You’ll see where it’s gathered.”
When Tad heard the car door open, he started to call out, but then he heard a voice he didn’t know say, “Goddamn, that stinks,” so he remained silent.
Pale parked his car next to Harry’s, and when he got out he looked around carefully before opening his trunk pulling out a heavy package wrapped in thick plastic.
He laid the package near the back left side of Harry’s car, opened the left rear door with Harry’s key. He looked down at the heavy plastic package, at the dark shape inside of it. He looked around the dark alley again, quickly unwrapped the package. A stink came out of the opening and nearly knocked him down.
Turning away, he took in a deep breath, then, using gloves he pulled from his coat pocket, he returned to his work, lifted Joey’s ripe body out of the wrappings and placed it on the backseat behind the driver’s spot.
“Goddamn, that stinks,” he said.
He quickly folded up the plastic, returned it to the trunk of his car, removed his gloves, dropped them inside as well, and closed the trunk lid.
Tad could hear the plastic unwrapping, feel the car shake as the door was opened and something was put on the backseat. He had an uncomfortable feeling it might be Harry’s body.
Damn. He had been right. This had been some kind of trap, and now here he was, Mr. Helpful, locked in the trunk trying to remember the goddamn
Even with what was going on outside, he kept trying to remember the damn thing. Wasn’t there something about Bedrock in it, that being Fred Flintstone’s hometown?
Goddamn. Forget the fucking Flintstones.
Now he heard another voice.
“Get in behind the wheel. Give him the key, he’s driving.”
Tad felt the sensation of the car door opening, heard it slam. Then the doors on the other side of the car, front and back, slamming not quite in unison.
Okay. That meant at least three or four. Someone was behind the wheel, someone beside the driver, and one or two in the back. All four doors had slammed, and the car had moved in such a way to indicate that.
And, oh, let’s not forget another rider.
A big dumb-ass in the trunk.
The car started up. Tad heard another car engine turn over nearby. Okay. That means there may be five. Or more. Someone has got to drive the other car, and there could be someone with him. And if I weren’t inside the trunk I could probably count them and be sure.
The car began to move.
“You know where Humper’s Hill is, boy?” the chief asked. The chief was sitting in the backseat, the automatic close to Kayla’s head. Harry was at the wheel. Joey’s body was propped on the backseat across from the chief. Sergeant Pale was in his car, following.
“Never heard of it,” Harry said. No use making it easy.
“Sure you know. It was part of one of those sound things…. All right, you listen to me. We’ll do it your way. I’ll give directions. Get cute, and your girl gets one in the back of the head…. Goddamn, your friend here stinks.”
“Being dead will do that,” Harry said.
“You’ll be stinking soon enough,” the chief said. “You thought that body on my couch was some funny shit, didn’t you? Well, when they find your bodies, and who knows when that’ll be, you’ll have this guy with you, all trussed up. And the way I’ll see it, if I’m still chief, it’ll be read like this: You killed him. You and your girlfriend. For what, who knows? But you trussed him up, killed him for whatever reason…. Fun, maybe. Just to see if you could. And you took him out to Humper’s Hill to dump him, but, goddamn if you didn’t fuck up, and the car gear slipped, and in a moment of panic or excitement you put your foot on the gas thinking it was the brake, and damned if the whole kit and fucking caboodle of you didn’t go over the side.
“Out there, there’s a pretty good drop, youngsters, and it’s my feeling it’ll kill you. And if it doesn’t, well, there’s always me climbing down there and giving you a tire iron to the head. No one will be the wiser to what happened. No connection to me. And, hey, they may never find you. Considering most people go there to get laid, you’re just gonna be something for the kudzu to crawl over.
“Another way you can look at it to make you feel a little less blue is, you’ll be part of the cycle of life. You know, the worms, the soil, all that shit. I think about death, I think about that, and it gives me some comfort. How about you? Cheered up?”
“Fuck you,” Harry said.
The chief leaned over and clipped Harry’s ear with the automatic. Harry swerved.
“Pay attention to the goddamn road. You’ve turned over your boy back here.”
Joey, legs still bound behind him with his hands, lay on his side on the seat now. He looked like an old man from the decay. His face hung loose, and parts of it were coming off on the seat covers.
“Goddamn,” the chief said, and rolled down his window.
Tad caught bits and pieces of the conversation. He could also smell Joey. The trunk was filling with an odor like a slaughterhouse.
He pulled the tire iron out from under him, then removed his belt, took out his Swiss army knife, and carefully began cutting from the belt a long strip of leather. He found a loop in the trunk lock and ran the strip through it. He pulled the loose end of the strip back and looped it around his left wrist so when he popped the trunk he could keep it from swinging open. He took the tire iron and put it in under the lock and applied pressure. It was like trying to lever the world with a toothpick.
Following the chief’s direction, Harry went the route he already knew but didn’t admit to. He thought about Tad. If he looked around, he was bound to have figured out something was wrong. Surely he didn’t just get out of the trunk and go to the movies. That didn’t make sense.
But where was he?
He looked out of the corner of his eye at Kayla. She was steaming, he could see that. She was past being scared. She was starting to get mad. He had seen that look before, when she punched his ass long ago, and the other day when she slapped him, pushed his arm behind his back.
She was pissed.
Pissed she had been found out so easy.
Pissed she had been surprised and tied to a chair.
Pissed she had been burned with cigarettes, threatened with a lit cigar to her nether regions.
Pissed she had betrayed him.
He wished he could tell her it was okay. He understood. Pain is pain is pain, and no one is that tough.
Well, maybe Tad. He had a feeling Tad might be as tough as they came.
Tad put the tire tool down and took a deep breath.
This sucked. He was going to go over a cliff in a car trunk. He had thought of a lot of different ways he might die, but that wasn’t one of them. Novel, he had to admit, but not his choice. Probably, if he were ever found, he would have a spare tire up his ass, maybe a taillight in his teeth.
The situation was, as the philosophers said, not good.
He held his phone light close to the lock. So far he had managed to put some scratches on it, but when it came to scoring: lock, one. Tad, the big old fucking shit-covered goose egg.
He studied the lock for a time, then took out his pocketknife again.
He opened the pick blade, stuck it in the lock, went to work, hoping he’d hit a combination.
He hadn’t been at it thirty seconds before he broke the pick off in the lock with an unpleasant snapping sound.
Tad folded up what was left of the pick, put the knife in his pocket, and shifted so that he was on his side, his head supported by his arm.
He said to himself: Shit. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Shit. Fuck.
After a few seconds of continued communion with the universe, he returned to the tire tool, went back to trying to quietly lever the trunk lid open.
