

“Denver,” I told her.

“Me too,” she said. “Going out to sit with my grandbabies while their folks go on a cruise. You can ride all the way if you want.”

She pulled back out on the highway.

“Car break down?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I'm Ted and that's Jenny.”

“Debbie,” she said.

“Where are we?”

“Just past WaKeeney,” she said. “About three hundred miles from Denver.”

Wednesday

I
WOKE UP
in the backseat of Debbie's Chevy, thinking about Detective Deirdre Walsh and how I'd never gone more than a day without watching an episode of one of the
Offender
shows. I felt the way I imagined normal ­people felt when they were away from family for a period of time—­disoriented, detached, homesick. Then I saw something that made me shout.

“Dekker!”

The car swerved. “My word,” Debbie said, her hand over her mouth. “What did you say, Jenny? Are you all right?”

Dekker turned in his seat to look back at me. “Yeah,
Jenny
. What did you say?”

I couldn't say anything then, because I realized I'd used Dekker's real name. Luckily, Debbie didn't know what I was talking about.

“Did you have a bad dream?” Debbie said.

“No,” I said. I pointed between the front seats at the windshield.

“What is it?” Dekker said.

“The mountains!
The mountains!
There they are!”

“Give us some warning before you freak out next time, will you?” Dekker had his hand on his chest as if he were trying to keep his heart from popping out.

“I'm sorry, but . . . the mountains!” They really were purple, and the tops of them really were frosted in snow, though it was late April. I'd never seen anything so beautiful, not in real life.

“Yes. Mountains. Shit. You're going to get us killed.”

I was so excited I couldn't stop bouncing in my seat, and Dekker finally started to smile. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“Let's stop in Limon,” Debbie said. “We can get food and use the restroom. Then it's another hour and a half to Denver.”

A
T THE TRUCK
stop there were dozens of semi rigs, and I was afraid Ray might be there and get us in trouble. Dekker looked worried too. But then in the parking lot he pointed at a white Buick with a
FOR SALE
sign in the window. It said $900 and
See manager inside.

A half hour later the manager signed over the title for just $800, and we gave Debbie fifty dollars for gas and said goodbye to her. Then we spent another $125 in the convenience store. We bought some fruit, toiletries, a ­couple of T-­shirts, a new zip-­up hoodie for me, and a map of Denver. We had $2500 left between the two of us, but I had no intention of letting Dekker spend any of his share.

The truck stop had showers, so we both paid to use them. I didn't want us to show up at my maybe-­grandmother's house looking like drowned rats. I felt much fresher as I exited the shower room with my dirty clothes in a plastic sack.

“I need to find a pay phone and call Uncle Curt and let him know we survived the tornado.” He tossed me the keys. “You can wait in the car, if you want.”

I carried our purchases out to the Buick and put everything in the backseat then got in the front. The seats were deep and comfortable, not like any of the other vehicles I'd been in. It was like riding on a sofa. Maybe Dekker could teach me to drive once we got to Denver.