More Better Deals

by Joe R. Lansdale

  “You got to go, go,” Nancy said. “I know she’s sick, you got to be there, but I need you to be back here soon as you can.”

  “Sure. It’s nothing deadly. But she’s awful sick. She asked for me.”

  All of this was a lie, of course. The idea was to explain why I wasn’t around. I was going to be spending a lot of my time watching out for Julie down in that box and sometimes in a chair near the box. We had worked out how we would take her up to the house to go to the bathroom. We were going to put the Lone Ranger–style mask on her, but we were stapling black wool to the inside of the mask. The straps on the mask would hold it on, and the thick wool behind the eyeholes would keep Julie from seeing out.

  I had to be careful for the week we figured it would take to get our plan done, make sure Walter, or for that matter anyone other than Nancy, didn’t see me around the house.

  Night I left with the grandma excuse, I drove back later and parked the car in the garage, closed it up and went up to the house and sat in the dark and had a pimento cheese sandwich and a Coke.

  Nancy stayed at the drive-in puttering about until all the cars were gone and Walter and the concession girl were gone too. I thought she stayed up there with him a little long, but then again, it seemed she should. She had to play things right and not look in too big a hurry to go to a supposedly empty house. I had to be gone a day before she did the sick act or it was too much going on in the same day and could look connected immediately.

  The idea was, tomorrow night she’d tell Walter she didn’t feel so good, that she was having her time of the month and might even have a cold on top of it. If she was better, she’d be back the next night, but if not, would Walter run things, since I’d be out of town for a few days? I figured he’d jump at that, a chance to show how well he could do what I did, which, when you got right down to it, was handle soda and popcorn. It was enough to make him feel like a swinging dick for a while.

  Then me and her would drive out to Julie and the dumbass’s spot. We’d park the car away from it and wait out in the woods with our masks, and when the time was right, we’d get it done.

  * * *

  The night Walter was working in my place, about an hour before Julie and her boyfriend left the drive-in, me and Nancy drove out there. I had scoped out a spot just down from there where I could park Nancy’s car up in the brush and it couldn’t be seen from the road. I liked it because there was a narrow trail that led out of there and into the woods near where Julie and the cretin would be parked.

  We got our gloves and masks, and I got my hat to cover my hair, and Nancy, she had a silly blue Easter hat with a feather in it, and she put that on. We looked ridiculous. I had on some of Frank’s old clothes, and I had the pants cuffed and the sleeves on the shirt rolled up to my elbows. That shirt and pants were so big on me, I could damn near jump in a circle inside of them. I wore a pair of my own shoes, but I decided I’d get rid of them with the clothes in case they left a footprint. I had read where someone left a footprint and the cops matched it to the prints on the guy’s shoes or some such, so I was going to avoid that possibility. I picked up the rope ties for both of them, the mask for Julie, and a flashlight, which I didn’t turn on, and we made our way to the drop spot.

  Out in the woods, we sat on the ground and looked through where the brush was thin, and we could see the spot where they would be parked.

  In a short time, we got hot and sticky and took off our masks and hats and placed them on the ground and waited. Mosquitoes kept buzzing around our ears, and they bit right through our clothes. Bit? Is that what mosquitoes do, bite? Or do they poke you and suck the blood out, like a syringe? Hell, I don’t know. I sat there and thought about stuff like that, and we whispered a little but not about much.

  Minutes ticked by as if wearing concrete boots.

  Finally, there were car lights.

  We put on our hats and masks.

  It was the wrong car.

  (50)

  That’s not them,” Nancy said. “That’s the wrong car.”

  “When you’re right, you’re right.”

  “What now?”

  I thought on it for a moment. “Let’s wait awhile, see if this car leaves before they get here.”

  “Unlikely. They park next to each other, then the game’s off,” Nancy said.

  “Give it some time.”

  The car started rocking. It didn’t last but three or four minutes and then it quit rocking. It wasn’t exactly true romance.

  The driver rolled the window down and tossed out what I figured was a used rubber. I could see the woman struggling with something inside the car, and I figured she was pulling her panties up. In a moment she stopped. The man turned on the headlights and backed the car out, and away they went.

  They hadn’t been gone but a minute or two, about the same time it took for lover boy to squirt his seed, before there were more headlights.

  We waited, hoping.

  It was them.

  They parked and the headlights went out. I got up, but Nancy caught my hand.

  “No. Let’s let them get started. That’s the way to surprise them.”

  I squatted down beside her. I knew what she was doing. She wanted to make sure I knew Julie was being fucked, and she wasn’t going to let me take her before the fucking started.

  It was a lesson she was teaching me.

  I crouched there and watched the car rock, and I admit, the whole thing bothered me, and I wasn’t sure why it bothered me. She was underage was part of it, and I couldn’t decide if I felt brotherly toward her or if it was something else, like that night I’d dreamed of her while making love to Nancy. I figured it was best not to think about it.

  After a bit, Nancy tugged at my shirt to let me know she thought it was time. I put on my devil mask and hat, and Nancy did the same, and without turning on the flashlight, we went out there.

  I walked fast, and when I came to the window, I struck it with the blackjack and cracked the glass. I hit it again, and this time lover boy opened the door, trying to hit me with it. I moved away from it, and as he stepped out, I sapped him right behind his left ear.

  He did a funny little hop backward and hit the open door, causing it to shut. The car was holding him up, but for good measure I sapped him again on the same side of the head. When he went down, I hit him once more, just to be sure.

  I wanted to be sure again, but Nancy said, “Devil. Get it together.”

  By that time, Julie had tried to open the door and jump out of the car, but Nancy grabbed her. Nancy was strong.

  I rolled lover boy on his stomach and tied his hands behind his back and gave him a swift kick in the ribs. He grunted.

  I went around the car and saw that Nancy had Julie on the ground, facedown, and she was tying her hands behind her back. When she had that done, she said, “Get up, bitch.”

  Julie was crying as she stood up, Nancy hanging on to the rope she had used to tie Julie’s hands. I pulled the mask we had fixed up for her, the one with the black wool on it, out of my shirt pocket, snapped the elastic band around her head, and settled the mask over her face.

  When that was done, I used the flashlight so we could guide Julie through the brush, onto the trail, and to our car.

  When we got her there, I started to put her in the back seat, but Nancy said, “Uh-uh.”

  She had me open the trunk, and we lifted her in there, used some more rope to tie her feet.

  I closed the trunk, turned off the flashlight, and drove us out.

  (51)

  I untied Julie’s feet and hands and helped her into the box, all the while her saying, “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “We just want money,” Nancy said.

  We were both using rough voices, hoping we wouldn’t be recognized. We made a point of it because Julie had spoken with both of us at the concession a few times.

  “Money?” Julie said and turned her head to look around, even though with that mask on, she couldn
’t see any more than she would have at the bottom of a coal mine. It was rigged so she couldn’t even look down and under it.

  “Your daddy’s going to pay us some money, dear.”

  I told her she had to step down into the box, and she hesitated for only a moment and then did just that.

  “Lie down,” I said. “It’s a box, but there’s plenty of room.”

  She started sniffing. I had her lie on her back.

  She said, “Please don’t rape me.”

  “No one’s going to rape you,” I said.

  I had screwed some metal loops into the inner sides of the box, and I put the rope around Julie’s hands again, one on each hand this time, and I tied the other ends to the loops inside. Then I tied her feet together, but loosely, and ran that rope through another loop at the foot end of the box.

  “We’re going to put a lid on this box,” I said.

  “No. No. Please, God, no.”

  “And I’ll fasten it shut with clamps. No use in struggling, you’ll just make the ropes tighter than they need to be.”

  “Why don’t you give her a massage, Devil?”

  “I just want her to know she’s safe.”

  “Safe?” Nancy said.

  I turned my attention back to Julie. “I’m going to put the lid on and fasten the clamps. I’ll come back later and check on you.”

  “Or I will,” Nancy said.

  “We’ll bring you water then, some food. You shouldn’t be here long, and we will take you out in the morning.”

  “The morning? Oh Jesus, don’t leave me in this box.”

  “We’ll take you out and let you go to the bathroom and take care of you out of the box, but you’ll have to go back inside now and then.”

  “Give us any trouble,” Nancy said, “and you’ll stay in that goddamn box shitting and pissing on yourself, you hear me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Julie said.

  The way she said that, all schoolgirl polite, I almost pulled her out of there and drove her home, but instead I gritted my teeth and, with Nancy’s help, put the lid on and fastened it down.

  Me and Nancy took off our masks and hats. I slipped the plywood over the box, then we fastened the air pipe through the hole in the plywood and the top of the box, took shovels, and put a thin layer of dirt over the plywood. With that pipe sticking up, I don’t know why we bothered with the dirt, but at that moment it seemed the right thing to do. Way Nancy saw it, things went sideways, we could pull the pipe and throw more dirt into the hole and no one would know she was there. That, of course, meant the worst for Julie, but it was an idea Nancy had, and she liked to elaborate on it from time to time.

  When we finished, I could barely hear Julie crying down there.

  (52)

  We went up to the house, me pushing a wheelbarrow with a shovel laid in it. We hid the masks and hats and gloves in the attic. I took off Frank’s clothes and changed into mine, went out and stuck the clothes and shoes in a big black barrel out back used for burning trash. I got some kerosene that was used for fueling cookouts and squirted that into the barrel. I squirted until the plastic bottle was empty. Nancy had also changed, and she put her clothes in there too, just in case Julie might later remember what we had been wearing. I set the stuff on fire, and we sat on the back porch while it burned.

  It took a while, but all of it burned. I sprayed the sides of the barrel with the water hose when the fire went out. I tipped the barrel and raked out the stuff that was left, buttons and so on. I raked it all out and shoveled it into the wheelbarrow and let it cool in the night air. Tomorrow, I would bag it and make sure it was put out for the garbage truck.

  We went to bed. I slept miserable, lying there in a dead man’s bed. Every time I dropped off, I thought I could hear Julie crying and whimpering. It sounded like it was coming from under the bed.

  I woke up and was almost tempted to look under the bed to be certain, that’s how strong the dream was.

  Nancy was fast asleep.

  In the kitchen I filled a glass with water and sat in the dark at the table. I looked out the window and I could see the drive-in sign. The light was out, but it was outlined in the moonlight. It seemed alien, like a rocket ship from Mars that had landed quietly.

  I sipped my water, went into the bedroom quietly, and got dressed. While I was doing that, Nancy woke up.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “She’s all right.”

  “I know. I’m just nervous. We need to mail the note.”

  Nancy sat up. “Turn on the light.”

  I turned on the light.

  “We don’t need to mail it during the night, Ed.”

  “I know. Just thought we should get it ready. Then I can drive it into town and put it in a mailbox.”

  “Don’t be silly. Someone sees you dropping off a letter in the middle of the night, remembers that, you’ll have put our asses in a crack.”

  “Guess you’re right. I’m just anxious.”

  “You’re always slowing me down. Now I’m slowing you down. That boyfriend of hers has probably worked his way out of his hand ties by now, driven home, and told everyone what happened. The cops are already out searching. In the morning we’ll put together the note. I can take it into town and drop it off, go by the store and pick up some groceries. Make it all seem like a casual town run. No one is going to think I’m mailing a ransom note. You’re supposed to be visiting your grandmother, remember.”

  “About that. Say the cops do get onto us or they’re curious, they ask where I was during that time, what do I say? I don’t have a grandmother I can visit.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Neither had I. That’s a hole in the plan.”

  Nancy sat quietly with her knees drawn up, her elbows resting on them, her head in her hands.

  “Say you actually just wanted to get away but was afraid you said that, I might fire you. You went driving up-country, slept in your car, and just cleared your head.”

  “I can’t prove any of that.”

  “They can’t disprove it. It’s one of those things someone might do who has lost their job and is now working at a shitty drive-in.”

  “All right. It’s more likely no one will ask.”

  “Exactly. You’re being a nervous Nellie.”

  I finally turned off the light and went back to bed.

  In the morning, we wrote the ransom note, said in the note we’d call the next morning and to be by the phone. We wrote that if Esau Rose wanted to see his daughter alive again, he needed fifty thousand dollars, and we’d let him know how to make the exchange. We told him we knew the cops knew Julie was missing, but it was best he not bring them with him. That wouldn’t be good for Julie.

  After we wrote the note, Nancy put it in an envelope, then went out and got the newspaper that had been tossed in the yard, brought it in, and spread it out on the kitchen table.

  There was no mention of the kidnapping.

  “That’s because they’re keeping it quiet,” I said. “They’re not wanting to alert everyone. They’re waiting to hear from us. They probably have lover boy put away somewhere so he won’t blab. That’s good. It means the police are taking it serious, and so is Rose.”

  Nancy got dressed and took the letter to town.

  I got my mask, hat, and gloves and went out to the shed with a paper bag that Nancy had packed with food. I put the mask and hat on, the gloves, raked the dirt off the plyboard, lifted the pipe out of it, unlatched the lid.

  Julie was trembling, covered in sweat. It looked like she had just washed her hair.

  I spoke to her, untied her, and helped her out of the box. She was weak and seemed to have forgotten how to walk. Her legs were like rubber. “My legs and arms are numb.”

  I helped her to a chair we had there for her, and she sat. “Kind of flex your arms and legs, and you’ll get circulation back.”

  She did that. I opened up the bag. The
re was a banana in it, a thermos with coffee.

  “I brought something to eat. It’s not much, but you won’t be here much longer.”

  “We may not have the kind of money you’re asking for. People think we got money, and we do all right, but it’s all in the house and the cars.”

  “You let us worry about that.”

  I leaned against the wall while she ate. Even blindfolded, she was careful as she peeled the banana, as if she might be doing it in front of the queen of England. She had to drink straight from the thermos because there was no cup with it. She even did that delicately.

  When she finished, I took the peel and the thermos from her. “I’ll bring you something better later.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Honey, it’s just the money. We get that, you go home.”

  “That box, it’s horrible.”

  “You’ll be all right.”

  “Please don’t put me back in that box.”

  “Not right away. I think you ought to walk around some more.”

  “You’ll have to help me again. My hands and arms are okay, but my legs feel numb.”

  I went over and helped her up and walked her around the shed with my arm around her waist, her arm thrown over my shoulder. Even having been in that box all night, she had a nice smell about her.

  We were walking still when Nancy came in, wearing her mask, hat, and gloves.

  “Dancing?”

  “Her legs are numb.” I walked her around a little more, then sat her down in the chair.

  “Put her back in the box.”

  “There’s no rush. Leave her out a bit. She hasn’t been to the bathroom yet. I’ll watch her.”

  “I bet.”

  “Then you watch her.”

  We both watched her, brought her up to the house, and Nancy helped her go to the bathroom. We let her set at the kitchen table with a glass of water.

  “Don’t even try to look under that mask,” Nancy said.

  “No, ma’am. I won’t.”

  I guess Julie was out of the box a couple hours, and then we had to put her back in. She went to it wailing, and it killed me to tie her down again and seal her up.