NIGHT CRUISING Read online

Molly wondered briefly if he was using another language or if he meant something to do with being clean. The longer she took to answer and the longer she scrutinized his face for clues, the more it came to her that he meant baptized in the regular religious sense. She'd had the awful luck of knocking on the door of a Bible Thumper. Never mind that she was scared to death, that she was about to go against everything she had been brought up to value, she had to face the guilt this stranger meant to heap upon her head.

  "I'm going," she said, beginning to clamber down. She didn't need this. Couldn't take it.

  "Child, you're living a life of sin. Christ died on the cross for people like you. Won't you be washed in the blood of the lamb?"

  "I'm gone," she said, hitting dirt and stalking away. Behind her she heard him above the roar of a dozen rumbling engines.

  "Your soul is in high peril! Go immediately to a church and ask them to pray for you!"

  Sheez. Mama, if she'd had a mama, would have told her there'd be days like this. The warped hayseed who picked her up in Mobile and dumped her at Gene Ray's had groped her for twenty miles before he got to the point and asked if she'd piss on his back if he could find a place to pull over. She had told him in no unequivocal terms that she wasn't into kinky, and no, she would not piss on his fool back, but she'd knock out his fool teeth if he didn't get her to the next exit before she puked. Now a Bible Thumper was laying down God's law to a potential sinner. It was too much.

  Sheez.

  Molly was so incensed, she forgot all about having nubs for breasts and was stomping across the lot looking for a likely cab to bang on, her shoulders back, hands fisted at her sides. Her small carrying bag of clothes and toiletries swung out behind her as she walked, bumping her hip as she went. A movement at the far corner of the building slowed her walk. She glanced that direction and saw a big guy aimed her way. He threw a monstrous shadow that leapt before him as he moved forward. He was way over six feet and sported massive shoulders, narrow hips, long legs. He wore neat gray tweedy slacks and a pale lemon sport shirt open at the throat, but God, the guy's hair was longer than hers. And silkier. But then any hair was silkier than her naturally curly unruly mop. His hair was brown streaked with silver, straight and shiny as a horse's mane. A gray beard, not too bushy, but long enough to touch his chest, covered the lower half of his face. He looked like a great fallen angel she had seen portrayed in a picture in a Bible back home. He also looked a little like the guy on the old TV show who lived in the wilderness with a bear for a friend. Molly wondered if he was Gene Ray, and if she was about to find her ass in a sling. Maybe in a holding cell in the Mobile jail. That was about what she deserved at this point. Jail and a one-way ticket home.

  She stopped in her tracks and hung one arm on her clothes bag. She waited to see what he wanted. She'd try to talk him out of running her in, if that was the problem. She could get a ride out of the truck stop in a hot second if she had to.

  He was near enough now for her to tell he was smiling in all that hair covering his face. He couldn't be near as old as his graying hair and beard announced. Maybe it was premature. He was a good-looking guy for someone more than twenty years--thirty?-- her senior.

  He raised a hand in greeting and she relaxed a little. Maybe he was just a regular guy. Not a guy on the make, but a nice guy. If he turned out to be a customer, her first customer, she wasn't sure how she'd handle it. They called them "johns, " didn't they? He was too big and too hairy, but he looked clean—woodsy, in some way—and his eyes crinkled as he smiled. She liked that. He looked just like the TV character he reminded her of, what was his name? Oh, yeah, Grizzly Adams! That was wild. Maybe he was the actor, and wouldn't that be cool beans?

  "What can I do you?" she asked when he was within speaking distance. This shorthand language worked on the road. Men, especially, hated to waste words. There was no extra time when traveling to play the sophisticate and talk about the weather. She had decided early on that she must talk tough no matter how her insides quaked. It was protective coloration; she blended into the background when she talked like older, more experienced women. She wasn't as vulnerable.

  He walked right up to her, so close that she felt impelled to move back a step from him. He wasn't the actor, but he looked just as fine. She saw his eyes were beautiful green— almost a mint color. Despite all the hair, he was downright gorgeous, enough to make some girls back in Dania drool like the dweebs they were. She, of course, wouldn't let on she thought he was so fine. After all, he was real old. Old as her father. Ancient.

  "Hi there. I saw you on your way back here when I drove in a few minutes ago. Do you need a lift somewhere? I'm heading west."

  Sounded nice enough. Like a regular guy. Those green eyes crinkling and glittering like he knew all her secrets and they didn't bother him a bit.

  Molly looked around at all the trucks, sniffed the hot, diesely air, and decided in a hasty instant that Lot Lizardry wasn't her specialty. Who wanted to make it in the sleeper of an eighteen-wheeler anyway? Her first time hooking had to be done in a better place than this. It must be cramped in one of those cabs. And smelly. And . . . scary.

  She looked carefully at the man, sizing up the possibilities. Virile. Very goddamn big. Maybe she could talk him into something other than straight sex where he'd crush her to death. He had to weigh over two hundred. Maybe he wouldn't want sex at all. But then there was no use living a fantasy, lying to herself. He'd want it. When it came time, she'd have to find a way to steel herself to doing it. There was no other way.

  "Sure," she said finally. "I could use a ride on down the road. Seems they're having a camp meeting here." She hooked her thumb back at the Bible Thumper who hadn't given up on her. He was hanging half out of his cab blabbering inanely about Sin and Retribution.

  The big fellow spared one glance at the hysterical driver and dismissed him with a shake of his head. "There are too many nuts on the road. You have to be careful."

  "You can say that again." Molly hitched the bag higher on her shoulder and started walking beside the big man. "What do you want me to call you? I'm Molly."

  "You can call me Cruise, Molly. Because that's what I do. I cruise." And then he laughed.

  Molly looked up at him, but couldn't see his face in the new shadows. Several hairs on the nape of her neck stood straight up on end just for a second. She shivered. Too late now. She was taking a ride from the Long Hair and that's all there was to it. She had never welshed on a deal or backed out on a decision once it was made. At least not since she left home.

  "Okay, Cruise," she murmured. "Let's eat some miles."

  She waited for him to unlock the passenger side of an old blue Chrysler, looked over at the blank plate-glass windows of the cafe, blinked at the Lot Lizard in the halter top, and slid into the bucket seat while Cruise held the door for her.

  "Buckle up," he said when he got into the car. He sounded cheerful, happy to have her along.

  He started the engine, pulled on the headlights, buckled himself into the seat, shifted into reverse, then drove slowly from the puddle-covered drive onto the entrance road to the freeway.

  "So where in the West are you headed?" Molly wanted to be friendly, wanted to forget the cakewalk her hair made at the back of her neck earlier when he laughed.

  Cruise gave her a disarming smile. She could see the fleshy part of his lower lip where it hid in the beard. The rosy soft lip in the gray brush made her think of a newborn pup lost in a tangle of barbed wire. It was a lip someone could nibble. She wished he was closer to her age. She could go for him, if he was. But no matter how handsome, he was still too old.

  She smiled back, at ease. She had good teeth and liked to smile when she had reason.

  "Far as the land will take me," he said. "Right to the shores of the blue Pacific Ocean."

  "Job waiting for you out there?"

  He eased the Chrysler into traffic on l-l0 and held his speed at fifty-five. Most cars overtook him, their headlights swinging out to
the left of the car and spearing past into the darkness. "Maybe," he said. "We'll see."

  She decided not to press him for details. It was none of her business. I'm sixteen," she said. "Be seventeen in three months. I'm a runaway and . . . sometimes . . . uh . . . I'm a prostitute. It's, you know, a living."

  She knew he suspected as much, but she liked to get it all out in the open from the get-go. She wasn't technically a prostitute yet, but that's what she would have to be in order to survive. She meant to survive no matter what.

  "I figured." He spoke with some admiration for her up-front confession. She thought he'd like that. Most of them did.

  "I don't need to be saved, redeemed, talked to, lectured at, advised, or otherwise manipulated. I do what I do strictly to take care of myself and I'm not ashamed of it. I'm not looking for a Sugar Daddy or a pimp. I'm my own person." She said all this in one long breath, then sucked in air and turned her face to the window to keep the blush that rose in her cheeks from his view.

  "I figured that too."

  "Good. Now we're all straight," she said to the night outside the window.

  "Want a Coke?" he lifted the lid of the Igloo cooler between the seats and gestured she take one. She screwed off the lid on a sixteen-ouncer and drank thirstily. Coke for supper was her diet when she didn't have Waffle House money. She preferred it over Pepsi. It put hair on her tongue and fire in her belly. He would probably buy her food somewhere later on. Before the night was over he'd no doubt expect repayment, and that was life, this adult life she'd chosen, tit for tat. She'd find a way to turn off her mind while she did it. She had a lot of things to get used to. Sex with strangers was one of them. She couldn't fault herself since she'd tried to find decent work before turning to it. It was as hard on the road as she thought it might be. She'd just have to be tough enough.

  She was scheming how to explain to him in some politic fashion that frontal. missionary-position sex was going to be a problem for them when they passed a green road sign for the Pascagoula, Mississippi, exit. Molly never noticed the moment they left the state of Alabama in the wings. She'd crossed two state lines now and wasn't going to be bothered about it. That was the least of her worries. It was money and getting by that she had to do all her worrying about.

  "You don't look sixteen," he said, never taking his eyes from the road.

  Molly sighed. It was a damn shame she couldn't do something about that. She hunched her shoulders in the seat to shield her breasts. "I need to gain weight," she admitted. She weighed a hundred pounds on her good days. "How old do I look?"

  "Thirteen. Fourteen."

  Molly took a sip of Coke and nursed her silence. She wished to God she had her boobs back. It was bad enough being young. It was worse to look even younger. What kind of hooker was she going to make if she looked like a kid?

  "You're cute. Beautiful hair."

  She smiled a little, her lips curving around the bottle top. She lowered the Coke to her lap. "That's what people say. Personally, I don't like red hair. I might bleach it."

  "That would be a shame. It certainly makes you stand out from a crowd."

  "Irish ancestry kicking in. My dad's hair..." She bit her tongue. She hadn't meant to bring up her father. She didn't want to talk about him. Now she really sounded like a homesick, silly-ass little kid. Damn.

  "Red too?" he asked.

  "Yeah. Redder. Mine's got a little blond in it to tone it down. His, though, is fiery red."

  Cruise whistled low in appreciation.

  "Are you one of those old hippies?" Molly wanted to make him feel as uncomfortable as she had just felt when she slipped up and mentioned her father. Tit for tat.

  Cruise laughed and this time she didn't get any shivery premonitory hair tricks at the back of her neck. It was a pleased, cheerful kind of laugh.

  "I never was a hippie," he said. "Never cared for them."

  "You wear your hair like a hippie. Some of the kids do that, stuff with the headbands and peace signs on their jackets and hair to their butts, things like that. I don't know what they think they're doing, reliving the sixties or what. I think it's real dumb."

  "I just don't like barbers. It has nothing to do with any group."

  Molly waited for further illumination but when he didn't continue, she shrugged her bony shoulders. "Doesn't matter to me. Your hair, I mean. Why you wear it like that. I don't really care. In fact, it makes you look a little bit Christ-like. Like the pictures of Christ, you know." Actually she meant he looked like a crazy ass fallen angel, but she didn't know how to explain that without sounding rude so she settled for Christ.

  He gave her a winning smile and she settled into the bucket seat with the bottle of Coke. He was an all-right guy. Very sweet. Not pushy. Not grabby. A real gentleman and regular guy.

  She was cruising with Cruise, going where she had never been before, and that's what mattered.

  That's all that mattered.

  #

  Cruise worked at being open, appealing, friendly. It was a knack he had. People warmed to him, always had, and it was an advantage. Little Molly would find out soon enough about him. About the dying. If he played it right, she'd be so caught up in him before he made his next kill, she'd find a way to accept it. Some of them did. It was strange how the kids could adjust to nearly any way of life. Already Molly called herself a prostitute to earn her way. He knew that she was almost certainly from a good middle-class home where morals had been instilled in her. Yet she'd found a way to dump them as soon as she got on her own. Her manner of speech and vocabulary told him she wasn't raised to the life.

  She was insecure about her looks and that was why she hunched her shoulders, but she liked compliments. She was no one's dummy. He hoped she wasn't too smart or he'd have to get rid of her in a roadside ditch or leave her remains in a restaurant dumpster. Be a fucking shame.

  Sum total, he thought he'd made the perfect choice for his companion. His witness. Little Irish Molly. He thought he could train her. There was time to find out.

  He must gain her confidence, learn more about that father she mentioned. Kid might stay in touch with home and that could bollix up plans. She needed to be cut free before he could trust her to any extent. She started thinking about what her father would want her to do or be, she might not bend to his will on the trip west. That would never do.

  Pretending to stretch, Cruise leaned back in his seat and reached his left arm over and behind his head. He yawned and grunted, meanwhile lightly touching, checking the back of his head with the pads of his fingers. Underneath the long hair, he kept a small area shaved. He had glued a Velcro patch there and the matching patch to the tiny, four-and-one-half-inch, hooked-end knife he carried. It was too dangerous to drive across country with a weapon the cops might find on casual inspection during a traffic violation. (Bundy had been found with handcuffs in his trunk. Handcuffs. That little oversight put him behind bars in Colorado, the stupid bastard.)

  Cruise had grown his hair long and kept the knife concealed there for more than three years now. It was stainless steel and razor sharp. The handle was slightly curved so that it fit in a good grip around his index finger when he used it. On the side of the handle was a silver skull and crossbones.

  The hook on the business end of the blade caught and ripped flesh. He had found the odd little lethal knife in a pawnshop in Chicago. The idea of strapping it to his head and beneath his hair was a stroke of pure genius. His victims never expected a man to pull Death from his hair and wield it with such lightning-quick movement. Cruise could rip open a man's throat with his special little knife in three seconds flat. In the first second they saw it. The eyes reflected deep, paralyzing fear. In the second instant they felt the cool metal against their warm throats. In the third second Cruise had them; they belonged to him.

  Feeling the knife securely in place, he lowered his arm and asked the girl if she wanted something to eat when they reached Hammond, Louisiana.

  "Sure. Wake me when we get t
here, okay?"

  He assured her that he would.

  He tried to keep his mind occupied by listing the rivers they crossed. Outside of Mobile he began the river name game. He crossed Singing River. Beautiful name for a river. The next was the Biloxi. Then Wolf. The names rolled through his thoughts until he lost their order. There was the Jourdan, Pearl, Arnite, Mississippi River, Whiskey Bay, Atchafalaya, Lake Pelba, Lake Bigbeaux.

  His thoughts gradually wandered over to his passenger. Little Molly. Then for the next hundred miles while oncoming lights steamed past on the freeway, and she slept slumped against the car window, he stole lustful glances at her slight body. All the while he admonished himself to take it easy, go slow, work the girl around until she loved him.

  Until she worshiped him as a god.

  #

  Mark Killany knew his daughter was moving away from him on Interstate l0 West. After frantic questioning of her friends, he discovered she was headed to California. At least she had told her friends that much. Since their home was in Dania, Flonda, the most direct route to the opposite coast was by l-l0. She had but a few hours start on him. He had left to do some grocery shopping and on his return found her note.

  I'm sorry, Daddy, but I have to leave. I can't be perfect the way you want me to. We're driving one another crazy. I'm not going to the counselors anymore. Don't come after me because you won't find me.

  Molly

  It took him some time to withdraw money from the bank, pack a few clothes, question her friends and acquaintances.

  As far as he could tell from investigating her room, she had taken few clothes and no personal articles. She didn't have money except for the ten-dollar allowance he had given her the day before so she had to be traveling as a hitchhiker.

  God. Molly on the roads hitching. She could get raped or killed before she left the state. Her chance of making it all the way to California by hitching rides was impossible. That was just one of the illusions she was working under. She was a kid. Just a shavetail kid. She didn't know what she was doing. Even now she might be on the roadside in the rain or stranded at some gas station or off ramp.