Confidence Girl: The Letty Dobesh Chronicles - Crouch Blake - Страница 24

But now she was dizzy and lightheaded, feared her driving was on the cusp of becoming erratic.

She got off the interstate past Winslow and headed south through a landscape of buttes and exposed rock. A world stripped down to its bones.

She felt so lightheaded it was becoming difficult to focus, but a quick glance in the rearview mirror cut through the fog.

The black Tundra that had been trailing her for the last hundred miles, perhaps more, had taken the same exit.

Am I being paranoid because I’m famished?

She pulled into the visitor’s center.

Walked up to the drab brick building and paid the admission fee.

Inside, the air-conditioning was set to blizzard.

She pretended to peruse the gift shop card rack while she stared out the window that overlooked the parking lot.

The driver side door of the Tundra was open. A black man climbed out.

He wore khaki shorts and a white t-shirt without logo or slogan.

Letty threaded her way through the tourists and slipped out the exit. She followed the observation path through the desert until she stood on the rim.

The depression was gaping. Nearly a mile across. Five hundred feet deep. She could see people the size of ants on the far side, walking the trail that circled the crater. The heat radiating off the ground was tremendous.

A hole in the ground. Yay.

Turning, she studied the visitor’s center—no sign of the black man from the Tundra.

You’re imagining things. Go eat something.

# # #

She ordered a foot-long veggie at the Subway in the visitor’s center and claimed a booth.

Crazy hungry.

Didn’t even come up for air until she was halfway through and nearly choked when she did. Because that man was sitting across from her, smiling. It was a beautiful smile. Broad and bright. But there was something malicious and knowing in it which she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Like the man wasn’t smiling at her, but rather at something he knew about her.

Letty put her sandwich down, wiped her mouth.

“By all means,” she said. “Please join me.”

The man unwrapped his sandwich—a meatball sub—and dug in.

“You followed me here,” Letty said.

He nodded as he chewed.

Through a mouthful, he said, “Picked you up in Gallup.”

“What do you mean ‘picked me up?’“

He just smiled.

“There something I can help you with?” she asked.

“Damn, girl. Can I eat my sub first?”

They ate in silence, watching each other. He was thirty-something, Letty figured, but closing in on forty. Her age possibly. No trace of stubble. Brown eyes. Movie-star handsome. Shredded.

They finished their sandwiches without a word, and then he washed his down with a long hit of Coke through a straw that sucked his cheeks in.

He said, “Ahhhh. Can’t believe they had a Subway. That’s just bonus. You look thoughtful. Lemme guess. You going through all the people you ever wronged, trying to figure out who’s come back to settle a score. Yeah?”

Letty made no acknowledgement, but he was right.

“This ain’t about none of that,” he said. “Ain’t here to hurt you. This got nothing to do with anything in your past. All about the future.”

That unnerving smile again.

Letty drew in a long breath. Her head was clear now, and she was afraid.

“How’d you find me?”

“Friend of mind in Charleston put a TrimTrac on your ride. Know what that is?” She shook her head. “Little device that lets me track your location using GPS. I heard you was coming west, thought we should meet.”

“Why?”

“We’ll get to that.”

“I have a phone. Just calling would’ve been less creepy than this by a factor of a hundred.”

“I’m more persuasive in person.”

“Have we met before?”

“No, but we share a friend.”

“Who’s that?”

“My man, Jav.”

“Javier sent you after me?”

“Not after you. To you. With a proposal.”

“I hope you weren’t counting on Javier’s name to facilitate whatever the hell you thought was going to happen here.”

He reached his hand across the table. “Isaiah.”

She didn’t take it.

“Damn, that’s cold.”

“I want you to get your tracking device off my car and leave me alone.”

“Why you hatin’ when you ain’t even heard what—”

“Does Javier want something? Is that what this is about?”

“No, I want something.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He recommended you to me.”

“For what?”

He grinned. “What do you think? A job.”

Letty leaned back against the seat.

“I did some work with Jav last fall,” Isaiah said. “He’s an interesting—”

“He’s a psychopath.”

“Be that as it may, he knows a lot of people. I called him last week. Told him about this thing I got going. This bind I’m in. Told him the kind of person, kind of skill set I needed, and he said I had to have you.”

“No, I’m done with all that.” Even as she said it she tasted the lie. “Do you know why I’m driving across the country, Isaiah?”

“No.”

“To see my son.”

“For real?”

“For real.”

“And what? You ain’t seen him in a while?”

She shook her head.

“What happened?”

“Right. I’m going to tell the guy who’s been spying on me for the last week about my private affairs.”

“You ain’t gotta be this way, Letisha. I ain’t coming at you with negativity.”

She sighed. “What do you want?”

“Javier tells me you the best.”

“The best what.”

“Best liar he’s ever worked with.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“And that you got scary-fast hands.”

“So.”

“So that’s exactly what I need.”

“I think I already gave you my answer.”

“You don’t even want the pitch?”

“Nope.”

“So you out, huh? Gonna go be Miss Respectable Citizen? Get a nine to five. Pay taxes. All that shit?”

“I’m gonna go be a mother to my son.”

Isaiah’s eyes didn’t exactly soften, but his body language changed. Like someone had let a little air out of the tires.

“That’s cool then. I feel that.” He crumpled up his Subway wrapper, slid out of the booth. “Good luck to you, Letisha.”

“You too Isaiah. Hope the score’s big and you don’t get caught.”

His laugh was low, booming. “Never.”

# # #

She watched him walk out of the restaurant.

Felt suddenly cold.

Alone and empty and void of anything approaching hope.

Here it came, right on cue—the crushing need to use.

Challenge the thought.

When I’m high and when I’m on a job—those are the only times in my life not plagued by the sadness of the past and the fear of the future.

So, tonight you can either be high in some motel room, taking that first step toward running your life into the ground once again.

Or...

5

Letty caught Isaiah in the parking lot, crouched down beside her car, prying the tracking device off the undercarriage.

He looked up, grinning.

She said, “I was thinking.”

“Yeah?”

“You wanna walk around the crater.”

# # #

It was God-awful hot, Letty already sweating.

Isaiah moved slowly along the footpath. They had to keep stopping to let the tour group up ahead gain distance.

“Ever hear of a man named Richter?” he asked.

“What thief hasn’t? The rock star grifter we all want to be. But he’s just a myth. Urban legend.”

“Actually, he’s not.”

“You’ve met him?”

“I’m doing a job with him.”

Letty felt a pulse of energy ride up the bones of her legs into her stomach, like it had come from the ground beneath her feet.

“Where’s the job?”

“Four and a half hours from where you stand.”

She stopped.

Shielded her eyes from the sun as she stared up at him. He was smiling but his eyes were hidden behind a pair of aviator sunglasses.