I scan the books on the shelves and end up picking some little airport thriller, with a picture of a stack of cash on the cover, dripping blood. There’s a review on it, says it’s “Pure escapist thrills.” That sounds like what I need right now.
After I choose the book, I hobble along to the vending machine. I’m shivering a little in the cold air. I can see moths flitting around the broken, flickering fluorescent lights set on the walls. Everything else, apart from the highway, has disappeared—whisked away like a magician’s trick—WHOOSH—by the Arizona night.
I get a Payday for Shaylene and a Mars and a Snickers for me. I feed dollar bills in, and corkscrews of metal spiral outward, making the candy bars drop into a trough at the bottom. Like unavoidable fate, turning, pushing you forward, till you fall.
I turn for the room. That’s when I see movement—dark, quick—in the parking lot below.
I stop. I watch.
Armed police, holding assault rifles, are heading toward the motel stairs. In a circle.
A circle that’s tightening, getting smaller and smaller.