by John Lutz
Junior waddled in, cradling a high-powered rifle, B.J. followed. He was holding Beth’s Uzi submachine gun aimed at Carver.
Junior grinned like a schoolkid about to pull wings off flies. “Betcha we know what you’re lookin’ for.”
B.J.’s lean face was creased leather. He said, “We found it”—gave the Uzi a little bounce in his hands—“but we never found that handgun of yours, Carver. Be so kind as to get it out from under your shirt or wherever and lay it down there on the bed.”
Carver didn’t move. Beth had straightened up beside him. He could hear her tight, rapid breathing.
B.J. said, “I squeeze this trigger and your heart’ll be hamburger. Nigger’ll be next to go, only slower.”
Junior said, “Lots slower.”
Carver raised his untucked shirt. Holding the Colt delicately between thumb and forefinger, he drew it from his waistband and laid it on the bed. Junior swaggered over and picked it up. He examined it briefly but intensely, as if it were a new toy, then poked it down in his bib overalls. He was shirtless beneath the denim bib and straps of the dirty overalls; his stale body odor filled the room as if the fetid rot of the swamp had intruded.
B.J. said, “We figured it’d be a good idea to let ourselves in afore you locked us out. So we jimmied the bathroom window in the bitch’s room and in we came. Been waitin’ for you about an hour.” He spat on the floor. Smiled. “You was about to lock the connecting door and barricade it, wasn’t you?”
“You guessed it.”
Junior said, “We wasn’t gonna let you do that. One sign of it and we’d’a come bustin’ in here like the fuckin’ SWAT team.”
Carver said, “Now that you’re here, what?”
“First thing,” B.J. said, “is you toss that cane on the bed next to the gun, then you move away and sit yourself down on the floor over there by the wall. Nigger’ll sit next to you.”
Carver obeyed. He placed the cane on the bed, then jack-knifed his body at the waist and used the mattress for support as he edged toward the wall.
“No, no,” Junior said. “Go ahead an’ crawl, fuckin’ cripple. First night we seen you, we knew you was gonna crawl.”
“Best do it,” B.J. said laconically. Carver heard the Uzi’s action snick.
He dropped down and crawled the last few steps, dragging his stiff leg behind him, then sat down and leaned his back against the wall. Beth glared furiously at Junior, then sashayed over as if she were in control of things and lowered herself to sit next to Carver.
Junior plopped his bulk down in the room’s one chair, making it groan in helpless protest. B.J. sat on the end of the bed. Both of them were staring at Carver and Beth in a way Carver didn’t like. He knew they had ceased to be people to the Brainard brothers; they were business now. To be disposed of in a way the Brainards would enjoy, but still business. Mercy would play no part in it.
The night insects screamed louder. Bullfrogs croaked behind the motel. B.J. said, “We’re gonna wait right here till it gets darker.”
“Then what?” Beth asked. Carver heard her throat work as she swallowed. She laced her long fingers together and tightened them. She couldn’t hide her fear.
Junior’s imagination raced ahead. He grunted like a hog in sexual thrall.
B.J. grinned at Beth and traced a slow, tight circle in the air with the nasty barrel of the Uzi.
He said, “Yeah, then what?”
30
WHEN IT WAS MIDNIGHT, B.J. and Junior led Carver and Beth outside at gunpoint. There were no lights in the motel other than the softly glowing road sign with the neon outline of the Spanish castle. Carver’s cane had been returned to him. He was sure no one saw them as they crossed the gravel parking lot and walked along the dirt road through the swamp.
They turned onto a narrower, rutted side road. Walking was difficult in the dark. Carver’s pace with the cane slowed them down, and he feigned more difficulty than he was having, trying to gain time to think. The swamp was black and ominous and screaming around them. Wing and fang and claw. Now and then Carver heard a splash and wondered what had made it. He was sweating from heat and fear. His shirt was plastered to his flesh, and insects flitted against him and occasionally bit or stung his bare arms. Beth was moving easily beside him. She had her fingers hooked in his belt almost casually, as if she might catch him if he started to fall. He could hear B.J. and Junior trudging heavily behind them. Now and then Junior would say, “Jus’ keep on walkin’. Walk on . . . walk on.” A kind of chant that was perversely soothing.
Suddenly B.J. said, “Hold it. Gotta look around here afore we go on.”
Carver felt a gun barrel prod the small of his back, causing an ache in his spine.
He stood leaning on his cane, putting on a rapid-breathing act, as if he were exhausted from the walk over rough terrain. His daily bouts with the ocean had given him stamina. He could take this. This and more. He glanced up. Saw no stars. He and Beth looked at each other with blank faces that denied panic. They were wrapped in thick foliage in the deep swamp.
“Over there,” B.J. said. He shoved Carver toward a blacker shadow just off the road. High and boxy. It was the knobby-tired Blazer.
Carver and Beth sat on the rubber-matted floor in back while Junior kept the Uzi trained on them. B.J. drove.
The inside of the Blazer smelled like oil and rotted fish. Tools or fishing equipment rattled around in a padlocked, battered steel box bolted to the floor behind the seats. Blackness pressed against the windows. There was no way to gauge direction, but the rumbling, bucking truck made several sharp turns. A front window was open, but it admitted only the saturated warmth of the swamp, along with mosquitoes, and occasional large beetlelike bugs that ricocheted crazily around the inside of the truck and dropped, buzzing and dying, on the floor.
After about fifteen minutes B.J. braked the Blazer to ajar-ring halt. The abrupt stop caused Beth’s head to bounce off the side window. She gave no indication she’d felt it.
Junior grinned in the shadows behind the black eye of the Uzi’s bore. Said, “Home.”
B.J. got out first, then stood behind the Blazer while Carver and Beth crawled out the back. Beth helped Carver until he was standing with his weight bearing down on the cane. For a moment her mouth was near his ear and he thought she might whisper something, but she was silent.
They were in a clearing lit faintly by moonlight and surrounded by saw grass and towering cypress trees. There was a rambling, flat-roofed shack with a falling-down porch. A very old, block-long Cadillac was parked in front of it. Off to the left was a post-and-wire fence. The posts jutted crookedly from the ground like spindly broken fingers, but the wire was taut and appeared barbed. A cluster of small animals stood inside the fence. Goats, Carver thought, though he could only make out vague shapes in the moon shadows.
He knew they were a long way from civilization here. A long way from help. Beth seemed to sense it, too. She shivered beside him in the hot swamp air.
Junior was still holding the Uzi. Still grinning. His porcine little eyes were glittering diamonds in the moonlight. “Know what we use them goats for?” he asked.
Carver said, “Not keeping the grass short, I bet.”
“There’s a bet you’d win,” B.J. said. He was waving the rifle barrel slowly to sweep the space between Carver and Beth. He could nudge the barrel either way and put a bullet through one or the other in an instant. Carver thought he might be able to inch near enough to lash out with the cane, maybe knock the rifle aside or out of B.J.’s grip, but then brother Junior would open up with the Uzi. The Brainards had it figured. This was their game.
Junior said, “We take them goats one at a time an’ stake ’em out at night at a place near here. ’Gators hear ’em when they bleat, come up outa the swamp to feed on ’em. When a big enough ’gator’s busy with his meal, B.J. an’ me open up with rifles an’ get us enough alligator hide to make somebody a suit.” He rolled his tongue around the inside of his cheek,
looking for a moment as if he were chewing a wad of tobacco, then spat. “Killin’ ’em might be illegal, but they’s good money in ’gators,” he finished, as if defending his poaching.
“Not to mention fun,” B.J. said.
Junior said, “Gonna be the most fun tonight.”
Carver felt his good leg turn to rubber. He leaned hard on the cane. Beth moved closer to him, so her hip and thigh were touching his. She’d realized the direction of the Brainards’ revenge. He could feel the vibration of her trembling.
She said, “You bastards!”
Junior giggled, sounding like a hog that had been tickled.
B.J. said, “Save your insults for the ’gators, nigger.” He motioned with the rifle barrel. “Now, the two of you walk straight ahead, into the swamp. I’ll tell you when to stop.”
Beth moved slowly while Carver limped beside her, along what seemed to be a narrow path. Leaves brushed his arms and face. Something that felt like a web settled on his neck and he brushed it off. His fingers touched a large insect for an instant; brittle wings whirred and he heard it buzz and drop to the ground behind him. A beetle like the ones that had flitted into the Blazer? “Walk on . . . walk on,” Junior muttered. Carver set the tip of his cane carefully. The ground was getting softer, soggy. Off on either side of the path, he could hear things moving in water. The swamp lapped at the saw grass and the exposed roots of the giant cypress trees that twisted grotesquely in the darkness. One of the brothers shoved Carver forward when he paused to find a dry spot for the tip of his cane. Carver almost fell. He caught himself by levering the cane into the damp ground. It made a sucking sound when he withdrew it from the mud. Beth said again, “Bastards!”
B.J. produced a flashlight from where it was stuck in his belt beneath his shirt. He switched it on, then swept the beam from side to side like a lance that met hard shadow and was turned away. Blackness and thick foliage curved around them. Once, Carver was sure the yellow beam swept past a pair of luminous eyes. Beth hadn’t seen them; she was busy helping Carver maintain his footing on the softening earth.
“They’s quicksand around here,” Junior said, and giggled again. He was up for something tonight, was Junior.
They walked on toward the center of the darkness.
After what seemed like half an hour they were in another clearing. This one was smaller. A tall, angled tree grew near the middle of it. The grass was flattened around the tree. The flashlight beam lingered on a thick rope wound around the trunk.
B.J. said, “This here’s the place, folks.”
Junior moved around to stand in front and off to the side of Carver. He aimed the Uzi at him at gut level and said, “You move, asshole, I’m gonna cut you in half. Leave you for ’gator food.”
B.J. planted a hand in the center of Beth’s back and shoved her toward the tree. Pushed her again as she stumbled and tried to catch her balance. On her knees, she glared up at him in the moonlight, then spat at him. He raked the rifle barrel across her head. A trickle of blood, black in the dim light, snaked down her cheek. He dug the long barrel into her back, forcing her to lie flat on her stomach in the beaten down grass. Carver noticed a bare white bone on the ground near her left shoulder. Helpless rage flared in him as he looked into Junior’s fat grinning face.
Spreading his feet wide, B.J. stretched out an arm and nimbly unwound about five feet of the rope that encircled the tree. Then he knelt with his knee in the small of Beth’s back and skillfully used the rope to bind her wrists behind her. It was like an event at a rodeo; took no more than half a minute.
B.J. stood up, letting the rifle point at the ground as he stared down at Beth. He smiled dreamily in the moonlight and said, “She ain’t goin’ nowhere. Not ever again.”
Beth sat up and twisted her body awkwardly. Struggled against the rope for a moment and seemed to realize she couldn’t escape. There was no way to free her arms. Her body bent, she waddled in a circle around the tree to unwind the rope, but it was knotted so only a few more feet played out and she couldn’t stand upright.
B.J. stepped close to her and slapped her hard on the cheek. Then he gripped the top of her blouse and ripped it halfway off. The parting material made a sound like a hoarse whistle.
Carver took a step toward them. Junior raised the Uzi, looking as if he wanted to use it. “Stay right fuckin’ there, tough man. You wanna watch, don’t you?”
Carver took a deep breath. It was all he could do not to strike out with the cane and hurl himself at Junior, try for the Uzi so he could open up on B.J. But Junior kept just the right distance between them. The drug trade, or maybe the military, had taught him how to restrain someone with a gun. Unable to move, Carver couldn’t look away from what was going on beneath the branches of the tilted tree.
Beth kicked furiously at B.J. and he laughed. He caught a leg and hoisted it suddenly so she fell on her back, on her bound wrists. He unzipped her Levi’s and worked them down around her ankles so she couldn’t kick. Then he tore off her bikini panties, looked thoughtfully at them, and stuffed them in his pocket. He pulled off the rest of her blouse except for a few tatters, and removed her bra with an odd gentleness. Then he yanked her Levi’s the rest of the way off, sending her muddy shoes flying, and stood back in triumph as if to admire his work.
Junior rubbed his crotch with his free hand. Under his breath he said, “Gonna be fun for sure.”
B. J., breathing hard from his efforts, stared at Beth and said, “Ain’t such a rough bitch now, are you, nigger?”
Beth said, “Fuck you, you backwater bumpkin!”
B.J. shook his head. “Jesus, ain’t you somethin’? Don’t you fuckin’ know what’s gonna happen to you?”
Beth was quiet. She sat with her knees drawn up to partly cover her breasts. The moonlight highlighted her long, lush body and made her look as vulnerable as she was. Her painted toes curled down into the mud. She was gazing at Carver, something tight inside her controlling the terror that was in her eyes.
Junior moved around in front of Carver and waved the Uzi. “Walk on over there,” he said, as B.J. swaggered across the clearing to stand behind him.
Carver hobbled along the narrow path until Junior said, “Far enough. Now ease on over to your right, ’neath that tree. In deep amongst them big roots.”
Water seeped into his shoes as Carver obeyed. He could hear the soggy ground squishing beneath his soles. His cane found little support and was almost useless.
Then he was leaning in the gnarled wood jumble of cypress roots, trapped as if he were in a grotesquely distorted cage.
Junior wedged in close behind him. Carver could feel his warm, anxious breathing, smell his sour breath. Junior had eaten onions lately, drunk beer. B.J. had the Uzi now. He settled down in a sitting position on a horizontal stretch of exposed root.
Carver could barely move; Junior was pressing him from behind, and an elbow of hard wood was digging into his stomach.
B.J. and Junior had spent time here before and knew the place as a vantage point. From the tangle of thick cypress root they could see through the darkness to where Beth sat curled beneath the tree, her shoulders hunched and her hands bound behind her. She was motionless, her head bowed, as if what was happening had finally caught up with her and mercifully sent her into shock.
Carver heard what sounded like Junior licking his lips. Felt a revulsion and hatred he hadn’t thought possible.
B.J., as wily as Junior, kept a safe distance with the Uzi. Stark shadow turned his bony face into a death’s head. Still breathing hard from struggling with Beth, he pressed a thumb to the side of his nose, blew noisily, and flicked snot away. He wiped his hands on his pants and glanced in Beth’s direction. Back at Carver.
He said, “Now we settle down an’ wait. Pretty soon, somethin’ll come.”
31
WHAT CAME INTO THE clearing was something long and wet and gleaming dully in the moonlight. First a blunt snout, then a pair of bulbous eyes, then the rest of the
alligator. It made no sound as it slithered from the tall saw grass and lay still, peering at Beth, who hadn’t yet noticed it.
“Bitch didn’t even scream nor make any noise,” Junior whispered.
B.J. said, “She surely will scream. ’Gator musta been watchin’ us all along from the dark.”
“It’s a big’n,” Junior said, admiring the alligator. “Least nine, ten foot long.”
There was a faint splashing sound, and another, much smaller alligator eased into the clearing. The moon sent shimmers off its rough, wet flank. It bared its rows of pointed teeth, a ghastly ivory grin in the faint light.
Beth must have heard the splashing. She raised her head and looked at the small alligator, which was no more than three feet long. Her body grew rigid and, legs pumping, she scooted back against the tree. She wriggled in a final attempt to free her hands, then sat staring at the small alligator. It stared back at her.
Carver whispered, “Christ, don’t let this happen!”
Junior said, “What’s this? You beggin’, tough man?”
“Call it that if you want,” Carver said. “Don’t let her die this way. Please!”
“Gonna be some sight to see,” Junior said.
B.J. said, “Shut the fuck up, both of you.” A hoarse command.
The large alligator seemed to notice the smaller one. It suddenly raised itself on surprisingly long, bent legs and hissed loudly. Beth’s head jerked around. She saw the huge creature and her eyes widened. Her mouth gaped. She tried to scream; Carver could see her throat working. But she made no sound. The huge ’gator hissed again and switched its tail.
Beth thrashed against her bonds.
Encouraged by her desperate movements, the big alligator started to drag itself toward her in a terrible lizard waddle. It seemed to be moving slowly, but it was covering ground fast.
Junior pressed his thick body against Carver and prodded the base of Carver’s skull with the rifle barrel. “No noise now, tough man, lest I—”