Pine Springs, Arizona, because when I opened my wallet, it was empty. All the new credit cards: gone. All the cash she'd granted me earlier: missing. She'd been scrupulously fair about it. I still had what I'd had before her contributions.
Well, that was okay. I didn't need Djinn charity, I told myself self-righteously, and proffered my Warden- issued American Express card to pay for the gas.
It was dead as the proverbial doorknob. Figures. The Wardens hadn't let any grass grow in cutting me off the payroll.
It ain't cheap to gas up a Viper in this day and age. And I had exactly twenty-nine dollars and forty-two cents in my purse — not enough to pay for the gas, much less the soda and pretzels I was craving. You know that feeling, right? That cold, sinking feeling. The freezer-burn of panic setting in when you semi-calmly check all the pockets and nooks and crannies and come up with an additional penny and a half a mint.
I was the only customer in the place at the moment, which was a relief; at least I didn't have some poor sucker standing behind me, shuffling his feet and sighing over my stupidity. No, I only had the cashier, a middle- aged balding man resplendent in his red canvas vest and nametag that said he was ED. He stared at me over the plastic jar of made-in-China American flags.
'Um …' He was going to make me say it. He was just going to stand there and wait for it. Probably the most excitement he'd seen in days around here, unless somebody had driven off with the nozzle still in their gas tank. I took in a deep breath and felt my cheeks getting hot. 'I'm sorry. I'm a few dollars short.'
Nothing. Not even a blink. I got a blank, blue-eyed stare that lasted about an eternity, and then Ed abruptly said, 'Seven dollars and twenty-six cents.'
Oh, this wasn't going to be easy. 'Yes, I know. I'm sorry, I just — well, I don't have it. So …?' I tried a smile. That got me nowhere. Without a change of expression, Ed picked up the phone next to him on the counter, punched buttons, and said, 'Hello, Sheriff's Office? Oh, hey, Harry, how you doing? Yeah, it's Ed.
… Fine, fine. Listen, I got me a girl here who's trying to drive off without paying — '
'What?' I yelped, and made wild no motions. 'I'm not! Honest! Look, I'm paying! Paying!' Because the last thing I needed was to get rousted by the local police without the invisible might of the Wardens backing me up. Damn, Rahel was sneaky. She hadn't needed to risk breaking a nail in an undignified scuffle with me. All she had to do was step back.
I must have looked pitiful indeed, because Ed hesitated, sighed, said, 'Never mind, Harry,' and hung up the phone. He leaned on the counter — a fiftyish guy, lean and sinewy, the kind who deals with truckers and assholes on a regular basis and isn't impressed by a bad mo-fo attitude (or, I was guessing, anything less than a rocket launcher). Tattoos in blurred patterns all up his forearms, crawling into the hidden territory under his short-sleeved shirt. Balding. He stared at me with those cold, empty eyes. 'So?'
I did another frantic purse strip-search, which involved taking each and every thing out and laying it on the counter. Except for David's bottle, which was securely sealed and wrapped tight. If he wanted that, he could pry it out of my cold, dead fingers …
I came up with a battered, faded ten dollar bill stuck in a hole in the lining. It looked as if it might have come out the wrong end of the dog that chewed it. Ugh. I handed it over and took advantage of the mini bottle of hand sanitizer before I repacked my purse. Ed, with no visible change of expression, rang up the sale and handed back my change as I got myself together again. The crisis over, I was feeling hot and fluttery, and falsely relieved. Having come up with the money didn't exactly mean I was out of trouble. I had two dollars and change on which to drive to Florida in a car that drank gas like an alcoholic at open bar. I didn't want to end up holding a cardboard sign that said WILL (verb) FOR FOOD.
Ed kept staring at me. I couldn't detect any warmth in it at all. I finished repacking my purse, gathered up my soda and pretzels, and wondered what I had in my possession at the moment that I could hock. Not a hell of a lot. Damn.
'Hey,' Ed called, as I headed for the door. I turned to look at him. He jerked his chin toward a sign hanging from the counter. It read, in jerky Magic Marker lines, HELP WANTED.
'Just thought you might want to apply,' he said. 'Not long-term or anything. Just for a while, to get you down the road.'
I blinked. Offering to work off the debt had frankly never occurred to me. Now, that was a sure sign I'd been a Warden for way too long.
'Apply?' I echoed. Man, I sounded dumb. Might have been why he was being so kind, after the equally brainless floor show with the lack of money. 'Oh. Um … I don't have a place to stay.' And I'd slept in my car for two weeks on the way to Las Vegas; no way was I going to make it a life choice. I was way too sore, my body far too abused. 'Maybe I'd better keep on going.'
Smiling transformed him. He was a hard guy, no doubt about it — those tattoos were probably the least of it – but there was something sweet and gentle and warm about his smile that made me feel cozy inside. 'That car's going to run dry in a couple hundred miles. What are you going to do then? I'm just saying, there's a lot of trouble to be asking. You could stay here a week, eat cheap, sleep on the cot in the back so long as you don't object to twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week.'
I gave him a long stare. 'How much?'
'Six an hour. That's as much as I can pay. Free soda, though. One free hot dog a day.'
I considered. That was seventy-two dollars a day, and if I stayed a week, that would be enough money, hypothetically, to get me back home and cushion me a little. And Ed seemed hard, but he didn't seem scary. Not in that backwoods chain-your-ankle-to-the-bedpost way, anyway. I had the impression that he was honestly trying to do me a good turn.
As I thought about it, his blue eyes wandered back around and fixed somewhere over my shoulder. Staring right through me. 'Of course,' he said, and the smile was long vanished, 'if you want to move along, that's your business. I don't like to get in anybody's business. Maybe you got some other ways to earn money, pretty lady like you.'
I took three steps back to the counter, leaned on it, and got his stare straight-on. 'Meaning?'
His thin eyebrows levitated. 'Nothing.'
Yeah, right. 'I'm not allergic to honest work!'
'Good thing,' he said. 'Got a toilet to clean. Second door, can't miss it.'
###
He wasn't kidding. The toilet really did need cleaning, in the worst way. The work wasn't so hard, though, and it had been a long time since I'd donned the bright yellow gauntlets and wielded the toilet brush in battle.
There was a kind of simple-minded satisfaction when I threw everything in the bucket and looked around at a nice, clean, gleaming bathroom.
I ached like hell, all over, but then again, I'd been aching before. Not a huge problem. And at least this had the feeling of accomplishment to it, instead of that wire-bound nervous tension I'd had before. Physical labor might actually do me some good.
When I came out, sweaty and triumphant, Ed gave me a grudging nod of thanks and tossed me a red vest. It had a hand-lettered nametag on it that said JOANNE.
'You know how to work a register?' he asked. I didn't. He gave me a ten-minute tutorial, punctuated with frowns and shakes of his head, until I could ring up a sale, cancel one, and make change to his satisfaction.
We covered emergency cut-off switches, what to do in case of emergencies (like drive-offs, guys with handguns, and teens trying to buy beer and cigarettes).
And then Ed stripped off his red vest, hung it on a hook in the back, and fixed me with the coldest stare I've ever seen. Including anything from a Djinn.
'I'm trusting you,' he said. 'You run off with the till, you can't run far enough. Get me?'
I got him. I nodded, one quick dip of my chin, and held his stare. 'I'm not a thief,' I said. Well, that was stretching the truth a bit, but in my heart, I meant it. 'I'll take care of things here.'
'I'll be back in an hour. You have a problem, my cell phone number's on the note next to the phone. But don't have a problem.'
With that, he turned around and banged out of the back fire door, which thunked solidly shut behind him.
