Drifter's Blues (Erotic Noir) (13 page)

Kyle stumbled out into the heat once more, the bright afternoon light blinding him temporarily. He clamped on his sunglasses, wishing they covered his entire face. Feeling vaguely absurd, he tried to recall movies he’d seen about people on the run. Should he cut his hair? Dye it? Buy a false mustache?

The noise of traffic and the pounding of the blood in his ears were so great that for a moment Kyle didn’t notice his cellphone was buzzing. When it registered with him he pulled it out and held it away from him like it was some giant humming insect he’d found in his pocket.

He stared at the display. No caller’s name was featured. But he knew it could be only one person.

Kyle stopped walking and thumbed the answer key. He listened in silence.

‘Kyle?’

‘Donna?’ Relief, and pleasure at hearing her voice, flooded through him. ‘Where –’

‘Have you seen the news?’ she cut in.

‘Yeah.’

‘We need to meet up.’

*

She was almost unrecognizable. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail which poked through the back of a red Atlanta Braves baseball cap. A loose-fitting T-shirt flapped untucked over eighties-style acid-wash jeans and white Converse sneakers. As far as Kyle could tell, under the big dark glasses she wore no makeup.

Almost
unrecognizable. But Donna’s killer body was something she couldn’t conceal, not in heat like this.

She came walking down the street purposefully; like she was in a hurry on the way to a game or something. Kyle stepped out of the shade of an awning and fell in beside her, matching her stride.

‘Hi,’ he murmured.

‘Kyle,’ she acknowledged without looking at him.

He wanted to stop, turn her, take her in his arms. Press his lips to hers. Instead he kept walking alongside her.

‘She couldn’t have seen me, Donna. It isn’t possible.’

‘Evidently she did.’

‘She’s worked it out, somehow. But she didn’t see me.’

‘Either way.’ Her step faltered a little. Glancing at her, he could see the strain in Donna’s face, the tautness of the skin over her cheekbones below the glasses.

They were in MidTown. Kyle had suggested the rendezvous point and loitered around the chosen spot. He was nervous about returning to his truck, which was in a public car park several blocks away, in case the cops were waiting for him there. Which was paranoid and stupid, he knew.

‘We have to get out,’ he said.

Donna stopped, and it took him a second to break his own momentum. He turned to face her.

‘Where’s the painting, Kyle?’ she said quietly.

‘I need to get it.’

‘Where is it? Tell me.’ An edge had crept into her voice.

‘If I tell you they could still pull you in. You might crack.’

‘
Damn
it, Kyle.’ He winced, holding up a hand to signal her to keep her voice down. She continued, fractionally more quietly. ‘Stop treating me like a child. You’re the one whose picture’s all over TV. It’ll be on every newsstand by tomorrow morning, too. And you think
I’m
the one who’s at risk of getting caught?’

‘Donna, listen to me.’ Again he fought the urge to touch her, to lay his hand on her arm. ‘I know you’re mad. And scared.
I’m
scared. This is bad news. But we can make it work, if we just keep our heads.’ He stared at as much of her eyes as he could see behind the shades, which wasn’t a lot. Under her T-shirt her breasts heaved. For a moment Kyle thought she was going to start yelling, or even slap him. But she didn’t.

‘Okay. Here’s what we do.’ He took a deep breath. ‘You tell everybody you’re going away for awhile. Taking time out to be alone. Traveling somewhere. People will understand. Then we disappear together. I’ll bring along the painting, and we take it to this contact of yours, this… fence. Dispose of it, convert it into money. After that, who knows? You might need to come back for a time. Resume your normal life. I’ll have to lie low. But one day, once the coast is as clear as it’s likely to get, we can meet up again. Start a new life together.’

Donna looked away, down the street. Kyle felt a maddening itch to start walking again and pull her along with him, as though by standing still they were allowing the cops to pinpoint his location.

Finally she said, ‘All right.’

‘Great. I’ll pick you up –’

‘No. I’ll pick
you
up. I’m the one going away, remember?’ Kyle nodded. ‘Also,’ she went on, ‘now that your picture has been on TV, the cops want to interview me again. They’re coming to visit this afternoon. I’m going to have to tell them your full name, Kyle. Other people are going to identify you as Kyle Cantrell, the pool guy, and I can’t pretend I don’t know who you are.’

‘Yeah.’ He felt a returning stab of panic, which he dismissed.

‘We need to leave tonight,’ Donna said.

‘Okay.’

‘We can’t go near your motel.’

‘No.’

‘You know the National Infantry Museum?’

‘Yeah.’ Kyle hadn’t been there but it was in the southern district of the city, he knew. He’d find it.

‘I’ll meet you there at ten o’clock tonight.’

‘Okay, Donna.’

‘With the painting.’

‘Of course.’

She nodded, seemed to be about to say something – or maybe she too was holding back from making physical contact with him – and turned to go.

‘Donna.’

She looked back.

‘I love you,’ he said.

‘Love you too.’

‘Good luck.’

And she was gone.

Nine

Even at this late hour the heat hung over the city like a canvas shroud. Donna pulled the Mercedes, its roof open, in at the curb at three minutes to ten by the dashboard clock, and saw Kyle peel out of the shadows by the wall of the museum. He was as always casually dressed, and he carried a new-looking rucksack on his back.

He walked over and glanced around him before opening the door and dropping into the seat beside Donna. Lowering the rucksack into the footwell between his knees, he opened it and pulled out a two- by three-feet object, wrapped in an oilskin sack.

‘See?’

She nodded and took off. Kyle put the sack back in his backpack and laid it on the backseat behind him.

They drove in silence for a few minutes, the breeze ruffling their hair, the atmosphere between them tense with things they needed to talk about once they were clear of the city.

At last Kyle said, ‘Where are we headed?’

‘Alabama.’

He didn’t ask for any more details, so Donna didn’t offer any.

After a time he said, ‘How did it go with the cops?’

‘It was hard, Kyle.’ And it had been. She’d had to summon every last ounce of her acting ability to feign outraged wonder –
it was the pool guy?
– while remaining acutely conscious of the two detectives’ eyes on her, trying to probe into her soul. One slip of her composure and everything would fall apart. Donna had been asked to hand over the pool-cleaning tools so the police could sample them for DNA to compare against what they’d found in Blair’s study. 

Donna turned onto Veterans’ Parkway. It was a ninety-minute drive to Montgomery, Alabama. Crossing the state line wouldn’t give them any real additional security, but there was a symbolism about the action that was reassuring.

A surge of hope filled her chest. This time Donna spoke first. ‘We’re going to do this, Kyle. We’re going to pull it off.’

‘I know, babe.’ He laid a hand on her jean-clad thigh, shyly, like they were teenagers on an early date. Immediately Donna felt a tingle up her thigh. She shifted her butt in the seat.

‘Feels good.’

He rested his palm more heavily on her leg. Slowly his hand began to slide up and inward, toward the junction of her thighs.

‘Not… while I’m driving,’ she said with difficulty.

‘Then pull over.’ His voice was low, hoarse.

‘In a little while.’

‘Soon.’ He leaned closer and Donna could feel the musky heat of his body coming off him in waves.

She let go the wheel with one hand and pushed his hand away, laughing for the first time in almost two weeks. ‘Kyle, I’m serious. You’ll make us crash.’

‘I’m going to explode here soon anyhow. Same result.’

‘We’ll get a motel room at Montgomery.’

‘It’s too far, Donna. You need to pull over, soon.’

Somehow she made it through the next half-hour until the road entered the Tuskegee National Forest. Donna slowed as side roads began to appear. She took a desolate-looking exit, then turned down a rutted dirt track, the sudden absence of streetlights disorientating.

A mile down the track she pulled the Mercedes in at the side. All around was dead quiet. Overhead a half-moon shed a pale silver light.

Kyle was already grabbing at her, his hands roving across her breasts, round her waist. Donna leaned in and pressed her mouth against his, her lips and tongue writhing greedily against his. Still kissing him, she clambered across so that she was straddling him in his seat. Under her crotch she could feel the huge bulge in the front of his own jeans.

Donna broke the kiss long enough to pull her T-shirt off over her head. The night air was cool against her bare skin. Immediately Kyle’s hands found her breasts, cupping them roughly through her bra. She reached behind her and unclasped the bra and threw it to one side, her breasts shaking free. Kyle’s palms and fingers kneaded them, before he bent forward to take her nipples in his mouth in turn.

Mentally cursing the fact that she was wearing jeans rather than a dress or a skirt, Donna rose up on her knees, unfastened the button of her jeans and worked them down her hips, wiggling her ass. Awkwardly she pulled them off and kicked them into the footwell as Kyle fumbled with his own jeans. He got them down as far as his knees. His shorts were tented hugely in the front and Donna pulled them down. Kyle’s cock sprang free, fully erect and flicking, the head glistening in the moonlight.

Whimpering softly, urgently, Donna tugged her panties down her thighs and peeled them off, smelling her own arousal and feeling the deliciousness of cool air against her wetness. Kyle’s hand moved between her legs and she arched her back and moaned, his fingers probing at the folds, the tip of his finger slipping inside her. She began to rub herself against his hand in little jerks of her hips but he took his hand away.

‘Can’t wait,’ he said gutturally, sliding his hands round to the cheeks of her ass and pulling her toward him.

Donna braced one knee on the seat on either side of Kyle and tilted her pelvis so that her slick pussy touched the underside of the shaft of his penis. Slowly she raised herself so that her vulva caressed his length. He gasped, trying to pull her harder against him. Smiling in the dark, she slid back down, then repeated the movement, rocking so that she stroked the entire length of him from balls to tip.

But it was too much for her as well as him. Grasping her ass firmly with one hand, Kyle took hold of his cock with the other and angled it forward so that the glans was at her entrance, its engorged width nudging her labia apart. Arching his back he thrust up into her as she sank down to meet him.

It took just three juddering thrusts for them both to explode, almost three weeks of enforced celibacy having left them way at the top of the curve from the outset. Donna threw her head back and cried out into the dark, her voice echoing away across the forest like the scream of a primal beast. Kyle filled her with his cock and his come so that she overflowed almost immediately.

Fully fifteen minutes later Donna lifted herself off Kyle where she’d been slumped, and rolled back on to the driver’s seat. Still nude, she propped one foot on the dashboard, revelling in the luxurious sensation of being spread naked out under the open sky. She took a package of Marlboros from the side pocket of the door and lit one, feeling the first nicotine hit, sending a stream of smoke straight up into the night.

Beside her Kyle too made no attempt to cover himself. His semi-soft penis flopped lazily on his thigh.

‘Made a mess of your beautiful car’s seats,’ he murmured.

Donna grinned across at him. ‘Soon I’ll have plenty of money to get them professionally cleaned.’

He sighed. ‘God, I missed that. I missed
you
.’ He reached for her hand. ‘Let’s go find that motel.’

They took their time getting dressed. When they were neatened up Donna leaned over and gave Kyle a long, heartfelt kiss on the mouth.

‘Sorry I was such a bad-tempered bitch this afternoon.’

He hugged her. ‘No need to apologize, hon. Everything’s good.’

She turned the Mercedes and headed back up the rutted track to the main road.

‘So we stay overnight on the outskirts of Montgomery,’ Donna said, ‘and in the morning this guy I know calls me and we set up a meeting. He’ll check out the painting – he’s an art expert – and if he’s satisfied it’s kosher, he’ll contact his money guy. The cash will be released to us later that day.’