122 Rules

by Deek Rhew

  Monica cursed. It hadn’t taken the homicidal bomber long to find her. He must have waited just in case he missed, and now he chased her with a raging intensity so great only her complete annihilation could soothe his fanatical desire for carnage. No chances this time. No mistakes. She wouldn’t be able to elude him and couldn’t hide in the desert, but she’d be damned if she wouldn’t make him work for it. Monica pressed harder on the gas pedal. The engine growled in response, and the wind howled like a demon.

  As the pursuing vehicle caught up, the glare of its lights—level with the Audi’s back window—shone through with a blinding intensity that scorched her eyes. At any second the deranged killer would bump her, sending her car careening into a cactus or flying into a culvert. Suddenly, the tailgating car swept out into the oncoming lane and moved up beside her. Terror shrieked through her veins as Monica dared to look over, certain she would see the madman with a gun aimed in her direction.

  A pickup full of teenage boys, laughing and hollering on the lonesome highway, met her gaze. One of the hooligans in the back of the truck took a long pull off his beer, then tossed the empty and stood. Wrapping his arm around the roll bar, he turned and dropped his pants, mooning her. The boy’s friends howled with approval. Monica rolled her eyes then flipped them the bird, which only made them hoot and holler louder.

  Ahead, a cross street intersected with the highway. At the last second, she slammed on the brakes and spun the wheel. The Audi chewed gravel, its tires squealing in anger, but as the rubber grabbed hold of the asphalt, she floored the accelerator around the corner.

  She watched in her review mirror, but the truck did not give chase. Fear gave way to the anger that surged in her blood. This should never have happened. The FBI should have been watching out for her. Crew Cut’s only job had been to keep her safe, and with her on such a tight leash, he should have been able to do so with ease. It’s not like she’d gone anywhere or told anyone…

  Her eyes widened as an image of the man on the motorcycle flashed through her mind. Peter. It couldn’t be a coincidence that he’d appeared on the same day she’d gotten her tracking device off. Or that he’d left town, and then her house had been blown to smithereens.

  But had Crew Cut been under orders to remove her tracking device? If so, and the FBI agent proved to be innocent, who in the organization had told him to do so? Jon? If not, then Crew had been bribed or otherwise finagled, and the FBI had a corrupt agent in their ranks.

  Peter had been hired to kill her, but why hadn’t he just done so? Why seduce her first? Maybe using the victim one last time for his own pleasure had become part of the assassin’s creed?

  Of course, she’d been using him too. She’d wanted to strike back and screw with the FBI in any way she could. A smug expression crossed her lips at the idea of Crew Cut and his hoard frantically making phone calls as she spilled all to Peter.

  But then her smile faltered. Could she be as much to blame for Peter getting at her as the people in charge of keeping her safe? Why did she always fight the system so hard? Maybe if she’d just gone with the flow, things would have worked out. Laven would have died or something, and she could have gone back to her regular life. Unlikely, but not impossible. He had to have enemies. And really, what had possessed her to open her damned mouth and tell Peter her name in the first place? And shouldn’t the FBI have come barreling in the second she’d revealed herself?

  These questions circled her mind like vultures targeting an injured deer.

  This wasn’t the life she’d envisioned when she started at NYU. She’d hated her life in Walberg—the city was shit and most of its citizens assholes.

  Until the incident at the library, Monica had always been in control of her own destiny. She had given that up for a while, but now the time had come to take the reins back. Somehow.

  She could hypothesize scientific principles, calculate derivatives, and pontificate on the philosophers of the Renaissance, but evading the FBI and hitmen? Phantom ideas barraged her at such a dizzying pace, each of them vying for her undivided attention, that she could not maintain focus on any one of them. Just as she attempted to grasp one of these roaming specters, it dissolved.

  Monica took a deep breath and quelled the stymieing thoughts. What did she know? From the mystery novels she consumed by the barrelful, she knew not to use her credit cards or cell phone. In fact...Monica fumbled in her purse and shut the FBI-issued phone off. She opened the Audi’s window and threw the little marvel of technology into the gutter, watching in the mirror as it hit the side of the road and broke into a dozen pieces.

  In the fictitious renditions of life as portrayed on the silver screen, the police often snared their quarry by triangulating signals or whatever. The task, so trivial and commonplace, had become part of the standard curriculum in Law Enforcement 101. Inexperienced as she was, she nevertheless wanted to make it as difficult as possible for Jon and his goons to apprehend her. Picturing the smug expression on the bastard’s face when they captured her due to some rookie mistake only doubled her resolve.

  So she did the only thing she could think of: put as much distance between herself and Walberg as possible.

  * * *

  The all-night truck stop where Monica stopped to fill up the little Audi had an attached convenience store that carried everything from auto parts to cheeseburgers. She bought some food and basic supplies for life on the lam, including a pre-paid cell. As she loaded her purchases into the trunk, she noticed the pump jockey leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette, eyeing the flashy little red sports car.

  Shit. She sighed, and her shoulders drooped. Could she drive anything more conspicuous? She needed to maintain as low a profile as possible, an infeasible task as long as her wheels looked like they belonged parked at an A-list celebrity auction.

  Maybe she could find someone willing to trade their Buick or Chevy for the Audi? But that seemed messy and time consuming; besides, she didn’t have the title, and the registration would be in Lisa’s name. What if the person she tried to sell it to thought she’d stolen it and called the police?

  She closed the trunk, went back into the store, and returned a few minutes later lugging several bags, which she added to the ones already in the small trunk. Apprehensive relief filled her when she saw the jockey no longer lounged against the wall, but prudence told her to put this place behind her as quickly as possible.

  Walberg had receded in her rearview mirror but so too had the adrenaline rush that had propelled her, and she found herself yawning as exhaustion filled the chasm left in its wake.

  But before finding somewhere to spend the night, she had more to do. She started the car, and steered it out of the lot and back onto the road. After another hour of driving and then the headlights flashed on a sign for the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. Monica guided the car into the deserted parking and surveyed her surroundings.

  No cars lingered in the deep pockets of shadow that lay like seas of inky darkness outside the sparse pools of eerie yellow light cast by the overhead fluorescents. She paused, listening, but could hear nothing save for the crickets and the occasional truck as it downshifted on the lonesome highway.

  Satisfied no one would bear witness, she opened the car’s little trunk and removed the large tire iron she’d purchased at the truck stop. The Audi’s creators had built the car for those screaming for attention. Fire-engine red, compact, and sleek, the design fell woefully short of satisfying her current needs.

  Monica intended to spray paint the car and be done with it. But the shiny metal gleamed under the artificial light, beckoning. She walked around Lisa’s little indulgence, looking for just the right place. She found a spot that seemed particularly tempting and raised the heavy iron over her head, then brought it around in an arc—not dissimilar to the one she’d used to bash the brains in of the man who tried to rape her all those years ago—and smashed it into the passenger door.

  It made a deep
whomp as metal met metal and teeth-rattling vibrations reverberated through her arms and shoulders. She raised the iron and brought it down again, the dent evolving into a divot. She moved a few inches to the rear and gave the divot a twin, then another.

  As she continued, pain spewed out of the ragged holes in her soul. It fed the anger, which came alive, erupting out of both new and ancient scars.

  “Bastards! Who do you think you are you can just lock me away?” She brought the iron down on the hood. She cursed at her father for dying and leaving her with a drunken whore of a mother. She screamed at Peter for killing her friend. While yelling at Laven for being such an idiot as to not check his surroundings before meeting with his murdering friend, she pulverized the Audi’s little four-circle symbol, putting a satisfying hole in the grill.

  She climbed up and hulked out on the front of the car like a 1950s movie monster, sending paint flakes and chips of metal flying as she brought the bar down on the roof while shouting at the top of her lungs, screaming her throat raw.

  Over and over, she slammed the iron down until the muscles in her arms and back throbbed, rendering her tormented hands numb from the violent vibrations. At last, she fell into a sobbing heap on the asphalt. The battered iron bar, flicks of red paint embedded in its surface, clattered on blacktop as she tossed it aside.

  The hellish pain and rage of her life flowed out of her, streaking down her cheeks. As the last of her sobbing subsided, a calm settled over her.

  Weariness weighed down her body as if it had been infused with lead, but she forced herself to climb to her feet and retrieve the newspapers and duct tape she’d purchased. She covered the windows, mirrors, and lights of the now bashed-to-shit Audi. Even in her frenzy, she’d been careful to leave these undamaged.

  Then she pulled out the final purchase: five cans of flat black spray paint. She covered every square inch of shiny red metal that had survived the bludgeoning.

  With a silent apology to whatever species she endangered by placing her leftovers in the landfill, she stuffed everything into a nearby dumpster, then stood back and admired her handiwork.

  Well, she’d wanted something that wouldn’t be tempting or eye-catching, and now she had it.

  The parking lot was still deserted. She could just spend the night here—find a corner spot and curl up on one of the Audi’s seats—but then she’d be visible and vulnerable to anyone that happened by. Plus, in the sun, the car would turn into a pressure cooker in about five minutes.

  Monica rummaged around in the trunk and pulled out a can of diet soda, then she rolled down all the windows and turned on the radio. Not many channels broadcast in the middle of nowhere, so she tried the CD button. A French rock band blared through the speakers.

  She didn’t speak the language, but the bass thumped and the guitars shrieked. Monica instantly fell in love and cranked up the stereo to wine-glass-shattering decibels. She took a long pull off the cola, crumpled up the empty can, and belched long, loud, and deep as she powered her way out of the parking lot towards parts—and a future—unknown.

  25

  At just before two in the morning, Monica pulled into the dirty parking lot of a motel. Weeds grew from cracks in the asphalt, and aged pages of sun-bleached newspapers adhered to the brick siding, glued in place by ancient rain showers. She picked the establishment with the flickering neon sign that boasted rooms by the hour, day, or month, passing up nicer major chain accommodations because this place would probably accept cash and ask no questions.

  The gaze of the greasy man behind the counter crawled over her as she approached the window, the sensation of being groped as palpable as though he had been using his hands to explore the contours of her body.

  In the old Superman movies, the hero had the ability to see through barriers by simply wishing to do so. Unlike the man of steel, who perpetuated the advancement of humankind through the pursuit of truth, justice, and the American way, this man’s superpower—visual molestation—would have been used only to satisfy his unquenchable lust for leering.

  Monica pried his gaze off her breasts when she handed over the night’s rent plus an extra forty dollars. The money disappeared in a neat sleight of hand that would have impressed David Copperfield. The pervert’s kryptonite: greed.

  When he handed her a key, attached via a chain to a ridiculously large plate with 199 printed on its surface, his hand unnecessarily fondled her fingers. His lips and eyes formed a slow jack-o-lantern smile as he wished her good night, making the hairs on the nape of her neck stand on end. Monica left the counter as fast as she could without actually running, pulling out a small bottle of hand sanitizer and hoping the miracle of the disinfectant would wipe away the unclean feeling.

  She followed the cracked sidewalk until she reached unit 199, inserted the key—the too-large paddle obnoxiously banging against the metal of the door—and, glancing around to make sure no one observed her, pushed inside.

  She wrinkled her nose in disgust. The room had the musty, depressed aroma of desolation and cheap, mildewed carpet. Thinking of the slimy hotel attendant, the FBI, the mob, and, of course, Peter, she set the deadbolt on the thin door then jimmied the room’s only chair under the handle. The hazardous conditions warranted more Fort Knox-like security, but under the circumstances, she could do no better. She looked one last time at her pathetic precaution then shrugged and turned to the bed.

  Questionable stains whose origins she preferred not to think about darkened the bedspread, giving it a patchwork appearance. Ordinarily, the place would have sent her packing, but the events of the day hadn’t even been in the same universe as ordinary.

  She dumped her meager belongings and lay down fully clothed, falling asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.

  26

  Monica woke from a dreamless slumber to harsh sunshine bleeding through the thin, cheap drapes of the hotel room. When she sat up on the edge of the bed, her foggy memories from the night before played through her mind like scenes from a Quentin Tarantino movie rather than images from her own life. The only thing lacking in this saga: a white knight. Her flick required someone dashing with large muscles, extensive experience living outside the law, and a knowing aw-shucks smile to arrive on the brink of disaster and save the damsel in distress.

  She waited.

  When neither Matt Damon nor Daniel Craig burst through her door, she sighed and picked up the remote to the battered TV set and clicked the power button.

  She hadn’t expected the television to even work, and she almost jumped when she heard a low electrical hum as it buzzed to life. She flipped through the channels, but only a kid’s program playing a Sesame Street knockoff and a news station worked in this remote corner of the globe. The idiocy of the singing animals only slightly outweighed the idiocy of the news anchors, so she chose the latter.

  They transitioned from fluff story to fluff story, so she left the box on for background noise and padded into the tiny bathroom. She stripped and stood under the hot spray of the shower for what felt like hours. The grime-coated tub looked like it contained enough botulism bacteria to wipe out a small village, but the wonderfully strong water pressure massaged the exhaustion from her body, washing away the worst of the brain fog. Her arms and back ached, and she discovered a huge, source-unknown-but-shaped-vaguely-like-Texas bruise on her thigh. The deep purple looked sick and malignant in the jaundiced light filtering through the shower’s stiff plastic curtain.

  As her mind wandered, a momentary flash of panic tore through her at the possibility that the perp who’d blown up her house had waited around to watch it explode. He could have seen her drive off. Undoubtedly the assassin would have been amused by the antics of the pickup truck full of teenage boys that had chased her just outside of Sinalta. He might be disappointed they hadn’t finished the job for him…

  She nearly jumped out of the water to hide under the bed, naked and wet—the monsters under the mattress had to be more friend
ly and accommodating than the ones that dogged her in real life.

  But if she had been followed, she’d be dead already. He wouldn’t have waited around until she’d had a good night’s sleep before putting a bullet in her brain. So, following that logic, neither the would-be assassin nor the FBI knew where she hid.

  Calming her racing heart, she shut off the water. She dried herself off with a towel as soft and plush as dirty burlap then wandered back into the front room, taking stock of what she had. In summary: almost nothing. No clean clothes or toiletries, and everything else she owned had either been taken by Special Agent Jon and his henchmen or burned in the fire.

  “In other news, a Walberg woman was killed when her house exploded…”

  Monica spun around and froze as she came face-to-face with her Arizona driver’s license photo—hair bunned, eyes staring, expression somber. The picture had a dour, depressed tone no professional photographer could hope to replicate. Only the Department of Motor Vehicles had the ability to capture that sort of soul-wrenching unhappiness. She fumbled with the remote and turned up the volume.

  The clip changed to the “At The Desk” anchor, and Monica’s picture got relegated to the left corner as she received her five minutes of fame. “Susan Rosenberg, local paralegal from Walberg, was killed last night when her home exploded. Authorities report that a gas line under her house had been leaking methane and was ignited by a spark from an electric source, most likely a light switch.”