by Jack Ketchum
He couldn’t. Only Emil could.
“Damn right I can promise you.”
He dug into his shirt pocket and pulled out a wallet-sized snapshot, creased and worn. He handed it to her.
“Look,” he said. “I found it.”
She was looking at a color photo of a scrawny dishwater blonde and two scrawny kids of indeterminate sex, barely smiling, standing in a miserable yard in front of a broken swing.
His family.
“Now would you please get the hell out of the car?”
He held out his hand and she gave him back the photo and opened the door. He got out behind her.
“Listen,” he said. “I want you to know I feel bad about . . . what happened back there. At the house I mean. Sometimes a guy . . . you know . . .”
“I know,” she said and started walking.
She guessed the man and woman to be in their late twenties, early thirties. The woman had seen the guns and was out of her seat already and had gone around back to the little girl. The woman was pretty and her left eye had let go of one long tear that streaked her cheek but her arms were around her little girl and you could see she was trying to be brave and stay calm so as not to panic her and you could see that it was working. The girl was only five or so and looked confused by all this activity and her mother’s sudden urgency but she didn’t cry but only sat silent, wide-eyed and tense.
Beside her sat a teenage girl who looked much like the woman. She guessed they were sisters because the girl was too old to be the woman’s daughter. At first glance she seemed frozen with fear. Then Janet saw something pass across her face and her lips set tight as she took the girl’s hand in both of her own.
A family with grit, she thought. They don’t deserve this.
“Let’s go,” said Emil.
He waved them out of the car. She noticed that it was another station wagon. Another fake “woodie” like Marion’s, only a later model.
“Like I said, it’s just the car we want, ma’am.”
The man’s arm went around his wife’s waist and his hand down to his daughter. The sister held the girl’s other hand as Emil and Billy walked them back to Marion’s car. Marion lit a cigarette with a wooden match that flared brightly in the still air and then diminished. She leaned back against their car.
Somewhere in the distance frogs bellowed out their longing.
“I think you can all squeeze together in the backseat there, right?” Emil said. She could hear every word. “I mean, for all I know, your wife might be an expert at hot-wiring. This is your wife, right, sir?”
He was trying to be reassuring. Janet wasn’t reassured.
“Yes,” the man said.
“Your daughter?”
“Yes.”
“Kid sister?”
“Yes . . . well, no. My wife’s sister.”
“Well, sir, you’ve got a real pretty family here.”
“Thank you.”
“What I want you all to do is to stay in the back right where you are till we’re ready to leave, okay? Then I’ll toss you the keys as we go. Oh, and I might as well take yours now, sir. Good now as later, right?”
The man dug into his pocket and handed him the keys.
“What we’re going to do is, we’re going to have a little conference, the three of us, and then we’ll be moving on.”
They walked back to Ray, Janet and Marion.
“Give Margaret the gun, Bill,” he said. “I don’t see any problem coming from these people, Maggie, but you might want to watch your friend here. Ray, let’s us talk.”
They went off onto the shoulder a bit. Janet nodded toward the gun.
“Would you really use it on me?”
She seemed to consider.
“I don’t know. I might I think, probably. I mean, old times only goes so far, you know?”
“Jesus, Marion. He can’t even get your name right!”
And then she shut up because she could hear what they were saying, talking the way other men might discuss some ad campaign or product or corporate merger, the way she’d heard herself talk in conference rooms and chambers with judges and lawyers and witnesses, all matter-of-fact and bottom-line and so much more terrible for that to hear hell, they’ll remember all of it, everything . . . how many guns we’ve got, what we look like, what we’re wearing . . . sure they will . . . I don’t see that we’ve got a choice, then . . . neither do I . . . we have to kill them . . . we’ve got to kill ’em . . . okay then, so what about the kid? because if Janet could hear, then so could the people in the car, the windows were all wide open and they could hear their deaths discussed like three guys splitting the check in a restaurant and she could see them all huddled together, heard somebody openly crying now, saw them through the rear window embracing tight and frantic and the woman stroking her sister’s hair and thought, so tender! my god! this can’t be happening! and the man leaning over and wrapping his arms around them as though to ingest and swallow them up safe inside him and his back moving, sobbing or trying not to sob, she couldn’t tell which and then she looked at Marion.
Marion standing there still and cold as a snake. The gun pointed casually in her direction.
Marion, who could and would let this happen.
She might be the worst of them, she thought. At least the others have their twisted evil reasons.
Then the men were moving, Billy toward Marion, taking the gun from her hand and following Emil who was headed straight for the car and Ray stopping beside Janet saying, you want to be very smart now and then watching them walk to the wagon and Janet watching too still unbelieving and wholly unable to speak as though that power was shut down tight in her as Billy and Emil turned their guns to the backseat of the car, flashes of muzzle fire and raw sharp clapping in her ears and bodies jerking, twisting, falling inside the car, blood and glass suddenly everywhere and the sharp tang of cordite assailing her and she turned and tried to run, needed to run, run anywhere, fighting Ray with all her strength and Ray simply turning her, his grip on her arms shearing deep into her muscles, turning her and forcing her to see the final volley, the sullen punch of bullets into limp flesh.
“Bless our loved ones,” Billy said.
And when she heard the whimpering into the silence that followed, the little girl’s voice, the first she’d even heard that voice take breath, her legs gave way beneath her. Oh dear god no, she thought. Alive. Amid all that frightful death.
Ray held her to her feet while the firing began again and Janet closed her eyes.
When she opened them and cleared them of tears the first thing she saw was Marion, her hands clutching hard at her breasts, the sheen of perspiration on her face and the wild light skittering in her eyes—a woman shattered in the wake of revelation and probably the orgasm of her life. She saw the men staring through the window, watching for further movement. She turned and saw Ray. And there was nothing there to see at all.
In the distance behind them headlights crested a hill and began to roll toward them deep into the moon-drenched valley.
Emil held up his brand-new set of keys.
“Let’s move!” he said.
They’d driven a mile or so before she thought of it. Until then she’d felt empty inside as a propped-up wooden manikin sitting between Billy at the wheel and Ray riding shotgun, aware only of the straight smooth tarmac hissing beneath their wheels, the sound of flight, of movement And maybe it was that which served to bring her back to herself and back to what she’d actually seen these people do just moments before. Because finally she thought of it.
She reached over past Ray to the glove compartment. Popped it open and reached inside. A can of de-icer. A pair of sunglasses. A cracked plastic windshield scraper. Half a roll of Five-Flavor LifeSavers.
The papers were scattered at the bottom atop the owner’s manual. There weren’t many. Insurance papers for the car. A dog-eared state map. Somebody’s old shopping list on folded paper. Penciled directions to somewhere or other torn off a yell
ow legal pad.
That was all.
She almost wanted to laugh but laughter was still not even remotely possible.
“He was one of those,” she said.
“Huh?” said Ray. “One of what?”
“He was somebody who kept his license and registration together. In his wallet. Did anybody get his wallet?”
She sat there and let that sink in.
Emil pounded the car seat behind her. It didn’t even startle her. She’d figured he’d be the one to get it.
“God-fucking-damn it!”
“I didn’t think so. So it was all for nothing,” she said.
“What?” Ray said. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Shit!” said Emil. “Goddammit! We gotta go back now.”
“What?”
“We gotta go back!”
“Are you fucking out of your mind?”
“You wanted to get lost again,” she said. “Switch cars. Lose the APB. Problem is, as soon as they find him they’ll find the registration for this car in his wallet. So you didn’t get lost again, did you? It was all for nothing.”
“Jesus H. Christ.”
“You killed a five-year-old girl for nothing.”
“Turn here!” said Emil.
They were coming up on a turnoff to the right, a narrow strip of two-lane blacktop winding higher up the mountain. Billy slowed and made the turn.
“Pull up some and kill the lights, Billy. I want to see that car go by. Whoever it is can’t be very far behind. There weren’t any other turns off the road between here and there. If they didn’t stop they’ll pass us real soon. We’ve got to go back there but I want to see them pass first. That’s it. Kill the goddamn lights.”
They waited and Billy fidgeted beside her, tapping at the wheel with his thumbs to some music unheard by them while Emil, Ray and Marion watched through the rear window and Janet sat there staring straight into the dark, feeling strangely calmer now as though something had changed between them, some reconfiguration of their tableau and the odds against her. Though nothing had changed, really.
They waited and nobody came. The road behind them dark and silent.
“They stopped, didn’t they,” said Billy. “They stopped back there. They’re viewing the whole image.”
“Shut up, Billy.”
“Shit! Shit! Shit!”
“I said shut the fuck up, Billy.”
“He’s right,” said Marion. “They’d have passed by now if they hadn’t stopped. Billy’s right.”
“I know he’s right for chrissake. I just want a minute to figure this thing, okay?”
“What do you suggest, Counselor?” said Ray.
“Counselor?”
“She’s a lawyer.”
“What?”
“She’s a lawyer. She told me.”
“No shit. And you knew this how long?”
“Since before we went to her place. While you and her lady friend here were out in the bushes.”
She could feel the rush of anger behind her, then just as quickly sensed him gain control again.
“You ought to have told me, Ray.”
He sighed.
“Well, we got maybe two more hours till dawn, three to the state line. So I figure the state line’s out for tonight. And yeah, she’s right. We’ve got to assume they’ll make this car once they find him. For all we know whoever the asshole is is already calling it in. So we need another car or a place or preferably both. Maggie’s is out because they know she’s with us and her place is probably out for the same reason. So your question’s pretty good, Ray. What do you fucking suggest, Counselor? And don’t say give yourselves up or I’ll figure you’re too damn stupid to be a lawyer.”
“You think I should help you?”
“I’d say it’s in your goddamn best interests, yeah.”
And she knew he thought she was considering his threat. But she wasn’t.
She was considering something else entirely.
So that when she spoke the hesitancy in her voice was phony but not the least untrue. She was a trial lawyer and part of lawyering was about performance and the correct and useful stance so she knew damn well it wouldn’t show.
“Okay . . . all right. I know a place. It might work anyhow.”
“So tell.”
“You ever hear of a place called Hole-in-the-Wall?” she said, and then turned toward him.
He was smiling.
The night was awash in artificial light. Police flashlights slow-arced through the scrub and field along either side of the road. Flashbulbs burst sudden and stark against the human ruins in the wagon. Six sets of headlights set to high poured off the cruisers and the Volvo of the guy who’d called it in. Alan leaned against one of those cruisers and tried not to puke.
He’d seen what was inside.
He was shaking like it was zero degrees out, clammy with sweat at the same time. All he kept thinking was at least she wasn’t one of them. At least that.
Frommer stubbed out his cigarette on the center line of the tarmac and then carefully policed his butt into his jacket pocket and walked over.
Alan shook his head. “I never . . . Jesus, Frommer, that little girl . . .”
“I know,” Frommer said. “But I’ll tell you, I think we can still hope for the best here, Mr. Laymon. I don’t think we’ll find her out there. I think she’d have been in the car with these poor people. These guys don’t seem to take too much trouble hiding what they do.”
He glanced toward the car and then back to Alan.
“I told you you shouldn’t have looked,” he said. “Hell, I shouldn’t have either.”
“How far?” Ray asked her.
Ray was nervous, Emil could see that—almost as nervous as goddamn Billy driving. It wasn’t like Ray. It wasn’t the guy who could lift a wallet in plain sight or steal a car in broad daylight on a busy street. Billy, on the other hand, was probably born nervous. He wondered if maybe he should be doing the driving but then thought no, it was better back here with his arm over whatsername’s shoulder and his hand playing with her tit. Irresponsible but what the hell. They’d be all right.
“Just a few miles or so,” she said.
“They’re not gonna do this for free,” he said.
“I know,” Emil said.
“So?”
He’d already thought that out. He didn’t answer though. There was no way he was going to let that out of the bag just yet. But he knew about Hole-in-the-Wall from the joint and didn’t think it was going to be a problem. Ray obviously did. He dug into his pocket and pulled out some wadded bills and change and counted it. Emil watched him and almost had to laugh.
“I got a total of seventeen dollars and seventy-eight cents.”
He grabbed the lawyer lady’s purse out of her lap and flipped open her wallet and started counting the cash inside. She didn’t make any effort to stop him.
“She’s got fifty-nine. Makes sixty-six, seventy-eight. What about you, Billy?”
“Exactly twenty-five dollars. Exactly what I came out with—you and Emil being kind enough to entail me my drinks for free.”
“That’s ninety-one, seventy-eight. Shit. Not even a hundred bucks. Emil? Maria?”
“Marion.”
“Marion, sorry. What’ve you got?”
Emil pinched her nipple and she jumped and smiled, then reached over for her purse.
“Forty-three dollars, fifty-two cents, hon.”
“Okay, okay. Shit, forget the cents. Forty-three dollars. Forty-three dollars and . . . what?”
“I believe we were up to ninety-one, Ray. Ninety-one dollars, seventy-eight cents, when you bash your groupings,” said Billy.
“Forget the seventy-eight cents, all right? Forget the goddamn cents! That’s . . . one hundred thirty-four. Emil?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Huh? Don’t worry about it? Jesus, Emil! We’re asking them to get us outa state here, you know? A
nd so far we haven’t got fifty bucks apiece!”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got plenty.”
“You got plenty. Fine. What’s plenty?”
“Your turn’s right here,” the lawyer said. “Road to your left, just ahead.”
“Goddammit, Emil,” Ray said. “What the flick’s plenty?”
She’d driven by one day, curious, but as an Officer of the Court and “Little” Harpe’s attorney of record, she’d been restricted from going any farther or seeing any more than she was seeing now—a wide dirt strip maybe twenty yards across cut through open, uncultivated fields on either side, rising up the slope of a mountain. No house in sight and no gate. No structures at all. But any approach observable from above.
They drove slowly and in silence until they crested the hill and that was when the first guard appeared along the side of the road, a big man almost comically dressed in nightfighter makeup and combat gear, his assault rifle held at port arms. There was nothing comic about the rifle.
“Slower, Billy,” said Emil. “Stop if he tells you to.”
But he didn’t. He didn’t look interested in them at all. Didn’t even bother to wave them on.
Nor did the second guard a quarter-mile up, the field narrowing around them, by then, gradually being swallowed by scrub and pine.
At the top of a rise, with dense forest pressing close now on either side, narrowing the road to a single lane funneling them up the mountain, she saw a third guard dressed in biker’s colors talking into his cell phone, saw him shove the phone into his utility belt and raise his automatic rifle. The guard checked their license plate but didn’t even glance at them.
It was eerie. As though they didn’t matter.
And maybe they didn’t.
The road narrowed even more. The woods drew closer.
At the top of another rise two more guards in military gear stood across from one another on either side of the road, one black man and one white. Each had a sleek black Doberman on a short leash.
“I hate those doggies,” said Billy. He pronounced it dawgies.
“Shut up,” said Emil. “Slow down.”
Because this time the guards were stepping toward them. The men stopped and turned their flashlights into the car and then the black guard on Billy’s side motioned them on.