Gone Bitch

by Steve Lookner

  “How much do you need?” I ask.

  “Oh not that much,” said Rand. “$650,000 should do it.”

  It was almost everything we had.

  “Plus $300,000 more,” said Marybeth.

  “We don’t have that much,” I said. “We’ll have to sell the house.”

  “Well since we’re technically on the deed, we saved you the trouble and sold it yesterday,” said Rand. “But don’t panic, you have until midnight to be out.”

  Wonderful. And to top it all off, Nick suggested we move back to his hometown in Missouri.

  Missouri.

  That killing myself idea is sounding better and better.

  RAND AND MARYBETH ELLIOTT: August 23, 2010

  Don’t feel bad for us. We didn’t actually lose the money. We just got sick of giving it to our idiot daughter and her annoying loser husband.

  NICK DUNNE: Two Days Gone

  Since my house was crawling with police, I decided to take the Elliotts up on their offer to stay the night in their suite. Which would have been a fine idea, except for the fact that they were planning on having sex that night. That fake, extra-loud gay sex people have when they’re trying to hide they’re both gay.

  As I lay wide awake on the pull-out couch listening to their fake orgasms, I decided that I was going to go talk to Desi myself. Hilary Handy obviously wasn’t a suspect, so there was no need to talk to her. And I knew the police would talk to Desi, but that might take a week, maybe more. And I couldn’t wait that long. If Amy was gone for good, I wanted to know now! It’s like when you’re a kid, and it’s two days before your birthday, and you can’t help but search around the house for where your parents have hidden your presents.

  The Days Inn had donated an underused function room to serve as the Find Amy Dunne headquarters, and after I woke up from my one hour of sleep I headed down there. There was a bank of phones, some volunteers, a table of pastries and coffee, and several homeless people. Apparently word had gotten out that there was free food and shelter nonstop at the Days Inn function room.

  A moment after I walked in, Boney came up to me. “Hi Nick,” she said. “Just wanted to give you a little word of advice. See those women over there?”

  She pointed at two OK-looking women in their 40s.

  “Yeah, what about ‘em?”

  “Watch out for them. I think they might be crime victim groupies.”

  “Really? Such things exist?”

  “Oh yeah. They see a husband on TV who’s lost his wife, and they get a little too interested in ‘consoling’ him, if you know what I mean.”

  “You don’t say,” I said, and walked over to the two women. “’Sup ladies?” I said, and began working my Nick Dunne magic. I was minutes away from getting them back to the Elliotts’ suite for a three-way when I was cock-blocked by my mother’s friend Vicky, who had brought her grandkids over to help search for Amy and wanted to say hi.

  Grandkids. My mother had really wanted them. Go and I had seriously considered having a kid ourselves, but Mom passed away before we could pull the trigger. We still hadn’t completely ruled it out, though.

  As for having kids with Amy, once I realized how batshit crazy she was, there was no way it was happening. I did the math once: if you have a kid and then get divorced, and have to pay both alimony and child support every month, it comes to 143% of your total monthly income. You are literally better off being a homeless person. I secretly think a large proportion of homeless guys are divorced dudes with a kid who stopped trying to make money. That’s why homeless people often seem so carefree in spite of what would seem to be a miserable existence. To them, their life is way better than the alternative.

  After saying hi to Vicky, I tried to get back to the two fortysomethings to salvage whatever momentum still remained, but any hope of that was dashed when I was interrupted yet again, this time by Stucks Buckley, a local guy with a handlebar mustache who I’d known forever.

  “Cops are messin’ this search up,” Stucks said.

  “Good,” I said.

  “Whaddya mean, good?”

  “Uh…I mean Good Lord I hope they stop messing this up soon!”

  “A start would be investigating the Book Boys,” said Stucks.

  The Book Boys were a bunch of guys who up until recently had worked at the local book printing plant that printed college textbooks. But since kids in college don’t read anymore, bye bye book printing plant! Now the Book Boys spent their endless hours of unemployment drinking and harassing people. They were even worse than the Tube TV Boys.

  I thanked Stucks for his suggestion, and then headed out to check out the public searches the police had set up for today. There were three areas being searched: the woods, the “beach” area by the river, and the Karate Center. My plan was to show up at each spot for five minutes and then say I had to go because I was spending all day at one of the other spots, and I’d do that at all three spots. So I’d only have to spend fifteen minutes total at the searches and could take the rest of the day off and catch up on my TiVo.

  My plans changed, however, when I got to the first search site and saw who was searching. It was like every cute girl in Missouri had come out to the search, I guess ‘cause they’d identified with Amy. Game on.

  I rolled up to a cutie in Juicy short-shorts. “Search here often?” I said, and she laughed. Ended up getting her number. Boom. My writer skills were on full display as I produced some A-level pickup lines. The one that seemed to work best was, “Looks like my search just ended!” But my personal favorite was, “I’d like to search your woods.”

  I ended up getting 11 numbers, so in my book the woods search was a success. It was almost an off-the-charts success, because I nearly got this super-hot chick to come home with me with the line, “I still need to search my bedroom and I could really use some help.” But then her mom came to take her to high school volleyball practice. In retrospect, I should’ve worked the mom and tried for the three-way.

  Stupid, Nick. Stupid.

  AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE: September 15, 2010

  That’s it, it’s settled: we’re moving back to Nick’s hometown of Carthage, Missouri.

  Why? Well for one, it’s crazy cheap. And second, Nick’s mom and sister are there. Nick says he and his sister are going to start a business together, but he won’t tell me what it is. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why he’s being so secretive about it. It’s not like they’re gonna open a cat cafe or something.

  I had a bit of a panic attack today thinking about how I was gonna spin this move to my friends to avoid total loss of status. I thought of telling them we were moving to Paris. But I finally decided that I just wouldn’t tell them we were moving at all.

  We spent all afternoon and evening packing stuff into the U-Haul, which sounds like a pain, but I actually enjoy moving. There’s something therapeutic in packing up all your stuff and getting rid of what you don’t really need. But I didn’t tell Nick that I enjoyed it. Instead, I complained about it all day, just because I could.

  It had been a while since I’d asserted my wife power and gotten the heroin-like high that comes with it, so I suddenly insisted on taking our terrible old sofa with us. Nick argued with me about it for half an hour, which just made my ultimate victory that much more satisfying. Watching him struggle as he tried to lug a giant sofa by himself down two flights of stairs was the highlight of my day.

  NICK DUNNE: Three Days Gone

  The number of volunteers at Find Amy Dunne headquarters had been steadily increasing day after day. But this increase was almost entirely due to an increase in the number of homeless people. A police officer had now been assigned to watch over the pastry table because certain “volunteers” had been trying to fill shopping bags with pastries, and there’d even been a couple of fistfights when the jelly donuts were brought out. Also, someone had put up a sign on the wall saying, “Please shit only in the bathroom.”

  I went up to a couple of homeless guys wh
o were manning phones for the tip line. One of them was on the phone, talking very animatedly.

  “Did we get a good tip?” I asked, pointing at the guy.

  “Nah, he’s just talking to himself,” said the other guy. “He does that a lot.”

  My disposable phone rang once again. I really needed to shut off this ringer.

  “Hey, you wanna good tip?” said the homeless guy who’d been talking to himself. “Get a real phone.”

  Now that I’d shown my face at the volunteer center, I needed to get out of there and keep working on the treasure hunt. It was very important that I complete it before the clues got moved or thrown away. Because there was a present at the end! Who knows what it could be? Maybe it was an iPad Mini, or some Beats headphones!

  When I was safely out of the Days Inn and away from prying eyes, I opened up clue #2. When I’d first read it I was completely baffled, so I’d decided to sleep on it. Maybe now it would make more sense. I read it again:

  Clue 3 is in another place

  You took your coed to fuck:

  The house of the famous writer

  Who gave us Tom Sawyer and Huck!

  Huh? What the hell is she talking about? Who does she think I am, a fucking World War II codebreaker?

  Ok Nick, slow down, think through this. Another place you took your coed to fuck…oh she’s talking about the girl from my class I was fucking, the same girl as in the first clue! Ok, good. But how about this last part? The house of the famous writer who gave us Tom Sawyer and Huck…think, Nick, think. Oh! Why not Google it?

  I Googled “Tom Sawyer and Huck writer” and got the name “Mark Twain.” Who? Never heard of the guy. Shit, I am fucked. But then I spotted a picture of the Mark Twain House on the search results page. Hey, I know that place! I went there once because the girl I was fucking wanted to see it for some reason. Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, that’s it! That house is the solution to Clue 2! All hail Nick Dunne, super-genius!

  I hopped in the car and drove out to Hannibal, Missouri, where the Mark Twain House is located. As I drove, I wondered how Amy had known I’d had sex there with the girl from my class. But then I remembered Amy’s crazy. Note to men: if you’re going to marry a hot girl who’s crazy (i.e. a hot girl), at least make sure she has a job so she doesn’t have infinite time to follow you around.

  When I got to Hannibal, I remembered how odd the town was. The entire town was basically a tourist attraction devoted to Mark Twain, but it was staffed mostly by Mexicans. On the main street, a bunch of Mexicans dressed like Mark Twain walked up and down the street saying, “Hola! Me llamo Mark Twain! Quieres un photo conmigo?” There were also little 1800s-style businesses. Hmmmm, interesting: I didn’t realize the cobbler in 1840 was named Juan and watched soccer nonstop on Univision.

  I found the Mark Twain House, bought a ticket, and went down to the basement. We’d done it inside a gigantic wash basin, and underneath the basin I found an envelope. Like the envelope in my office, this one contained two notes. I opened up the first one.

  My love,

  I know I’ve been a total bitch to you since we got married. But that’s going to stop. Here’s one change I’m making immediately: I agree to your long-standing request that I pick up girls and bring them back for a three-way, and I won’t complain during the three-way when you’re really just hooking up with the other girl and not me.

  Xo,

  Amy

  She was once again using the treasure hunt to win me back. And in spite of myself, it was working. Because I was a guy, and guys are genetically programmed to buy into every promise a hot girl makes, no matter how unrealistic the promise actually is.

  I put the other note into my pocket without reading it. Trying to figure out another clue would be too much mental strain for one day.

  I headed back to Go’s, where I was staying semi-permanently because my house was still a crime scene. I was sitting on the couch watching TV when Go walked in, looking exhausted. When she saw me lounging on the couch, she didn’t look particularly pleased.

  “Hope you enjoyed your field trip,” she said.

  “Rough day?” I said.

  “You try running a cat cafe by yourself and managing 60 cat personalities. Plus, three of the cats called in sick, so we were shorthanded.”

  My non-disposable cellphone rang. I answered it.

  “Hey Nick, it’s Boney. Sorry to bother you so late, but there’s some new information I think you need to know.”

  “What is it?” I said, hoping it would involve Amy and the phrase “never coming back.”

  “Looks like Amy was afraid of you, Nick.”

  “Huh? Why do you say that?”

  “UPS delivered a package for Amy at your house today. We opened it up…and found a bazooka.”

  AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE: October 16, 2010

  Happy anniversary to me! It’s been one full month as a Missouri resident, and to mark the occasion Nick’s mom is hosting a housewarming party at our house. Even though we don’t know many people in town, there are a lot of guests, because Nick’s mom knows everyone from her days working in the mall at Landlinez. As I’m sure you recall, Landlinez was THE place for corded phones, and all the women in town went there because the phones on display had free long distance. (They never advertised this fact but I suspect it was intentional.) Like Nick, however, Nick’s mom lost her job when her industry died. Landlinez did briefly try to save itself by merging with Blackberry Barn, but I think we all know how that went.

  Once the housewarming party gets going and I start interacting with the guests, I’m quickly reminded why I never wanted to move to Missouri in the first place. These people have never seen civilization.

  “Honey, look, she’s got email on her phone!”

  “What the—is that an ice cream sandwich made with cookies???”

  “Holy crap, that phone’s got a camera on it!”

  “Honey, they get their TV through the wall!”

  “Well, I’ll be! There’s soda with no sugar in it!”

  Aside from increasing my hatred of humanity, the party initially goes well. Too well, in fact. So I start complaining to Nick about something stupid—I don’t even remember what—and then storm out of the house. Nick loses either way. If he comes after me he’s a doormat. And if he doesn’t, I get to give him crap about being inconsiderate.

  I’m really good at this whole wife thing.

  NICK DUNNE: Four Days Gone

  I met Boney and Gilpin for breakfast at IHOP because they wanted to talk again, and also because I’d figured out I could get free meals if we had our meetings at restaurants. Actually, I always ordered way more than I could eat and brought the rest home, so it was like getting two free meals.

  “Just because she bought a bazooka doesn’t mean she was afraid of me,” I said.

  “Uh, Nick, Amy didn’t just buy a bazooka,” said Boney. “She also bought nunchucks and body armor and a crossbow and a stun gun and a book called How to Protect Yourself From Your Husband Who Wants to Kill You.”

  “Huh. Well that explains that credit card charge from Nunchucks ‘N Things.”

  The waitress brought over our food. She clearly recognized me from the news coverage and thought I’d killed Amy. When she’d taken our order, she asked if I wanted the “Rooty Tooty Fresh ‘N Murder,” and then asked if I wanted my eggs “scrambled, fried, or murdered.”

  I looked down at my pancakes. Instead of the happy face in whipped cream they usually draw, there was a dead face with Xs where the eyes should be.

  “Nick, we also want to ask you about the big argument you had with Amy the night before she disappeared,” said Gilpin.

  “What argument?”

  “Your neighbor Noelle Hawthorne said she heard you arguing,” Gilpin said. “What were you arguing about?”

  “Uh…lobster karate.” It was the first two things I thought of.

  “That’s funny, Nick, because Noelle actually recorded the argument and it sounds like it’s about
something much different than lobster karate.” Gilpin pulled out a portable voice recorder and hit play. On the recording I could clearly be heard shouting, “I swear, Amy, I will kill you! And I’ll make it look like you were kidnapped and they’ll never find you and I’ll get off scot-free!”

  “Oh come on,” I said. “What couple doesn’t have that argument like twice a month?”

  “And where are you with the treasure hunt?” Boney said.

  I threw up my hands in frustration. “The clues are so harrrrrd,” I said. “The last one had a reference to this person ‘Mark Twain.’ They’re getting to the point where they’re basically unsolvable.”

  I told Boney and Gilpin I’d keep working on the treasure hunt, but that I’d forgotten to bring clue 3 to breakfast. Which was a lie. I’d brought it, but I just didn’t want them solving the clues before me and finding my Beats headphones.

  As soon as breakfast was over and Boney and Gilpin were gone, I pulled out the envelope containing clue 3. As usual, there were two notes inside. The first note read:

  Dearest husband,

  Fine, I will do anal.

  Xo,

  Amy

  Damn her! She knew my exact weaknesses! I told myself to stay strong and not give in, then opened the other note which contained the clue.

  Don’t you feel guilty for bringing her here?

  You must admit it seems a bit queer

  To do it doggystyle with your coed whore

  In the Idiotic Amy section of the local bookstore.

  After staring at this clue for a couple of hours, I’d finally figured out that it was most likely telling me to check out the Idiotic Amy section of the local bookstore. I drove over there and started going through the Idiotic Amy books page-by-page, looking for the next clue. The problem was, the store had just gotten in a huge shipment of Idiotic Amy books, because they were selling like hotcakes since Amy disappeared. An even bigger problem is that I was having another outbreak of massive diarrhea. This had started a few days ago when I’d eaten some Frito pie that one of the women volunteers at Find Amy headquarters had given me. I should’ve realized that Frito pie would cause diarrhea, since it basically is diarrhea.