much they made on the job itself and how much they made moonlighting on their backs. Andrew Carlisle had spent so many years fantasizing about Diana Ladd and her swollen belly and what he'd do to her when he finally got the chance that he had almost missed this golden opportunity when it all but fell in his lap.
'Why Prescott?' the woman was saying.
'My dad's in the hospital up there,' he said. 'He isn't expected to make it.'
The woman clucked her tongue in sympathy. 'That's too bad.'
'My car broke down in Lordsburg,' he continued. 'The mechanic said it would take at least two days to get parts and another day to put it back together. According to my mom, Dad doesn't have three days. So I decided to hitchhike there and go back for the car later.'
Carlisle let his index finger stroke around and around the smooth lip of the can, sensuously wiping the beads of moisture off it and wondering how many places besides the door handle, the cooler, and the beer can he had touched.
Where else would he have left prints? He would have to remember all those places later so as not to miss any when he wiped the vehicle clean.
The woman set the beer can between her legs and reached for the still-burning cigarette. A few stray ashes rained down on the seat as she took a long drag, but Andrew Carlisle was conscious only of the cool beer can resting unselfconsciously between her deeply tanned legs.
Looking at it caused a sudden, insistent stiffening between his own.
'Do you do it for money?' he asked.
She looked at him and laughed. 'Drive pilot cars? Of course I do it for money. Even with air-conditioning, working for mobile home-toters is a lousy job, but it's better than no job at all, which is where I was after they laid me off at Hecla.'
Andrew Carlisle hadn't been talking about driving pilot cars. He had meant something else entirely. He liked the fact that she was too dumb to pick up on the double entendre. Women were stupid that way.
Sometimes you had to hit them over the head just to get their attention.
Ahead of them, Picacho Peak loomed in the distance, its rugged gray silhouette shimmering in the heat waves that rose off the freeway's pavement. Carlisle knew the mountain's name as well as he knew his own, but he didn't let on. 'What's that?' he asked, pointing.
'The mountain?' the woman asked, looking at him dubiously. 'I thought you said you're from Prescott. How come you don't know Picacho Peak?'
'My dad's in Prescott,' he said. 'In the VA hospital up there. I'm from El Paso. I've never been here before. What did you call it, Picacho Peak? It looks steep. Do people climb it?'
'All the time. I grew up around here. The mountain's one of my favorite places. Actually, there's a rest area partway up. We could make a pit stop there if you can spare the time.'
'Sure,' he said agreeably. 'I'd like that.'
The parking lot at the rest area was totally deserted.
A searing, hot wind blew down off the mountain and into their faces when they got out of the car. While the woman went to use the rest room, Andrew retrieved two more beers from the cooler and then sauntered over to a shaded picnic table. Across the desert came the whine of tires as vehicles sped along the Interstate several hundred yards away, but none of them slowed or stopped. Closer at hand there was no sign of life.
He took a leisurely sip from his second beer in six years.
The alcohol was making him a little giddy, giving him a slight but pleasant buzz. He sat with his back against the warm concrete picnic tabletop and thought about taking her right there in the heat, in broad daylight, as it were.
That excited him almost beyond bearing, but there was no sense in being stupid. Carlisle looked around. At one end of the rest area, he saw a small playground. Beyond it, a trail wound off up the mountain.
When the woman emerged from the rest room, Carlisle was gratified to see that she had applied a fresh coat of vivid red lipstick. He looked forward to the taste of it, anticipating how it would feel to crush those full lips against his own. He wondered if cosmetic companies had ever considered naming their lipsticks with his kind of flavors---Yielding Woman' would be a good one or maybe 'Blood Red.'
Maybe he could get a job writing advertising copy.
As she came walking toward him. he again noticed the deep tan on her legs and the easy, sensuous sway of her generous hips. Not unaware of her effect on him, she seemed, in fact, to enjoy it.
He handed her a beer, which he'd already opened. 'Ever make any money on the side?' he asked.
She smiled coquettishly over the top of the can, but she made no movement away from him. He caught a whiff of freshened perfume with its hint of tacit agreement. 'That depends on what you have in mind,' she said. 'Your place or mine?'
He almost choked. She was brazen as hell. Is that what had happened to women in the six-and-a-half years since 1968 when they'd locked him up?
Was that what 'Women's Lib' was all about? A little reluctance might have been nice.
Carlisle liked reluctance in his women. Sex was always far more interesting when the woman had to give more than she intended. This broad, for instance, thought she was in complete control. He'd be only too happy to show her otherwise.
'Right here,' he said, motioning toward the picnic table behind them.
She looked at him incredulously. 'Right here? In the rest area? In this heat? What if somebody comes?'
Somebody'll come, he thought. 'A quickie,' he said, ashamed that it sounded so much like begging.
