BAD TRIP SOUTH (9 page)

She parked by the pump and got out of the car. She walked directly to the side of the service station building to the ladies room. Inside, she locked the door. She found the pint bottle of Jim Beam and twisted off the cap. The first swallow was harsh and she winced. The second swallow was smooth as drinking warm buttered rum coffee. She held up the pint and eyed it. Needed a new one tonight. She’d go out to buy an electric razor to shave Crow and get herself a new bottle. Maybe two.

She slipped the pint into her purse, relieved herself, and stood in front of the mirror on the wall over the sink, staring at her image. The whiskey did wonders and only in minutes. She felt more herself, more real. When she got the jitters between drinks, she thought she might be about to fly apart, break up into jigsaw puzzle pieces no one could put together again. All her insides went into spasm. She got stomach cramps and a burning in her esophagus. Her mind started tripping, going in several directions at once. Nattering at her about this and about that until she thought she might go insane.

She didn’t know why Crow favored speed. That stuff warped you right up into a frenzy. He was always picking at stuff, fiddling with his purse, combing his hands through his hair, tapping out drumbeats with his fingertips, jiggling around on the balls of his feet. Some days he went without food, no appetite at all, and when he crashed he was so depressed he was suicidal.

Right now, though, she wasn’t about to worry about Crow. With the liquor racing through her system, she felt wonderfully whole. She never smiled at herself in mirrors. The dead half of her mouth could make her so angry she’d been known to shatter mirrors with her fist. But she stared into her own eyes and communicated with the smart, strong, silently watching person there.

We’ll make it. We’ll make it out alive. We’ll be so rich; we’ll party every day and every night. Forever. I’ll have a maid and a cook and a fine car, one even better than that Riviera...

Someone tapped on the bathroom door. She turned to it and clicked over the lock. If it was that kid, she’d slap her little face until her eyes rolled.

She pulled open the door, ready to go into action. It wasn’t the girl standing outside waiting. It was a man. A man who knew her.

“
We just want the money back,” he said. “You know you shouldn’t have done that.”

“
Rory,” she whispered, surprised to see the tattooed loverboy who told her about the money in the lab house. He wore a suit, a plaid shirt open at the collar, no tie. He looked like a businessman. Who had dressed him, his mom? Who had sent him? Heddy blinked, trying to get a handle on what he’d just said.

“
They sent you? You’ve followed us?” She asked.

“
Heddy, you don’t rob St. Louis. I’ve been following you for two days. I don’t know what you and the con are up to with the people in that car, but if you’ll just give me the money, you can go on your way, I’ll forget all about it. They said they’d even write off the murders and that’s pretty unusual.”

While he was talking, Heddy had slipped her hand into the purse and wrapped her fingers around the little .25 caliber automatic she carried there. No matter what Rory promised, she knew he lied.

She lifted the gun into position inside the purse slowly, aiming it at his gut. “Look,” she said. “I want you to back off. I want you to go back to your car and haul ass. You need to forget you ever caught up with us. It’s that simple.”

He gave her a fake sad smile. “Can’t do it, babe. I’ve been sent to collect.”

She pulled the trigger twice in rapid succession without giving herself time to think. The sounds were like little pithy backfires from a car. She hoped no one came running around the side of the building and turned this into real trouble.

Rory’s eyes registered shock first and then they held nothing. Before he ever fell to the ground, he was dead. She’s gotten him right in the chest where his heart should have been. She didn’t think she’d ever made such a lucky shot as that before.

Heddy stepped over him and hurried around the building. Her purse was torn and she had to carry it in her arms to keep the contents from falling out. She got into the Riviera, switched on the ignition, and pulled from the pump, the back tires giving a little squeal.

Crow said, “I thought you were getting gas.”

The little girl said, “I had to go to the bathroom!”

Heddy shook now. She had to grip the steering wheel hard. She drove the speed limit, watching in her mirrors for anyone following. She hoped Rory had come alone.

“
Crow, there was someone back there.”

“
Who?”

“
Someone from St. Louis. That guy I told you about. The one with the tattoo? Been following us, he said.”

“
Was that the sounds we heard? Was it gunshots?”

Heddy nodded. She hit the town limit and picked up speed.

“
You just killed someone?” Jay asked.

“
Jesus God,” Carrie said and put her arm around Emily.

“
I don’t know if he was alone.” Heddy put on the blinker and passed a car. She hadn’t seen anyone following, but then she hadn’t noticed anyone before either, yet he’d been there, tailing them for days.

“
Shit.” Crow leaned forward and touched her shoulder. “You okay?”

“
A little shook. Not bad. I’ll be okay.”

“
Someone must have heard those gunshots back at the station. They’ll remember this car was there. They’ll probably remember
you
.” Jay turned toward Heddy in his seat, scrutinizing her as she drove.

“
You turn the fuck around and watch the road! I won’t have you watching me,” Heddy shouted. She pointed through the windshield and waited until he faced front again.

“
This means they’re really onto us, Heddy.” Crow sounded nervous.

“
Yeah, so the whole goddamn world’s onto us, I don’t care. We’re getting out of here, we’re going to Mexico, and any fucker tries to stop us is getting the same thing Rory got. No one’s going to hurt us. No one’s going to stop us.”

She began to slow down and took the emergency lane, finally bringing the car to a stop. She took her hands from the wheel and rubbed down her face. Then she pulled open her damaged purse and found the bottle. She opened it and drank down what was left, gulping with her eyes closed.

“
You want me to drive?” Crow asked.

“
No. I’ll drive. Give me a minute.” She watched the mirrors and studied every car that passed by, wondering if any of the passengers might be from St. Louis. It occurred to her that the enemies she and Crow had made stealing the drug money were more of a problem than any law enforcement group. If they could walk right up to her at a bathroom in a service station...

“
Heddy?”

“
I’m going, I’m going.” She put the car into gear and pulled back onto the highway.

“
I can drive, you know,” Crow said.

“
I’m okay, I said!”

And she was. Or she would be. Just as soon as she got the buzz on and everything stopped being so sharp-edged and confusing.

Hell, why did everything have to be so goddamn complicated? Why didn’t anything in her life ever go right?

She felt not so good. She felt pretty bad, really.

She felt like she would vomit or have a heart attack. She needed another bottle.

#

Heddy’s mother was named Jolene and people called her Jo. When Heddy drove up to the door of the trailer where it sat on a little deserted patch of land outside of the small Kansas town, Jo waddled to the door and flung it wide. She squinted at the nice car and then she leaned down and looked through the windows. She saw Heddy.

Heddy waved a little, shut off the engine, and took the keys as she stepped out. “Mama,” she called.

“
Girl! I heard about Craig on the news. I wondered if that was you got him out.”

“
Crow, Mama. Call him Crow, okay?”

Jo pushed two small mongrel dogs back into the trailer with her feet, then pulled shut the door. She came down the two ringing metal steps, but just before she got her bare foot to the ground she looked down and made a face. “Goddamn dog shit right where I got to walk. I swear to God I ought to eat them dogs for supper.” She waited on the step for Heddy to approach. She held open her arms and Heddy saw how the skin flapped beneath them. She was old, drunk, always drunk, and about as useless as any mother could be. Heddy still cared.

“
Can we come in, Mama? We can’t stay long.”

“’
Cause you’re on the run, huh, girl?”

Heddy nodded. “I guess so.”

“
I told you Cr..uh...Crow would get you in trouble one day.”

Crow herded the family forward. He bowed to the old woman and said, “I love you too, Mama.”

“
Shut up, you wimpy asshole. C’mon on in, Heddy. I’ll pour us a drink. Mind the dogs. One of ‘em bites.”

Heddy watched her mother open the door, scoop the two dogs into her arms, and then disappear into the gloom of the trailer. She turned to Crow, shrugged, and went inside too.

The rest followed, crowding into the tiny living room area littered with torn newspaper, dirty glasses, and dog excrement. Heddy stepped over a little pile that had dried to brown crust and dropped onto the sofa. She watched Crow push Jay, Carrie, and the kid her way. They took seats, with the girl sitting in her mother’s lap. Crow just stood there, scowling like an owl.

Jo was in the nearby kitchenette pouring two glasses of bourbon. “You want some, Crow? What about your friends, they need to wet the whistle?”

“
Nah, not for me.” Crow backed to the wall by the small television set and scooted down until he rested on his heels. “Not for them, either.”

One of the dogs came up to Crow and sniffed at his crotch. Crow bopped it on the head with his knuckles. It yipped and backed away.

“
Don’t be hurting my animals,” Jo said, handing the bourbon to her daughter. “Tell him he can get the hell out of my house if he’s going to abuse my animals.”

“
Tell me yourself, Mama. I can hear you.”

“
Don’t call me mama. I would have smothered you at birth.”

Heddy interrupted, saying, “Mama, I don’t know when I’ll get to see you again.”

Jo drained her glass and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before she said, “I don’t reckon you came to see me much anyway.”

“
I know, but this is different. I have to go pretty far away.”

“
Will it be Canada or Mexico?”

“
Look at her,” Crow said. “Ain’t she the smart one.”

Without hesitation Jo whipped her empty glass around and threw it at Crow, narrowly missing his head. The glass struck the wall where it was soft from termite infestation, bounded off, and rolled over to Heddy’s foot. She leaned over and retrieved it, handed it back to her mother. She mouthed “Stop it.” silently to Crow.

“
Well?” Her mother asked. “Canada or Mexico?”

“
Does it matter? I just have to go. And I won’t be coming back.”

Jo turned, her loose flowered house dress flapping around her ankles, and found the bottle. She poured herself another shot.

“
Who’s all those tongue-tied people you got with you there? They going to?”

“
Never mind about them, Mama, that’s on a need-to-know basis and you don’t need to know.” Crow laughed at his little witticism, but not for long. Jo put down her glass on the counter very deliberately and reached over to the stove for a kettle of water. Steam rose from the spout.

“
I was heating water for washing dishes, seeing as how my hot water heater’s busted. But now that Crow’s here, I think I can use this hot water for scrubbing out a dirty mouth and that would be a much better use for it.”

Crow came up from the floor instantly, shaking his head. “Tell her to take it easy, Heddy. I’m in no mood for her games.”

“
You started it, Bully Boy,” Jo said, advancing with the kettle swinging in her hand.

“
Heddy, you tell her. Tell her now!” Crow reached into his satchel feeling for his gun.

“
Mama, that’s enough. I didn’t come to fight.”

Jo halted and looked at her daughter. Her eyes slid over the other people on the sofa and stopped on the little girl.