Free BAD TRIP SOUTH by Billie Sue Mosiman

them,” she said to Crow.
    “ I need to go to the bathroom too,” the little girl said.
    “ After me,” Heddy told her. “You just sit there quietly and don’t aggravate Crow until I get back.”
    She parked by the pump and got out of the car. She walked directly to the side of the service station building to the ladies room. Inside, she locked the door. She found the pint bottle of Jim Beam and twisted off the cap. The first swallow was harsh and she winced. The second swallow was smooth as drinking warm buttered rum coffee. She held up the pint and eyed it. Needed a new one tonight. She’d go out to buy an electric razor to shave Crow and get herself a new bottle. Maybe two.
    She slipped the pint into her purse, relieved herself, and stood in front of the mirror on the wall over the sink, staring at her image. The whiskey did wonders and only in minutes. She felt more herself, more real. When she got the jitters between drinks, she thought she might be about to fly apart, break up into jigsaw puzzle pieces no one could put together again. All her insides went into spasm. She got stomach cramps and a burning in her esophagus. Her mind started tripping, going in several directions at once. Nattering at her about this and about that until she thought she might go insane.
    She didn’t know why Crow favored speed. That stuff warped you right up into a frenzy. He was always picking at stuff, fiddling with his purse, combing his hands through his hair, tapping out drumbeats with his fingertips, jiggling around on the balls of his feet. Some days he went without food, no appetite at all, and when he crashed he was so depressed he was suicidal.
    Right now, though, she wasn’t about to worry about Crow. With the liquor racing through her system, she felt wonderfully whole. She never smiled at herself in mirrors. The dead half of her mouth could make her so angry she’d been known to shatter mirrors with her fist. But she stared into her own eyes and communicated with the smart, strong, silently watching person there.
    We’ll make it. We’ll make it out alive. We’ll be so rich; we’ll party every day and every night. Forever. I’ll have a maid and a cook and a fine car, one even better than that Riviera...
    Someone tapped on the bathroom door. She turned to it and clicked over the lock. If it was that kid, she’d slap her little face until her eyes rolled.
    She pulled open the door, ready to go into action. It wasn’t the girl standing outside waiting. It was a man. A man who knew her.
    “ We just want the money back,” he said. “You know you shouldn’t have done that.”
    “ Rory,” she whispered, surprised to see the tattooed loverboy who told her about the money in the lab house. He wore a suit, a plaid shirt open at the collar, no tie. He looked like a businessman. Who had dressed him, his mom? Who had sent him? Heddy blinked, trying to get a handle on what he’d just said.
    “ They sent you? You’ve followed us?” She asked.
    “ Heddy, you don’t rob St. Louis. I’ve been following you for two days. I don’t know what you and the con are up to with the people in that car, but if you’ll just give me the money, you can go on your way, I’ll forget all about it. They said they’d even write off the murders and that’s pretty unusual.”
    While he was talking, Heddy had slipped her hand into the purse and wrapped her fingers around the little .25 caliber automatic she carried there. No matter what Rory promised, she knew he lied.
    She lifted the gun into position inside the purse slowly, aiming it at his gut. “Look,” she said. “I want you to back off. I want you to go back to your car and haul ass. You need to forget you ever caught up with us. It’s that simple.”
    He gave her a fake sad smile. “Can’t do it, babe. I’ve been sent to collect.”
    She pulled the trigger twice in rapid succession without giving herself time to think. The sounds were like little pithy backfires from a