Silk - Caitlin R. Kiernan [14]
“You havin’ some car trouble?” he asked, cold air and his breath, the sick-sweet reek of chewing tobacco or snuff, leaking in through the crack.
“Uh, yeah. I’m afraid I am.”
“Well, I’ll be glad to take a look at her, if you want.”
The man looked like all the Boo Radleys of the world rolled into one jug-eared, unshaven package. It still isn’t too late, familiar, worried voice that sounded like her mother, whispering inside her head, It’s not too late to tell him that someone’s already gone for help, that the police…
“Sure. Thanks,” she said and smiled, a nervous smile that she hoped looked genuine.
He smiled back, dirty row of crooked teeth, then nodded and tugged at the brim of the grease-stained cap he was wearing.
“No problem, ma’am,” he said.
“I think maybe I let the oil get too low and it overheated.”
“That’d do it.” He pulled a flashlight from the back pocket of his work pants and stepped around to the front of the Vega, fiddled beneath the grille for a moment, hands out of sight, until the hood popped up and all she could see was slick black metal and the streetlights overhead, the windshield reflected in the paint.
You should be home, the mother voice said. It said that a lot. You should come home, Nicolan. Home, where it’s safe.
The man stepped back into view, the Vega’s dipstick in one hand and the flashlight in his other, leaned in close to the window and held the stick up for her.
“See that, how the oil looks all brown and milky?”
The oil clinging to the stick was the color of café au lait or almonds. Niki nodded.
“That means you got water in your oil. Prob’ly means you blew a head gasket.”
Vague, sinking sensation in her stomach, bad news cranking up the gravity a notch or two, and she knew that very soon The Voice in her head would begin its carefully rehearsed I-told-you-so litany.
“That’s bad, isn’t it?” she asked him.
“Yeah,” and he shrugged and switched the flashlight off, spat at the ground. “It’s pretty bad. Wouldn’t try to start her up again, if I was you.”
“Fuck,” Niki muttered. Behind her eyes, The Voice was busy asking why she hadn’t considered this sort of thing before she’d chucked her old life like last week’s fish heads. Why she never thought any further ahead these days than the end of her nose.
“Look,” she said. “I’d really appreciate it if you’d call a wrecker for me when you get to a phone.”
“No problem,” he said again, staring down at the place where he’d spit. “But I’d be glad to give you a ride. There’s a garage just off the highway over there,” and he motioned toward the next exit, maybe a hundred yards ahead. “Friend of mine’s a mechanic there, and they got a truck goes out twenty-four hours.”
The Voice balked at the notion of her going anywhere with this guy. Niki fingered the little can of pepper spray attached to her key chain; a ride with Boo seemed like a sure way to wind up on next week’s America’s Most Wanted or Unsolved Mysteries.
“’Course, they won’t be nobody to have a look at your car ’til in the mornin’. But I guess you already figured that out.”
“Yeah,” she said, pressed the seat-belt release with her thumb and slipped the keys from the ignition. The Voice was just a tired echo, mental tatters. It was all that remained of the old Niki Ky, the Niki Ky that had spent three years table dancing for tips in New Orleans’ seedier strip clubs, lying about her age and waiting for some kind of life to find her.
She reached between the bucket seats and grabbed the big canvas gym bag nestled on the floorboard, melon-pink canvas stuffed and bulging at the seams. Anything she had worth stealing was in there, along with plenty of other stuff that wasn’t.
“You got a deal,” she said, rolling up the window, opening the door and locking it behind her.
Outside the car, the cold