Toby decided not to warn Quen.
Pulling Fran by the hair and snarling, “Stand up, stand up,” into her face, Quen dragged her to her feet. He let go and she stayed up. “Take it off,” he said, “or I’ll rip it off.”
She pulled her sweatshirt over her head, tossed it aside, and quickly folded her arms across her breasts.
Quen shoved her arms down. “Nice set a knockers,” he said.
“Not bad,” Toby agreed.
Quen slapped Fran’s left breast sideways. Then he slapped the other. Each time he smacked one, Fran yipped and flinched. He soon had both breasts swinging, bumping against each other. Then he seemed to sense trouble. He turned around just as Brenda, hobbling on her good leg, her mouth twisted in agony and tears spilling down her face, hurled herself at him.
“Shit!” he gasped.
Snarling, she reached for his throat.
He caught her in the cheek with a hard right that knocked her head sideways, made her lips go rubbery and sent a shower of spit into the air. The blow turned her body toward Toby.
Toby stepped in against her, put his arms around her and drove his knee up into her belly so hard she was lifted off her feet.
She crashed hard to the floor.
“That oughta take some of the get-up-’n-go out of her,” Toby said.
“I’ll say,” said Quen. “Wow.”
“Now let’s see what you can do with Fatso.”
Grinning, Quen clamped Fran’s nipples between his thumbs and forefingers.
“Please,” she whispered.
He squeezed and lifted. Whimpering, Fran went up on her tiptoes.
“Keep her like that,” Toby said. He stepped behind her, took hold of her shorts with one hand and jerked them down to her bare feet.
She wore baggy white cotton panties.
Weird, Toby thought. All sexy without any bra on, then come to find out she’s wearing old-lady drawers.
“Go figure,” he muttered. He dragged them down with his left hand.
She was still on her tiptoes.
“Step outa your stuff,” Toby said.
Whimpering, she stepped out of the shorts and panties and kicked them away.
Toby snatched up the panties, wadded them into a ball and stuffed them into her mouth.
The fabric muffled her noises.
He grinned at Quen. “Better?”
“A lot.”
“Have at her. She’s all yours. Entertain me. If you’re really good, I might even let you have a crack at Brenda after I get done with her.”
Quen beamed.
Chapter Fifty-seven
Leaving Sherry at his own house with Jeff and the revolver, Pete had made a solo trip to the house next door. He’d wandered completely around it, looking for any sign that Toby might be lurking on the grounds or inside. He’d peered through windows into its empty rooms. He’d checked the doors.
Back in the kitchen of his own house, he explained, “It’s all locked up. There’s no sign of a break in. So unless he managed to pick a lock…”
“Somebody might’ve left something open,” Jeff suggested.
“It’s possible. But I looked around the best I could without breaking in, myself. I don’t think he’s there.”
Sherry, sitting at the kitchen table, took a sip of her fresh Bloody Mary. “We figured we’d miss him. We were gone when he showed up and he had the address of a vacant house. He’s not stupid. One look inside, he knew something was wrong. There’d either been a legitimate confusion about the address—or he’d been tricked. Either way, he would’ve hit the road fast.”
“If he ever came out here at all,” Pete said.
She nodded. “That’s possible, too. Can’t imagine why he wouldn’t, but…”
“He might’ve been afraid it was a trap,” Jeff suggested.
“I doubt it,” Sherry said. “He thought he was being so damn clever about getting the address…”
“That stupid story about being an old school pal,” Pete added.
“He’s real big on stories,” Sherry muttered. Shaking her head, she drank some more Bloody Mary. “You know what? Maybe after he got the address he realized how phoney his story must’ve sounded. That could explain why he decided not to come over.”
“If he decided not to come over,” Pete said.
“Anything’s possible,” Jeff threw in.
“But some things,” said Sherry, “are more likely than others. Now that he knows I’m alive, he has to get his hands on me. Has to finish the job, for one thing.”
“For one thing?” Pete said.
Jeff huffed. “That oughta be enough.”
“Not for Toby. I imagine he has big ideas about what he’d like to do to me. So if he didn’t come over here, he must’ve had an awfully good reason.”
“But maybe he did come.”
Sherry let out a short laugh. “How much have you been drinking?”
“Not as much as you.”
“I have an excuse.”
“Just seems to me,” Pete said, “that we’ve got no way of knowing where he is. He probably isn’t here in the house with us and he probably isn’t next door. But he might be here or there or just about anywhere. We just won’t know till he makes a move. And if he is around here someplace right now, that move’s gonna take us by surprise.”
“You’re right about that,” Sherry said. “If he’s here and we don’t know it, we’re screwed.”
“We oughta be the ones screwing him,” Jeff said.
Pete nodded. “Hit him before he hits us.”
“Fuckin’-A, dude! Preemptive strike!”
“Can’t strike him if we can’t find him,” Sherry said.
“What if we pay a visit to his house?” Pete suggested. “He’s bound to show up there. No matter where he is right now, he’ll go home sooner or later. And we could be waiting for him.”
“And screw his ass.”
“But we don’t know where he lives,” Sherry reminded them. She had a strange, intense look in her eyes.
“I bet we can find out,” Pete said. He shoved his chair away from the table, stood up, and walked around the end of the counter. “I did some checking.” He removed the telephone directory from the drawer. “After we found out Toby’s last name, I looked it up.” He carried the phone book to the table, plopped it down, and opened it to the napkin he’d used as a marker. “There’re only seven listings for people named Bones. No Tobys, but I figure maybe he lives with his parents. All we’ve gotta do is find out which…”
“He lives with his brother,” Sherry explained. “Sid.”
Pete felt a jump of excitement in his chest. “Sid? Oh, man, I think there is a Sid in here.” Bending over the book, he slid his fingertip down the listings. “Bones,” he muttered. “Come on, come on, I know you’re here. Bones!” he hunched lower and studied the first names. “Sidney! Here it is, right here! Bones, Sidney.”
“That’s Toby’s brother,” Sherry said. “That’s where he lives.”
“Only thing is, it doesn’t give an address.”
“They hardly ever do,” Jeff said.
“Not anymore,” added Sherry.
“Too bad we’re not cops,” Pete said. “They have reverse directories. All we’d have to do is look up the phone number…”
Jeff gave him a skeptical glance. “Where’d you get that?”
Reading Ed McBain. But I suppose that stuff’s all computerized by now.”
“You can bet on it.”
“Which means zilch to us,” said Sherry. “Unless one of you just so happens to be some sort of fabulous hacker who can bust into the police computer…”
Pete and Jeff looked at each other and shook their heads.
“Know anybody who can do that?” Sherry asked.
They both shook their heads.
“That mostly just happens in books and shit,” Jeff explained.
“Yeah,” said Pete. “They always know somebody who can hack their wa
y into anything.”
“Convenient,” Jeff said.
Pete nodded. “Hell, I don’t know anybody who can pull that sort of stuff.” He frowned. “Unless maybe Kate. I heard she got into some trouble last year hacking into some sort of computer system. They almost threw her in jail.”
“Yeah, I’d forgotten about Kate.”
“She’s a computer whizz.”
“But what’s her last name?” Jeff asked.
Pete shrugged. “I don’t know. Do you know?”
“No idea. Have you got her phone number?”
Pete shook his head.
“Know where she lives?”
Pete shook it again. “Not really.”
“So how are we supposed to find her?”
“Forget about it,” Sherry said. “Sounds like she’d be harder to dig up than Toby.”
“So how’ll we get Toby’s address?” Pete asked.
“Let’s just call the number,” Jeff suggested. “Maybe Sid’ll answer the phone.”
“Yeah,” Pete said. “Great idea. And I can tell him how I owe Toby fifty bucks from an old school bet…”
“We should be able to do better than that,” Sherry said.
“We’d need an awfully good story before someone’s
gonna cough over a street address.”
“Unless he’s a moron.”
“Toby said a few things about Sid,” Sherry told them. “The guy doesn’t sound like a moron. He might be cooperative, though. Sounded like he and Toby aren’t exactly the best of buddies.”
“But what if Toby answers the phone?” Jeff asked.
Sherry shook her head. “The one thing we don’t wanta do is lose our element of surprise.”
“That’s right,” Pete said. “If Toby’s home, we’re totally shot down.”
“So how do we find out his address?” Jeff asked.
“Maybe we don’t,” Sherry said.
Pete scowled. “There’s gotta be a way.”
“Not necessarily,” Sherry said. “There isn’t always a way. At least not a good way. Sometimes no way at all.”
“Maybe we oughta just call the number and take our chances,” Jeff said. “Know what I mean?”
“I don’t know,” Pete said. “That might be worse than doing nothing.”
Sherry drank some more of her Bloody Mary. Frowning, she set down the glass. Then she looked from Jeff to Pete. And sighed.
“What?” Pete asked.
“I know how to find the house,” she muttered. “No phoning involved.”
“How?” asked Jeff.
“I’m not sure I wanta tell.”
“Come on, Sherry.”
“If we knew,” said Jeff, “we’d tell you.”
“Are you guys looking to get killed?”
“We’re gonna kill him,” Jeff assured her. “If we can find his sorry ass.”
She shook her head again. “How about this? How about loaning me the car and the pistol? You guys wait here and I’ll go over to his house and…”
“No way!” Pete blurted.
“I was hoping…” Her voice died away.
“Hoping what?” Pete asked.
She took a deep breath, but it must’ve hurt. She winced, then exhaled slowly. “I wanted to take care of this alone. I still do.”
“You mean like take down Toby?” Jeff asked.
“Yeah.”
“It isn’t gonna happen,” Pete told her. “You’re too messed up to go after someone like him. And even if you weren’t, we wouldn’t let you.”
“Yeah. I know. I know how much you guys…care about me.”
“Actually, we just wanta get in your pants.”
“Jeff!” Pete snapped.
Sherry made a quiet laugh and said, “I know. But it’s a little more than that. A lot more. I’ve been at the mercy of you two guys since you found me. You’ve seen every inch of me…and touched most of them. It must’ve been pretty tempting.”
“Nah,” Jeff said. “What could’ve been tempting about that?”
“But you never let yourselves…well, you held back. All you ever did was try to help me. You’re a couple of damn nice guys and I think you’d probably do almost anything for me. But I won’t have you die for me. So far, things have gone okay. You’ve risked yourselves, but we’ve been lucky. We haven’t run into Toby yet.”
Pete felt a chilly tingle on the nape of his neck.
“Eventually,” Sherry went on, “I’m gonna find him or he’s gonna find me. I don’t want you to be around when that happens.”
“We want to be around,” Pete said.
“How you gonna stop us?” asked Jeff.
She almost smiled. “I had me a little plan. Didn’t exactly work out, but almost.”
“What sort of plan?” Jeff asked.
“I came up with it after you guys got done patching me up and I left the message for my parents. You’d already offered me a Bloody Mary,” she reminded Pete. “When I told you I was ready for it, Jeff said he’d like one, too. I didn’t think it’d happen. I’d already pegged you as a straight-arrow…”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Nothing wrong with that, for God’s sake. If I had my way, everyone would be that way.”
He felt himself blush.
She just thinks I’m a straight-arrow, he told himself. If she knew what was really going on…
“But then you came out with three Bloody Mary’s,” she continued. “I couldn’t believe it. But that’s when I got the plan. It was simple—I’d drink you guys under the table. You’re sixteen and you’ve probably never taken more than sip or two of liquor in your entire lives.”
“Oh,” Jeff said, “I wouldn’t be so sure…”
“Yeah, right,” said Pete. “You’re a real booze-hound.”
“Anyway, I’ve been drinking maybe a little more than I should for a few years, so I’ve built up some tolerance. I knew I could handle a few Bloody Marys, no trouble at all. But not you guys. Pretty soon, you’d either pass out or fall asleep. I think I even said something about how we oughta all take naps after lunch.”
“Oh yeah,” Pete said. Amazed by her revelations, he felt a grin starting to spread over his face. “To sober us up before you called the cops.”
“Right. But I never intended to call the cops. Soon as you two zonked, I was gonna borrow the car and go after Toby alone.”
Jeff suddenly let out a wild laugh. “Shit!” he blurted. “Soon as you were zonked, we were gonna take off after the bastard.”
“Without you,” Pete added.
“That’s how come Pete kept feeding you more drinks.”
“And that’s how come I looked up Bones in the phone book.”
“My God,” Sherry said.
“Great minds,” said Jeff.
“So much for great plans,” Pete said.
“Too bad Toby called,” Jeff said. “Now we’ll never know who would’ve passed out first.”
“I still don’t want you guys going after him,” Sherry said. “With or without me.”
“And we don’t want you going after him,” Pete told her.
“We won’t let you,” added Jeff. “Not without us, anyhow.”
She sighed, then drank the rest of her Bloody Mary. “Okay,” she said. “If you won’t let me go after him by myself, I guess there’s only one way to do it.”
“How’s that?” Jeff asked.
“Together.”
“Good enough,” Pete said.
“How do we find his house?” asked Jeff.
“Last night, I helped him lose his keys so he had to leave his car behind. I’ve got a pretty good idea where he left it. If he hasn’t moved it yet, maybe we can get Toby’s address off the registration slip.”
“What if it doesn’t have a registration slip?” Jeff asked.
“Then it doesn’t,” Sherry said. “But it might.”
“Let’s go find out,” said Pete.
Chapter Fifty-eight
Quen climbed off Fran. She was sprawled on the foyer floor, sweaty and panting for air but no longer crying.
“I think she liked it,” Toby said.
“I know she did,” said Quen. He grinned at Toby, then bent down and picked up Fran’s sweatshirt. “Gave her just what she always wanted,” he said. He started mopping the sweat off his body. “Man, you got air conditioning in here?”
“Yeah, but I like it like this. Everybody all wet and slippery.” He smiled down at Brenda. She was sitting on the floor, leaning back against the front door, her bandaged leg straight out, her other leg drawn up with the knee in front of her chest.
She’d been that way for a while, watching in silence.
Watching Quen with Fran.
Watching Toby watch.
Sometimes glancing over at the body of her wimpy pal, Baxter.
“You want the air on?” Toby asked her.
She met his eyes, then looked down again.
“What do you want?”
“You to drop dead. Both of you.”
“Gutsy,” Toby said. “Just like your sister.”
She stared at him, but said nothing.
“Love your sister.”
“Go to hell.”
Quen looked at Toby. “Can we strip her now?”
Toby aimed the automatic at him.
“Never mind.” He resumed wiping his naked body with Fran’s sweatshirt.
To Brenda, Toby said, “It’s your big sister got you into this. I told her what’d happen if she tried to pull any shit with me. So you know what she does? She goes for her gun. This one right here.”
That got Brenda’s attention. Her wide eyes fixed on the weapon.
“The bitch wanted to shoot me with it. But now I’ve got her gun and I shot you with it. And your little snot-munching friend there.” He nodded toward Baxter’s body. “How do you like getting plugged by your own sister’s gun?”
“What’d you do to her?” Brenda asked, her voice low and steady.
“Well, now, that’s a long, long story. Easier to tell you what I didn’t do to her.”
Tears started to leak out of Brenda’s eyes. Her chin trembled.
“Aw, don’t cry.”
She sniffed. “Did you…kill her?”
“Would I do a thing like that?”
“Did you?”
Come Out Tonight Page 33