Sawbones: A Novella

by Stuart MacBride

  It goes on for a while – Henry pretending to be some cop making follow-up calls. In the end he gets the right Brian Milligan and they talk for about five minutes, then Henry hangs up and sits there tapping the phone against his teeth.

  “He don’t remember anything other than it was a brown Winnebago,” Henry says at last.

  Jack doesn’t sound impressed. “Whoop-defucking-do. Like that narrows it down. How many brown Winnies out there you think? A million? Two?”

  “That’s why we’re going to pay the guy a visit,” says Henry, putting his phone away. “See if we can’t jog his memory.”

  And we all know what that means.

  Ten o’clock and it’s nearly dark. We’re standing outside Brian Milligan’s front door as he peers at the State Trooper ID Henry’s holding out. Henry’s got his finger over the picture so the guy can’t see who it really belongs to.

  The guy’s old, not ancient – about Henry’s age – but his hair’s gone south for the winter. There’s none on his head, but plenty tufting out the neck of his bath-robe.

  “OK,” the guy says at last, putting his glasses back in his robe pocket, “you can come in, and so can he, but this one,” he points at Jack, “he stays out here. I don’t like the look of him.”

  Jack opens his big mouth, but Henry gets in there first, “Most people don’t.” Then he tells Jack to keep an eye on the car. Which doesn’t please Jack very much, but what’s he going to do?

  Milligan’s apartment is a shit hole, littered with empty bottles and cans, two fat blow flies chasing each other around a bare light bulb. The guy wanders over to a tatty armchair and settles back into it, pulling his robe tight around his beer gut. There’s a TV in the corner, playing America’s Most Wanted with the sound turned down.

  “I told you on the phone already,” says Milligan. “I saw a brown Winnebago. I don’t remember nothing else.”

  A woman comes on the TV screen – talking about some guy who’s mailing bits of dead body to various film stars – and I watch her mouthing away as Henry tries to get something useful out of the guy.

  “What kinda plate did it have? McLean County? Illinois? Out of state?”

  The guy shrugs. “I dunno, do I?”

  “Try!”

  “I said I dunno, OK? Jesus, you state guys are as bad as the God-damned Feds.”

  “Well, what colour was it?”

  “Brown!”

  “Not the Winnebago, the fuckin’ number plate, you – ”

  The woman on the TV vanishes and the next face I see has me scrabbling for the remote, cranking the volume up and shouting, “It’s on!”

  ‘. . . abduction of Laura Jones, missing for nearly three days.’ And there she is, on the screen with her name written underneath her picture. Laura Jones: straight-A student, long blonde hair, little round glasses, a smile that shows off a set of braces like tiny railroad tracks across her teeth.

  ‘The FBI are concerned for Laura because of what they found at the scene. We’re going live now to Dan Reid.’

  And the scene switches to an alleyway, where a man with an umbrella is talking to the camera, ‘Thank you, Jane. This looks like any other alley in New Jersey, but this is where police believe Laura Jones was snatched by a serial killer known only as “Sawbones”.’ A graphic pops up in the bottom left of the screen – a blue high-heeled shoe. ‘Police found Laura’s left shoe along with what’s become this killer’s calling card: a hacksaw blade with the words “In God We Trust” scratched into the side. Jane?’

  ‘Thanks, Dan.’ And we’re back in the studio again. ‘As far as police can tell, “Sawbones” has been killing young blonde women for at least three years. Travelling from state to state, he always takes ten victims, then vanishes to lie low for up to a year. The FBI confirms five victims were snatched last week and four more since Sunday, making Laura Jones number nine. Sources within the FBI believe that if he follows the same pattern as before he’s got one more young woman to go.’

  “Typical!” says Milligan, fidgeting with his robe. “You bastards know about this sicko for three years and you still ain’t caught the sonof-a-bitch.” He pokes a finger in Henry’s chest. “Round here violating my civil rights when you should be out there catching – ”

  He lets out a tortured squeal. Henry’s got hold of his finger and is twisting it back on itself. Should have known not to poke the fucking bear.

  “Aaaaa! Get off!”

  “You want to do this the hard way?” says Henry.

  “I ain’t afraid of you! I was in Vietnam!”

  “Yeah?” says Henry, letting go of the guy’s finger as Mr Jones comes on the TV. “Which bit?”

  “Da Nang, 1969.”

  Mr Jones doesn’t look too good. I haven’t noticed before, but he’s really starting to look his age. Probably something to do with Laura being snatched. They say it ages people, when something like that happens. ‘I wanna say that Laura is our little girl.’ He blinks back the tears. ‘She’s a bright, lively, wonderful kid and we just want her back safe and sound.’

  “Da Nang, eh? Who with?”

  The old guy sticks out his chest, not knowing that it brings his beer-belly with it. “Magnificent Seventh, Second Batallion.”

  ‘Please, if whoever took her is watching this, I know you have the power to give us our daughter back.’

  “You was a marine, eh?” Henry smiles. “Semper Fi.”

  “Damn right, I was a marine! And that’s why pieces of shit like you don’t scare me.”

  Which maybe wasn’t the brightest thing to say. The smile slips from Henry’s face.

  “Saturday,” he says, “10th of February, 1968, four days west-southwest of Hue. Eleven days after the Tet Offensive and you can still see the fuckin’ smoke from the burning city, all greasy and black ’cause of the bodies.” I’ve heard this story before. Only once though and Henry was very, very drunk at the time. “We’re out looking for one of our recon patrols. No one’s heard from them for two weeks. There’s six of us slogging our way through the mountains – fuckin’ jungle and snakes everywhere. We come across this little village, just some crappy shacks, couple of families. And that’s where they were, the recon patrol. The Viet Cong had crucified them on trees all round the village. They’d left the families alive, though. Broke their ankles and wrists, then gouged their eyes out so the last thing they’d see was the patrol they’d given water to being nailed up and gutted.”

  Henry leans in real close. “It took us three weeks to find the fuckers that did it. And when we did, we made Saddam Hussein look like Santa fuckin’ Claus.”

  The old guy in the bath-robe looks away, then sags back into his chair. On the TV screen Mr Jones is replaced by some scary-looking woman with orange skin and perfect teeth, going on about drain cleaner.

  “I don’t want to get involved,” says the guy, picking at a tomato sauce stain on his robe.

  “I don’t give a shit what you want.” Henry takes his jacket off and unbuttons his shirt. “You’re going to tell me everything you know. Starting with that Winnebago...”

  Chapter 7

  “Where the fuck you two been?” asks Jack when we get back to the car. The wind’s getting up again, rain speckling the ancient Ford’s windscreen.

  Henry smiles. “Had to talk to an old army buddy.”

  I climb back behind the wheel. “Did you have to dangle the poor bastard off the roof?”

  Shrug. “Jogged his memory, didn’t it?”

  He has a point. I put the car in gear – getting a nasty grinding noise – and pull out onto the road.

  “Christ,” says Jack from the back seat, “not another one. We’re leaving a trail of bodies all over the place . . . Someone’s going to notice!”

  “Relax.” Henry lights up another one of his stinky cigars. “He’s not dead. Just needs to change his underwear. And now we got something the Feds don’t.” He smiles and opens the passenger window, letting the smoke spiral out into the cold night. �
�Seems that Winnebago had Iowa plates – Polk County – with some sort of little man on them. And up front, on the dashboard there’s a little statue of Jesus and one of them hula Elvises.”

  He grins, saving the best for last. “And a bumper sticker: ‘In God We Trust’.”

  Yup, it’s amazing what being dangled by the ankles sixty feet above a car park can do for a guy with a bad memory who doesn’t want to get involved.

  Jack leans forward, all excited. “We gotta tell the cops. Call the Feds or something – they can chase down the plate!”

  Henry takes a good long draw of his cigar. “Fuck the FBI.”

  “Oh, come on, you gotta be kidding me! We want Laura back, don’t we? They got contacts and shit – computers. They can track him down!”

  “And then what? Arrest him? Lock him away somewhere nice and safe where he’ll get three square meals a day, Oprah and Doctor Phil on the TV? Pert little nurse with big tits giving him fuckin’ sponge baths?” Another lungful of smoke. “Ain’t going to happen. You and me both know Laura’s already dead. Yeah, she looks like butter wouldn’t melt, but I seen her kick the shit out of guys twice her size. Mr Jones taught her all that stuff we learned in basic training – ninety ways to kill a guy with your bare hands. No way some weirdo grabbed her and bundled her off in his shit-brown Winnebago. He’d have to kill her first.”

  Henry takes the cigar from his mouth and stares at the glowing red tip. “This ain’t a search and rescue mission, Jack, this is revenge. We’re going to find this Sawbones asshole and we’re going to take him back to New York. Where Mr Jones will make sure he spends the last few months of his miserable life in a shit-heap of pain.”

  I point the car west on the Interstate, coaxing it up to a lumbering fifty miles an hour. Damn engine sounds like it needs the last rites and a decent burial.

  It’s a shame about Laura – she was a good kid. Smart. Bit kooky, but nice with it. I’ve known a lot of guys like Mr Jones, and their kids are always assholes. They see their dads with all this power and people afraid of them and shit, and they think they deserve some of that too, just ’cause they’re the boss’s son or daughter.

  Laura was always like a normal person. And she’d make you coffee if her dad was on the phone or something and you had to wait. I liked her.

  But Henry’s right – if this Sawbones guy has got her, she’s dead.

  Chapter 8

  Laura Jones – Not quite dead yet

  It’s dark, and it’s raining. Again. Laura tries to get comfortable, but she can’t. The cable-ties dig into her wrists and ankles, not quite tight enough to cut off the blood, but tight enough to hurt. There are more cable-ties looped through her bonds and a set of rings bolted to the Winnebago’s floor, making sure she doesn’t go anywhere. Her head’s pounding. The gag doesn’t help much either.

  She’s sitting with her back to the stove, rocking back and forth as the motor home bounces through yet another pothole. Trying to brace herself so the noose around her neck doesn’t choke her as the Bastard driving weaves his way along some God-forsaken back road.

  Laura closes her eyes and tries to doze. Maybe if she can get some sleep she wouldn’t be too tired to come up with a plan.

  A final lurch and the Winebago stops.

  One of the other girls – with a bruised face, her eyes like something caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck, starts to cry. Her sobs are muffled by the gag. Not loud enough to drown out the sound of rain hammering on the roof.

  There are four of them in here. Laura and three others. None of them much older than nineteen at a guess. All of them scared.

  Up front, the Bastard is singing softly to himself – some sort of hymn – and then he pushes through the curtain hanging between the front seats and the living area. Click – and a pale, half-hearted light flickers through the back of the Winnebago.

  The place is filthy, the carpet covered with dirt and stains that Laura doesn’t want to think about. Everything is a mess, the windows covered up with flattened cardboard boxes, held in place with duct tape. It smells of fear and sweat and piss.

  Four young women and the Bastard.

  He steps nimbly over the crying girl and reaches for the holdall on the table, making sure to steer well clear of Laura’s feet. Once kicked in the knee, twice shy. She tries to tell him exactly what her dad’s going to do to the Bastard when he catches him, but all that escapes the gag is, “Mmmmmgh mmmmmnt, mnnnninmmmmt!”

  The Bastard smiles down at her, unzips the holdall and pulls the tazer out, waggling the thing at her. “Now, now. We don’t want to be electrocuted again, do we?”

  New Jersey – Wednesday – Two days ago

  Brian is such an asshole. Telling her he’s going to Harvard when they’re both supposed to be going to Yale. Asshole, asshole, asshole. She storms out of the cinema, throws her head back and shouts it out loud, “Brian James Anderson is an ASSHOLE!”

  Harvard.

  And he’s got the nerve to act all shocked when she pours her Diet Coke over his head.

  She wipes a tear away with the heel of her hand. She’s not going to cry over him. He’s an asshole and a jerk and she wishes she’d never accepted his school pin. They were supposed to be going to Yale!

  She stops on the sidewalk and holds up a hand as a yellow cab goes past. Son-of-a-bitch doesn’t even slow down. Men!

  Of course, what she should do is call her dad, ask him to come pick her up, but then she’ll have to tell him why she isn’t getting a lift home. And he’ll ask her what’s wrong. And she’ll start to cry. And then Dad will probably get Henry to kick the crap out of her boyfriend. Not that Brian doesn’t deserve it . . .

  Harvard . . .

  How could he do that to her?

  She’s not going to cry. She’s not . . . Yes, she is.

  Laura’s so miserable she almost doesn’t hear it – a pitiful mewing sound. A kitten, in the alleyway. She peers into the dark space between a hair salon and a flower shop, both closed for the night. There’s a cardboard box sitting in a doorway, about halfway down the alley, caught in the glow of a security light.

  She can see a pair of little fuzzy ears moving around in there.

  Laura takes a couple of steps towards it, then freezes, and pulls the pepper spray from her purse. Never hurts to be too careful. But there’s no one there, just the cardboard box with a single black and white kitten in it. The poor thing must be hungry. She squats down in front of the box and wipes the tears from her eyes.

  “You been abandoned too?” And the tears are there again.

  She picks the kitten out of the box, holding the little furry bundle against her chest, turns . . . and it all goes into slow motion. A scuffing noise behind her – and she starts to spin round. But she’s not fast enough.

  It feels like a punch in the kidneys, and then the electricity kicks in, shooting through the muscles of her back, making everything scream. And as her legs give way, and she starts to fall, all she can think of is that if she lands on the kitten the poor thing will be crushed.

  Laura’s head slams into the alley floor and everything goes black.

  The back of a filthy Winnebago – Today – Friday

  The Bastard pops the tazer back in his holdall, and picks up the cardboard box from under the table, making cooing noises at the kitten inside. “Who’s Daddy’s little angel?” he says. “You are. Yes, you are.” Then he tucks the box under his arm and walks back through the curtain, singing The Lord is My Shepherd as he goes.

  The next sound is the driver’s door being slammed.

  Laura knows that when the Bastard returns he’ll have another girl with him. And then they’ll be back on the road again. One Step closer to Christ knows what.

  Chapter 9

  It’s nearly midnight and we’re driving along the Interstate, listening to some bullshit talk radio station, because that’s all this God-damned car will pick up. Henry’s sitting in the passenger seat, arguing with the callers – even thoug
h they can’t hear him – and drinking from a fresh bottle of Old Kentucky.

  I can’t decide if the smell of bourbon’s making me feel hungry or sick.

  ‘I just wanna say,’ says some cracker on the radio, ‘that this isn’t about gun control, it’s about not treating women with the respect they deserve!’

  “Course it’s about gun control, you stupid bitch!” says Henry, “How can it not be about gun control? How stupid are these people? Hello! Wake the fuck up. Isn’t about gun control my ass.”

  “Yeah, well,” I say, “what do you expect from people who got nothing better to do on a Friday night than call some lame-ass radio show?”

  Jack’s in the back, trying to sleep as the counties slowly drift by outside: McLean, Woodford, Tazewell, Peoria, Knox . . . We get a small laugh on the way out of Knox – the next county’s called ‘Henry’. “Hey, look,” I say, “you’re five miles away!”

  Henry toasts the big sign with his name on it as we cross the county line.

  Then twenty-five miles later we’re driving through the last chunk of Illinois, Rock Island. It’s not even eleven miles wide, but it takes us nearly half an hour to cross the border into Iowa. God-damned car steers like a boat, brakes like an oil tanker, and accelerates like . . . You know what? I can’t think of anything that accelerates this slowly. My fucking apartment moves faster than this.

  The radio fizzes and crackles as the signal fades, so Henry fiddles with the dial. Back and forth, looking for something to listen to. We almost get a country and western station, but Henry says he’d rather listen to a fat guy farting. And then it’s more late night talk radio.