The Killing Hour

by Paul Cleave

  Charlie is reversing now and he finds a spot where he can turn the car around.

  “Don’t try anything,” Cyris says, and Charlie shakes his head. Does that mean he doesn’t understand? Or that he disagrees? Or that he won’t try anything?

  When they reach the highway he tells Charlie to put his foot to the pedal.

  “What’s the hurry?”

  “You’ll learn soon enough,” he says, glancing into the mirror and seeing that the bitch is close behind them. “We’ll all learn soon enough.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  What’s a night without two homicidal maniacs? A boring night, that’s what. So right now I am, as they say, pretty fucking far from bored.

  I don’t remember Cyris sounding this crazy, but that could be because we didn’t talk much when we first met. The only thing I can think to do is crash the car into something solid in the hope Jo can get away, but that plan has a huge drawback-she will come to help. Cyris might still be alive and I might not. Who will protect her then?

  Who’s protected her so far?

  Hopefully she’s already figured out something was wrong. The plan was for me to move the car, not keep driving it.

  “What do you want?” I strain to keep my voice controlled.

  “Shut up and drive.”

  The wipers roam across the windshield, smearing the rain from side to side. I shut up and drive. No point in arguing. I try to think of a way I can signal Jo-Morse code with the brake lights or something.

  “The box, what’s in the box? You saw the box? It was a present. I hope you liked it.”

  “How’s the stomach?” I ask.

  “Whose stomach?” he asks.

  “Your stomach.”

  “I’ll live.”

  “That’s a real shame.”

  He pushes the gun into my ribs. “Why don’t you concentrate on driving.”

  I do just that, again following the orders of the man with the gun. Common practice. And I’ve been practicing a lot. When I flick the headlights to high beam the rain looks thicker. There’s no other traffic on this road in the middle of nowhere. I feel like taking my hands off the wheel and seeing where fate steers my car. I’ve had enough. Enough guilt. Enough pain. Enough of people dying around me. I’ve become a catalyst for death and I don’t like it. The heater is combining with my rage to warm me up. I’m thinking it might be like drinking alcohol when you’re suffering from hypothermia. You feel warmer, but you’re not. Your body’s fooling you. And you die. End of story.

  Is that to be my story?

  The rain begins to ease off. I slow the windshield wipers so that every second they sweep across and show me the dark night ahead. I watch the road and concentrate on driving over the wet asphalt. My knuckles are sore from squeezing the steering wheel. My fingers are white. Slowly I unclench them. The joints pop.

  “You look tense, partner,” Cyris says.

  Yeah, that’s right.

  “Money, Feldman,” he says. “How much of it do you have?”

  This question surprises me. I think about it. “I’m not sure. It’s all wet, anyway.”

  “Wet? Wet, how? How did. . no, no, no, not the money in your pockets, the money in your bank. How many dollars do you have?”

  “Nothing.”

  He pushes the gun in harder. I glance at him in the mirror. He’s blinking rapidly. “That’s a lie. You’re lying, lying, and lying people catch on fire. I know you have money. I’ve seen your house, I looked at your money statements.”

  “I’m a schoolteacher, not a doctor. I have a mortgage. Do you know what that means?”

  “I know you’re a teacher, I know this, I know, and I’m not a moron.”

  “The bank owns my house, not me.”

  He draws the gun back, then pushes it in harder still.

  I jerk away. The car swerves across the road. I tug at the wheel, shift down a couple of gears, and the car swerves right, then straightens. My reactions defy my thoughts of crashing. Surely Jo must know now that I’m in trouble.

  “How much you got?” Cyris asks as if nothing just happened. I glance into the rearview mirror. Jo is still behind us, but much further back now. Can money get us out of this?

  “Not much.”

  “You owe me forty grand.”

  “What?”

  “I could do with some money, partner. Forty grand sounds pretty sweet.”

  Forty grand. I have a strong feeling why he picked that amount. “Get a job.”

  “I have a job.”

  Things that didn’t make sense on Monday are making some sense now. Things seem clearer since I talked to Landry. One of the world’s biggest motives to kill, after revenge, is money. That’s exactly what Cyris is asking for now. I know he likes money. He shouted it out half an hour ago. He wants money. Was that his goal on Monday? Was he being paid?

  Yes. Of course he was. The theory Jo came up with, the theory I came up with when talking to Landry, it all makes perfect sense. To kill one woman would make the police look at obvious reasons, then obvious suspects. To kill them both in a horrific and brutal way makes the entire thing look ritualistic. It makes it look like she died for an entirely different set of reasons. Like some random madman dragged them both from their homes and committed madman atrocities on them, rather than being paid for it.

  Cyris is more than a mere monster. He’s a paid killer. A man who takes his job seriously enough to take on a completely different role. As horrid as it is, I can appreciate the cleverness in his process. The police are looking for some deranged lunatic because Cyris was a deranged lunatic in those early Monday hours.

  What role is he trapped in now?

  We pass a reflective sign extended out over the highway from a large white pole. Christchurch is only forty-five miles away. We’ll be there in well under an hour. I slide the heater control to the little picture of feet. I’ve thawed out slightly. The ice in my veins is melting. The fear isn’t.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Nothing.” I keep on driving.

  “You’ve got two days,” he says.

  “What?”

  “Didn’t I make myself clear? Are you an idiot?”

  “Humor me.”

  “Two days. Forty grand. I’m sure you can arrange that.”

  “Sure.”

  “Speed up, I don’t want to be out here all night.”

  I speed up and the headlights in my mirror get smaller.

  “Faster!” he shouts.

  I push my foot down and Jo’s headlights soon disappear. Ahead of us the two eastbound lanes of the highway narrow into one. The road winds around a bit, but the view doesn’t change-just pastures and more pastures. When Cyris tells me to pull over I do the opposite. I speed up and I switch off the headlights. We’re going to crash, but if I’m lucky Jo will drive right on past.

  Cyris smashes me in the head with something, and as the world goes darker, he begins tugging at the wheel. He’s leaning over the backseat and I’m too woozy to try and stop him. He puts the gearshift in neutral. My foot is still on the accelerator, but only revving now. He hits me again. The colors flare behind my eyes for maybe the hundredth time this week and I’m left to wonder if those colors will ever go away. He keeps steering the car. It’s slowing down. He reaches around me and pulls out the screwdriver key. When the colors behind my eyes dissolve I start looking for Cyris. He’s already outside, slamming the passenger door closed. I go to open my door and my right arm stops painfully short. Handcuffs hold me to the steering wheel.

  Landry’s cuffs.

  Christ. I’m living in a world of déjà vu.

  Cyris taps on the window with the barrel of his gun. I look out and see him waving my keys at me. His scraggly beard moves as he grins. I swear at the windshield, spraying a fine mist of obscenities across the glass. At the same time I tug on the handcuffs, going through the same motions I went through earlier tonight and getting the same results. My wrist is already swelling.r />
  I unclip the seatbelt and reach for the door handle with my left arm, pulling on it, then push the door with my foot. I turn my body so I can stand. My right arm stays inside the car, the handcuffs stopping me from standing straight. Cyris is moving off the opposite side of the road just as Jo comes around the bend. Past the shoulder is some long grass that he ducks behind. I stand as tall as I can, the handcuffs pulling my skin and hurting the bone, and I wave erratically at her so she knows there’s trouble. But she’s thinking maybe flat-tire trouble, or engine trouble. Just not Cyris trouble. But then Cyris steps out into the road and levels the shotgun at her. There must be a moment where she thinks she might be able to run him down before he can open fire, but then she must dismiss it because she pulls over and stops.

  Cyris signals for her to get out of the car. She does.

  “Looks like we’re having ourselves a reunion,” he shouts. He moves slowly toward us, then stops between the headlights of the car I’m driving. “Your husband here owes me money,” he says. “Forty grand to be specific. He said I could look after you until he can get it. It’s like layaway.” He takes a few steps toward me. “Isn’t that right?”

  I don’t answer him. Jo says nothing. He turns the barrel of Landry’s shotgun so it’s pointing at her face. She doesn’t look scared or intimidated, but I don’t doubt that she is.

  “The plan’s simple,” he says. “You give me the money and she gets to live. You take too long with the funds, I teach her about suffering. You get my point?”

  I want to kill him so badly that it hurts. I grit my teeth and my eyes are burning and I see a shade of red that can only be blood. I want to take the gun from his hands and use it to club his head into the highway. I want to run over his twitching corpse.

  “For forty grand,” Cyris continues, “you can have her back. It’s the money you owe me, partner, for screwing me the other night.”

  “I’ll get it, okay? You can let her go and take me instead. We can go to the bank in the morning and I can get you the cash,” I say, knowing how stupid it sounds.

  “No can do, partner. She comes with me.”

  “You don’t need her.”

  “Oh, but I do, I do, yeah. I get lonely during the day.”

  “I can get the money first thing! Please! By ten o’clock everything can be settled.”

  “Sorry. I’ll be sleeping like a baby.”

  “What about in the afternoon? Come on, give me a break here.”

  “Don’t sound so desperate, little Charlie, little, little. The day’s no good for me. The night’s no good for me either. I’ve got me some important plans.”

  I don’t want him alone with Jo for two whole days. I don’t want that at all. “No deal.”

  He reaches out and shoves Jo against the car, then points the gun at her. “Pick a limb, partner.”

  I raise my free hand. “I can get you the money. But two days? Jesus, surely you can see my problem with this.”

  “And that’s just it. It’s your problem, not mine, yours.” He laughs. “Partner, if you’re unhappy we can cancel the whole transaction. Is that how you want it?”

  I shake my head. I’ve seen how he cancels transactions.

  “Good. I’ll ring you at home at nine o’clock tonight. Be there.”

  “If you touch her. .”

  “You’ll what? Huh? Kill me? Don’t worry, partner. I don’t damage my investments.”

  He pushes her into the driver’s seat of my car and slams the door. Clutching his stomach, he moves around to the passenger side. I stare through the side window at Jo. She stares back and attempts a smile that says, Don’t worry, things will be fine. I attempt the same smile, but who are we kidding?

  I meet Cyris’s eyes. I want them to be dead, reflecting only a vacant mind, but they’re alive and brimming with ideas. Half a minute goes by, then Jo puts the car into gear and slowly pulls away. She goes only ten yards before the brake lights come on. Her arm appears out the window and she tosses out the handcuff key and the modified car key. They land in the middle of the road. Then the red brake lights die and the car rolls forward.

  By trying to be a hero on Monday I’ve signed Jo’s life away. I rest my head against the door. The headache is back. I can taste failure in the back of my throat. I could have driven into a tree. I could have fought Cyris while he was behind me in the car. I look down the road. The taillights are two distant red specks riding toward infinity. They look like eyes-demon eyes. They disappear around a distant bend.

  They disappear and I am alone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  The rain cannot wash away the rage or the fear that leaves me standing motionless next to my car. Hope and despair have both reached out for me, but hope couldn’t get a grip. And why would it? I’m standing in Landry’s shirt, his socks and shoes, and my underwear. My mind has recognized defeat and is slowly shutting down. Jo is dead even though she’s behind the wheel of my car and speeding toward the city.

  I lean into the car and release the hand brake. I push against the door frame with my left arm, my right beneath my left armpit because of the handcuffs. My legs try to tangle as I gain more speed, and when my left leg clips the edge of the car I lose my balance. My hand slips from the door frame and I fall, my right knee hitting the asphalt hard. I pull myself into a sitting position and get onto my feet. I look down at my knee and can see it bleeding.

  I tighten my grip on the car and start over. The car builds speed once again, and when I can tell momentum will take me to the keys, I limbo into the car and put both hands on the wheel. I can’t steer because the steering wheel has locked, but I pull the hand brake when I reach the keys. I twist my body and lean out. The keys are closer to the other side of the car, out of reach. I look for something to help and find it when I look up and see the antenna. I pull it upward and when it’s at its longest I bend it back and forth until it snaps off. I lean down and start fishing. It only takes a few moments to hook the handcuff key. I undo the cuffs and drop them onto the passenger seat. I lean under the car and grab the screwdriver.

  Racing toward the city, I search for the taillights of my Honda, but can’t find them. When I enter the city I drive aimlessly around, but it’s pointless. They’re gone. Jo is gone. And there’s nothing I can do until I pay to get her back.

  I head home. I never liked driving Jo’s car, and I like it even less now. The seats are low and I often hurt my back getting in and out of it. It’s not the kind of car you can use if you have kids-you’d break your back getting a child in and out of a car seat. I smile thinking about that, I smile thinking of the children we didn’t have, but used to talk about having. We never named them, we thought it weird to name somebody until you’d met them. I don’t know why I’m suddenly thinking about them, and even though they bring a smile to my face, I’m actually feeling sad for their loss. These kids will never exist. They died six months ago in the bar. No matter what happens, even if I get Jo back, she’ll never want to see me again.

  I park up the driveway and leave the screwdriver in the car and walk around the gate and swing open my busted back door. I stare at the phone and even take two steps toward it, knowing I need to call the police and knowing just as well that I can’t. Cyris will kill Jo if I do. He may kill her anyway. The time to call the police is over and, anyway, it’s not like my experience with them is one I want to risk repeating.

  I walk down the hallway. Last time I made this walk I was in cuffs and had a gun pointed at me. When was that? It feels like a few days ago, but it’s only been a matter of hours, maybe five or six of them. I look at my watch, but I can’t figure it out, and really it doesn’t matter. I stand in the bedroom doorway and stare at the cardboard box. I have to get rid of it. I can’t sleep in my house with the body part of a woman I failed to save. I don’t look inside it because Landry told me what was in there. Kathy deserves to be buried in one piece, but I can’t return the box to the crime scene. I can’t take it to the morgue. Can’t put a
stamp on it and mail it in.

  These thoughts disgust me, but they’re there, just logical progressions really, like a mechanic figuring out how to take a car apart, or an accountant carrying the one. Kathy is dead and for her to rest in peace her death needs to be avenged. That’s all. It doesn’t matter where her body ends up. I grab a garbage bag out of the laundry and put the box inside. I put my bloody shorts in there too. Then, turning the lights off, I stumble through the house and into the garage. I find a shovel.

  My house is on the corner of a cul-de-sac. My backyard borders another house, but behind that are huge pastures. To get there I have to walk into the street and to a dirt driveway angled up between two homes. It’s nearly five o’clock in the morning, but I still pause to scan the neighborhood. No people. No lights. Nobody to care what’s happening to me. I head up the driveway. The wet ground sucks at my shoes.

  I’ve been walking two minutes when I realize why I’m doing this. I need to bury this piece of Kathy, not just for her, but for me. It could help. It could make the ghosts go away.

  The pasture is broken up into sections, different vegetables growing in each. Wire fences run between them as if the owners are worried the cabbages are going to mingle with the potatoes and create some hybrid vegetable nobody would like. Long dirt roads trail off into the distance. Dozens of irrigation pipes create a maze that leads to the nearby river. Iron sheds with spots of rust on them house farm equipment. The ruts in the dirt formed by tractors going back and forth are filled to the brim with water.

  I decide not to bury the box anywhere in the pasture. The dirt is turned over all the time. Crops are planted then reaped. Tractors dragging large plows bite into the ground. One day it’s pulling up carrots. The next it’s decomposing flesh.

  The dirt road I’m following keeps the pastures to my right. To my left the land is bordered by a long ditch with a small creek running through it. A dozen or so trees space out the distance. I walk for ten minutes, the rain no longer feeling cold against my skin. I’m numb inside, but not because of the weather. I pass more trees, and I wonder what could be buried beneath them. Just before the creek sweeps into the river, where the road turns right to move along the top end of the pasture, there’s a small bank. I climb down and stand a few feet from the creek. I figure this is as good a place as any.