I glance back at Jim and he coughs and it sounds like he’s upchucked half a lung into his mouth. He glances around and has the manners not to hock a loogie in my car, so he swallows the mouthful back down. I feel my gag reflex kick in.
“I guess we never went over my car rules,” I explain. “See, I have a strict no hitchhiker, or other possible serial killer policy,” I say to Dylan.
“Oh, Jim’s not a hitchhiker,” she says. “I met him at the gas station, while you were asleep. He just needs a lift to New Mexico. He even offered me gas money,” she adds.
“So, he’s a polite hitchhiker?” I ask. I look around the front seat. “Where’s the money?”
She looks at me like I’m rude for asking. “Well, I didn’t accept it. Haven’t you ever heard the saying, ‘Do onto others…?’”
“Have you ever heard of highway safety tips? First being, fasten your seatbelt,” I point out, since she forgot to fasten it. She tugs it over her chest and clicks it in place.
“Gray,” she says and her voice turns all soft and consoling. “His car broke down and he needs to get back to his family tonight. That’s it. You helped me out in Omaha, I’m just passing on the good karma.”
I glance back at Jim and he’s starting to doze off. His chin is resting on his chest. A white kernel of popcorn is stuck in the corner of his mouth. Low snorts escape his parted lips. He has a dirty black duffel bag on the floor next to his feet.
“He can take a bus,” I say and her eyes narrow.
“You’re being crabby,” she scolds me, like I’m twelve. “You just need some food.”
“Crabby?” I say. “My car smells like a urinal. Just pull over at the next exit we come to, Dylan.”
“Fine.”
Fine. This is Dylan’s verbal cue for saying she’s mad. She’s mad? I cross my arms over my chest and strain my eyes out the window looking for an exit, any exit, but we seem to be lost in tumbleweed national park. Then I hear something in the distance. I turn down the stereo and look in the rearview mirror and there’s a police car behind us, coming into view over the hill. Blue and red lights rotate and a siren wails.
“I was not speeding,” Dylan insists which of course is true. Dylan never drives over fifty-five miles an hour. She’s used to handling such clunky, undependable piece of shit cars, she isn’t aware that you can actually drive fast in a normally operating vehicle.
She slaps a hand against her forehead. “Is this because I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt?” she asks.
Jim’s slouching head perks up when he hears the sirens and this time the words that escape his lips are loud and clear.
“Aw, shit,” he drawls.
I look over my shoulder. Two police cars are behind us now, sirens on, one in each lane.
Dylan slows down and I hear Jim scuffling in the backseat. I turn and watch him unzip the black duffle bag. He pulls out stacks of cash and starts shoving them under the car seat, the floor boards, anywhere he can hide them.
“Oh, shit!” I yell as I see this happening. Dylan pulls over to the shoulder on the side of the highway and the car kicks up a cloud of dusty brown dirt all around us. I stare behind us in shock as the two cop cars screech to a stop.
Dylan looks over her shoulder as one of the cops gets out of the car and slams the door closed.
“It’s a woman,” Dylan says and looks at me. “You do all the talking.”
“Why me?”
“Bat your eye lashes and finesse her with your smile,” she says. “Maybe offer her some free baseball tickets?”
I gawk at Dylan’s absurd plan. “You want me to flirt our way out of this?” I look over my shoulder and shudder as she approaches. “I don’t flirt with women who flex their muscles while they walk.”
Another cop gets out of the driver’s seat and raises a loudspeaker in our direction.
“Come out with your hands up,” he shouts.
Dylan’s eyes widen. I swallow. We watch two more cops step out of the second car. They each rest hands on their gun harnesses.
“They take seatbelt laws very seriously here,” Dylan whispers.
I glance over at Jim and he looks frozen to the back seat. It doesn’t even look like he’s breathing. I wonder if he had a heart attack. Maybe a stroke. A single bead of sweat slides down the side of his face.
“Look in the backseat,” I tell Dylan. She glances behind her shoulder and her mouth falls open when she sees stacks of cash wedged under the seat, spilling out. Loose bills litter the floor.
“Oh, crap,” she gasps.
“Step out of the car with your hands up,” the cop repeats through the loud speaker. “Slowly. No sudden movements. Keep your hands where we can see them.”