NIGHT CRUISING Read Free Page B

fantasy,
lying to herself. He'd want it. When it came time, she'd have to find
a way to steel herself to doing it. There was no other way.
    "Sure," she
said finally. "I could use a ride on down the road. Seems
they're having a camp meeting here." She hooked her thumb back
at the Bible Thumper who hadn't given up on her. He was hanging half
out of his cab blabbering inanely about Sin and Retribution.
    The big fellow spared
one glance at the hysterical driver and dismissed him with a shake of
his head. "There are too many nuts on the road. You have to be
careful."
    "You can say that
again." Molly hitched the bag higher on her shoulder and started
walking beside the big man. "What do you want me to call you?
I'm Molly."
    "You can call me
Cruise, Molly. Because that's what I do. I cruise." And then he
laughed.
    Molly looked up at him,
but couldn't see his face in the new shadows. Several hairs on the
nape of her neck stood straight up on end just for a second. She
shivered. Too late now. She was taking a ride from the Long Hair and
that's all there was to it. She had never welshed on a deal or backed
out on a decision once it was made. At least not since she left home.
    "Okay, Cruise,"
she murmured. "Let's eat some miles."
    She waited for him to
unlock the passenger side of an old blue Chrysler, looked over at the
blank plate-glass windows of the cafe, blinked at the Lot Lizard in
the halter top, and slid into the bucket seat while Cruise held the
door for her.
    "Buckle up,"
he said when he got into the car. He sounded cheerful, happy to have
her along.
    He started the engine,
pulled on the headlights, buckled himself into the seat, shifted into
reverse, then drove slowly from the puddle-covered drive onto the
entrance road to the freeway.
    "So where in the
West are you headed?" Molly wanted to be friendly, wanted to
forget the cakewalk her hair made at the back of her neck earlier
when he laughed.
    Cruise gave her a
disarming smile. She could see the fleshy part of his lower lip where
it hid in the beard. The rosy soft lip in the gray brush made her
think of a newborn pup lost in a tangle of barbed wire. It was a lip
someone could nibble. She wished he was closer to her age. She could
go for him, if he was. But no matter how handsome, he was still too
old.
    She smiled back, at
ease. She had good teeth and liked to smile when she had reason.
    "Far as the land
will take me," he said. "Right to the shores of the blue
Pacific Ocean."
    "Job waiting for
you out there?"
    He eased the Chrysler
into traffic on l-l0 and held his speed at fifty-five. Most cars
overtook him, their headlights swinging out to the left of the car
and spearing past into the darkness. "Maybe," he said.
"We'll see."
    She decided not to
press him for details. It was none of her business. I'm sixteen,"
she said. "Be seventeen in three months. I'm a runaway and . . .
sometimes . . . uh . . . I'm a prostitute. It's, you know, a living."
    She knew he suspected
as much, but she liked to get it all out in the open from the get-go.
She wasn't technically a prostitute yet, but that's what she would
have to be in order to survive. She meant to survive no matter what.
    "I figured."
He spoke with some admiration for her up-front confession. She
thought he'd like that. Most of them did.
    "I don't need to
be saved, redeemed, talked to, lectured at, advised, or otherwise
manipulated. I do what I do strictly to take care of myself and I'm
not ashamed of it. I'm not looking for a Sugar Daddy or a pimp. I'm
my own person." She said all this in one long breath, then
sucked in air and turned her face to the window to keep the blush
that rose in her cheeks from his view.
    "I figured that
too."
    "Good. Now we're
all straight," she said to the night outside the window.
    "Want a Coke?"
he lifted the lid of the Igloo cooler between the seats and gestured
she take one. She screwed off the lid on a sixteen-ouncer and drank
thirstily. Coke for supper was her diet when she didn't have