Sometimes at Night

by Ben Sanders

  Marshall jumped down from the rear seat onto the roadside, off-balance in the dark, adrenaline and desperation keeping him upright, a vague man-shape ahead, teetering, on the cusp of a fall. Marshall kicked him again, a groin impact this time that doubled the guy over, kicked him a third time, a vicious blow summoned up out of fear and fury. He heard the guy wheeze, but didn’t stop, couldn’t afford to stop. Again, again, again, and the man went headfirst on his back into the roadside ditch. A metallic skitter as the gun followed likewise.

  Benny was still behind the wheel of the SUV, and Marshall heard him shouting – ‘Chris, Chris!’ – and then something else that was lost as the engine revved and the vehicle took off, tires spitting road gravel and the rear door flapping closed with the boost, a flash of headlights as another car went past in the opposite direction.

  Marshall slid down the bank of the ditch, careful to keep his feet. Chris was supine and groaning.

  ‘Where’s the key? Where’s the handcuff key?’

  The guy was trying to feel for the gun, moving his arms feebly like a ditchwater snow angel. Marshall heard the scrub of locked tires, looked up to see the SUV skid-stop on the shoulder, two hundred yards away. The dome light came on as Benny jumped out, and Marshall saw him open the rear door of the truck.

  ‘Key. Where’s the key?’

  Chris said, ‘Nnnh.’ Still learning to talk with a broken jaw and a three-inch overbite.

  Marshall crouched by his head, straddling it with a foot at each ear, and with his cuffed hands grabbed the guy by the ponytail.

  ‘Nnnh! Nnnh!’

  He eased himself vertical, jaw clenched with the effort, breath hissing in his teeth. On the road to his right, he heard a door slam. He looked toward the noise, saw the SUV’s rear taillight vanish briefly as Benny passed in front of it. Another door slam as he got in behind the wheel. Marshall sucked air, huge frantic gulps, and then surged toward the road-side bank of the ditch, dragging the guy with him. Legs burning as he made the climb, slow-motion agony. Every fiber at its white-hot limit. He yelled with effort, and got a foot up onto the roadway. To his right in the distance, the SUV’s lights were sawing back and forth across the width of the road as Benny tried to get himself turned around.

  Marshall stood there gasping, willing more out of muscles that had already given him everything. The guy was wet with ditchwater, but the gain in weight felt exponential. It was like trying to haul a parachute full of sand. He gave himself a final standing lungful, head pounding to his heartbeat, and then he leaned forward like a mountaineer attacking the last hundred feet of Everest, and ran with everything he had.

  When he reached the far shoulder, he kept going, down into the roadside ditch, and with a crazy, frantic burst of effort, he powered himself up the far side, the broken and catatonic cargo dragging behind him, Marshall panting and spitting foam like a flogged racehorse. Ten feet beyond the far bank, his legs wobbled and gave out.

  He fell to his knees, hunched and gasping, as if in penitence to the forest before him. Shadows forming now, shadows from headlights, growing more distinct as the SUV’s engine in turn grew louder. White glare behind him, and long stripes of tree-shadow stretching off into the depths, everything rotating about its respective tree-axis as the car approached. Dark spokes turning about some terrible and awesome fulcrum.

  The car halted, and everything went still.

  ‘Key. Give me the damn key …’

  The guy called Chris gaped and said nothing.

  Marshall turned and felt blindly with his cuffed hands. He heard a door open and then slam, and then another car went past on the road behind him: the same twirling shadow pattern, but briefer.

  ‘Come on, come on. Where is it?’

  Wallet in his right trouser pocket.

  Phone in his left pocket.

  He glanced behind him toward the road, saw a flashlight beam twitching left and right, scouring the far shoulder.

  ‘Chris! … Chris!’

  The guy’s coat pockets were zippered. Marshall found the tab for the side pocket, tugged it down gently.

  Nothing but lint. He worked his way north and found a breast pocket, tugged the zipper down.

  And found two handcuff keys on a split ring.

  Benny was down in the far ditch now. Marshall ran crouched, deeper into the trees. Awkward and lurching, like some lab-cooked humanoid, making its escape. Twenty feet, thirty. The night air freezing and piney.

  He dropped to his knees in the pitch-black lee of a gnarled trunk, searched by touch for the lock barrel on the left handcuff bracelet.

  There.

  Shiver-fingers lining up the key.

  One stab. Two. Three.

  Come on.

  Fourth stab. A scrape of metal as the key sunk home, and then a click that unlocked more than just the bracelet: adrenaline, elation. He rose to his feet and unlocked the second bracelet as he walked, moving parallel to the road, the SUV off on his right. He saw the twitch-motion of Benny’s flashlight crest the far ditch and then come across the road to Marshall’s side.

  ‘Chris! Chris, what the fuck? Where are you?’

  Marshall paused at the tree line.

  He breathed deeply, evenly. Calmer now. He watched the torch sweeping wide arcs, way off to his right. Marshall crossed the ditch, far less demanding without a passenger, and then walked across the road. Invisible in the dark. Benny’s torchlight sweeps still frantic, but safely distant. Marshall slipped into the tree line on the far side and worked his way back in the direction of the stopped SUV, red taillights guiding him. He knew he wasn’t far from where they’d first pulled over, and that meant he wasn’t far from where Chris had dropped the gun.

  He stood still and scanned the length of the ditch below the car. Nothing. He hadn’t built up the night vision. He crouched and waited for it to sharpen, the torchlight still flicking randomly on the opposite side of the road, Benny calling Chris’s name.

  Marshall waited, silent, safe in the trees. He heard Benny say, ‘Shit,’ and then the flashlight went out. Darkness for a second, two, and then light began to filter between the trees, an accelerated dawn as another pair of headlights came along the road, soft note of tires growing louder. Marshall didn’t move. He could see now where Chris had fallen: scour marks in the bank from where he’d been dragged up onto the road, patterns richly textured in the glare. He scanned the ditch again, alert for any hint of gleam.

  And there was the gun, ten feet away, just lying in the mud.

  The shadow-motion slowed and then went still as the car came to a halt up on the road, level with the parked SUV.

  Muted purr of an electric window, glass descending.

  ‘Everything OK?’

  Benny said, ‘Oh, yeah … I, ah.’

  The sound of the idling motor was low and smooth and patient, like the car could sit there all night until the man offered up a decent story.

  Benny said, ‘I saw a dog run in front of me, I’m worried I might’ve hit it.’

  ‘You need some help?’

  ‘No, no. I’m fine. I’m just looking around. I don’t think … I just want to make sure. I’m hoping it got away clean. I’m pretty sure it did …’

  Engine noise.

  Then: ‘All right … take care.’

  By the time the car had pulled away, Marshall had retrieved the SIG and climbed up the bank and onto the road. He laid the gun across the warm hood of the SUV and sighted in. Not easy in the dark. It was all guesswork. Benny’s flashlight was back on, the beam skitting left-right in the trees.

  Not long now.

  ‘Holy shit. How’d you get over here? Chris! Oh man, oh shit. Where is he? Chris? Where is he? Oh man …’

  He kept saying it as he scrambled up the bank toward the road – oh man, oh man, oh man.

  Marshall waited, focused on his breathing, making it gun-ready. Nice slow heartbeat. He sensed the quiver-pause rhythm of the muzzle, matching his body tremors. He saw the man’s head crest the
top of the bank, and then his torso came into view. The flashlight was underslung on the barrel of what looked to be a ten-gauge Ithaca shotgun. Marshall let him get all the way up onto the road, and then shot him twice in the chest. Trees in prickly visage with each flash. He came out from behind the hood of the SUV and stood for a moment looking down at Benny, lifeless and crumpled in the bottom of the ditch. Visible in dead repose by the glow of his own flashlight.

  Marshall slid down the gravel incline and picked up the shotgun, used the flashlight on the barrel to find his way back over to Chris, half-hidden beyond the tree line. His phone and wallet were lying where Marshall had left them. He put the wallet in his coat pocket and picked up the phone. It wanted a fingerprint for access.

  He tried Chris’s index finger. No good. The device shivered in rebuke. He tried the guy’s thumb.

  The imagery refreshed, and brought up the home screen.

  Marshall opened the history, found the call Chris had made from the car, when they’d first picked him up. No name attached to it.

  He held the screen by the guy’s face.

  Chris said, ‘Nyuh …’

  ‘Is this Frank’s number? Frank Cifaretti? Look at it.’

  He could see he wasn’t going to have much luck. The guy’s focus was about ten miles away.

  ‘Help …’

  Marshall said, ‘What were you going to do to me? Once you’d driven me out here?’

  No answer. A car went past, nightmare shadows through the trees. Then dark and quiet again, no sound except the guy’s breathing, shallow sips of air, rapid and feeble.

  Marshall said, ‘Yeah, I thought so.’

  He put the SIG in his belt and picked up the shotgun and walked back to the road.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  He could sympathize now with Benny. It wasn’t easy getting the car turned around. The ditches cut into his maneuvering space. Pulling a one-eighty meant a cumbersome five-point turn. But he got himself heading in the right direction, and the GPS unit seemed unbothered by the violent interlude and the change of driver, the chevron symbol leading him onward through the dark.

  The SUV was nice to drive. Responsive and quiet, and the steering wheel had a button for everything. Stereo volume and station, cruise control, hands-free calling. He’d been worried about the phone timing out, not letting him back in again without a fingerprint, so he had it playing a video off the guy’s Facebook feed: highlights from Seinfeld, Marshall was pretty sure, the sound low and just the canned laughter audible every so often.

  It took seven minutes to reach the GPS’s programmed destination. The chevron disappeared, and a message on the screen told him he’d arrived. It wasn’t clear what exactly he’d arrived at. This stretch of road appeared no different from the previous eight miles, dark and dense forest to either side, regular as wallpaper. Then he rounded a bend, and he saw the clearing beyond the left shoulder.

  It was a graveled parking lot. He braked and swung in off the highway, details emerging piecewise in the slow sweep of the headlights. The mouth of a hiking track, a public bathroom, a low wooden sign with a Department of Environmental Protection logo. He stopped for a second and read it. There was a little stylized map, and an extensive range of symbols describing various prohibited activities. Maybe when they found out about all of this, they could add a couple to the list: no kidnapping, no murder.

  The map had a you-are-here arrow, and emanating from its tip were two lines meandering away from each other at a right angle, more or less. One line was labeled TRACK and the other was labeled FIRE ROAD.

  He took his foot off the brake and let the car roll on, and a second later the headlights found the entrance to the fire road. It was just a gravel track, deeply rutted, wending slightly uphill as it disappeared into the trees. There was a barrier arm supported by a bollard at each shoulder, but Marshall couldn’t see a lock. As far as he could tell, there was nothing to stop someone just swinging it aside.

  The phone in the console beside him issued a sustained burst of canned laughter. He had it face-down so it wouldn’t light up the cabin. He held a hand up level so he could see it against the light of the windshield. Still a faint tremor. The phone issued another round of tinny laughter. He breathed carefully a few times, oddly distant from the jubilation. Then he backed the car around and parked where he had a sight-line to both the highway and the mouth of the fire road, shut off the lights but kept the engine idling.

  He figured Frank Cifaretti and his people were on to a pretty good system: drive someone out here at midnight, bury them up the top of the fire road in the offseason. Probably be months before anyone else even went up there. He checked the phone. No messages. Still eighty-six percent battery. Chris had obviously been diligent with his charging. Marshall opened YouTube, and found a highlights reel of Jean LaPierre and Larry England at the ’ninety-seven Jigsaw Masters in Spokane. LaPierre had been tailing with a twelve-piece deficit, but then made it up in the closing seconds of the final quarter. The puzzles that year were all Claude Monet, and England seemed to hit a wall right at the finish. LaPierre though stayed cool through the whole thing, operating with surreal form and laying down pieces in no rush whatsoever.

  Marshall had the shotgun leaning against the seat in the passenger footwell, the SIG pistol in his lap. Every so often he hit the turn signals, one side and then the other, using the glow to check he was still alone. The Masters replay was into the final minutes, the commentators almost drowned out by the crowd, Saul Tarrant shouting he’d never seen someone lay down a piece-chain that smooth.

  He watched cars go past: shadows through the trees, and then the long blade of white out on the road, red taillights fading off into nothing. He worked the turn signals, and checked his mirrors in the jaundiced glow. Empty parking lot all around. The little dashboard clock numerals read 1:22. Marshall saw headlights, starry at first in the distance, and then dazzling as the car swung into the parking lot. It came broadside to him as it turned, materializing out of the glare, and Marshall saw it was the van from the flower shop last night. FRANK’S FLOWERS.

  He started the engine and flicked on his lights. The van sat idling. Tempting to ram it. That would give them a fright. But there was no telling how many people were inside. He didn’t want to be stuck out here with a written-off SUV, having to face three or four people with automatic weapons. Except, why bring four people? It’d be Frankie C, and one other guy, maximum.

  He thought about it another second, wondering too what questions were being posed behind the black glass of the other vehicle. Probably wondering why he was still sitting there.

  Marshall had the SIG held low in his right hand. He reached across himself with his left, picked up Chris’s phone and composed a text message: WE’LL FOLLOW YOU.

  He sent it to what he’d guessed was Frank Cifaretti’s number – the number Chris had called when they picked him up.

  Nothing for a moment. Both vehicles sat waiting.

  Then Marshall saw the glow behind the windshield of the flower van as his message was received. Driver’s side: Frank Cifaretti was at the wheel.

  The light vanished. The flower van rolled on, nosed up to the barrier across the fire road. Marshall swung the SUV around and pulled in behind it.

  The van’s front passenger door opened. A man climbed out.

  Shortish, medium build, dark hair combed back and gleaming.

  He walked up to the barrier arm and swung it open with a faint screech of metal, and when he turned to walk back to the van, Marshall saw the expression on his face: strange in its openness and innocence. Bright eyes and a red-lipped smile.

  The smiley man got back into his seat and shut the door, and the flower van proceeded slowly up the track between the trees, grit crunching beneath its tires.

  Marshall let the brake off, and followed.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The sign at the parking lot had indicated the fire road curved only gently, but the actual formation was more accommodating of natur
e: frequent switchbacks, as dictated by tree-size, or gradient.

  Marshall gave the flower van a thirty-yard lead. He drove left-handed, the SIG pistol in his right hand in his lap. They rounded a bend, and the track ascended at a steeper gradient, the van ahead of him wallowing and bumping in the ruts, losing traction every now and again. He’d see it slow, and then regain pace with a scramble of tires and a spray of gravel.

  He checked the phone. No response to his message. He had it replaying the Jigsaw Masters video to keep it awake, and he’d found a little button that let you turn the sound off.

  They wound through a series of tight turns, the van moving out of sight on each bend, just a crimson smudge of taillights between the trees. The track was only a couple miles long, which would mean a fifteen- or twenty-minute drive at this speed. The windshield was fogging up with his breath. They came out onto higher ground, a straight section maybe two hundred yards long, and the phone in the console began to vibrate with a call, shivering face-down on its screen-glow.

  Marshall checked it.

  Frank Cifaretti’s number. He didn’t answer. Maybe they’d think Chris just hadn’t noticed. Which was the truth, in a sense.

  The van stopped.

  Marshall stopped, thirty yards behind it.

  The phone in the console went quiet.

  Ten seconds. Twenty.

  Then Marshall heard a rattle from the glove compartment. Benny’s phone, obviously. It carried on for ten or fifteen seconds, and then Chris’s phone in the console took over.

  Marshall looked around. Hard enough turning the damn car out on the road, let alone on a narrow fire track. He thought about ramming them again, but he didn’t like the idea of being swaddled in airbag, trapped behind the wheel as people shot at him.

  The console phone gave a sharp double-buzz. Text message.

  ANSWER YOUR FUCKING PHONE.

  It vibrated again with another call.

  Frank Cifaretti’s number.

  Marshall waited for it to quit, and then he set the headlights to high beam. The woods and the van lit up in a brighter, panoramic sweep. All they’d see from their end would be white glare. He took his foot off the brake and let the SUV roll forward, idle speed, one or two miles per hour. He set the button on the steering wheel for cruise control, and then he opened his door and slid out, pushed the door gently closed again behind him.