“But it’s not their fault! How can he blame them?”
“Easier than blaming you, hating you, beating you up. This way, you’re just a victim and he feels justified.”
“I knew he was a homophobe, but a basher…”
“How’d he get their names? You tell him?”
“He made me tell him. Wasn’t enough he had to come looking for me, force me to move back home… he wanted names, addresses, everything about the men I… but I never thought… Goddamn him and that speed freak Bix!”
“What’s Bix’s last name?”
“Sullivan.”
“Does Tommy use drugs, too?”
Brief nod. “I don’t, I never hurt anybody, and he thinks what I do is sick!”
“Where can I find him and Bix Sullivan?”
“Why? What’re you going to do to them?”
“Stop them from attacking anybody else, maybe killing the next man they go after.”
“Put them in jail? Are you a cop?”
“Don’t you think they belong in jail?”
“Yes, but-” Troy’s face warped again, this time showing fear. “Oh, shit!”
The kid was staring past him, out into the garage. Runyon realized that the hissing sound had stopped, and when he half turned he saw that the gray-haired man had shed the acetylene torch, removed his goggles, and was approaching the office.
“He doesn’t know about me,” in a tense whisper. “That’s why I came home, Tommy promised not to tell him about me. Please don’t say anything. Not here, not now!”
The elder Douglass wore a quizzical smile as he came into the office, but he lost it when he got a look at his son’s pale, sweaty face. “What’s the matter? What’s going on here?”
“Nothing, Dad, nothing, this guy’s just… he’s looking for Tommy.”
Douglass transferred his gaze to Runyon. “Who’re you? What do you want with my son?”
“Tommy owes him money, that’s all.”
“Yeah? Another damn bill collector. He stays out all hours, can’t manage his finances, and you run off to Christ knows where for three weeks. Some pair of kids I got.”
Runyon said, “Where can I find Tommy, Mr. Douglass?”
“Well, you won’t find him at home. Come back tomorrow.”
“He lives with you?”
“Both my sons, one big happy family. You’re a bill collector and you don’t know that?”
“It’s important that I locate him right away.”
“Yeah, well, you’re out of luck,” Douglass said. “He left about five o’clock, went up to the city with a buddy of his. Spend more money he doesn’t have, make another big night of it in the friggin’ city.”
19
TAMARA
Three minutes after they arrived in Appalachia, Lemoyne locked her and Lauren in the sow-bug trailer and drove off by himself. Didn’t say where he was going. All he said was, “I’ll be back pretty soon.” And “You can’t get out of here so don’t even try.” And “Everything’s locked up in there-it better still be locked up when I get back.”
The inside wasn’t as bad as the outside, but it was still another prison cell. Stuffy, stinking of must and stale cigarettes, and not too clean-dust on all the surfaces, spiderwebs hanging in corners, probably bugs in the old worn carpeting and mismatched Goodwill furniture. Lemoyne hadn’t spent much time here. And nobody’d lived here in a long time.
Lauren said in a small, thick voice, “Tamara, I don’t feel so good.”
The child was still in her arms, burrowed up close. Tamara tilted her body back so she could see her face. Didn’t look so good, either. Sweaty, pale, moist-eyed, coughing in little dry hacks. Running a fever? Yeah-her forehead felt overwarm.
“I think I’m gonna be sick.”
Damn. Bathroom in here or not?
Turned out there was, a cubicle with a toilet and a sink and a rusty shower stall so tiny Horace would’ve had trouble squeezing in sideways. She set Lauren on her feet, lifted the toilet lid.
Kid said miserably, “I hate to throw up,” and leaned over the bowl with Tamara holding her and threw up.
When she was done, Tamara pushed the lever and the toilet flushed all right. Septic system. And a well for drinking water, judging from the mineral-brownish color of what came out of the sink tap, so that shed outside was probably a well-house. There was a towel hanging from a rack next to the sink, not clean but not filthy either. She let the cold water run until it more or less cleared, then wet the towel and used it to clean off Lauren’s face.
“Better now, honey?”
“Thirsty.”
“Me, too. Must be glasses here somewhere.”
Not in the bathroom. She picked Lauren up again, carried her into a dinky kitchen. Dining alcove in one corner, another sink, a propane stove, one of those pocket refrigerators, three wall cabinets and a pair of drawers on either side of the sink. Two of the cabinets were padlocked. The other one was full of plastic-plates, bowls, glasses, the kind of cheap pastel-colored crap designed for picnics. She rinsed out two of the glasses, filled one for Lauren, the other for herself. The water eased the dryness in her mouth, but it sloshed in her stomach and kicked up sharp hunger pangs. No food except a SlimFast shake and a Slim•Fast chocolate bar in, what, almost twenty- four hours? Last night Lemoyne had brought a sandwich and a glass of milk for Lauren, but nothing for her. Kid had tried to share the sandwich with her-what a sweetheart she was-but she’d refused. Take food out of a hungry, frightened child’s mouth? No way.
Lauren drank all of her water. Tamara asked, “More?”
“No. Can I lie down now? I still feel sick.”
“Sure you can.”
The trailer had two bedrooms, but she couldn’t bring herself to put Lauren in either of them. The smaller one had either been the real Angie’s, or Lemoyne had outfitted it that way. Bedspread with little pink animals on it. Couple of dolls and a box of toys on the dresser. Small closet full of child’s dresses, playsuits, other stuff-some new, some that looked as though it had been worn. Keep Lauren out of that room as long as she could.
The only other place for her to lie down was a dusty two-person couch in what passed for a living room. She set the little girl on the cushions, got her comfortable, found a blanket in the larger bedroom to cover her. On a stand nearby was a small TV that had to be older than she was. Television: the great babysitter. Was the electricity turned on? She tried a table lamp, then the TV. Not yet. So much for that idea.
But it didn’t matter anyway. When she looked at Lauren again, the poor kid was asleep.
All right. Now she could prowl.
Five rooms altogether, none of them more than about ten feet square. The only door to the outside was the one they’d come through and the lock on it was a heavy dead bolt. Forget that. Each of the rooms had a window, but only three-kitchen and the two bedrooms-were of any size. Two-by-three feet, about, the kind that split into two overlapping panes, one half stationary and the other half on a track so you could slide it open. Lauren would fit easily enough through the one half, but a grown woman with chubby buns? Be a tight squeeze, if she could manage it at all.
But the big problem was, all three windows were covered by thick, metal-framed mesh screens screwed to the wall on either side, top and bottom. You could poke fingers through the mesh far enough to release the window catch and slide the one half open-Tamara did that on each one to let fresh air in-but when she tried to animal the
