Part 16 (1/2)

Sal was asleep on his stool. His huge frame was bent into the wall's corner, his arms crossed, his combat boots flat on the carpet. He was wearing overalls, and no s.h.i.+rt beneath them; his hair was so profuse that she could barely make out straps.

”Sal?”

His head rolled to and he opened his eyes. ”Hey there, Ronnie.”

She was set to complain, but stopped short. ”You, uh, you busy?”

”Hungry?”

She leaned over the counter. ”Famished.”

”You mind eating in a bar?”

”Not if there's food behind it.”

”Then we're set,” said Sal, flas.h.i.+ng a smile that shocked Veronica with its warmth. The effort of getting upright erased it, and he lumbered to the door, bent in half to pa.s.s under the threshold. ”Your ride or mine?”

”Will you fit in mine?”

”Not unless you remove the front seat so I can sit in the back.”

”What do you have, a van?”

”Not exactly,” said Sal, smiling again and ducking under the front door. He dragged his fingers along the top of the awning, then his arm dropped heavily to his side, and he turned, left the sidewalk, strolled by the swale, then glanced back at her.

The Humvee was parked in the shadows of an ancient oak. The tree, squat but with an encompa.s.sing wingspan, did not allow sunlight to warm the ground beneath it; in its shade, gra.s.s lay thick and green while twists of weeds surrounded it like a rainforest in miniature.

”Nice, huh?” beamed Sal, his arm outstretched.

She smiled, but felt sad for some reason. Here was this man, a sideshow by both fate and profession, undoubtedly single, showing off a treasured possession. He was covered by hair, some of it golden and rich in the sun, some of it course and black, some of it graying, all of it obscene. But this steel frame, empty enough for his own, built especially for the rough terrain Florida didn't have, made him happy. He must have saved for it week by week, s.h.i.+tty paycheck by s.h.i.+tty paycheck. ”It's beautiful,” she said stiffly, as if praising a child.

”Yep, it's my baby,” said Sal, producing a keyfob from his pocket. He hit a b.u.t.ton and the doors unlocked. ”If you wait a second, I'll edge it out from under the tree.”

”It's alright,” she said, bending under the branches.

Sal got in and reached over, opening her door. He started up his prize, pulled out, said, ”You're gonna love this place,” ten nothing else during the rest of the drive.

Half a mile from the motel, the two-lane road curved to the left. Every hundred feet or so a dirt driveway swathed in cypress and pine snaked away from it, and she imagined these paths led to corpulent trailers surrounded by scampering Welfare kids.

The road ended after another sharp bend, opening onto a large gravel parking lot. A chicken wire fence stood between the macadam and the gravel. Beyond four old cars, a shack teetered on the crest of a hill overlooking the highway. Scrawled into the wood above the smacking screen door, the bar's moniker was apt: The Hilltop.

In the back, a s.h.i.+rtless man unloaded kegs from a dump truck's bowels, and when he turned to ease one of them onto a dolly, she uttered a clipped scream. Sal looked over, laughing. Protruding from the man's hair were two bony horns.

And that's when she remembered Gibsonton claim to infamy. A few years back she'd caught a show about the murder of a man called Lobster Boy, a man confined to a wheelchair with a congenital condition that fused his fingers into pincers, his legs into flippers. He was killed by a teenage neighbor commissioned by his wife, shot in the head as he sat in his underwear watching Cops.

G-Town was a stretch of trailer parks that had started out as winter quarters for circus performers, and had grown, as the years pa.s.sed, into the carny capitol of the world. Fat ladies, midgets, and sword swallowers had cleared the swampland to create a retirement village for sideshow luminaries.

”You okay?” asked Sal, parking.

”Sorry, I've never been here.”

Sal shut off his baby and stepped down, his boots crunching in the gravel. He raised a hand, called out a name, and the horned man waved.

The Hilltop was an old fas.h.i.+oned saloon. Three wooden steps led to a porch, where Veronica all but expected batwing doors to flap on piano hinges; instead a screen door enshrouded the bar's insides in darkness. Inside, Johnny Cash bawled about a ring of fire. Ozone and an old-egg smell, like sulfur, a.s.sailed her as they closed in.

Sal held the door open. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom inside. She glanced around nervously. The rustbox jammed into the corner: a plastic-faced jukebox. Scattered: tables surrounded by rickety stools. Darkening the windows: black shades. At the bar: three people, and one behind it.

The bartender nodded merrily at Sal, shuffled from the far side of the bar. Twined around his head, a black handkerchief hid a bulbous deformity on his forehead; his eyes roamed behind sungla.s.ses; his mouth twinkled with gold. ”What ya havin', Sal?”

”Two beers. This is Ronnie, folks. She's staying at my place.” He said it firmly, as if to protect her from them.

Seated around an immensely fat person-Veronica thought it was a female, but couldn't be sure-three midgets waved their stubby arms in her direction. The large person wore a beer helmet; the straw flattened and curled.

The midget seated at the last stool hopped from it. His hair licked around a bald spot; thick lines wove around his face; a cigarette bobbed in his mouth when he said, ”This here's Jed, the big girl's Martha, and the stout f.u.c.k there we call Stout f.u.c.k on account of his stout f.u.c.king below-the-belt surprise. And I'm Lump. I'll leave you to figure it out.”

Veronica couldn't help but smile. She nodded. ”Nice to meet you all,” she said, feeling silly for her formality. The bartender pushed a pair of scrupulously clean beer steins to Sal, who handed her one.

Lump, still grinning, added, ”Where you off to, Ronnie?”

”Sorry?”

”People don't stop in G-Town, honey. Unless they're lost. Are you lost?”

The question seemed portentous, the question of an oracle. She shook her head.

”She's not lost, boys and girls, this is a planned stop!” cried Lump, rearing back, eyeing his friends, who laughed hesitantly, unsurely. He turned back to her. ”Ronnie, this is Gibtown. All year long, in every one of your cities, we lie. But here we tell the truth.”

She paused, ran her eyes over them, said, ”I'm leaving.”

”You just came.”

”No, not here. I'm leaving. Everything.”