Griffin was finally starting to calm down, and slow down, on the highway leaving the Toronto area, heading west. He really had no idea where to drive, as long as it was far away from Manny and anyone helping him. Kim's naked, fidgeting body sat next to him in the car, still peaking on Cream.
The sky was a little lighter with the rising sun. With his left hand on the steering wheel, Griff put his right hand on hers. Then he looked far ahead on the road: there was a police roadblock--two police cars and a line of pylons about to make him stop.
"Shit!" he said. "And you're sitting next to me, naked and high as a kite. What am I gonna do?" He slowed down, the car now moving as fast as if it were in a traffic jam. He looked back, and saw a grey-black wool blanket lying on the back seats. "Oh, yeah, that's right. I have that blanket back there. I can cover you with that."
He reached back and got the blanket.
"Bend forward, sweetie," he said. She did, and he covered her completely, including her head, since he didn't want the cops to know she was even there, let alone nude and stoned. Her head was down between her knees. It was still dark enough that the cops, sans flashlights, probably wouldn't have noticed the black lump on the passenger's seat.
He was nearing the cops now. "Kim, don't move at all," he whispered.
"OK," she moaned softly.
"Shh," he warned, moving his lips as little as possible. "Be quiet." He pulled over. A cop approached: his name tag said COLE. "Is everything OK, officer?"
"No, it isn't," Officer Cole said. "I was dragged out of bed an hour ago after hearing of a perp trying to get out of Toronto, so we have to block all the exits. Where are you headed?" He was looking over the insides of Griff's car.
"Oh, to Windsor," Griff said, faking the best calm he could. "Meeting with family there."
"Can I see your license?" Cole asked.
"Sure," Griffin said, reaching into his glove compartment to fish it out from among all the other clutter in there. He gave it to Cole, who perused it slowly. "Sucks gettin' up early, eh?"
"It sure does," Cole growled. "I'm trying to start a new business, one that'll make me so rich, I'll never need to wear this uniform again. But police duty keeps interrupting me from marketing my new skin lotion?"
"Skin lotion?" Griff asked, looking carefully at Cole's face.
"Yeah, and I have a black beauty lying in bed waiting for me," Cole said. "I can't leave her unattended for long; she gets all restless, to put it mildly." He was about to walk off and check Griffin's license plate, when he heard something.
"Roxy," Kim moaned, psychically sensing who Cole's 'black beauty' was.
"What?" Cole snapped, spinning around and darting back to the passenger window.
"Oh, uh,..." Griff stammered. "I said, uh,...I mean, I meant to say, it's a ROCKY road to success." He reached forward to put his hand on her mouth.
"Yeah, ain't it the truth," Cole said, returning Griff's license. "OK, you can go."
"Thank you, officer," Griff said, and drove through. "Whew! Thank God." As he kept driving and distancing himself from the cops, he slowly began to relax. "Why is it that fucking cops always make me feel paranoid instead of protected?"
Cole seemed familiar to me, Griffin thought. One of the cops who helped Manny escape jail was named Cole, and he had a son, who by now would be the age of that cop I just talked to. I saw Cole's son back when Manny was in trouble, and he looked like a kid version of that cop just now. He has his father's facial features, too, in a really obvious way. Was that Cole's son back there? And he's selling a skin lotion? Is he selling Manny's Cream, and is he protecting Manny still?
"Roxy," Kim said again.
Griffin pulled the blanket off her head and let her bring her head back up. "Sorry I had to hide you like that, Kim. Must have been uncomfortable for you."
"Roxy," she said again.
"Wasn't that black stripper in Jack-In-the-Box named Roxy?" he asked. "And she went missing, too, didn't she? Like all those other pretty young women who've been going missing lately; it's all over the news."
"Roxy."