NIGHT CRUISING Read online

  Cruise rose up in the seat and leaning over, patted her folded hands that lay like cold rocks in her lap. "That's great. I knew you'd want to come. Now how's 'bout we get a little shut eye? It's going to be dawn soon. Too soon."

  He switched off the CB and silence intruded on them like the boom of an ocean wave until their ears adjusted to the lack of squeal and crackle. Cruise draped the towel over his eyes. "Tomorrow we'll get a shower," he said.

  "A real shower?"

  "Absolutely. With soap and water, the whole shooting match. Even real towels."

  "God, that'd be good."

  He heard her seat reclining. His smile stretched grotesquely behind the cover of the kitchen towel. He amused himself with an image of her naked, wet, slick hair plastered

  to her head. He would like to stand her out in the desert beneath that sickle moon poised over El Paso's corruption, stand her naked there and dump a few gallons of purified water over her head until she shivered and trembled with new-found fear at what he might do to her. He'd like to see her turn and run, like to chase her like a jackrabbit across the desert floor, see her fall helpless, begging mercy.

  Sleep came to muffle the edge of his imagination. It turned his dream into nightmare where the naked girl was armed with an Indian's spear tipped with flint, feathers dangling from a leather throng attached to the end. She menaced him, laughed at how small his knife was, how it disappeared in the thickness of his great hand. She threw the spear. It sliced through the air, singing tum, tum, tum, a death song, narrowly missed him, stuck quivering in the hard-packed ground. When he turned back to her, she had a bow, an arrow tautly strung, and meant to end his days. His nights! The arrow released even as he screamed for her not to kill him, and it sang on the wind, tum, tum, tum, tum, a death song that meant to end his days...his nights...

  #

  Molly lay in the reclining car seat with her eyes closed, heart bumping heavy and slow. She experienced the mental equivalent of gnawing at a pesky hangnail. Mexico. She had

  acquiesced to Cruise's wishes, but even now her thoughts turned over a fiery pit of protest. Somewhere deep inside, she knew she should not go. Going with Cruise--still a

  virtual stranger to her despite the stories he had told about his life--gave over to him her freedom. She would have no one to turn to in a foreign country if for some reason she wished to escape his company. She could not speak Spanish. She didn't know the customs or what was expected of her in Mexico. Did she need a passport, a visa? God, she was still so stupid, but at least she knew it. And she might be dumber yet to put herself into Cruise's hands, dependent upon him to protect her. She was not yet convinced she should.

  In the States she could always walk away from Cruise, get another ride in a truck stop or service station. Or she could appeal to someone for help if something went wrong between them. But in Mexico, helpless, disadvantaged, she must rely on his good intentions. The worry stemmed from that. For she didn't know for sure what his intentions were.

  Oh, he had not made any untoward move and he had not said a word to intentionally frighten her--just the opposite--yet...yet... It was risky, wasn't it, to give herself into his total care? She liked him. She was attracted to him, who wouldn't be? But still...

  It was all academic now. She had agreed to go. She must go. To refuse at this point would create a fracas, and she didn't want to alienate him. She did like him, found him intriguing and strange. He exerted a pull on her she couldn't deny. It wasn't sexual, not exactly, not all the time, although that worked into the equation. It was more as if she had fallen under a spell, charmed as a cobra in a basket lured into the sunlight by the notes from a haunting flute.

  Cruise was teaching her about a world she had never known existed. It was an underground night world where people behaved impulsively, and in ways they might not

  behave during the day. Truckers and Lot Lizards and travelers who crisscrossed the country, they were all bound together in a neon-lit world that hummed while the rest of

  humanity slept unaware in their beds. They had different agendas. They lived so unconventionally.

  She liked it. It was nothing at all like her life in Dania, Florida. This new world opened doors and led down dark passages she didn't know were there. She wanted to see it, to walk with the night people and be one of them. It was like being in a dark, serious novel, something from Dostoyevsky or Tennessee Williams. She had read those authors in high school and the worlds they wrote about felt alluring.

  The things she had witnessed in the Metro Truck Stop ignited her curiosity even further. The voices clamoring on the CB sparked her prurient interest. Now this truck stop wasn't either Dostoyevsky or Williams. It was like a voyage through a science fiction movie filmed in sepia tones. These were humans engaged in activities normally done during the day, except for the sex, activities like eating, laundry, bathing, driving. It was an upside-down world, an Alice in Wonderland place where the unexpected experience waited around the next corner.

  If she wished to prolong her contact with that world, she must accompany Cruise across the border. It might be a harmless trip, full of exciting characters and revelations, but it also involved chance; there might be danger there.

  Her father would hate to hear she was thinking of leaving the country--for any reason. She loved her father, she just didn't like him very much. She really missed her mother...

  She squirmed in the seat, her spine aching, her shoulders pinched in the confines of the seat back. So tired. Sleepy.

  Wished she had a bed to rest in.

  Oh, well, it was pointless to wish for what she didn't have. Pointless to indulge in self-recrimination now. She had said she would go. She had sealed her fate. She must

  continue trusting Cruise, and rid herself of the nagging warning voice that argued against the risk. Hadn't she already broken ties with normal society by leaving home? She'd dropped out of school, turned her back on her father and his rules, accepted the idea, however much it scared her, that she would sell herself in order to survive. Could a side

  trip into Mexico be such a bad thing?

  It was just that...just that she didn't know what to expect. How to behave. What might happen to her.

  Or why it was important to Cruise to leave the country right at this time. As if pursued by something invisible, something threatening at his back. She didn't know why she felt this way, but it was her impression that Cruise identified with the night world for more reason than that the light hurt his eyes, as he claimed. There had to be more to it than that.

  To calm herself, Molly imagined a lovely time shopping for sombreros and serapes, eating exotic foods, watching the sun set over a foreign horizon while sipping a cold, imported bottle of Coca Cola on a veranda surrounded by flowering plants.

  It would be all right. She would, have a glorious time.

  She was about to become a world traveler, thanks to Cruise. He wouldn't let anything bad happen to her.

  Anything bad. Happen to her.

  #

  The evening crept over El Paso with chill stealth. Cruise stirred in the car seat, eyelids fluttering. Like a predator that does its hunting at night, his consciousness returned as the sun left blood-red streaks west behind the mountains. He came fully awake and rubbed down his bare arms. He and Molly had left the windows partially open for fresh air that now had turned cool without the sun's rays to heat it.

  Cruise needed a sweater. He looked at Molly where she slept scrunched up into an uncomfortable fetal position, knees pulled to her chest. She was cold too. Tonight he would rent rooms so they could get the kink out of their abused bodies. At least a room would protect them from tomorrow's nippy-aired dusk. A mattress to sleep on would feel like a cloud.

  "Molly?"

  Her knees slid to the floorboard and she stretched, eyes still closed tightly. He could see the outline of her bra through her white blouse. Small. Sweet.

  "Molly, wake up. It's time for breakfast and a shower."

&nb
sp; That woke her completely. She blinked at him and licked her lips. She cleared her throat, wrapped her arms around herself. "Cold." More a statement of fact than a complaint.

  "Do you have a jacket or a sweater?"

  Molly shook her head. "Forgot. It's never very cold in Florida. I just forgot. California's supposed to be warm too."

  "I'll buy you one in Mexico. Ready to go inside?"

  She sat and depressed the lever so her seat was upright."I need my blue bag if I'm going to take a shower."

  Cruise was already out of the car. He reached around the doorpost to unlock the back door of the Chrysler. He drew out the carrying bag, locked, and slammed shut the door. He walked to the front of the car and handed it to her. "Wait for me inside at the restaurant. I've got to get my gear."

  Molly took her bag and walked off slowly toward the truck stop complex. Cruise waited until she was a good distance away before inserting the trunk key and giving it a twist. He didn't want her to see the case of bottled water, the stack of towels. There was no way he could explain it to her.

  He took out a brown leather-and-cloth satchel and closed the trunk. Inside the Metro he found Molly at one of the booths near the restaurant entrance. She sat hunched like a derelict over a cup of coffee. Her hair was wild and needed combing. Her clothes were rumpled from having been slept in. There were pale blue circles marring the skin beneath her fine gray eyes. The trip was taking its toll. As used as he was to travel and living on the road, he sometimes looked as bad or worse than she did now. He felt a camaraderie, a closeness born of shared circumstance. He always identified with the kids when they were weary and beaten. They needed him more than they knew. They were after all just kids. Gullible, trusting, thinking themselves worldly wise, but lacking nearly all the proper survival instincts. He kept them up nights disrupting their steep patterns until finally they were vulnerable, fully under his power, easily persuaded, effortlessly duped. But he shared their fatigue, an old friend he knew well.

  Cruise ordered big breakfasts for them. Eggs, hash browns, bacon, sausage, biscuits. The food--wasn't as great as it should have been for the price, but it filled and warmed them. Molly was incommunicado until after she'd eaten. Once the blood flowed back into the lightly freckled skin of her face, she was able to smile, to talk to him.

  "We're still going to Mexico?" she asked.

  He knew she'd already committed herself and probably would not back out now. "You're going to like it, I promise. I'll get a hotel tonight so you can rest up."

  He saw a look of concern cross her face before she was able to mask it.

  "Don't worry"' he said, giving the impression that he had read her mind. "You'll have your own room. Alone."

  She ducked her head and stared down at her hands. "Thanks. I don't know how I can repay you for all these meals and a room and all."

  "No problem. You don't owe me." You do, he thought, but I'm not supposed to say it.

  "C'mon, let's go hit the showers. I've got half a week's worth of dirt to wash off.'" He swung his bag from where he had dropped it on the seat beside him. Molly followed to

  the cash register, stood idly looking around while he paid. At another desk he anted up a twenty-dollar deposit for the keys to two shower rooms. They each carried a bundle of towels, washcloths, small wrapped bars of soap. He showed Molly to her cubicle, handed over the key and left her. "Meet You in the lobby later."

  Once locked inside the small bathroom, Cruise shed his clothes quickly. Nakedness felt delicious. He had worn his clothes so long, riding in them, sleeping in them, that it was like shedding a hard shell to find new skin beneath.

  He carefully detached the knife from the Velcro and placed it on the counter. For some seconds he gazed down at the glittering stainless-steel blade. It felt odd to have this extension of him separated from his flesh. If he touched it now he'd feel the warmth of body temperature. Once the metal cooled it stopped being a part of him and returned to its real state as a deadly weapon. He wrenched his gaze from it, feeling time passing too swiftly.

  He squinted in anticipation as he ripped off the patch painfully from the short hair growing back on his scalp. He stood leaning on his hands at the sink, staring into green eyes the color of spring grass.

  "You need money," he told his reflection. "Do it here or do it in Mexico, but do it."

  He nodded at himself, confirming his resolve. He'd do it. When he had first started this life, he had sometimes waited too long, waited until all his money was gone and he was destitute. That narrowed his choices. He had to hit anyone at hand just to make sure he could survive. These days he did not wait so long unless there was a witness like Molly along, someone he had in training and could not afford to frighten too early in the game. He knew now how much money was left. He'd noticed when he paid the breakfast bill. Thirty-five dollars. That was enough for gas and Cokes, nothing more.

  Tonight, late tonight, in Mexico, he would find someone with money. He had decided against an out-and-out murder in front of Molly. She wasn't ready for that just yet. But he did have a plan that involved her. She would misinterpret the scene just as he wanted her to. She'd be even more in his debt after tonight.

  He turned on the shower and stepped in before the temperature was adjusted. He liked the cold shock of water anyway. Then he let it run hot, so hot his skin pinked and he was breathing steam as he lathered his body and washed it down.

  By the time he was dried, the patch on his scalp newly shaven and Velcroed, freshly dressed, all his things put away, he had been in the white-tiled shower room for over an hour. He stared once more into his own eyes searching for something he had never yet found--that remorse they said he should feel. They, of course, were fools and sons of fools and sons of bitches too. But that did not keep him from looking, when there was a mirror and privacy available, for the pitying heart the word told him he walked without. In a curious way he thought perhaps they, those experts on man's troubles, were wrong. He knew he had a heart, though full of pity, he sincerely doubted. It didn't occur often, not enough obviously to convince him, but sometimes when he looked down into those luminous green depths of soul he thought he saw a tiny man staring back at him, a miniature Cruise, if you will, older, stooped, changed, but Cruise all the same. He was locked behind the wide orbs, and that small man waved at him to signal the start of something, a beginning of warmth, of compassion, of humanity.

  Today the reflection was not there. The eyes went on unblinkingly staring back from heartless, remorseless, unfeeling voids. This meant he was all right. He was sane and safe from guilt, that bag of snakes he had discarded so many years in the past. There was no little man in there smiling like the Devil himself, smug bastard, waving him to enter the dark passageway that led to the place where he must shoulder responsibility.

  Good. Most excellent, dude, as the kids said. He didn't need to encounter anything inside himself that so far he'd been able to live without.

  He found Molly hanging over a video game watching a grown man trying to beat a rigged machine. "Boo," Cruise said softly, coming close behind her. She smelled of Ivory soap and baby powder. Maybe the baby powder was her underarm deodorant. It was faint but lovely. He inhaled as she flinched and turned to him.

  "Oh, hi!"

  "Been waiting long? Ready to shake this place?"

  "No, uh, yeah."

  Cruise smiled and, taking her arm, led her from the Metro Truck Stop into the settling gloom of another clear starry night meant for the road.

  #

  Over the border into Mexico Cruise moved away in his mind from the raucous hilarity that was Juarez. He knew Molly was excited by the strange tongue spoken by the people in Juarez, by the filled dilapidated buses hobbling through the potholed streets, by the many lights, and the hordes of people tumbling into storefronts and clubs. He had been here too many times to find a scintilla of excitement about the Mexicans anymore. He thought of them as a subspecies if he thought of them at all. The bright ones headed across t
he border despite the risks, and it was the poor and stupid ones left behind to scratch a living from the tourists. He despised Juarez as he despised all the border towns. They were traps for Americans, full of laughing brown liars and cheaters who spent all their waking hours trying to part a man from his money in one way or another, while not so secretly envying him his freedom, country, and income.

  Cruise spent as little time as he could getting through Juarez and onto the road outside town that led back east along the border. When he failed to answer some of Molly's questions, she stopped asking. He didn't want to talk. He wasn't a goddamn tourist guide. He just wanted to get out of Juarez without mishap and find the town that welcomed him.

  There, in that nameless place unrecorded on any maps, the hotel and bars and whorehouses were run by Adolpho Ramirez, the mightiest drug lord in all of northern Mexico. The people who lived in that town were owned and in the employ of Ramirez. Locals didn't frequent his place. Federales did not dare invade it. Americans, except those who came to buy the illegal goods in large quantities, were not permitted. Cruise had been rudely routed away when first he wandered close to Ramirez,s territory. But the second time he came, he brought a young boy as an offering, a shy, gangly kid from Oklahoma who hadn't turned out to be a good witness. The boy's brain was sizzled from drug abuse, at age fourteen, and Cruise hadn't any use for him.

  But Ramirez admired young, pale-skinned American males, and once accepting the gift, he praised Cruise for his taste and generosity. From then on Cruise was given free run of the town, a trusted visitor. Ramirez even used him, when he came into town, as an assassin to dispatch men known to have filched money or a personal stash of drugs. He didn't like to use his own men as assassins for he claimed it stirred a blood lust that might one day be turned his direction. As long as Cruise handled the thieves, that danger was averted.

  Cruise was given free rooms at the hotel for as long as he wished, food, women, and any money the thief was carrying at the moment of his death. Sometimes that amounted to quite a lot for Ramirez's men were not the poverty-stricken peons that inhabited other Mexican towns. Most of them carried enough dinero on their persons to feed a normal family for a year. They were the richest men in all of the northern districts--maybe all of Mexico. It was just that some of them were greedier than others, and these were the ones Cruise murdered without compunction.