Highway Robbery

It’s not a good deal unless it feels like you’re pulling off a scam. Ash had driven off the lot in her new truck like a thief, glowing with pride tempered by only the weakest press of guilt. 

She’d never set out to take advantage of anybody, but it’s survival of the fittest. Don’t go selling a truck before you know its worth. 

She’d found her victim hosting an estate sale. Ash was no antiquer, and she didn’t go hunting for hoity-toity clothes sold at a song on account of their owner’s unexpected demise, but she liked an adventure. The Craigslist post that led her there touted nothing if not adventure. 

“BIG RIG $20K OBO … SERIOUS INQUIRIES ONLY,” announced the title. “Or Best Offer.” She couldn’t imagine a better asking price for the commercial eighteen 18 wheeler pictured: A 2022 Freightliner without so much as a scratch. Didn’t matter what state it was in internally, Ash reckoned. The owner could’ve blown out the engine and shaken sawdust in the transmission; the costs of full repair would still be pocket change compared to how much she’d save. 

The description, riddled with typos, went on to demand interested buyers swing by the estate sale instead of providing a cell phone number or email to contact. 

To some, that would raise a handful of red flags. In Ash’s line of work, this brand of gentleman ran more rampant than poison ivy. The venn diagram of truckers and the tech-averse has a broad section of overlap. No skin off Ash’s ass. She never got real good at reading tone herself, preferred face to face. She’d read the funnies, sure, but mostly the salt-of-the-earth ones. She skimmed The Far Side and Pearls Before Swine first, to get them out of the way. 

It was while she was paging through vintage porno mags, chuckling at the now-endearing mix of sexy and conservative that once passed for erotic, that a man wandered over. 

She’d felt eyes on her since she walked in, but Ash didn’t let it ruffle her feathers. It came with the territory when you looked like that: a fat bulldagger pushing six foot in work boots, buzzed hair a prickly brunette sea urchin atop her head, ring of keys plain on her belt loop. Ash had a face only a mother and a certain demographic of twiggy, big-eyed girls with liberal arts degrees could love, and that suited her just fine. 

“A man with taste,” the man ventured, stubble on his upper lip twitching up. He was heavyset and had a similar haircut to Ash. From behind, they might have looked like brothers. 

“I read it for the articles, I swear,” Ash joked. 

The guy startled and cleared his throat when he heard the voice of a woman come out of her. She got a kick out of it, like always, but didn’t let it show beyond an amused smile that probably passed for polite. 

“‘Course y’are,” he agreed, now speaking in a deeper voice. That never got old, the way men straightened their shoulders and puffed out their chests when they realized they were getting out-butched. “I’m Tino, by the way. My brother’s the one who bit it.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Ash said, though she was actually delighted, because it meant she was talking to a business partner. Matching his laissez faire attitude, she asked about the truck. 

She suspected he was now taking notice of her chest, until he nodded to the ring of keys on her belt loop and asked, “You got your own rig?” 

“Naw. Just a rental,” she answered. 

Before seeing that Craigslist post, the only way that was gonna change would’ve been an estranged wealthy relative dying and mysteriously leaving their fortune to her. Maybe a government coup fundamentally rewiring the U.S. economy. Even if a scratch-off paid out big, it probably wouldn’t be enough after taxes. 

Tino unsubtly sized her up until he saw something that earned his approval, then nodded once and led her outside. 

“I reckon you’ll want to switch around the set-up once I title it over to you…” he called sheepishly when she saw the brass truck nuts dangling below the vanity plates, which proudly pronounced the rig a PSSY WGN. 

Ash grinned. “I wouldn’t change a thing.” She whistled lowly when Tino popped the hood. “Now you’re gonna tell me you missed a zero on the post, right?” she asked after pulling the dip sticks and noticing the battery was only a month old. Even the paint job was as pristine as the photos showed.

“What, you think it’s worth more?” Tino asked. 

Ash shot him a look while waiting for him to pass her the key, then popped the door and climbed inside to start the engine. It purred to life on the first click. When Tino climbed in on the passenger side, Ash looked at him with gravity. “Be honest with me,” Ash warned. “You stupid or somethin’?”

Tino cracked up. “Look, I don’t know nothin’ about all this. All I know is Marcus left a property and a half worth of B.S. I gotta sort through, and of all the thorns in my side, this truck is the biggest. I’d pay you to get it gone.” 

Ash revved the engine one more time, feeling a connection not unlike an equestrian meeting a thoroughbred, and by the end of the day, she’d cashed out half her savings and turned off Marcus’s property in her immaculate new big rig, title in hand. 

She takes it out for her first run within the week. The cargo she’s supposed to pick up is up in Idaho, and from there, it’s a straight shot up Highway 85 to the drop off point in Washington. In her old rental, a quick trip like this might net her $600. With the better mileage and without the fees? She could be looking at a grand for less than two days of work. 

The novelty of the rig makes the drive feel half as long. She’s shaved a whole hour off her route persevering through lunch, and just when she’s wondering if she could pick up and drop off without stopping for the night, she sees flashing lights behind her. 

Ash swears to herself. Had she really been speeding enough for a cop to bother with the effort of pulling over a semi? She slows to an impressively gentle stop on the shoulder and collects her license and documents, anticipating a hassle over the registration only being an email until the hard copy comes in the mail. 

The cop taps on her window and she rolls it down. She blinks into the light and tries to look more pleasant than her resting face usually does. 

“Step outside the vehicle,” he says after he gets a look at her. 

“Huh?” 

The cop puts a hand on his holster and backs up. “Keep your hands where I can see them and step outside the vehicle.” 

The space between Ash’s ribs aches with any icy dread that she doesn’t let reach her brain. Keeping her face and her thoughts carefully neutral, she complies, leaving the engine on and the door open. 

“Was I speeding?” Ash asks. 

A second squad car parks behind the first and the officer who exits begins to search the cab’s interior, all while the first cop keeps his eyes trained on her, hand on holster.

“The registration is on my phone. I have an email,” Ash tries again, as if somehow this is a case of minor infraction. 

The second cop comes back around to stand with them, and murmurs something into the ear of the man standing vigil over Ash. He holds out his hand for her to drop Ash’s keyring into it, and then moves away, speaking into her radio. 

“Walk with me to the trunk.” 

By now, Ash’s shock has worn off enough for her to remember that she has rights. 

“I don’t even have any cargo in there. What the hell’s going on?” she demands. 

The officer draws his gun from his holster and points it. “I’m not asking again.”

Ash turns around, feeling at once both like she has too much blood in her face and not enough, and allows herself to be frog-marched to the back, where the cop with the radio has produced bolt cutters to remove the padlock

“That’s my property,” Ash says through gritted teeth, careful not to make sudden movements. “You’re not getting in there without a warrant.” 

“We have a warrant,” says the cop. “For a man in a Freightliner matching your description.” 

“Do I look like a man to you?” 

Both cops look at her, then at each other. 

“There’s an Amber alert on these plates,” the woman adds.

“I just bought this. The new ones are in the mail,” Ash says, more weakly. Even more than she looks like a man, she knows she looks like someone who drives a PSSY WGN.

They throw open the back. 

Just inside, plain as day, is a dead body. The body has been dead for some time, based on the smell. Ash’s head whips away in disgust, but not before she notices the foam and mesh hat that had fallen off his buzzed head. 

The one reaching for her arm: “You’re under arrest for the murder of Marcus Gutierrez.” 

It all clicks just in time for Ash to pick up the bolt cutters off the ground and bash the male cop’s head in. He crumples like he’d never known how to stand to begin with, and Ash pries the gun from his hand to point it at the female cop before she can draw her own. 

“I got a great deal on it,” she explains urgently, aware of the cop blood rapidly cooling on her face. “You don’t know how much these things cost. I could buy a house with what I saved.”

The remaining cop backs away, hands raised in surrender. 

“You’ve never seen a deal so good that you just didn’t ask questions?” 

The woman fumbles her radio, then turns heel and runs back to her patrol car.

Ash picks the cop’s body up, strain eased by adrenaline, and dumps it with the gun on top of Marcus’s body. 

Then she climbs back in the truck and drives home, mentally drafting the Craigslist post: “BIG RIG $20K, MUST BE WILLING TO SHAVE YOUR HEAD.”

Well, maybe $30K, for her troubles. The way she sees it, that’s still a steal.