she wouldn’t be noticed getting in the car-and they would simply drive around, Sherri keeping an eye out for the lost Duffy, Rory pretending.
They talked as they rode, getting to know each other better. After a while, Duffy was seldom mentioned, though they carried on the charade of searching for him.
“Gas is expensive,” Rory told Sherri one day, as they were tooling along the county road in his mother’s Impala.
Sherri laughed. “What is that, a news announcement?”
Rory smiled and took a curve a little too fast. It was a nice sensation. “What I mean is, maybe we oughta park a while and search for Duffy on foot.”
“That doesn’t sound very efficient.”
“It’s getting harder and harder to keep the gas gauge off empty,” Rory said.
“So you’re saying we don’t have much choice.”
“My wallet’s saying it.”
“You don’t have a credit card?”
“I used one my mom gave me, but she confiscated it when it got up near a thousand dollars.”
“Jesus, Rory! She’s got some nerve. I mean, it’s your card.”
“It does have her name on it.”
“So?”
“Anyway, it’s a nice day for a walk.”
Rory found a place where they could pull off the road and the trees were spaced out so they could drive the Impala into the woods just far enough so that it was invisible from the road. The underbrush might have scratched the paint on the side of the car, but not so much that Rory’s mom would notice. And if she did notice, she’d probably think she’d done it herself.
Rory leaned over to work the door handle for Sherri just as she was leaning forward to grip it herself. Unexpectedly, they were close. This had to be more than coincidence. This was fate. They kissed. Then kissed harder, using their tongues.
The kisses became more than kisses. And then became something wonderful.
Afterward Rory folded his shirt so Sherri could sit on it and not get blood on the Impala’s seat.
“What are we going to do now?” Sherri asked.
“That,” Rory said. “Again.”
They both laughed.
“God, Rory!”
“Nobody has to know,” he said.
“In a way,” she said, “I want everybody to know.”
He stared at her, horrified.
“Don’t worry,” she said, and patted his knee.
“We’re acting like an old married couple,” Rory said.
She punched him hard in the side of the neck and then hugged him. They hugged each other, not wanting to let go. This was fine. This could be perfect. If no one would ever disturb them. Ever.
Finally they pulled apart.
“Ready to go back to the real world?” Rory asked.
“As I’ll ever be.”
“I’ll put the window down so it won’t look funny, me driving without a shirt.”
“You are so devious.”
“I guess we both have to be devious now,” he said.
“Maybe everyone learns that sooner or later. It’s called growing up.”
As he maneuvered the Chevy back out onto the road, Sherri was thinking how her mom and dad would wring her neck if they ever found out about this. She had already been taking birth control pills she’d gotten from Hattie, the school nurse, without anyone knowing.
Rory noticed they weren’t far from where he’d killed and buried Duffy. Now here they were, him driving shirtless, and the untouchable Sherri Klinger sitting beside him with her wadded panties and his shirt under her bare rump so she wouldn’t get blood on his mom’s car.
Some wide and wonderful world.
Some future!
“Want to stop at Creamery Curb Service and get some milkshakes?” he asked.
“ Rory! ”
48
New York, the present
T hey were driving in Quinn’s black Lincoln, on their way to pick up Sal and Harold. The sun was low and the shadows stark and angled. The day’s ferocious heat was hanging around with the remaining light, but the big car’s air conditioner kept the interior comfortably cool. Now and then a smattering of rain spotted the windshield, taunting with the notion that the brutal heat would be broken.
Ordinarily Pearl would complain about the lingering cigar smoke smell in the car that meant Quinn had been puffing on one of his precious Cubans, but this evening she had things on her mind that made the cigar problem seem minor.
“Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it,” Pearl said. “Then I wonder if it’s not just me, but that’s the way it is- you can’t stand the obnoxious twerps, but you know if they were gone you’d miss them so much it would hurt.”
“You talking about Sal and Harold?” Quinn asked.
“You know damned well I’m talking about Juditha Jane Jason,” Pearl said.
He switched on the wipers. Switched them off. He was aware of her watching him as he drove. He hadn’t known Jody’s middle name was Jane, but he should have. But then, no one had told him. He kind of resented that.
“You raised a daughter,” she said. “Being a parent? Is it like that?”
Quinn thought about Lauri and smiled without realizing it. “Sometimes it’s tough. Other times it’s grand.”
“You’re proud of Lauri. You love her and you’re proud of her. I can tell.”
“I am,” Quinn said. “And sometimes she could drive me nuts, just like you know who.”
They drove for a while without talking. Quinn cut off a cab at a gridlocked intersection and the driver yelled and cursed at him and made obscene gestures. Quinn ignored him. Sometimes, Pearl thought, he was like something made out of marble. But she knew his warm and beating heart, and part of his soul.
“How do you feel about Jody?” she asked.
He didn’t divert his gaze from the madness of Manhattan traffic. “I’m beginning to feel possessive.”
Pearl scooted across the Lincoln’s big bench seat and snuggled up to him.
He glared down at her. “Pearl, you’re a cop.”
“Private,” she said. “Very private.”
Jody stood in the lobby of Enders and Coil and looked through the tinted glass at a patch of sky. Even through the tinting, low-hanging dark clouds could be seen. Rain clouds. Or a tease? Probably it wouldn’t rain, but it might.
She placed her purse on a nearby leather chair and put on the light raincoat she’d had the foresight to bring to work. She had stayed late, letting her penchant for romping through Enders and Coil’s up-to-date files and recent correspondence pass for hard work and ambition.
There was a full-length mirror at the other end of the lobby, and she went and stood before it, making sure the coat, which had never fit her well, hung low enough to cover her skirt and didn’t look ridiculous.
