After her mother was gone he’d started making more trips to Portland. He often brought Ann. She was a good lookout, could tap the horn to let him know when anyone was coming, when anyone looked like they had trouble in mind. And her aunt would go to bed early and had no clue they where leaving town late at night and getting back before sunrise. Duane had told Ann not to say a word to anyone, that it could put a lot of people in danger, including her.
“You did good Ann,” he’d said. “Real good.”
Ann had watched him reach down and nudge the pistol further under the car seat. She didn’t think the cop had bought her act at all. Yet for some reason he hadn’t turned it into a big deal. Maybe he wasn’t expecting to see her when he’d pulled Duane over for speeding so late on a school night, in a town where they didn’t even live. Perhaps he’d just felt sorry for her.
“You said you’d take me to Dairy Queen. And that was two hours ago.”
A smile had ruptured below Duane’s straggly moustache. He’d still had most of his perfect teeth then, was fanatical about flossing. When Duane smiled like that she knew he was thinking about other things. He could talk to her while seeming unaware of her, as if she were as invisible as all the others he’d begun talking to when he thought she wasn’t listening.
They’d watched as the cop came by for a final pass. Ann had reached for the door. She’d made up her mind that she was going to flag him down and confess everything-that she wasn’t sick, that Duane sometimes made her wait in the car all by herself late a night.
“Please darling,” Duane had told her. He’d caught her wrist roughly. His fingers had burned like rope. “You don’t really want that man coming back to talk to me.”
He’d watched the cop cruise by and laughed. Ann’s wrist was reddened after he let it go. She’d slid away from him as far as she could while he started the Camaro, salt worn and more the straw color of piss than the canary yellow it had once been. The ocean air ate away at everything she’d thought, including some people’s minds. She hated the hoarse sound of the engine when he revved it, how he always loved to leave behind a patch of burning rubber as if he was some kind of badass and not a bottom-feeding drug dealer. She could see that he was worried. His face was a sheen of sweat and he stank like fertilizer and it made Ann gag. She’d had to lower her window for some air. I won’t have to fake being sick, I’ll be sick.
“You’ve got to hold it just a little longer, Ann. We need to get on the freeway before that cop comes around again.”
“He’s not coming back. You say that every time.”
“I swear I could almost read what he was thinking when he went past. Couldn’t you?”
“No, Duane.”
“I guess we’ll find out little girl. But I still think there’s something in his gut that isn’t sitting right and I bet you he’s trying to come up with a reason to pop my trunk.”
“He’s gone,” Ann said. “He doesn’t care …”
Duane drove fast when he thought he was being followed, which was usually most of the time. Closer to Traitor Bay he knew the cops and they mostly left him alone. But Portland was always too big for Duane. He felt exposed, couldn’t maintain his 360- degree vision without a couple bumps up the nose to keep him alert. Lately the stuff had started to show its side effects. It made him think he was clairvoyant.