by Sam Reaves
It took Abby a couple of seconds to find her voice, and when it came it wavered a little. “Ned, what’s going on? Who is this and what is he doing here?”
Ned sagged a little, his eyes going from Abby to the man and back. “This is my friend Kyle. I’m sorry, he shouldn’t be down here.”
“Shit, man. You run off and left me and I just thought I’d poke around a little, see what your crib’s like. And here she was.”
Ned’s look hardened. “Yeah, this is her place. Look, Kyle. I got the beer, now let’s go back upstairs and leave Abby alone.”
Kyle looked at Ned for a moment, and then he turned and looked at Abby. He shook his head. “Well, now, I’m not sure I can do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because Abby here knows who I am. Even if she ain’t lettin’ on. The second we leave, she’s gonna go right out that door and run to the cops.” He turned to Abby. “I like the haircut, by the way. Makes you look kinda cute.”
Abby’s legs gave way and she slumped back against the wall and then slid slowly down to the floor. Kyle was watching her and there was no smile now; his eyes were absolutely dead. Abby looked at Ned and said, “Help me.”
Ned said, “Kyle. It’s not going to do you any good to hurt anybody else. What you need now is to get the hell out of the county. Take my car.” Ned dug in a pocket and pulled out a ring of keys and tossed them to Kyle. “Take the damn car and split. You’re out of time.”
Kyle looked at the keys in his hand. He looked at Ned and he looked at Abby sitting with her back to the wall. He looked back at Ned and said, “Fuck, no. I ain’t going by myself. You’re coming with me.”
“And Abby stays.”
Kyle reached behind his back, under the tail of the T-shirt, and tugged. When the hand reappeared it was holding a big black automatic. “You’re both coming with me. I don’t want her talking to police ten seconds after we go out the door. You and her both come with me. I get a good piece down the road, I’ll drop you somewhere.”
Ned and Kyle had a long staredown then. Abby was still trying to get her head around the fact that her landlord was on first-name terms with the devil; by the time she had worked out that what Kyle was suggesting was a good scenario for a nice isolated shooting, the staredown was over and Ned was saying, “OK, let’s go.”
Kyle threw the keys back to Ned. “You’re driving.” He strode to where Abby was sitting and grabbed her arm, pulling her up. “Come on, sweetheart. We’re going for a ride.”
“I can walk.” Abby jerked her arm free of his grip. Her voice was clear and strong; she was discovering the power of rage. Her eyes met Ned’s as she crossed the room toward the stairs and what she saw in them looked like shame.
“You go first,” Kyle said to Ned.
Ned nodded and turned to the stairs. He looked at Abby and said, “I won’t let him hurt you.”
Mounting the steps, Abby said, “That would be nice,” putting as much acid into it as she could. She was floating now, electric, suffused with adrenaline and a blistering anger.
Over his shoulder Ned said, “Put the gun away, Kyle. We all want the same thing. Everybody here wants you to get free and clear.”
“Suits me,” said Kyle. “I like it when everyone gets along. Once I’m sure we’re all friends, you won’t see it no more.”
They followed Ned up the stairs and through the kitchen. He opened the back door and led them across the porch, unlocking the garage door with his key. “You’re driving, me and Abby’ll be in the back,” said Kyle.
Abby’s mind was racing. She thought for a second about a wild leap off the porch and a sprint for the woods, but the touch of Kyle’s hand on her arm kept her going into the garage. Ned pressed a button to raise the garage door and they all got in the car as Kyle had instructed, Abby directly behind Ned and Kyle on her right. He held the gun in his lap, casually, a man without a concern in the world. He didn’t bother with his seat belt. Ned started the car and backed out of the garage. He wheeled around to point the car down the road toward Jackson Avenue and said, “I’m assuming you want the interstate.”
“Not yet,” said Kyle. “I’m not quite done with this town. I got one more thing to do.”
Ned said, “I’m not driving the getaway car for any shootings, Kyle. I’m telling you.”
Abby drew a sharp breath. Kyle said, “Relax, will ya? I just got a message to deliver.”
“So where we going?” Ned was looking at Kyle in the rearview mirror.
“Take us to the Tarkington,” said Kyle.
Nothing seemed to have changed at the Tarkington since Abby had spent her first night in Lewisburg; these could have been the same pickups parked in the same spots. “Just pull up by the stairs there and park,” said Kyle in a low voice. “Shut her off and gimme the keys.”
Ned parked and handed the keys back over the seat. Kyle took them and then they all sat in silence for a moment. Tonight there didn’t seem to be a party going; very faintly Abby could hear a murmur of television behind a door somewhere. “What are we doing here?” Ned said finally.
“We’re here to get ahead,” Kyle said.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Kyle laughed softly. “You’ll see. Here’s what’s gonna happen. Me and Abby are gonna go up those steps there to the top deck. You’re gonna sit here and hold the fort.”
“Kyle, I’m telling you. You do anything to her, it’s over. All bets are off. You understand me?”
“I ain’t gonna hurt her. Just chill.” Kyle turned to Abby. “I’m gonna come around and let you out, and we’re gonna go up those steps. Holding hands, just like sweethearts. OK?”
Abby drew a deep breath. “OK.”
Kyle leaned forward and stuffed the gun down the waistband of his shorts in back. Then he got out and came around to Abby’s side and opened the door to let her out. This is where the rape is going to happen, she thought, of course. By the time she had gotten out of the car he was blocking her way, cutting off any chance for a sudden break. He took her hand.
“This is where dudes come to cheat on their wives,” he said. “My cousin Susie caught her husband coming out of a room here with some other guy’s wife, and she took a baseball bat to him.” He and Abby mounted the steps. “Broke his arm with it.” He was scanning as they climbed, looking out over the parking lot, searching the deserted walkways on the other wing of the motel.
They reached the second level, nightmarishly familiar. Abby’s heart had accelerated again, and she was weighing the idea of starting to scream, struggle, trying to break free. Would he really shoot her?
“Here we are.” He had halted at the ice machine, a big white-painted metal cabinet on four legs, ICE stenciled vertically on its side panel. “Too bad we don’t have a cooler, but we ain’t goin’ that far.” Still grasping Abby’s hand, he raised the lid, revealing a chamber full of glistening cubes. He plunged his hand deep into the ice, frowning with the effort, and began to root around. Abby watched, bewildered, until he gave a soft grunt, stiffened his arm and pulled.
Ice spilled out of the machine onto the concrete with a clatter as he hauled out a plastic bag that had been buried at the bottom of the ice chamber. The bag was knotted at the top and appeared to be holding something about the size of a soccer ball, or maybe half a watermelon. Abby took a step back, pulling against the man’s grip.
“Where the fuck you goin’?” He firmed his grip and pulled her back. “Shut that lid, will you?”
Abby steadied and obeyed, and then he was pulling her toward the stairs again. “OK, we got what we came for.” Abby was light-headed with relief at not being dragged into a room. They went down the steps, hand in hand. His grip was strong, his hand rough and a little greasy. As they reached the bottom a man was coming along the walk from the direction of the office. With a flare of dismay Abby recognized the pale, thin clerk who had checked her in on her first night.
He was heading directly for them, purposefully. �
�That ice machine is for the use of our guests only,” he said.
“Shit, we’re guests.” Kyle halted, squaring up for a confrontation.
“No, you’re not. I just watched you drive up.” The clerk slowed as he neared them; Abby could see him having second thoughts as he got a closer look at the man he was dealing with.
“And you can’t spare a little ice for our six-pack here?”
“You can’t just come in and grab some ice any time you feel like it. That’s for people staying at the motel.” The clerk’s eyes came to rest on the bag and she could see him wondering what kind of six-pack made a plastic bag bulge like that.
Jutting his chin toward him, Kyle said, “Well, partner, what are you gonna do about it? You gonna make us put it back?”
The clerk backed away a step or two, his expression hardening. “I could call the police. That’s theft.”
Kyle released Abby’s hand and shifted the bag to his left. As he started to reach under his shirttail, Abby said, “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. It was my idea.”
That halted everything as the two men stared at her. The clerk’s eyes widened a little and Abby could see recognition dawning. “I remembered the ice machine from when I stayed here last month. I apologize. Can we just pay you for the ice?” She looked the clerk in the eye, watching as an expression of incredulous disgust grew. Yes, she wanted to tell him, it’s me. Things haven’t gone so well for me here.
The clerk’s face went carefully blank again. “That’s OK,” he said. “I wouldn’t know what to charge you for it. Just, please. Have a little respect. Don’t do it again.” He turned away, his eyes showing he knew how close he’d come to serious unpleasantness as they met the other man’s, fleetingly.
They watched him walk back toward the office and then got back in the car. Kyle handed Ned the keys over the seat. “You done good,” he said to Abby. “I didn’t have to shoot him.”
“If you’d shot him we’d have all kinds of problems,” Ned said.
“You owe me one,” said Abby.
Kyle laughed softly. “OK, I owe you. Now we got an errand to run. Start ’er up and let’s get goin’.”
Ned started the car. “Where to?”
“Out South Street. We’re going to the big arch.”
“Kyle, what are you doing?” said Ned. “All you should be thinking about is getting the hell out of town.” He was steering with one hand on the wheel, keeping it under thirty miles an hour, heading out South Street past the Tippecanoe College campus. On the back seat, Abby sat leaning against the door, as far as she could get from Kyle and the plastic bag that sat between them.
Kyle said, “Well, I gotta do something with my trophy here. And you said Everett don’t deserve it, so I guess the best thing to do is just leave it where I left that other motherfucker. Sittin’ in the middle of the road. Although I still kinda like the idea of handing it to Everett. Just to see his face.”
“I told you, Everett had nothing to do with it.”
“And I believe you. I guess I don’t really have no problem with Everett except he’s richer ’n shit. Always had everything handed to him. Never had to fight for nothin’.”
“Some people are just lucky,” Ned said.
“And some of us are fucked from the git-go, I know.” A minute passed in silence as they cruised along frat house row. Kyle said, “Everett and his daddy used to come by our house every year, delivering Christmas baskets from the Elks Club, for the poor folks. Which was us, we didn’t have shit. And my ma would make me say thank you to Everett, who sat next to me in school and used to laugh at me and my sister, along with all the others.”
“Yeah, kids can be assholes,” said Ned. “I’m sorry if I ever laughed at you.”
“Naw, you were cool. Anyway, I got over it. I guess all I wanted was for Mr. Everett Elford to have his nose rubbed in it a little bit.”
“Let it go, Kyle.”
“Well, I gotta do something with this thing. When the cops started talking about Mexicans, that gave me the idea. I was gonna plant it somewhere, make this look like a Mexican deal, but they didn’t seem to need any more hints. So now we’ll just drop off Mr. Jud Frederick and be on our way.”
Ned was slowing for the curve down into the black hollow. Abby had started to hyperventilate, eyes closed. Don’t lose it now, she told herself. Hang on to your rage and it will guide you. The road dipped and Abby was in full flashback, seeing Rex Lyman’s skin blister in the heart of the flames, the horror flooding back. “Are you all right, Abby?” said Ned.
She drew a heaving breath and managed to say, “Yeah. I’m fine. Don’t mind me, I’m just the witness. Don’t let me stand in your way.”
“Slow down,” said Kyle as they reached the bottom of the slope. Above them loomed the massive stone archway straddling the road and the stream. Ned slowed the car to a crawl. “You know what happened here?” Kyle said, turning to Abby.
“Yeah, I saw it, remember?”
“No, I mean before that. Long time ago.”
“What?”
“My sister killed herself. Jumped off the top of the fuckin’ arch.”
Breathe, Abby told herself. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me, too. Fucked up my whole life. Go on through and then pull off to the side, Ned. I think we’ll leave Mr. Jud Frederick right in the middle of the road, about where Kayla landed. What do you think?”
Ned looked in the mirror and said, “We got a little complication.”
“What’s that?”
“Somebody’s been following us.”
Kyle twisted violently to look out the back window. “No shit.”
“No shit. I noticed him when I parked at the motel. He pulled over a block behind us. He pulled out again when we took off and he just stopped at the top of the hill back there and cut his lights.”
“Why, that sly bastard. Who the fuck?”
“No idea. What do you want me to do?”
Kyle peered out the back for a moment. “Like I said, go on through and pull over. There’s a place by the stream where the bushes’ll screen you. We’ll see what he does.”
Ned accelerated gently through the tunnel. Abby was finding that it was possible to go on thinking even at searing levels of stress. Was this the police behind them? If there was going to be a confrontation, she had to be hyperaware of that gun two feet from her. With the car stopped, with Kyle distracted, there could be a chance to run, but at point-blank range there was no margin for error.
A few yards beyond the arch, just before the road started to rise out of the hollow, Ned braked and pulled off onto a patch of grass bordered by brush. Beyond it the land fell away to the stream. Branches clawed at the windows as Ned parked. Looking out the back, Kyle said, “OK, what you gonna do, smart-ass?”
Everyone waited. Abby closed her eyes, opened them again. It was very dark and very quiet. After a time headlights shone on the road and a car came creeping through the tunnel. It went past them and climbed the slope out of the hollow. At the top of the hill was a single lamp high on a pole. As the car passed it, they could see that it was a dark-gray sedan, maybe a Honda. “Who the fuck is that?” said Kyle.
Nobody answered him. The car disappeared around the bend at the top of the hill. “Go do your business and let’s hit the road,” said Ned.
“Gimme the keys,” said Kyle. Ned shut off the engine and handed the keys back. Kyle took them and pulled on the door handle, releasing the latch.
“Hang on,” said Ned. “He’s coming back.”
They watched as the dark-gray car crept back down the hill. It slowed as it approached and then it stopped, fifty feet away, and after a moment turned so that its headlights shone directly into their eyes. “Shit,” said Ned.
Kyle butted the door open. “OK, fucker. You want to play, we’ll play.” He jumped out of the car, thrashed through bushes, and strode past the front of Ned’s car toward the newcomer. His right hand, holding the gun, was behind his back.
Abby’s hand was already on the door handle when Ned said in a low voice, “Abby, go. Take off. Now.” She pulled on the handle and shoved, and then she was out of the car and sprinting back toward the arch, in the adrenaline rush of her life. Behind her she heard Kyle say, “Well, fuck.” She ran into the black tunnel, knowing she couldn’t outrun a bullet but knowing he would have to be lucky to hit her. Kyle was yelling, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying, and then as she came out of the tunnel there were shots behind her, a flurry from what sounded like two weapons, snap-snap-crack, sharp and loud. She veered to the right toward the end of the bridge where the stream ducked under the road, and as she did she cast a look over her shoulder and saw Kyle reel away from the dark car and fall to the pavement.
Abby jumped off the road and down into the streambed. She stumbled and fell, bashing a knee and bruising the heels of her hands, but she was up and running in a second, away from the light, on the muddy fringe of the stream. She went a hundred feet into darkness, splashing in shallow water and slipping on rocks, tripped and fell again, and lay panting, half in the stream and half out, craning around to look back at the arch.
The dark car came roaring through the arch and braked on the bridge with a squeal. Abby lay motionless. The car paused there for a moment and then took off again, burning rubber, and climbed the hill back toward town.
Abby waited until the sound of the car had died away and then got to her feet. She was panting, her knee hurt, and she was wet and covered with mud, but she was alive. She floundered into a low-hanging branch and realized that her best bet was to stick to the middle of the stream. The slip-on sneakers she had been too preoccupied to shuck off when she got home were a blessing now. She was walking in a few inches of water, on what felt like a bed of pebbles. There was very little light but the water glimmered faintly, guiding her. The stream narrowed and went around a bend under a cut-out bank. She ducked under a tree that had fallen across it. The bed grew rough again and Abby slipped and fell to her knees in the water, skinning her hands on the rocks. She got up and went on.
