He passed by her house and saw the black SUV sitting in the crushed shell driveway. Light drifting out a side window blanched weakly against a row of thick hedges. The streetlight on her corner was dark, apparently burned out, or maybe some kid had busted it. The house next to hers was a dark silhouette against the night sky, no lights on inside, no glimmering porch light. Danny circled the block. Then he killed the engine, cutting the lights as he pulled to the curb a few feet past the burned out globe of the streetlight, a few yards beyond a row of bushes running alongside the driveway. He lifted the bottle, screwed off the cap and guzzled a mouthful, took a deep breath and grunted. He pictured, for a moment, Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou, snorting like a bull after downing a hefty belt of rock-gut Redeye Whiskey, and smiled. The burn felt good going down, so he had another. “Damn right,” he muttered, head swiveling as he scoped out the neighborhood. Darkened houses loomed ahead. No lights were on across the street. The yard next to Flytngale was littered with dark, shadowy splotches, some as black as night.
Danny capped the bottle, grabbed the bat and left his keys in the ignition, slid quietly out the door and gently closed it. On his way to the hedges, he pulled a navy blue ski mask from his pocket. Slipping it over his head, he scurried silently along the line of bushes before staking out a spot deep in the neighboring yard, between the sweeping oak and the bushes. With a bird’s eye view of the dimly lit side window, he waited.
He was still waiting when a tan Honda pulled up to the curb in front of the house and a guy in a faded denim jacket hurried across the yard and onto the porch. Rock music floated out the side window. The front door opened and the music grew louder. When the guy went inside, Danny screwed the plastic cap off the Wild Turkey one last time, and then dropped the cap to the ground. He took a drink, barely noticing the burn as a man walked by the window: a thin little prick with shoulder-length brown hair. The guy came back carrying a couple of beers, and Danny knew it had to be Bryan Kenney. He smiled, because now he knew it was going to be a piece of cake. Gripping the bat tightly, he wondered how many whacks it would take to split Bryan Kenney’s skull.
Bip bip, bap bap. Crack yo head with a baseball bat!
Laughter floated out the side window, and for the first time, Danny noticed that it was open, lifted just enough to allow a breeze into the house. Probably earlier in the afternoon, and now they’d forgotten all about it.
Danny, restless now, wanted to get the show on the road while he still felt right.
He held the bottle up, and saw there were still a couple of good swallows left.
Flytngale appeared in the window, carrying a beer bottle. Arms at her side, she arched her back and stretched. Her firm, round breasts pointed toward the ceiling, and butterflies swarmed Danny’s chest. He wanted to haul ass across the yard and crash through the window, like Jason from the Friday The Thirteenth movies. Flytngale walked away. Moments later she walked back through, and Danny watched her tight little ass disappear into the next room.
Danny flicked his lighter long enough to check his watch. It was ten-thirty. He was dying for a smoke but he didn’t dare light up. Staring up at the moon, he thought about how beautiful the flight nurse was. Soon she would be his. Every inch of her. He closed his eyes and saw himself high-fiving Clyde’s stump, thanking him for turning him on to the finest piece of tail in the history of Mankind.
The front door startled him when it opened and the houseguest walked across the yard, past the Honda, where he disappeared up the driveway across the street. The door shut and the lights went out, and Danny lifted the bottle and guzzled a mouthful, shook it and the whiskey sloshed inside. The yard was pitch-black, all was quiet. No headlights in the street, no cars moving up or down it. Danny couldn’t remember seeing or hearing any cars.
He waited a while, waited a while longer and checked the time. It was eleven-fifteen. Danny lit a cigarette, smoking it down to the filter before grinding it against the bat. He drained the last of the whiskey, dropped the bottle to the ground, and then slowly emerged from the bushes.
Chapter Nineteen
Larry leaned back on the couch and put his feet on the coffee table, returned them to the floor and stood up. He sat down and stood up again, tossed the paperback onto the coffee table. He’d every intention of digging into Blood Bath, but before he knew it he’d found himself hunched over another healthy line of coke. Now he couldn’t concentrate, could barely sit still long enough to read the first page—which he had actually done several times now. Mostly, he had sat on the couch, fidgeting, grinding his teeth and staring at the cover.
Cold air blowing from his air conditioning vents felt good against the beads of sweat along his brow. But not good enough. He walked into the kitchen, where he found glasses sitting on the counter by the sink, a couple of dishes, a pot and a pan. Larry gathered them up one at a time and placed them in the dish washer. He got a washcloth and wiped the counter down, looked up at his reflection in the kitchen window, sighing and shaking his head, because he had come into the kitchen to get a beer, and here he was wiping the counter like some kind of maid.
Most people do cocaine and fuck. I clean my kitchen.
Larry draped the washcloth across the spigot. In the fridge, he grabbed a Rolling Rock from a platoon of them standing at attention on the refrigerator’s top shelf. He opened the beer, tossed the bottle cap into the garbage and took a drink. On his way out of the room, he ran the cold bottle across his forehead, the pleasant, icy sensation serving as a temporary reprieve against the cocaine-induced heat as Larry walked into the living room, to the jacket he’d tossed over the back of the couch. He dipped a hand into its right pocket, pulled out his plastic bag and carried it and the Rolling Rock with him on his way to the screened-in front porch. He stepped out of the house and instantly felt better. Cool, crisp air caressing his face washed across his bare arms as he stood silent in the night, closing his eyes and tipping his head back and enjoying the exhilarating breeze.
He shouldn’t have done that other line, should’ve come home and smoked a joint, settled into that book until tired eyes sent him off to bed. But he didn’t, and now he was wide awake. Larry took a seat in an oak rocking chair, lifted the bottle to his mouth and sighed. The beer tasted good, much better than the watered-down piss he’d been served at Bryan’s house. He leaned back, shaking the baggy until it fell open. And saw an orange glow in the distance, in the bushes lining Bryan and Carrie’s side yard. He leaned forward, peering into the darkness at the orange dot rising and falling in an unmistakable sweeping arc that could only have been someone smoking a cigarette.
Larry sat his beer on the wooden floor, stuffed the baggy into his pocket and stood up. Keeping a squinting eye on the glowing red dot, he eased the screen door open, gently guiding it shut as he stepped into his yard. He walked to the side of his house and drew a three-foot section of two-by-four from a neatly stacked pile of wood, left over from when he’d repaired the corner of his house. Thank God for dry rot, he thought as he cut across his yard to the next-door neighbor’s, adrenaline pumping as he crossed their front lawn, glad now he hadn’t smoked that joint, hoping like hell whoever was hiding in the bushes didn’t see him. Because if they looked his way, they couldn’t miss him.
He emerged onto the street, and made his way to the far side of Bryan’s property, away from the driveway. A couple of yards in, the steep angle hid him from the intruder. Larry hustled to the back yard, light on his feet as he ran along the thick, springy turf. He stopped at the rear of the house. Slowly, silently, he made his way to the opposite end, and peeked around the corner at a shadowy figure emerging from the hedges, a baseball bat dangling at his side. He was big as hell, and he slowly made his way toward the house. If he looked to his left he would’ve seen Larry bearing down on him.
But he didn’t look.
He stepped up to the side window, laid his bat against the house and jiggled the window screen. Maybe it was the ski mask covering his ears, maybe he was just deaf
. Whatever it was, he didn’t notice Larry, who was close enough now to reach out and tap him on the shoulder.
Larry said, “Hey!”
The guy turned and the two-by-four crashed into his gut. “Ungh” he said, and all his air rushed out. He straightened up, wheezing, gasping for breath as the two-by-four exploding against his arm left it swinging limply by his side. Then he was staggering away from Larry, howling with pain as he ran across the yard.
* * *
Bryan looked at his computer and smiled. He had written five new pages, good solid text, prose he could be proud of. Larry’s visit had been just what he needed to get his mind around the day’s events. A couple of beers and a joint, a line of coke. The next thing he knew his fingers were flying over the keyboard, and crazy old Benjamin X was chasing a screaming teenager down a dark corridor, blood spraying from a ragged stump of neck as Benny Boy swung a severed head by its long, stringy hair.
Bryan picked up the short length of straw and leaned over the cocaine, which had already been chopped into a fine line. Placing the round plastic end to his nostril, he vacuumed up the powder in one long snorting huff, raised his head and tilted it back and somebody yelled, “Hey!”
The loud voice sounded like it was coming from the living room.
Bryan’s heart lurched. He flinched, pushed away from the desk and stood, rushed into the hallway and heard a dull thud, like somebody pounding dust off an old rug. He hurried through the living room to the side window, and saw a dark figure standing in front of Larry, who stood by the window gripping a piece of lumber in a batter’s stance. Larry had the same goofy smile Bryan had seen back at Fast Eddie’s Pool Room, like he was having the time of his life. The figure wore black clothing, a ski mask over his face. He was clutching his gut and huffing for breath when Larry delivered an ax-like chop against his arm. There was a crack, like a tree limb snapping. Then the guy bent sideways, took a faltering step away from Larry, and took off running.
Larry looked up at Bryan. Smiling, he dropped the lumber and picked up a bat.
Eyes wide and wild, he called out, “C’mon, Dude!”
By the time Bryan reached the porch, Larry was halfway across the yard, swinging the miniature bat like a war club, close enough to the burglar—or whatever the hell he was—to reach out and touch him. Bryan charged across the yard to the curb, part of him wanting to stop Larry, the other part eager to see what he might do next. He ran past the hedges just as Larry put a hand in the guy’s back and shoved him, the prowler’s momentum slamming him against the Ranger’s rusted tailgate as he cried out, grabbing his right elbow and falling sideways to the ground while Larry stood in front of him, ratta-tap-tapping his bat against the asphalt.
Larry reached down, grabbed the ski mask and ripped it off his head. Damp, shoulder length brown hair fell across the guy’s face as he struggled to his knees, grabbed the bumper with his left hand and pulled himself to his feet. He looked to be older than Bryan, but not quite as old as Larry. His injured right arm lay useless against his side, as he looked at Larry and said, “You broke my fuckin’ arm.”
“Who are you?” Larry said, as Bryan walked up behind him.
“Fuck you.”
Larry turned sideways and dropped the mask. Both hands gripping the bat a couple of feet apart, he rammed the fat end backwards against the guy’s stomach, doubling the prowler over, eyes bulging and air rushing from his gaping mouth.
“Wrong answer.” Larry looked over his shoulder at Bryan. “You believe this guy?” he said, and then swung the bat hard against the gasping man’s left forearm.
Bryan stood behind Larry, cringing, his mouth hanging open as the man’s face twisted into an agonized grimace, and then froze there, a dry rasp bubbling up from his throat as his right arm hung from him like a broken tree limb. He lifted his left a couple of inches, winced and bent forward, and let it drop, wincing again when it hit his side.
“The fuck, man?” Bryan said.
Larry handed the bat to Bryan, who was relieved his friend had stopped short of killing the guy. He walked up to the pain-stricken man, whose eyes were closed, his jaw clenched and his head tilted back. Turning sideways, Larry said, “I have always wanted to do this”, and put every inch of his body into a right cross that caught the unluckiest man in Mecklenburg County on the point of his chin.
His head twisted, his eyelids fluttered closed and he dropped sideways, banging his head against the bumper on his way to the asphalt, while Larry did a little Ali Shuffle, his clenched fists pointing skyward like he’d just knocked out King Kong, laughing and calling out, “Whatta rush!”
“Are you crazy?” Bryan said, his eyes nearly popping from their sockets, his left eyebrow twitching as he stared down at the unconscious form before him.
“What’d you wanta do, invite him in for drinks? He’d be in your house doing God knows what with that bat right now if I hadn’t seen his ass hiding in the bushes.”
“Jesus. Did you have to enjoy it so much?”
“Dude, that’s every red-blooded American homeowner’s dream, to catch somebody breaking into your house. We oughta drag his ass into your living room and bash his fucking brains in. C’mon, grab his legs.”
“What!”
“Oh, right. We don’t want Carrie to wake up and find us massacring the dumb-fuck.”
“You are crazy!”
“Dude, I’m just fuckin’ with you. C’mon, grab his legs. We’ll toss him in back of the truck.”
“Jesus, Larry. What are you, a fucking maniac? We’ve got to call the police, tell ‘em—”
“Tell ‘em what, Braniac? We caught this guy looking in your window so we beat him half to death with a baseball bat?” Larry snickered, laughing as he said, “Which bunk would you prefer, the top or the bottom?”
“Jesus.”
“But you see what I’m getting at here.”
Bryan nodded, because he knew Larry was right. If they called the police they might both wind up in jail. Larry certainly would, Bryan too, probably. Could Bryan really tell them Larry was the one who’d done it, watch them slap the cuffs on him and toss him into the patrol car? If it hadn’t been for Larry, Bryan could be lying butchered in a pool of blood, Carrie raped, or… Bryan didn’t want to think about that. He should be trotting Larry around on his shoulder like a conquering hero, for what he’d done.
“What are we going to do?”
“There ya go,” Larry said, as if he had been uncertain, or maybe a little nervous about whether Bryan would cooperate. Because Bryan sure as hell wouldn’t be the one carted off to jail if the cops found out what happened. “Let’s get him into the truck.”
Bryan laid the bat on the asphalt and grabbed Danny’s ankles, and Larry hooked hands under his armpits and pulled him into a sitting position, the sleeves of Danny’s jacket riding up as they manipulated him, exposing his swollen and bruised forearm, the jagged point of bone sticking through the bloated, purple skin of his arm, which flopped sideways in an impossibly backwards forty-five-degree angle, as if his elbow had grown a hinge and his arm could swing in whatever direction it desired.
“This is going to be…” Larry looked up at his neighbor, whose face had gone suddenly pale. “What?”
“Look at his fucking arm!”
Grinning that absurd grin of his, Larry said, “Fuck that son of a bitch. Look, on three: hoist the fucker as high—” Larry laughed. “What am I thinking? Drop the tailgate, Dude, before we throw our fucking backs out.”
With a grin of his own, Bryan released his grip, straightened up and dropped the tailgate. He knelt down and Larry counted to three, and they hoisted Danny into the truck. He groaned as they rolled him onto his stomach, and kept him rolling until he was face-up on a weathered black tarp that lay across the rusted bed, head and torso in the truck, calves lying across the tailgate. Larry grabbed an edge of the dirt encrusted covering. Peeling it back revealed a shovel that sat in the middle of the truck; beside it, a pick-axe.
Larry gave out a low whistle. “Holy shit,” he muttered.
“The fuck’s he doing with that?”
Chuckling, Larry said, “Maybe he’s a construction worker.”
“Would you cut the shit? This ain’t nothing to laugh about. You just broke both that guy’s arms.”
Larry bent down, picked up the Louisville Slugger and straightened back up, chuckled and said, “I did, didn’t I?”
“Goddamnit, would you be serious?” Bryan spread a hand across his forehead. Fingertips massaging his temples, he said, “The fuck’re we gonna do?”
“What would you do if you caught Danny Rolling sneaking around your yard in the middle of the night, Ted Bundy halfway through your living room window—”
Bryan’s hand dropped to his side as he stared dumbfounded at Larry. He did not like the direction this wild event seemed to be heading into. “Larry, look.”
“—and you could stop him before he had a chance to get at that little girl down in Florida.”
“Larry, for Christ’s sake.”
“Dude, he’s got a shovel and a pick-axe in his truck, a canopy to wrap your bodies in. What more do you need, a snapshot of Carrie’s head on the mantelpiece?”
“What if you’re wrong? What if he is just a burglar? This might not even be his truck, could be his brother’s, his uncle’s, or maybe he stole it. We can’t kill him, Larry. You can’t kill him. I won’t be a part of it.”
“What if he comes back?”
“Would you, if you were him? Christ, you broke both his arms.”
Killercon Page 11
