Sawbones

curtain hanging between the front seats and the living area. Click — and a pale, half- hearted light flickers through the back of the Winnebago.

The place is filthy, the carpet covered with dirt and stains that Laura doesn’t want to think about. Everything is a mess, the windows covered up with flattened cardboard boxes, held in place with duct tape. It smells of fear and sweat and piss.

Four young women and the Bastard.

He steps nimbly over the crying girl and reaches for the holdall on the table, making sure to steer well clear of Laura’s feet. Once kicked in the knee, twice shy. She tries to tell him exactly what her dad’s going to do to the Bastard when he catches him, but all that escapes the gag is, “Mmmmmgh mmmmmnt, mnnnninmmmmt!”

The Bastard smiles down at her, unzips the holdall and pulls the tazer out, waggling the thing at her. “Now, now. We don’t want to be electrocuted again, do we?”

New Jersey — Wednesday — Two days ago

Brian is such an asshole. Telling her he’s going to Harvard when they’re both supposed to be going to Yale. Asshole, asshole, asshole. She storms out of the cinema, throws her head back and shouts it out loud, “Brian James Anderson is an ASSHOLE!”

Harvard.

And he’s got the nerve to act all shocked when she pours her Diet Coke over his head.

She wipes a tear away with the heel of her hand. She’s not going to cry over him. He’s an asshole and a jerk and she wishes she’d never accepted his school pin. They were supposed to be going to Yale!

She stops on the sidewalk and holds up a hand as a yellow cab goes past. Son-of-a-bitch doesn’t even slow down. Men!

Of course, what she should do is call her dad, ask him to come pick her up, but then she’ll have to tell him why she isn’t getting a lift home. And he’ll ask her what’s wrong. And she’ll start to cry. And then Dad will probably get Henry to kick the crap out of her boyfriend. Not that Brian doesn’t deserve it. .

Harvard. .

How could he do that to her?

She’s not going to cry. She’s not. . Yes, she is.

Laura’s so miserable she almost doesn’t hear it — a pitiful mewing sound. A kitten, in the alleyway. She peers into the dark space between a hair salon and a flower shop, both closed for the night. There’s a cardboard box sitting in a doorway, about halfway down the alley, caught in the glow of a security light.

She can see a pair of little fuzzy ears moving around in there.

Laura takes a couple of steps towards it, then freezes, and pulls the pepper spray from her purse. Never hurts to be too careful. But there’s no one there, just the cardboard box with a single black and white kitten in it. The poor thing must be hungry. She squats down in front of the box and wipes the tears from her eyes.

“You been abandoned too?” And the tears are there again.

She picks the kitten out of the box, holding the little furry bundle against her chest, turns. . and it all goes into slow motion. A scuffing noise behind her — and she starts to spin round. But she’s not fast enough.

It feels like a punch in the kidneys, and then the electricity kicks in, shooting through the muscles of her back, making everything scream. And as her legs give way, and she starts to fall, all she can think of is that if she lands on the kitten the poor thing will be crushed.

Laura’s head slams into the alley floor and everything goes black.

The back of a filthy Winnebago — Today — Friday

The Bastard pops the tazer back in his holdall, and picks up the cardboard box from under the table, making cooing noises at the kitten inside. “Who’s Daddy’s little angel?” he says. “You are. Yes, you are.” Then he tucks the box under his arm and walks back through the curtain, singing The Lord is My Shepherd as he goes.

The next sound is the driver’s door being slammed.

Laura knows that when the Bastard returns he’ll have another girl with him. And then they’ll be back on the road again. One Step closer to Christ knows what.

Chapter 9

It’s nearly midnight and we’re driving along the Interstate, listening to some bullshit talk radio station, because that’s all this God-damned car will pick up. Henry’s sitting in the passenger seat, arguing with the callers — even though they can’t hear him — and drinking from a fresh bottle of Old Kentucky.

I can’t decide if the smell of bourbon’s making me feel hungry or sick.

‘I just wanna say,’ says some cracker on the radio, ‘that this isn’t about gun control, it’s about not treating women with the respect they deserve!’

“Course it’s about gun control, you stupid bitch!” says Henry, “How can it not be about gun control? How stupid are these people? Hello! Wake the fuck up. Isn’t about gun control my ass.”

“Yeah, well,” I say, “what do you expect from people who got nothing better to do on a Friday night than call some lame-ass radio show?”

Jack’s in the back, trying to sleep as the counties slowly drift by outside: McLean, Woodford, Tazewell, Peoria, Knox. . We get a small laugh on the way out of Knox — the next county’s called ‘Henry’. “Hey, look,” I say, “you’re five miles away!”

Henry toasts the big sign with his name on it as we cross the county line.

Then twenty-five miles later we’re driving through the last chunk of Illinois, Rock Island. It’s not even eleven miles wide, but it takes us nearly half an hour to cross the border into Iowa. God-damned car steers like a boat, brakes like an oil tanker, and accelerates like. . You know what? I can’t think of anything that accelerates this slowly. My fucking apartment moves faster than this.

The radio fizzes and crackles as the signal fades, so Henry fiddles with the dial. Back and forth, looking for something to listen to. We almost get a country and western station, but Henry says he’d rather listen to a fat guy farting. And then it’s more late night talk radio.

‘. . in three weeks,’ says a man’s voice. ‘OK, you’re listening to KFBM — Scott County Radio, all talk, all of the time. We’ll be back after these messages. .’ Then it’s ads for tractor dealerships and farming shit. ‘Right, we’re on the air with a regular caller — Jason. What’s on your mind, Jason?’

‘Yeah, you see that America’s Most Wanted tonight? That Sawbones guy? Travellin’ all over the country and snatching girls?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘What I want to know is how come the Feds can’t catch this guy?’

“’Cause they’re assholes, that’s why,” says Henry, back into his bourbon again. “Tell you, half the people who call these programmes need locking up. The other half should be taken outside and shot. Back of the head. BAM!”

Then some woman calls in and proves Henry right. ‘You know what,’ she says, her voice all nasal, like she’s got a cold, or a finger jammed up there, hunting for her brain, ‘I saw that Jones guy on the TV going on about his daughter. You know what I heard? I heard he was a mobster. He’s out there running drugs and prostitutes and murdering people, and we’re supposed to feel sorry for him because his daughter’s gone missing?’ She gives one of those sarcastic laughs. ‘You know what I call it? I call it God’s judgement. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap!” It’s in the Bible, people — ’

Henry looks at me, then switches the radio off. He doesn’t even bother shouting at it.

“So. .” I say at last, “what we going to do when we get to Polk County?”

Henry shrugs and takes another swig. “We get ourselves a list of all the Winnebagos registered in Polk and we go visit each and every one. When we find the one with a hula Elvis and an ‘In God We Trust’ bumper sticker, we kick the shit out the owner and take him back to New Jersey.”