by Chris Rogers
He jerked his wrists apart, twisted them, but the tape held tight, no give.-He had to do something, though, to cut Gary free.
He lunged forward, breaking John’s grip and shoving aside the tall bitch with the sexy voice. Then he turned and kicked her halfway across the room, liking the rush it gave him, wishing he was Chuck Norris or Bruce-fuckin-Lee. Stumbling, though, with his hands tied, throwing him off balance. He aimed for John-the-little-fucker’s nuts, and missed, kicked his thigh instead.
The tall bitch darted out of the way. She was dressed like the others, dark pants, sweatshirt, knit cap. Couldn’t see her face good. She grabbed a push broom out of the shadows, holding it by the bristle end, and jabbed it at him. Without his hands to fend off the blows, Sid could only dodge: the broom handle caught him under the ribs, again in the gut, and then a hard stiff jab in the soft spot right above his stomach knocked the wind out of him.
He managed to stay on his feet, but she swung the next blows overhand, the crazy bitch strong as a wild hog, coming down hard on his back and his neck and his head. He stumbled toward Gary, fell to one knee trying to think of something, anything, he could do to get Gary loose.
“Hang on, guy,” he muttered. “Well get out of this.” Saying it but not believing.
The next blow caught Sid above the ear, knocking him sideways, his head going dull inside like wet cotton.
“Bring him over here,” someone said. “Give him a front-row seat for the show starring his asshole buddy.”
Then they were tying him seated against a crate, arms stretched backward, the rope looped once around his neck. Sid shook his head, trying to clear it. Blood from a gash on his face spattered the floor. The pain in his head was like a firecracker exploding.
Someone grabbed his hair, jerked his head back.
“You remember little Celeste, don’t you, Sid?” The sexy voice, purring close at his ear. “Celeste’s uncle must have felt about as angry and helpless as you do right about now.”
Who the fuck was she talking about, Celeste?
“Remember tying her up, making her uncle watch while you beat and raped her?”
Celeste. The sweet-thang they’d took as a bonus. Well, it was no more than what the shithead old store owner deserved, taking his deposit to the bank early. Here they’d been watching the place all fuckin week, ready to rake in a big load, and barely got sixty fuckin dollars outta the fuckin till.
“We’re going to give your friend the same treatment you gave Celeste. You get to watch all the fun until your own turn comes.”
“No!” He lowered his head to butt her, but the rope yanked him back, choking him. “C’mon now, listen,” he gasped. “You got to let Gary go. He didn’t do anything, I was the one did the girl and beat the old man.”
“Celeste said it was both of you.”
“Well, she’s wrong, that’s all.”
She smoothed his hair back out of his face. Sid could see the other one across the room, wrapping black tape around the handle end of a sawed-off broomstick for better grip, the wood beaded with nail heads like the ones him and Gary kept under the car seat. Like the ones they’d used on the girl and the old storekeeper. Sid felt his bowels go weak.
He knew what was coming, and so would Gary. Gary would know better than anybody.
Even as a kid, Gary had been a looker, the girls twitching around him, old ladies patting him, saying what a fine big boy he was. When his ma died, Gary was nine, maybe ten. People around said the old man went home drunk one too many times and finally beat her to death, which was his right, her being his property and all. Then instead of looking for another wife, the old man started using Gary for a woman. Gary got real moody after that, and real quiet.
A few years later—Gary would have been twelve—his pop got in trouble and had to come up with a bunch of money to pay a debt. Gary said the old man’d acted weird all week, even when he was drunk, treating Gary nice and inviting guys from all over the county to a party that weekend. The old man’s friends, sure, but also guys he didn’t even know.
Turned out Gary was the entertainment, chained to a big staple his pop drove in the floor by the bed. Every man who came paid at the door, then used Gary any way he wanted.
Besides the sex part, they beat him. Beat him with everything within reach in that old house. Every few hours, the old man would shove Gary into the bathroom, tell him to clean himself up, and Gary would swallow a handful of water. But nobody bothered to feed him. Gary said he probably couldn’t have kept food down anyway.
It took two weeks for Gary to heal enough to go back to school and nearly a year for him to get up enough nerve to kill the old man. Then him and Sid lit out on their own. They’d been hanging out together ever since. Most of the time Gary was like anybody else, except maybe a bit more quiet. And sometimes he’d get real moody until he got a chance to use his big fists on some geezer, give out a little of what he’d taken on that nightmare weekend. One thing Gary still couldn’t stand, though, even for a minute, was being tied up.
The mousy woman with the screechy voice struck the first blow, a full roundhouse with the nail-studded broomstick across Gary’s ass as he lay slumped over the Miller Lite box. Gary’s head snapped up, back arched, his mouth and eyes opened wide with astonishment. Sid felt the pain as if it were his own, even as he saw the woman lower the broomstick to deliver a different sort of pain to Gary’s backside.
Sid’s rage exploded. He kicked the tall bitch in the knee, thinking maybe he heard a crack as his shoe connected with bone.
She cursed and stumbled, but recovered fast, whirling toward him, her own foot drawn back, and Sid suddenly remembered how they’d silenced the old man in the store. Through his fear, he saw John coming in from the side, the cocksucker not even as big as the woman but reaching out to stop her, and then the woman’s heavy black boot slammed into his mouth. His first feeling was sheer disbelief that anything could hurt so fuckin bad, then through a red haze of pain he felt teeth crumble on his tongue like peanuts.
Chapter Thirty-nine
“That’s enough.”
Sissy shook away the hand that had jerked her off balance. “It’s not half enough.” She looked down at Carlson’s bloody mouth and itched to land another blow. “It’s only a taste of what they did to Celeste and her uncle.”
“Nevertheless, its enough.” The woman’s voice was calm. Back off, the bright, hard eyes commanded, I’m taking charge here.
Sissy met the eyes with her own, her jaw muscles tensed with resolve. She would not be deterred from the Lord’s work.
Silence thrummed the air like torque on an E string.
“Hey!” From across the room. “This one here’s passed out. Passed right out.”
“He’s been out of it since we tied him up.” Sissy spat the words. Ignoring the ache of her own knee where Carlson had kicked her, she booted a carton out of her way. “This is no time to turn squeamish. We have a job to do here.”
“The job’s finished.” The bright hard eyes had not wavered. “We’ve done enough. Keep this up and we’re as bad as they are.”
“That’s not true.” Sissy fought the rage that made her want to lash out at her friends. They mustn’t turn on one another. Together, they were God’s Fist. “We administer justice, we don’t attack innocent people.”
“We’ve gone beyond justice.”
The worm with the bloody mouth moaned. Sissy’s foot twitched with the need to knock out the rest of his miserable teeth. “God’s justice is an eye for an eye. These two have only begun to pay.”
“They’ve paid and we’re finished. Let’s get out of here.”
“Hey, listen to me over here! This guy’s not breathing, I tell you. I think he’s dead, DEAD!”
“Don’t be silly.” Sissy was out of patience. “Of course he’s breathing.”
“He’s not. He’s not breathing!”
“You’re getting hysterical.” Sissy strode to Gary Ingles’ side, her injured knee smarting, a
nd laid a hand on his wrist. No pulse. On his throat. Nothing. “How long has he been like this?”
“I don’t know … I just … Oh, jeez, we’ve got to call an ambulance!”
The other one shoved Sissy aside and pressed a hand at Ingles’ throat. “Cut him loose.” Catching Ingles’ jaw, she leaned down and breathed into his mouth.
“Stop that,” Sissy said. “If he’s dead, so be it. Raymond Ramirez is dead, too. And how many others?”
“I said cut him loose!”
Sissy watched her bleeding-heart friend turn Ingles on his back and continue breathing for him.
“One of you take over,” the woman said between breaths, “while I try to start his heart.”
“Oh, jeez, I couldn’t. I can’t!” The whine rose another octave. “Let’s dial 911. Get someone here who knows what they’re doing.”
Sissy stepped back, disgusted. “Nobody’s calling 911. The man’s a killer and a rapist. He deserves to die.”
“Eh?” Sid Carlson roused from his own stupor and sputtered through his ruined mouth. “Wha’s goan on?”
“Shut up!” Sissy took three swift strides and kicked him between the eyes. It’d be fine with her if they were both dead.
Chapter Forty
Thursday, February 13
A rapid treble voice rang down the hallway as Dixie and Sarina approached the office of Ramón Alvarez, Graphologist.
“What are you telling me now?” he demanded. “First, you say you’re depressed, so small, and descending, almost weeping off the page. Now, you bounce all over, up and down, up and down.”
This time the graphologist was not yelling into his phone, but down at his desk, apparently at a page of handwriting. His door was propped open by a plastic basset hound that barked mechanically as Sarina’s steps vibrated the floor. When Dixie rapped on the door with her cane, Ramón waved them over to the desk.
“Look at this. This handwriting wants me to think a patient has been cured. Does this look cured to you?”
Though Dixie hadn’t a clue what he was talking about, she peered intently at the page of writing. Sarina had brought her rod puppet to work on, but appeared to find Ramón’s conundrum more interesting. She squeezed in behind Dixie.
The handwriting on the page bent left, then right, then left again. My time here has been very productive … read the first line. The irregular form had extra-large descending strokes on the y and p.
“This patient is not cured. Could I forgive myself if his mother took him from the hospital and then he tried to off himself again? I could not forgive that.”
“You can detect suicide tendencies in this writing?” Dixie was impressed. She hadn’t realized graphology was that precise.
“You don’t see it?” Ramón thumped the paper, exasperated. He pushed the first page aside to reveal another, this one with small, tightly formed letters that descended to almost nothing at the end of a sentence. The two styles didn’t seem as if they could be written by the same individual. “There!” He tapped the longest line with his stumpy finger.
“I don’t have your keen eye, Ramón. Did you get a chance to look at the samples I brought yesterday?”
“Oh!” He waggled his head side to side. “Another imposter!”
Shuffling his folders, he produced one with FLANNIGAN printed boldly on the front. He spread the folder open. The top fax was of the first card Joanna received from the stalker, with the note: GOD BLESS YOU, JOANNA. THE MESSAGE IN YOUR NEW MOVIE HAS GIVEN ME REASON TO LIVE.
“Such sweet words, ‘God bless you.’ But such angry strokes. Look!”
Dixie looked. Couldn’t see what he meant. He turned the page upside down, as he had the day before.
“Angry! You see these downstrokes? Heavy, made with great, angry pressure.” He fanned the remaining faxes. “And this one.”
The fax he indicated was the one that threatened Sarina: NO MORE MEN, JOANNA! IF YOU HAVEN’T THE STRENGTH TO PRESERVE YOUR PURITY, I MUST HELP YOU. YOUR DAUGHTER WILL SACRIFICE FOR YOUR SINS.
“Angry! But these—” He flipped through the remaining faxed greeting cards. “Do you see anger here?”
Dixie had to admit the writing on these pages was much more consistent, though the downstrokes still appeared heavier, slightly wider, than the cross strokes. She could understand the stalker being furious when writing the Sarina note, but not that first message. And if he was angry when writing the first one, what calmed him down for the next two?
“Could the writer be unstable? Mentally ill?”
Ramón waved the notion aside. “Who can say? Insecure? Yes. Hot-tempered? Definitely. But from this I would not say someone is nuts.”
“So what else can you tell me?”
Ramón lifted all five faxes from the file and fanned them like a deck of cards.
“He has—” The graphologist stopped and looked at Dixie. “You do realize I don’t mean ‘he’ precisely? We cannot determine sex or age from handwriting.”
“Yeah.” Dixie knew that from past cases, but Ramón always reminded her.
“He has no connections, which would fool some analysts, thinking he purposely printed the notes to disguise the writing. But this does not fool Ramón. I believe he always prints with no connections. To disguise the writing, he used his offhand.”
“Of hand?”
“Left, if he’s right-handed.” Dixie nodded, and Ramón continued. “No connections says he is a fussbudget. You know that word?”
“Yeah. He’s into details, wants everything perfect.”
“Good! Yes, he wants perfection, maybe is even a bit artistic. And look here, the capital letters in the middle of sentences. Do the words ‘message’ and ‘given’ have more importance to him than ‘reason’ or ‘live’? I think not. This one is under extreme emotional pressure. Or he is lying.”
Dixie examined the words. She had not actually thought of the letters as capitals, because they were only minutely larger than the others, but she could see now what Ramón meant.
“And this hook on the T-bar? Determined! This one will not be easily diverted from a cause.”
Dixie probed for ten more minutes, but only a few points Ramón made seemed useful. The words “movie” and “daughter” and “sacrifice” were written more carefully than others, and these words all appeared in the “angry” notes. Also in these two notes, the words were widely spaced, but the letters were crammed closely together, which Ramón considered a sign of the writer’s stress or tension.
When Dixie explained the difference between the faxed notes and the two cards Sarina had provided, Ramón’s interest instantly escalated.
“How did you trace the letters, young lady? There’s no seeing through this heavy card.”
“Simple. I scanned one of the messages. The last one was still around when I heard Mother tell Marty I’d be going with her to Houston. Like I don’t have a life! Then I extrapolated the letters I didn’t have and printed out the messages on a two-part form Marty’s secretary uses. The top page of the form has this transfer stuff on the back.”
“So then you positioned this transfer just right and traced over the letters with a—what, a ballpoint?” He ran his finger lightly over the red lettering.
“Pencil. Very lightly, otherwise it made indentions and the blue carbon, or whatever, showed through the red felt tip.” Sarina shrugged. “I had to practice a few times.”
“Then this pastose, this flowing ink, is your work?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“I will tell you something about yourself.” Ramón’s chin lifted with his usual conceit. He knew damn well he was good. “Without seeing your own handwriting, not even a signature, I say you are sensual. I say you are very imaginative, warm, and pleasure-loving. You enjoy intense experiences. An artist, and perhaps a bit self-indulgent?”
Sarina’s mouth dropped only a little. “Can you tell me if I’m going to make my first big movie before I’m eighteen? Spielberg did it before eighteen.”
Sarina breezed past the native specimens in the indoor botanical hall with scarcely a glance, spotting some stationery in the gift-shop window she wanted to pick up later for Joanna—probably to prove they’d been doing the things laid out for them. Most of the outdoor plants were winter skeletons. They walked three of the five miles of trails before the kid found something that actually interested her. A green froth of ancient ferns, live oak trees dipping their low-hanging, moss-laden branches near the water, a cool mist enveloping everything, the scene conveyed prehistoric earth like nothing Dixie had ever seen.
While Sarina sketched, Dixie found a rock to perch on. A pale sun promised to break through the overcast later, but at present the mild breeze over the water held an uncommonly sharp bite, even for February. Wriggling her butt to a more comfortable position on the rock, she powered her cell phone on. She’d resisted carrying the damn thing for months, but it’d proven so useful in the past few days, killing time in movie theaters and winter gardens, that she might actually kiss Belle Richards for insisting she anchor it to her belt. She dialed Brenda’s home phone number: no answer. Dixie had pretty much given up on buttonholing her friend about the Avenging Angels, but she did need to confirm their self-defense class at Ryan’s school later that morning. Glancing at her watch, she punched in the office number. Julie Colby answered, sounding rushed.
“Brenda phoned in a message earlier,” Julie said. “She has some personal errands to take care of before lunch—guess that includes your class. She really likes teaching those kids. I know she’ll miss it, now that you’re—well, you are getting that cast off soon, I hope. Can’t be comfortable.”