really specific, ma’am. For a prediction, I mean.”
“It’s not a prediction.”
“It’s not? Then what is it?”
“It’s what is.”
I thought about that, but I wasn’t enlightened. “You remind me of a girl I know named Annamaria.”
“About forty years ago, I knew an Annamaria Youdel. She was a gifted clothes designer and seamstress. She made all her own clothes. I guess she had to, considering she stood five feet two and weighed three hundred sixty pounds. She had two gold teeth right in front. She shaved her head every day and kept her eyebrows plucked. Her face was as smooth and pink and sweet as the face of a baby, though babies don’t have three chins.”
“Different Annamaria,” I said.
Theologians tell us that this is a fallen world, that Adam and Eve broke it when they fell from grace. Maybe you’re not a believer, but if you’re honest, you’ll have to agree that something is wrong with this place. Senseless violence, corrupting envy, greed, blind hatred, and willful ignorance seem to be proof that Earth has gone haywire, but so is the absurdity that we see everywhere. The people of a broken world, off the rails and wobbling trackless on their journeys to oblivion or meaning, are frequently going to be foolish, sometimes in entertaining ways. When amusing, their foolishness—and mine—can be a lamp that brightens my spirit in spite of all threats and suffering. I suspected that by the time this was done, Mrs. Fischer would leave me glowing.
I said, “So I guess you even know how many grandchildren Mr. and Mrs. Shephorn will have.”
“Thirty-two.”
“How many will be girls?”
“Eighteen.”
I glanced away from the road. Mrs. Fischer’s smile was impish. Passing an eighteen-wheeler emblazoned with the Pepsi logo, recalling her answers to the peculiar questions that the policeman had asked, I said, “So I’ll be smoothed out and fully blue in no time.”
“That’s right, child. You’re already remarkably advanced.”
“What does that mean—to be smoothed out and fully blue?”
“You’ll understand when you’re smooth and blue.”
When I glanced at her, she winked at me again.
I asked, “Who’s Heathcliff?”
“Heath. My late husband. The one true love of my life. He died twenty-eight years ago this April.”
“Officer Shephorn knew your husband was dead.”
“Of course.”
“But he asked if Heathcliff was ‘otherwise all right.’”
“You’re an excellent listener. I like that.”
“But then you said your husband was perfect.”
“And he is.”
“Dead but perfect.”
Instead of explaining that apparent paradox, Mrs. Fischer extracted a roll of chocolate candies from her huge black purse. She said, “Treat?”
Suddenly I felt pulled southward, not merely carried by the momentum of the hurtling Mercedes, but drawn by psychic magnetism. The rhinestone cowboy was no longer far ahead, and we were swiftly closing on him.
NO TRUCK STOP WILL EVER BE MISTAKEN FOR A far-future spaceport, but this one—Star Truck—had such a science-fiction feel that I would not have been much surprised if Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock had beamed down from an orbiting Starfleet retirement home in their bunny slippers, jammies, and walkers. The canopies over the many gas-pump islands were sleek stainless-steel ovals trimmed with neon tubing that, at night, would lend them a flying-saucer feel, and the pumps looked like platoons of robots at parade rest. The facade of the huge building was clad in stainless steel—probably a convincing plastic imitation of stainless—with the lines and the details of a classic Art Deco diner, but that didn’t give it the appeal its architect most likely intended; because of its size, the place had an ominous military quality, as if it must be the headquarters of the extra-terrestrial overlord of an invading force from another planet.
The large property was fenced for security, an important feature for truckers in an increasingly lawless time that required many of them to pack guns, legally or not. Two extra-wide lanes led into the facility, two out, and they passed through the same gate, between barriers of chain-link, monitored by a pair of pole-mounted cameras. A banner above the entrance promised PARKING LOTS PATROLLED 24/7.
According to an enormous sign bordered by stars that most likely twinkled colorfully at night, Star Truck offered a smorgasbord of road-warrior services: ALL FUELS, 24-HOUR GARAGE SERVICE, RESTAURANT, SNACK BAR, MEN’S AND WOMEN’S SHOWERS, MOTEL ROOMS, LAUNDROMAT, BARBERSHOP, TV LOUNGE, GAME ARCADE, TRAVEL STORE, GIFT SHOP, CHAPEL.
In recent years, to save fuel, the tractors of most eighteen-wheelers had gotten more aerodynamic. If you could tune out the roar of the big engines, you might imagine that those sleek Peterbilts, Volvos, Freightliners, Macks, Fords, and Cats were gliding across the blacktop without effort, like antigravity craft in a Star Wars movie. Even the classic, boxy, battering-ram designs of Kenworth and Intercontinental had made some concessions to diminish wind resistance.
The flashy and sinister ProStar+ with the red-and-black tractor and the black trailer was parked among forty or fifty other rigs at the north end of the property. As I cruised slowly past, memorizing the license-plate number, I could see that no one was in the cab of the tractor, and I had no sense that the rhinestone cowboy might be with his vehicle.
Moments earlier, I had told Mrs. Fischer that the flamboyant trucker was planning three murders, but I hadn’t told her how I’d come across this information.
“That’s his rig,” I said, braking to a stop.
“Let’s set the cops on him.”
“No, see, I have some negative history with the police in Magic Beach, which isn’t that far from here. And the FBI might be looking for someone who fits my description. I haven’t been a bad boy, ma’am, but some exceedingly treacherous people got themselves shot to death and a whole lot of property got pretty much busted up. And I wouldn’t like to have to explain to the authorities how just a simple fry-cook uncovered a plot to nuke four cities, took down several terrorists, and got out of that town with all his skin.”
“You aren’t a simple fry-cook.”
“That’s my point, ma’am.”
She cocked her snow-capped head and gave me that cockatoo stare again. “You’re quite a riddle.”
“Look who’s talking.”
“So what you’re doing is like in those Agatha Christie novels—Miss Jane Marple, amateur detective?”
