She shrugs, unimpressed.
“Each road has its own way of going. You should have seen those few scratches in the dirt in the Fertile Crescent. The first roads that called me into being. Back then a decent pair of sandals was high tech.”
She holds out the Luckies. I hesitate.
“It’s all right,” she says. “Half the job of being a spirit is knowing when to share.”
I take the cigarette. She pulls a gold lighter from her bag and sparks the Lucky for me.
When she drops the lighter back in the bag, she says, “Do you know what it is you’re asking? Do you have any concept of what Hell is?”
“I spent eleven years Downtown, so, yeah, I have a pretty good idea.”
That gets her attention. She gives me a slow once-over with her eyes or whatever it is behind those glasses.
I say, “I was alive. The only living thing that’s ever been down there and sure as Hell the only living thing that’s ever crawled out.”
“Oh. That’s you. The monster who kills monsters.”
Her body relaxes like we’re chatting each other up in a bar.
“What a relief. For a minute there, I was afraid you were a ghost. I don’t like doing business with the dead. They leave pitiful offerings.”
“I guess being all disembodied would make you a little skittish.”
“That’s not the half of it. Ghosts are whiners. When they don’t like the answer I give them, some even try haunting me. Me. Can you imagine how annoying it is to have a ghost moaning away in your car? I banish them to road structures. Overpasses or cloverleafs. Let them watch the living go by for a hundred years or so and see if that improves their manners.”
“I wonder if the bums that live in underpasses know they’re pissing on the dead?”
Mustang Sally looks at me hard.
“Why do you want to go back? Escaping once was quite a feat. Are you trying to become famous by doing it twice?”
“I’m going to find a friend who shouldn’t be there. And then I’m going to kill someone. If I have time, maybe I’ll stop a war or two.”
That makes her laugh. A full-throated husky howl.
“You’re not frivolous. But you might be crazy.”
“My friends wouldn’t argue that point, so I won’t either.”
“This friend you’re going to rescue, is she your lover?”
“Yeah.”
Sally looks out at the road. Heat reflects off it, making the cars in the distance soft and dreamlike.
“u t00"> o you know what most people ask me when I stop for them?”
She waits. I’m supposed to ask the question.
“What?”
“You’d think it would be about where to find the boy who got away or the girl they left behind. But no. They want to know where they should go to be happy. How can I possibly answer that? The road isn’t here to make you happy. It’s here so you can find your own way. Because they bring me cigarettes, they expect me to cure their misery.”
“What do you say?”
“I tell them to go to a gas station and buy the biggest map they can find. It doesn’t matter if it’s the city, the state, or the world. I tell them to open it, close your eyes, and drop your finger somewhere on the map. That’s where you’ll find what you’re looking for.”