Borderland (37 page)

"Yeah,"
was all Vic said.

"I
guess if you ain't worried, I shouldn't be either." Jinx grinned then.
"You know, I just thought of somethin'. Is this boy comin' alone or will
he be bringin' someone with him?"

"Why?"
Vic asked.

Jinx
withdrew a straight razor from his pants pocket and showed it to Vic.
"Because if he comes alone, we might just as well put him down, take his
money, and go on to sell the dope in Albuquerque just like we planned. That way
we'd have all kinds of seed money and the world would have one less dope
dealer…if you know what I mean."

Vic
stared at him. "You are one psychotic sonofabitch."

Jinx
laughed. "No, I ain't. I'm the smartest man you're ever likely to meet, Victor
Kimmler. That I am." He got out of the car then and unzipped his pants.
"I’ve been pissin' like a racehorse since lunch today. Might be comin'
down with some bladder trouble, I don't know."

Jinx was
peeing so much because Vic had dumped some of his amphetamines into the old
man's coffee in the café. A dose of his own fucking medicine to make him just a
little jumpy, a tad paranoid and very much on edge. See how he liked it.

While
Jinx peed, Vic slipped to the back of the Caddy and slid his key into the trunk
lock. He noiselessly lifted the lid.

"You
don't suppose this was a setup?" Jinx asked as he watched himself pee.
"This fella ain't a cop, is he?"

"Not
anymore," Vic said, and something in his voice made Jinx stop peeing. The
old man slowly zipped up and turned.

Carrie
had a Louisville Slugger in her hands. She wore K-mart shorts, shirt and shoes,
and her eyes glittered dangerously as she surveyed the old man. The cocaine Vic
had given her was singing through her blood, making her constantly wet her dry
lips and causing her restless hands to slide up and down the bat.

Jinx
brought out his razor. "You messed up, boy," he said to Vic.
"You don't know who you're dealin' with."

"He
might not," said Carrie, "but I do. You're a warped, perverted rapist
who also happens to be a pedophile. You like little girls, don't you? The
smaller the better is what I heard you say the last time you were on top of me.
You thought I was out, but I wasn't. You said you wished I had smaller bones,
like someone named Christa. You said you wished I was Christa, but if I were,
you said you would probably strangle me when you were done."

Vic's
feet were already in the air before Carrie finished. The razor sliced through
his pant leg and found skin as he kicked, but Jinx's hold was broken. The old
man clutched his wrist and bolted away. Vic scooped up the blade and went after
him, Carrie at his heels. Jinx ran blindly across the desert terrain, stumbling
over rocks, and brush. Vic caught up with him easily and grabbed him from behind
only to throw him down on the ground and sit on top of him. The blade of the
razor went to the old man's throat.

"Vic,"
Carrie warned.

Vic's
breathing was loud and harsh. "My daughter?" he rasped. "You
were after my daughter?"

Strings
of saliva fell from Jinx's mouth as he turned his head. His lungs strained for
air as Vic sat on his heaving chest. When the blade bit into Jinx's wrinkled
neck, Carrie stepped forward and held up the bat.

"Vic,
I swear I'll hit you with this thing. You said I could have him. You said I
could have a shot at the man who raped me. Now get off."

"Don't,"
Jinx said hoarsely. "Do it now, Vic. Get it over with. The young buck
kills the old. You're still one of us. You're still our boy."

Vic held
the razor a moment, his nostrils flaring, then he spat into Jinx's face and
rolled away. "I'm nobody's boy, Jinx." Then he looked at Carrie and
nodded.

Before
Jinx could scramble away, Carrie moved in and lifted the bat high over her head.
She brought it down hard across Jinx's shoulders and grunted with the effort
expended. When Jinx tried to crawl away, Carrie followed. Vic stood by the
Caddy and watched as she went on to strike her attacker seven more times,
hitting him in the back, arms, legs, head, and in the groin area. "This is
for me," she gasped, "and this is for any other women, or little
girls that you may have touched, you sick bastard!" When she finished,
Jinx was sprawled on the ground and moaning. With visibly shaking hands, Carrie
came and handed the bat to Vic.

"I
think. . . I broke . . . his arms," she huffed. “And maybe his jaw.”

"I
would've broken a hell of a lot more than that," Vic responded.

"You
want to?" Carrie pointed to the bat in his hands and Vic shook his head.

"No.
Let's go."

"Go?"
Carrie echoed. "You mean we're leaving him here? In the desert?"

"You
have a problem with that?"

Carrie
was silent.

Vic’s
voice was hard. "He has a chance. It's more than he gave you and God knows
how many others, right?"

"Right,"
Carrie finally murmured.

Vic
tossed the bat in the back seat and reached inside to bring out Jinx's
suitcase.

"You're
leaving that?" Carrie asked.

"The
coke I told you about is inside."

"Oh."
She shivered and clasped her arms around herself.

Vic
carried the suitcase over to where Jinx lay. "Here's your coke, Jinx.
Snort some and you may stay alive long enough to make it back to town. Then
again, it may kill you."

Jinx
lifted a hand and pointed at Vic. His smile was black with blood and his broken
glasses gave off a strange reflection in the grudging moonlight. "They'll
eat you alive," he whispered through his teeth.

"No,"
Vic said. "They'll eat you alive, Jinx. Your bones will be picked
clean."

He
turned and walked back to the Caddy. As he started the engine, he saw a look on
Carrie's face that made him pause. "What?" he said to her.

She
looked down at her hands. "Do you realize what we've done? What we're
doing?"

He
studied her in the darkness of the car. "Already regretting your
bloodlust?"

Carrie
shook her head. "That's the problem. I don't think I'll ever regret
it." She looked at Vic then. "Are we going after the other one
now?"

"Other
one?"

"Mashed
face, crew cut, big white teeth. He was the first one who raped me. I want him,
too. If you knew this one, then I assume you know that one. Do you?"

Vic's
stomach sank. "Yes. I do."

"Well?"
Carrie said. "Are we going to get him?"

Vic
breathed in deeply and slowly released the air in his lungs. His head had
threatened to become fuzzy again. "After we get my girls to safety, we'll
get him. I promise."

Carrie
nodded and looked over her shoulder at the place where Jinx lay as Vic guided
the Caddy back onto the road. The old man struggled up to one elbow then
screamed through his teeth as his broken limb gave way. His cries echoed across
the desert floor and followed them down the dark road as they sped into the
night.

Still
shivering, Carrie moved closer to Vic and sat beside him, curling her freezing
hands under his warm arm. Vic felt the trembling of her limbs go on long after
she had dozed off. He looked at his own hands on the wheel and found them
surprisingly still.

CHAPTER 34

Nolan
looked around the back room of Jinx's diner with dismay. It smelled like rotten
meat. Ed was moving a big grinder away from a wall, pushing it across the
counter until the muscles in his puny arms began to twitch. Nolan went to help
him and the old man backed away in relief. "The safe is in the wall
behind, I'm pretty sure."

The
grinder was the source of the smell, Nolan soon discovered. There were bits of
meat still clinging to the metal. He wrinkled his nose and shoved the thing
down the counter and out of the way. He saw nothing on the wall behind. Ed
stepped forward again, his eyes shining with his excitement. "Wulf, I just
thought of something. It's dark now, so why don't you pull your car around to
the back entrance here and we'll get old Gil out of your backseat. No tellin'
who might've noticed that empty car a rockin' the way it was when we came in
here."

You mean
when I kicked in the door, Nolan thought. But yeah, he wasn't wild about
Schwarz thrashing around out there in his car. He nodded, felt in his pocket
for his keys, and headed for the back door. He glanced over his shoulder once
before he stepped out and saw Ed lifting up a hinged section of the Formica
counter. The lying old bastard. There was probably money in there that he
wanted to pocket before digging out the documents, Nolan decided. He thought of
going back in, but the need to save his car was greater than the urge to roust
the old thief.

Thief,
murderer, plunderer, and whatever the hell else Ed had done in his twisted
life. Nolan was still reeling with amazement and disgust at the crimes these
old men had committed in the name of Denke. Definitely not your average
friendly-faced crop farmers, these Denke people. But that was the cutting edge
of their trap, he realized. Who would suspect a harmless-looking old man like
Ed Kisner?

Jinx was
different. He could see Jinx slitting throats and raking jewelry off necks and
fingers. He could see him raping women as well, though the vision made him gag
slightly. Ed had claimed he didn't go in for that stuff, but Nolan thought the
picture Ed had painted of himself held more dark shades than light. A lot more.

When he
got to the car he told Schwarz to be still or he would finish what Cal started
and knock the rest of his teeth out. Schwarz growled like a dog and then
whined. He didn't like being trussed up like a pig about to be roasted, Nolan
guessed. Didn't like being tied up the same way he had . . . Oh, Christ, don't
think about her, Nolan told himself. Myra's not going anywhere. She'll be there
when you're done here. And when you get back you can think about why your guts twisted
up when you thought you were never going to see her again. And then maybe you
can think about what you're going to do when she really is gone.

But not
now. Now he had to think about doing this, or he would never be back in the
hour he had promised. He pulled the car as close to the back door of the diner
as possible.

Schwartz's
weight had required the help of both Cal and Myra to get him down the stairs of
the house and into the car. Myra hadn't wanted to touch him, but she bit her
lip and pitched in anyway. Nolan would now need Ed's help to get the huge
bundle into the diner.

What
they were going to do with him then, Nolan didn't know. He hadn't thought to
ask what Ed had in mind.

"Hey,"
he called at the back door. "Come out and give me a hand with this big
bastard."

After a
pause, Ed came. But it was still a struggle. Nolan had to take the head again,
while the puny-armed Ed struggled with Schwarz's massive, trunk-like legs. Ed
had pulled a trundle bed over by the door. A bed with casters that rolled like
a hospital gurney. When Schwarz was on it, Ed stood back and grinned "How
you doin' there, Gil? You stupid, crazy bloodsucker, you."

Schwarz
started growling and thrashing again, and to Nolan's surprise, a strand of the
baling wire snapped under the strain of the man's heaving chest. Incredible. He
smacked Schwarz in the nose "Be still, dammit." Then he looked at Ed.
"What was under the counter? Money?"

Ed's
eyes narrowed. Then he grinned. "Yeah. About fifty grand, hidden apart
from the town money. I knew Jinx'd been stealin' a little here and there over
the years, but I never dreamed he'd holed away that much. Good man that I am I
left the town money intact."

"That
was big of you," Nolan said "What about the documents?"

"In
that big manila envelope on the counter there. Drivers licenses, credit cards,
and so forth."

Nolan
walked over. "Great, now all I have to do is get rid of Schwarz. Might as
well give him to the state, along with the envelope. That way his good buddy
the sheriff won't—" Nolan stopped and whirled when he heard a whistling
sound. He was in time to see Ed Kisner bury the blade of a large axe in Gil
Schwarz's bulging throat. Schwarz's head went off the end of the cot and hung
there, attached by muscle and flesh. Another strand of baling wire snapped.

"Holy
shit," Nolan breathed. Then he stopped gaping and started worrying when Ed
turned with surprising agility and lifted the axe again. Spry as a cat, the
grinning old man leapt to put himself between Nolan and the back door.

"Come
on, Wulf," he said. "Come and get some. I ain't too shabby with this
thing. Just ask old Gil there. Well, I guess you can't do that. Gil looks
positively speechless about now."

Nolan
took advantage of Ed's mirth at his own sick joke to do a quick spin and a
swift running kick at the locked door that opened into the diner. The frame
shattered and the wood splintered as the lock gave way. Nolan burst into the
diner section and swung back the door in time to catch the tip of the axe that
was aimed at his head. The blade wedged in the top panel of the door. In the
darkness he could see it move as Ed tried to jerk it out. Then it was still. He
held his breath to listen.