?A what??
?A bleeder. Keep bothering my waitress like that and see what happens.?
Vikki got into her vehicle and turned around in the lot but had to wait for an eighteen-wheeler to get past before she could drive back onto the highway. In her rearview mirror, she saw the man in the top hat come out of the nightclub and get in the Trans Am. He wore jeans and suspenders and a white T-shirt, and his torso was too long for his legs. The man with the beard closed his car door and tossed the Styrofoam container and the uneaten food out the window.
Vikki pressed the accelerator to the floor, the safe electric glow of the truck stop and diner disappearing behind her. A newspaper flew off the asphalt like a bird with giant wings and whipped through the front window and wrapped itself on the crown of the passenger seat before spinning in a vortex inside the car. She slapped the tangle of pages down with one hand and tried to see who was behind her. There were several sets of headlights in her rearview mirror now, and she couldn?t tell if any of them belonged to the man with the orange beard.
A truck passed her, then an open convertible with a teenage girl sitting on top of the backseat, her arms outspread in the wind, her chin lifted, her blouse flattening on her breasts, as though the stars and the bloom of the desert and the warm nocturnal loveliness of the moment had been created especially for her.
When Vikki rounded the next curve, the headlights of the vehicle behind her reflected off a hillside and she clearly saw the Trans Am, riding low and sleek on good tires, the engine powerful and loud and steady. She mashed on the gas, but her vehicle did not accelerate. Instead, the pistons misfired, and a balloon of black oil smoke exploded out of the exhaust pipe. She felt as though she were in a bad dream in which she knew she had to run from an enemy but her legs were knee-deep in mud.
What a fool she had been. Why hadn?t she confronted the two men in front of Junior and dealt with them in front of the diner, even called the cops if she had to?
She flipped open her cell phone on her thigh, trying with her thumb to punch in the diner?s number. Up ahead, she saw the Nissan parked on the side of the road, the hatch open, the father of the three-month-old baby girl on his knees, pushing a jack under the rear bumper.
She slowed and pulled in behind him. He stared up into her high beams, his face white, distorted, his eyes watering, his narrow head and long nose and greased hair like those of a man who was out of sync with his own era, a man for whom loss was a given and ineptitude a way of life. She left the parking lights on and cut the engine.
The Trans Am streaked past her, the bearded passenger giving her a double thumbs-up, his friend in the top hat bent hard over the wheel.
But the driver of the Nissan was concentrated on Vikki, still looking up at her, blinking, his eyes straining in the darkness. ?Who are you?? he said.
?I saw you at the diner. You needed milk for your little girl. Are you all right??
She was standing directly over him. He had spread a handkerchief on the gravel to kneel on but had not taken off his coat. He had just placed the jack under the rear of the car frame, but neither of the back tires appeared to be flat.
?I think I got a bubble in my tire. I could hear it slapping. They do that sometimes when they?re fixing to blow,? he said. He got to his feet, brushing at one knee. ?Problem is, I forgot I don?t have a spare.? Because of the grease in his hair, it looked wet-combed and shiny on his collar, as though he had just emerged from a fresh shower. There were soft lumps in his facial skin, similar in size to the bites of horseflies. He glanced over his shoulder at the empty road. In the distance, a pair of high beams bounced off a hillside into the sky. ?We?re at the Super 8 in town. My wife probably thinks I got kidnapped. My sister?s husband has a shoe store in Del Rio. I?m supposed to go to work for him day after tomorrow.?
He waited for her to speak. The stars were smoky, like dry ice evaporating on black velvet, the wind starting to gust through an arroyo behind her. She thought she could smell night-blooming flowers, water braiding along the edge of a bleached riverbed, an alluvial fan of damp sand cut by the hoofprints and the clawed feet of animals.
?Ma?am?? he said.
She couldn?t concentrate. What was he asking her? ?Do you want a ride to your motel?? she said.
?Maybe I can make it. It was you I was worried about.?
?Pardon??
?I got the sense those fellows in the Trans Am were hassling you. You know those fellows? That was them that roared on by, wasn?t it??
?I don?t know who they are. Do you want a ride??
What had he just said? He had asked about the two men in the Trans Am, but he had been looking at her, not them, when they passed. He seemed to be thinking now, with an expression like that of a fool humorously considering his alternatives at someone else?s expense. The headlights that had silhouetted a hill in the distance disappeared, and the outline of the hill dissolved into the darkness. ?I can limp in with this tire as it is, I guess. But it?s kind of you to stop. You?re mighty attractive. Not many women trave
ling alone would stop on the road at night to help a man in distress.?
?I hope your new job works out all right for you,? she said. She turned and walked toward her vehicle. She could feel the skin on her back twitching. Then she heard a sound that didn?t belong in the situation, that didn?t fit with everything the driver had told her.
He had opened a cell phone and was talking into it. She got in her vehicle and turned the key in the ignition. The engine caught for perhaps two seconds, then coughed and died. She turned the ignition again, pumping the accelerator. The stench of gasoline from a flooded carburetor rose into her face. She turned off the ignition so she would not run down the battery. She placed her hands on the steering wheel and kept them absolutely still, making her face devoid of all expression so he could read nothing in it. He approached her window, dropping the cell phone in his coat pocket, reaching with his other hand for something stuck in the back of his belt.
She unscrewed the plastic drinking cup from the top of her thermos, then unscrewed the cap and rubber plug on the thermal insert and began pouring coffee into the cup, her heart seizing up as his silhouette filled her window.
?People call me Preacher,? he said.
?Yes??
?Everybody has got to have a name. Preacher is mine. Step out here with me, ma?am. We have to get going pretty quick,? he said.
?In your dreams,? she said.