He was already looking beyond the chain-link fence, beyond where the trees covered the road, and beyond the road to the rotary and then the bridge. For a moment it all seemed connected—Hawley’s shadow stretching from the gate to the highway, past the borders of Olympus and to another place in time, when Loo was seven or eight, and Hawley was waking her up in the middle of the night. He’d wrapped her in the bearskin rug and carried her out of their motel room and into a brand-new station wagon, with wood paneling on the sides. She remembered the station wagon because it looked just like the family car on one of her favorite television shows. It’s ours now, her father had said. And she’d felt so excited, and wanted people to see them driving in it, her teachers from the school she’d just left, and the kids who’d teased her on the playground, which made it even more upsetting when they stopped at a salvage yard a few days later and Hawley swapped the car for a pickup truck. The only thing that raised her spirits was watching the station wagon being put into the crusher, the windows bursting into the air like glitter, the metal compressing down into folds until it was the size of a suitcase.
Hawley opened the gates of the impound lot. Then he went back to the Firebird and slid his hand along the roof. “We need to steal the rest.”
“What do you mean?”
“If only the Firebird is missing, the police will suspect you. But if more cars are gone, they’ll think someone came to rob the place. A professional,” Hawley added.
Loo watched him shoulder the rifle and understood, in a flickering moment, that her father was exactly that—a professional. All the guns in their house. All the scars on his body. All the ways that he was careful. It was because of this.
He slipped the metal casing he’d been holding into his pocket with the others. Loo could hear them clinking against one another. His eyes scanned the lot. Then he walked toward the covered sports car. He pulled the canvas loose from the bumper and the wheels, then tugged the whole sheet free. Underneath was a sky-blue coupe. The body was all curves, the hubcaps gleaming. Hawley used the wedge to prop the door and the metal rod to turn the lock. Then he took his screwdriver and pliers and held them out to Loo.
“Your turn,” he said.
As Loo worked, Hawley gave her directions. More pressure. Turn there. Only strip the ends. He opened the glove compartment, pulled out an envelope and threw it onto the passenger seat. “Registration,” he said. “It’s the easiest thing to alter. You can do it on a computer, or even a Xerox machine. Just get them matched and lined with whatever license you’re carrying. Cops only check the names and numbers. And you should always carry extra plates. After that it’s the ID numbers, on the engine and to the left of the steering wheel, but you only need to worry about those if you’re holding on to a car for a day or two. And you should never hold one for long. Pick and drop. That’s how you work it.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Loo asked.
“So that next time you’ll know how to do it right.”
Loo twisted the copper filaments together. She held the black wire and the red wires in her hands. She glanced over at Hawley.
“Go on,” he said.
Loo struck the wires together. There was a small spark that jolted her fingers.
“Again,” said Hawley.
Loo hit the wires hard, like she was striking a match. The engine sparked and turned and the dashboard lit and the radio turned on. It was set to an oldies station, the volume up loud. Some fifties crooner singing about love. Loo snapped the tuner off.
“Now what?”
Hawley tossed his guns and tools in the trunk of the Firebird. He climbed inside and moved the driver’s seat until it was pressed against the rear bench. The engine was humming. Hawley touched the steering wheel, touched the gears, touched the radio dial. Then he seemed to remember himself. He glanced over at Loo and cranked the window open.
He said, “Follow me.”
The headlights rose from the tip of the Pontiac like a creature waking from a deep sleep. Then the wheels reversed out of the parking spot and Hawley shifted and drove toward the gates. The Firebird slipped out from the floodlight and onto the dark road. The tires squealed as the car took the turn.
Loo pulled the door shut on the coupe and sat there for a moment, breathing in the leather seats. The steering wheel was glossy and smooth, a piece of polished mahogany. The rearview mirror was the same amber color, and so was the compass on top of the dashboard, the needle dangling and still. Loo clutched the wheel until her knuckles hurt. Her mother’s Firebird was a piece of junk, but this car smelled like money. Would she go to jail for longer if the coupe was worth sixty grand? Seventy? Her foot slipped off the clutch. The engine stalled and died. Loo hit the brakes.
It had been only a few hours since she was stretched on a glacial rock, the universe being drawn on her skin. She could still feel the planets beneath her clothes. The comets on her back that had lifted her out of her own body and toward some new and different way of being in the world. And here was another. Half a mile up the road were two flashes of red. The Firebird’s hazards, beating off and on. Like a pulse. Like a set of eyes blinking.
And so she did what she had been taught. She reached under the dashboard. She struck the wires. Later there would be time to worry, time to be afraid. Now there was only her foot on the pedal. The motor kicking. The wheel in her hands. The compass spinning from one direction to another. And her body, covered with stars.
Bullet Number Five
MABEL RIDGE WAS SUPPOSED TO be on the ten o’clock train. But the ten o’clock train had come and gone, and also the eleven-fifteen, so Hawley and Lily ate lunch across the street and came back for the twelve-thirty. Lily got out of the car and stood rocking back and forth on her toes in the parking lot as people hurried past, dragging their suitcases. Hawley leaned on the steering wheel and watched her wait. Every once in a while he would check the clock on the dashboard. 12:40. 12:45. 12:51. The minutes passed and it started to rain but Lily stayed outside, her hair getting darker and darker. When the platform finally emptied and the train pulled out of the station, she climbed back into the truck and slammed the door.
“We can wait for the next one,” said Hawley. “I’ll get us some more coffee.”
“No,” said Lily. “Let’s go back to the woods.”
Hawley felt relieved as they pulled out of the parking lot. It meant something, to meet Lily’s mother, but he could tell from the start that the woman wouldn’t be easy. Whenever Lily talked to her mother on the phone she’d get anxious, and when a letter arrived from Mabel Ridge, it would sit unopened for days. Hawley signaled and shifted onto the highway, then took exit nineteen and headed toward the forest. The rain came down harder. Even with the wipers going full tilt, he had to slow down to see the road.
Lily pulled out her tobacco and rolled a cigarette, licking the paper and then pinching and twisting the ends. She snapped the wheel of her Zippo, then put her boots up on the dash and opened the window a crack. She tapped ashes into the small sliver of air as rain splattered both sides of the glass. The ember at the end of her cigarette burned and faded with each sucking pause. Hawley had never liked the smell of smoke before but now the smoke was Lily and every time she lit up he inhaled.
“You’re killing yourself with those things,” he said.
“Yes,” Lily said, “but it’s slow.”