“Thanks for the time off, too,” Dale said. “But I’ll just take a week.”
“You’ve got two coming,” Nichols said, almost brightly, as if the offer could help.
“Thanks… one’s plenty,” Dale said, then hung up. He had to restrain himself from slamming down the phone. He turned out the light and lay back down, his hands cradling his head, staring wide-eyed at the blackness of his bedroom ceiling until morning stained the sky a burnished gray.
II
“This is really friggin’ stupid! I don’t see why we don’t just get on the turnpike and hitch,” Tasha Steward said. She didn’t care if her irritation showed. They had been walking since sometime around three o’clock in the morning, and she was much too uncomfortable to care what her travelling companion thought.
She stared angrily at the back of the man she had been travelling with since they joined up near Fredericksburg, Virginia, and she wished for the millionth time she had left him behind long ago. He, like her—although for different reasons—was heading to northern Maine, and any company was better than none, she supposed.
His name was Roy Moulton, but because of his habit of frequently clearing his throat and spitting, especially when he was nervous or upset, she had taken to calling him “Hocker.” And it hadn’t taken her long to realize there was definitely something—a lot of something—weird about him.
For one thing, and she knew she should have deserted him as soon as he told her this, he had readily admitted that he had “walked out of” (“escaped,” she figured) a mental hospital in Athens, Georgia. During their journey north, she had had plenty of time to wonder exactly why he had been hospitalized. She wasn’t entirely convinced by his reason: that his aunt and uncle had wanted to “get rid of” him after his mother died. His father, he told her, had gone to the store for cigarettes and never returned when Hocker was six years old.
For another thing, Tasha had to consider how he travelled. It had taken her a while to see the pattern, but there was a definite pattern. They would hitchhike just as bold as could be along major turnpikes, usually I-95, even getting stopped and questioned by the cops now and then; but then, for no apparent reason, Hocker would suddenly demand that they leave the highway for a backroad, and they would spend several days passing through one small, nameless town after another. Then, acting as if some danger of which only he was aware was over, he would just as suddenly say it was all right for them to get back onto the turnpike, which they would travel a few days until they were off again onto some twisting two-lane backroads. That had slowed their progress down considerably. Tasha was beginning to wonder if, at the rate they were going, they’d even make it to northern Maine before snow fell. But most of all she just wondered why Hocker used such a strange leapfrog method of travel.
She failed to see why Hocker would suddenly want to get off the highway. It made no sense at all. It wasn’t to buy food or other supplies because they could get everything they needed in any of the sprawling shopping malls along the turnpike. It was almost as if… as if Hocker was on a mission of some kind… of that he felt suddenly threatened or pursued. By what, Tasha didn’t know… and she wasn’t so sure she wanted to find out, either.
Whatever the reason, Tasha had learned not to resist him; the first and only time she had done that, he had threatened to “make her sorry” if she didn’t come with him.
Lying awake late at night and on early morning walks like now, Tasha wondered if maybe Hocker had been hospitalized for something a bit more serious than “family squabbles.” Secretly, she wondered if he might not have it within him to kill her and leave her buried in some nameless, shallow grave along the highway. Maybe he was one of those serial killers who cuts a notch into his belt for each woman he murders. But of course, Tasha was pretty sure she could handle herself. Anyway, she figured if Hocker was going to off her, he would have done it long before now. No, there were a lot of things weird about him, but he wasn’t a murderer….
As they walked along, Tasha kept looking at the wispy gray traces of morning mist still clinging to low spots along the side of the road. She imagined tattered, shrouded ghosts—maybe the ghosts of mass-murderer Hocker’s victims—drifting noiselessly along the road with him, following them north. Droplets of dew clung to grass and bushes like ripe berries, ready to fall or fade as the sun angled its light through the leaves overhead. They were on the outskirts of a small town. It was Holden, Maine, Hocker informed her. Tasha could just about care; all she was interested in was maybe grabbing breakfast at a roadside diner because she was so damned sick of beans and soup heated in their cans over a campfire.
Hocker made a deep rumbling in his chest, worked a wad of spit back and forth in his mouth, and then sent it sailing into the air. It arched gracefully, two globs joined by a silver filament twisting end over end, and then landed—splat—on a dew-slick stop sign.
“Hot damn!” Hocker said, pausing to watch with child-like intensity as his saliva slowly slid down to the edge of metal, hung suspended for a moment, and then dropped to the pavement. The sound it made when it hit reminded Tasha of her mother’s parrot, when his turds hit the newspaper lining his cage.
“This is bullshit, and you know it,” Tasha said sourly as they resumed walking. “I’m cold and wet, and my friggin’ legs are so tired I can barely feel them.”
“It’s refreshing to take the scenic roads now and then,” Hocker said. “Gives us a chance to really see where we’re goin’.”
“You’ve gotta remember, I was born in New Jersey,” Tasha said. “The turnpike is the scenic road, as far as I’m concerned.”
Hocker shook his head vigorously. “The turnpike isn’t really travelling—it’s just getting there,” he said. He glanced back at her over his shoulder and frowned deeply. Whenever he did that, it made Tasha want to laugh aloud because he looked so damned dim-witted, but beneath the surface smoldered a crazed intensity, like the fire hidden inside an ash-gray coal. It was what kept her on her guard around him.
“You’re still dressed like a damned teeny-bop hooker from Miami, that’s why you’re so damned cold,” Hocker said. He twanged his words with an exaggerated Southern drawl. “So you can quit your complainin’, all right? I mean—” Again he rumbled in his chest and spat. “What do you expect, a chauffeur-driven Cadillac or somethin’?”
Tasha smiled wanly. “That’d be nice,” she said, more to herself than to Hocker.
The mere mention of a Cadillac made her think of her parents, back in Port Charlotte, Florida. If she was still back with them, or at least with her father on every other weekend, she would have had the Cadillac, if not quite the chauffeur. But that and a whole pile of other reasons was why she had left Port Charlotte five weeks ago. She was tired of feeling like a wishbone in her divorced parents’ emotional tug-of-war, and her goal in leaving home was to make it to the tip of northern Maine—to be as far away from her parents as she possibly could be without having to leave the country.
With Hocker leading the way, they walked down the road toward town, taking only a passing notice of their surroundings. Lights glowed in a couple of houses and three or four cars whispered by in the early morning stillness. The cows were heading in the opposite direction from the way they were walking, so they couldn’t stick out their thumbs. Tasha couldn’t help but wonder what kind of impression they made.
As they rounded a corner into town, they saw up ahead a rusted pickup truck pulled over on the side of the road. A grizzled old man, easily old enough to be her grandfather, Tasha thought, was leaning over the rear wheel well on the passenger’s side. He had a star wrench in his hand and was busily spinning the lug nuts off the back tire.
Hocker jolted to a stop, holding his arm out to stop Tasha. Before she could complain, he held his fingers to his lips, silencing her.
“Not exactly a Cadillac,” he said. He spoke so softly Tasha wasn’t exactly sure what he had said.
In silence, they watched as the old man worked the l
ast lug nut loose and dropped it into an upturned hubcap. The clanging sound it made was like a shot in the early morning stillness. The old man put down the star wrench and picked up a car jack, as rusted and dented as his truck, and inspected it to see if it was still functional. Leaning over to concentrate on his work, he didn’t hear Hocker and Tasha when, on Hocker’s silent signal, they started to creep slowly and quietly toward him from behind.
The jack made a loud ratcheting sound as the old man worked it up and down. He was just standing up to place the jack under the rear fender when Hocker spoke up. “G’morning,” he said. “See you got a flat.”
With a loud grunt, the old man spun completely around. At the same moment, his hand let go of the jack, and it fell to the street. The top end hit the lip of the hubcap, and before he could react, the lug nuts catapulted into the air. If the shot had been planned, it probably never would have worked, but with the perversity of fate, the lug nuts bounced off the curb, and then all four of them disappeared through the iron grating of a storm drain. There was a loud splash as they hit the black, subterranean water and sank to the bottom.
“Jumped-up, bald-headed Christ!” the old man shouted, shaking his gnarled fist inches beneath Hocker’s chin. “Why’d you go ’n spook me like that? Damn yah!” His eyes flashed past Hocker to Tasha, standing several steps behind him.
Hocker, unblinking, took one step back, spit to one side, and said softly, “Sorry… didn’t know you were so jumpy.”
The old man scowled deeply. The lines in his face looked like cracks in old granite. “Well, Christ! I can’t ’xactly say I was expectin’ anyone to be sneakin’ up on me from behind. Not at this hour.”
Hocker squinted one eye, regarding the old man as though measuring him. “I said I was sorry,” he said, but there was a sarcastic edge in his voice that Tasha didn’t like.
“Well now what in the Christ am I gonna do?” he said. He slapped his hands on his thighs, raising little puffs of dust, then shoved his gnarled hands into the front of his bib coveralls. “I ain’t gonna be able to change the tire without lug nuts.” He eyed the iron grate of the storm drain as if he expected to see his missing lug nuts suddenly, miraculously return.
“Here,” Hocker said, bending to pick up the tire iron from where it had fallen. It was slick with dew, so he wiped it on his pants leg before going over to the truck and kneeling down. Working quickly, he removed one lug nut from each of the three good tires and, with a smirk curling one side of his mouth, handed the three lug nuts to the old man.
“What the—?” the old man said. He couldn’t refrain from smiling at the obvious brilliance of Hocker’s idea.
“Now each tire will be missing only one,” Hocker said. “It’ll get you by until you can pick up four new ones. I can give you the money for ’em,” he added, reaching for the wallet in his hip pocket. He was still smiling his wide, friendly smile, but, to Tasha at least, it had a vicious undercurrent.
“Well I’ll be,” the old man said. The lug nuts rattled like dice in his hand.
“My name’s Roy,” Hocker said, extending his hand and firmly shaking the old man’s hand.
“Pleased to meet yah,” the old man said. “M’name’s Buddy. Buddy Conners.”
“Look, I’ve caused you enough aggravation for one day,” Hocker said. “Let me finish getting that spare on for yah. Maybe you can give us a lift out of town.”
The old man handed the lug nuts back to Hocker and stepped back to the curb to give him plenty of room to work. “I would ’preciate the help,” he said, casting a questioning glance at Tasha. “My rheumatiz been actin’ up some. The old bones don’t feel quite right ’til sometime ’round noon.”
“No problem,” Hocker said.
He dropped the three lug nuts into the upturned hubcap and started to whistle as he fit the jack under the bumper and began cranking away. The ratcheting sound echoed in the early morning stillness, and the truck’s rusting springs groaned as the chassis slowly rose higher and higher. Each crank got harder as the jack took more and more of the weight of the truck.
“The emergency brake’s on, I hope,” he said.
“A-yuh.”
Hocker kept a cautious eye on the base of the jack; under the weight and swaying of the truck, it had shifted forward and was working one edge into the asphalt of the road. He considered lowering it to start over but finally decided to go ahead. What the hell? It wasn’t his truck anyway, so what did he care if it fell and the axle broke? It’d just be another problem for the old fart to deal with today.
“Kinda risky, removing all the lug nuts before you jack it up, don’t you think?” Hocker asked the old man. “If the jack shifts before it’s clear of the ground…”
As if in proof of what he was saying, the jack suddenly heaved to one side. There was a sharp, metalling twang and a slow, grumbling crunch as the old asphalt powdered away. Hocker kept one hand loosely on the tire iron, but he backed away, ready to dart aside if the jack suddenly sprang out.
“Hold on a second,” Conners said. He went up to the truck and gave the side rail a firm push. The crunching sound got louder as the truck shifted away from him, but the jack base leveled out, looking firmer than it had ever been before.
Hocker glanced at the old man and gave him a wide smile. “Risky trick,” he said as he gave the jack neck a few quick tugs to make sure it was secure and then started jacking again.
After a few pumps, the flattened tire cleared the ground, and Hocker slid it off. He coughed up a wad of mucous and spit before picking up the spare tire and wiggling the rim onto the wheel base. Once the tire was in place, he quickly spun the three lug nuts into place, tightened them by hand, and then started lowering the truck.
When the truck was back down solidly on the road, Hocker pulled the jack out. The base fell to the ground with a loud clatter as he swung the jack and tire iron into the flatbed of the truck. Then he bent down and picked up the flat tire and threw that into the back. Brushing his hands on his pants, he looked at Conners.
“Well, that wasn’t so bad now, was it?” he said. Again he smiled, and again Tasha saw more meanness than friendliness in the smile, but the old man didn’t seem to notice anything.
“I ’preciate the help,” Conners said, “but I’m late for work as it is. I ain’t but goin’ to downtown, but I’ll be glad to give you a ride in. You look like you could do with a cup of coffee. There’s a nice little place called Feeney’s just on the corner of Main and Railroad Ave.”
Tasha nodded agreement as she rubbed her bare aims, trying to get rid of the chill that just wouldn’t leave.
Hocker’s smile wavered for just a fraction of a second. “You should’ve said something before I did all that work,” he said softly. “Now I’m all sweated up, and we still ain’t gonna get any further than downtown? Shee-it! Oh, well, what the hell! Hey!” He pointed at the jack base on the roadside. “Don’t forget that.”
“Right,” the old man said. He turned and bent down to get it, and as he did, Hocker snatched the tire iron from the back of the truck. Just as Conners was standing up, Hocker raised the tire iron and brought it down hard on the base of the old man’s neck. Tasha let out a thin, high scream as the old man spun in place and slowly crumpled to the ground. His shoulder hit hard on the curb, but it broke his fall so his head didn’t hit hard.
“For Christ’s sake!” Tasha shouted, looking frantically up and down the road. No cars or people were in sight. Not yet, anyway.
“Bastard should have told me he couldn’t give us a ride before I did his fuckin’ job for him,” Hocker said bitterly. He worked up a big wad of spit and let it fly at the crumpled form of the old man. It left a slug-white glob on the back of his bib coveralls.
“Are the keys still in the ignition?” Hocker asked.
Tasha stood, immobile. All she could think about was that now, in a split second, everything had changed. Everything! It wasn’t just the two of them, hitching across the Eastern states. No
w they had committed a real crime. Maybe even…
“Is he, is he dead?” she managed to ask. Her mouth went dry; her lips felt cracked.
—Maybe even murder!
“I dunno,” Hocker snapped. He bent over the fallen man and touched his neck behind the left ear. “No, I can still feel a pulse,” he said. Actually he couldn’t feel anything close to a pulse. He wasn’t even sure he was feeling in the right place. “Check the truck for the keys while I get him out of sight.”
Tasha still couldn’t move. It was as if her feet had suddenly grown rope-thick roots that held her there, terror-stricken.
Hocker glanced up and down the street. Still no traffic. Their luck was holding. He slid his hands under Conners’ shoulders and lifted him off the ground just enough so his hips wouldn’t catch on the curb. He dragged him up a gentle slope and into a thin margin of woods. It wasn’t much cover, but it was enough so they could get a few miles out of town, anyway.
“Will you check for them goddamned keys!” he shouted from the top of the knoll. “We ain’t getting very far if we don’t have ’em!”
Tasha still didn’t move. She was debating whether or not she should do now what she had wished she had done before—just walk away; leave Hocker to get himself into and out of his own messes. If that old man died then she was—what did they call it on T.V. cop shows? An accessory to murder! She was in as much trouble as Hocker was if they got caught.
“Car comin’! Duck down!” Hocker suddenly yelled. He flattened himself on the ground with just his eyes visible over the grassy knoll.
Thinking only to keep herself out of trouble, Tasha darted around behind the truck, scooched down by the cab, and waited. Seconds seemed to draw out into minutes as she waited… waited to hear the approaching car. At last, she heard the whisper of tires on the road as a car crested the hill, heading toward town.
The Siege Page 2
