“That’s a possibility,” Beauchamps said. “We’ll check it out when we get there.”
“How come I’m riding with Cole?” Cox asked, looking among the three men.
“’Cause Deese and I got things to talk about. And because you’re driving me fuckin’ nuts,” Beauchamps said. “Besides, you and Cole can work on your husband-wife act.”
—
THEY WEREout of Victorville before it got hot, and Cox, who’d changed into shorts and a T-shirt in the Mobil station restroom, started talking again, about leaving California, about life in general, and though Cole didn’t have much to say, he’d chip in with a word every now and then, encouraging her to go on, which she appreciated, because sometimes she had the feeling she talked too much.
Once past Barstow, with the sun now getting up in the sky, she said, “This is the part I hate. There’s nothing from Barstow to the Nevada line. Two hours of nothing. Down in Tucson, they got great-looking cactuses. Up here, we got shit.”
“Time passes,” Cole said. “Mind if I smoke?”
“I don’t mind, but crack the window and blow the smoke out,” she said. She looked out the window at the Mojave as he lit up. “Absolutely nothing out here. It’s like looking at a TV with the power off. We’d usually get about halfway up there and Marty would make me go down on him.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Something we did. He’d be swerving all over the highway when he got close. Couple of times, we got passed by a semi and the driver saw what we were doing and he’d honk his horn at us. You know, real long...Hooooooonk.”
Cole grinned and took a long drag off the cigarette.
Deese’s truck was a quarter mile ahead of them, both vehicles rolling along at a steady 80 miles an hour. “So fuckin’ boring,” Cox said. Then, “You know, the brothers are going to take care of themselves. They’re not going to take care of us. I don’t even know why they’re taking me along. I could go back to LA and who’d guess I even knew you guys?”
“Remember about the fingerprints,” Cole said. “If you’ve ever been printed—”
“I haven’t been. I never been arrested for anything,” Cox said.
“Really?”
“Really. What’d you think, that I was on the corner?”
“Well, I never figured out you and Marty,” Cole said. “You didn’t exactly seem like a girlfriend. Like when he was bangingthat actress chick, he was right out front about it. You didn’t seem to care.”
“I didn’t. Less wear and tear on me,” Cox said.
“So... I thought maybe he was paying you to hang around.”
“He was, sorta. Not like a hundred bucks a time, or whatever,” Cox said. “But, well, two words: ‘money’ and ‘cocaine.’ I wasn’t on the corner, but I do like money and cocaine. I like rich guys, especially the ones who like to spend the money and who like to go out clubbing. Dancing. Who’ll loan out their Amex cards. I dated a lot of Arab boys from USC.”
“Huh.” Cole thought about that, then said, “I only had one legitimate credit card in my life. From Sears, and I think they went broke. I got it when I was a kid so I could buy tires and tools and shit.”
Cox reached across the seat and patted him on the leg. “You always seemed like a nice guy to me, a lot nicer than the others,” she said. A minute later: “If Marty and I develop a problem, would you take care of me?”
“If I could,” Cole said, “I guess. I don’t know what I could do. I lost a lot of money in this deal. I kept it in my car, down below. Cops got it now.”
“Oh my God.”
“No kiddin’.”
“Something bad is going to happen,” Cox said. “Marty’s not a guy to keep his head down. You seem more responsible that way. I know he and Deese are going to start gambling up in Vegas because... because that’s what they do.”
“That’ll get them caught. They got cameras, tight security, and smart cops up there,” Cole said. “We need to lay low until we can get a little cash together.”
“If we worked on this husband-and-wife stuff, like Marty said, we’d have a better chance to get away. Couples up in Vegas are invisible. People look at single guys and single girls, but not couples, because they aren’t... available. There are millions of them, all over. Nobody even looks.”
“But what’s to work on? Being a couple? You just go around together, right?”
“People who are couples act different than other people,” she said. “You can tell.”
