More Twisted: Collected Stories, Vol. II

Sloan noticed that Agnes had shredded the napkin she was holding.

“Well, I’m not inclined to go into specifics with strangers,” he said, irritated.

“I’m sorry,” Bill said quickly.

“I’m just making a point. Which is that somebody who was dead was still causing me problems. I could see it real clear. A bitch when she was alive, a bitch when she was dead. God gave her a troublemaker’s soul. You believe in God, Sloan?”

“No.”

Agnes stirred. Sloan glanced at three crucifixes on the wall.

“I believe in selling. That’s about it.”

“That’s your soul then. Warmed to ninety-eight point six.” A rubbery grin. “Since you’re still alive.”

“And what’s your soul like, Greg? Good, bad?”

“Well, I’m not a welcher,” he said coyly. “Beyond that, you’ll have to guess. I don’t give as much away as you do.”

The lights dimmed. Another dip in the power.

“Look at that,” Greg said. “Maybe it’s the souls of some family hanging around here, playing with the lights. Whatta you think, Bill?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“A family that died here,” Greg mused. “Anybody die here that you know of, Bill?”

Agnes swallowed hard. Bill took a sip from a glass of what looked like flat soda. His hands shook.

The lights came back on full. Greg looked around the place. “Whatta you think this house’s worth, Sloan?”

“I don’t know,” he answered calmly, growing tired of the baiting. “I sell computers, remember? Not houses.”

“I’m thinking a cool two hundred thousand.”

The noise again from behind the door. It was louder this time, audible over the moaning of the air conditioner. A scraping, a thud.

The three people in the room looked toward the door. Agnes and Bill were uneasy. Nobody said a word about the sound.

“Where’ve you been selling your computers?” Greg asked.

“I was in Durrant today. Now I’m heading east.”

“Times’re slow ’round here. People out of work, right, Bill?”

“Hard times.”

“Hard times here, hard times everywhere.” Greg seemed drunk but Sloan smelled no liquor and noticed that the only alcohol in sight was a corked bottle of New York State port and a cheap brandy, sitting safely behind a greasy-windowed breakfront. “Hard times for salesmen too, I’ll bet. Even salesmen who can sell anything, like you.”

Sloan calmly asked, “Something about me you don’t like, Greg?”

“Why, no.” But the man’s steely eyes muttered the opposite. “Where’d you get that idea?”

“It’s the heat,” Agnes said quickly, playing mediator. “I was watching this show on the news. CNN. About what the heat’s doing. Rioting in Detroit, forest fires up near Saginaw. It’s making people act crazy.”

“Crazy?” Greg asked. “Crazy?”

“I didn’t mean you,” she said fast.

Greg turned to Sloan. “Let’s ask Mr. Salesman here if I’m acting crazy.”

Sloan figured he could have the boy on his back in a strangle-hold in four or five minutes, but there’d be some serious damage to the tacky nicknacks. And the police’d come and there’d be all sorts of complications.

“Well, how ’bout it?”

“Nope, you don’t seem crazy to me.”

“You’re saying that ’cause you don’t want a hassle. Maybe you don’t have a salesman’s soul. Maybe you’ve got a liar’s soul…” He rubbed his face with both hands. “Damn, I’ve sweated a gallon.”

Sloan sensed control leaving the man. He noticed a gun rack on the wall. There were two rifles in it. He judged how fast he could get there. Was Bill stupid enough to leave an unlocked, loaded gun on the rack? Probably.

“Let me tell you something—” Greg began ominously, tapping the sweaty arms of the chair with blunt fingers.

The doorbell rang.

No one moved for a moment. Then Greg rose and walked to it, opened the door.

A husky man with long hair stood in the doorway. “Somebody called for a tow?”

“That’d be me.” Sloan stood and said to Agnes and Bill, “Thanks for the use of the phone.”

“No problem.”

“You’re sure you don’t want to stay. I can put some supper on. Please?” The poor woman was now clearly desperate.

“No. I have to be going.”

“Yeah,” Greg said, “Dave’s got to be going.”

“Damn,” the tow operator said. “Hotter in there than it is outside.”

You don’t know the half of it, Sloan thought, and started down the steps to the idling flatbed.

* * *

The driver winched Sloan’s disabled Chevy onto the bed, chained it down and then the two men climbed inside the cab of the truck. They pulled out onto the highway, heading east. The air conditioner roared and the cool air was a blessing.

The radio clattered. Sloan couldn’t hear it clearly over the sound of the AC but the driver leaned forward and listened to what was apparently some important message. When the transmission was over, the driver said, “They still haven’t caught that guy.”

“What guy?” Sloan asked.

“The killer. The guy who escaped from that prison about thirty miles east of here.”

“I didn’t hear about that.”

“I hope it makes it on American’s Most Wanted. You ever watch that show?”

“No. I don’t watch much TV,” Sloan said.

“I do,” the tow driver offered. “Can be educational.”

“Who is this guy?”

“Sort of a psycho killer, one of those sorts. Like in Silence of the Lambs. How ’bout movies, you like movies?”

“Yeah,” Sloan responded. “That was a good flick.”

“Guy was in the state prison about twenty miles west of here.”

“How’d he escape? That’s a pretty high-security place, isn’t it?”

“Sure is. My brother… uhm, my brother had a friend did time there for grand theft auto. Hard place. What they said on the news was that this killer was in the yard of that prison and, what with the heat, there was a power failure. I guess the backup didn’t go on either or something and the lights and the electrified fence were down for, I dunno, almost an hour. But by the time they got it going again, he was gone.”

Sloan shivered as the freezing air chilled his sweat-soaked clothes. He asked, “Say, you know that family where you picked me up? The Willises?”

“No sir. I don’t get out this way much.”

They continued driving for twenty minutes. Ahead, Sloan saw a band of flashing lights.

The driver said, “Roadblock. Probably searching for that escapee.”

Sloan could see two police cars. Two uniformed officers were pulling people over.

The salesman said to the tow driver, “When you get up there, pull off to the side. I want to talk to one of the cops.”