Billie
“So what should I call you?” Billie asked.
They'd been driving without words for over an hour, and she felt like this would be the perfect time to poke at him some more. Earlier, she'd gotten a kick out of seeing how far she could push him with her questions and comments. She knew he expected her to act scared and helpless, and she enjoyed the idea of proving him wrong by showing how fearless she could be. She was no one's damsel in distress, and she was proud of that.
“You don't have to call me anything,” the biker said, “because you're not supposed to be talking.”
“Oh, come on,” she pleaded. “I've got to call you something besides 'biker,' at least in my head. What's your name? Is it something totally embarrassing? Is it, like, Aloysius, or Humbert, or Newton or something like that?”
“I've got a perfectly normal name,” he said in a low, dangerous voice, “which I'm not going to tell you. You already know what my face looks like, so if you think I'm giving you more information that'll help the cops ID me later, you're an idiot.”
“Suit yourself.” Billie shrugged. “But that just means I'm going to have to come up with a name for you myself. How about...Clyde? You know, like Bonnie and Clyde?”
“We are not Bonnie and Clyde,” he snapped. She could see how much she was getting under his skin, and she cheered inwardly.
“Well, no, obviously I'm Billie, not Bonnie,” she said. “But it's close enough, right, Clyde?”
“Don't call me that.”
“Fair enough, Clyde,” she smirked.
He let out a frustrated growl, kicked the dashboard angrily, and fell into a morose silence.
Part of her understood that she should be frightened, or at least nervous. Even if she didn't really believe he'd hurt her or shoot her, she was still being held at gunpoint by a criminal, with no idea where they were going or what would happen next.
But the jitters she felt crackling through her body like lightning came from thrills, not fear. She couldn't remember the last time she felt so alive and excited. A handsome outlaw, a stolen car, and the cops on their heels...
And besides, she reasoned, the authorities will catch up to us eventually.
She was sure it wouldn't be Panzie who finally brought the hammer down, since he was such a useless ass of a sheriff. But still, based on the true crime TV shows she often watched, guys like these bank robbers rarely went unpunished. Once that happened, she'd enjoy getting even more attention as the police took down her statement and the news crews interviewed her about her harrowing ordeal. For a while, she'd be more than just some barmaid. She'd be a local celebrity.
Once all that starts to die down, she thought, who knows? Maybe I'll even write some steamy love notes to him while he's in prison, and People magazine will do a story on us.
She laughed to herself at this thought.
“What's so fucking funny?” he asked sourly.
“Nothing, Clyde,” she replied. “Just thinkin' me thinks, that's all.”
“I told you not to call me that.”
“Then tell me what your name is and I won't keep calling you Clyde, Clyde,” she teased.
He shot her a withering look.
“Okay, how about this,” she offered. “Just tell me the first letter of your name, and I won't bug you about it anymore, I promise.”
He sighed. “Fine. C. My name starts with a C.”
“There you go!” she exclaimed. “That wasn't so hard, right? Okay, so it starts with C, but it's not Clyde...”
“You promised you wouldn't bug me about this anymore,” he pointed out. “You literally said that two seconds ago.”
“Well, I was obviously lying, wasn't I?” Billie countered. “Jeez, for a professional criminal, you sure do take people at their word way too easily. Let's see. Chet? Chas? Casper?”
“Even if you guess, I'm not telling you,” he said. “Are we almost in Blue Lace yet, or should I just tuck and roll out of the car now and pray I land on something hard?”
“It'll be coming up in the next few minutes,” Billie assured him. “Look, there's even a sign for The Whippoorwill on the right. It's less than a mile from here.”
“Good. Turn off at the next road.”
“Why?” Billie asked. “We're not there yet.”
“Because by now, this car will be reported stolen too. So we can't just park it in front of a motel for people to see, can we? We have to ditch it and walk the rest of the way.”
“Fair enough,” she agreed, pulling the car onto another country road. “That makes sense.”
“I'm so glad you approve,” he answered. “See that deep ditch alongside the road, next to that corn field? Pull up next to it.”
Billie complied and “Clyde” leaned over, yanking the twisted wires apart. The engine shut off.
“Now what?” she asked.
“Now we're going to push this thing into the ditch and try to cover it with some corn stalks,” he said. “It won't be perfect, but it should still throw the cops off our tail a bit and buy us some time. Hopefully, the other two did something similar with their bikes. Oh, and don't go thinking you can try to run away while we're doing this, either,” he added. “That's not going to go well for you, believe me.”
“I'm having too much fun to run off now,” said Billie. “Besides, then what? I'd just be stuck out here in the hundred-degree heat instead of an air-conditioned motel room.”
“For fuck's sake,” he grumbled. “Is this all one big game to you or something?”
“Pretty much,” she laughed. “I mean, you must get a real kick out of all this bank-robbing, running-from-the-law stuff too, right? Otherwise, why would you do any of it? And anyway, when the cops catch up to us, it's not like I'm the one who's going to be in trouble. So in the meantime, I may as well ride along and have some fun.”
Clyde opened his mouth as though he was going to disagree, then closed it again. “If that's how you feel about it, fine,” he said. “Help me shove this thing into the ditch.”
They both braced against the trunk of the car and pushed as hard as they could. Slowly, the sedan started to roll forward and to the side, until the right front wheel went off the edge and the others followed. The car crashed down through a patch of reeds and sank into the brown water of the ditch up to the tops of its tires, settling in like a hippo wallowing in a watering hole.
Clyde started to gather armloads of tall, dried corn stalks from the edge of the field, and Billie followed suit. They tossed the stalks on top of the car and spread them out a bit.
“Well, it helps that the thing is dirty as hell,” Clyde said. “They probably won't find it for a few hours. That'll give me a chance to catch up to the other guys, and then hopefully we can all get some distance between us and the cops. Now let's start walking. And again, don't try to make a run for it, or we'll have some serious problems.”
“I told you...” she started.
“I know what you told me,” he said. “But maybe I'm done taking people at their word so much, professional criminal that I am. So just walk a few steps ahead and don't make any sudden moves.”
Billie rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
They started to walk along the muddy back roads and rocky footpaths as the corn stalks swayed around them.