Possession by Ann Rule

some horny bastard behind the steering wheel, glimpses of bare flesh and tangles of arms and legs. He could get so close he could hear them rutting there, heedless of any danger.
    Although he wasn't a voyeur, he couldn't stanch the
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    unbidden rush of blood to his groin, the erection that pushed at the fly of his jeans when he watched the fools playing at love. They had no comprehension of what real passion or commitment was, but they could mimic the act of love and trick his body to react instinctively. It annoyed him because that meant he'd have to find a place to relieve himself of the urgency in his genitals. He never thought of breaking into the cars and having the women he watched, nor did he consider having sex with the loud and pushy tramps who flocked into the Trail's End Bar back in Natchitat, sending out less than subtle signals to him with their self-conscious laughter, their compliant posture as they leaned against the jukebox pretending to make selections. Women always came on that way with him. They liked his bigness, his lidded stare as he watched them over a schooner of beer, but their made-up faces fell and their giggling faltered when he turned his back on them and walked across the gravel lot to his motel room.

    He had no time now for any of that, and he was irritated at the betrayal of his own body, of that male response to anything female and young and soft, or anyone who looked that way in barlight.

    The Big Apple Motel lacked a lot, but it gave him a base of operations. And it was cheap, a few steps up from the shacks furnished for migrant workers who flooded Natchitat when the crop neared fruition. The manager had assumed that he was part of them, a little better dressed, a little more savvy, but basically a transient willing to pay twelve bucks a night for a single iron bed, a toilet, sink, and a hot plate.

    He'd stayed at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco, the Brown Palace in Denver, and the Fairmont in Dallas, and had been charged more for one breakfast from room service than two days rent at the Big Apple. The Big Apple stank of sweat, spilled beer, semen, and Pine-sol, a permeating miasma that seemed to be ingrained in the asphalt tile floors and plywood walls. He could rid himself of the odor only by smoking and staying out of the dump from dawn until

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    midnight. But it suited for now. Suited his medium-thick bankroll and suited his need for anonymity in Natchitat.
    He had a couple of hundred bucks, and that was as low as he planned to get, and so he worked one of the minor scams available, nothing that would take much energy or much thought. It had taken him only a day to isolate the product most needed in Natchitat. The migrant shacks were a few miles outside of town, and few of the alkies had transportation into town. He saw they would cheerfully kill each other over a half-full bottle of Tokay but would not walk into Natchitat to buy the stuff for
    $ 1.19 a fifth at the Safeway. He could buy the cheapest vinegar-wine for $3.29 a gallon, and he bought ten gallons a day. Bottling was cheap; he paid one of the winos a buck to gather all the empties he could find, and he filled the dirty bottles with his Safeway supply. He made the rounds of the camps each evening with his Harley's sidecar filled with fifths of retread Tokay, and sold out quickly at two and a quarter apiece. His daily profit was $75.60—less the buck for the bottle man.
    "A goddamned savior," one of his customers had called him, as he cradled a full bottle of Tokay. Two thousand bucks a month and he was a goddamned savior to boot. He'd made ten—twenty—times more than that as a bunco man, but that had taken full days of his time, and he needed time far more than money now.
    The road was offering possibles infrequently; he was spotting mostly carloads of fishermen headed home. He stood finally and whirled his long arms to ease the strain of watching all day. He pulled the sweatshirt with Ohio State printed on it