?We?ve done all right so far, haven?t we?? Pete began talking about his friend Billy Bob Holland, a former Texas Ranger who had a law practice in western Montana. ?Billy Bob will he?p us out. When I was little, my mother used to bring home men, usually late at night. Most of them were pretty worthless. This one guy was more worthless than all the rest put together and then some. One night he smacked both me and my mom around. When Billy Bob found out about it, he rode his horse into the beer joint and threw a rope on the guy and drug him out the front door into the parking lot. Then he kicked him into next week.?
?Your lawyer friend can?t help a fugitive. All he can do is surrender you.?
?Billy Bob wouldn?t do that.?
?We have to get your disability check.?
?That?s kind of a problem, isn?t it?? Pete stood up and propped one arm against the wall, gazing out the window, his upper torso shaped like a V. ?That check should have come yesterday. It?s just sitting there in the box. The government always gets it there on the same date.?
?I can ask Junior to get it and send it to us,? she said.
?Junior doesn?t quite look upon me as a member of his fan club.?
Vikki was sitting at the small desk by the television set. She stared emptily at the decrepit state of their room?the water-stained wallpaper, the air-conditioning unit that rattled in the window frame, the bedspread that she feared to touch, the shower stall blooming with mold. ?There?s another way,? she said.
?To turn ourselves in??
?We haven?t done anything wrong.?
?I tried it already. That one won?t flush,? he said.
?You tried to turn us in??
?I called a government eight hundred number. They switched me around to a bunch of different offices and finally to a guy with Immigration and Customs. He said his name was Clawson.?
?Why didn?t you tell me??
?It didn?t go too well. He said he wanted to meet me, like somehow all this was between him and me and we were buds or something. He had a voice like a robot. You know what?s going on when people talk like robots? They don?t want you to know what they?re thinking.?
?What?d you tell him, Pete??
?That I was by the church when the shooting started. I told him the guy who was paying me three hundred dollars to drive the truck was named Hugo. I told him I feel like a damn coward for running away while all those women were being killed. He said I needed to come in and make a statement and I?d be protected. Then he said, ?Is Ms. Gaddis with you? We can he?p her, too.?
?I said, ?She?s not a part of this.? He says, ?We know about the characters at the truck stop, Pete. We think they either killed her or she put a hole in one of them. Maybe she?s dead and lying unburied someplace. You need to do the right thing, soldier.??
Pete sat back down on the bed and began drawing his shirt up one arm, the network of muscles in his back tightening like whipcord.
?What?d you say??
?I told him to kiss my ass. When people try to make you feel guilty, it?s because they want to install dials on you. It also means they?re gonna sell you down the river the
first chance they get.?
?Can the FBI trace a cell phone call?? she asked.
?They can locate the tower it bounces off of. Why??
?I?m going to call Junior.?
?I think that?s a bad idea. Junior makes a lot of noise, but Junior looks after Junior.?
?You only get thirty percent disability. It?s hardly enough to pay the rent. What are we supposed to do? This all started in a bar where you were drinking with idiots who soak their brains in mescal. For three hundred dollars, you put our lives in the hands of people who are morally insane.?
She saw the injury in his face. She turned away, her eyes closed, tears squeezing onto her eyelashes. Then, in her inability to control even the tear ducts in her face, she began hammering the tops of her thighs with her fists.
THAT AFTERNOON, WHILE Pete slept, Vikki walked down the road and used the pay phone to call Junior collect at the diner. She told him about the disability check and about their financial desperation. She also told him that the man Junior had sold milk to had tried to kidnap and possibly kill her.
?Maybe that?s more information than I need to know,? he said.