The Big Dirt Nap db-2

by Rosemary Harris

  Inside the car, I showed Lucy the Taser, carefully sliding it out of the leopard-print case. I was getting more comfortable with it, especially since the cartridges were in my other pocket.

  "Are you planning to shave the bad guy's legs?" Now that she mentioned it, it did look a bit like an electric razor.

  "It's a Taser. Don't worry, Babe showed me how to use it this morning. Put your seat belt on."

  "I feel so much better knowing you had a five-minute lesson on how to use a weapon with a former backup singer."

  Still muttering, Lucy did as she was told and we went to find the factory. Now that we could charge her TomTom, we plugged it in and followed the disembodied voice as it instructed us to turn left and take the highway, take the highway.

  "Why does this woman have to sound so snippy?" Lucy asked, playing with the TomTom and testing other voices. "Someone could make a bundle marketing one of these that sounded like George Clooney."

  Our destination was less than seven miles away. TomTom/not George chose the fastest route; it took us half a mile past the turn for the mobile park.

  "If we don't find him, we can go back and ask some of the residents at the mobile park if they've seen him. He might have hitched a ride with one of them," I said.

  "I want to find him, too, but you are officially on drugs. I am not going into a trailer park at this hour, ringing doorbells or whatever they have and asking if anyone's seen a homeless man with an American flag and a Big Y shopping cart. It's not happening."

  "Then you and Claude have to hope we find him here," I said, pulling into the deserted parking lot.

  The For Sale or Lease sign was faded from so many years in the sun, and the new banner's information that the owner was willing to subdivide the twenty-thousand-square-foot facility hadn't made it any more attractive to potential occupants. Except perhaps one.

  Having seen the two-story property on the news, I recognized the spot where Billy Crawford had eluded the cops. "Let's circle the building first to see what looks promising," I said.

  "Nothing looks promising. Let's go. This place is creeping me out."

  We drove around to the back and parked, out of sight of the road. We tried all four doors to the building but they were locked.

  "Satisfied? Now can we go?" Lucy said. The sun had gone down an hour ago and it had turned chilly; she rubbed her arms to warm them up.

  "There," I said, pointing to an overturned trash can and the partially open window above it.

  "There what?"

  "That's where he goes in," I said.

  Forty-two

  The overturned drum made a lousy step and it was flaking and rusted in enough places to make me wonder when I'd had my last tetanus shot.

  "Maybe Sam weighs less than we do," I said, half-joking.

  "That's a depressing thought."

  More likely he was just less fastidious about where he put his shoes, or maybe more confident that the crusted lime-green gunk on the drum wasn't toxic.

  "The car. We'll move the car under the window and I'll stand on that to get in." I still had the rental car keys so I didn't wait for Lucy to agree. I kicked the drum over on its side, watching the dregs of the green gunk seep out through the bigger rust spots. Another kick moved the drum out of the way but not before punching a hole in it and spitting a gob of slime on my right pants leg.

  Belgian blocks bordered a weedy strip underneath the window where I was sure that Sam had entered the building. The Subaru cleared the first block easily but its undercarriage scraped noisily over the second and third blocks.

  "Good thing it's rented," Lucy said, practically.

  I parallel-parked as close as I could to the side of the building, accidentally tapping the drum a couple of times before getting close enough.

  "I'll go first," I said, as if there was any doubt. I climbed onto the hood of the car, then the roof. If I'd had the Jeep, getting in would have been a breeze, but the Subaru was lower to the ground and a longer way up to the windowsill.

  I placed my bare hands on the splintered windowsill, wishing I had my heavy-duty work gloves. It took all of my strength to hoist myself up, lock my elbows, and shift my weight onto the windowsill. Thank goodness my Gravitron workouts had prepared me for this, although I rarely found broken glass in my local gym. I seesawed there for what seemed like minutes but was probably only seconds before I wriggled off the frame and dropped inside the building, tearing a nice hole in my hoodie in the process. Outside I could see Lucy pointing her phone at me and snapping pictures.

  "You never know. Could be usable," she said.

  "Are you coming?"

  She made it to the top of the car, but after three tries still couldn't raise herself up to the windowsill or any place where I might have helped her get in.

  "Okay, stay down there. If I'm not back in fifteen minutes dial Babe's number; I've got her phone. If I don't answer, get out of here and call the police." I walked away to look for Sam.

  "Wait, what's her number?"

  I gave it to her and she plugged it into their phone's memory.

  "Wait," she yelled again, "you still have the car keys." I fished them out of my pocket and tossed them onto the roof of the car. They bounced off and landed in a puddle of ooze near the front tire.

  "You know, this was supposed to be a free trip to a spa," I said. "So far, I'm not relaxed. You're going to have to get me something really nice at Fendi."

  "Fifteen minutes," she said, looking at her watch. "And I will get you something nice."

  Half of the windows were blacked out and the flood lights from the parking lot gave the floor the look of a checkerboard, light squares mixed with dark, for six feet or so until I reached the center of the floor, where it was pitch black.

  "Sam? Sam? Can you hear me? My name's Paula. I was at the hotel the night Nick died." I heard a rustle and closed my eyes, briefly thinking, Please don't let it be rats. I heard it again and saw a line of giant water bugs conga-dancing across the floor.

  "Your friends at Titans are worried about you. And Georgie, and Claude. Everybody's worried about you. I know you saw something. I was there that night, remember? Come on out, I can help you."

  I ventured farther into the dark, waving my arms around, trying to avoid bumping into anything. Every once in a while I felt a cobweb on my face and that made me catch my breath. "Sam, are you here?" I was beginning to think he wasn't when I walked straight into the sharp edge of a piece of equipment, tearing a gash in my jeans and my thigh.

  "Damn."

  The next sound I heard built slowly, from a small creak to a thunderous explosion. A metal shelf unit filled with spare parts and lubricants for machines that no longer existed teetered, then came crashing down around me. The unit grazed my shoulder but there was no serious damage.

  "Gee, Sam, was that on purpose?" I fiddled in my bag for the Taser, terrified that I would shock myself trying to load the cartridge.

  "No. Just the vibration."

  I followed the answer and saw him sitting in a corner on an old office chair. I couldn't place the smell, then it came back to me from my last camping trip. He reeked of Sterno.

  "Let's get out of here before something else falls, okay?" I reached out a hand to him. He was surprised, but took it. I tried taking him to the window where I had climbed in but he resisted, and I wondered if I was going to have a problem getting him out of the building.

  "Door's easier," he said, picking up a dirty red and white shopping bag and leading me to a door at the opposite end of the floor. Sam and I took the fire stairs two at a time until we reached a side door with a keypad lock that obviously hadn't been changed since the days when he worked at the factory.

  Sam knew something was wrong before I did. Maybe you get used to a place—even an abandoned factory building—and can tell when something was out of whack as I'd been able to tell in my driveway, what was it . . . how many days ago?

  One thing I did notice was different. Lucy's car was gone.
And so was Lucy.

  Forty-three

  The cellular customer you are trying to reach is not available.

  I'd try Lucy again later. She hadn't called but maybe the sound of the crash in the factory spooked her and she went for the cops. Sam and I waited for twenty minutes, then, by unspoken agreement, we started walking.

  Ordinarily a seven-mile hike is a piece of cake for me; I'd made it to the top of Half Dome, for pete's sake, but I'd had a pretty full forty-eight hours and my thigh was bloody and throbbing from the cut. And my shoulder was aching from the shelf unit that had winged it. The road had virtually no shoulder and when the occasional car passed, it felt as if we'd be swept under the tires. There were no truckers, who probably would have stopped to help us, just a few kids who came too close, threw beer cans at us, and scared the crap out of me. But not Sam.

  We'd walked about a mile when a car, already suspicious because it was going thirty-five with no one else on the road, pulled over fifteen yards ahead of us. The driver checked us out in his side mirror, then leaned out and asked if we wanted a ride.

  It was amazing how much safer I felt with the C2 in my bag. I still hadn't fired the thing, but it gave me the confidence to say "Sure." Even so, I hopped into the backseat and let Sam ride up front. If I needed to whip out the Taser, being in the back would give me a little cover and it would be harder for the driver to see how scared I was to actually use it.

  He had a plump face and that earmuff hairline—some back, some sides, no top. The suit was shiny and there were two suitcases with company stickers on them in the back. Salesman. He didn't seem to mind that Sam obviously looked like a homeless man and smelled like fuel, and I—face scratched, hoodie torn, green slime on one pants leg and blood on the other—didn't look or smell much better. And that suited us. All we wanted was a ride to Titans. A few minutes into the ride we found out why he didn't mind.

  "Friends, I think you were put into my path for a purpose," he said with a smile. He waited for an acknowledgment.

  Oh, brother. "And what would that be?" I asked, not really wanting to know.

  "I'm here to snatch you from the road to perdition—literally and figuratively, heh, heh—and to set you back on the road to righteousness. You back there can stop your whoring and this man can stop his wretched drinking and fornicating and all you have to do is . . ."

  What was he talking about? I couldn't speak for Sam but I hadn't whored and fornicated for a good year and a half. As a matter of fact, if I got through this experience alive, I planned to pick them up again with a vengeance. I tried tuning the driver out but he went on like that for six of the longest miles of my life. And each time his sermon reached a new crescendo he slowed down a bit for emphasis; we were going twenty-four excruciating miles an hour by the time we reached the turnoff for Titans.

  "Stop the car. We can walk the rest of the way," I said. "It'll give us time to contemplate turning around our misspent lives."

  At the speed we were going it wasn't dangerous so I opened the car door slightly and—worried that I'd jump out—the driver finally rolled to a stop. Clearly he hadn't finished his pitch and was annoyed by our early exit. I wondered if he had his spiel rehearsed and just cruised the highways at night looking for poor, unsuspecting hitchhikers to proselytize to.

  As I got out he handed me some pamphlets from a religious group that I had never heard of but one that he assured me was chock-full of good American values. Sam gave the passenger-side door a stronger shove than I would have expected.

  "Thank you, my friend," Sam said. "Can you spare a dollar to help me and the lady get a couple of coffees, to start our new lives of sobriety?"

  "I won't do that," the driver said, with a smile. "You'll only spend it on drink." I didn't think Sam would, but I was ready for a strong one right about then.

  "How about a reference? I'm a mechanical engineer and I think I recognize the corporate logo on your suitcases."

  The driver hit the gas and took off, muttering some very un-brotherly words; Sam tossed the pamphlets after him and turned to me. "He obviously hasn't paid for his own drinks in a while if he thinks we're both going to catch a buzz for a dollar," he said. "T and E man. Probably cheats his company on travel and expenses."

  The dirt road leading to the reservation and Titans just beyond it wasn't far. This time we talked.

  "Sam, by all accounts you're a smart, likable guy. I gotta ask. What the hell happened?"

  "Maybe I'll tell you the whole story one day. The short version is this . . . The company went under, all my savings were tied up in my 401(k). I borrowed money short-term at usurious rates to keep up my house payments, but I defaulted on the loans, and then lost my house. I lived in the trailer park for a while, but without a job even that got too expensive. It was surprisingly easy. And shockingly fast. I drank a bit after that." I could see why.

  He was a walking news item. Something you hear about in a sound bite on CNN right before the story about the ferry accident in some part of the world you didn't know existed.

  "No family?" I asked.

  "No." There had to be a longer answer to that one but I didn't push it.

  Near the entrance to the reservation two cars were parked nose to nose. At least three people were out of the cars and arguing. Sam grabbed my sleeve and raised a finger to his lips. He pulled me into the brush at the side of the road, and we crouched down to avoid being seen. The voices grew louder. A man's voice said, ". . . not what I signed on for . . ." and another said, ". . . you can go back to . . ."

  I was staring straight ahead trying to make out any recognizable shapes or faces when a field mouse crept into my line of sight. We watched each other for about a minute, but I blinked first. The mouse ran around in circles, confused, and when he came close enough for me to see his little teeth I let out a yelp.

  "What was that?" one of the threesome said.

  Sam pulled two black lawn and leaf bags from his stash. "Put it over your head and curl up," he whispered. "Now!" He did the same.

  A moment later the car in front of us moved and the one that was facing us turned its headlights on. We flattened ourselves farther into the brush.

  "It's nothing, just the wind blowing some roadside garbage. Turn those lights off, you idiot." It was a woman's voice. And it was familiar.

  Forty-four

  In the last two hours I'd been bloodied, slimed, pelted with crushed beer cans, preached at, and mistaken for a bag of garbage.

  "Do you go through this often?" I asked, once the cars had taken off and we climbed out of our bags.

  "Almost every day. The lawn-and-leaf-bag trick saved my life once." Maybe twice, I thought, folding the bag and giving it back to him. I couldn't be entirely sure about whose voices I'd heard but they hadn't sounded happy and wouldn't have appreciated being interrupted.

  "Any idea what kind of cars they were?"

  "Too far to tell. But one was a smallish SUV, not a regular sedan."

  That wasn't much help. Even Lucy's rental car was a smallish SUV. We walked the rest of the way to the hotel, passing the spot where the cars had been stopped. I looked around for a due.

  "What are you looking for?" Sam asked. I didn't know myself; It was as if I expected whoever it was to have left a calling card. But there were no convenient cigarette butts, candy wrappers, or vodka bottles, just some dusty tire tracks and a jumble of footprints.

  "Just curious," I said. "You see anything?"

  "Not much," Sam said. "I can tell you that one of them was a big man, size fourteen or fifteen shoes and probably pretty damn heavy." I couldn't believe what I'd heard. "I worked in a shoe factory, remember?"

  Our plan was this: I'd enter the hotel through the main lobby, trying to keep a low profile until I got to my room. Sam would sneak in through the loading dock and take the freight elevator up to my room, where, hopefully, Lucy would be waiting for us. Then we'd try to reach Betty Smallwood for legal advice.

  "You're not going to take off
on me, are you? Look at me," I said, holding on to his arm. "I've gone through a lot to find you. Claude and Billy need you." He shook his head and I believed him.

  We split up at the beginning of the long driveway into Titans. I kept close to the parked cars and in seconds, Sam had disappeared behind a hedge of green-and-white euonymus—clearly he'd done this before.

  The valet parking attendant was asleep so I didn't have any trouble getting by him and through the revolving doors unnoticed. Unfortunately, Taylor, the friendly but perpetually confused desk clerk, was still on duty.

  "Ms. Cavanaugh, gosh, are you all right?" I motioned for him to keep his voice down, but he was a teenage boy and that made my suggestion ludicrous. "Can I call a doctor for you?"

  That got me more unwanted attention. One gentleman initially got up, ostensibly to offer his services, then demurred when he saw how bad I looked—visions of a malpractice suit, no doubt. I went to the front desk to shut up the well-meaning clerk.

  "I'm fine." Now that he'd blown my hopes of sneaking into the hotel unnoticed, I decided to ask him for a favor. "Taylor, do you have a locker here?" He nodded. "What's in it?"

  "A T-shirt, a sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers. Old stuff, nothing nice," he said, still confused.

  "Good." I looked through my handbag and pulled out my wallet. "I'll give you a hundred dollars if you send someone to my room with your clothes in five minutes."

  "I could call Amanda. She's coming back later, so she could bring you something to wear."

  "I need men's clothing."

  "Oh, sure, I get it," he said knowingly. "We have a few other customers who like to do that, too. There's one guy, you should see him, wig and everything."

  "A hundred dollars and you'll eventually get them back," I said, handing him the cash.

  Forty-five

  The elevator doors had just opened when I heard Lucy's scream. Sam flew past me and I grabbed him and hustled him back to the room before any other guests came out into the corridor to see what the disturbance was. After a few deep breaths, Lucy calmed down and apologized.