His head struck the dash and he lost consciousness. The dirt didn’t cover his head, but it did cover his pitiful supply of food and water, and the bottom of the PVC pipe.
Far from freedom, Justin had plunged himself into utter blackness.
… 23 Hours and Counting…
Spurlock had managed to grab hold of the wheel and work the Ranger to a stop after he squirted three rounds into Ingles’ head. That was the only good news of the day, as far as he could tell. He’d dumped the body, but it was only a matter of time. The cops were usually lazy and good-for-nothing, unless it came to uncovering his crimes, he lamented. Then, they were fucking wizards.
“Murder One,” muttered Spurlock as he cruised down a residential street. “I finally did it, I’m in the big time now, and the bastard leaves me out of gas.”
The Ranger’s needle hovered over the E.
“E” is for empty, thought Spurlock. He had to get gas, but he was penniless, and-guess what? That crazy fucker Ingles had not one dime in his bloodstained pockets.
That brought his fortune to exactly one quarter, three dimes and two pennies: fifty-seven cents in all. There were, of course, Ingle’s credit cards. Those he had already ditched miles away from the body. He wanted it to look like a robbery-a robbery and murder that Tom Spurlock hadn’t committed. Using the credit cards had been out of the question from the beginning.
Even the Ranger was very hot, too hot, but he needed wheels to get out of town. This whole thing had gone badly, it had gone so badly that he still didn’t quite believe it. He had come out of a list of crimes and a gauntlet of grim abuses with nothing.
Spotting another likely-looking house, Spurlock pulled the truck over about a hundred yards down the street from the front door and climbed warily out. He didn’t like petty con-jobs like this, but it was all he could think of short of just robbing someone. He walked up to the porch of a fairly new suburban home. The shrubs had hardly had a chance to grow in yet. As he walked up, he tugged his wallet from his back pocket and made an effort to smooth back his unkempt hair. It was still damp from his quick clean-up at the corner gas station restroom. Ingles’ blood had clouded the water as it spiraled down the drain. A fitting end to the bastard, thought Spurlock.
It wasn’t killing Ingles that really bothered him. It was the idea of paying the price for it. America’s prisons were nice places, relatively speaking. Especially in California. Lots of inmates had their own color TVs in their cells and plenty of workout equipment to keep themselves busy. They didn’t take you out and work you to death in the hot sun, either. Folsom did a bit of that, but not most of the others.
No, it wasn’t the prisons themselves that he feared. It was the other inmates. All the TV sets and weights in the world didn’t matter when you were caged with a pack of animals. The inmates were your true jailors and they had their own rules. Very harsh ones.
Even more than the inmates, he feared the ultimate penalty. The big one, the state’s grinning reaper. In California, it was the hiss of gas pellets. He always wondered if people tried to hold their breath to gain a few more seconds of life, or if they welcomed a quick end and just breathed deeply.
He shuddered and was startled as the door opened. He almost couldn’t recall having pressed the doorbell. The woman who answered it was pretty, if a bit on the chunky side. She had a baby on her hip and the clamor of cartoons in the living room behind her suggested that more children were present. She gave Spurlock a wary look.
“Hello ma’am,” he began, grinning, but not so widely as to show his worst teeth. “I’m your neighbor, from just three doors down.” Spurlock waved vaguely behind himself. “I was wondering if you could help me out.”
She tried to smile but it came off as a grimace. “What can I do for you?”
“Lovely kid you’ve got there, ma’am,” he said. “I’m expecting one myself this month. Is it a boy?”
“Yes,” she said, softening a fraction. Spurlock smiled back. Women always went for it when you complemented their brats.
“You see, ma’am, I hate to bother you like this, but I’ve got to pick up my brother and his kid in Livermore. There’s a baseball game there today. And, well anyway, they went off leaving me with an empty tank and no cash. Can you believe it?”
“I see,” she said, stiffening. They always did that as soon as you mentioned cash. A Frisbee lost in the backyard? Sure, no problem. Ten bucks? Different story. Sometimes he thought it was easier to get into a woman’s pants than it was to get a few bucks off her.
“I’m real embarrassed to have to ask like this, ma’am. I just need a small loan, see, until I get back. Just two hours, then you’ll have your money. If you want to ask my mother about it, I could take you over there. She’ll back up my story.” Spurlock didn’t even sweat the ‘meet my mother’ line. When he had first come up with it a couple of years back he had figured on taking them to an empty house where he had previously knocked and play some bit about mom not wanting to get out of bed. These days, he didn’t even worry about it. He had learned that no one wanted to follow you down the street to meet your old mom. They would give you the cash or they wouldn’t, but they wouldn’t follow you down the street.
“I don’t know,” she said.
On cue, he pulled out his wallet and showed it was empty. “See ma’am? If you could see your way to helpin’ your neighbor, I would really appreciate it.”
Reluctantly, she lifted her purse from a side table and slowly dug into it. She shifted the brat’s weight from one hip to the other. Spurlock watched her and fantasized about doing her. It had been quite a while since he had had a nice clean housewife like this one. Too bad he was on the run.
She looked back up at him and she must have seen the leering glint in his eye. She looked flustered. “Here,” she said, shoving a five at him.
Normally, he would have taken it and left. But this was the fifth house he had hit. He needed more than five friggin’ bucks.
He took the five and conjured a look of vast disappointment. He chewed his lower lip. “My truck gets good mileage, ma’am, but there’s no way I can make it to Livermore on a five.”
She was silent and so was he. He didn’t look at her. He let the tension build. She had already sprung for five to get rid of him, so why not ten?
“I’ll have to ask my husband,” she said, “that’s all I have.”She left the door ajar behind her.
Spurlock waited with mild trepidation. He slipped the five into his front pocket and looked back at the Ranger. He thought about bolting, but that might lead to a call to the police. He didn’t need that right now.
Men required a slightly different touch. As the door opened again, he put back his grin and shoved a hearty hand at the guy. He was a fairly big, blond guy in shorts and a tank top. He ignored the offered hand and frowned. Spurlock knew right away he was screwed.
He began his story again, but could tell it wasn’t working. The guy listened in stony silence.
“Look,” Spurlock finally said. “I can tell that I’m bothering you folks and maybe I should just be on my way. I don’t want to be a bad neighbor.”
The blond guy seemed not to hear him. He slowly pulled out his wallet and flipped it open. “So, you’re looking for a little loan, eh?” he said.
Spurlock looked down at the wallet and his heart fell away into his shoes and died there. A big flashy badge all but filled the guy’s wallet. He was a cop, and Spurlock knew he had been caught. Still, the beauty of this scam was that it was very hard to prove any wrong-doing. He took a breath and pasted his smile back into place. He would bluff it through.
“Yes sir, if you could spare a five, that would do it for me. You’ll have it back in two hours-three tops.”
The cop glanced at him as if surprised he was still going for it. The bastard looked a bit off-balance and it made Spurlock sing inside to see it.
“Forget it,” he said, snapping his wallet shut.
So, the prick had been just baiting him. Spurlock nodded and smiled some more. “I’ll be on my way, then. And thanks for your time. I’m sure I’ll see you around soon.”
“Hold it a moment, please,” said the cop.
Right then, Spurlock could see the door of his Ranger. It was just a hundred yard dash away. It seemed like a mile. He kept walking, with a curt wave of the hand over his shoulder. The best was to play that he was a bit pissed and done talking.
