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“I have faith in you. Take your pick.”
He surveyed the unpromising landscape around them. “American cars are easier than foreign cars,” he mused, half to himself. “But VW Bugs are the ones I had the most experience on. Why don’t we go for that one?” He pointed out a bright orange monstrosity that had seen better years. Tattered yellow daisy decals dotted the hood, and a matching, wilted-looking plastic flower hung from the sagging antenna.
Maggie made a face. “Why couldn’t you have been adept in Mercedes?” she moaned. “Go ahead, Pulaski.”
For all his doubts, he made fast work of the car. The door wasn’t locked, probably due to the fact that the driver’s window was missing. Maggie watched with mingled amazement and respect as he deftly hot-wired the little vehicle, jumped in the driver’s seat, and grinned up at her. “You ready, Maggie? Let’s get the hell out of here.”
She climbed in beside him, yanking the loosely hinged door shut behind her. Staring at the cramped, definitely smelly confines of the little car, she sighed. “Hit the road, Jack.”
It hadn’t been her best night’s sleep, and no sooner had they put the little town behind them and headed back out on Route 10 than Maggie dozed in her seat. The old VW was surprisingly comfortable, and the cool breeze blowing in the missing driver’s window was even better than air-conditioning. It was getting on toward midday when she finally awoke, the AM radio penetrating her determined sleep.
She turned to look at Mack. He was relaxed, an arm resting on the empty window frame as the little bug chugged along the wide highway. He had the beginnings of a beard again, and the chambray shirt he’d grabbed before their midnight dash was open to the midday heat. It was a nice chest, Maggie thought sleepily. In another place, another time, there would be nothing she’d like better than to reach out her hand and slide it inside that open shirt. …
But that wasn’t exactly her style, even in the best possible of places and times. And besides, hadn’t she just given up on ever finding a happy-ending kind of love? Still and all, Mack Pulaski, a.k.a. Snake, certainly looked as if he could provide a substantial temporary distraction, even if forever after wasn’t in the cards.
“What’re you looking at Maggie May?” His raw voice startled her. He kept his eyes straight ahead, but he must have been aware of her perusal the entire time. She had to remember not to underestimate him.
She yawned, sitting upright and running a hand through her tangled blond hair. “Your luscious body, Pulaski,” she said. “Did you manage to bring a comb when we checked out?”
“Nope.”
“Damn,” she said genially. “By the way, does this car have license plates?”
“It’s a little late to think of that, isn’t it? I checked before I made my choice. We would have been stopped hours ago with no plates.”
“Do you think Mr. O’Malley’s discovered it’s stolen yet?”
“I have my doubts. It was about the worst car on the lot. He’s much more likely to have noticed if one of his Cadillacs had disappeared.”
“Which reminds me,” Maggie said, braiding her thick, tangled hair and wrapping a rubber band around the end. “Why in the world would you steal VWs in the first place? They wouldn’t be worth much in resale—I thought car thieves usually went for the big-ticket items.”
“That’s why I was only a third-class car thief. I stole VWs because they were the easiest to steal. I didn’t make a practice of it, you know. It was more a test of manhood in the gangs, not a major source of income.”
“I don’t think I want to know what the major source of income was,” she said faintly.
“I don’t think you do.” He cast an enigmatic glance over at her disheveled figure. “There’s Tab and peanut-butter cookies in the backseat if you want breakfast. It was the best I could do at the gas station, but with someone of your sophisticated palate I figured it would hit the spot.”
“God, I didn’t even realize you stopped.”
“You were pretty tired.” Still that distant expression, both on his face and in his voice. Maggie dived over the back, retrieved the goodies, and settled back down in the front seat for a feast.
“Okay, Pulaski,” she said, taking her first swig of the soft drink. “What’s bugging you?”
He didn’t even bother to deny it. “How many people do you think were in that motel this morning?”
She put the cookie back down. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said in a gentle voice.
“How many?”
“Three other rooms were occupied when we went to bed last night. Probably six other people at the most. I don’t think anyone registered late. I would have heard them.”
“You didn’t hear whoever set the bomb.”
“No, I didn’t,” she agreed, waiting for his condemnation. He was suffering a near-terminal attack of guilt, and the only way to get rid of it was to heap some on her head. She expected it, didn’t even mind it. She was used to dealing with guilt.
But once again Mack surprised her. “There were three people killed in New York,” he said. “When they bombed my apartment building.”
“Yes,” she said, still not knowing what he wanted from her.
