The Big Dirt Nap

Taser, being in the back would give me a little cover and it would be harder for the driver to see how scared I was to actually use it.

He had a plump face and that earmuff hairline—some back, some sides, no top. The suit was shiny and there were two suitcases with company stickers on them in the back. Salesman. He didn't seem to mind that Sam obviously looked like a homeless man and smelled like fuel, and I—face scratched, hoodie torn, green slime on one pants leg and blood on the other—didn't look or smell much better. And that suited us. All we wanted was a ride to Titans. A few minutes into the ride we found out why he didn't mind.

'Friends, I think you were put into my path for a purpose,' he said with a smile. He waited for an acknowledgment.

Oh, brother. 'And what would that be?' I asked, not really wanting to know.

'I'm here to snatch you from the road to perdition—literally and figuratively, heh, heh—and to set you back on the road to righteousness. You back there can stop your whoring and this man can stop his wretched drinking and fornicating and all you have to do is . . .'

What was he talking about? I couldn't speak for Sam but I hadn't whored and fornicated for a good year and a half. As a matter of fact, if I got through this experience alive, I planned to pick them up again with a vengeance. I tried tuning the driver out but he went on like that for six of the longest miles of my life. And each time his sermon reached a new crescendo he slowed down a bit for emphasis; we were going twenty-four excruciating miles an hour by the time we reached the turnoff for Titans.

'Stop the car. We can walk the rest of the way,' I said. 'It'll give us time to contemplate turning around our misspent lives.'

At the speed we were going it wasn't dangerous so I opened the car door slightly and—worried that I'd jump out—the driver finally rolled to a stop. Clearly he hadn't finished his pitch and was annoyed by our early exit. I wondered if he had his spiel rehearsed and just cruised the highways at night looking for poor, unsuspecting hitchhikers to proselytize to.

As I got out he handed me some pamphlets from a religious group that I had never heard of but one that he assured me was chock-full of good American values. Sam gave the passenger-side door a stronger shove than I would have expected.

'Thank you, my friend,' Sam said. 'Can you spare a dollar to help me and the lady get a couple of coffees, to start our new lives of sobriety?'

'I won't do that,' the driver said, with a smile. 'You'll only spend it on drink.' I didn't think Sam would, but I was ready for a strong one right about then.

'How about a reference? I'm a mechanical engineer and I think I recognize the corporate logo on your suitcases.'

The driver hit the gas and took off, muttering some very un-brotherly words; Sam tossed the pamphlets after him and turned to me. 'He obviously hasn't paid for his own drinks in a while if he thinks we're both going to catch a buzz for a dollar,' he said. 'T and E man. Probably cheats his company on travel and expenses.'

The dirt road leading to the reservation and Titans just beyond it wasn't far. This time we talked.

'Sam, by all accounts you're a smart, likable guy. I gotta ask. What the hell happened?'

'Maybe I'll tell you the whole story one day. The short version is this . . . The company went under, all my savings were tied up in my 401(k). I borrowed money short-term at usurious rates to keep up my house payments, but I defaulted on the loans, and then lost my house. I lived in the trailer park for a while, but without a job even that got too expensive. It was surprisingly easy. And shockingly fast. I drank a bit after that.' I could see why.

He was a walking news item. Something you hear about in a sound bite on CNN right before the story about the ferry accident in some part of the world you didn't know existed.

'No family?' I asked.

'No.' There had to be a longer answer to that one but I didn't push it.

Near the entrance to the reservation two cars were parked nose to nose. At least three people were out of the cars and arguing. Sam grabbed my sleeve and raised a finger to his lips. He pulled me into the brush at the side of the road, and we crouched down to avoid being seen. The voices grew louder. A man's voice said, '. . . not what I signed on for . . .' and another said, '. . . you can go back to . . .'

I was staring straight ahead trying to make out any recognizable shapes or faces when a field mouse crept into my line of sight. We watched each other for about a minute, but I blinked first. The mouse ran around in circles, confused, and when he came close enough for me to see his little teeth I let out a yelp.

'What was that?' one of the threesome said.

Sam pulled two black lawn and leaf bags from his stash. 'Put it over your head and curl up,' he whispered. 'Now!' He did the same.

A moment later the car in front of us moved and the one that was facing us turned its headlights on. We flattened ourselves farther into the brush.

'It's nothing, just the wind blowing some roadside garbage. Turn those lights off, you idiot.' It was a woman's voice. And it was familiar.

Forty-four

In the last two hours I'd been bloodied, slimed, pelted with crushed beer cans, preached at, and mistaken for a bag of garbage.

'Do you go through this often?' I asked, once the cars had taken off and we climbed out of our bags.

'Almost every day. The lawn-and-leaf-bag trick saved my life once.' Maybe twice, I thought, folding the bag and giving it back to him. I couldn't be entirely sure about whose voices I'd heard but they hadn't sounded happy and wouldn't have appreciated being interrupted.

'Any idea what kind of cars they were?'

'Too far to tell. But one was a smallish SUV, not a regular sedan.'

That wasn't much help. Even Lucy's rental car was a smallish SUV. We walked the rest of the way to the hotel, passing the spot where the cars had been stopped. I looked around for a due.

'What are you looking for?' Sam asked. I didn't know myself; It was as if I expected whoever it was to have left a calling card. But there were no convenient cigarette butts, candy wrappers, or vodka bottles, just some dusty tire tracks and a jumble of footprints.

'Just curious,' I said. 'You see anything?'

'Not much,' Sam said. 'I can tell you that one of them was a big man, size fourteen or fifteen shoes and probably pretty damn heavy.' I couldn't believe what I'd heard. 'I worked in a shoe factory, remember?'

Our plan was this: I'd enter the hotel through the main lobby, trying to keep a low profile until I got to my room. Sam would sneak in through the loading dock and take the freight elevator up to my room, where, hopefully, Lucy would be waiting for us. Then we'd try to reach Betty Smallwood for legal advice.

'You're not going to take off on me, are you? Look at me,' I said, holding on to his arm. 'I've gone through a lot to find you. Claude and Billy need you.' He shook his head and I believed him.

We split up at the beginning of the long driveway into Titans. I kept close to the parked cars and in seconds, Sam had disappeared behind a hedge of green-and-white euonymus—clearly he'd done this before.

The valet parking attendant was asleep so I didn't have any trouble getting by him and through the revolving doors unnoticed. Unfortunately, Taylor, the friendly but perpetually confused desk clerk, was still on duty.

'Ms. Cavanaugh, gosh, are you all right?' I motioned for him to keep his voice down, but he was a teenage boy and that made my suggestion ludicrous. 'Can I call a doctor for you?'

That got me more unwanted attention. One gentleman initially got up, ostensibly to offer his services, then demurred when he saw how bad I looked—visions of a malpractice suit, no doubt. I went to the front desk to shut up the well-meaning clerk.

'I'm fine.' Now that he'd blown my hopes of sneaking into the hotel unnoticed, I decided to ask him for a favor. 'Taylor, do you have a locker here?' He nodded. 'What's in it?'

'A T-shirt, a sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers. Old stuff, nothing nice,' he said, still confused.

'Good.' I looked through my handbag and pulled out my wallet. 'I'll give you a hundred dollars if you send