Strays Read Free Page B

toward the front door.  The sight of the cheap foodstuffs on the shelf made her queasy, and the growling in her stomach returned.  For a moment, she considered grabbing something—a packaged pastry, a candy bar, anything—and tucking it into her coat pocket, but even now, in this place of unbearable hunger, she knew this was wrong.  If there was a God, he was already frowning on her, and if karma was real, it was surely coming around fast to blind-side her for being a disobedient child and running away from home in the first place.  Better not to tempt fate any more by breaking one of the Commandments.
    The young man by the counter did not see her, or perhaps he did not want to.  Sarah made her way to the twin glass doors and peered into the parking lot.  The front dock of the C-store was empty.  No cars sat at the gas pumps.  Only on the west lot, that open gravel track reserved for trucks, did rows of Kenworths and Peterbilts sit idling as truckers slept in their warm cabs. 
    She opened the door and slipped onto the dock.
    “… hair, brown eyes.  That’s the one.”
    Sarah started at the voice.  It was coming from somewhere to her left, and she let the glass door ease back a bit, holding it open just enough to hear.
    “Fifteen, yes.  She said she was fifteen.  Had a mouth on her, indeed she did.”
    Sarah ventured to push the door out far enough to take a peek.  Standing just down the dock next to the twin Pacific Bell pay phones stood the tattooed drunk guy with the heavy black hair.  He propped himself with one elbow against a 50-gallon trash can with an orange lid, and with the other hand he pressed the receiver of the pay phone against his head.  He still wore those stupid sunglasses, which could barely be seen jutting from the folds of his ample hair. 
    “Yes, she’s still here,” the shaggy-haired boy said in the phone, suddenly not sounding so drunk anymore.  “I saw her go in the john myself.”
    She felt that scream again, the one thought to be played out in the bathroom.  He was talking about her.  Of course he was talking about her.
    “Sure, I’ll be happy to wait.  You said something on that flyer about a reward?” 
    Sarah’s face grew cold.  Who was he talking to?  For a crazed moment, she imagined the Green River Killer on the other end—after all, he had never been caught, had he?  Or maybe the shaggy-haired boy was the Green River Killer.  Wouldn’t that be a gas?  But if that was the case, who was he calling, why would he be talking about her , and what was this about a reward?
    “Straight down The Strip,” the boy said, “just past the U-Haul you’ll see a truck stop on the west side.  Big Chevron sign out front.  I'll be on the dock.”  He listened a moment and then said: “That’s fine, sir.  Yeah, you’ll know me when you see me.  Friends call me Rhino.”  A pause, and then with more gruffness:  “Never mind my real name, Rhino’s all you need to know.”
    The tattooed guy, Rhino, twisted his head to glance back over his shoulder with a lazy grin, and for a moment Sarah thought he was looking right at her.  “Big Buddy, is it?  Well, get on down here, Big Buddy and we’ll see how big you really are.”
    Sarah pulled herself back into the store and ducked down one of the aisles.  She lifted her head to look, and just beyond the magazine rack this Rhino fellow could be seen through the giant walk-through windows that protected the front of the store.  She saw him cradle the phone back on the receiver, and then he paced across the dock, stuffing his hands in his pockets, standing guard.  There was no escape.
    Crouching low, Sarah made her way back to the narrow hallway near the bathrooms, the hall that led back to the stock room.  She lifted her head only briefly to study the young man who worked behind the counter.  He was still hunched over his radio, smoking a cigarette and listening to the baseball game, and that was good.  He would