“ Yeah, that.”
“ You scared me,” she said.
“ Didn’t mean to.”
“ Well, you did.” She crossed her arms against the cold, while she took in his battered and scabbed face. What she couldn’t see in the dark last night was hauntingly surreal in the moonlight as he led her back to her car. He was rugged handsome, with the same crooked smile carried by his daughter.
“ I’m sorry about that,” he said when they reached the car, “but I’ve always wanted to own one of these. When you walked away from it, I couldn’t resist. I just wanted a few seconds behind the wheel. I wasn’t going to steal it.”
“ I didn’t think you were.”
“ Occupational hazard,” he said, and she laughed.
“ Were you always a thief?” she asked, remembering what he’d told her last night.
“ Always.”
“ No, really. How’d you start?” She smiled at him and got in the passenger side of the car.
“ I’ve been a thief ever since I can remember.” He looked down at her.
“ Why?”
“ I don’t know. I don’t have the kind of conscience most people seem to have. It doesn’t bother me. I used to think I did it because it was easier than working, but stealing’s a job, like any other.”
“ I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. Yesterday I was a married, mild mannered school teacher with a ten-year-old VW. Today the yellow bug is history and I’m single again. And I’m out here in the middle of nowhere-”
“ Talking to the kind of man you would have passed by without a glance before,” he interrupted.
“ I’d have given you a glance.”
“ How much they give you for the Volkswagen?” he asked, changing the subject.
“ How do you know about that?”
“ I followed you.”
“ How? I didn’t see you?”
“ I must be better at it than you.”
“ You saw me?”
“ After you gave up, I turned around and followed you.”
“ All the way to Eureka?”
“ All the way.”
“ When I went to the bank?”
“ I was right outside.”
“ When I bought the car?”
“ I was looking at a new station wagon.”
“ Why?”
“ You came around checking me out. I was curious.”
“ You wanna drive it?” She rubbed her hands on her knees against the cold.
“ Sure you want me to?”
“ I think I might like it.”
He grinned and moved around to the driver’s side, trailing a hand along the car as he went.
“ You ever driven one of these?” she asked.
“ In my kind of work you can’t afford to draw too much attention to yourself.”
“ Of course,” she said as he started it up and revved the powerful engine.
“ Started for me,” he said.
“ It would,” she said.
“ It’s a guy thing,” he said. Then he looked up, checked the road, shifted into first, popped the clutch, and held on to the wheel, as dirt and small rocks shot out from the spinning tires. The Corvette sprang out from the dirt, fishtailing, till Coffee wrestled it onto the road.
Sarah pulled her seatbelt on as Coffee accelerated. She gulped air as the tack redlined in second, then again in third, then fourth. She glanced at the speedometer and gasped as the needle pushed a hundred, before Coffee threw it into fifth.
She ran her fingers through her hair, massaging her scalp. He was driving like a man possessed and he was invigorating her, making her come alive like she hadn’t been in years. Doing for her in a few seconds what no man had ever done. And he’d hardly touched her.
And she was afraid he never would. He was a self-confessed thief. Of what she didn’t know. But he was definitely not the kind of man she wanted anything to do with. However she found herself running her hand along the back of her neck to quiet the chills that shivered there when she thought of him.
And he could drive.
She was an experienced driver. He was a reckless driver, taking the car to its limits. A hundred and five and she grabbed her knees, pushing herself back into the seat. A hundred and ten and she was digging into her knees with white knuckles. A hundred and fifteen and she couldn’t feel her knees. A hundred and twenty and she was holding her breath.
She tore her eyes away from the speedometer and glanced at John Coffee, hair blowing in the wind, hands clenched on the wheel, eyes on the road ahead. He was married to the Corvette. He’d become part of the car, the oil flowing through the engine the same as the blood flowing through his veins.
She saw a flash out of the corner of her eye and turned her head to see another shooting star. She bit into her lower lip, because it looked like it landed up ahead. She looked back at Coffee and knew that he’d seen it, too, but he wasn’t slowing down. The speedometer read one-twenty.
“ Hang on,” he said.
She looked up and screamed. The old black woman was standing in the center of the road. Impossible, but there she was, and Coffee still had his foot to the floor. He was using the car like a weapon, guiding it like a missile, and he aimed to run her down.
She exhaled and took a huge breath. There was nothing she could do except watch it happen. The lights, like lasers, were guiding the car toward its mark. Sarah screamed again as the tires gobbled up the road and the old woman refused to move. She was still screaming when the old woman turned into a miniature comet of red and orange flame. She fainted as the Corvette tore through the tail of fire, never feeling the heat of it.
He opened his eyes and checked the clock on the nightstand next to the bed. He’d been asleep for a little over two hours. He got up and shucked off his clothes. He wanted to be between the sheets, but he also wanted the sweat, dirt and grime off his body, so he ambled into the bathroom.
Ten minutes later he stepped out of the shower careful not to slip on the tile. He ran a hand around his neck and winced, the bruises still hurt. He resisted the temptation to turn and look at himself in the mirror. His beard grew fast, so all it would tell him was that he needed a shave and he didn’t feel like it right now, not with the scabbed over scratches. He padded across the cold floor, picked up a towel from the rack and left the bathroom.
He walked to the foot of the double bed and ran his head around in a tight circle, moving his shoulders back and forth at the same time. He was tense, partly because of the woman on the other bed, but mostly because of what he would have to face soon.
He dropped the towel on the bed and stepped into a pair of Dockers. He didn’t like being naked. He picked the towel back up and dried his hair, then dropped it back on the bed and moved across the carpeted floor toward the television. He slipped on a tee shirt, followed by a dark brown sweater. He grimaced as he bent over and eased his feet into loafers without socks. Then he balled his fingers into fists, then flexed them, before leaving the room. They served coffee all night in the lobby.
“ How’s it going tonight?” He closed the door behind himself.
“ Fine,” the desk clerk said. She was an elderly woman with too much blue rinse in her hair.
“ Just came in for a cup of courage.” He poured himself a cup from the motel’s never empty jug. He was reaching for one of the free donuts when the flashing red and white lights pulled into the parking lot.
