Read Curtains for Free Online Page B

didn't mind a bit to keep him waiting.
Finally, the trailer door opened and she waved.
    Larry swallowed hard. She was wearing the red
dress. Not a good choice for what they were about to do, because it
made her easy to remember. Larry remembered just fine. Maybe a
little too fine, because his pulse was running hard, and he needed
to be calm for what they were about to do.
    She slid into the truck beside him and
squeezed his leg. "Ready for anything?"
    He pushed her hand away. "I keep my
promises."
    "So that's how you're going to be about
it."
    "The things I do for you."
    "Don't forget the things I do for you."
    Larry wanted real bad to lean over and kiss
her. She was the prettiest of them all. But she said "love" too
easy and often. She looked like the lying kind.
    They'd find out about all that later, whether
this was for real or not. He had a promise to keep, and so did she.
He started the Ford and headed toward Tennessee.
    They drove fifty miles, running past the dark
quiet of Watauga Lake, winding through Shady Valley where the cows
outnumbered the people, and then followed a gravel road along the
river.
    "You scared?" Betty Ann said. She'd been
quiet for the last half-hour, a long stretch for her. She must have
been thinking.
    Larry had been thinking, too. "Not about
this. I'm scared about the rest of it. About later."
    "I'll take care of you." Her hand was on his
leg again. This time, Larry didn't push it away. He stared ahead
where the black road met the headlights.
    "I know. Because you promised."
    Betty Ann murmured happily beside him. She'd
probably been looking for a dream man all her life. And that was
what she found. A dream man.
    He said, "Other women made promises. Some got
broken."
    "Larry, you ought to know by now that I ain't
like other women." She leaned over and her breath was on his neck,
and then, brief as a hummingbird, her tongue flicked across his
skin.
    "You'd best quit that so I can drive."
    They were under the lights now, on the
four-lane. Cars skimmed by in the night. Larry wondered where the
cars were headed. He was willing to bet that everybody else in the
world planned on sleeping in a normal bed tonight, that they didn't
have the kind of dreams Larry had.
    "Here it is," Betty Ann said.
    The gas station had four pumps, and Larry was
relieved they didn't take credit cards. An electric Marlboro sign
flickered in the window. The man behind the counter was hidden by a
row of fan belts. "You sure this is it?"
    "Trucker told me about it. The owner's weird,
he don't believe in banks. Thinks they're all run by thieving
Jews."
    One truck was parked behind the store, a slow
hunk of steel that had four wheels on the back axle. It was a
Chevy. No need to worry about getting chased down.
    Larry parked by the door and left the engine
running. If he had any sense, he ought to push Betty Ann out and
let her thumb and screw her way back to North Carolina. But he
didn't have a lick of sense, not where she was concerned. Plus,
he'd made a promise.
    He took the gun from the glove box. It was
Daddy's, a .32 revolver that didn't have much knock-down but was
big enough to move money. He tucked the gun under his arm and
opened the door.
    Betty Ann leaned over and kissed him before
he got out. "For luck," she said.
    The kiss tasted of sawdust.
    The lights were dim, probably because the
cheapskate owner tried to save on the power bills. The beer cooler
in back looked tempting, but Larry had a long drive home. Rounded
mirrors hung in the corners of the ceiling, but there were no video
cameras. He went up to the counter and chose a can of snuff, the
real kind, not that sissy, grainy stuff in the plastic cans.
    He laid the snuff on the counter and met the
man's eyes.
    "That all?" The man looked to be a
hundred-and-fifty, or maybe it was the bad fluorescent lights. He
looked mean and cheap. Larry didn't dread this anymore. It was just
another chore, something you did to get what you wanted. It was
like making two pieces of