The Easy Way Out

26

The silver sedan rumbled down a meandering country road, Blake at the wheel. He couldn't keep his eyes off Rachel in the passenger seat, sunbaked pastures streaking behind her. He pulled her pretty face close and kissed her cheek. She turned her mouth to meet his, kissing him hard, her hand on his thigh.

He snapped his eyes to the open road then back to her. She wore an expression, a curve of her lips that momentarily forged the face of a different woman that settled back into the familiar as she swept the hair from her face.

The car dipped into a patch of the uneven surface before it regained steady traction.

"Slow down," she whispered.

He backed off the gas when he discovered that he was doing almost sixty miles an hour.

Her hand moved to the inside of his thigh.

"I'm gonna pull over... before things get...," he said, his voice nearly lost in his breath, his hand off the steering wheel, reaching for her.

BA-BANG. The car rocked hard, jostling them. Something scraped the underside of the vehicle. He braked. Looking into the rearview mirror, he discovered that he'd run over a fallen tree branch lying in stubby pieces in the road.

One hundred yards later, the low tire pressure indicator lit. He felt the shimmy of a flat tire in the steering wheel.

"Shit." He gritted his teeth.

She tapped the destination button on the navigation system, then hit the fuel icon. "The nearest gas station is twelve miles away."

He steered to the side of the road, heaviness settling in his chest. A muted orange banner of sky resting just above the horizon indicated the sun would be gone soon. He got out to inspect the car and confirmed that the driver's side tire was flat.

"Is there a spare tire in the trunk?"

She shrugged.

He opened the door, popped the trunk, then walked around to the rear of the car. He pushed the duffel deeper into the trunk then lifted the floor panel where he found a spare tire but no jack. Before he could voice his concern, a black pickup truck emerged from a cloud of dust behind him and parked along the opposite side of the road.

A tall man with a flat face that ended at the tip of a pointed chin got out of the truck. A few long strands of hair connected to his balding scalp fluttered over his head. His passenger climbed down from his seat. The first thing that drew Blake's attention was his highly-polished shoes. He wore a tailored white shirt that had probably looked brand new when he put it on in the morning but was now marked with yellowed perspiration rings. Dark wraparound sunglasses hid his eyes.

The pair approached the silver sedan, as dissimilar as a spaghetti strainer and a saxophone. They didn't match, they didn't go together. Blake's chest muscles tightened.

The high-gloss shoe guy peeked into the car and waved at Rachel. Blake met her distressed eyes through the rear window.

"Flat tire?" said the guy with the flyaway hair, stating the obvious.

"Yep."

"Got a spare in there?"

"I found a spare but no jack."

"Whose car?"

"It's a rental."

"Oh, rental." He rubbed his chin stubble. "Let's have a look." He approached, bending to examine the trunk. Before Blake could stop him, he grabbed the canvas bag and grunted when he shoved it to the side. "Criminee," he said. "You an encyclopedia salesman or something?"