Blood of Cain

17

A taxi pulled up to the curb in front of the Greyhound Bus station in Daytona Beach and slowed to a stop. The dark-skinned driver wore a Cardinals’ baseball cap and a diamond stud in one ear, the earring winking from the passing headlights on Ridgewood Avenue. He cut his black eyes up to the rearview mirror and looked at Courtney Burke in the back seat. “This is the place. Do you know what time you catch your bus?”

She didn’t answer, her eyes following a police car that entered the parking lot from a road behind the building. “Drive on, please.”

“What?”

“Now! Just go.”

The taxi driver nodded, put the car in gear, and pulled back into the night traffic. “So where’d you want to go?”

“Where’s the closest truck stop?”

“Less than three miles.”

“Take me there.”

The driver sighed, accelerated and changed lanes. He glanced back in the mirror at the girl. “You in some kind of trouble?”

“No.”

“When you saw that cop car, you got an instant case of the hee-bee-jee-bees. Know what I’m sayin’? Hey, I’ve been there. Why are the cops lookin’ for you?”

“I didn’t say they’re looking for me. I just don’t feel like hanging around a creepy bus station half the night.”

“So you’re gonna hang around a creepier truck stop? C’mon, that don’t take a hellava lot of smarts.”

“Please, just take me there, okay? I don’t feel like talking either.”

The driver was quiet for a minute. Then he said, “Look up ahead. Lots of blue lights. Either a wreck or the cops are runnin’ a sobriety check stop.”

“Turn around!”

“I can’t do a U-turn here.”

“Let me out!”

“What? In the middle of damn the road?”

Courtney opened the passenger door a few inches. “Slow down!”

“Hey! Wait a second, okay? There’s a side street up ahead about fifty yards. I can turn to the right and by-pass all that shit up there.”

“Okay.”

The driver cut through two lanes of traffic, horns blasting, drivers swearing. He made a sharp right turn and zoomed down a darker road, the staccato pockets of light from the streetlamps popping like overhead fireworks bursting. “Damn, girl. You know how to get the adrenaline pumping.”

“Thank you for doing that.”

“No problem. Long as I don’t see flashing blue lights in the next thirty seconds, we’re good to go. Why the hell are the cops lookin’ for you?”

“I don’t want to go into it.”

“All right. Probably best I don’t know. Don’t want to be called an accessory to some friggin’ crime, especially one I didn’t do.”

A few minutes passed in silence, and then the driver pulled into a large, well-lighted parking lot half filled with semi-trucks, neglected palm trees, and steel trash barrels overflowing with garbage. Beyond the rows of fuel pumps was a single-story brick building with a blue neon sign that read: Open 24 Hours. Many of the big rigs were parked with running lights on, diesels idling, drivers climbing in and out of the cabs.

Courtney watched a middle-aged woman open the passenger side door of a parked truck. She took a moment to adjust her short skirt as she stood on the top rung in spike heels, and then stepped down to the parking lot.

The taxi driver stopped near the building and turned back toward Courtney. “You sure you wanna get out here?”

“I’m sure.”

“That’ll be twelve even.”

Courtney handed him a ten and five. “Keep the change.”

“Be careful. Most of these drivers are hard working stiffs like me. Good guys. But some are real degenerates. They can use their mobility to do a lot of rough shit and never get it pinned on them ‘cause they’re here one hour and gone the next.” He looked around the three-acre lot. “Big place. I’m glad they have surveillance cameras out here. But it just makes some of them more careful.”

Courtney got out of the taxi. She paused and leaned in the front side window. “Thank you.”

“No problem. You take care of yourself. Shit, I don’t want to read that they found your body in a dumpster or some other God-awful place.”

Courtney smiled and then turned, stepping into the jumble of lights and sounds, the cranking of diesel engines as a country song blared from outdoor speakers. She walked around two truckers sipping black coffee from paper cups, steam rising in the cool night air. Their eyes met her as she walked through the odor of fuel, fry grease, bacon, and cinnamon buns, leading to the truck stop entrance drenched in the blue glow of a neon sign that read: PRIVATE SHOWERS.