The Ranger - Ace Atkins [29]
If she could just have the kid and get back on her feet, she could take care of it. She had a sister in Birmingham who could watch the baby if she could find work. Her momma could help if she could find where she was living, the last place being Tampa, where she’d been working as a dancer. She figured she just needed to settle this thing with the boy since it was him who’d told her that he’d loved her and that she sure made him whole, and all of that had sounded pretty solid over some cold beer and weed, but sober, rattling around her head at the Sonic, it sounded pretty much like horseshit off a greeting card.
She tried to keep the last few pickles, them cooling off fast in the wind, when she saw the black Camaro, the one from the jail the other day, whip into the parking lot and slide right into a slot by an old Ford.
That muscled guy with the shaved head and the stubble mustache and goatee leaned out the window and pressed the red button, calling out what he wanted just as if they didn’t have an intercom and kind of laughing about it to some girl that sat next to him, shadowed in the front seat. The man said he wanted a country-fried steak sandwich, some tater tots, and a large cherry limeade.
“Oh, and a sundae with that cherry toppin’,” he said.
Lena watched him, noticing his large, veiny arm, lined with tattoos, and the way he turned out the window again and dug a lump of dip from his lower lip, flinging it down onto the pavement and turning his black eyes right on her.
She sucked on her milk shake, not backing down for one damn minute. She’d paid for her food and would enjoy it, even longer than she’d expected. She turned away and watched a man in white working the grill, flipping over patties and checking some fries in a grease trap.
Lena placed her hands in her little knitted coat, feeling the wind kicking up over her back.
“I love the look of a woman with child,” a man said. “Y’all got that glow.”
She craned her head.
He smiled at her, wearing a black T-shirt with no sleeves like it wasn’t about forty degrees out, and reached out and grabbed her last two fried pickles and put them on his fat tongue, sliding into the seat in front of her.
“Don’t look at me like that, girl,” he said, scratching the stubble on his chin, his teeth yellowed. “You can forget that Charley Booth. Right now, I may be the best friend you ever had.”
10
Quinn bought a bag of dog food in Bruce and left out a bowl for Hondo at the farm before picking up his old truck and calling home, letting his mother know that he wouldn’t be able to make that church service. He had to pull the cell away from his ear at her response. “It’s important,” he said. Words were said about the chickenshit casserole and the preacher dropping by and some kind of plaque that had been arranged. She made him promise three times to at least make the lunch and all three times he’d agreed.
“Okay,” she said, finally.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Okay.”
“Love you, Momma.”
He headed east back to the truck stop, finding the lot pretty bare, maybe ten or so trucks chugging out those diesel fumes. The drivers catching some fuel and rest for a couple hours before heading on. The whole scene reminded him a bit of some staging areas in Iraq, when getting supplies down highways had been a major operation and strike teams were sometimes needed to clear the way. You could kind of feel the expectation in that silence.
Quinn walked the ground between the trucks, seeing no one. Even the cabs were empty, with the truckers sleeping or in the diner eating. He walked the rows twice and then walked inside the Rebel Truck Stop, ordering a plate of eggs and hash and black coffee. The truck stop was a massive operation, with an adjoining Western shop where they sold hats, boots, and big belt buckles with horses and bulls on them. You could buy Mexican blankets and bullwhips, and John Wayne