After Midnight

me. “I cut her down.”

“You cut her down?”

“The ropes, the ropes. I freed her from the ropes from which she was so cruelly hanging, thanks to you.”

“I didn’t do that to her.”

“But you didn’t cut her down.”

I didn’t need to be reminded of that.

“Are you done eating?” I asked.

“No!” Losing his grin, he turned away and hurried over to his plate and stuffed more steak into his mouth.

“Okay,” I said. “So what happened after you…took her down from the ropes?”

“Plenty.”

“Tell me.”

“Fucked the daylights out of her, for starters.”

I struck him hard across the ass with the flat of the saber blade. He shrieked and arched his back and clutched his buttocks. For a while, he stood there gasping for air. Then he bent forward a little and braced his hands on the counter top. I could see him shaking.

“You forgot who has the sword,” I told him.

“You asked…”

“I didn’t like your answer. I don’t want to hear about that stuff. What else happened?”

“We…we buried the bodies. Milo and Marilyn.”

“Where’d this Marilyn come from, anyway?”

“The tent. Milo had her in the tent.”

“Where’d she come from? Is she from around here? Did you catch her in Miller’s Woods?”

“Huh? No. We grabbed her when we were on the road.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Well, we spotted her at a gas station. That was a few days ago, when we were up north. We’d stopped for a fill-up, and there she was, pumping gas into her Toyota. A real babe. She wore these short shorts…” He glanced back at me and at the saber. Then he went on. “Anyway, we followed her when she left the station. We wanted her to rear-end us, so we got ahead of her, then slowed down. This Marilyn was impatient, so she tailgated us, trying to get us to speed up or pull over. A real bitch move. So then, when we came to a place where nobody was around, Milo suddenly stomped on the brakes. Wham! She rear-ended us. Well, we all got out to check the damage and exchange information. And that’s when we snatched her. We threw her into the back of the van, I jumped in with her, and Milo drove off.”

“You have a van?” I asked.

“Sure. You’ve gotta have a van.”

“Where is it?”

“Oh, we’ve got it hidden in the woods. Not too far from a road, but far enough so it’s out of sight.”

“So you brought Marilyn here to the woods?”

“Right. And put up our camp and had ourselves…” He gave the saber an uneasy glance. “We kept her as our guest in the camp for a couple of days, and then she died.”

“Died, huh?”

“Well, Milo cut her throat.”

“Milo, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“How many other people have you two killed?”

“Between the two of us? Quite a few. I couldn’t say for sure.”

“How long were you together?”

“Milo and me?”

“Yeah. Traveling around in your van, killing people.”

“A couple of years.”

“My God.”

He grinned at me. “Just doing some population control. Environmentally speaking, over-population is a real…”

“Shut up.”

“Sorry.” He faced forward again.

“So what happened,” I asked, “after you and Judy dug the graves last night?”

“Nothing. Well, we threw Milo and Marilyn in and covered them with dirt, of course. Then we went to sleep. That’s all.” Reaching out, he picked up a single piece of steak. He looked at me, then stuck it into his mouth and started to chew.

“But you came back here today,” I told him. “What’d you do with Judy when you left camp? Where is she?”

“Still there…in camp.”

“Alive?”

He nodded.

“Tied up?”

He grunted, then said, “Tied and gagged. In the tent.”

“And in what condition?”

“Fine. She’s fine.”

“She can’t be fine.”

“I didn’t hurt her.”

“Sure you didn’t.”

“Not much.” He leered over his shoulder at me. “I’d be glad to take you to her.”

“Not interested,” I said.

“Sure you are. You’re very interested.”

“You know what I want?”

“Judy.”

“No. I want this house cleaned up. I want you to haul Elroy’s body out—and get his head out of the pool. Then we’ll take a little trip. You buried Milo and Marilyn somewhere near your camp?”

He nodded and stuffed more steak into his mouth.

“You have shovels?”

“Sure. Tools of the trade. Got a couple of them.”

“Okay. Then I guess we will go to camp. You can bury Elroy there with the others.”

“And you can have a nice reunion with Judy.”

51

TEAMWORK

“Cut it out about Judy,” I said.

“Whatever you say. You’re the boss.”

“Finish up with the food. We’ve gotta get on with this.”

He stuffed the last three or four pieces of steak into his mouth. Chewing, his sidestepped to the sink.

“You raped her, huh?” I asked.

He made a garbled sound.