Escape Out of Darkness (4 page)

“I think you’re right,” she said. “I don’t think our friends from Mobile, Alabama, want to talk.” Close up, their faces looked frighteningly implacable. “Why don’t you step on it?”

“I’m afraid I have. Does this thing go much faster than ninety?”

“You mean to tell me the Little Hustler is following that fast? The damned thing must be all engine!”

“Enough engine to keep pace with us, not enough to pass us. They’re going to realize that sooner or later, and we’re going to have to hope they don’t have guns. I don’t suppose … ?”

“Nope. I came straight from London. Even with a permit it’s
too much trouble to carry weapons around the various airports of the world.” She allowed herself the luxury of swiveling around in her seat to get a good look, at their pursuers. At speeds of ninety plus there was no longer any pretense they weren’t in an automotive duel to the death. She swung back quickly, not even wasting her breath enough to swear. “They have guns.”

Mack shrugged. “Got any suggestions? You’re supposed to be protecting me.”

“Don’t remind me.” Suddenly she undid her seat belt and dove over into the backseat, almost kicking him as she went.

“What the hell are you doing?” His imperturbable calm had begun to shred. “It’s just slightly distracting to have you bouncing around the backseat. If you can’t come up with a rescue, you could at least hold my hand.”

“Shut up,” she muttered under her breath, ripping open her suitcase and tossing clothes all over the car. “I’ve just had a brainstorm. Where the hell is the Jack Daniel’s?” She pulled it out with a cry of triumph. It was half empty, which suited her purposes even better. She paused long enough to take a long pull off it, and then set to work with feverish haste.

“I hate to be touchy, Maggie, but this is no time for a drink.” Mack yelled. “The Little Hustler is getting impatient.”

As if to emphasize his point, the big RV crept up on them, tapping them lightly on the fender. The car lurched forward, and it took all of Mack’s professed expertise to keep it on the road. “Maggie!”

“Shut up, Pulaski. I’m making a Molotov cocktail and it’s tricky business.”

“I don’t care how tricky it is. If you don’t speed it up, we’re not going to need it.”

“Damn, I wish I had something a little more … I’ve got it.” She rummaged back into her suitcase, holding on tightly as their car was once more rammed from the rear. Grabbing her nail polish remover, she soaked her favorite pair of silk panties,
poured the rest of the contents into the whiskey, and stuffed the underwear in the top. “Got a match?”

“Christ, no!” He was sounding definitely ragged at this point. “I gave up smoking years ago.”

“Hell and damnation! Plug in the lighter.”

“The lighter! You’ve got to be out of your mind—” Once more they were rammed, and Mack’s language grew colorful indeed. Enough so that Maggie stopped a moment to listen respectfully.

“You’ve got a way with words, Pulaski,” she said coolly. “Hand me the lighter.”

She finally got the panties to light. “When I count to three I’m going to open the rear window. You just drive like hell. Ready?”

“Okay, Maggie. Do it.”

She was both amazed and awed. To her Molotov cocktails were only theory, and the real thing was impressive indeed. The front of the Winnebago was coated in a sheet of flame. It fell back immediately, veered off the road, rolled over twice, and came to a stop in a forest of flames by the side of the road. Maggie watched long enough to see three figures scramble away before it blew up.

“Very satisfying,” she murmured, neatly folding her clothes with shaking hands. “Just like television. No one gets hurt but the bad guys get vanquished.”

“It would be nice if it always worked like that,” Mack said from the front seat. “You okay, Maggie?”

She met his eyes in the rearview mirror. “I’m just fine.” She kept the shaking hands out of sight. “I do this all the time.”

“Sure you do, Maggie. Sure you do.” And he drove on down the road.

“Chicken-fried steak?” Mack’s voice was thick with loathing disbelief. “Are you seriously intending to eat chicken-fried steak?”

Maggie ignored him, flashing her brilliant smile at the tired waitress. “And a glass of red wine and a large Tab,” she added.

“You’re a barbarian,” he said the moment the waitress was out of earshot. “No one in their right mind would order chicken-fried steak.”

“I would. We’re in a diner in rural Texas, and I intend to immerse myself in the experience.” She cast a deceptively casual glance around the diner, at the flat, twilight landscape outside the dirty windows. “I’ve read about chicken-fried steak for years, and now’s a fine time to try it.”

“Read about it? What the hell kind of books do you read?” He took a healthy swig out of the coffee that every self-respecting Western waitress served first.

“Anything and everything. Mysteries, romances, science fiction. Everything but spy books.” She ran a casual finger through the layer of grease coating the gray Formica tabletop.

“Why not spy books?”

She grinned at him. “I’m afraid they’ll give me bad ideas.”

He shook his head, and Maggie watched in interest as the fading sunlight played over his face. She was getting used to that face beside her day and night. Hell, she might as well admit it. She was getting to like it. Those hazel eyes of his were a peculiar combination of cynicism and warmth, as if he knew
just how rotten life could be but still liked it immensely. His mouth was turned up in a half-smile more often than not, and the broken nose added character to a face that Maggie remembered as being almost angelically beautiful when he was younger. He could no longer be called angelic. If anything, there was a devilish streak about him that Maggie was finding more and more attractive. And she was old enough and smart enough to know better.

“Just because you grew up in Texas and take things like chicken-fried steak for granted,” she said, her wayward thoughts completely hidden, “doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the exotic local cuisine.”

“What makes you think I grew up in Texas?” The waitress had placed a dark glass of bourbon in front of him, and he took a slow, appreciative sip, his eyes never leaving her.

“I’m good at accents. You must have left Texas early, because there’s some California overlaying it.”

“Good God,” he said disgustedly. “Just what I always wanted to hear.”

“Not too much though. I grew up in California so I’m sensitive to the accent.”

“Well, your ear has let you down this time. I never lived in Texas. I did, however, have a best friend who came from Port Arthur—maybe I picked it up from her.”

“Her?”

“Her.” He didn’t elaborate. “And the time I spent in California was when I was with the Why, and most of us were so stoned we didn’t talk much. Guess again.”

She took a sip of her warm, vinegary wine. “Not the East Coast, definitely. You don’t really look rural, though that may be the result of the last few years. But I’d guess you were from a city. A big, nasty city like Chicago. You have the look of a street fighter about you.”

“Right the third time. I grew up in the inner city. I think I joined my first gang when I was eight years old. Problem was, I
always picked the wrong gangs. We kept getting the shit beat out of us.” He laughed his raw, sexy laugh.

“What were you doing in Chicago in the first place?”

“My father dragged the family there after the war, looking for work. He found it for a while, but by the time I was a kid he’d left us. My mother always said either Alan or I was bound to go to hell—we couldn’t both make it.”

“And which of you made it?”

Mack grinned. “Who do you think, Maggie May?”

“I think I made a big mistake.”

He looked startled. “Why?”

Maggie stared in shock at the platter of chicken-fried steak. “I should never have ordered this.”

He laughed again, and she found she was liking that laugh more and more. “What did you think you were getting?”

“A nice chicken cutlet.” She eyed Mack’s thick, red steak with longing.

“I tried to tell you. With chicken-fried steak they take the oldest, ugliest piece of steak, coat it in flour, and slap it in old grease till it’s the texture of shoe leather. Then they pour white gravy that’s not quite as tasty as library paste on top of everything. The biscuits look good, though.”

Maggie poked at the mess on the chipped china platter. “You wouldn’t want to trade?” she said in a properly wistful voice.

“Immerse yourself in the experience, Maggie,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll save you a bite of the real thing.”

“Thanks,” she said sarcastically. She picked up her fork, put it down again, and leaned across the narrow table. She reached out, gently stroking the side of Pulaski’s momentarily startled face. She liked the feel of his skin, warm and smooth, with character lines. She smiled up at him, a tremulous loving smile. “Darling,” she said in a barely audible voice, “we’re being watched.”

He didn’t move, didn’t swivel around, as the realization darkened his eyes. And then he grinned back at her, a sexy grin promising all sorts of things a lover would promise. He moved
his head to kiss her hand, his mouth hot and damp against her palm. “I still won’t trade you my dinner,” he whispered.

“I’m going to be sick.”

“You didn’t have to eat all that chicken-fried steak, Maggie.” Mack’s hands were relaxed on the steering wheel as they moved out along Route 10. “As a matter of fact, you didn’t have to eat any of it. We could have ordered another steak for you.”

“I didn’t want to call attention to us.”

“Maggie, you’re getting paranoid. Those men weren’t after us, they didn’t even look up when we left. They were probably just some sort of sales reps for a gas company.”

“You’ll be glad I’m paranoid, Pulaski,” she muttered darkly. “Just because they didn’t leap up and follow us doesn’t mean they aren’t after us. They didn’t look like sales reps to me, they looked like CIA.”

“They looked like DEA to me,” he drawled. “That’s Drug Enforcement Agency, my innocent one. But I’m not about to let paranoia take over. I’m not the only wanted man in the Southwest, you know. I don’t even know for sure who wants me.” He cast Maggie an appraising glance in the dusk-darkened car. “I don’t suppose you do?”

It sounded almost wistful, but Maggie decided it had to be an illusion in his ravaged voice. “Now isn’t the time for fooling around,” she said in her most severe, schoolmarmish voice. A voice that was at odds with her long, tanned legs, the rough cotton shorts and shirt, the tousle of thick blond hair wisping around her perspiring face. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to save your butt. I would appreciate it if, in the meantime, you wouldn’t covet mine.”

Mack let out a burst of laughter. “Sorry, babe, but you have an eminently covetable butt.”

“I’m not one of your groupies, Pulaski.”

“Hell, Maggie, I haven’t had a groupie in years. I’ve told you before, I think quality’s a hell of a lot more important than
quantity. Though I must admit,” he added, his eyes sweeping over her six-foot length, “that you’d provide both.”

“Cut it out. My only interest is getting you safely to Houston.”

“Sure it is, Maggie May,” he said genially, drumming his long fingers on the steering wheel. That wry half-smile of his broadened into a grin, and he began to whistle.

“You may be right,” she said after a while, her voice sounding disgruntled. “There’s no sign of anyone following us.”

“Does that mean we can stop for the night?”

“That means we can stop for the night.” She cast him a covert glance beneath her heavy eyelids. He was entirely at ease and relaxed. For all the sudden, unexpected verbal flirtation, there wasn’t even the hint of sexual threat from him. She had no worries that he was going to jump her when they got into whatever dingy little motel room they’d be sharing. They’d spent two amiable nights together, and Maggie had no doubt they’d spend their last night on the road equally comfortably. Unless he was becoming as aware of her as she was of him.

The Lone Star Bide-a-Wee Motel sat alongside a deserted stretch of county highway, bypassed a decade ago by the interstate. Maggie chose it at random, Mack was amenable, and by ten o’clock she was standing in the rust-stained shower stall letting the hot streams of water wash away the grit and tension of the last three days. She could hear the sounds of the television through the pulsating shower and she smiled. It was a good thing she and Mack were going their separate ways tomorrow. If she had to room with him for one more day, she’d put her foot through the television screen.

“I don’t suppose you’d feel like turning that off?” She ran the threadbare white towel through her sopping mass of hair as she paused in the bathroom door. Mack was lying on his double bed, his bare feet on the pillow, his head at the foot, staring with great fascination at an old Sybil Bennett movie.

He didn’t bother to look back to her. “No way. I love old movies.”

He’d taken his shower first, and was lying there in his favorite black T-shirt, khakis, a glass of whiskey in his hand, totally absorbed in the very bad drama on the grainy color TV.

“Maybe something better is on,” she suggested.

“Forget it. I’ve always had the hots for Sybil Bennett, and I intend to enjoy every moment of this.”

“She dies at the end.”

“Thanks a lot,” he growled, rolling over to glare at her.

“Don’t worry, it has a great love scene,” she assured him, moving past him to her own bed. She was dressed in running shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt, a good compromise for coeducational sleeping arrangements, but she could feel Mack’s eyes run over the solid length of her legs. She dropped down on the bed, tossing the wet towel at Pulaski’s head. “Maybe there are
Family Feud
reruns.”

“Listen, Maggie May, let me have my erotic fantasies in peace,” he grumbled, but he was watching her, not the television screen. He paused, staring at her for a long moment. “Did you know you look like her?”

“You’ve had too much Jack Daniel’s, Pulaski.”

“No, you do.”

“Sybil Bennett is five feet two with jet-black hair and perfect features.”

“Yeah, but still, there’s something about your expression. Especially when you’re giving me that go-to-hell look. You look just like Sybil Bennett telling off some pirate king.”

“Sybil Bennett should have told off a few more pirate kings in her time.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s my mother, Pulaski. And there were a few too many pirate kings in my childhood. Not to mention desert sheikhs, handsome princes, thirties gangsters, and the like. Sybil’s very sentimental—she can’t live without being in love.”

He’d taken her announcement with his usual imperturbable calm. “Sounds like my kind of woman. You wanna introduce me?”

“She’s too old for you.” She could hear the irritation in her voice, and she didn’t bother to disguise it.

“No one’s too old for me. I told you, I’ve had the hots for Sybil Bennett since I reached puberty. Probably before. If you won’t have me, I may as well go for the closest thing.”

“I have three younger half sisters, all by different stepfathers. You could take your pick of them.”

He was looking at her with undisguised fascination. “She’s really your mother?”

“She’s really my mother. Come to think of it, you’re probably too old for her. She’d been heading down toward the early thirties last time I met one of her lovers.”

“You don’t approve?”

Maggie smiled at him. “Pulaski, I do my absolute level best not to pass judgment on other people. Particularly on people I love. My mother has a certain weakness for men, and sometimes it does her more harm than good, but most of the time she just enjoys herself. And more power to her.”

“And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Do you have a weakness for men? Do you enjoy yourself?”

“No to the first question, yes to the second. I try very hard to have no weaknesses whatsoever.” Her voice was self-mocking.

“And do you succeed?”

“No.”

Mack looked at her, and in the dimly lit motel bedroom she could see the crinkles around his eyes as he smiled at her. “You’re only human after all. And here I thought I was being protected by Superwoman.”

“Only human, Pulaski,” she agreed, sliding her long bare legs across the bed toward him. She crossed the space between the two beds, and the ancient springs sagged beneath her weight as she reached him. “And don’t call me paranoid,” she said in a husky murmur, “but someone is outside our window.”

This time it didn’t even faze him. He smiled up at her. “You wanna convince them that we’re really lovers?”

“No, but maybe you’d better kiss me while I figure out what we’re going to do.”

“Well, if you insist,” he said in a deliberately reluctant voice. “But I’d really rather save myself for your mother.” And before she had a chance to reply his arm slid around her and pulled her down against the wiry strength of him, and he was kissing her with far too much enthusiasm for her peace of mind. Not to mention her ability to concentrate on how they were going to get out of the motel.

For a moment she wished she could just lie back on the sagging bed and enjoy it. He kissed well, and his arms were relaxed, strong, and knowing around her, his hands sensuously molding her to him. His hands were on her rear, his tongue was in her mouth, and he was kissing her with a cheerful abandon that seemed to suggest he’d forgotten all about any enemies skulking around outside their window. And then his mouth moved away from hers, trailing a warm, wet path to her earlobe, and his raspy voice was in her ear.

“Got any ideas?”

She had a great many ideas, most of them involved with the hard, male body she found herself wrapped around. But common sense reared its ugly head, and she forced herself to withdraw from the temptation of warm male flesh. “Turn off the lights.” She said it aloud, in a convincing imitation of a sensual growl, and Mack’s answering rumble of laughter helped douse the burning coals of passion that had built up against her will.