Perfect Strangers

An old red pick-up truck was pulling into the garage.

‘Help us!’ screamed Sophie.

The driver had white hair and a startled expression.

‘What’s going on?’ Sophie glanced at the name embroidered over the man’s shirt pocket.

‘You. You’re Jim Bryant? We’re friends of Miriam Asner. She said you’d help us. Please. Those men are after us.’

‘Get in,’ he growled.

They ran round to the passenger door of the truck and jumped into the big bucket seat inside.

‘You folks didn’t kill no one, did yer?’ said Jim as he fired the engine.

‘No, but it’s a long story. Please, just trust us and get us out of here,’ pleaded Josh.

‘She-it, boy,’ smiled Jim, revealing a missing canine. ‘In that case, think we’d better go the quiet way.’

He slammed the truck into drive, twisting the wheel away from the road and jerking off down a farm track hidden behind the line of trees. Sophie turned in her seat to look out of the back window: she couldn’t see either SUV or the men, but she still didn’t feel safe, even though Jim was putting distance between them with every skidding turn, cutting across fields and skirting farmhouses, almost completely avoiding the roads.

‘You might want to watch your heads,’ he shouted as they thunked into a pothole and bounced straight out again, flying out of their seats and bumping against the roof. He wrenched the wheel to the right and the truck skidded through a gap in some trees and careered up through a dry river bed, sending stones flying in their wake.

Who was after them? wondered Sophie, confident that they had left them behind. The Russians? The FBI? It could have been anyone. All that counted right now was getting away. They could worry about all the rest later.

‘Thanks for helping us, Mr Bryant,’ she said, raising her voice to be heard over the thrumming engine.

‘Call me Jim, sweetness. And you’re welcome. Don’t agree with what her scumbag husband did to all his investors, but Miriam is a pretty foxy lady.’

He paused to downshift as they turned on to a road, a single-lane blacktop that wound down into a grove of red oaks, the sunshine only leaking through in shafts of brilliant yellow.

Josh looked at him. ‘Could that have been the FBI back there?’

Jim shrugged. ‘Why? You something to do with her husband?’

‘My father was an old friend of Michael Asner,’ explained Sophie.

‘Her house is being watched, that’s for sure. Mine’s the only gas station in three miles, they got to get their reg’lar and their Twinkies somewhere. They been sitting there for months with those wires in their ears.’

‘We need to get to Manhattan,’ said Sophie, desperate to get away from Pleasantville.

‘If you pay for the gas, I’ll take you all the way. If you’re trying to avoid some folks, that’s the best way to get to the city. No, ol’ Jim knows all the back roads from here to Hazzard County.’

He winked, and Sophie leant over to kiss his leathery cheek.

‘You’re a very kind man,’ she said as Jim blushed.

He turned to Josh.

‘You’ve got a good girl,’ he smiled. ‘You look after her, y’hear? My Martha passed not two years since, and ain’t a day goes by I don’t think of her. Woman couldn’t cook for shit, but she was a good one. You find yourself a good one, you hold on to her, okay?’

Sophie glanced at Josh, but he turned and looked out of the window, small spots of colour in the centre of his cheeks.

‘I’ll try, Mr Bryant,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll certainly try.’

35

Ruth couldn’t quite believe that there were people working out at the gym at eight o’clock on a Friday night. Haven’t these people heard of pubs? she thought as she peered through the glass partition of the Red Heart at a dozen people still working the machines. She looked at her watch, eager to get this over with. Ian Fox had texted her back, clearly intrigued, and they were due to meet when his shift finished at nine p.m.