The Forgotten Girl

by Rio Youers

  Once this was in my head, I couldn’t shake it. I could have said it was the same color as the feather in my pocket, or the bird in Sally’s mind. But no … it was blood.

  Blood in the east—the direction we were heading.

  Blood, as far as the eye could see.

  * * *

  I rented a white Honda Accord—not as nondescript as a silver Camry, but virtually invisible compared to a pink Chevy Malibu—and drove to Tinsel. The dead armadillo was still rocking on its carapace beneath the Outer Town sign, but now there was a large raptor pulling red strings from its exposed stomach. I tried not to view this as an omen. As I approached Graceland, I again imagined Lou answering the door in his underpants, informing me that Tatum never came home. The thought of me and Steve-O having to go this alone made my stomach clench, but there was nothing to worry about; Tatum was ready and waiting, sitting in a haze of cigarette smoke beneath the torn awning. She winked when she saw me. I thought, Mom took care of them, and almost wept with relief.

  “What’s in the bag?” I asked. It was a grubby Nike sports bag that she’d tossed onto the backseat.

  “Kleenex. Change of clothes. I figure today could get messy.”

  We drove to Rusty’s bar with the radio tuned to raucous country. Tatum burned through cigarettes and still trembled. She told me it was adrenaline, not fear, and I held out my hand to show her that I was shaking, too.

  “It’s good to feel something,” I said.

  Steve-O sat at the bar dressed in the same clothes as the day before: those leg-knotted jeans and a Kix 106 T-shirt. I was relieved to see a soda in his hand, not a beer, although the bloodshot in his eyes told me he hadn’t gone easy on the booze. The reek of his breath was another giveaway.

  “I’m fine,” he snapped when I asked if he was hungover. He hopped from the barstool to his chair and wheeled himself outside. Before transferring to the rental, he showed us what he’d brought in lieu of a change of clothes.

  “Rusty’s got a sawed-off behind the bar he won’t part with. He calls it Ma Barker. He let me have Bonnie and Clyde, though.”

  He pulled a revolver from the left pocket of his wheelchair that made the .38 Special that Dad had given me look like a toy. From the right pocket he pulled a .45 eerily similar to the one I’d buried with Jackie Corvino.

  “By the end of the day, either Lang will be dead or I will.” Steve-O blew across each barrel. He wasn’t trembling at all. “But one thing is for damn sure: Bullets are gonna fly.”

  We drove to Nashville.

  * * *

  I’d done my research and found an extended-stay motel in the Elliston Place neighborhood of Nashville. I didn’t plan on extending my stay, of course, but the rooms had kitchenettes and I needed a stove. I checked in under a bogus name. Paid cash.

  “One bed?” Steve-O asked, checking around the room. “You expecting we’re all gonna get cozy?”

  “If everything goes to plan we won’t be sleeping here,” I replied. “We—that’s all of us, including Sally—will be hightailing it out of state. If everything goes tits-up … well, we won’t have to worry about sleeping at all.”

  “Then why the room?”

  “It’s our meeting point, should we get separated—which is likely, given the plan.” I walked over to the stove, cranked all four knobs to check that at least one of the burners worked. “Also, I need to make something.”

  Steve-O and Tatum stayed at the motel room and rested while I went shopping. I bought a pound of Garden Chief stump remover—100 percent potassium nitrate—from a downtown hardware store and nearly everything else, including a jumbo pack of bang-snaps and a magnesium fire starter, from the Dollar King.

  When I got back to the room, Steve-O and Tatum were curled up on the bed, fast asleep. They had their arms around one another, getting cozy, after all.

  I didn’t wake them.

  I made ninja smoke bombs.

  * * *

  Five o’clock. We packed everything up and drove to the Lyon Security office in Donelson, ten miles east of downtown, where the air was scored with the sound of aircraft taking off and landing. This part of the neighborhood was an even mix of commercial and industrial, with stores and restaurants sharing lot space with modern office buildings. Lyon Security was one of these: single story, glass-fronted (mirrored, so we couldn’t see inside), set back from the road. There were a dozen cars in the parking lot but their owners might be in any of the adjoining buildings. One of them—a silver Nissan Altima with tinted windows—looked like a hunt dog vehicle to me.

  We parked on a side road maybe fifty yards from the office but with an unobstructed view of the door. This too was mirrored glass, decaled with the Lyon Security logo. Like the hunt dogs themselves, it blended with its surroundings, not designed to attract attention. This particular security firm wasn’t interested in acquiring new business; it was a front for Lang’s army of henchmen, killers, and torturers.

  “Now we wait,” Steve-O said.

  I sat behind the wheel with Steve-O next to me, Tatum in the back. We watched through the windshield as vehicles came and left, but the door to Lyon Security never opened. Time passed slowly. We opened the windows to let Tatum’s cigarette smoke escape but also to keep them from steaming over. We drank water but not too much—didn’t want to fill our bladders. The clock on the dashboard ticked from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. and beyond.

  “They took my feet first,” Steve-O said. “First the right, then the left.”

  I watched the mirrored door as Steve-O told me how the hunt dogs had tracked him down. It had been seven years ago. He was living with his then-girlfriend in Madisonville, Kentucky, hoping that being one state to the north would keep him safe.

  “I spent the first few months after we skipped town looking over my shoulder,” he said, “I swear my head was on a swivel. Then I met a girl—a meth head, but something fierce between the sheets—and got too comfortable. I lowered my guard and they came for me.”

  Eight of them, in the dead of night. They kicked down the door and beat Steve-O’s girlfriend into a coma she would never recover from. Steve-O fought back but was outnumbered.

  “I snapped a few bones,” he said, “but was too fucked up to do much more. They threw me in the trunk and drove me to Lang’s mansion in Belle Meade. This was the first time I’d seen him since Miranda had near emptied his mind, and it wasn’t a reunion I took any pleasure in.”

  An exterior light flicked on above the Lyon Security door, probably on a timer but maybe someone inside was about to exit the building. We held our breaths and waited. The dashboard clock showed 9:03. The Print ’n Save next to Lyon Security closed its doors for the night. The proprietor left in a blue Dodge Durango. Only three vehicles in the lot now. The silver Altima was one of them. We waited another ten minutes.

  Nothing.

  Steve-O continued his story.

  “Lang was weaker, but more determined. Crazier, if that’s possible. He pumped me with antipsychotic drugs then wreaked havoc in my mind. Three weeks he was in there, off and on, looking for Miranda. He finally gave up and threw me to the dogs. They used a chainsaw—took my feet first, like I said. They cauterized the stumps with a blowtorch, left me for a day or so, then cut me off at the knees. The only advantage with a chainsaw is that you can’t hear it cutting through the bone.”

  I cranked my window wider, took a gulp of the cool night air.

  “I don’t know if it’s possible,” Steve-O said, “to die of pain, but I came close. When it started to fade—Jesus, maybe three, four days later—they came back and took the rest of my legs. Do you know how long it takes to cauterize wounds that big? It’s no fuckin’ party, believe me.”

  Tatum reached from the backseat and squeezed his shoulder. He covered her hand with his own. Now he was trembling.

  “They didn’t have to take my legs.” A muscle in his jaw throbbed as he clenched his teeth. “It wasn’t about information; Lang had already turned my mind inside out. They d
id it because they’re coldhearted sons of bitches.”

  “Evil,” Tatum added. She wiped her chin with her free hand.

  “I’ve waited a long time to make them pay.”

  Ten o’clock ticked around. Tatum fell asleep across the backseat. Steve-O drummed his fingers on the dash. At 10:30, the deli next to the Print ’n Save shut out its lights and another vehicle exited the lot. Now there was just a tan Buick Century and the Altima.

  “Every other unit on the lot has gone dark,” Steve-O noted. “That Buick is too old to be driven by a hunt dog, and it’s parked too far from the door. That leaves the Altima. I think whoever drives it is inside the building.”

  “I think the same thing,” I said.

  “One guy. Maybe two.”

  I nodded.

  “We should use the card,” Steve-O said. “Go in.”

  “Too much could go wrong,” I said. “We don’t know the layout of the building. There could be an alarm system, cameras. We need to stay in control.”

  “Or take control,” Steve-O said. “Just as much could go wrong following them. We could lose them in traffic or get stopped by the cops. Worse still, they might spot us and notify Lang. I say we—”

  I held up one hand. Steve-O buttoned his lip. I used the same hand to point toward the mirrored door. In the five hours we’d been waiting, I’d barely taken my eyes off it. I was so used to it being closed that I was momentarily thrown by seeing it open. Two hunt dogs appeared. I recognized one of them from the cinderblock room—the smudge-faced man who’d cut my binds and warned me about talking to the police. He got behind the wheel of the Altima. His partner got in beside him.

  “Two of them,” Steve-O said. “What do we do?”

  “We stick to the plan,” I said. I gunned the ignition, leaned over my right shoulder. “Wake up, Tatum. It’s time to get messy.”

  Twenty-Eight

  Taillights bright as drops of paint. Mostly empty roads. It made them easier to follow. That was good. But there was also a greater risk they would notice us, and that was definitely not good. I imagined the driver checking his mirrors, frowning, making a few random turns to see if we’d follow, then reaching for his cell. Mr. Lang, we have a problem. Lang would take no chances. He’d increase security, go into lockdown mode. Any slim hope we had would be gone.

  This had to be done quickly.

  “Can you get a latch on both of them?” I asked Tatum.

  “Yeah, but it’ll be weaker,” she said. “Like splitting a signal.”

  “Do it.”

  “You need to get closer.”

  “How close?”

  “Whites of the eyes.”

  I put more weight behind my right foot and the speedometer crept from thirty to forty. The distance between us and the Altima’s taillights narrowed.

  “Closer.”

  Tatum leaned between the front seats. Her eyes were wide and focused. I edged to within three car lengths and kept it there, afraid that the streetlights, or the high beams of an oncoming vehicle, would illuminate us like actors on a stage. I glanced at Steve-O. He’d sunk lower in his seat and played nervously with the knots in his jeans. The muscle in his jaw pulsed quickly.

  Red light up ahead. The Altima slowed down … stopped. This was a bright, busy intersection with a Mapco station on one corner and a Starbucks on the other. Rock music thumped from a nearby bar and the sidewalks were dotted with pedestrians. I pulled up behind the hunt dogs and disguised my face with one hand.

  “Tatum,” I hissed. “Get that latch.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “I can’t get any closer than this.”

  My heart roared. I imagined it booming from the rental like a high-end subwoofer, drawing all kinds of unwanted attention. The light turned green and we rolled west across the intersection. I dropped back two car lengths and scooped sweat from my eyes.

  “Hope you’ve got a plan B,” Steve-O said.

  “This’ll work,” I said, but I was losing faith.

  The Altima made a right onto a quieter street and we followed. It ran a mile to another intersection. Another red light. I rolled up to their bumper again, hoping they were too preoccupied to realize the same car had been following them for the last four miles.

  “Come on, Tatum.”

  “It’s no good,” she said. “I need a line—a bridge. I can’t even see them.”

  Green light. The hunt dogs pulled away, straight through the intersection. We were right behind them.

  “Better do something, hotshot,” Steve-O said. “Run them off the road if you have to.”

  “No,” Tatum said, smearing sweat from her brow and saliva from her chin. “I have an idea. Pull alongside them.”

  “They’ll see us,” I said.

  “Yeah, and I’ll see them.”

  The two-lane street was lined with shuttered stores, punctuated by service roads and alleyways. I saw no pedestrians and only one other vehicle, this some distance ahead of us.

  “One swing of the bat,” I said. “That’s all you get.”

  “That’s all I need.”

  I gripped the wheel and took a deep breath. I would later reflect on that morning’s sunrise—a deep, gruesome red; blood, as far as the eye could see—and how prescient it turned out to be.

  “Don’t fuck this up, Potato,” Steve-O said.

  “Shut your damn fool mouth,” she said.

  I put my foot down, screeched into the oncoming lane, pulled alongside the hunt dogs. I was amped, evidently; my heart pumped up through my eyeballs, turning the streetlights to cold ribbons and Tatum’s eyes, glimpsed in the rearview, to pits as deep as bullet holes.

  * * *

  Tatum latched on to the driver the moment he looked at us. I almost heard the connection, I swear, like something clicking into place. The hunt dog in the passenger seat barked something, looking from the possessed driver to us. Tatum dealt with him, not by getting a second latch—perhaps she didn’t want to split the signal—but by having the driver reach for the semi-automatic tucked into his shoulder holster. He leveled it at the passenger. Pulled the trigger. There was a flash, a muffled crack. Blood painted the inside of the Altima and the passenger flopped against the door.

  “Jesus!” I shrieked. I jerked the wheel and the rental bumped against the Altima. Both cars wobbled and I switched my attention to the road. There were headlights in the distance, coming our way. Beyond this, another intersection. I wondered how close we were to the downtown core—to SoBro, Music Row, the Gulch. A city full of life and noise.

  “Tatum,” I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. “Hit the brakes. Steer him down one of these alleyways.”

  But her focus had been disrupted when we’d traded paint with the Altima. Her eyes twitched in their sockets. Blood poured from her nose, over her mouth and chin.

  “He’s … fighting me,” she groaned.

  I looked at the driver. He thrashed in his seat, head snapping from left to right. Saliva bubbled from the corners of his mouth. He was streaked with his partner’s blood.

  “… fighting…”

  We tore down the street at fifty miles per hour, six inches between us. Everything trembled. The pit of my stomach was a block of ice.

  “Slow him down, Tatum. Now!”

  She gurgled something—coughed and sprayed blood. The Altima slowed but not enough. I watched the driver thump his head against the steering wheel, trying to get Tatum out.

  “Harvey!” Steve-O screamed. His right stump jerked as his phantom leg stomped on an imaginary brake pedal. I snapped back to the road. The headlights of the oncoming vehicle bore down on us. A horn sounded, angry and long. I slammed the brakes and the car wobbled again. We came close to spinning out, but I touched the accelerator, regained control, swerved in behind the Altima.

  “Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Steve-O barked.

  “Tatum!”

  “Gone,” she said. “I … I lost him.”

  I glanced in the rea
rview. Tatum’s eyes had rolled to whites and more blood spurted from her nose. She had lost control of the hunt dog, but worse still, was on the verge of passing out.

  “Stay with me, Tatum,” I said. “I can’t do this without you.”

  But it was no good. She gurgled something nonsensical and slumped across the backseat. Seconds later, I smelled the bitter tang of urine.

  The hunt dog floored it. The Altima tore away from us.

  “What now?” Steve-O asked.

  My mind whirred. The hunt dog wasn’t going home, and he wasn’t going to the police—not with his bullet in his partner’s skull. What he wanted was to shake us. Then he’d call the rest of the hunt dogs. They would assemble. They would hunt. It would be over for us. And for Sally.

  “We can’t let him get away,” I said. “We have to stop him. Whatever it takes.”

  * * *

  I floored it, too. The rental responded, but gradually; it was a Honda Accord, not a Ferrari. The engine whined and the needle edged from fifty to seventy. We saw the Altima make a right at the intersection and followed seconds later, cutting in front of a truck that had the right of way. It braked hard and laid on the horn.

  “Shit on me!” Steve-O exclaimed.

  The Altima’s taillights zigzagged as it weaved between traffic, then cut across the other side of the street. It missed a motorcycle by inches as it made a hard left into a parking lot. We weren’t far behind. I rubbed sweat from my eyes and hammered the accelerator. A car suddenly reversed out of a parking space and I swerved around it with tires squealing. The seconds I lost were regained when the hunt dog exited the lot’s north side; he came out fast, mounted the curb, struck a newspaper rack and sent it spinning into the air. Pages of The Tennessean exploded around us. The Altima crunched back onto the road, sparks bursting from its back end. I was close enough to see the blood on the rear windshield.