by Harry Dolan
She’s looking around, at her panties on the floor, her sweater. She pulls her dress down to cover her thighs. Jimmy steps close to her, trying to salvage things. Tips her chin up with one gentle finger and leans in. She pushes him back. She’s starting to be nervous.
“I don’t even know you,” she says.
A simple fact, and it has all of her attention now. She tries to step around him; she wants her sweater. The key ring is in the sweater—and the pepper mace. He takes her by the arm.
“You’re fine,” he says.
He’s not even holding her tight, but it’s wrong. He’s got it wrong. She pulls away from him and there’s an inkling of fear in her eyes. That’s the end. No going back from here. Jimmy grabs her shoulder and spins her around. She struggles, but she’s not so strong. Tries to plead with him instead of screaming—Please don’t, I don’t want to—but nothing she says matters. He pushes her against the counter and gets an arm around her neck.
It’s something else his father taught him, though Jimmy never had an occasion to use it on a woman. A sleeper hold. Pressure on the carotid arteries. It scares her, and that helps. She resists, but it’s feeble. He feels her go limp and suddenly she’s heavy in his arms.
Carla Whyte
The cold comes up through the floor.
It’s a hard floor. Carla can feel it against her back. She’s in her basement. She recognizes the ceiling, the rough wood of the joists. Gray ductwork. She turns her head, and she can see her washer and dryer. There’s a dent at the base of the dryer. She’s never looked at it from this angle.
She wants to reach out and touch that dent. There would be something reassuring about it. But she can’t. Her hands are bound.
There’s a smell, a bad smell, and for a few seconds she thinks it’s gasoline. She thinks he’s going to burn her, the strange man she let walk into her house.
But it’s not gasoline. It’s the tape that’s covering her mouth. Carla knows the smell. It’s from an old roll of packing tape. Her tape. He must have found it in a drawer.
She’s not going to burn then. She’s going to live. That’s what she tells herself.
She hears a tread on the stairs. It’s him, coming down. He’s carrying something small. A picture frame. She recognizes it. It makes her want to scream.
There’s a click as he lays the frame on top of the dryer. He steps over her and stands by her feet and bends down. When he comes up again he’s holding a thick orange cord, an outdoor extension cord she uses to plug in her electric hedge trimmer.
She doesn’t know what he’s doing with the cord. Her legs are already tied. She can feel it.
There’s a steel I-beam that’s supporting the floor above. He runs the end of the cord over the beam until it dangles down on the other side. Then he pulls on it. Puts his weight into it.
Carla’s legs come up off the floor. The orange cord is wrapped around her waist, over her dress. It’s wound around her hips and her legs. It’s knotted around her ankles.
He pulls the end of the cord, and her back is dragged along the floor. She’s lifted up until only her shoulders are touching the cold concrete. Then the back of her head. Then she’s hanging in the air. The cord bites into her ankles. He ties off the end. She’s suspended upside down. It’s a peculiar sensation, swaying from the beam.
He retrieves the picture frame from the dryer and sits on the floor with his legs crossed, facing her. He bends forward, but still they’re not on a level. She has to look up to see him.
He had dimples when he smiled before, but now he’s not smiling. He stares at her with empty eyes, and she feels the pain of the cord on her ankles and the rush of blood to her head. And the swaying, the swaying is disorienting. She thinks it’s going to make her sick.
“That story I told you,” he says. “About Sean and the dog. That wasn’t true. I mean it was true, but it didn’t happen to Sean. It happened to me. I was the one who took the beating for the dog. I don’t know why. I wouldn’t do it now, if it happened today. That kind of loyalty, that’s something kids have.”
He looks off, as if he’s lost interest in the subject, and when he looks back he seems to remember that she’s hanging upside down. He waves a hand at her, at the cord, at the situation.
“This is over-the-top,” he says. “I know. It’s dramatic. I don’t like drama. I really don’t. But I need to get through to you. I need you to know I’m serious.”
He stops, and it takes her a moment to realize he’s waiting for her to respond.
She nods once for him.
“Good,” he says. “That should make this easier. I need to find Sean. My reasons, well, they shouldn’t matter to you. I have to find him, so you have to tell me what you know. You don’t know where he is. Right?”
She nods again.
“But you know where Molly is. And if I can get to her, I can get to him. So you need to tell me where she is.”
He’s waiting again. She gives him another nod.
“You’re conflicted right now,” he says. “You’re thinking I’m going to hurt Sean. That’s true. I won’t lie to you. I’m going to hurt him. You think he’s your friend, and if you help me find him you’re betraying him. But that’s wrong. Sean is not your friend. He doesn’t care about people. He only thinks about what they can do for him. This is what you need to understand: Sean knew that I would come here to look for him. He could have warned you about me. But he didn’t. He doesn’t care about you.”
Carla stares at him, this strange man sitting on her basement floor. From her perspective, he’s upside down.
“This is the deal we’re going to make,” he says to her. “You tell me where to find Molly, and I cut you down and untie you and walk away.
“You don’t think that’s real, but it is. You’re afraid of what I’m going to do to you. But that’s why this is going to work. You need to be afraid of me. That’s going to keep you alive. If you’re not afraid of me, you’re going to make a mistake. Because I am going to hold up my end of the bargain.”
He’s perfectly still, and Carla realizes that she is too. She’s stopped swaying.
“You’re going to tell me where Molly is, and I’m going to leave,” he says. “When I’m gone, if you’re not afraid of me, you’re going to think, He’s not so bad after all. You’re going to think you can go to the police and tell them about me, and they’ll protect you.”
He leans in toward her. “If you do that, they might find me, they might arrest me, but that won’t save you. Even if they put me in prison. Because I know people. People who owe me favors. People who would do whatever I ask them to do.”
The picture frame is lying on the floor beside him. He picks it up now and looks at the image. Carla reaches for it instinctively with her bound hands. The movement sets her swaying again.
“Here’s a difference between you and Sean,” he says. “There are no pictures of people in his house. Only pictures of things. But you have pictures of this girl. Lots of them. She’s your daughter, isn’t she?”
She is. But Carla doesn’t nod. She tries to give him nothing.
“You don’t have to answer,” he says. He turns the frame around so she can see, and taps the glass. In the picture, Carla’s daughter is wearing a T-shirt with the logo of the University of Texas.
“You understand how easy it would be for me to find her,” he says.
The fear she’s feeling must show in her eyes, Carla thinks, because he reaches out to touch her cheek as if to comfort her.
“It’s all right,” he says. “It’s good. You need to be afraid. That’s the only way this works.” He puts the frame aside. “This is the bargain I’m offering you: You tell me what I need to know and then you forget about me. And then you’re safe, and she’s safe. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
Carla closes her eyes. She can feel herself trembling. But she nods at him.
He reaches for the tape and starts to peel it from her mouth. His touch is surprisingly gentle.
“Good,” he says.
Jimmy Harper
It’s an easy walk back to the rental car. The air feels cool and the rain has trailed off to nothing. Nick is waiting with the engine idling and the radio tuned to a country music station. He turns the volume down when Jimmy slides into the passenger seat beside him.
“Airport,” Jimmy says.
Nick switches on the lights and pulls away from the curb. Jimmy takes out his phone and opens Google Maps. He enters the name of the town that Carla gave him: Clyde Park. The nearest big cities are Bozeman and Billings.
He opens another app and starts searching for flights.
Nick leaves him alone. He drives along in the dark, two hands on the wheel. He doesn’t speak until they reach the exit for the airport.
“Where are we going?”
“Montana,” Jimmy says.
11
Sean Tennant
Saturday night. Interstate 25, an hour north of Cheyenne, Wyoming.
There’s an eighteen-wheeler stopped on the shoulder up ahead, with a state police cruiser settled in behind it, blue lights flashing. Sean moves into the passing lane to give them a wide berth.
He’s wary for the next twenty miles, watching for those lights to appear in his rearview mirror.
“Getting paranoid again,” Cole says beside him. “They’ve got better things to do up here than look for you.”
It’s seventeen hundred miles from Houston to Clyde Park, Montana. Sean has covered twelve hundred already. Cole has been keeping him company.
He’s there now in the passenger seat, one black boot braced on the dash, the white bandage glowing at his throat.
“It’s late,” Cole says. “You should think about stopping.”
“Not yet.”
Sean drove for seven hours last night, from Houston to Chillicothe. He kept himself going until four in the morning with vending machine Coke, but then his eyelids started feeling heavy and he thought he should get off the road. He found a motel and paid cash for a room. The night clerk looked too bored to take any interest in him.
Sean set an alarm to wake himself in four hours and heard Cole’s voice say, “Make it eight. Don’t screw around with your sleep. You’ve got a long way to go.”
He compromised and slept six hours and was back on the road by eleven Saturday morning. Now he’s been driving for twelve hours, going on thirteen—through Amarillo and Denver and Cheyenne.
“Another hour,” Cole says. “Then you stop.”
“We’ll see.”
“One hour. That’ll get you to Casper.”
There’s a burner cell phone resting in one of the cupholders between the seats. Sean bought it before he left Houston. He powered down his own phone and popped out the SIM card. He doesn’t know how far the police will go to track him down, but he’s seen the news reports. He knows they’re looking for him.
He picks up the burner cell and tries calling Molly, and when it goes to her voicemail he leaves her a message. He tells her about what happened at the Galleria and assures her that he’s okay. She shouldn’t worry. He’s coming for her.
He thumbs the red button to end the call.
“How many times have you left her that message?” Cole says.
“Three or four.”
“More like six,” Cole says. “She won’t get it. They take everybody’s phone. How did she put it? They tie them in a sack and throw them down a well.”
Sean makes another call, this time to a number he found on the website of Long Meadow Ranch, the place that’s hosting Molly’s retreat. No one answers there either, and he has to leave another message. He says it’s an emergency and asks them to have Molly call him as soon as possible.
“Long Meadow Ranch,” Cole says. “Bunch of hippies on horseback doing sun salutations. They probably don’t even have voicemail in Montana. They’re still using answering machines. Right now there’s a little red light blinking in the farmhouse, but nobody sees it. They’re all dancing around a fire outside, chanting about their chakras.”
Sean puts the phone away and turns on the radio and keeps driving.
*
Sunday morning. A motel room in Casper, Wyoming. Sean wakes to the sound of the burner cell phone ringing. He snatches it from the bedside table, thinking it’s Molly.
It’s the alarm he set before he went to sleep. Seven o’clock.
He turns it off and closes his eyes. Only for a minute, he thinks. When he wakes again it’s almost nine.
At the diner next to the motel, he orders breakfast at the counter: eggs and bacon. He eats fast. When he looks up, the waitress is staring at him, and he thinks she may have recognized him from the news. He lets her have a big smile. People on the run don’t go around smiling. She smiles back and gives him the check.
Then it’s gas at the Exxon station and back on I-25. It’s a clear morning when he leaves Casper, but after an hour he’s driving under high white clouds. Another hour and I-25 has joined up with I-90. The clouds are lower and grayer. There’s a Taylor Swift song on the radio when the rain starts. Little pinpoint drops on the windshield. Sean turns on the wipers to clear them away.
The wipers move sluggishly, as if time has slowed down.
“That’s not good,” Cole’s voice says.
Sean switches the wipers off, then on again. Now they’re moving at the customary rate.
“That’s your alternator,” Cole says.
“It’s fine,” says Sean.
“My dad was a mechanic,” Cole says. “But what do I know?”
Fifteen minutes later Sean is coming up on an exit for a town called Ranchester. The wipers go sluggish again and the radio cuts out. The car starts to slow. Pushing the accelerator doesn’t help. Sean steers for the exit and feels the engine stall. He lets the car roll down the ramp and eases it to the shoulder as the momentum runs out. When it stops, he shifts into park, turns off the ignition, and tries to start it again. Nothing.
“Battery’s dead,” Cole says. “That’s what happens when your alternator craps out.”
Sean uses the burner phone to search for towing services. There seem to be only two within thirty miles. He manages to get through to one of them, and the man says to sit tight. He can be out in forty minutes. It takes him more than an hour.
He’s a thirtysomething guy with a ruddy face. Unshaven. Wearing blue jeans and a gray uniform shirt with his name on the pocket: EUGENE.
He listens to Sean’s story as he’s hooking the car up to the tow truck. The rain has moved on.
“Sounds like your alternator,” Eugene says.
“That’s what I thought,” says Sean.
Cole chuckles.
“Your best bet,” Eugene says, “I take you into Sheridan.”
“How far is that?”
“Twenty minutes back the way you came.”
“There’s nothing closer?” Sean asks. “Maybe in Ranchester?”
“Ranchester has a campground and a bar. And the T-Rex Natural History Museum, which is one room and kind of a letdown. What it doesn’t have is a repair shop.”
“Then I guess we’re going to Sheridan.”
The cab of the tow truck smells mildly of sweat and grease. There’s a picture of a curvy blonde taped to the dash. Eugene says it’s his girlfriend. It seems improbable.
Eugene drives at the limit on I-90, but to Sean it feels slower. When they reach Sheridan, it’s bigger than Sean expected. He counts three hotels on Main Street. There’s a Mexican restaurant and a Domino’s Pizza. The auto shop is on a side street off Main. The sign says: BENSON’S. It’s a cinderblock building with two repair bays, and the whole thing looks to be shut up tight.
“It’s closed,” Sean says.
“Yeah,” says Eugene. “It’s Sunday.”
“I can’t wait,” Sean says. “I need my car. I need to keep moving.”
“That’s what I figured. I could take you to other places, but none of them are gonna be open. Art Benson is the
guy you want. Tell you the truth, he’s in his sixties and his hands have started to shake. But what you need, it’s not brain surgery. He can replace an alternator. No problem.”
“Can he do it today?” Sean asks.
“He can if he’s in the mood and if you offer him a little extra. I’ll call him for you. He’ll be in church now and he generally has Sunday dinner at his daughter’s, but with any luck …”
It’s three o’clock when Art Benson turns up, driving a Ford pickup freshly washed and waxed. Eugene is long gone, and Sean is leaning against the hood of his car. Benson is thin and stooped and gray. When he walks over to Sean, his left foot drags a little. He sticks out a hand and says, “Hello, Texas.”
Sean is startled, but only for an instant. His car has Texas plates.
Benson raises the door of one of the bays, and Sean puts the car in neutral and pushes it in. He pops the hood while Benson fetches a socket wrench and rolls up his sleeves. “Well, let’s see,” the man says.
He disconnects the battery cable and loosens the belt and moves it aside. There are four bolts holding the alternator in place, and he goes to work on them with the wrench. His hands seem steady enough.
“Texas,” he says. “You wouldn’t be from Houston, would you?”
A casual question. Maybe too casual.
“No,” Sean says. “Dallas.”
“Hell of a thing, what happened in Houston.”
“That’s the truth.”
Benson goes quiet, bent over under the hood, turning the bolts. Then he finds something more to say: “That fella Keen, he needed to be put down. Some men, they’re like rabid dogs. The only thing to do is shoot them. It’s an act of mercy.”
“I guess so,” Sean says.
All the bolts are loosened now. Benson starts spinning them off with his fingers.
“Where you headed, son?” he asks.
Sean has a lie ready. “Washington State. I’ve got family in Spokane.”
“When my second wife left me, she moved to Spokane. Never been tempted to visit.”
The last bolt comes off and Benson unplugs the alternator. He carries it with him through a gray steel door into a back room out of sight. When he returns he’s shaking his head.