Read Big Driver for Free Online Page B

and reeling with the feeling.
    â€œCan your pussy do the dog?” Tess asked, and pulled the filthy carpet remnant a little tighter around her neck. It was no mink stole, but on a cool October night, it was better than nothing.

- 14 -
    When Tess got to the intersection of Stagg Road and Route 47, she saw something beautiful: a Gas& Dash with two pay telephones on the cinder-block wall between the restrooms.
    She used the Women’s first, and had to put a hand over her mouth to stifle a cry when her urine started to flow; it was as if someone had lit a book of matches in there. When she got up from the toilet, fresh tears were rolling down her cheeks. The water in the bowl was a pastel pink. She blotted herself—very gently—with a pad of toilet paper, then flushed. She would have taken another wad to fold into the crotch of her underwear, but of course she couldn’t do that. The giant had taken her underpants as a souvenir.
    â€œYou bastard,” she said.
    She paused with her hand on the doorknob, looking at the bruised, wide-eyed woman in the water-spotted metal mirror over the washbasin. Then she went out.

- 15 -
    She discovered that using a pay telephone in this modern age had grown strangely difficult, even if you had your calling-card number memorized. The first phone she tried worked only one-way: she could hear the directory assistance operator, but the directory assistance operator couldn’t hear her, and broke such connection as there was. The other phone was tilted askew on the cinder-block wall—not encouraging—but it worked. There was a steady annoying underwhine, but at least she andthe operator could communicate. Only Tess had no pen or pencil. There were several writing implements in her purse, but of course her purse was gone.
    â€œCan’t you just connect me?” she asked the operator.
    â€œNo, ma’am, you have to dial it yourself in order to utilize your credit card.” The operator spoke in the voice of someone explaining the obvious to a stupid child. This didn’t make Tess angry; she felt like a stupid child. Then she saw how dirty the cinder-block wall was. She told the operator to give her the number, and when it came, she wrote it in the dust with her finger.
    Before she could start dialing, a truck pulled into the parking lot. Her heart launched itself into her throat with dizzying, acrobatic ease, and when two laughing boys in high school jackets got out and whipped into the store, she was glad it was up there. It blocked the scream that surely would have come out otherwise.
    She felt the world trying to go away and leaned her head against the wall for a moment, gasping for breath. She closed her eyes. She saw the giant towering over her, hands in the pockets of his biballs, and opened her eyes again. She dialed the number written in dust on the wall.
    She braced herself for an answering machine, or for a bored dispatcher telling her that they had no cars, of course they didn’t, it was Friday night, were you born stupid, lady, or did you just grow that way? But the phone was answered on the secondring by a businesslike woman who identified herself as Andrea. She listened to Tess, and said they would send a car right out, her driver would be Manuel. Yes, she knew exactly where Tess was calling from, because they ran cars out to The Stagger Inn all the time.
    â€œOkay, but I’m not there,” Tess said. “I’m at the intersection about half a mile down from th—”
    â€œYes, ma’am, I have that,” Andrea said. “The Gas & Dash. Sometimes we go there, too. People often walk down and call if they’ve had a little too much to drink. It’ll probably be forty-five minutes, maybe even an hour.”
    â€œThat’s fine,” Tess said. The tears were falling again. Tears of gratitude this time, although she told herself not to relax, because in stories like this the heroine’s hopes so often