Текст книги "Prodigal Blues"
Автор книги: Gary A. Braunbeck
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"Watch your language," snapped Muriel.
"Sorry."
Denise almost giggled at that. Almost.
A reporter and camera operator were making their way into the restaurant. I cursed under my breath; it hadn't even been ten minutes yet—God bless the age of cellular communication. Denise was rattled enough without someone sticking a microphone and camera in her face.
"Take her back with you, Muriel," I said. "I'll talk to them."
"The hel—heck you will," said Trevor. "The State Police'll be here soon enough, and they won't be too chipper if you tell your story to the news people before talking to them."
I glanced at my food with regret. Looked like it would have been really tasty.
"Go," said Muriel, tapping my wrist. "I'll have one of the girls box it up and bring it over to you."
Trevor took hold of my arm and guided me to my feet. "There's a delivery door in the back, you can go through there." He dragged me toward it. I barely had a chance to turn my head and see Muriel quickly usher Denise behind the counter and through the kitchen's swinging doors. Denise looked at me and mouthed "I'm sorry," once again.
What was she apologizing for?
"Here, you go," said Trevor, pushing open the delivery door. "Turn left for the motel. I'll let Edna know that you aren't to be bothered until the cops talk to you."
"Except for my dinner."
"Right, except for your dinner. Got it."
"Thanks for everything."
"I ought to be thanking you—and not just for finding that little girl. This is the most excitement I've ever had on this shift. I actually feel like I'm making a difference today, you know? How often does a guy get to say that?"
I smiled and nodded my head as the reporter called out and Trevor closed the door between us.
I was just passing the motel office when Edna and her husband came out.
Edna, cigarette ash holding steady (I wondered if it was the same smoke from earlier), took my hand and said, "Is it true? Did you find that little girl who got took from here?"
I didn't feel like launching into the whole explanation, so I nodded my head.
"Oh, that's wonderful!" She threw down her cigarette, cupped my face in her hands, and gave me a grandmotherly kiss.
"Edna," said her husband. "You're embarrassing the boy."
"Don't get your gruns knotted up the crack, Earl." She still hadn't let go of my face. "Oh, Mark, you don't know how sick we all felt after she disappeared. Muriel, she cried for weeks over it."
"Edna," said Earl. "The boy doesn't want to hear about your sister's problems."
So I was right, they were related. Chalk one up for my side.
Edna let go of me, then Earl stepped up and squeezed both my shoulders. "You done good, son. You done good."
"Thanks," I said, trying not to wince from his car-crusher grip. We stood there looking at each for a few more moments, until Earl saw another news van pull into the parking lot. "You'd best get on to your room. We'll make sure your dinner gets to you."
I was just walking away when Edna called: "I almost forgot—your wife phoned a little bit ago. She left a message; said she'd try back."
I double-timed it back to the room. The red message indicator light on the phone was blinking. The phone rang as I was reaching for the receiver.
"Are you naked, baby?" I said as I picked it up.
"No, but now I'm gonna think things," said Cletus. "I hope to Christ you were expecting this to be someone else."
"Sorry. Edna said my wife called and I thought you might be her calling back."
"That's a relief. Listen, I gotta ask you a kind of personal question."
I figured he'd already heard about Denise and was expecting him to quiz me on that, but instead he said: "Does your brother-in-law like you?"
"Not really. Why?"
"Remember when I asked you about the 'Check Engine' light? I been poking around in that heap and found out a couple of things you need to know. Besides the master cylinder leaking, the coolant fan is shot—I don't know how many guys looked at this car before me, but there's no good goddamn excuse for them not to have caught this."
"You're losing me, Cletus; remember, I don't speak your language."
"Your brother-in-law knew you were pulling off his lot in a bad and probably dangerous car. That engine was guaranteed to overheat on you, but that's not the thing I called to tell you about. I called to tell you that the bulb—you paying attention here? This's important—the goddamned bulb in the 'Check Engine' light was removed. You got me, Mark? Good old Perry had one of his mechanics get inside the panel and pull the bulb so that there'd be no way you could tell the engine was overheating."
I felt my grip tighten on the receiver. "Are you certain it couldn't have been some kind of accident? Maybe one of the other mechanics mistakenly removed it when they were looking at the—"
"Take my word on this one, Mark—you can't remove that bulb by mistake. It's something you go in with the intention of doing. Your brother-in-law meant for you to have a breakdown somewhere along the way. He's lucky you didn't get hurt or worse. I'll testify to that in court."
"Thanks, Cletus. I appreciate this."
"Even though I ain't naked? Good to know." We said good-bye, I sat there taking several deep breaths to calm down, and then listened to Tanya's message:
"Hello, you sorry perv," said Tanya's voice. "I just got off the phone with Perry. He's a bit put-out with both you and some guy named Cletus. You tell Cletus I said 'Good for you.' Perry's probably still trying to put out the fire in his ear hair—nobody calls my man the names he called you. And, no, we're not paying him for repairs or hauling costs or any of it. He's also going to pay us back for your motel room and the tow and the car rental, which he's none-too-happy about—doesn't that just tug at your heart strings? My guess is he's whining to Mom and Dad about it right now, but it won't do him any good—I was always the favorite.
"I'm really sorry that this happened to you, sweetie. But at least you were lucky enough to find out before you had a serious accident. Edna tells me that everybody there's really taken with you. They sound like a great bunch of folks. By the way, I promised her that you'd make sure to get her cookie recipe before you leave, so don't forget. I've got to run some errands before heading over to Columbus to pick up Gayle and the kids—somebody wants me to buy him a cell phone, wonder why—so I probably won't be home when you get this… just make sure you call me back tonight, okay? I don't care how late it is, you call me.
"By the way, I was so naked when you called. And still wet from the shower. Should've seen me. Water trickling between my boobs and pooling near my belly button. It was really hot. And I was talking to my brother instead of you. That's just wrong. Oh, well…."
I called her back immediately and got the voicemail.
"You are not going to believe what just happened to me; suffice to say that it involves many witnesses, television news crews, and the State Police. I'm not kidding, pinkie-swear. I'm not in trouble, so don't worry. Give everyone a hug and kiss from me—except Perry, who may be facing some criminal charges when I get home. I'll call you later tonight with all the details. I love you. I miss you." I tried to think of something lascivious to say but couldn't, so I just hung up, then sat on the edge of the bed and let everything finally register… and that's when it occurred to me that I hadn't asked Denise
(told you it wasn't a stunt!)
about who she'd been traveling with. Aside from Denise herself, the driver of the butter dishes was whom the police would most need to speak with.
I washed my hands and face; the cold water felt great and the motel soap was vanilla-scented. Tanya used vanilla soap. It made me miss her all the more.
I was drying off when I heard a knock on the door—not the door to my room, the door in my room.
The groovy decorator who'd done this room must have had an even more far-out buddy who designed the building, because this was the first time in over a decade that I'd been in a motel room that actually had connecting doors between rooms.
"Yes?" I said to the door.
"I have your supper here, Mr. Sieber," said a rough, sandy voice. "Muriel had us reheat it. I have fresh pie and some of Edna's cookies for you, too."
I grabbed the latch, which was stuck. While I fiddled with it, I asked the waitress, "Why are you delivering it like this?"
She laughed. "There are reporters all over the place. Edna has got a passkey—" A nasty series of coughs erupted from her chest. "—sorry. Edna has a passkey she used to let me in. I came in through number ten and just used the connecting doors to get here. You know—so no reporters would see."
The latch started to give, much to my stomach's joy. "Pretty clever. I wouldn't have thought of that." And I wouldn't have. "Listen, when you get back, do me a favor?" The latch came free and I swung open the door. "Tell Muriel that I forgot to mention—"
I never finished. Whatever hit me felt like it had been dropped from somewhere near Jupiter and caught a ride on a bolt of lightning. I remember feeling my entire body locking up as my insides burst into flame; I remember feeling my legs buckle; I remember something warm and thick running down the front of my face; I remember thinking the floor was very considerate, the way it rushed up to greet me like it had really missed my company….
5. I Always Liked That Song
… jesuschristi didnotTHINKhis nosewasever goingTOSTOPbleeding whydidyou haveTOhithimwith somuchjuiceHADtobesurehe wouldnotMAKEany noisedidinotBUTwe agreedABOUTthe facehehas tolookALL rightyouknow…
I came awake in slow degrees. The first thing that registered was the vibrations; I thought I was on the motel bed, "Magic Fingers" massaging away, but then it got bumpy and hard and something solid that was most definitely not magic slammed against my back.
…sorryweDIDNOTHAVEtimetoCLEANtheroombutYOUARETHEonewhowantedtoGEToutbeforethePOLICEgotthereDONOTstartfightingWITHeachothernotNOWWEaREalmostdone…
The second thing that registered was the pain in my face; it was dulled somewhat, but it still throbbed back into my skull; the continuous bumps and jostles didn't help any.
…ohgodiamsoSCAREDwhatifHEISreallyhurtBADANDwecannotgetHIMtoWILLyouBEQUIETyouare
gettingthomasUPSETwhataboutme….
The next thing to hit home was the taste of a metallic-snot furball lodged between my tongue and throat; I tried to lift myself awake and pull in a breath so I could hawk it up but my head weighed about fifty pounds, so I decided to blow my nose instead.
The radio was playing a Marshall Tucker Band song, "Take The Highway." I always liked that song.
I reached for my handkerchief. Something rattled and clinked and my arm just stopped. A sharp pain encircled my wrist; someone with an ice-cold iron hand was wrenching it away from me.
I tried pulling free but whoever had hold wasn't going along with things; that didn't stop me from trying again.
No good.
Time to rally.
And-a one, and-a two, and-a—
This time, as I jerked back with everything I had (which, under the circumstances, isn't saying much), the thought crossed my mind that it might maybe-kinda-sorta be a good idea if I opened my eyes so I could see just what the hell was going on—
Everything looked like it was being filtered through one of those gauzy camera lenses used in movies to make aging stars appear to not have crow's-feet and face-lifts.
I blinked several times, then—against my better instincts—shook my head. The pain snarled forward and I bit my lower lip, wincing… but when I opened my eyes again, things were a lot clearer.
I almost wished they hadn't been.
I automatically clicked into janitor mode, examining the entirety of the mess at first glance, then breaking it down into bite-sized pieces of disorder.
Disorder first: I was on the floor of a van and the van was moving; so much for the "Magic Fingers" scenario.
Disorder second: The pain was getting intense in a hurry.
Disorder third: My ankles were manacled together with one of those strap-and-chain numbers used on violent murderers being marched into a courtroom.
Disorder fourth: There was dried blood all over the front of my shirt, which had been torn and was missing several buttons.
Disorder fifth: I couldn't move my arms because each wrist was handcuffed to an iron ring soldered to the wheel wells on either side; I lay in an almost perfect crucifixion pose.
Disorder sixth (and for the moment, the most immediate): I had to—in Cletus's words—make a pause for the cause.
I tilted back my head, and for my efforts got a forced-perspective view of the folding (and currently upright) seat I was chained behind. I opened my mouth to say something and suddenly remembered that scene from Last House On The Left (one of Tanya's favorite horror movies for some reason) where the killers, just to degrade one of their female victims, force her to piss in her pants before murdering her.
I concentrated on keeping my bladder under control; I had to, otherwise I'd have no choice but to think about this really honestly seriously goddamn scary situation, and I wasn't sure I could handle it.
"Hello."
I looked up and saw a girl's face that was, from this angle, all hanging black hair, lower lip, and nostrils. There was a strong smell of makeup about her.
"What… happened?"
"You hit your face against the phone table when you fell down. The Taser was set a lot higher than I thought. I am sorry. Are you okay?"
"I have to… go to… the bathroom."
"Anything else?"
"My head… hurts."
"Okay, then." She disappeared from view. "He is awake and says he has to use the toilet. I need to go, too." I recognized her voice, even though there wasn't a motel-room door between us. This close, it sounded as if she had something wrong with her throat; her sandy voice was even rougher that I remembered: it sounded outright painful.
"Check the map, will you, Arnold?" said a hollow-sounding male voice. "There should be another motel coming up."
Paper rustling. "I think you are right." This voice sounded very young, a boy of maybe eleven or twelve. "Exit… Exit 24A."
"There is 23," said the first voice—I assumed the driver's. "Check the computer, just to be safe."
"Do I have to? I just checked it a little bit ago."
"Humor me."
"Please do not be mad."
A sigh. "I am not, I promise. Just make sure, will you?"
Someone began tapping keys.
"May I see?" asked the driver.
"It is not in blue," said the younger voice. "See?"
"Excellent," said the driver. Then he called out: "Can you hold it for five more minutes?"
It took a moment before I realized he was talking to me and not the girl. "Uh… I think so."
Hair, Lip, and Nostrils came back over the seat. "So… how much does it hurt?"
"Kind of a lot."
"Honest?"
"Honest."
"Okay, then." She disappeared again. Something with latches was opened, and when her hand came around the lower side of the seat to grab my arm I almost let go right then, it startled me so much.
"Do not wriggle around, please? I do not want it to break off ." Only her arms and hands were visible. She felt along my arm, slapped it a few times to raise a vein, and started to administer a shot. "This will make it better, I promise. Demerol."
"Hang on a second," I said, but it was too late; she'd already sunk the plunger.
"You should be okay now."
It took about sixty seconds. The last thing to consciously register was that "Take The Highway" had ended and "A New Life" was starting, which meant it wasn't the radio, they were listening to a tape of The Marshall Tucker Band's Greatest Hits, an album I'd been meaning to buy, and promised myself I would buy if I got out of this alive, then the Demerol sang a different, shinier song that was suddenly all I wanted to hear….
6. Contractions
When I came awake this time, nothing was vibrating, not even my skull. I still felt shiny from the Demerol. And weightless. But mostly shiny. In a weightless kind of way. I tried swallowing only to discover I had a mondo case of cotton-mouth. A drink of water sounded good. Sounded great, in fact. Richard the Third at the battle of Bosworth Field didn't want a horse as much as I wanted some water.
Opening my eyes, I saw the stucco ceiling above.
Funny, I didn't remember this groovy room's ceiling as being stucco, but what the hell, I'd enjoy the view, feeling all shiny and weightless and like I didn't
(…to Mark, Earth to Mark, your circuit's dead, something's wrong…)
have a care in the world, but something seemed out of place, seemed different… didn't it? Yeah, it sure did. Then I wondered
(…all shiny from the DEMEROL SHOT, bright guy; is THAT enough of a hint for you?)
why it felt like I was partially undressed, so I lifted my head and saw that I was, indeed, naked from the waist down. Something cold and heavy was around my right ankle, but at least my hands were free, so I rubbed my eyes and pulled myself up and as I rose into a sitting position all the tumblers fell into place and I remembered the lightning bolt and the considerate floor and bumpy crucifixion ride and realized that wherever I was and whatever was happening, smart money said it wasn't good—
"Do not scream or call for help."
Seven words guaranteed to wake your ass up in a hurry. I grabbed a handful of bed sheet and covered myself.
Then he spoke again: "Please, I meant to say. Please do not scream or call for help."
He was sitting in chair next to a lighted floor lamp whose low-wattage bulb cast most of his face in shadow. He looked to be around twenty or so, dressed in a tan, short-sleeved cotton shirt, with tan khaki pants and tan shoes under which he wore tan socks. Everything about his appearance was so bland as to make him indistinguishable among a crowd; even his light-brown hair was cut in a style so precise it was invisible; pass him at the mall, on the street, or in a busy truck stop restaurant, and you wouldn't give him a second glance.
"Please don't hurt me," I said, the words crawling out of my throat.
"I would rather not," he replied, leaning forward into the light. "But I will not hesitate if I have to. I thought it was only fair you know that, all right?"
I saw the gun in his hand before I looked at his face; the former was some kind semi-automatic pistol with a silencer attachment, ugly and big and serious as cancer; the latter, while at first glance pleasant enough in a forgettable way, was sharp and smooth and strangely without lines or wrinkles—not that a twenty-year-old face should look haggard and world-weary, but even in this light, with my foggy vision, there wasn't a laugh-line, crow's foot, or blemish to be found on his features: he could have passed for a department-store mannequin. Some people would kill for skin like that and sleep the sleep of the righteous after.
There were easily one hundred more significant questions I could have asked next—everything from "What do you want?" to "Who the hell are you?"—but the one that came out of my mouth when confronted by this face, this gun, and this situation, was: "Why don't I have my pants and underwear?"
I heard others laughing to the side of the room but I wasn't about to look away from False-Face and his gun.
"You wet yourself after Rebecca gave you the shot," he said. "If I had been thinking, I would have told her to wait so that would not happen. I apologize. We took them off and washed them in the bathtub. They should be dry enough in an hour or so."
"Thank you."
"You are welcome." So formal and polite.
"How long have I been out?"
"A couple of hours."
The drapes were closed; I couldn't tell if it was still daylight. "What time is it?"
"About two in the afternoon." He picked up a bottle of pills from the table, looked at them, then slipped them into one of his pockets. "In case you are wondering, no one knows you are missing yet. The girl from the restaurant who tried to deliver you supper figured you were sleeping, which gave us enough time to get you out before the State Police arrived."
"They'll go to my room and find I'm not there."
He flinched at something, then shook his head. "No, they will not. You left a note at the desk for Edna saying that you caught a ride into Jefferson City to rent a car, and that you will be back as soon as you can—you realize the police want to speak with you and, after all, you left four boxes in her storage room. Considering all the excitement and confusion about Denise, and so many witnesses in the restaurant wanting to tell their stories, it will be hours before anyone starts looking for you, and morning before it occurs to them that something is wrong."
I started to ask something else, and then it hit to me: "How… how did you know about any of that? Edna's name or the food being delivered to my room or the car rental or—?"
False-Face set the gun in his lap and reached down beside the chair to lift up something that looked like a hybrid of a large metal plate and opened umbrella. "This," he said, and proceeded to explain about the parabolic dish, what it could do, and at what distances.
I waited until he was finished, then pointed at the dish and asked: "So how much do you know about me?"
"We know your name, where you live, and that you came to Kansas to sign some release papers for your sister's share of an inheritance. We know that your brother-in-law's name is Perry, and that he loaned you a piece-of-junk car from his lot. We know that you did not tell anyone about our bus and our trailer. We know that you are traveling alone and like to pretend you are an obscene phone caller when you talk to your wife—and that as far as Tanya knows right now, you are stuck at a motel until you can rent a car in the morning. Which means we have about eighteen hours before any serious questions about you will be asked."
There might very well have been holes in his reasoning, but I sure as hell couldn't find them at the moment.
I took a deep, slow breath, swallowed, then licked my lips and said, "Please listen to me. I'm a goddamn janitor, you hear me? I'm not anybody important. I don't know what you want or what you think I have, but I'm asking you to please, please not hurt or kill me. I have no idea where we are right now, understand? No idea. You could just leave me here with my leg chained to the bed like this and be two states away before anyone finds me." I looked at the bedside table and saw that he'd disconnected the phone; the cord lay across the table top like a dead garden snake; the phone itself was nowhere to be seen. "You've taken the phone, so I sure as hell can't call anyone—"
He put down the dish and again picked up the gun. "That is true, but you could describe the bus and trailer to them."
"Unless we paint the trailer," said the younger boy's voice from the other side of the room. "I think we have enough to do that."
False-Face shook his head. "You have watched too many bad crime movies, Arnold. Besides, you are all too tired. You need to sleep." He looked directly at me. "I was hoping that I could convince you to help us."
I almost laughed—not out of any false, macho bravado, no, but at the sudden, surreal absurdity of it. "Let me get this straight—you kidnapped me because you need a fucking standby painter?"
"Not exactly. No one will be painting anything. And please do not use profanity. It is very discourteous."
"And I suppose these restraints you have me in are an expression of your humanitarian compassion?"
"Please do not raise your voice like that."
"What the hell do you expect? I'm scared, in case you're not getting the idea."
"I will ask you again to please not curse."
Something about the way he spoke struck me as odd, but I couldn't put my finger on it.
"Look, I only swear when I'm nervous or angry," I said as evenly as I could. "I'd feel a whole helluva lot less anxious if you didn't have that gun pointed at me."
He tilted his head slightly to one side as if considering something. "Why have you not looked at anyone else in this room? You know that we are not alone."
"Because if I don't look"—again, he flinched at something—"then I can't give the police any descriptions, can I?"
"But you have seen me."
"I've been looking at you for five minutes, pal, and I honestly don't think"—again, he flinched—"that I could describe one detail of your face if an FBI sketch artist walked in here right his second. Nothing personal, but you're"—another flinch—"not exactly blessed with the most distinctive features, and—what the hell do you keep jumping at?"
He shook his head and set the gun aside. "I do not think that you would understand."
"You 'do not think'? What gives with all the formality? Did you learn how to speak from reading Daymon Runyon books or—?"
And I figured it out.
Just like that.
Contractions.
False-Face wasn't using contractions in his speech; he'd flinched every time I'd employed them, as if they were invisible hands slapping his face, or something that he found repulsive or frightening.
He looked at me and gave a little grin. "I see that you have figured out what it is about the way I talk which bothers you." Something was wrong with his upper lip; it moved when he spoke, but not in synch with his words; it was shifting independent of his speech.
He noticed where I was staring and reached up to cover his mouth. "Oh, no…"
"I told you that we needed to take everything off, did I not?" said Rebecca, and at last I turned to see how many other people were in the room. I was expecting to see two—Rebecca and Arnold, the younger boy who'd checked the map and computer—but there were three; the third, a boy, was the farthest away, sitting in a wheelchair by the corner near the bathroom door. His legs were missing from the knees down; the pants he wore had been rolled up and tied into knots near the stumps, which were seeping; the knotted pants legs were badly stained. He moved his torso slowly back and forth in time with some song he was humming, his breathing labored and asthmatic—though it might have sounded worse because of the plastic Hallowe'en mask he wore: Elmer Fudd, trying to figure out if it was duck season or wabbit season. I tried to place the song he was humming.
Rebecca was sitting nearest me, on the edge of the room's second bed. This close, and at this more natural angel, two things about her were obvious: one, her long, black hair was a wig and, two, her features were just as smooth and without lines or character as False-Face's. I stared at her a moment longer, then sniffed the air; the odor of makeup was quite strong—and I don't mean your typical, over-the-counter compact, blush, cosmetic-counter makeup, no; what I was smelling was theatrical makeup: base, greasepaint, pancake, powder, latex and spirit-gum; do any amount of theater in high school, college, or even with community players (as Tanya and I had done in the early days of our marriage) and those smells, once experienced, stay with you for the rest of your life.
I looked next at Arnold, and was slightly surprised; his face, just as phony as those of his traveling companions, was of a different hue; he was black. This surprised me because there had been nothing about his speech—I had, after all, only heard him up to this point—to hint at his ethnicity. A lot of the guys on my crew are black, and I guess that I had come to associate their slang and speech patterns as being representative of all blacks. I promised myself I'd be careful about jumping to conclusions like that in the future… providing I even had a future beyond the next eighteen hours.
Arnold wore a small, floppy fisherman's cap, the type used to hold hooks and flies, and sported a bright white, long-sleeved cotton shirt. It didn't take a genius to figure out why; if asked to describe him, a witness would say, "A black kid in a white shirt." They'd remember only the colors, nothing more.
He was sitting on the opposite side of the bed from Rebecca. In front of him was a cheap metal typing stand, the kind on rollers that you can buy at any office supply store for ten bucks. An expensive laptop computer was set on the stand, while another, equally expensive laptop was on the bed, by his right side. Both computers were running; the one on the stand displayed what looked like an enlarged map detail, full of colored lines and areas highlighted in either red, blue, or orange; the computer on the bed showed a complex grid, in the center of which was a blinking white dot. Attached to the grid computer through a USB port was a smaller device that I at first thought was a cell phone because of its extended (though short) antenna, except that it had an LCD screen bigger than any I'd ever seen on a cell; this screen also displayed a white dot which blinked in perfect synchronization with the one on the grid. It took me a moment to figure out what this device was—until now I'd only heard about universal locators, or read about them in tech-geek magazines left lying around the common areas I cleaned in the Science building. I wondered where they'd gotten all this equipment. I wondered how they'd learned to use it. I wondered what it was they were tracking with the locator.
The boy in the wheelchair coughed, made a hawking noise, then swallowed loudly and resumed his song, this time singing it in a whisper.
"The crooner in the corner," said False-Face, "is Thomas. Until Denise, he was the youngest of us."
Denise.
Jesus.
This was the first time since the restaurant I'd really thought about her and not myself. I turned back toward False-Face. "In the restaurant, Denise said that she wasn't traveling with the man who took her."
"That is true."
"Who took her? Do you know?"
"Yes."
"Where is he?"
His eyes narrowed, then he gave his head a quick shake. "It does not matter anymore."
"Has Denise… had she been with the four of you since she disappeared?"
