Joyride (14 page)

Carole heard the key slip into the lock and felt Lee gently squeeze her hand.

In the instant before the trunk lid opened she was a little girl again, huddling close to her older sister Alex in the dark.

The door to their bedroom was about to open. Their father was about to enter.

Their father was a teacher of high school math—later, when Carole was a teenager, he would become principal—a tall thin man with glasses and dark wavy hair. A little like Dennis’s dad in
Dennis the Menace.
Until he was principal and his hair went gray and white.

Her father would enter in his pajamas and whisper to one of them, Alex or Carole, and one of them would get out of bed and follow him through the darkened hallway past the bedroom where her mother lay sleeping into the guest room which was not really a guest room but where her father slept most nights, and he would pull back the covers for her and she would climb into bed. The bed smelled of her father who would stand watching her in the doorway until she either fell asleep again or pretended to, and then he would climb in beside her. Moments later he would begin touching her, hesitantly at first, and then probing deeply with his fingers, and Carole or Alex would try very hard not to cry.

It’s all right,
he would say.
Daddy loves you. Daddy will always love you. You’re a good girl. You’re a good girl now.

In the moment before the trunk opened out to the reality of the street her sister gripped her hand one last time.

Then there was Wayne smiling in at them.

His hands were stained and glistening. He held the small .38 in his right hand. The suitcase sat beside him next to the curb.

“Help,” she said. “I need your hand.”

It was true. She wasn’t lying. She could not have gotten out of there without him. Her head swam. More so now with the sudden rush of air. Her bones felt thin and brittle inside her.

She reached for his hand.

“Help me.”

She could see him hesitate for a moment.

Then he took it.

She managed to straighten out her right leg slightly and slip it over the rim of the compartment, using his grip for balance so she wouldn’t fall back onto Lee.

He pulled her forward and she felt her foot touch the street and then her body was following, unfolding, drifting out of the compartment toward him, the leg scraping painfully down over the bumper and then almost buckling at the ankle as it received the full weight of her.

He pulled harder and her lungs filled with the warm fresh air as her left foot snagged on the rim, the toe of her shoe not quite making it over and her free hand darting out to him, to the shoulder of his gun hand, grasping at his shoulder, falling toward him, drunk on fresh sudden
air, catching hold of his shirt and clutching it and this was no trick, she was actually falling, this was not what they had planned. Irony upon irony, it was absolutely real.

She heard him swear. And instead of supporting her felt him shift to the side and pull suddenly away, releasing his grip on her hand as her own clenched fingers lost the fabric of his shirt and slid uselessly down over his chest.

She felt him wrap the arm of his gun hand around her waist and pivot and hurl her away from him toward the street and the raised yellow curb, heard him shout and knew that Lee had done something after all, something with the jack from the trunk.

Then the curb loomed. And struck her like a stone.

Lee half shoved it, half flung it at him.

The jack caught him square in the hip, crack of bone and a loud metallic clatter as it fell to the street. He saw Carole hurtling toward the curb as Wayne stumbled with the impact and his own momentum, hurt, almost but not quite losing it, almost falling, and he was out of the car on legs that felt like an old man’s legs going for the gun.

The gun came up to meet him.

He heard his cheekbone shatter.

He fell and barely caught himself on the rim of the trunk. Thinking,
ah no ah Jesus Carole we fucked up.
Not even hurting yet. Not even worrying about her. Just
We fucked up.

He turned. Staring into the short round barrel of the automatic.

“You assholes,” said Wayne. “Look what you did.”

He looked.

She was lying in the gutter.

There were leaves and twigs in there and some kind of candy or cigarette wrapper and her legs didn’t look right. They were splayed and there was no dignity to them and no beauty with her skirt up around her waist, and the angle looked all wrong to him.

Oh, god, he thought.

Her arms were wrong too. One up over her head, her hand up over the curb like she was pawing her way toward the grass beyond it and the other lying palm up fingers crooked at her side. Her long hair whipped out in front of her as though she were someone captured in a photo—a woman surprised by a heavy wind that had come at her and caught her from behind.

“Real nice work,” Wayne said.

“Fuck you.”
Fawwk eeuuu.

His jaw worked against the muscles of his cheek and the cheekbone screamed raw broken pain.

Wayne did not seem to mind being cursed at this time.

“Get up,” he sighed. “Go see if she’s alive or dead or what.”

He got up and walked over. Knelt unsteadily beside her.

In the moonlight the top of her head looked black. He could see the thick steady ooze of blood. He felt for a pulse in her neck.

Thank god.

“Doctor,” he said. “She needs a doctor.”

“Not a hearse?” Wayne smiled. “Lucky you. Pick her up.”

“Shouldn’t move her.”

“Pick her up you fucking little traitor or I will kill your traitorous ass right here and she can get up and get her own fucking doctor. Do it!”

He didn’t want to touch her—for all they knew her
neck could be broken—he didn’t want to touch her much less pick her up but there was still no arguing with the gun and however bad this was they both were still alive. He lifted her head, bent down and angled it so that it lay against his chest, got one arm up under her legs and the other across her back and lifted with his legs. They barely took the burden.

Lee stood and turned and faced him. He could feel the wetness spreading across his shirt.

“Where…?” he said.

“Home,” said Wayne.

He picked up his suitcase and motioned with the gun.

“We’re going home, Lee. At least I am. You? I don’t know
where
you’re going. I honestly don’t. I really wish I knew.”

“He tried to choke me once,” said Susan.

“When was this?”

Okay. We’re finally getting down to it,
he thought.
Down to why she’d left him.

On everything else Rule had found the girl thoroughly cooperative. On this subject only she was still evasive. Even after knowing why they were looking for Wayne. But now she was sitting at his desk drinking coffee and she had this determined look on her face and he knew she was working on it and working through whatever was making her reluctant.

He didn’t press her. He waited.

“Just last Saturday,” she said. “We were…having sex.”

There you go,
he thought.

“And he tried to choke you?”

“We were making love and he was…and everything was perfectly normal. Then all of a sudden he just started choking me.”

“And this was where? Your place or Wayne’s?”

She shook her head.

“Neither. We were on the mountain. At the Notch.”

“The Notch?”

“We were hiking. We’d brought a picnic. We were going up to the pond. Then I got tired and we stopped and there was nobody around anywhere…so we…so I…we started making love.”

He couldn’t believe it. He wanted to say
you
thought
you were alone up there
but he didn’t.

He had a very good idea what was coming next.

“Susan, when he did this to you…
after
he did this to you, what did you do?”

“I got mad. I got absolutely furious. I left him.”

“You left him?” She nodded. “You went back down the mountain?”

“That’s right.”

“And what did he do then?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him at all since then. Stayed up there, I guess. I mean, he didn’t try to follow me or anything. Why?”

Wayne had hung around. He’d seen them. He was not an accomplice. He’d seen them murder Howard and then he’d gotten to them somehow. It was all a nasty piece of luck but it was all in place now.

“Susan, would you mind if I call Lieutenant Covitski in on this? I know it’s tough for you but…”

“I don’t mind. The hard time was this time, you know what I mean?”

He knew. And he could have kissed her. He went and got Covitski.

“Set her there,” he said. He pointed to the couch. “No, hold on a minute. Come here. Walk.” He pushed the Magnum into the small of Lee’s back and walked him through the living room down a short hall into the kitchen. He opened a drawer and took out a handful of white linen towels.

“Okay, back,” he said.

In the living room he folded two of the towels in half and spread them out on a pillow on the couch. Lee put her down. The right side of his shirt was soaked through with blood from his shoulder to his belt.

“Here,” he said. He handed him a towel. “Wrap her head.”

Her eyelids fluttered.

He folded the linen as Wayne had done, laid it across the top of her head over the wound and tied it beneath her chin. The blood started seeping through.

“Not enough,” he said. “We need a doctor.”

“Here.”

He handed him another towel. It was something. Lee tied it over the first one. He pressed it down gently with his hand, trying to stop the bleeding, all the time thinking,
Concussion
—how hard is too hard? Goddammit I have no idea what I’m doing here.

“See? Better.”

“It’s
not
better. Jesus! She could
die,
Wayne!”

He seemed to consider that.

“Did I tell you I was once a paramedic, Lee?”

“Bullshit.”

“No, it’s true. I did it for about a year or so. Then I got bored.”

“Bored,
Wayne?”

He seemed to realize that the choice of words was the wrong one, a very long stretch of logic.

Lee felt his face flush. He’d like to have torn this guy limb from limb.

He thought he could do anything, this bastard.
Get away with anything!

“Don’t argue with me, Lee. If I say I was a paramedic then I was.
I’ll
take care of her. We don’t need any goddamn doctor. Now take her clothes off. We’ll have a look.”

“What?”

“We’ll check her out.”

“Fuck you.”

“Did you take her pulse?
No.
Did you listen to her heart beat?
No.
See? You don’t know anything! Better yet, move over away from there.
I’ll
do it.”

“The hell you will.”

“The hell I won’t, Lee.”

He held up the Magnum. Lee got to his feet. Finally sick of him.
Sick to goddamn death of him.

“You use that thing and you’ll wake the neighbors for miles around. You’ll have the police here in minutes.”

Wayne reached around into his back pocket.

“I’ll use this, then.”

He put the Magnum down on the table beside him and pointed the .38, reached into his pants and took out what looked like a piece of green rubber tubing, black and exploded at the end. He fitted it onto the gun barrel.

“And this will make it quieter.”

“I thought you wanted us alive, Wayne.”

“I did. Then you two had to go fuck it up. You went after me. I thought we could all be buddies but all you wanted to do was hurt me from the start and do me harm.”

“We
wanted to hurt
you.”

“That’s right.”

Keep him talking, he thought.

The Magnum was down now.
Not far.

Get closer.

He took a step.

“I think it’s been the other way around, Wayne.”

“I couldn’t give a shit what you think, Lee.”

“I thought we were supposed to be witnesses. Witnesses to what, Wayne?”

“
To me,
you asshole!
To me!
Don’t you understand
anything?”

“Why? Are you supposed to be some kind of natural phenomenon or something? Like the weather?”

“Yes!
Yes
exactly!
Like the weather, Lee! Like a goddamn
storm! I’m
the storm! The one that blows it all away, that tears down all the houses, that crushes all you little assholes inside! That takes away everything you’ve got including your miserable fucking stupid empty lives! You got it now?
You got that?”

What you did with a storm was you waited for it to blow out.

I can outthink this son of a bitch, he thought. I can maneuver him. And I can live.

Control.

“You got it?”

“Yes. I think so, Wayne,” he said.

Use his name.

He took a step and held out his hand. He kept it low and nonthreatening. Held it out palm up.

“Listen, Wayne, I don’t want to cross you. I don’t want to harm you. You’ve got us both wrong. Figure it out. What would you do if you were us? Wouldn’t you try to get free? You promised to let us go. But you didn’t. You put us in the goddamn trunk of a
car,
Wayne. Wouldn’t you try to get free after that if you were me?”

“I might.”

“So?”

Wayne just stared at him. He could read nothing from the man, no feeling whatsoever one way or the other.

He sighed. “Listen, could I…would you mind if I had a smoke, Wayne? I’m out. Have you got one? Jesus, I don’t know what to think about all this. I just know I could use a smoke.”

“Don’t fuck with me, Lee.”

“I wouldn’t fuck with you, Wayne. I’m asking for a cigarette. That’s all.”

“What about her?”

He nodded toward Carole.

“Do what you want, Wayne. Go ahead. Take her clothes off. You say you’re a paramedic, and if you say so, then maybe you are. I honestly don’t care anymore. I’ve had it. I’m exhausted.”

A
step.
To the side this time. Not pushing him. Don’t push him. To the side but a little closer.

The Magnum gleaming in the light from the table lamp in front of him.

The empty ceramic ashtray sitting right beside it.

Cigarettes and ashtrays.

“So how about the smoke?”

Wayne’s eyes narrowed. His lips turned up at the corners in what he guessed was supposed to be a smile.

“Fuck the smoke, Lee. You don’t want the smoke. You want the gun. You want the gun? Then go for it.”

“I don’t want the gun.”

“Yes you do. You’re going to be a hero now. Aren’t you.”

“No.”

“Of course you are.”

“It’s not what I had in mind, Wayne.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“A cigarette.”

“A cigarette.”

“That’s right.”

“You’re a liar, Lee. Suppose we go back to plan one. You strip the bitch and I have a look at her.”

It’s not supposed to go this way,
he thought. How could Wayne see through him like this? It wasn’t the first time he’d done it, either. It was as though the guy had some secret track into his mind. Reading him, constantly reading him. It was scary as hell.

“I just don’t want to do that, Wayne.”

“Why not?”

“Could I just have the cigarette?”

“You’re saying no to me, Lee?”

“Look. I’m not…yes. I guess I am. On this one I am. I guess I’m saying no to you, Wayne.”

“Why?”

“Why?
For Christ’s sake!”

He was losing it. He was not supposed to lose control but this guy could push buttons where he didn’t even know he had buttons. It was somehow necessary to him that Carole’s clothes stay exactly as they were, where
they were. Why was that? What could it matter? Wayne was going to do what he was going to do unless he could reach the gun, and for that he needed control.

“I think what you’re trying to do here, Lee, is you’re trying to make things normal again and be my buddy again or something, you’re trying to lull me. Just a smoke between friends, that sort of thing.

“But it’s too late, Lee. We passed that.

“The bitch is going to die. You realize that?”

Concentrate,
he thought. There’s got to be a way. Don’t let him get to you. Forget about Carole. You have to. It’s just the two of us now. It has to be.

“I’m going to sit here and
watch
her die.”

His face went dreamy.

“It should be interesting, you know? She’ll be naked. I’ll watch. Her breathing will get more and more shallow. Her breasts will rise and fall. Rise and fall.

“Then they just…won’t anymore.

“They’ll get cold. Turn white. Blue and white. The blood will drain away…

“So. Want to hang around and join me?

“Want to watch?

“Still want to be
buddies,
Lee?”

It was impossible.

He felt the imperative turning like a waterwheel inside him. Electric energy, roaring water.

There was only one way to relieve the pressure and that was to shoot him and see him die.

He dove for the table.

He heard the gun go off, something spitting across the few feet of floor space and into his chest, knocking him away. He reached for the leg of the table, twisted and pulled and the table fell, the lamp smashing, bulb popping,
spraying Wayne’s feet with shattered glass as the Magnum bounced once on the throw rug, its grip striking the rug and spinning it toward him.

He reached and found it with icy fingers as Wayne’s gun went off a second time and he felt the bullet strike his chest not an inch from the first one directly above it like he was a cardboard target in a shooting gallery. His fingers went numb, the heavy handle slipped away, the numbness spreading through his chest and his arm from the shoulder on down and he turned, twisted, trying to grab at it with his left hand but it was out of reach.

He fell back and saw Wayne fire one last time, felt the uncanny accuracy of it slapping into him in a tight triangular pattern and looked down at himself, his blood mixed with her blood spreading out all across his chest.

He thought
Look what I’ve done.

He thought
You’ll never see any doctor now. Oh Jesus,
surprised that as he lay dying this thought was in fact for her and not for him at all and saddened, so late, to finally learn that he was capable of that.

Look,
he thought.
Look what I’ve done to you.

Look.