“No, ma’am. I haven’t accepted the job. I’m not your chauffeur.”
“Call me Edie.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Seems that you’re driving my car, like you are a chauffeur. Of course, maybe I’m senile and imagining all this. When are you going to marry this Stormy?”
“I don’t know an exact date, ma’am. I have to die first. Wait. I’ll need to explain that. Stormy … well, she died, and we can’t ever be together in this world now, only in the next.”
“This is true? Yes, I see it is. You believe in an afterlife?”
“Yes, ma’am. Stormy believed in two afterlives. She said this world was boot camp, to test and toughen us, to prepare us for the next life of service in some great adventure. Our third and eternal life comes after that.”
“What a unique concept.”
“Not so much. You’ve heard of Purgatory, like Catholics believe. Well, maybe the next life is Purgatory—except with lots of running, jumping, chasing, and fighting with demons or something.”
“That makes sense,” she said.
Surprised by her quick acceptance, I said, “It does?”
“In eighty-six years, child, I’ve learned the world is a far more mysterious place than most people realize and that every moment of life is woven through with meaning. In fact, I learned that much by the time I was twenty-six, one oven-hot night in the little town of Lonely Possum.”
“Lonely Possum? I never heard of it.”
“Lonely Possum, Arizona. Not many people have heard of it. But one day, maybe soon, everyone in the world will know its name.”
The thought of Lonely Possum becoming world famous seemed to please her, because she smiled widely, dimpling both cheeks, and let out a sigh akin to those that diner patrons once made when they finished a plate of my roast-beef hash.
I said, “What happened sixty years ago, that oven-hot night in Lonely Possum?”
She winked. “Never you mind.”
“Why will everyone in the world know the name one day?”
“When you’ve been my chauffeur for a month or two, when we know each other better, I’ll share that with you.”
“I’m not your chauffeur, ma’am.”
“Call me Edie.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Southbound, we topped a rise and started down a long easy hill, and in one of the northbound lanes, a California Highway Patrol car passed us. Too late, I let up on the accelerator. The officer braked, switched on his rooftop beacons, drove across the median strip, and soon fell in behind us.
Mrs. Fischer said, “He didn’t zap you with radar or anything. He doesn’t have a smidgen of proof. It’s just his word against yours.”
“But I was speeding.”
“Admit nothing, child.”
“I can’t lie to a policeman, ma’am. Well, not unless maybe he’s corrupt or a maniac or something. It’s okay to lie to evil.”
As I pulled to a stop along the side of the road, Mrs. Fischer said, “Then you better let me do all the talking.”
“I’m the driver. He’ll expect answers from me.”
“Not if you’re a deaf-mute.”
“That would be another lie. Besides, they might let a mute drive, but I’m not so sure about a deaf person.”
“So then you’re just mute. And you don’t have to lie. I’ll say you’re a mute, and then you just don’t say anything.”
Putting down the power window, watching the side mirror as the patrol car pulled in behind us, I said, “This is a bad idea.”
“Nobody’s going to the slammer, child. Unless you’re wanted by the law.”
“I’m wanted, but they don’t know my name and don’t have a photo, just a description.”
Her expression was one of dismay, but not because I was a wanted man. “Oddie, you are too truthful for your own good. I didn’t ask if you were wanted. There was no reason whatsoever to volunteer the information.”
“Sorry, ma’am. I thought you should know.”
Behind us, the driver’s door of the patrol car opened.
“Child, you said it was okay to lie to evil. Maybe I’m evil.”
“You’re not evil, ma’am.”
“Appearances can be deceiving. Maybe I’m the most evil person you’ve ever met. Maybe I’m demonic.”
“No, ma’am. I’ve met some way evil people. You’re a cream puff.”
In the side mirror, the man who got out of the patrol car looked like Hercules’ bigger brother, a guy who, at every breakfast, with his dozen eggs and pound of ham, drank a steaming mug of steroids.
Mrs. Fischer seemed miffed that I had called her a cream puff. “I’m about to lie to a policeman, child. Doesn’t that make me just a little bit evil?”
“It’s wrong,” I said, trying to soothe her hurt feelings, “it’s bad, no doubt about that, but it’s not evil.”
“You shush now,” she said, “and leave this to me.”
A moment later, the massive cop loomed at my window, blocking the morning sun as effectively as an eclipse. He bent down and looked into the car, mouth puckered in a frown and gray eyes squinted, as if the Mercedes were an aquarium and I were the strangest fish that he had ever seen.
He was a handsome bull, I’ll give him that, even though his head was as big as a butcher’s block. Those singular eyes were not the shade of ashes, not dull but bright, almost silver, steel that flensed away the skin of deception and saw the guilt beneath.
“Do you know how fast you were going?” he asked, which I’ve heard is what they always ask, giving you the option of telling the truth and convicting yourself or lying to a cop and thereby further incriminating yourself.
I forgot that I was a mute, but before I could speak, Mrs. Fischer said, “Andy Shephorn, is that you?”
His dissecting stare cut from me to her—and softened from blade steel to velveteen rabbit. “Edie Fischer, as I live and breathe.” His smile seemed to be too full of teeth, all as large and white as piano keys. “What is it—four years?—and you don’t look a day older.”
“Because I look a decade older. How many children do you and Penny have now? Last I recall, it was five.”
“Seven,” he said, “but we intend to stop at eight.”
“Worried about your family’s carbon footprint?” she asked, and they both laughed.
Although the cop was leaning in my window, his face inches from mine, I seemed to have become invisible to him.
To Mrs. Fischer, he said, “Since the boomers didn’t bother to have enough kids to pay their Social Security for them, someone’s got to do it.”
“I’d love to see your children again—and the two new ones.”
“Come around anytime for dinner.”
“I’ll do that when this current little adventure is over.”
“Where’s Oscar—sleeping in back?”
“Dear, I’m afraid Oscar passed away four days ago.”
Tears welled in Andy Shephorn’s eyes. Proportioned to match his features, the tears seemed as large as grapes, and he was striving not to spill them.
Mrs. Fischer saw his distress and said, “Oh, dear, it wasn’t a grisly ending, not at all. Oscar and I were in a lovely restaurant. We’d had a divine dinner. He finished the last of his dessert, as good a crème brûlée as ever we’d tasted. As he put down the spoon, his eyes widened, and he said to me, ‘Oh, I think the time has come to say good-bye,’ and he slumped dead in his chair.”
Knuckling the tears out of his eyes, Shephorn said, “He was a fine man. Except for him, I’d never have met Penny.”
“He knew she was the perfect wife for you.”
I could smell the salt in his tears, I swear I could, and the spray starch in his uniform shirt, the scent of which was liberated by his body heat. The limo felt humid, a laundry on wheels.
“By the way,” Mrs. Fischer said, “this young man is my new chauffeur, Thomas.”
Officer Shephorn didn’t extend his grief-wet han
d, which was almost twice the size of one of my hands. “I’m pleased to meet you, Tom.”
Pressed back in my seat to give his formidable head as much room as possible, I said, “Likewise, sir,” my voice miraculously restored to me, a mute no more.
“You’ve got big shoes to fill, Oscar’s shoes.”
“I’m aware, sir.”
“And you never will have a stroke of good fortune better than to find yourself under the wing of Edie Fischer.” Before I could reply, Shephorn said to my passenger, “Is Tom here smoothed out yet?”
“Not yet,” she said. “He’s only been with me less than an hour. And he’s not fully blue yet, either. But he’s far more blue and a lot smoother than anyone his age I’ve ever met. He’ll be fully blue and smooth in no time.”
“Good. That’s good. With the Oscar news, I’m almost afraid to ask—how’s Heathcliff?”
“Heath is still dead, dear.”
“But otherwise all right?”
“Oh, yes, he’s perfect. Listen, Andy dear, I’d love to chat all day, but we’re in something of a hurry.”
“Where do you need to be?” the cop asked.
She said, “Somewhere south of here, we don’t know where, but we’ll know the place when we get there.”
“Would you like a police escort? I can clear the way ahead of you, no problem.”
“You’re a sweetie,” Mrs. Fischer told him, “but this is a thing we have to do ourselves.”
“You always have been independent. But I guess that’s the way.”
“That’s the way,” Mrs. Fischer agreed.
When Andy Shephorn extracted his head from the driver’s window, fresh air rushed in as if a cork had been popped from a bottle. As he stepped aside, sunshine found me, and it felt good on my face.
I didn’t power up the window until we were on the highway once more, accelerating.
In the rearview mirror, Andy Shephorn stood where we had left him, looking after us. He didn’t actually raise his hand to his brow, but he seemed to be in the posture that accompanied a salute, as if my elderly passenger were a senior officer.
My psychic magnetism was engaged but not in high gear, the rhinestone cowboy lurking in the back of my mind, mostly a shadow, except for blue eyes that seemed to whirlpool like flushed water. While Mrs. Fischer and Officer Shephorn had been schmoozing, the trucker, would-be burner of helpless children, had opened a wider lead on us. Even at ninety miles an hour, we wouldn’t find him in the next few minutes. When we were closer to him, then I would need to focus more intently on the memory of his face.
I said, “How long have you known Officer Shephorn?”
“About eighteen years. We had a flat tire. That was another limousine. Oscar was seventy-four and entirely fit, but when Andy came along and saw the situation, he insisted that Oscar step aside and let him change the tire.”
“So in return, Oscar introduced him to his ideal mate?”
“Penny. She’s smart, pretty, ambitious, and loves kids. She has a degree in viniculture.”
“I’m ignorant.”
Mrs. Fischer patted my shoulder. “Child, you’re no such thing. No one can know every word in the language. Viniculture is the study of winemaking. Penny already had some land, some vines, when she met Andy Shephorn. Every year she—they—grow the place a little more, sell another hundred cases above what they sold last year. Soon it’ll be another four hundred, then another seven hundred. State police can retire after thirty years. Then he’ll work with her in the winery. By the time they turn the place over to their kids—nine, not the eight they’re planning—the brand will be famous. They’ll have to build an entire trophy room at the winery just to display all their awards, and it’ll be their family business for generations.”
“That’s really specific, ma’am. For a prediction, I mean.”
“It’s not a prediction.”
“It’s not? Then what is it?”
“It’s what is.”
I thought about that, but I wasn’t enlightened. “You remind me of a girl I know named Annamaria.”
“About forty years ago, I knew an Annamaria Youdel. She was a gifted clothes designer and seamstress. She made all her own clothes. I guess she had to, considering she stood five feet two and weighed three hundred sixty pounds. She had two gold teeth right in front. She shaved her head every day and kept her eyebrows plucked. Her face was as smooth and pink and sweet as the face of a baby, though babies don’t have three chins.”
“Different Annamaria,” I said.
Theologians tell us that this is a fallen world, that Adam and Eve broke it when they fell from grace. Maybe you’re not a believer, but if you’re honest, you’ll have to agree that something is wrong with this place. Senseless violence, corrupting envy, greed, blind hatred, and willful ignorance seem to be proof that Earth has gone haywire, but so is the absurdity that we see everywhere. The people of a broken world, off the rails and wobbling trackless on their journeys to oblivion or meaning, are frequently going to be foolish, sometimes in entertaining ways. When amusing, their foolishness—and mine—can be a lamp that brightens my spirit in spite of all threats and suffering. I suspected that by the time this was done, Mrs. Fischer would leave me glowing.
I said, “So I guess you even know how many grandchildren Mr. and Mrs. Shephorn will have.”
“Thirty-two.”
“How many will be girls?”
“Eighteen.”
I glanced away from the road. Mrs. Fischer’s smile was impish. Passing an eighteen-wheeler emblazoned with the Pepsi logo, recalling her answers to the peculiar questions that the policeman had asked, I said, “So I’ll be smoothed out and fully blue in no time.”
“That’s right, child. You’re already remarkably advanced.”
“What does that mean—to be smoothed out and fully blue?”
“You’ll understand when you’re smooth and blue.”
When I glanced at her, she winked at me again.
I asked, “Who’s Heathcliff?”
“Heath. My late husband. The one true love of my life. He died twenty-eight years ago this April.”
“Officer Shephorn knew your husband was dead.”
“Of course.”
“But he asked if Heathcliff was ‘otherwise all right.’ ”
“You’re an excellent listener. I like that.”
“But then you said your husband was perfect.”
“And he is.”
“Dead but perfect.”
Instead of explaining that apparent paradox, Mrs. Fischer extracted a roll of chocolate candies from her huge black purse. She said, “Treat?”
Suddenly I felt pulled southward, not merely carried by the momentum of the hurtling Mercedes, but drawn by psychic magnetism. The rhinestone cowboy was no longer far ahead, and we were swiftly closing on him.
Five
NO TRUCK STOP WILL EVER BE MISTAKEN FOR A FAR-FUTURE spaceport, but this one—Star Truck—had such a science-fiction feel that I would not have been much surprised if Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock had beamed down from an orbiting Starfleet retirement home in their bunny slippers, jammies, and walkers. The canopies over the many gas-pump islands were sleek stainless-steel ovals trimmed with neon tubing that, at night, would lend them a flying-saucer feel, and the pumps looked like platoons of robots at parade rest. The facade of the huge building was clad in stainless steel—probably a convincing plastic imitation of stainless—with the lines and the details of a classic Art Deco diner, but that didn’t give it the appeal its architect most likely intended; because of its size, the place had an ominous military quality, as if it must be the headquarters of the extra-terrestrial overlord of an invading force from another planet.
The large property was fenced for security, an important feature for truckers in an increasingly lawless time that required many of them to pack guns, legally or not. Two extra-wide lanes led into the facility, two out, and they passed through the same gate, between barriers of
chain-link, monitored by a pair of pole-mounted cameras. A banner above the entrance promised PARKING LOTS PATROLLED 24/7.
According to an enormous sign bordered by stars that most likely twinkled colorfully at night, Star Truck offered a smorgasbord of road-warrior services: ALL FUELS, 24-HOUR GARAGE SERVICE, RESTAURANT, SNACK BAR, MEN’S AND WOMEN’S SHOWERS, MOTEL ROOMS, LAUNDROMAT, BARBERSHOP, TV LOUNGE, GAME ARCADE, TRAVEL STORE, GIFT SHOP, CHAPEL.
In recent years, to save fuel, the tractors of most eighteen-wheelers had gotten more aerodynamic. If you could tune out the roar of the big engines, you might imagine that those sleek Peterbilts, Volvos, Freightliners, Macks, Fords, and Cats were gliding across the blacktop without effort, like antigravity craft in a Star Wars movie. Even the classic, boxy, battering-ram designs of Kenworth and Intercontinental had made some concessions to diminish wind resistance.
The flashy and sinister ProStar+ with the red-and-black tractor and the black trailer was parked among forty or fifty other rigs at the north end of the property. As I cruised slowly past, memorizing the license-plate number, I could see that no one was in the cab of the tractor, and I had no sense that the rhinestone cowboy might be with his vehicle.
Moments earlier, I had told Mrs. Fischer that the flamboyant trucker was planning three murders, but I hadn’t told her how I’d come across this information.
“That’s his rig,” I said, braking to a stop.
“Let’s set the cops on him.”
“No, see, I have some negative history with the police in Magic Beach, which isn’t that far from here. And the FBI might be looking for someone who fits my description. I haven’t been a bad boy, ma’am, but some exceedingly treacherous people got themselves shot to death and a whole lot of property got pretty much busted up. And I wouldn’t like to have to explain to the authorities how just a simple fry-cook uncovered a plot to nuke four cities, took down several terrorists, and got out of that town with all his skin.”
“You aren’t a simple fry-cook.”
“That’s my point, ma’am.”
She cocked her snow-capped head and gave me that cockatoo stare again. “You’re quite a riddle.”