Chinese Cooking for Diamond Thieves Read Online Free Page A

“Road’s starting to ice up too. Going far?”
    â€œMass,” I said.
    â€œWhy?” he asked.
    I grinned. There was not a lot of love lost between Massachusetts and New Hampshire. People in the latter tended to regard people in the former as thoughtless littering jerks who used New Hampshire as their backyard playground. On the other hand, people in Massachusetts, too many of them, were famous for thinking of New Hampshire as, well, their backyard playground.
    â€œHauling a load of the trash they left back down to dump on their lawns,” I said.
    He grinned back. “Good,” he said. “But you might want to take a break. Salt trucks are coming this way. Be easier driving after they’re through.” He waved. The line of traffic in front of us had started moving. There was enough snow and ice on the road that I could hear it crunching beneath the tires. We passed the moose—its mortal remains anyway—that was on the side of the road next to a pickup truck. Given the shape of the front panel of the truck, the moose had done some customizing work on it.
    â€œWow,” she said. “They are big.” She yawned.
    When she yawned again, I asked, “Tired?”
    â€œYep,” she said. “I was mostly pretending to sleep, waiting to see if you were going to try to molest me.”
    â€œSame here. Only I was just pretending to be driving. Next rest stop, do you mind if we pull off and sleep for a while?”
    â€œOh,
now
it gets weird.”
    â€œOnly if you can contain your natural impulses to throw yourself on the first sensitive but manly American guy who picks you up at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere,” I said. “Besides, you heard the highway patrol guy. If we wait until the salt trucks come through, the road’ll be in better shape.”
    I slowed and eased off the highway and came up the ramp that led to the rest stop parking lot. There were separate spaces for trucks and cars, and I wanted to park as far away as possible from the row of throbbing diesels idling in the truck lot. But I didn’t want it to look like I was driving us off into the shadows too deeply, away from all the other cars and trucks. That could have seemed a bit weird. So I nosed the Toyota up against the curb close to the restrooms and the covered pavilion that held the snack and soda machines.
    â€œYou go first,” I said, pushing my chin toward the restrooms. “I’ll stay with the car.”
    She opened the door. “There are some snack machines over there,” she said. “Want me to get you another course in your banquet?”
    â€œPass.”
    When she returned, I took my turn. I washed my hands and face in the sink and brushed my teeth. Time to tuck myself in for beddy-bye. At an interstate rest stop. Alongside what was basically a hitchhiker I had picked up randomly. At another rest stop. I didn’t think this was taking me in exactly the sort of life direction my counselor back at Beddingfield would have approved of.
    We pulled the levers to make both front seats recline back as far as they could, which is, in a Toyota, nowhere near comfortable or conducive to sleep. I offered her the sleeping bag. She took it, unzipped it, and tossed it over herself. I had on a pair of silk underwear I used to ski in, heavy corduroy pants, a cotton shirt, and a knit sweater. I threw my parka over me. It was full of some fluffy material guaranteed to keep me warm on most of the mountain slopes of the Himalayas and to wick away moisture like a sponge. It didn’t, however, have much going for it in the way of bedclothes. As long as I was warm, though, I’d be able to sleep. I burrowed my way into the seat and rolled onto my side. The trucks hadn’t gotten any quieter.
    â€œHow do you know I’m not a psycho ax murderer who’s going to castrate you in your sleep?” she asked me, after we’d both rustled around a bit and