Inside Out

78

From her seat in the corner booth Sean could turn her head to watch the rigs pulling in from the service road, see the activity at the gas pumps, or watch the southbound traffic up on Interstate 95. Although she forced herself to appear disinterested, Sean was very much aware of each of the customers who came and went through the restaurant's doors-the majority of whom were truck drivers.

Three miles from where she'd abandoned Wire Dog's cab, she had met a seventeen-year-old couple in a convenience store and had offered the boy twenty dollars to take her to a restaurant near the interstate, which turned out to be a truck stop. The good thing about kids that age was that they didn't ask a lot of questions and would forget her as soon as she stepped from the vehicle.

According to her name tag, Sean's waitress was Bernice. She was so emaciated that Sean was amazed she could carry the coffeepot without snapping her wrists, which were hardly thicker than spools of dime-store thread. Ruby, the other waitress, was a strapping blonde with breasts like honeydews. She looked as though she had been plucked from the helm of a Viking ship, her face still red from the bitter North Sea winds. She roared at the drivers and made comments that elicited howls of laughter from the male customers.

Sean looked down at the backpack on the seat beside her, and studied the small hole in it. As she had run from the counter to the hotel's front door, the younger woman missed her rib cage by inches but had hit her inch-thick titanium-shelled computer. Sean had tried to turn it on just after arriving at the restaurant, but the sleek machine was dead. She didn't care, except that the hard drive contained information she wanted. She had $242 in her pocket, three credit cards, a driver's license in the name Sean Devlin, no extra clothes, no bullets for her pistol, and, now, no passport.

She didn't want to think about Wire Dog and Max, but couldn't shake the images of them. She knew if she hadn't come into their lives, both would still be breathing. That was hard to deal with, but the blame wasn't hers-that she laid at Sam Manelli's feet. Sam was responsible for the deaths at Rook Island, Ward Field, and now at the Hotel Grand. She had to get as far from Richmond as she could, fast, and she needed to alter her appearance again as soon as possible. The marshals would be looking for her and she couldn't rule out that Sam's people were somehow getting their fixes on her through them. She wasn't going to call Shapiro-not yet.

A wide-shouldered trucker swaggered in and took a seat at a table to Sean's left. With a shock, she realized that the driver was a woman. Her black hair was combed straight back, except for one dark cable that hung down over her left brow like a rat's tail. The freckle-faced woman sat with her knees wide apart, her shoulders rolled forward, forearms on the table fencing in the cup. She wore leather chaps, a belt with an oval silver buckle, and black boots with engraved silver toe covers. Her two-inch-wide watchband was made of silver and turquoise.

“Where you headed to, Clancy?” another driver called over to her.

“Baton Rouge, J.T.,” Clancy said. “Picking up paper bound for Frisco and bringing a load of knit shirts back to New Jersey.”

Clancy looked around the room, and finally parked her raisin-colored eyes on Sean. When Sean smiled, the trucker looked away, picked up the piping-hot coffee, and took a swallow of it before lighting a cigarette.

Sean's waitress seemed to know Clancy, so when she came over to give Sean a refill, she asked her about the female driver.

“Clancy Ross out of Houston. She comes through several times a year.”

Sean took her coffee and her backpack and walked over to Clancy's table, where the driver studied Sean suspiciously.

“I hate to bother you,” Sean started. “My name's Sally. May I sit down and talk to you?”

Clancy nodded, keeping her hard eyes on Sean. “If you're looking for a soft touch, sister, you're climbing a shaky ladder,” Clancy said.

“Oh, no,” Sean said. “That isn't it at all.” She smiled as disarmingly as possible.

Clancy was clearly expecting an angle, but nodded for Sean to sit. “I'm listening, little sister.”

“I'm a freelance writer doing a magazine story on truck drivers.”

“For what magazine?”

“Whoever will buy it.”

“Is that so?” Clancy's expression was doubtful.

Sean knew that she looked like a wacko who was running on desperation. “I was looking for a driver who would let me ride along for a few hundred miles. Share what the road is like with me. I mean, we all see trucks on the highways, but few of us know what a driver's life is like-your hopes and dreams and the long hours. And I was thinking that a female driver in a man's world was a great hook for a story.”

“You think riding with a woman teamster is safer than with a man?”

“I think I would be more comfortable with a woman.”

Clancy's breakfast arrived. She began eating it, hunched over the plate proprietorially like a prisoner protecting it from other inmates. Smoke curled up from the cigarette in her left hand.

“It's important to me,” Sean implored.

Clancy spoke without looking up. “Where you been published before?”

“All kinds of places.”

“You're full of shit, Sally,” Clancy said, chortling. “Husband or a lover after you? Want my help, level with me.”

“Husband,” Sean conceded, sensing this inadvertent change in tactic would seal the deal.

“Here in Richmond?”

Sean nodded. “He's a cop. His father's a judge.”

“And you want to get away to where?”

“Are you going near Charlotte?”

“I can take ninety-five to eighty-five south. It runs right through Charlotte,” Clancy said without looking up. “Leaving in ten minutes.”

“I'll just freshen up,” Sean said.

There was a bank of pay phones on the wall near the bathrooms. Sean dialed a number and slipped quarters she had gotten from the cashier into the slot. She trembled involuntarily as the phone rang. She was ready to hang up after two rings, when an impatient voice answered. “Yeah, what?”

As soon as Sean spoke, the silence on the other end was deafening. Sean was overwhelmed with the feeling that she had just made a very big mistake.

Ten minutes later, Sean climbed up into the cab of a black Diamond Reo with a pair of dice painted on the door and strapped herself into the passenger seat.

Clancy selected a CD and slipped it into the player. As the truck headed up onto the interstate, rich cello music filled the cab.

“Yo-Yo Ma,” Clancy called out over the music. “He's Asian.”