Kayla didn’t smoke.
The sergeant, who had been against the wall near Harry the bear, stepped out into the wide breach between hallway and den, said, “Howdy, dumb dick.”
“I’m sorry, Harry,” Kayla said. “I’m so sorry.”
Harry felt someone behind him, turned. It was the chief. He looked a lot less like a grandfather now. And he had a friend with him. A black automatic.
“A gal can only take so many cigarette burns on the tits before she calls,” the chief said. “And actually, that’s not what did it. I promised to put a cigar in her nether regions and light it, let it burn down. She wasn’t up for that. True love has its limitations. Am I right, Officer?”
Kayla’s head drooped as if it might fall off her neck. “I’m so sorry, Harry. So sorry.”
“You two, you thought you were so smart, but there was one problem. Kayla’s perfume. She wasn’t supposed to wear perfume to work, you know, but alas, just couldn’t help herself. And that dead body you left on my couch, awful, but the sign—the sign Kayla made—it stunk of her perfume, and no one else has that smell but Kayla…. Who’s Tad?”
Harry’s mind raced, thought, oh, yeah, she mentioned him on the phone when she called. But, she didn’t say who he was. Or did she? Does he know? Is he just jacking with me? He took a flier.
“My dog,” Harry said.
“Your dog?”
“Yeah. Shepherd.”
“You don’t have a dog,” the chief said. “We been to your place, remember? It’s where the unfortunate Mr. Barnhouse, instead of you, met his fate. No dog.”
“My mother has him. That’s where I was when Kayla called. With her and Tad.”
“It could be checked, you know.”
“I’m sure.”
“A dog?”
“Yep.”
“You believe that, Pale?” the chief said. “We talked to his mother. Remember a dog?”
“He was with me then,” Harry said.
“Sounds like some shit to me,” the chief said.
“Hell, why not?” Pale said. “I’ll buy it. Who the fuck names a person Tad? Hey…guess we don’t need to call each other code names, do we? They know who we are.”
“Of course not,” the chief said. “Are you fucking high? Of course not.” Then he turned his attention back to Harry. “Bottom line, my young man, is you aren’t going to get but just a few hours older. The two of you, you’re going to meet a nasty fate. Tell ’em, Sergeant, a nasty fate.”
“He’s right,” said Sergeant Pale, coming up behind Harry, striking him hard with the side of his hand on the back of the neck, causing him to drop to his knees. “Nasty. Old Testament–style nasty.”
Tad waited in the trunk awhile. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Kayla, he just didn’t trust circumstances. His wife, Dorothy, always said he spent so much time trying to figure what people were really thinking, instead of just going with the flow. She was probably right. But part of martial arts was going with the flow, and part of it was being prepared for what might happen inside the flow. Even smooth-looking water can have a fast-churning undercurrent. Way he saw it, way he looked at things, he was doing the Boy Scout motto: Be prepared.
He started to lift the trunk, but decided against it. Better to listen and wait. He’d give it two, maybe three more minutes. He could stand that much. Then he was going to start snooping around the house, see that things were okay. Worst that would probably happen was that he would end up seeing a movie at the dollar rerun show.
What the fuck was showing anyway?
There was a sudden rushing noise and a thump and the trunk went shut and everything was completely dark. Tad heard something walking up the trunk, and then the noise was a bit more distant, as if it were on top of the car.
Yep. That was it. The top of the car.
Then the noise returned to the trunk, and finally he could hear just outside the trunk a sniffing noise.
A goddamn dog. That fucking big idiot Winston.
“Shit,” Tad said.
Winston, with cat turds on his breath, stood with his front paws on the trunk and sniffed the air, turned his head and bent his body so he could smell where trunk and car came together. Winston knew someone was inside the trunk, but it was nothing to him. They weren’t going to let him ride, he could tell that.
But you never knew.
Sometimes they might.
It could happen.
The dog lifted his head, his nose pointing up. He twitched it.
More cat shit. One block down, partially buried, pretty fresh. Near that was the smell of some other dog that left urine messages.
Winston’s tongue came out and rolled along his snout, then he dropped down on all fours and went off at a trot.
“What we’re gonna do,” the chief said, “is we’re going to take a little ride, gonna go in your car, and Pale here, he’s gonna follow in our car. Now, he’s gonna walk down the block, get it out of the church parking lot, drive up out back, and you guys, you’re gonna go out the back door and get in your car without giving me any trouble. And Mr. Wilkes, you’re gonna drive. Me, I’m gonna sit in the back with a pistol to the back of her head, because she’s gonna sit by you. That way you get to smell this sweet thing all the way out to the cliff. Course, all that perfume, I’d smell her too, even if I was following in the other car.”
“Cliff?” Harry said.
“Humper’s Hill. And we’re gonna have a companion with us. Someone you know well.”
All right, Tad thought. How the hell do I get out of this motherfucker? It’s no use pushing at the trunk, but, what the hell, I’ve got to give it a try.
He did.
He was right. No use in that.
He checked to see if the trunk was connected to the backseat, to see if he could push the seat down from inside the trunk, get out that way.
He used the light on his cell phone to look. Nope. A metal wall between him and the seat.
He was fucked.
He took a deep breath, considered.
Okay, now. Don’t panic.
How much air have I got?
Quite a bit. As long as I don’t breathe.
Maybe I can roll on my back, put my feet against the trunk, and push until the lock breaks. And that would be a good plan if I had the legs of a goddamn bull elephant. Otherwise, not so smart.
Maybe Harry will come back and check on me, and I can feel like a big idiot, and Kayla will get mad, think I didn’t trust her, and…well, it beats smothering.
Shit. I can call Harry on the phone. What the hell am I thinking? I can call him and he can come and get me.
I’ll give it a minute, see if he shows up, then I’ll call. In the meantime, I’ll just lay here and feel like shit with my goddamn side lying on a tire iron and my ass pushed up against a spare tire. How the fuck old is this car anyway? Didn’t they stop making these about the time of the Flintstones?
Flintstones?
How did the theme song go?
“…huh, huh, huh, something in history.”
Damn. That’s some shit. Can’t remember the theme song. I used to watch that when I was a kid.
I’m sure it sucked.
But I watched it.
