5. Crash
FIVE
CRASH
BEEEEEEEEEP!
A white truck pulls up in front of the motel, and I know it’s trouble even before the gentleman in the sharp black tux exits the vehicle.
I’d wager his white Stetson with the gator-skin braid and turquoise clip cost as much as the tires on that Ford King Ranch, and I’d also bet the closest this cowboy’s come to wrangling steer is cutting a ribeye steak. He’s old enough to be my father and just like my old man, the purple hue of his face would indicate he’s in one hell of a temper.
“Trina!” He roars.
“Sir! Mister Wilson, sir!”
“Where is she?” He barks at the front-desk girl, who I see now, hurrying out to meet him. Reverend Wilson bellows at this unfortunate, “What room?”
“She — she — Reverend Wilson, sir,” the girl bleats.
Wilson pushes past her and bellows, “TRINA WHITELEAF!”
I move away from the window. Trina wriggles upright in the bed. “Huh?”
Her incredible hair tumbles over her sleep-drugged face.
“ Whiteleaf ! We can do this the easy way or the hard way, ” Wilson calls from the parking lot, his voice resonant as if it came from the pulpit. “Come on out, let’s face it. I came alone. Just you and me, darlin’. You know I’d never hurt you.”
Trina leaps out of bed, giving me a delectable view of something I probably shouldn’t have seen, and she hurries over to the window, standing so close to me I can smell her rosewater hair.
I get a better look at Wilson’s face and that’s when I know immediately and without question he is not one to be reasoned with.
He came alone indeed. Confident. A bully used to getting his way.
I look down at Trina.
By Jesus, I can’t believe I’m getting involved in this.
I start moving. “Stay in here and don’t do anything stupid,” I order her.
Of course she ignores me. She’s already hurrying to the door with no sense of personal danger. I reach for my gun, which I hope I won’t have to use, but in a pinch will remove the need for any explanation. I know this doesn’t look good for me; it would seem to all reasonable people that me and Trina are lovers making a last-minute getaway.
“What’s that for?” Trina screeches when she sees the strap.
“Insurance.”
“No! Don’t hurt him!”
“Back off, Trina, this ain’t a toy.”
She sees I mean business and gets a sudden look of panic I don’t like. She turns on her heels and bolts from the room.
“Hey! Stay! Wait!” I bellow, but not even my most ruthless army roar can stop her. She goes banging through the door hollering, “Reverend Wilson! Reverend Wilson!”
I hit a jog and follow her. A part of me still doesn’t believe this. There’s no way I’m about to fight some psychotic small town reverend over a girl I just met.
Maybe this will be fine anyhow. Maybe she’ll go running into his arms all apologies. For all I know, she’s exaggerated the whole thing. It would be just like a woman to burn the bacon over something trivial and have everybody look foolish.
I haven’t forgotten that McCall is still in this motel, and right now I’m most likely blowing my best shot to take him down.
But maybe not. Maybe we’ll resolve this amicably, like adults.
Trina bolts into the parking lot on bare feet. One look at Wilson and all my tender hope evaporates.
“Trina!” I try to call her back. “Wait!”
The front desk girl flees past us in the opposite direction, chattering into her cellphone, “Mister Gumbly? Mister Gumbly? Should I call the police?”
“Trina! WAIT! Wait, damn it —”
She’s at his side. Here it comes: they’ll kiss and make up.
He cups her face. Nothing more for me to do here. No reason to get involved. I can just walk away and let them — the Reverend grabs Trina by the back of her head and slams her face into his window.
Trina stumbles back. Blood courses down the split in her forehead that just opened.
“TRINA!” I roar.
She nearly falls to her knees, but doesn’t cry out at all. Shock. It’s just shock. For a fragile second, she looks weak, vulnerable. Scared. He pins her to the truck by the throat.
I’m running.
Trina suddenly bucks him off, and throws a right hook that only connects because the bastard just stands there and lets it land. In fairness, he seems the type no one ever hit in his life. More’s the pity.
Trina’s paramour staggers back, cupping his jaw. I guess she has an arm on her after all. And then, recovering his wits, he lunges for her.
She’s not my sister.
She’s not my Ma.
I think she’s a pest. She’s for damned certain screwing up the most important job I’ve ever had.
But there’s something about this rat I just hate. I pounce on him, clench down hard on the arm going for the weapon at his belt that Trina hasn’t even seen yet, and leverage his skull exactly where the frame of the truck meets the steel core.
Trina bawls as her man goes down like a broken puppet. In his pirouette to the tarmac, I disarm him. His gun is a 9mm Staccato. And you bet the motherfucker is hot.
You pull a loaded gun on someone, you’re prepared to use it. For good measure I slam my boot into his ass and send him down again.
“Crash, no! No!” Trina yells. “How could you?”
The gratitude of women. I tell her savagely, “You should have kept your butt inside like I told you. A second later and you’d be dead.”
“I didn’t want him to hurt you!”
“You thought that sod-headed jackass could hurt me?”
“He hurts everybody.”
“Look at him, Trina. He’s just a bully with more hat than cattle. He’s got no religion in him. It’s all a show.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Well why did you run to him like a moonsick calf?”
“I told you — I thought I could talk to him.”
I should be touched by her concern but I’m irritated. She nearly got herself killed.
“You had all that heat for her,” I tell the Reverend. “What about me? You got nothing for me?”
“Don’t shoot him!” Trina cries, jerking her arm from the crushing grip I’m putting on it from being too wired. Nearly seeing her die — she doesn’t even know it. Even in war you don’t get used to it; the sudden leap on the razor edge of oblivion.
I don’t even remember hitting him.
I show her the gun. “Maybe I should have asked him nicely not to make you a statistic. He was reaching for this.”
“He wouldn’t have killed me.”
“He comes to get you in broad daylight, alone, armed, and you think he’s not bold enough to shoot you?”
“I didn’t think — ”
“Now would be a good time to start thinking!”
Midway through telling her she doesn’t have the sense God gave a junebug, a sharp instinct nudges me like the tip of a hot poker.
We’re being watched.
Check your six.
Almost like he steps into the frame.
White, male, thirty years old thereabouts, above six feet. Positioned at the entrance of the building.
I turn back to Trina, who is making more racket than a seagull as she decides whether to help her fiancé off the ground or leave him there to rot.
He’s feeling well enough to spew his filth, at any rate. “You’re finished, Trina,” he stutters. “You don’t know what you’ve done.”
I glance back at the motel doors, at my real priority.
McCall is still there. And to my bewilderment, a dark-skinned woman holding a baby comes to join him. They exchange words and she disappears inside again.
The kid has fluffy red hair.
Jada said, He went into the motel last night with a lady.
From what Jada told me I thought McCall had hired a prostitute. But this female looks nothing of the kind. In fact, she looks familiar. I would swear I’ve seen her before, about Florin.
I grit my teeth. Roman never mentioned McCall had a woman with him.
“Crash, what do we do?” Trina whispers as the Reverend suddenly doubles over and empties his guts all over his Gucci shoes.
McCall is getting away, and I’m playing Dr. Phil for these two.
“It’s simple,” I tell her.
“Simple?”
“You either you go back with him, or–”
You stay with me.
She can’t stay with me.
“I don’t want to go back!” She grabs my arm and her pleading eyes are like warm rain in the cracked clay of my soul. Oh, hell.
“Please, let me go with you. I’ll do anything,” she pleads.
Anything.
I push her lower lip with my thumb. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
Her pupils dilate under my touch. “Please,” she whispers.
“I can’t be liable for you,” I say, fighting with my judgment. “I have a job to do. You’ll only slow me down.”
She looks down at the Reverend.
“I made a mistake,” she whispers.
“Leaving wasn’t a mistake, Trina. Your timing is just pig-shit.”
McCall’s gone inside again. He can’t go anywhere after what I did to his car, but that isn’t a comfort since it’s clear I need to get out of this town like a bat out of hell.
“You can come with me. But it’s now or never,” I tell Trina, hoping she’ll say never.
This is the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever done. But with Trina bear-hugging me, pushing all up on me with her softness everywhere I’m hard, cold reason ain’t doing the talking.
“I’ll give you money. Anything — whatever you want,” she promises wildly. “Thank you! Thank you!”
“If you go back to him it’s your ass. Understand?” I growl. “No second chances.”
Keeping His Holiness in check with the gun, I direct Trina into my Challenger to find my spare set of cuffs.
Once her former lover is trussed like a pig at the barbecue, I run his pockets and put all his belongings in the bed of his King Ranch.
“Should we take his phone?” Trina asks helpfully.
“And add ten more years to my sentence? No. Leave everything.”
“You redneck bastard,” Wilson spits. “I’ll make you pay for this!”
Trina glares at him. “All your money is just a show. You don’t have a soul. You are of the devil.” She is shaking head to toe. “You’re a terrible man and one day everyone will know it. I believe in God and his son Jesus Christ, but not the way you preach it. God is love and compassion. You’re nothing but hate! And guess what? One day I’ll get a good man to give my delicate rose but it will never be you! You— pervert!”
She exhales.
“Go get our stuff then, darlin’. Hurry,” I tell her.
The plump son of a bitch struggles against the cuffs as Trina for once listens to me and hurries back into the motel. His tomato-red neck bulges with fury against his tab collar. “Little whore …”
I consider him. “With just a couple guys, you’d have me beat. Instead you come here by yourself waving that pea-shooter like you could do something. Reverend, are you that confident or just dumb?”
“I didn’t know she was with a — a man like you. You clearly don’t know who I am. I am the Reverend Spud Wilson.”
“A pleasure.”
“You must have heard of my program. Precious Blessings TV.”
“I’m Catholic,” I tell him. “So, no.”
He recoils. “ Abomination !”
“You’re too old for her anyhow. Best you just let her go.”
“You wouldn’t understand, filth,” he sneers. “I’ve had eyes on Trina Whiteleaf since she was a nymph. A beautiful dark nymph.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I mean she was younger,” he snaps. His eyes go hazy. “Much younger…”
My trigger finger itches. I can barely make sense of that babble, but it sounds like this freak needs to be in a cell somewhere underground.
“Did you have relations with her? Is she still a virgin?” His voice is damn near desperate. “Is she still pure ?”
“As the driven snow.” I consider the dry, hot, dusty terrain. “Do you know what snow is, Reverend?”
“You better run like the wind, boy. Don’t wait to see what horrors I will deliver unto you both. I’ll leave you both dead in the desert for the buzzards to pick.” He watches Trina coming out with our small luggage and licks his lips. “Her punishment will be slow…”
“How about I just shoot you?” I suggest. He goes the color of spoiled milk and shuts up. And out comes Trina. My accomplice.
She sees me, and hesitates.
“Don’t look at him,” I order her. “Just get in the car and wait for me.”
“Whore! Slut! Babylon!” The Reverend shouts at her back.
Once she’s in the Challenger, I stoop down to Wilson’s level and give him a brief description of what will happen if our paths cross again. His pink puffy face turns some more interesting colors.
In the distance, a siren wails. Enough of this.
I glance at the Crown Victoria in frustration. McCall is stuck here until he fixes those tires or gets some new wheels. Maybe I bought some time. But now he knows my face. There’s the possibility he recognizes me from Florin, or his wife does.
If he’s smart, he’ll get saddled up on something fresh and be out of here fast. He could take the road West to New Mexico. Or go South into Texas. He’ll pick Texas. It’s less desolate, but easier to ghost.
I blew it.
“I know the judge, boy,” threatens the Reverend. “Don’t you dare set one foot in this town.”
“Good for you.”
I leave him cuffed there and get into the Challenger. I take his gun since I don’t have time to wipe off my prints. There’s a home for it somewhere in the desert, I reckon.
The sirens are louder now. I can think more clearly about McCall when there’s some daylight between me and this freak show.
Trina throws her arms around me as I get into the Challenger. “Thank you!”
I pry her off, annoyed at how her scent and the tickle of her hair affects me. “Don’t thank me yet. What’s the fastest road out of here?”
“Take the road past the old milk carton factory,” she suggests, suddenly helpful. “My driver Charles says the police don’t go there because the dirt messes up the paint job on the new-issue electric trucks.”
I stare at her.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I mutter, and whip us out of there with all due haste.
A safe distance later, I glance across at Trina. She’s been real quiet, sitting still as a statue in the passenger’s seat for the past hour, staring out the window. I hear a suspicious sniffle.
“You alright?” I ask, cringing internally.
“I’m fine,” she chokes.
“Sure?”
“ Yes .”
That’s another sniff. And another.
After a brief argument with my conscience, I extend the drive and take her to the limit of the state, around Black Mesa. I don’t want to stray too far from Tippalonga, but if it will stop a crying fit, I don’t mind the inconvenience.
“I don’t want you getting out too much here,” I warn her. “There are rattlesnakes and such. But we can look for a minute.”
“It’s beautiful,” she says wistfully.
“Did you ever come out here before?”
She shakes her head. “No, I only left Tippalonga once, to visit my grandmother. That was a long time ago when she lived in Beverly Hills.”
Jesus. How rich is this old lady?
“I feel like such a fool,” Trina sighs.
“Not many would have done what you did. At least you had the courage to leave, even though some sort of plan would have been helpful.”
She looks down at her hands, which are twisting together. “Thank you.”
From the shelter of the vehicle and a solitary tree I consider the wide open prairie. I pay attention to the birdsong, identifying each one. Kestrel. Mourning dove. Poorwhill.
“Is Virginia very different from here?” Trina asks me suddenly.
“Yes.” Better , I stop myself from adding. But out here with the big sky unbroken by mountains, only soaring plateaus, the birdwatching is superb.
The sun sets in the great vast distance. The dust saturates every magnificent shade of red and violet. Red pours over everything— the grass, the distant herd of antelope, Trina’s doll-like face.
We don’t have sunsets like that in Virginia, either.
I get out, unload the Reverend’s gun and fling it far into the distance.
“Just take it one day at a time,” I tell Trina when I get back. I don’t like to see her all tight.
She tries a smile. “Thank you, stranger.”
“Hey, don’t mention it.”
More tears course down her cheeks as she looks to the marriage of sun and earth, the trail of red and deep brown. Then she silently wipes them away and, in another minute, is composed.
“Crash?”
“Yeah?”
“This is very beautiful.”
“Yeah. It is.”
“Crash?”
“Yes, Trina?”
“Do you think I could I get some more clothes?”