Back at the car, I toss the shovel in the trunk and head down the hill, not turning on the lights until I’m back on the main road. I’m trying to decide if I should burn Teddy’s car or push it into the ocean when I hear a horn behind me. I put my arm out the window and signal for whoever it is to go around, but the car just keeps honking. It’s a late-sixties’ cherry-red Mustang. Probably the property of some movie star’s kid. At least it isn’t a cop.
When the road widens enough to have a decent shoulder I pull over to let the car pass. Last thing I want is to attract attention when my coat is covered in cemetery dirt and another man’s blood. Imagine my glee when the car pulls off on the shoulder behind me. I pull my gun and put it in my coat pocket.
I get out and wait. The other car’s headlights are in my eyes, but I can hear the driver’s door open and someone start my way. It’s a woman and she’s walking with purpose. All I can see is her outline. She’s wearing spike heels. I cock the hammer on the pistol.
“I don’t always expect tribute, but can’t a girl say hello around here without every nervous Nellie pulling heat on her? You boys do love your guns.”
I recognize the voice.
“Mustang Sally?”
She steps between the headlights and me and I can finally see her face. She’s smiling, knowing how much she spooked me. I smile back.
“Is that a guilty conscience you’re wearing tonight?” she says.
“Not guilty. Just tired. I buried a guy up at Teddy Osterberg’s place. What are you doing here?”
“What I always do. Driving.”
Mustang Sally is the highway sylph. The queen of the road, a spirit that’s been around in one form or other since the first humans left the first mud ruts in the ground with their feet and then wagons. She drives L.A.’s roads 24/7 every day of the year and only stops when bums like me lure her over with tributes of cigarettes and road food. But tonight she stopped me.
“It’s nice to see you. Thanks again for the help last time.”
“Getting you into Hell or keeping you from getting run down when you got back?”
“I’m grateful for the first and pathetically grateful for the second.”
She doesn’t say anything for a second. I’m not the one who stopped her, but she’s still a spirit that needs feeding. I pull out the closest thing I have to a tribute. Half a pack of Maledictions.
“It’s all I have. I didn’t expect to see you.”
“That’s okay. I didn’t expect to see you either, but kismet,” she says, and sniffs the pack.
“These must pack a wallop.”
She taps out a smoke and holds it to her lips. I get out Mason’s lighter and spark the cigarette for her.
“So this is what they smoke in Hell these days. A tribe that used to worship me—who was it?—they liked sage sprinkled with wolf dung, so I suppose I’ve had worse smokes in my time. So, what can I do for you tonight?”
I open my hands. Sally makes a face and brushes some graveyard dirt from my shoulder.
“I wasn’t looking for you. You stopped me.”
She shakes her head.
“Use your brain. You’re on this road. I’m on this road. Spirits and mortals don’t just bump into each other outside a Stuckey’s without it meaning something. So, we’ve exchanged pleasantries. You’ve paid me this ludicrous tribute. All the formalities are taken care of. What’s on your mind?”
I’m not sure what to say at first and then it comes to me.
“I’m going into Kill City.”
“You do go to the most interesting places. Why?”
“I have to find a ghost.”
“That’s probably a good place for them. How many people died there?”
“In the accident, a hundred give or take.”