sky. She didn’t disagree with the proposition, but she knew no mere theory would change the way the world really worked.
“What I’m saying,” Hank said, grinning down at her, “is that it’s not even a crime. How can it be a crime without the presence of society, or some third party to enforce the rules?”
She listened to his tone, the sincerity in his voice. It sounded like a rationalization that was thoroughly believed. An odd position for a surveyor to hold so dear, she thought. Janie smirked back at him. “Isn’t that just a fancy way of saying it’s okay, as long as you don’t get caught?”
“Okay fine, say it’s not murder. Say they agree to share food and water. The first guy gives the second guy some food and the second guy takes it and keeps his water and runs away. Has the second guy done anything wrong?”
“Sure.” She shrugged. “He broke his promise.”
“So what can the first guy do about it?”
“He can chase him.”
“Can he fight him?”
“I suppose.”
“But he can’t kill him?”
“No.”
Hank grinned and shook his head. “That’s so arbitrary. Where do you draw the line between what’s okay and what isn’t?”
“I don’t know, but it’s definitely somewhere before you get to killing people. I mean, look at what happened with that guy they found. The guy whose leg ended up in your front seat?”
“What about him?” Hank asked, as he thought it over. It seemed like a long time ago. He remembered the sheriff pulling over and telling him they’d found the body just earlier that day.
“Well, the radio said he’d been beaten to death with a heavy object. He was presumably alone out there with whoever did that to him. How can that be justified? Just because it’s out in the desert? I don’t buy it. The law is the law. Wrong is wrong.”
The words hung in his ears. Hank tried to put them together with his thoughts of Lugano. A man being beaten to death in the desert could easily be Lugano’s work. But what was the likelihood of that? Janie said he kept to himself and seemed like a normal, quiet guy. But Hank knew better. And why did Janie know so much about the guy?
Hank looked down at her. Then he looked around at the endless desert. Who was she? What was he doing here with her? He thought about Miami and St. Louis and how the jobs had gone to shit. What was happening here?
Hank rubbed his face with both hands and ran his fingers back through his hair. His flesh tingled along his scalp. It was the pot. It was making him paranoid. Or was it? Maybe he was just putting it together now? Hank felt a sudden urge to get back to the Super 8, to drink a cup of coffee, go to sleep, wake up and get the job done. He needed to just get the hell out of town.
Janie smiled, watching the stars and feeling the contrast between the night air above her and the warmth of the rock below. She ran her tongue along the inside of her teeth, back and forth, slowly feeling each one. She was surprised that her teeth were always there, yet she never seemed to really feel them in her head. Finally, she grinned and noticed Hank leaning over and staring down at her. “What?” she asked.
Hank started laughing. “You’re completely baked.” He leaned away from her, holding his stomach, nearly giggling.
Janie sat up, smiling at him. “What? Was it my turn to talk? I thought you were saying something.”
“I was.” Hank snorted, turning red-faced. “I was talking about two people in the desert.”
“Like us?”
“No. Two people meeting in the desert.”
“We’re two people. We’re in the desert.”
“Yes. But I was talking about ethics, morality, jurisprudence.”
Janie started cackling and slapping her hand on the rock. Laughing silently and hard. Hank started laughing too, just from watching her. Finally, through bursts of staccato giggles, she said, “You know that Beatles song?” and then she sang, in a falsetto that sent Hank doubling over: “Juuuuuuuuris Prudence, won’t you come out to play-hey-hey …”
XXVI
They waited in the car, sipping from Styrofoam cups of coffee they’d gotten at the gas station across from the Super 8. The night air had chilled the world just enough for a small pool of steam to collect on the windshield above the dash where Victor set his cup. Victor checked his watch as Tom spoke.