The Night Parade(84)

“At the risk of having to turn over my Man Card, and despite the fact I make a living driving that big rig back there, I really don’t know piss-all about cars.” He grinned, exposing those tombstone teeth again. “You and your kid live around here?”

“No. We were heading for a campground about a hundred miles northwest of here.”

“Well, I’m heading in that direction myself, so I’ll offer you and your girl a ride. Or if this puts a damper on your camping weekend, I can drop you someplace else. Just hate to see you folks stranded out here with night closing in.”

“That’s very kind. I’d appreciate it. The campground will be just fine.” It wasn’t lost on him that Hector was observant enough to see through Ellie’s disguise and recognize her as female. It made him slightly uncomfortable, and he would have preferred to part ways with Hector right away, but they needed this man to get them to the campground.

“Wonderful,” Heck said, removing his cap and sliding a thick-fingered hand through the buzzed gray bristles of his hair. “I’ll give you a hand loading your stuff into the truck.”

“Uh, we don’t have any stuff,” David said. “It’s just us.”

“Guess you ain’t a Boy Scout. Camping with nothing more than whatever’s in your wallet.” Heck jerked a chin at David’s bandaged arm and the blood on his shirt. “What happened there?”

David hugged the injured arm to his ribs. “Sliced my arm changing the tire.”

Another whiskied chuckle rattled up out of Heck’s throat. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, shaking his head and moseying around the side of the car again. “No Boy Scout, all right.”





44


Hector Ramirez’s current gig was hauling eleven hundred cases of Valvoline motor oil from Trenton, New Jersey, to Lakewood, Colorado, a run he looked forward to because it took him through some beautiful countryside. He had been a trucker since he could vote, starting out for a small company based in Utah before cutting his corporate ties and buying his own cab. Now he worked for himself (“I’m an honest-to-God businessman,” Heck said. “CEO, president, vice president, and grunt worker all rolled into one.”). For his fiftieth birthday, his wife, Rita, had surprised him by having his cab airbrushed with the nighttime cityscape of Gotham City, complete with Batman swinging from his bat-rope that filled up most of the driver’s door. He was a friendly enough guy whose slender wedding band seemed to be cutting off the circulation of his chubby ring finger, and he talked for nearly the entire duration of their trip like someone who’d just been rescued from a desert island and hadn’t seen another living soul in several years.

Before getting back on the road, Heck insisted he have a look at David’s injured arm. When David removed the wrapping—the napkins had soaked all the way through and were now as colorful as Christmas decorations—Heck whistled through his teeth, then nodded like a bobblehead doll.

“Yeah, okay. That’s a gash, all right. Prob’ly needs stitches. Hold tight.”

Heck slipped through a narrow opening between the front seats that led to a small compartment in the rear of the cab. There was a cot back there, a stack of magazines and books, an open bag of Doritos. A moment later, Heck returned with a first-aid kit. Utilizing a roll of gauze and a few butterfly bandages, Heck wrapped David’s arm after first cleansing the wound with peroxide. After he was done, Heck sat up straight, grinning and evidently pleased with himself.

“Not half bad for government work,” Heck commented.

“Better than some Burger King napkins and a rubber band,” David said.

Then they hit the road.

Heck was a talker, the kind of guy who filled the silence with anecdotes about his life and his career, or just random trivia in general—anything to keep the silence from dominating. During the only lull in the conversation, Ellie, who sat perched between them on the bench seat, pointed to a framed photo of a young, dark-haired boy that was fixed to the truck’s dashboard. “Is that your son?” she asked Heck.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What’s his name?”

“Benicio,” Heck said. “We called him Benny.”

David noted the past tense. He also noticed the rosary draped around the boy’s picture. He touched one of Ellie’s knees, but she didn’t take the hint.

“How old is he?”

“In that photo, he’s about six. Bit younger than you, my dear.”

“I’m eight. But I’ll be nine in a couple of days.”

“That’s right,” David said. In all the commotion, he had forgotten.

“Well, happy birthday . . . in a couple of days,” Heck said, and tipped his hat at her.

“How old is he not in the photo?” Ellie asked. “Like now, in real life, I mean.”

“Oh, well, sweetheart,” Heck said. “My boy, he ain’t with us no more.”

“Where did he go?”

“Ellie,” David said.

“It’s okay,” Heck said. He smiled down at Ellie, a pleasant enough smile despite the liquid shimmer suddenly visible in his eyes. “Benny passed on.”

“He died,” she said.

“He got sick. Lots of people getting sick nowadays.”