On Kit’s fifteenth birthday, Manny was sleeping off a rough night with the curtains closed when she got the idea to take the Mustang for a ride. They had had a fight the previous night, the worst they’d ever had. Kit had been up all night worried, not knowing where he had gone or whether he would be back. When he scuffed through the door looking churlish and hungover around seven in the morning, he offered no apology. He just sloughed off his shirt and collapsed on the bed. Before he fell asleep he told her he had been drinking and had taken a swipe at a cop outside an icehouse in Houston. They had locked him up and would have pressed charges, but he recognized a dealer in the holding cell with him and told the cops all about the operation the dealer was running. They set Manny free without any trouble, but Kit was furious that he would put them in jeopardy like that. He had taught her precision and planning would keep them safe. They could not afford to be careless.
Kit squeezed him to test how heavily he was sleeping. He would be down until after noon at least. She pocketed the keys and slipped out the door, shutting it softly behind her. When the engine started, she marveled at how different it felt to sit in the driver’s seat alone, her whole body connecting to the power of the engine. She practiced coordinating the clutch and shifting the gears as Manny had taught her. After stalling out a couple of times, she synchronized the clutch and accelerator smoothly and drove in first gear, getting used to the feel of the road. Even at ten miles an hour, the ride was thrilling. A semitruck throttled past, its horn screaming. She swerved onto the shoulder and cursed at the driver ten different ways. When her heart found its rhythm again, she eased back onto the open road and worked her way up to third gear on a long stretch of bare asphalt. The farther she got from the adobe motel, the looser the grip of Manny’s influence. The heaviness of his moods and the sting of his criticisms billowed up and disappeared like the dust behind her. When she approached the feeder road to I-10, a massive freeway that stretched from Florida to the California coast, she braked and idled.
To be alone, fully in charge of herself, had not appealed to her since meeting Manny, but here, on the crest of a hill under a bald blue sky, she felt high with possibility. It occurred to her that she was old enough to get a paying job, to work for her money for once. Manny’s everyday opportunism wasn’t doing it for her anymore, and she didn’t like the way she felt when they went back to wherever they were staying and Manny dumped out their spoils on the bedspread, sorting through other people’s things. She could wait tables or even find work on a ranch somewhere, maybe near Austin, where the air was dry and there was a big public swimming hole with clear natural springs.
From between the seats she fished out a couple of quarters and a dime. She took the next exit and parked the car at a rest stop where there were bathrooms, a water fountain, and a pay phone. She fed a quarter through the slot and dialed zero.
“What city please?” the operator said with practiced sweetness.
“Pecan Hollow.”
“What’s the name, dear?”
“I just have a first name. Eleanor.”
“Let’s see here . . . Eleanor, huh . . . ? Just give me a minute, please. I’m gonna see what I can do.” The operator grunted, and it was several minutes before she spoke again.
“Miss, you still there?”
Kit cleared her throat. “Yes.”
“Lucky for you there’s only a few hundred people in Pecan Hollow. I have two Eleanors here, is it Roark or Weber?”
“I don’t know. Can I have both? Addresses, too, please.” She used a pen attached to a string that was hanging from the phone book to write the information down, right above an ad for Derby Debris Disposal.
Then she heard the velvet call of Manny’s voice in her head. Where you off to, Kitty Cat? He would look for her. He would look and he would find her because he was the only person on the planet who gave a damn about her. And how could she leave, really? It was true, he had been good to her. There was no reason to run except that deep inside she knew she was not free. That had always been the choice, between freedom and belonging. He had saved her life, and she belonged to him.
An old man with a new cowboy hat and slacks up to his rib cage stood there waiting patiently for the phone, a thin newspaper held to his chest. She hung up and tore out the directory page with the numbers and addresses, which she stuffed in her pocket.
She turned the Mustang around on the empty road and drove back to the motel absently, as if on rails.
When she pulled up to the parking spot outside their room, Manny stood there waiting like a soldier, arms folded, feet spread. She wanted him not to be mad, to hold her and tell her how much he’d missed her, how she’d worried him so. Never to leave. But he didn’t look likely to do any of those things, so she had to play it cool, not revealing where she had been or how close she had come to leaving him. She got out of the car, not acknowledging him. As she passed, she tossed him the keys and said, “Happy fucking birthday to me.”
She went inside and flicked on the television, flopped down on the bed. Manny followed her in and turned it off.
“Dadgummit, you’re ready,” Manny said, his smile broad and proud.
Kit was hesitant to ask. She didn’t like being prompted like this, but neither could she let it go. Was it a new con? A special trip? He seemed weirdly happy, but knowing Manny, it could be a trick.
“All right,” she said. “Ready for what?”
“Come with me to work today, and you’ll find out.”
Chapter Twelve
Manny pulled up to a pump at an empty filling station about halfway between the tiny towns of Yoakum and Cuero. Gasoline fumes swirled through the open windows, noisy buzzards circled overhead. There was an attached convenience store, with its shiny red Coca-Cola refrigerator, padlocked ice machine emblazoned with large, frozen red letters i c e across the front, and a coin-operated Creamsicle machine. Kit had been chewing her dry tongue since they’d left the motel and would have enjoyed something cold and sweet right about now.
“I’m thirsty,” she said.
“It’s just nerves,” Manny said. “Okay, look,” he told her and pointed to a teenage clerk, acne pebbling his cheekbones, who sat tipped back in his chair. He was so absorbed in his nudie magazine that he did not appear to notice the two drive up.
“This is what you call a perfect mark,” Manny said. “The guy in there, he’s a good target. He’s distracted. Look at his eyes, see how red they are? Pretty sure he’s stoned. Not banking on it, but if he is, he’ll be slow and confused. Not likely to fight back. Did you see the register when we drove up? Slightly open. He’s lazy, he doesn’t like to unlock it every time. Not sure how much is in there, but it’s the end of the day. I’m bettin’ the till is as full as it’ll ever be.”
Kit tried to play it cool but was bursting with questions.
“What will you be doing?” she asked. “Do I go in with you?”
“I will be working my powers of persuasion,” he said, and began to drive around the back of the store. “And you’re driving getaway.” He backed in, parked in an oily loading zone, and turned toward her. “Here’s what you need to know: park out of sight and pointed in the direction we want to head. See here, we’re facing southwest so we can cut across the lot to the main road and scoot onto Route 77. Keep the engine running; and accelerate smoothly—don’t gun it like an idiot. You don’t save any time by doing that, and you lose control of your vehicle. You have enough power to get where you need to go without burning up my tires and running us off the road. Besides, you go too fast and you’ll look suspicious. Just keep cool, Kitty Cat.”