Lost Echoes

56

Two days later, midnight, Harry and Tad sat at the living room table playing chess. So far Tad had whipped Harry’s ass twice and had eaten most of the taco chips, turning the bag toward himself, making Harry work for any he might want.

“You really need more practice,” Tad said.

“Chess, or capturing taco chips?”

“Both.”

“My mind is drifting.”

“You still need more practice. The knight—the horse, as you call it—doesn’t move in a fucking X pattern. I’ve told you that. And point his head in the direction of my men, not back toward you. It’s disconcerting. It’s like he’s riding backward.”

“Tad, there’s no knight on the horse. It’s just a horse’s head.”

“Have you no imagination?”

“Not that much.”

Tad turned the knight around so that it faced the proper direction.

Harry said, “Happy?”

“Fucking ecstatic. Listen here. No moment beyond the moment you’re in is known to you. You plan ahead, of course. You take precautions, but all you can do in between is live as best you can.”

“Is this like a lesson?”

“It is, grasshopper.”

“You’re saying life is preordained?”

“No. That’s stupid. I hear people say that, then I say, ‘Hey, you look both ways before you cross the street?’ And they say: ‘Sure, of course. I don’t want to get killed.’ And then I say, ‘If it’s all truly preordained? What’s it gonna matter, it’s all in the cards already?’ So much for predestination. We all have a built-in survival card and we play it whenever we need it. You can fuck with the deck, Harry. Sometimes really good, sometimes not so good. In the end, the game folds for everyone, but you can sure draw in some big pots before that moment.”

Before Harry could respond, his cell phone rang.

It was Kayla. Her voice was husky-sounding. “Come see me.”

“Aren’t you at work?”

“I’m at home.”

Harry walked outside, into the backyard. It was chilly and moonless.

“I don’t know I can go out,” Harry said. “Not sure that’s a good idea.”

“I’ve got something I really need to show you. I can’t bring it there…. Something’s happened. It’ll be easier if you come here. Walk to your place, get your car, drive it over.”

“My car?”

“Yes.”

“That seems risky.”

“It is, a little, but I can’t come there. I’ve found something you’ve got to see, and I can only show it to you here.”

“Kayla, I don’t know. Why there?”

“I know what I’m asking. But if you’re careful, you’ll be okay. Don’t bring Tad. He would be in the way on this one. You have got to see this. I think it’s going to fix things for you. Make it quick.”

“Can’t you just bring it here?”

“It’s too heavy. Well, I could. But I’d be more likely to get caught than you, lugging it around.”

“It? Heavy?”

“Harry. Trust me.”

“Yeah…well…it’s a little mysterious.”

“Damned if I don’t know it. I wouldn’t ask it if it wasn’t important, Harry. Trust me.”

“All right.”

“Harry?”

“Yes?”

“I know what I’m asking. Be careful. Be very careful.”

Tad looked up as Harry came back in. “Kayla, of course,” Tad said. The phone was in Tad’s name, and only three people had the cell phone number. Kayla, Harry’s mother, and himself. So it wasn’t much of a guess.

“Yeah. She was just telling me things could be working out.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Nothing specific. I think she was trying to be encouraging.”

“Wasn’t I laying some philosophy on you when you left?”

“You were.”

“Well, whatever it was, I’m all out of it. Probably full of shit anyway. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough. I’m off to bed.”

Harry went to his room, left the door slightly ajar so he could hear Tad down the hall, hear him doing his throat-clearing shit, the bathroom toilet being flushed, gargling, the sink water running.

Harry felt like hell not telling Tad about Kayla’s call. Didn’t seem right, even if Kayla was correct that Tad didn’t need to know everything. He and Kayla, they had a piece of this business, but Tad, he had no reason to get in any deeper. He was already up to his neck. No use dropping him in over his head. He waited some more, then slipped out, hands in coat pockets, walking fast.

It was a longer walk than he remembered, and the cold air bit at his lungs. There was no moon, just streetlights, and he kept thinking he’d see a cop car coming around a corner, a light flashing on him, nailing him. But it didn’t happen.

He got to thinking about what Kayla was asking, and he started to get mad. Started to get mad at himself for listening. There wasn’t anything worth his getting out here in the dark. He should have had her come get him, let him lie down in the backseat. Should have told Tad after all. He thought about all this, but he kept walking.

He got to his place and watched from across the street, stood in the shadow of an elm.

Cops could easily post a watch at his place. He would if he were them. They could hide and wait for him to show up for his car, get something from his house. The whole damn thing made him nervous. Course, Kayla was a cop. She’d probably know if it was done through the department, any kind of watchdog business like that. But it could be the chief, the sergeant. They could be doing it on their own.

Course, that would be harder, just the two of them. How many shifts could they manage?

Maybe the thing was to turn himself in, or go to Tyler, tell the cops there the situation, get some help.

Yeah. That would be good: “I hear sounds. I found a dead body in my house. Me and some friends, one of them a cop, put the corpse in a freezer; then we decided to put it on the chief’s couch with a sign around its neck, ’cause we know he and the sergeant murdered Joey because I saw it in a fucking vision.”

Harry took a deep breath and let out a puff of cold white air. He was just about to step across the street when he was nabbed and spun around.

Tad said, “You don’t sneak for shit, kid. What the fuck are you doing?”

“I didn’t want to tell you.”

“No shit. Figured that much. You got to learn to watch behind you.”

“I did.”

“I was in the shadows. You had your shit together better, you’d have seen me. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Tad, I didn’t mean to sneak.”

“You call that sneaking? You came in from that call, you had a look on your face like you were gonna steal the silverware. Since I use mostly plastic throwaways, I knew that was out. Just waited till you got ready to do what you were gonna do. And by the way, don’t try to play poker. You can’t hide shit with that face. Come on, kid. Give me the rundown.”

Harry told Tad what Kayla had told him.

“Look, whatever she’s got, she can tell me,” Tad said. “Fact is, this hurts my goddamn sensitive feelings. I’m in on this, kid. I said that and meant it. Can’t really get any fucking deeper, you understand?”

“I’m sorry. Just she’s got something she wants me to see and she said not to bring you.”

“Something heavy? That’s what she said?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s heavy, how’d she get it to her house, and now how come she can’t move it?”

“I don’t know…. You’re not saying—”

“That I don’t trust Kayla? Course not. She wanted to nail your ass, help the cops out, get that big promotion, she could have had you nailed long ago. Your balls would be bronzed and mounted on a piece of board. She’s got a stake in this herself, so I trust her. It’s a screwy setup, no shit, but I’ve got no reason to doubt her.”

“You said that twice.”

“Did I?”

“You did.”

“I’m just suspicious by nature. Kind of guy that’s skeptical of being skeptical. So, though I trust her just fine, what say we do some insurance?”

“I feel guilty doing a thing like that.”

“Me too. For about fifteen minutes.”

Harry and Tad pulled over a block up from Kayla’s place, next to a big sweet gum that grew out from the curb, alongside a clutch of tall, sharp-bladed bushes. The moon made the bushes throw swordlike shadows. They got out of the car, stood in those shadows. Harry unlocked the trunk.

“I don’t know, man,” Harry said, “the fucking trunk? It’s nasty in there. You could die of carbon monoxide or something.”

“Not just going a block down. Don’t lock it. Just let me hold it nearly shut. After a bit, I’ll get out and check around, see if things are okay.”

“You could just ride in the driver’s seat.”

“You’re expected. I don’t want to embarrass you by showing up like that. Just do it my way.”

“This is bullshit, Tad. Kayla wouldn’t play me.”

“Talia played you.”

“Different.”

“Do it for me. I get there, look around, take a peek inside from the outside, things seem all right, I’ll walk home.”

“Too far.”

“I’ll walk up a few blocks, go to the shopping center there, maybe catch a picture show, get a taxi home. Come on, do it. We’re out here in the big middle of everyone, someone puts an eye to their window, they might see us, wonder what the fuck I’m doing getting in the trunk. They could call the cops, and, as we both know, they aren’t the folks we want to see right now.”

“All right.”

Harry lifted the trunk and Tad climbed inside and pulled the lid down most of the way, left a crack he could see out of. “Drive slow,” he said.

Harry parked out back in the alley. As he got out, he saw Winston sniffing about. The dog raised its head and looked at him, then went back to sniffing, eating something out of a bush at the corner of the house.

A gritty-kitty turd, most likely.

Harry went through an alley between houses to the front of Kayla’s place and, feeling nervous, he knocked.

He was glad everything was okay and Tad was full of it, because as soon as he came in the door to Kayla’s throaty, “Come in,” he knew there were no problems.

Things were cool as an ice tray.

He felt the tension go out of him as he walked down the hallway, smelled her perfume on the air, looked through the gap that divided hallway and den, saw Kayla sitting in a chair in the near dark (there was a dim light from the kitchen), her uniform shirt open, her breast exposed, smiling.

And he thought: She did lie. She brought me here for another reason.

A good one.

That’s why she didn’t want Tad to know. But is it really worth the chance of me cruising about in my own car? Couldn’t we have done this in the bedroom at Tad’s place?

Then Harry realized something.

Kayla wasn’t smiling.

She was showing her teeth, but it wasn’t a smile. He couldn’t tell that right off in little to no light, but now that his eyes had adjusted a bit more, he realized she was grimacing.

And her breasts, they were pocked with dots. He could make those out now. A cigarette smell was mixed with the perfume. He hadn’t noticed that before, but now that his lust had subsided, he did.

Kayla didn’t smoke.

The sergeant, who had been against the wall near Harry the bear, stepped out into the wide breach between hallway and den, said, “Howdy, dumb dick.”

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Kayla said. “I’m so sorry.”

Harry felt someone behind him, turned. It was the chief. He looked a lot less like a grandfather now. And he had a friend with him. A black automatic.

“A gal can only take so many cigarette burns on the tits before she calls,” the chief said. “And actually, that’s not what did it. I promised to put a cigar in her nether regions and light it, let it burn down. She wasn’t up for that. True love has its limitations. Am I right, Officer?”

Kayla’s head drooped as if it might fall off her neck. “I’m so sorry, Harry. So sorry.”

“You two, you thought you were so smart, but there was one problem. Kayla’s perfume. She wasn’t supposed to wear perfume to work, you know, but alas, just couldn’t help herself. And that dead body you left on my couch, awful, but the sign—the sign Kayla made—it stunk of her perfume, and no one else has that smell but Kayla…. Who’s Tad?”

Harry’s mind raced, thought, oh, yeah, she mentioned him on the phone when she called. But, she didn’t say who he was. Or did she? Does he know? Is he just jacking with me? He took a flier.

“My dog,” Harry said.

“Your dog?”

“Yeah. Shepherd.”

“You don’t have a dog,” the chief said. “We been to your place, remember? It’s where the unfortunate Mr. Barnhouse, instead of you, met his fate. No dog.”

“My mother has him. That’s where I was when Kayla called. With her and Tad.”

“It could be checked, you know.”

“I’m sure.”

“A dog?”

“Yep.”

“You believe that, Pale?” the chief said. “We talked to his mother. Remember a dog?”

“He was with me then,” Harry said.

“Sounds like some shit to me,” the chief said.

“Hell, why not?” Pale said. “I’ll buy it. Who the fuck names a person Tad? Hey…guess we don’t need to call each other code names, do we? They know who we are.”

“Of course not,” the chief said. “Are you fucking high? Of course not.” Then he turned his attention back to Harry. “Bottom line, my young man, is you aren’t going to get but just a few hours older. The two of you, you’re going to meet a nasty fate. Tell ’em, Sergeant, a nasty fate.”

“He’s right,” said Sergeant Pale, coming up behind Harry, striking him hard with the side of his hand on the back of the neck, causing him to drop to his knees. “Nasty. Old Testament–style nasty.”

Tad waited in the trunk awhile. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Kayla, he just didn’t trust circumstances. His wife, Dorothy, always said he spent so much time trying to figure what people were really thinking, instead of just going with the flow. She was probably right. But part of martial arts was going with the flow, and part of it was being prepared for what might happen inside the flow. Even smooth-looking water can have a fast-churning undercurrent. Way he saw it, way he looked at things, he was doing the Boy Scout motto: Be prepared.

He started to lift the trunk, but decided against it. Better to listen and wait. He’d give it two, maybe three more minutes. He could stand that much. Then he was going to start snooping around the house, see that things were okay. Worst that would probably happen was that he would end up seeing a movie at the dollar rerun show.

What the fuck was showing anyway?

There was a sudden rushing noise and a thump and the trunk went shut and everything was completely dark. Tad heard something walking up the trunk, and then the noise was a bit more distant, as if it were on top of the car.

Yep. That was it. The top of the car.

Then the noise returned to the trunk, and finally he could hear just outside the trunk a sniffing noise.

A goddamn dog. That fucking big idiot Winston.

“Shit,” Tad said.

Winston, with cat turds on his breath, stood with his front paws on the trunk and sniffed the air, turned his head and bent his body so he could smell where trunk and car came together. Winston knew someone was inside the trunk, but it was nothing to him. They weren’t going to let him ride, he could tell that.

But you never knew.

Sometimes they might.

It could happen.

The dog lifted his head, his nose pointing up. He twitched it.

More cat shit. One block down, partially buried, pretty fresh. Near that was the smell of some other dog that left urine messages.

Winston’s tongue came out and rolled along his snout, then he dropped down on all fours and went off at a trot.

“What we’re gonna do,” the chief said, “is we’re going to take a little ride, gonna go in your car, and Pale here, he’s gonna follow in our car. Now, he’s gonna walk down the block, get it out of the church parking lot, drive up out back, and you guys, you’re gonna go out the back door and get in your car without giving me any trouble. And Mr. Wilkes, you’re gonna drive. Me, I’m gonna sit in the back with a pistol to the back of her head, because she’s gonna sit by you. That way you get to smell this sweet thing all the way out to the cliff. Course, all that perfume, I’d smell her too, even if I was following in the other car.”

“Cliff?” Harry said.

“Humper’s Hill. And we’re gonna have a companion with us. Someone you know well.”

All right, Tad thought. How the hell do I get out of this motherfucker? It’s no use pushing at the trunk, but, what the hell, I’ve got to give it a try.

He did.

He was right. No use in that.

He checked to see if the trunk was connected to the backseat, to see if he could push the seat down from inside the trunk, get out that way.

He used the light on his cell phone to look. Nope. A metal wall between him and the seat.

He was fucked.

He took a deep breath, considered.

Okay, now. Don’t panic.

How much air have I got?

Quite a bit. As long as I don’t breathe.

Maybe I can roll on my back, put my feet against the trunk, and push until the lock breaks. And that would be a good plan if I had the legs of a goddamn bull elephant. Otherwise, not so smart.

Maybe Harry will come back and check on me, and I can feel like a big idiot, and Kayla will get mad, think I didn’t trust her, and…well, it beats smothering.

Shit. I can call Harry on the phone. What the hell am I thinking? I can call him and he can come and get me.

I’ll give it a minute, see if he shows up, then I’ll call. In the meantime, I’ll just lay here and feel like shit with my goddamn side lying on a tire iron and my ass pushed up against a spare tire. How the fuck old is this car anyway? Didn’t they stop making these about the time of the Flintstones?

Flintstones?

How did the theme song go?

“…huh, huh, huh, something in history.”

Damn. That’s some shit. Can’t remember the theme song. I used to watch that when I was a kid.

I’m sure it sucked.

But I watched it.

What time is it anyway?

What the fuck does it matter? I’m not taking medicine.

I was on that Atkins diet plan, some kind of goddamn diet plan, I might not be so uncomfortable in this goddamn trunk, because there might not be so much of me. I ought to try that. Eat all the bacon and eggs and steak and fat I want. Sounds pretty good.

Except for the heart part. Bound to bad for your heart, all that grease. How can that be good for you?

Shit, I was on the Atkins plan or not, it still wouldn’t be comfortable in this goddamn trunk. What the fuck am I thinking? Stay here long enough, I’ll get thin, all right. From dying and rotting.

What the hell is that?

Something was prodding him in the side, and it wasn’t the tire tool. It was something sharp. He shifted, put his hand in his coat pocket, got poked.

Damn. Those darts. Forgot about those dudes. They had been there since Kayla gave them him.

Tad put his hand to his mouth, sucked on the puncture.

All right, he thought. That’s enough. Time to call…

Nah. I’ll give it another minute. He might come out and check on me.

But why would he?

He’s not going to do that. That wasn’t the plan. Shit, I set the plan up. I ought to know that. I’m getting dingy. Wonder if that fucking Atkins diet helps with the memory?

I’ll call. Now.

“He’s got a phone in his pocket,” Sergeant Pale said.

Harry had been pulled up from the floor and pushed against the wall, and the sergeant was giving him a search.

“Get rid of it,” the chief said.

Sergeant Pale dropped it on the floor, lifted his foot up with deliberation and placed it on the phone, and put all his weight on it. It snapped.

Tad, lying in the trunk, holding his phone, got a photo sent to him—photo of a guy’s big foot coming down. And he could see a face too, leaning over, looking down. Just a glimpse of it. Scarred. Photo deal must have been activated when the phone was dropped or thrown.

Who the fuck was this guy? Looked like he’d caught his fucking face in a lawn mower.

Damn. He had been right. There was some shit going down, and here he was, locked in the trunk of a car. By a dog, no less.

But he did have his phone. He could call someone.

But, shit, the police? Chief would have that all sewn up.

Let’s see. Who did he know?

Not much of anybody anymore.

Harry’s mother.

What the fuck was her phone number? He could call information. Her name was Wilkes, he knew that. He could figure it out, maybe she could help him. Then he’d have to explain everything going on, scare the shit out of her.

Then again, there was that limited-air thing….

Sounds.

Someone was opening a door of the car.

The sergeant, after stomping Harry’s phone and giving him another love tap with his gun, took Harry’s keys and went out.

Harry, when he was able, moved to the couch near Kayla. He sat there rubbing the back of his head. The chief pulled a chair up close to Harry and sat down, draping his gun hand over one knee, letting the automatic dangle.

Kayla, lips trembling, looked at Harry. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t as tough as I thought.”

Harry could see the spots on her breast clearly now. They were dark and raw. He reached out and touched her knee. “It’s okay. Really. You couldn’t have done anything else.”

“You are one understanding son of a bitch,” the chief said. “Me, I’d want to beat her with a goddamn chair leg. Just break it off and go to work. Want to know something? None of this had to happen, you know. What we did long ago, it was a drunk thing. Your father was with us, Kayla. He wanted to get him some too, but then he got cold feet. Chickenshitted out. Sobered up and then felt like he was better than me and Pale. Got him a conscience. Which, considering he was fucking around with every stray piece of tail he could find, wives, daughters of people he knew, was kind of a hoot. And we’d backed him up on that rape thing. Shit, he didn’t rape that woman. She was willing. Your dad, he was a cocksman. I’ll give him that. He could talk one of God’s own female angels out of a piece of ass, get her to suck and swallow. He was that kind of guy. Smooth as a Slurpee.”

“He didn’t murder anyone,” Kayla said. “He didn’t rape that woman. He wasn’t like you. And I don’t believe that was the only time with you.”

“You want to know something?” the chief said. “You might be right. I’ve done some bad things.”

“You’re doing a bad thing now,” Harry said.

“This is about survival.” The chief leaned back in the chair and studied Harry for a long moment, said, “What I want to know is this: How’d you know what happened in that shelter? Out there on Humper’s Hill…. Yeah, Kayla told me all about it. Between cigarette burns. She tells me it’s visions. But that’s bullshit, isn’t it? You know some other kind of way, don’t you? Some witness told you, didn’t they?”

“It’s just like she said,” Harry said.

“No, it isn’t. I don’t buy that for a minute.”

“That’s all I can tell you, because it’s the truth.”

“There’s someone else saw us, isn’t there? Some witness.”

Harry shook his head.

The chief leaned forward and struck Harry a sharp blow across the jaw with the back of his hand. Then he put the automatic against Harry’s forehead. “You ought to just go on and tell us. No use being brave now. What’s gonna happen is gonna happen, but it could happen quicker. You know, you pull a fish out of the water, you can let it die gasping for air on the bank, or you can get it over quick with a sharp blow, a cut. You want to be that gasping fish?”

“I’m telling you the truth.”

“I could make it tough on the girl instead of you. Would that help you talk?”

“If I knew anything, believe me, I’m not that brave, I would have talked already. You think someone was hiding inside that little shelter watching? You really think that?”

The chief pulled the gun back and let it rest across his knee again. Harry thought about jumping him. It might be the thing to do, take his chances here.

The chief got up and walked across the room, leaned against the wall, the automatic hanging by his side. Harry realized his chance was over.

“Sounds, huh?”

Harry nodded.

“That’s some wacky crap. Makes my goddamn skin crawl thinking about that kind of woo-woo shit…Whatever. We’re gonna have to get it over with. There’s a late movie I want to record. Got it all set up, but forgot to turn it on. You know something? It’s a musical. Wouldn’t think I’m a musical kind of guy, but I am. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, that’s the one. Sound of Music. Seen it ten times. West Side Story, maybe the same.”

He looked at his watch. “I got enough time to do what we got to do and get back, push the button, so let’s get this show on the road. Sounds? The past hidden in sounds. That’s your story and you’re sticking to it?”

“It’s the truth.”

“Well, even if it isn’t, I’ll deal with any witnesses when they show. There’s a time when you got to cut your losses and just take it as it comes. Something I’ve learned about life. You should have had that lesson, just let all this shit go. Done that, you’d be banging tail tonight, having eggs and coffee tomorrow.”

The chief raised his pistol, waved it at Harry. “Untie her, help her button up there, then let’s go out the back way. Come on. Make it pronto. You got to twist the wire apart on her wrists; it’s kind of wound together there. You’ll see where it’s gathered.”

When Tad heard the car door open, he started to call out, but then he heard a voice he didn’t know say, “Goddamn, that stinks,” so he remained silent.

Pale parked his car next to Harry’s, and when he got out he looked around carefully before opening his trunk pulling out a heavy package wrapped in thick plastic.

He laid the package near the back left side of Harry’s car, opened the left rear door with Harry’s key. He looked down at the heavy plastic package, at the dark shape inside of it. He looked around the dark alley again, quickly unwrapped the package. A stink came out of the opening and nearly knocked him down.

Turning away, he took in a deep breath, then, using gloves he pulled from his coat pocket, he returned to his work, lifted Joey’s ripe body out of the wrappings and placed it on the backseat behind the driver’s spot.

“Goddamn, that stinks,” he said.

He quickly folded up the plastic, returned it to the trunk of his car, removed his gloves, dropped them inside as well, and closed the trunk lid.

Tad could hear the plastic unwrapping, feel the car shake as the door was opened and something was put on the backseat. He had an uncomfortable feeling it might be Harry’s body.

Damn. He had been right. This had been some kind of trap, and now here he was, Mr. Helpful, locked in the trunk trying to remember the goddamn Flintstones theme song.

Even with what was going on outside, he kept trying to remember the damn thing. Wasn’t there something about Bedrock in it, that being Fred Flintstone’s hometown?

Goddamn. Forget the fucking Flintstones.

Now he heard another voice.

“Get in behind the wheel. Give him the key, he’s driving.”

Tad felt the sensation of the car door opening, heard it slam. Then the doors on the other side of the car, front and back, slamming not quite in unison.

Okay. That meant at least three or four. Someone was behind the wheel, someone beside the driver, and one or two in the back. All four doors had slammed, and the car had moved in such a way to indicate that.

And, oh, let’s not forget another rider.

A big dumb-ass in the trunk.

The car started up. Tad heard another car engine turn over nearby. Okay. That means there may be five. Or more. Someone has got to drive the other car, and there could be someone with him. And if I weren’t inside the trunk I could probably count them and be sure.

The car began to move.

“You know where Humper’s Hill is, boy?” the chief asked. The chief was sitting in the backseat, the automatic close to Kayla’s head. Harry was at the wheel. Joey’s body was propped on the backseat across from the chief. Sergeant Pale was in his car, following.

“Never heard of it,” Harry said. No use making it easy.

“Sure you know. It was part of one of those sound things…. All right, you listen to me. We’ll do it your way. I’ll give directions. Get cute, and your girl gets one in the back of the head…. Goddamn, your friend here stinks.”

“Being dead will do that,” Harry said.

“You’ll be stinking soon enough,” the chief said. “You thought that body on my couch was some funny shit, didn’t you? Well, when they find your bodies, and who knows when that’ll be, you’ll have this guy with you, all trussed up. And the way I’ll see it, if I’m still chief, it’ll be read like this: You killed him. You and your girlfriend. For what, who knows? But you trussed him up, killed him for whatever reason…. Fun, maybe. Just to see if you could. And you took him out to Humper’s Hill to dump him, but, goddamn if you didn’t fuck up, and the car gear slipped, and in a moment of panic or excitement you put your foot on the gas thinking it was the brake, and damned if the whole kit and fucking caboodle of you didn’t go over the side.

“Out there, there’s a pretty good drop, youngsters, and it’s my feeling it’ll kill you. And if it doesn’t, well, there’s always me climbing down there and giving you a tire iron to the head. No one will be the wiser to what happened. No connection to me. And, hey, they may never find you. Considering most people go there to get laid, you’re just gonna be something for the kudzu to crawl over.

“Another way you can look at it to make you feel a little less blue is, you’ll be part of the cycle of life. You know, the worms, the soil, all that shit. I think about death, I think about that, and it gives me some comfort. How about you? Cheered up?”

“Fuck you,” Harry said.

The chief leaned over and clipped Harry’s ear with the automatic. Harry swerved.

“Pay attention to the goddamn road. You’ve turned over your boy back here.”

Joey, legs still bound behind him with his hands, lay on his side on the seat now. He looked like an old man from the decay. His face hung loose, and parts of it were coming off on the seat covers.

“Goddamn,” the chief said, and rolled down his window.

Tad caught bits and pieces of the conversation. He could also smell Joey. The trunk was filling with an odor like a slaughterhouse.

He pulled the tire iron out from under him, then removed his belt, took out his Swiss army knife, and carefully began cutting from the belt a long strip of leather. He found a loop in the trunk lock and ran the strip through it. He pulled the loose end of the strip back and looped it around his left wrist so when he popped the trunk he could keep it from swinging open. He took the tire iron and put it in under the lock and applied pressure. It was like trying to lever the world with a toothpick.

Following the chief’s direction, Harry went the route he already knew but didn’t admit to. He thought about Tad. If he looked around, he was bound to have figured out something was wrong. Surely he didn’t just get out of the trunk and go to the movies. That didn’t make sense.

But where was he?

He looked out of the corner of his eye at Kayla. She was steaming, he could see that. She was past being scared. She was starting to get mad. He had seen that look before, when she punched his ass long ago, and the other day when she slapped him, pushed his arm behind his back.

She was pissed.

Pissed she had been found out so easy.

Pissed she had been surprised and tied to a chair.

Pissed she had been burned with cigarettes, threatened with a lit cigar to her nether regions.

Pissed she had betrayed him.

He wished he could tell her it was okay. He understood. Pain is pain is pain, and no one is that tough.

Well, maybe Tad. He had a feeling Tad might be as tough as they came.

Tad put the tire tool down and took a deep breath.

This sucked. He was going to go over a cliff in a car trunk. He had thought of a lot of different ways he might die, but that wasn’t one of them. Novel, he had to admit, but not his choice. Probably, if he were ever found, he would have a spare tire up his ass, maybe a taillight in his teeth.

The situation was, as the philosophers said, not good.

He held his phone light close to the lock. So far he had managed to put some scratches on it, but when it came to scoring: lock, one. Tad, the big old fucking shit-covered goose egg.

He studied the lock for a time, then took out his pocketknife again.

He opened the pick blade, stuck it in the lock, went to work, hoping he’d hit a combination.

He hadn’t been at it thirty seconds before he broke the pick off in the lock with an unpleasant snapping sound.

Tad folded up what was left of the pick, put the knife in his pocket, and shifted so that he was on his side, his head supported by his arm.

He said to himself: Shit. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Shit. Fuck.

After a few seconds of continued communion with the universe, he returned to the tire tool, went back to trying to quietly lever the trunk lid open.