The Last Dead Girl by Harry Dolan Page B

her too, I think. The second one was more deliberate and had more behind it. She used the back of her hand, and the diamond ring cut a slash on my temple.
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    W hat just happened?” Jolene said.
    â€œI don’t know,” said K.
    â€œIt was pretty good though, wasn’t it? It picked up at the end.”
    The balcony was empty now. Malone had gone in through the sliding glass door and the woman had followed him.
    K started the car and pulled out of the parking space.
    â€œWe’re leaving?” Jolene said.
    â€œNothing more to see.”
    K waited for a gap in traffic and made a left onto the street. Beside him, Jolene held the red Solo cup between her knees.
    â€œDon’t worry,” she said. “It’s empty.”
    â€œIt’s okay,” he told her. “I’m sorry I was rude to you before.”
    â€œYou’re not so bad.”
    â€œI want to make it up to you. Take a look in the glove compartment.”
    â€œHere?”
    â€œRight. What do you see?”
    â€œI see an owner’s manual.”
    â€œUnderneath.”
    K heard her digging around.
    â€œA popsicle stick.”
    â€œKeep going,” he said.
    â€œWait, are these rolling papers?”
    â€œGetting warmer.”
    Then a squeal as she pulled out a baggie and held it up. “Jackpot!”
    â€œThere you go.”
    â€œOh, you’re the best,” she said. “The absolute best.”
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    K drove out into the wild. That’s how he thought of it. Out on the back roads beyond the edge of the city. He looked for a spot he remembered: a turnout and a broken-down fence made of wooden posts, and an old mule path that ran off under the trees. By the time he found the turnout, Jolene had opened up the baggie and the papers—working smoothly in the moving car—and rolled two thick joints.
    They left the car and climbed over the fence, and when they were out of sight of the road Jolene took a lighter from her purse and fired up one of the joints. She held the smoke in her lungs for longer than K would have thought possible, and let it out in a burst of a laugh that tipped her head back and turned her face up to the sky.
    The path ran straight and level. They followed it east in the warm afternoon and the only sound they heard was birdsong and their own footsteps. They passed the joint between them until it burned down to a nub, and K thought Jolene would want the second one right away, but she strolled along for a while, humming, taking things in.
    There were trees growing on one side of the path, and on the other a channel of water, low and wide and dark. Jolene stopped and looked down into it, as if she were noticing it for the first time.
    â€œWhat is that?” she said.
    â€œIt used to be the Erie Canal,” said K.
    â€œNo way.”
    â€œI promise you.”
    â€œI didn’t know it was still around,” she said. “I thought it was from, like, the eighteen hundreds.”
    â€œA lot of it’s been filled in, but you can still find pieces of it here and there.”
    He watched her lean out over the water.
    â€œThis path used to be part of it,” he said. “Mules would walk along here, towing the barges on the canal.”
    â€œI knew that,” she said. “We learned it in school. We used to sing a song about it.”
    â€œLow bridge,” K said. “Everybody down.”
    â€œThat’s the one.”
    â€œI’ve got a mule and her name is Sal,” he sang. “Fif-teen miles on the Erie Canal.”
    â€œAre you sure you never sang in a choir?”
    K laughed. Jolene was still leaning over the water, and he realized she was trying to see her reflection. He took her hand to steady her.
    â€œYou don’t want to fall in,” he said.
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    I used to sing in a choir,” said