by Jude Hardin
“You boys own those bikes out there?” I said.
The six guys grunted and nodded.
“We got no use for Dan the Van Man,” I said.
“You’re a loser,” Rex said.
The sickly fellows rose from their stools. I hoped they were going to leave, but I knew they weren’t. They surrounded me and started ripping me to pieces with their teeth.
I woke up gasping for air. I switched the ignition on and lowered the electric windows all the way. A cool tropical breeze washed over me, and in a couple of minutes I no longer felt as though I might be having a cardiac event.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead with my shirt. I wanted a drink. I wanted to get drunk and go back to the little island and pass out for two days this time.
I looked at my watch. It was almost three o’clock. I’d slept for over an hour.
The light in the front room was still on, so I figured Dan and Veronica were still in the house.
“Excuse me, sir.”
A guy stuck his head in my passenger’s side window. He must have been sleeping in the park. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair and beard thunderstorm gray. I could smell the whiskey on his breath.
“What do you want?” I said.
“I was on my way to Miami to see my mother in the hospital, and my car broke down. It’s right down the street, just a few blocks away, but I can’t afford to get it fixed. I’m trying to get together enough money for a bus ticket, and I was wondering if you had a couple of dollars you could spare.”
I knew he was full of crap. Panhandlers are always having car trouble, and their mothers are usually in the hospital.
“You got a bottle?” I said.
“Me? No sir. I never touch the stuff.”
“I’ll give you ten bucks for one drink.”
“Show me the money,” he said.
“Show me the bottle.”
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a pint of bourbon. It was about three-quarters full. It was an off-brand. Cheap rotgut.
He stared at me with those glassy red eyes. “You said one drink, right?”
“I’ll give you twenty for the whole bottle,” I said.
“All the liquor stores are closed. I won’t be able to buy any more till in the morning.”
“You can take a big swig before you hand it over. And there’s a house not far from here where you can go crash for the night.”
“What kind of house?”
“The abandoned kind. There’s a guy staying there, but I’m sure he’ll welcome the company. And I’m sure he won’t mind sharing some of his booze.”
He uncapped the bottle and took a drink. “Let’s see the money,” he said.
I handed him a Twenty-dollar bill, and he handed me the bottle. I told him how to get to the squatter’s house on Drake Upton’s street. It was all I could do to keep from laughing. I knew how much the squatter would enjoy a houseguest. It was my way of paying the son of a bitch back for double-crossing me.
“You want to make another twenty?” I said.
“I’m not gay, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Trust me. That’s not what I’m thinking. I just want you to walk around the perimeter of that house over there and tell me if there are any windows you can see into.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah. I’ll give you half the money now and half when you get back.”
“I can do that.”
I gave him ten dollars. He looked both ways, crossed the street, and walked onto Dan the Van Man’s yard.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I uncapped the bottle and took a sip of the bourbon. It was harsh, like liquid fire. I wondered if the panhandler had emptied out the liquor and replaced it with paint thinner. I still had some coffee in my enormous cup from the convenience store, so I poured some of the whiskey in and swirled it around and gave it a try. It wasn’t bad. It was tolerable. I added some more of the rotgut and took a couple of sips and wished more than ever that I had a cigarette. It had been over two years since I’d smoked one, but at that moment my cravings were as bad as the day I quit. It never leaves you. Once an addict, always an addict.
I had a decent buzz going by the time the panhandler came back. He walked to my window and clocked me in the jaw with his fist. It was a sucker punch. It took me totally by surprise. I saw stars, and a wave of nausea washed over me. He reached in and tried to latch onto me, and I leaned over and opened the glove compartment and grabbed the .45 and pointed it at his face.
“Hit me again,” I said. “Go ahead, motherfucker.”
“You set me up,” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“There’s a fucking security camera over the door to the shed, around back. I didn’t notice the damn thing until it was too late. Now they got my face on film. I don’t like that shit.”
“I didn’t know,” I said.
“You going to keep pointing that gun at me?” he said.
“You going to punch me anymore?”
“No.”
I put the pistol away. He backed out of the window. We were both breathing hard.
“Did you see anything?” I said.
“Yeah, I saw plenty. I saw a young girl sucking some long-haired motherfucker’s balls. That’s what I saw. They had bright lights on, and a camera set up on a tripod. They’re making a goddamn pornographic movie over there.”
So that’s what they were up to. The fat guy in the SUV had delivered an actress to the hippie guy. She was probably a runaway, and they probably weren’t even paying her for what she was doing. They were probably calling it a screen test or some such bullshit, with the promise of more work if she performed well enough. It was a common scam. Hippie boy gets his rocks off for cheap, and he gets a new skin flick for his website to boot.
My daughter was about the same age as Veronica. It made me sick to think about it.
“You did good,” I said to the panhandler. “I’m going to give you a bonus for your troubles.”
I handed him a twenty dollar bill. Altogether I’d given him fifty bucks for some bad liquor and five minutes worth of surveillance work.
“Appreciate it,” he said. “Sorry I hit you. I guess I just lost my head there for a minute.”
“Yeah. All right, man. Take care.”
He scratched his beard. “Think I could have one more drink?”
I handed him the bottle. He took a drink and handed it back. He walked down the street and took a left, heading in the direction of the abandoned house I’d told him about.
Now I had something to work with. Dan the Van Man was into exploiting young women, and Pamela Wade was into Dan the Van Man. No telling what else they were into together. Phineas Carter might have gotten in their way at one point, and getting in their way might have gotten him killed.
I wanted to walk around to the back of the house and snap some pictures of Dan and Veronica in the act, but I didn’t want to get caught on the security camera. I decided it was pointless to wait around. I stashed the whiskey bottle in the glove compartment alongside the .45, and I was about to start my engine and go find a room for the night when someone pressed the cold steel barrel of a shotgun against my ear.
My left hand was on the steering wheel, and my right hand was on the ignition. I didn’t move.
“What are you doing?” the guy with the shotgun said.
“I’m not doing anything. I was just leaving.”
“Why were you snooping around my house a few minutes ago?”
“I wasn’t.”
“Well somebody sure as fuck was.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“Get out of the car,” he said. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
I got out of the car. I kept my hands where he could see them. It was Dan. Tight jeans, no shirt, no shoes. His face was tense, his eyes wild. He was high on something. Something other than pot. He pointed the shotgun at my chest. It was a twelve-gauge pump. One
squeeze of the trigger and my heart would be hamburger.
“There was a derelict walking around out here,” I said. “That’s who cased your house. He went that way.”
I didn’t really rat the old guy out. I pointed in the opposite direction of the way he’d gone.
“We’re going to go inside now and have a little talk,” Dan said. “I’ll look at the playback on my security camera, and if what you’re saying is true I’ll let you go. OK?”
“Do I have a choice?” I said.
“Not really.”
He motioned for me to walk toward the house, and he followed a few steps behind with the gun pointed at my back.
When we got to the front door, I said, “You want me to open it?”
“Yeah.”
I opened the door and walked in. The hard rock band AC/DC was blasting from a pair of Bose speakers. There were some professional photography lights on stands, and a camera on a tripod. Just like the panhandler had said. Veronica was sitting on the couch in a white terrycloth bathrobe. She was crying.
“It’s all right, baby,” Dan said. “I just need to talk to this asshole for a few minutes.”
“Can you take me home first?” she said.
“We’re not done with your audition yet. You’re not going to bail on me now, are you?”
“I don’t like guns. I want to go home.”
“Everything’s going to be all right,” Dan said. “You, asshole, sit on that chair over there.”
He motioned toward an armless wooden chair with padding on the seat. It was a dining-room chair, but he had it in front of a computer setup in the corner. I walked over and sat on it. The computer was turned off. I was facing the wall, but I could see Dan and Veronica in the monitor screen. I could see their reflections. Dan was still holding the shotgun. Veronica was still crying. I was still feeling a little dizzy and nauseated from being punched in the jaw. And from the lack of sleep and the cheap liquor. I felt lousy. I wasn’t in the mood for any of this bullshit.
I kept waiting for Dan to retrieve his security tape, and he kept not doing it. Those bugged-out, bloodshot eyes of his made me nervous.
“Open that suitcase over there,” Dan said to Veronica.
“What?”
“Just do it.”
Veronica got up and walked to the other side of the sofa. There was a beat-up brown leather suitcase placed decoratively beside the end table. There were some old books on top of the table, and some distressed maps or nautical charts or something in the bin beneath it. Veronica picked up the suitcase and set it on the couch.
“This?” she said.
“Yeah. Open it.”
She opened it. “Oh my god,” she said.
The suitcase was full of sex equipment. Like the drawer under the bed on Jim Ballard’s boat.
“Take one of those scarves and tie asshole’s hands behind his back,” Dan said.
“What are you going to do?”
That’s when Dan lost it. His demeanor changed abruptly. In the monitor screen, I saw him walk over and slap Veronica in the face with his palm. He hit her hard. It was loud. It sounded like a handclap.
“Did I stutter, bitch? Now take one of those fucking scarves and tie asshole’s hands behind his back like I fucking told you to.”
I wanted to wring his neck. “I thought you were going to look at your security video and then let me go,” I said.
“Shut the fuck up.”
I didn’t know what Dan had in mind, but he was hyped up on something, and I didn’t trust him one bit with that shotgun. He looked like the kind of guy who might kill Veronica and me and then kill himself.
“Asshole, turn the chair around this way,” he said.
I got up and turned my chair around 180 degrees. I sat back down. Now I was facing the front of the room. Veronica walked around and tied my wrists behind my back with a black scarf.
“Now take his shoes and socks off,” Dan said. He hesitated for a moment. “And then his pants and underwear.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Veronica removed my shoes and socks. Then, with a series of quick, successive jerks, she managed to yank my pants and underwear past the chair seat and off my legs. Now I was naked from the waist down.
“You’re making a big fucking mistake,” I said, loud enough to be heard above the stereo. “You better let me go. Now. People are going to be looking for me. My car’s right outside.”
“Tie his ankles to the legs of the chair,” Dan said.
Veronica took two more scarves from the suitcase and tied my ankles to the legs of the chair. In the meantime, Dan repositioned the light stands and the camera. He got everything the way he wanted it, and then he pulled a ball gag out of the suitcase and strapped it around my head. He picked up the shotgun again.
“Now maybe you’ll shut the fuck up,” he said. He turned to Veronica. “Get him hard.”
“You’re fucking crazy, aren’t you?” she said. “You’re fucking insane.”
“You better get that motherfucker’s dick hard before I blow your goddamn brains all over this room.”
Veronica locked eyes with the madman. Her lips were trembling. I could tell she wanted to say something, but she didn’t. She knelt down in front of me and started raking her fingers along the inside of my thighs. Inexplicably, I felt myself starting to get aroused. There was nothing sexy about any of it. It was a physiological response to a stimulus, nothing more and nothing less. I never thought it was possible for a man to be raped by a woman, but now I knew it was. Veronica did some things with her tongue, and before long I had a full-fledged erection.
Dan was standing behind the camera. He’d leaned the twelve-gauge against the sofa. “Fuck him,” he said.
Veronica didn’t want this any more than I did. In a way, we were both being raped. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks as she disrobed and slid warmly and wetly on top of me.
Threads of drool dangled from the corners of my mouth. The ball gag stimulated salivation, and at the same time made it difficult to swallow. Dan had taken the camera off the tripod and was walking around with it now, getting some close shots of our faces and some close shots of our engorged and engaged genitals.
I tried to say, You’re going to die, you son of a bitch, but it came out sounding like incomprehensible gibberish. Dan just laughed at me.
“What are you mad about?” he said. “You’re getting laid, aren’t you? You should be paying me for this shit.”
Veronica kept gliding gently up and down on me. She was young and wet and tight, and for a second I thought I was going to come. I fought it, and eventually the sensation subsided.
Dan was lying on the floor with the camera angled up at us. He was laughing. The motherfucker was actually laughing. He was flying high and having a good time at our expense.
“That’s nice,” he said. “Keep grinding on it, baby.”
Veronica was moaning. She wrapped her arms around me and leaned in close.
She whispered in my ear. “I tied a slipknot,” she said.
When Dan got up and walked back to the tripod, she reached around and tugged on the scarf securing my wrists. I felt it loosen. In a single fluid motion, I wriggled free and pushed Veronica out of the way and tilted the chair back and slipped out of the ankle restraints. Dan went for the shotgun. As his right hand gripped the stock, I clobbered him over the head with the chair I’d been tied to. A six-inch gash opened on the top of his skull.
He collapsed to the floor with a thud. I thought he was finished, but whatever drug he’d taken somehow kept him animated. He rose and swung at me wildly, and one of the punches caught my left eye. I staggered back. I was dazed. He went for the shotgun again. He picked it up and crunched a shell into the chamber. He wanted to shoot me, but his eyes weren’t tracking right. They were glazed and unfocused. His vision had been affected by the blow to the head.
Bright red blood trickled down his face in streams. I couldn’t believe he was still standing. He wobb
led and squinted and brought the barrel of the gun up level with my chest. A split second before he squeezed the trigger and blew a hole the size of a saucer in the opposite wall, I dove to my left and went crashing into one of the light stands. The stand toppled and the bulb exploded. It probably made a hell of a noise, but I didn’t hear any of it. The shotgun blast had deafened me.
Dan one-handedly jacked another shell into the chamber. He started looking around the room, as if he didn’t quite know where he was. Then it came to him. He snapped out of it. An expression of awareness washed over his face. He turned the gun on me again.
Before he got the barrel lined up, before he pulled the trigger and blasted me to mincemeat, Veronica rushed in and stabbed him in the belly with a steak knife. She must have gone to the kitchen while Dan and I were busy trying to kill each other.
Dan nonchalantly glanced down at the knife handle sticking out of his gut. As if it were a minor annoyance. A beesting or something. Maybe he couldn’t feel the pain, but the damage had been done. He coughed, and a thick wad of blood splattered on the floor in front of him. He dropped to his knees. His face looked the way a pizza looks before you throw the cheese on it and shove it into the oven. White and doughy and red all over. He aimed and fired at Veronica, and in an instant the left side of her head disappeared in a spray of blood and flesh and bone. She fell backward, dead before she hit the couch.
Dan was still alive, but he didn’t have the strength or presence of mind to pump the shotgun again. He pointed it at my naked crotch and squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened. I ran forward and kicked him in the nose with the ball of my foot. I couldn’t hear anything, but I felt the crunch. That was all it took. His eyes rolled back and he toppled forward.
His body slapped flush against the hardwood floor, pushing the steak knife deeper into his abdomen. The pointy end of the blade broke through the skin on his back, exposing about two inches of the blood-soaked steel.
I stood there heaving. The room looked like a slaughterhouse. I tore off the ball gag and tossed it aside. My eyeballs throbbed with every heartbeat, and my ears felt as though someone had stuffed wet rags into them. I could only faintly make out the heavy drums and guitars of Iron Maiden’s “Fear of the Dark” coming from the stereo speakers. I walked over and yanked the plug out of the wall. Now there was silence, except for the constant ringing in my head. I found my pants and underwear and shoes and socks. I got dressed and threw Dan’s camera on the floor and stomped it to pieces, and then I went to the garage and got my prepaid cell phone out of the van. The battery was dead. I walked back through the house and out the front door. I stopped and vomited on the lawn, and then I staggered across the street and got in my car and drove away from there as fast as I could.