We thank him, and he goes back to whatever the hell it is bar-tenders do when they’re not delivering chicken wings and messages for the local mobsters.
Jack picks up a wing and takes a bite, winces, then drops it back on the pile. “Fucking loose tooth. .” He runs a finger around the inside of his mouth.
Henry glares at him. “Don’t put it back on the plate! You think we want to eat stuff with your spit on it?”
Thank God, Jack has enough brains to keep his big mouth shut this time as he picks the wing up and dumps it in the ashtray instead.
“I should fucking think so,” says Henry, but he doesn’t help himself to the pile. Not after spending so long glued to the toilet last night — blaming the breakfast burrito Jack bought him. So that means all the wings are mine. Which is cool.
I’m halfway through them when the front door opens and a big guy in a black and yellow Hawkeyes jacket saunters into the bar and straight over to our table.
“One of you guys called Henry?” He’s got that strange Iowa accent, the one that goes up and down in the middle of sentences for no reason.
Henry nods at him. The guy looks like he’s in his mid forties, getting a bit heavy round the middle, but he carries himself with the same kind of quiet violence you see in grizzly bears. He sits at the table and helps himself to a wing — stripping the meat off the bones as the barman hurries over with a pint of beer and a bottle of hot sauce.
“Right,” says the guy when Mr Short-and-Bald goes away again, “I understand you need a favour, Henry.”
“For Mr Jones. Yes.”
“What d’you need?”
“Winnebago — it’s got Polk County plates with a little soldier on them.”
“Uh-huh,” the guy nods and another wing vanishes. “National Guard plates — it’s an infantry man, couple of planes in the background?”
I nod. “I didn’t get the registration on account of our car exploding, but it’s something like ‘Swooner’ or ‘Stoner’?”
He shakes his head. “Won’t be ‘Stoner’, we got laws against people putting disrespectful shit like that on their licence plates.”
“OK,” says Henry, “so we’re looking for a brown Winnebago that belongs to the National Guard?”
“Nope.” The guy takes the top off the hot sauce and splashes it over the remaining chicken wings. “Them there’s vanity plates. Don’t cost that much. If you’re a fire fighter, you can buy fire fighter plates. If you’re a war veteran you can buy war veteran plates. For the ones with the little soldier on them, you got to be in the National Guard. You got to get your unit commander to certify you’re still on active duty every year you got those plates on your vehicle.”
Henry leans forwards. “We need an address.”
“Not going to be easy. Half the state’s in the Guard. Iowa’s big on doing its patriotic duty.” Another wing gets turned into bones, then the guy downs his beer, belches, and says, “Stay here.”
We watch him leave.
Jack scowls at the bar, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “I still say we should go to the Feds with this.”
That gets him ‘the look’ from Henry.
“No.”
“But — ”
“I have to tell you no again,” says Henry, “I’m going to break your arm.” He finishes his bourbon and places the glass carefully on the tabletop. “I’m sick of you whining and moaning and not doing what you’re fuckin’ told. You want to live to see New York again? You keep your fuckin’ mouth shut.”
Jack looks at him, then at me. For a moment I think he’s about to say something, but he doesn’t. He does what he’s told. Looks like he’s finally hearing that little voice. This time he’s not going to poke the bear.
Which is just as well. Jack’s a big bastard and I don’t fancy having to drag his dead body out into the woods to bury it.
Chapter 14
The middle of nowhere
Laura comes back to life with a cough, only she’s still got the gag in her mouth, so it comes out like a dry retch. Everything hurts — arms, head, chest. . Her left leg stings and throbs. . and it takes her a moment to remember why. To remember where she is and just how fucked up her world has become.
She’s sitting in the driving seat of an ancient, long-dead car, both wrists secured to the steering wheel with more cable-ties. She’s seat-belted in, but just in case that’s not enough, the Bastard has chained her to the seat as well.
The throbbing pain in her left leg is getting worse, and she looks down to see her jeans stained with blood.
It’s all coming back to her — the scrabble of the dog behind her, paws on mud getting closer. A sudden moment of silence as it leaps, and then the pain as it sinks its teeth into her leg, whipping its head back and forth, tearing out chunks of meat. The sound of her own muffled screams. And then the Bastard’s there, hauling the dog off her, so he can punch and kick her instead. She can barely see out of her right eye now.
Laura tries not to cry. She knows it isn’t going to help. But it’s no use — she’s sore, miles from home, scared, bleeding, and she wants her mom and dad so badly. .
She cries till there’s nothing left but dry heaving sobs, then even they subside and she’s left feeling hollow and empty.
From where she’s sitting she can see that the car she’s in is one of about a dozen abandoned in a field, all of them axle-deep in the knee-high grass looking like they haven’t moved in years. Some have more glass than others, but they’re all older models, stained with rust. A graveyard for automobiles.
One of the girls from the Winnebago is chained up in an ancient Volvo. Next to that there’s someone else in a Volkswagen Beetle. Another one slumps in a rusty Dodge pickup. . There’s an old Ford sitting on flat tyres on the other side — the girl in that one’s dead. Her head hangs to the side, eyes open and glassy, flies clustering around the stumps where her arms used to be. Oh, Jesus.
Laura can’t twist round very far, not with her hands strapped to the steering wheel, but she can see other cars in the rear-view mirror. At least three of them have dead women in them. There’s only one girl still alive back there, chained to the seat of a rusty Cadillac. She’s nodding. Back and forth, and back and forth, like she’s listening to heavy metal, but Laura gets the feeling there’s something broken inside the girl’s head. Something that snapped when her arms were cut off.
The girl looks up and stares at Laura. Silently calling for help.
As if Laura can do anything with her torn-up leg and battered body. Like she’s not chained to some crappy old car in the middle of a field waiting for the Bastard to come back and hack off her fucking arms! She can feel tears start to prick at the corner of her eyes again, but this time they’re tears of frustration and rage as she tries to rip the steering wheel off the dashboard.
Laura doesn’t know how much time has passed, but the sun is still on its long, slow haul up into the clear blue sky when she hears the warning drone of the Bastard’s Winnebago. He must have been away somewhere, spreading his own brand of happy fucking sunshine.
A door slams and cheerful whistling fills the air, another bloody hymn. Two minutes later, he turns up in the automobile graveyard, a big shit-eating smile on his face and a girl over his shoulder. Now he has five again.
He stops and beams at them all, chained in their rusty cars. “Rejoice!” he says. “Rejoice for now we are ready to spread the Lord our God’s word!” And then he launches into a crackly baritone, singing about how great Jesus is and how he’s going to save them all in the end.
But Laura gets the feeling any help from the Lord is going to come too late to do them any damn good. Unless He smites the Bastard down with a big bolt of lightning right now.
The Bastard comes to the end of his uplifting hymn and gives them a salute, before carrying his new girl into a long, low barn that sits at the side of the field. There’s no door, just a hole into the darkness inside.
The singing starts again, but this time
it’s all distorted — echoing inside the barn.
And then there’s screaming. High-pitched, terrified screaming.
Chapter 15
The Fish Trap Lounge, Des Moines
It’s been nearly an hour and we’ve still not heard anything from the big guy in the Hawkeyes jacket. Henry’s on his third beer with a bourbon chaser. Jack’s nursing a grudge and a soda, staring up at a rerun of some baseball game on a crappy little television above the bar. And I’m giving myself an ulcer from drinking way too much coffee.
The bar-tender comes round again to see if we want anything, and Henry goes for another beer, even though it’s only eleven in the morning.
“Take it easy,” I say when the guy’s gone away again, “you’re going to be shit-faced by lunchtime.”
Henry looks at me. “We’re not talking about this again.”
“I’m just saying, is all.”
“Yeah, well, don’t.” But at least he makes this beer last.
I’m thinking about ordering more hot wings, or maybe a burger, when the guy in the jacket comes back. “This favour,” he says, sitting at our table, “it got anything to do with Mr Jones’s daughter going missing?”
Henry takes a swig at his bottle of Bud. “You got a name and address for us?”
But Jacket Man ain’t put off that easy. “I need to know if this is about that Sawbones guy.”
There’s silence for a moment, as Henry transfers his attention from the beer to the guy. “You got a name for us, or not?”
Jacket Man stares at him. “I got four brown Winnebagos in Polk County with National Guard plates.” He takes a folded bit of paper out of his pocket and places it on the table. “It wasn’t easy getting hold of these.”
Henry nods. “Favours for favours.”
“That’s why I gotta know — is this about that Sawbones guy?”
Jesus, he just won’t let it rest.
“Yeah,” says Henry, picking up the bit of paper, “you and me going to have a problem?”
The guy shakes his head. “You tell Mr Jones this info’s compliments of Bill Luciano. Some sick bastard snatches his kid we’re going to do everything we can.” He nods at the list in Henry’s hand. “You want a couple of guys to help?”
Henry stands and slips the note into his inside pocket. “You thank Mr Luciano for the offer, but we got some things we need to do that it’s probably best he don’t know about, if you know what I mean. Mr Jones won’t forget the help.”
“Any time.” He pulls a business card out of his wallet. “Anything you need, you give me a call.”
We say thanks and head out into the sunshine.
The first address turns up a little old lady with a filthy Winnebago sitting round the back of her crumbling wooden house. She says the motor home belonged to her son, but he got himself shot in Afghanistan, do we want to buy it?
We don’t.
Address number two belongs to a couple of junkies, living in a crappy motel with hot and cold running cockroaches. They got a pair of little girls, playing in the car park out front, wearing nothing but filthy underwear. Not even any fucking socks. Henry’s all for taking the husband out for a ‘drive’, maybe teach the guy it ain’t nice to let your kids go feral like that. But the Winnebago don’t got no hula Elvis, little Jesus, or bullet holes in the back, and we’re in a hurry, so it’s the guy’s lucky day.
The third address is for a farm out in the sticks. All the way out the road, Henry’s going on about how that asshole back at the motel doesn’t deserve to have kids, and how come fuckers like that can get enough cash together to buy drugs but can’t afford to get his daughters a pair of fucking socks?
Once we get out of Des Moines, Iowa turns into this huge checker-board of square fields — soy beans, then corn, then soy beans, then corn, then more corn. On and on for miles. It’s weird, like someone laid out the whole state with a ruler.
Every now and then we pass a wooden house with a couple of cars in the drive and another out the back, American flag flying in the yard. Mr Luciano’s guy wasn’t joking about that patriotic stuff.
Jack’s sitting in the backseat with the map, muttering to himself every time we pass a junction. “OK,” he says at last, “it’s the next right.”
I take the turning and the tarmac road gives way to gravel. The little stones pinging up into the wheel arches as I follow Jack’s directions. About five minutes later the gravel gives out and we’re left on a farm track full of potholes.
Jack points at a rambling wooden farmhouse off to the left. “There.”
I pull up, blocking in a new-ish looking pick-up. Henry’s first out, stretching the kinks out of his back.
“Frank Williams,” he says, reading it off the piece of paper Mr Luciano’s guy gave us, “he’s a chaplain in the National Guard.”
“Uh-huh,” I pull out my gun, check it’s loaded, then rack the slide back and stick the safety on. “In God We Trust.”
“Yup.”
“Jesus,” says Jack, staring at my semi-automatic, “ain’t you got a proper gun? Damn thing looks like it came free with a Happy Meal.”
“Yeah? Well, maybe I’m not worried about people thinking I got a tiny dick like you.” Just because my Heckler and Kotch USP Compact is small, doesn’t mean it can’t blow a fucking big hole in someone.
Jack grins. “My dick was big enough for your sister. And your mom — ”
Henry holds up a hand. “Shut it, you two. Trying to do a fuckin’ job here. .” He marches up to the farmhouse door and knocks.
Nothing happens.
So we go round the side of the house — there’s a chain-link fence making a compound around a kennel, the ground all dug up and speckled with shit, but no sign of the dog that did it. From the size of the mounds of crap, the damn animal’s got to be HUGE.
The yard’s a mess of trees, long grass and bushes. A pair of blue jeans and a black shirt hang limp and damp on the washing line.
Henry tries the back door — locked. We’re talking about kicking it in when Jack wanders off to the other end of the yard, peering back between the trees. Next thing I know he’s ducking down and waving at us. Pointing at whatever it is he’s found.
It’s a brown Winnebago, parked alongside a concrete barn with a sagging tin roof. We can only see the back of the motor home, but that’s enough, the rear’s peppered with bullet holes and the bumper sticker says ‘In God We Trust’.
We’ve found him.
Everyone checks their guns again.
Jack nods back at the house. “So where the hell is he?”
“I don’t know, do I?” says Henry. “Taking the dog for a walk?”
And that’s when we hear it — a man’s voice singing Onward Christian Soldiers, coming from somewhere on the other side of the barn.
Henry gives me the signal and we lope through the long grass to the Winnebago, guns held out at the ready, Jack hurrying along behind. The motor home’s side door is open — a quick check shows a sticky red carpet scattered with bits of skull and brain, tie-down rings bolted into the floor and walls, thin bars of light seeping in through the bullet holes.
No one there.
We creep round the side of the barn.
There’s about twelve rusty cars abandoned in the long grass, shitty old Fords and Volvos and — “Fucking hell.” I tap Henry on the shoulder and point at the Dodge pickup nearest to us. There’s a terrified-looking girl chained to the driver’s seat, wearing a gag. I take another look at the ancient automobiles and I can see other women, but there’s no sign of Laura.
Jack says, “Jesus!” and starts toward the car. He’s no more than six paces past the edge of the barn when there’s this deep growling sound. Jack freezes, but the growling doesn’t stop.
A bloody massive dog slinks out of the long grass, teeth bared as it sizes Jack up.
“Good doggie?” says Jack, even though the fucking thing clearly isn’t.
It tenses up, ready to spring and Jack rai
ses his Glock nine mm. “Don’t even think about it.”
Too late. Suddenly it’s bounding through the grass, barking, teeth flashing like knives. And Jack puts a bullet in it. BANG!
The dog doesn’t stop. BANG! BANG!
BANG! Each one sending a little explosion of red bursting out of the animal’s body. The thing’s legs go out from underneath it and it slithers to a halt not four feet away from Jack. Damn thing still isn’t dead — it lies there whimpering, one paw twitching as it slowly bleeds out.
Jack turns to say something to us, but only gets as far as, “Did you — ”
BOOM!
The left side of Jack’s face disappears in a spray of blood and bone.
Suddenly everything has gone very badly wrong.
Chapter 16
Henry and I hit the ground as Jack’s body topples backwards. There’s muffled screaming coming from the cars. No one’s singing Onward Christian Soldiers any more. I give Henry the ‘What the fuck just happened?’ look and he shrugs, then gives me the signal. I don’t need to be told twice, just pick myself up and run round the back of the barn, keeping low — past the Winnebago with its blood-soaked carpet — coming out on the other side.
I can see Henry creeping towards the barn’s entrance, so I do the same. Him going in from one side, me from the other: your classic pincer movement.
Henry peers round the edge of the opening then yanks his head back as another shotgun blast rips through the air, sending chips of concrete flying. He holds a finger up to me. One — there’s only one of them.
I nod and drop to my belly, crawling along through the grass until I’m level with the entrance, keeping as quiet as I can as Henry shouts, “We’ve got the place surrounded! Get your ass out here, or we’ll come in there and blow it off.”
BOOM! More concrete explodes. At least he’s shooting at Henry’s side of the doorway, not mine. By now I’m close enough to see into the barn’s crumbling interior. There’s farming crap stacked against the walls, a couple of bales of straw and some weed-killer in the corner. But what catches my eye is the old wooden table in the middle of the barn. Someone’s chained to it. I can see their hands and feet hanging over the edges. There’s no sign of the son-of-a-bitch who killed Jack.
Sawbones Page 5