The first tremors of a muscle cramp pierced his palm. He groaned, held still. And willed the hand to relax. The air through his nose was burning now.
It took a few moments, but he held off the cramp and went back to work. He opened the blade a quarter of the way, held it there. But as he readied himself, the oil of his sweat broke the connection and the blade shut.
He cursed and rearranged the knife in his hand. He pinched the steel, spreading it a quarter, then a third of the way open. His hand beginning to quiver slightly. He held the blade open against the pressure of its spring, trying to find a better purchase on the slick metal. But the butt of the casing slipped from his groin, and the knife sliced shut on the meat of his thumb.
He dragged in a gallon of air.
Squeezed his eyes. He touched a finger to his thumb and could feel the lid of flesh connected by only a flap of skin. A bright burn there.
But at least, Thorn told himself, breathing hard, at least the blade had not snapped all the way closed.
He twisted his thumb around and jammed the wounded flesh against the sting of the blade and got it, got it all the way open.
Dexterity, he thought, the mother of extraction.
Yeah, Yuk it up. Give him a minute to coagulate his thoughts and he’d come up with a dozen of those. Funny guy, Thorn. The guy with a missing thumb tip. Guy with a very sloppy vaccination scar. The goddamn Houdini of linoleum. Hadn’t seen a roll yet that could keep that man trapped.
Against his leg he pressed the cap of his thumb back into place. Grimacing. The blood draining from his consciousness. The shed went away, came back. He held the thumb hard against his thigh, trying to focus on the corrugated aluminum ceiling, the hush of the rain.
When the pain began to dwindle, Thorn took hold of the knife again, gripped it hard, and stabbed the blade up, then wiggled it through each layer of the linoleum. Rocking it till the blade tip surfaced through the burlap backing. He forced it forward and cut what felt like a slow, wavering line.
He lifted his head for a look. It was less than an inch. No, even less than that. He’d just put a new edge on the blade the day before. He knew it would do the job. An inch an hour perhaps. But it would work.
He wasn’t at all sure of the time anymore. After Ozzie had left, Thorn might have passed out for a while. He might have drifted for hours. It could be three in the morning. The way his head felt, the soreness in his throat, hell, by now it might even be July.
He cut. In a while he lifted his head again to check the progress. The gash was still less than an inch. It had taken a decade.
He needed to make a circle large enough to reach his hand through. Cut the nylon cord. It was a simple operation. Didn’t take much subtlety. Just the stamina to saw the blade up and down, pushing it forward with all the force he could summon.
Thorn eased his head back down. At least he didn’t feel the hurt in his left shoulder or his thumb anymore. That, he supposed, would come later. When he tried to manage what he would have to manage when he was out of the roll of linoleum. If he got out. If he got out before Ozzie returned. Thorn jammed that blade ahead.
“Mr. Cousins do that to your face?” Roger asked her.
“What?” Darcy said. “You think I arrived this way?”
She couldn’t bring her teeth together. An eye-clamping ache when they touched. Her jaw was probably broken. She lay and looked out the window, at the tangled arteries of lightning printed bright against the black. Then gone. The thunder echoing down the long canyons of the atmosphere. Even with the windows shut, wind stirred the lace curtains.
Roger stood at the foot of her bed, glanced out the window as a stroke of lightning hit nearby, the shock waves rattling the glass.
“He’ll be back soon.” Roger took a seat in an oak rocker next to the window. “I’ll talk to him,” he said. “You need a doctor.” He swallowed, looking at her.
Roger wore a white polo shirt, the tail outside his faded jeans. No watch or jewelry. He looked like he was halfway down a slide into Keys sloppiness. He kept bringing his eyes back to her chin, her right cheek.
“You want a drink, vodka, anything?”
“You don’t need to good-cop me,” she said. “I don’t have anything to hide.”
“I’m not doing that,” he said. “I’m concerned about you, is all.”
Darcy nodded her eyes.
Outside, lightning. And the sky blew apart and compacted into the vacuum just as fast. It boomed. Tidal waves of air pounding the shore of the solid world. The tuning fork inside her began to hum.
Roger said, “He gets home, he’ll be drunk. I’ll see he goes right to bed. His own bed.”
“You’re telling me,” she said, “you’re going to stage a coup?”
Roger sat in the leather wingback by the window.
He said, “I’m not going to let him hurt you anymore. That’s all. I draw a line there.”
“A good American male,” she said around the swelling in her mouth, “protecting their women. Trying to do what’s right.”
Roger said nothing. Looking at her, waiting.
She said, “You ever meet Gaeton Richards?”
He looked at her carefully.
“It’s possible,” he said. “I may have.”
“Used to work for Benny.”
“All right,” he said. “What about him?”
“He was a good American,” she said. “Trying to do right.”
“I have no reason to doubt that.”
Darcy said, “He was the man, if something happened to you at two in the morning, a heart attack or just a bad dream, a suspicious sound outside, you knew you could call him up, he’d come. Always. Every time. A neighbor, a man down the street. Even if you were a stranger. He’d come. He was that kind of person.”
Roger said, “Maybe you shouldn’t be telling me this.”
“People think they can do things alone,” Darcy said. “They think they’re braver than they really are, and then they cut themselves off from people because they think they’ve got the gristle, the smarts, they can do it all alone. All of it.
“They don’t think anybody would help them anyway. They’ve lost their faith in humanity, maybe. Everybody’s a scofflaw, driving through red lights. After a while you begin to think you’re the one doing wrong if you stop and obey. So, it happens, you get cut off. You think you got to do it all by yourself.”
“You’re into something,” Roger said, “in over your head.”
She nodded that she was. Way over.
“And I assume you’re not who Mr. Cousins thinks you are.”
“I’m not who anybody thinks I am,” she said. “I’m like a soul got caught migrating, trapped between bodies. Just out here floating. Waiting for something to open up.”
Roger smiled. He looked out at the lightning, at the coconut palm tossing just outside the window. He said, “I think I know how you feel.”
Darcy said, “You think you can control him? Benny.”
“Sure,” he said. “He’s just a short, fat, bald guy in a pirate suit.”
Thorn hadn’t made a circle. Closer to a V. But hell, it was even better. A flap to get his hand through. Just needed one side of it a couple of inches longer. So the flap would flap.
A little earlier the electricity had blinked on and off. Then off. But that didn’t matter. He was doing this by feel now. He knew it would only be another minute or so—that is, if his hand didn’t cramp up anymore.
When the lock on the door rattled and clicked open, Thorn had his hand outside the flap, trying to pry the opening wider. At the noise he jerked it back inside. Twisted, rocked, twisted again, and got the roll moving and brought it back around. He was facing the cement again. His friends the ants.
Ozzie came inside and stamped his feet. Going b-r-r-r-r.
He pulled the string on the light, pulled it several times.
“Figures,” he said. “Like every other fucking thing tonight.”
Thorn grip
ped the knife hard. The way he felt, all the juice he had in his blood at the moment, he might just be able to levitate to a standing position, take a breath deep enough to break the nylon cord; he’d spring out, slash Ozzie’s throat.
After the hours listening to that storm, breathing through his nose, his thumb aching, his shoulder. After all that, and thinking about Darcy, then making himself not think about her, but the images bubbling back up, scenes of her inside that house. Of all those men. Of Benny. After all that, Thorn could feel the lava backing up inside. Ready to spew. He held the knife at the flap, the point pressed against the concrete.
“There’s a goddamn bulb around here somewhere,” Ozzie said.
He was rummaging through the boxes on the workbench.
“I want to see your face when I do you, dingleberry,” he said. “That’s half the fucking fun.”
Ozzie searched for another minute, then came over to Thorn.
“Well, shit,” he said. “I can’t find it.”
He stepped over to the door and kicked it open. The cool air flooding in. Some dawnlight in the wet trees.
He felt Ozzie sit on the roll, around the center of his spine. Then the barrel pressing against the back of his skull.
“You know, lifeguard, almost nothing works out like you expect. No matter what you do. It doesn’t matter who you bribe, who you shoot, how much you think things out. It’s like there’s always some little thing, something looking to trip you up.”
Thorn’s forehead was pressing into the cement, a rough grit embedding in his flesh. The pressure of the barrel increasing.
“I handed out hundred-dollar bills tonight like they was nickels. Bought some fat cats color TV sets so I’d be sure to get treated right in the talent judging.”
Ozzie took the gun away, rocked the linoleum back a quarter turn. The flap rising from the floor.
He said, “I figured it was the Keys and everybody was bribing everybody else. But the fuck of it is, I must’ve spent a couple thousand dollars and sang my heart out and still came in second goddamn place.”
Ozzie rose, stepped outside the shed, and came back in with a two-foot trophy. He set it beside Thorn’s face and revolved the linoleum roll so he could see. It was a silver cup on a wood pedestal, sparkling with rain.
Thorn tugged on the inside of the flap, bringing it flush. His hand poised behind it.
The nylon cord was a few inches below the flap. If he could slide his hand out, he could saw it in half and spin to his right and roll free. It might take a half a minute. Or two minutes. Either way, Ozzie could simply stand back, aim, and fire.
Ozzie had his right foot up on the roll like a hunter posing with his slaughtered tiger. Thorn’s weight pressed against his good shoulder.
“The goddamn fix was in,” Ozzie said. “Some high school twat played the banjo and sang some piss-poor bluegrass, she got the first-place trophy. Must’ve been the goddamn granddaughter of some Bubba or something.” He sighed, went over to the door, and looked out at the rising light. He said, “It don’t matter really. ’Cause I took down the little twat’s name and I’m gonna pay her a call when it gets light this morning. See what she’d take for that thing.”
Ozzie stooped beside him, brought the linoleum around so Thorn was on his back. Ozzie unwrapped the duct tape. Up close, Thorn could smell the whiskey, see in the vague light Ozzie’s exhausted face.
“Wondered why you was so fucking quiet.”
Thorn worked his jaw. The flap fully exposed now.
Ozzie planted his bottom on the roll, looked at Thorn, and said, “Nothing ever happens how you think, does it, lifeguard?”
The flap was under his right thigh. Thorn hesitated, then began to peel back the three layers of the V, straining, trying to keep his face calm.
“Like you,” Ozzie said. “You started off today thinking you was just going to live and live and live. Playing house with my girl friend, tickling her goodies. All that shit. You had no way to know when you woke up this morning that Ozzie Hardison was going to be sitting on your stomach tonight, pointing a big-assed pistol in your face. Now did you?”
Thorn plunged the Buck knife into the back of Ozzie’s thigh. Got it in deep and stirred it around in there. Minced the guy’s hamstring pretty good. He felt the blood running down his hand, his wrist, as Ozzie lurched to his feet, howling. His big-assed pistol clattered on the cement just a foot from Thorn’s face.
“That’s Benny,” Roger said. He rose from the chair.
In the dawn now. Dawn outside, dawn over the whole planet.
He opened her door, stepped out into the black hallway, and said, “I’ll just put him to bed. Then call you a doctor.” He left.
Darcy closed her eyes, sailed off. Ionospheric swoops. Across the dark plateaus of the upper atmosphere, cloudy summits. In a misty half sleep, drifting high and weightless inside herself.
Maybe this was the dark she’d pictured. The inky mist. If that’s what it was, then it wasn’t so bad. Nothing to fear. She could feel the winds up here, cool and rich. Reviving something in her, some sweet song that she’d heard long ago and forgotten.
Then a gunshot roared in the dark.
It came from far down below. Down on the earth, where bodies were weighted with bone and meat. Down where footsteps echoed through the dark hallways like excited hearts.
33
Ozzie fell back into the rakes and shovels. He howled.
Thorn watched him writhing there for a moment, then jammed his hand through the flap, widening it until he could reach his blade to the nylon cord. He began to saw at it.
Ozzie was struggling back to his feet. Through his tears he began to hobble across the floor. Bent over. Looked like the one leg wasn’t working at all. Might never work. He dragged it, extending his right hand for the silenced .38, while he clutched the back of his thigh with his left.
Thorn was only halfway through the strands of the cord. Going slower than he’d expected. Ozzie stooped beside him, reaching out with a spastic hand for the pistol. Then he came down to his knees, sliding his hand across the cement for the pistol.
Rolling right, Thorn brought the linoleum on top of Ozzie’s hand, pinning it against the floor. He craned his arm around and slashed the Buck knife back at Ozzie’s arm, nicked him deep on the wrist. He screamed. And Thorn rolled off his hand.
“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” Ozzie fell onto his butt and dragged himself backwards over to the rakes and hoes, moaning. His eyes groggy, head sagging. He sat there and watched Thorn’s hand sawing at the cord.
In another minute the cord parted and dropped away. But the sticky backing on the linoleum held it shut.
“You’re still caught, dingleberry,” Ozzie said, faintly. “Har, har.”
Thorn rocked and turned against the grain of the roll, and the tacky glue crackled, loosened, and opened up. And quickly he uncoiled himself, coming to rest almost at Ozzie’s feet.
“You stuck me, goddamn you,” Ozzie said. His voice furry, his eyes holding on by a wisp.
“Yeah, I did,” Thorn said, “and I enjoyed it.” He stood up cautiously. He retrieved Ozzie’s pistol and put it under his belt.
“Get me to the hospital,” Ozzie said.
“Yeah, sure,” Thorn said. “Right away.”
“I’ll bleed to death, you leave me like this.”
“Speak to the wolves. Tell ’em you’re not ready. I hear they’re very understanding.”
Ozzie squinted at Thorn.
He hauled Ozzie to his feet and tied his hands behind him with the nylon cord. Tied the loose end to the leg of the heavy workbench. He moved a wooden keg over so Ozzie could sit.
Maybe while Thorn was gone, Ozzie would reflect on what he’d done. Recognize his sinfulness. Ask for forgiveness. Find grace. And when Thorn returned for him, the shed might be suffused with heavenly light.
But probably not. It looked like the redneck was just going to pass out.
Thorn headed for Darcy’s trailer. His
left arm was hanging dead. He passed a grandmother walking her white poodle. Nodded hello to her. She gasped, and her dog stood on its hind legs and performed a pirouette for Thorn. He looked down and saw he was clutching the knife in his right hand, blood to his forearm.
“Been cleaning a barracuda,” he said. “Got more to do.”
Darcy’s door was unlocked. It took only a minute to find the Browning Baby in her bedside table. He could hear the whoops and trills of a Bugs Bunny cartoon coming from the trailer next door. It was almost nine. Saturday.
He slipped the Browning into his front pocket. And jogged back across the trailer park to Ozzie’s house, where he found Papa John’s white pickup. The keys were in the ignition. Ozzie’s pirate hat on the passenger seat. His guitar, a blue bandanna, a rubber buccaneer’s sword. And two more handguns. A .357 magnum. And a ten-millimeter Colt.
When Thorn arrived at his house, Jack Higby was running the Lakowski planer. He looked up from the machine and did a double take. Garfunkel loped over as Thorn was getting down from the truck. The dog wedged its nose into Thorn’s crotch, lifted.
“The hell happened to you, boy?” Jack had hustled over and taken Thorn by the right arm, trying to help him walk. But Thorn shrugged him off.
“Call Sugarman,” he said. “Tell him to meet me at Benny Cousins’s house.”
Jack was staring at the three pistols Thorn carried in his hand. The other one wedged in his belt.
“I just saw Sugar out on the highway,” Jack said, absently. “Out there with every cop and state trooper in the county. Blocking off half the road for the parade.”
“Then call the station, Jack,” Thorn said as he boarded the Heart Pounder. “Have them radio Sugar. Do it quick.”
He went down into the cabin, heard Jack’s pickup start up as he pulled open his tackle drawer and scooped out a handful of plugs. Careful of the treble hooks, he deposited a half dozen of them in the right pocket of his leather flight jacket. He put the jacket on. Four pistols and a pocketful of plugs. He guessed that was enough firepower.
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