Greg said, “Naw, we don’t wanna do that. Too much work in this heat. ’Sides, Dave looks like he can afford a proper mechanic. He looks like he’s rollin’ in dough. How ’bout it, Dave? Whatta you do?”
“Sales.”
“Whatcha sell?”
“Computers. Hardware and software.”
“I don’t trust computers. Bet I’m the only person in the country without email.”
“No, a good eighty million people don’t have it, I heard,” Dave told him.
Bill piped up. “Children, for instance.”
“Like me, huh? Me and the kiddies? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Oh, no,” Bill said quickly. “I just was talking. Didn’t mean any offense.”
“How about you, Greg?” Sloan asked. “What line’re you in?”
He considered for a minute. “I work with my hands…. Wantto know what Bill does?”
A dark look crossed Bill’s face then it vanished. “I was in insurance. I’m between jobs right now.”
“He’ll be working someday soon, though, won’t you, Bill?”
“I hope to be.”
“I’m sure you will,” Agnes said.
“We’re all sure he will. Hey, Sloan, you think Bill could sell computers?”
“I don’t know. All I know is I enjoy what I do.”
“You good at it?”
“Oh, I’m very good at it.”
“Why computers?”
“Because there’s a market for what my company makes right now. But it doesn’t matter to me. I’ll can sell anything. Maybe next year it’ll be radiators or a new kind of medical laser. If I can make money at it, I’ll sell it.”
“Why don’t you tell us about your computers?” Greg asked.
Sloan shrugged dismissively. “It’s real technical. You’d be bored.”
“Well, we don’t want to bore anybody now, especially us kiddies. Not if we’re having such an enjoyable party, the family all together… family.” Greg thumped the arm of the chair with his massive hands. “Don’t you think family’s important? I do. You have family, Dave?”
“They’re dead. My immediate family, that is.”
“All of ’em?” Greg asked curiously.
“My parents and sister.”
“How’d they die?”
Agnes stirred at this blunt question. But Sloan didn’t mind. “An accident.”
“Accident?” Greg nodded. “My folks’re gone too,” he added emotionlessly.
Which meant that, because he was their nephew, Bill and Agnes had lost a sibling too. But Greg didn’t acknowledge their portion of the loss.
The sound of the air conditioner seemed to vanish as the silence of three mute human beings filled the tiny, stifling room. Then Sloan heard a faint thumping. It seemed to come from behind a closed door off the hallway. No one else noticed. He heard it again then the sound ceased.
Greg rose and walked to a thermometer tacked up on the wall. A silver wire ran through a hole sloppily drilled through the window jamb. He tapped the circular dial with his finger. “Busted,” he announced. Then he turned back to the threesome. “I heard the news? Before? And they said that it was ninety-eight degrees at sunset. That’s a record ’round here, the newscaster said. I got to thinking. Ninety-eight point six — that’s the temperature of a human body. And you know what occurred to me?”
Sloan examined the man’s eerie, amused eyes. He said nothing. Neither did Bill or Agnes.
Greg continued, “I realized that there’s no difference between life and death. Not a bit. Whatta you think about that?”
“No difference? I don’t get it.” Sloan shook his head.
“See, take a bad person. What sort of person should we use, Bill? Maybe a person who doesn’t pay his debts. How’s that? Okay, now what I’m saying is that it’s not his body, it’s his soul that’s a welsher. When he dies, what hangs around? A welsher’s soul. Same thing with a good man. There’s a good soul hanging around after a good body goes. Or a murderer, for instance. When they execute a murderer, there’s a killer’s soul still walking around.”
“That’s an interesting thought, Greg.”
“The way I see it,” the intense man continued, “a body is just a soul warmed to ninety-eight point six degrees.”
“I’d have to think about it.”
“Okay, our folks are dead, yours and mine,” Greg continued.
“True,” Sloan replied.
“But even when they’re gone,” Greg said philosophically, “you can still have trouble because of them, right?” He sat back in the slick, stained chair and crossed his legs. He wore no socks and Sloan got a look at another tattoo — one that started on his ankle and went north. Sloan knew that tattoos on the ankle were among the most painful on the body, since the needle had to hit bone. A tattoo there was more than body painting; it was a defiant reminder that pain was nothing to the wearer.
“Trouble?”
“Your parents can cause you grief after they’re dead.”
Any psychiatrist’d tell you that, Sloan thought, but decided that this was a bit too clever for Greg.
The young man rubbed his massive hand over his glistening crew cut. That was quite a scar he had. Another one was on his opposite arm. “There was this thing happened a few years ago.”
“What was that?” Bill asked.
Sloan noticed that Agnes had shredded the napkin she was holding.
“Well, I’m not inclined to go into specifics with strangers,” he said, irritated.
“I’m sorry,” Bill said quickly.
“I’m just making a point. Which is that somebody who was dead was still causing me problems. I could see it real clear. A bitch when she was alive, a bitch when she was dead. God gave her a troublemaker’s soul. You believe in God, Sloan?”
“No.”
Agnes stirred. Sloan glanced at three crucifixes on the wall.
“I believe in selling. That’s about it.”
“That’s your soul then. Warmed to ninety-eight point six.” A rubbery grin. “Since you’re still alive.”
“And what’s your soul like, Greg? Good, bad?”
“Well, I’m not a welcher,” he said coyly. “Beyond that, you’ll have to guess. I don’t give as much away as you do.”
The lights dimmed. Another dip in the power.
“Look at that,” Greg said. “Maybe it’s the souls of some family hanging around here, playing with the lights. Whatta you think, Bill?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“A family that died here,” Greg mused. “Anybody die here that you know of, Bill?”
Agnes swallowed hard. Bill took a sip from a glass of what looked like flat soda. His hands shook.
The lights came back on full. Greg looked around the place. “Whatta you think this house’s worth, Sloan?”
“I don’t know,” he answered calmly, growing tired of the baiting. “I sell computers, remember? Not houses.”
“I’m thinking a cool two hundred thousand.”
The noise again from behind the door. It was louder this time, audible over the moaning of the air conditioner. A scraping, a thud.
The three people in the room looked toward the door. Agnes and Bill were uneasy. Nobody said a word about the sound.
“Where’ve you been selling your computers?” Greg asked.
“I was in Durrant today. Now I’m heading east.”
“Times’re slow ’round here. People out of work, right, Bill?”
“Hard times.”
“Hard times here, hard times everywhere.” Greg seemed drunk but Sloan smelled no liquor and noticed that the only alcohol in sight was a corked bottle of New York State port and a cheap brandy, sitting safely behind a greasy-windowed breakfront. “Hard times for salesmen too, I’ll bet. Even salesmen who can sell anything, like you.”
Sloan calmly asked, “Something about me you don’t like, Greg?”
“Why, no.” But the man’s steely eyes muttered the oppo
site. “Where’d you get that idea?”
“It’s the heat,” Agnes said quickly, playing mediator. “I was watching this show on the news. CNN. About what the heat’s doing. Rioting in Detroit, forest fires up near Saginaw. It’s making people act crazy.”
“Crazy?” Greg asked. “Crazy?”
“I didn’t mean you,” she said fast.
Greg turned to Sloan. “Let’s ask Mr. Salesman here if I’m acting crazy.”
Sloan figured he could have the boy on his back in a strangle-hold in four or five minutes, but there’d be some serious damage to the tacky nicknacks. And the police’d come and there’d be all sorts of complications.
“Well, how ’bout it?”
“Nope, you don’t seem crazy to me.”
“You’re saying that ’cause you don’t want a hassle. Maybe you don’t have a salesman’s soul. Maybe you’ve got a liar’s soul…” He rubbed his face with both hands. “Damn, I’ve sweated a gallon.”
Sloan sensed control leaving the man. He noticed a gun rack on the wall. There were two rifles in it. He judged how fast he could get there. Was Bill stupid enough to leave an unlocked, loaded gun on the rack? Probably.
“Let me tell you something—” Greg began ominously, tapping the sweaty arms of the chair with blunt fingers.
The doorbell rang.
No one moved for a moment. Then Greg rose and walked to it, opened the door.
A husky man with long hair stood in the doorway. “Somebody called for a tow?”
“That’d be me.” Sloan stood and said to Agnes and Bill, “Thanks for the use of the phone.”
“No problem.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to stay. I can put some supper on. Please?” The poor woman was now clearly desperate.
“No. I have to be going.”
“Yeah,” Greg said, “Dave’s got to be going.”
“Damn,” the tow operator said. “Hotter in there than it is outside.”
You don’t know the half of it, Sloan thought, and started down the steps to the idling flatbed.
* * *
The driver winched Sloan’s disabled Chevy onto the bed, chained it down and then the two men climbed inside the cab of the truck. They pulled out onto the highway, heading east. The air conditioner roared and the cool air was a blessing.
The radio clattered. Sloan couldn’t hear it clearly over the sound of the AC but the driver leaned forward and listened to what was apparently some important message. When the transmission was over, the driver said, “They still haven’t caught that guy.”
“What guy?” Sloan asked.
“The killer. The guy who escaped from that prison about thirty miles east of here.”
“I didn’t hear about that.”
“I hope it makes it on American’s Most Wanted. You ever watch that show?”
“No. I don’t watch much TV,” Sloan said.
“I do,” the tow driver offered. “Can be educational.”
“Who is this guy?”
“Sort of a psycho killer, one of those sorts. Like in Silence of the Lambs. How ’bout movies, you like movies?”
“Yeah,” Sloan responded. “That was a good flick.”
“Guy was in the state prison about twenty miles west of here.”
“How’d he escape? That’s a pretty high-security place, isn’t it?”
“Sure is. My brother… uhm, my brother had a friend did time there for grand theft auto. Hard place. What they said on the news was that this killer was in the yard of that prison and, what with the heat, there was a power failure. I guess the backup didn’t go on either or something and the lights and the electrified fence were down for, I dunno, almost an hour. But by the time they got it going again, he was gone.”
Sloan shivered as the freezing air chilled his sweat-soaked clothes. He asked, “Say, you know that family where you picked me up? The Willises?”
“No sir. I don’t get out this way much.”
They continued driving for twenty minutes. Ahead, Sloan saw a band of flashing lights.
The driver said, “Roadblock. Probably searching for that escapee.”
Sloan could see two police cars. Two uniformed officers were pulling people over.
The salesman said to the tow driver, “When you get up there, pull off to the side. I want to talk to one of the cops.”
“Sure thing, mister.”
When they pulled over, Sloan got out and told the driver, “I’ll just be a minute.” Sloan inhaled deeply but no air seemed to get into his lungs. His chest began to hurt again.
One of the officers glanced at Sloan. The big man, his tan shirt dark with sweat, approached. “Hold up there, sir. Can I help you?” He held his flashlight defensively as he walked toward Sloan, who introduced himself and handed over a business card. Sloan observed the man’s name badge. Sheriff Mills. The law enforcer looked over the card and then Sloan’s suit and, satisfied that he wasn’t the man they were looking for, asked, “What can I do for you?”
“Is this about that fellow who escaped from the prison?” He nodded at the squad car.
“Yessir, it is. You seen anything that might help us find him?”
“Well, it might be nothing. But I thought I should mention it.”
“Go ahead.”
“What’s the prisoner look like?”
“Just escaped about two hours ago. We don’t have a picture yet. But he’s in his mid-thirties, beard. Six feet, muscular build. Like yours, more or less.”
“Shaved head?”
“No. But if I was him I mighta shaved it the minute I got out. Lost the beard too.”
“Tattoo?”
“Don’t know. Probably.”
Sloan explained about his car’s breaking down and about his stop at the Willises’ house. “You think that prisoner would come this way?”
“If he had his wits about him, he would. To go west’d take him fifty miles through forest. This way, he’s got a crack at stealing a car in town or hitching a ride on the interstate.”
“And that’d take him right past the Willises’?”
“Yep. If he took Route 202. What’re you getting at, Mr. Sloan?”
“I think that fellow might be at the Willises’ house.”
“What?”
“Do you know if they have a nephew?”
“I don’t think they ever mentioned one.”
“Well, there’s a man there now — sort of fits the description of the killer. He claimed he was Bill’s nephew, visiting them. But something didn’t seem right. I mean, first of all, it was supper-time but they hadn’t eaten and they weren’t cooking anything and there were no dirty dishes in the kitchen. And anything Greg told them to do, they did. Like they were afraid to upset him.”
The sheriff found a wad of paper towel in his pocket and wiped his face and head. “Anything else?”
“He was saying weird stuff — talking about death and about this experience he had that made him look at dying differently. Like it wasn’t that bad a thing…. Spooked me. Oh, and another thing — he said he didn’t want to mention something in front of strangers. He might’ve meant me but then why’d he say ‘strangers,’ not ‘a stranger’? It was like he meant Bill and Agnes too.”
“Good point.”
“He also had some bad scars. Like he’d been in a knife fight. And he mentioned somebody who died — a woman, who gave him as much grief after she was dead as before. I was thinking he meant trouble with the law for killing her.”
“What’d their daughter say?”
“Daughter?”
“The Willises have a daughter. Sandy. Didn’t you see her? She’s home from college now. And she works the day shift at Taco Bell. She should’ve been home by now.”
“Jesus,” Sloan muttered. “I didn’t see her…. But I remember something else. The door to one of the bedrooms was closed and there was a sound coming from inside it. Everybody there was real upset about it. You don’t think she was, I don’t k
now, tied up inside there?”
“Lord,” the sheriff said, wiping his face, “that escapee — he was arrested for raping and murdering girls. College girls.” He pulled out his radio, “All Hatfield police units. This’s Mills. I have a lead on that prisoner. The perpetrator might be out at Bill Willis’s place off 202. Leave one car each on the roadblocks but everybody else respond immediately. Silent roll up, with lights out. Stop on the road near the driveway but don’t go in. Wait for me.”
Replies came back.
The sheriff turned to Sloan. “We might need you as a witness, Mr. Sloan.”
“Sure, whatever I can do.”
The sheriff said, “Have the driver take you to the police station — it’s on Elm Street. My girl’s there, Clara’s her name. Just tell her the same thing you told me. I’ll call her and tell her to take your statement.”
“Be happy to, Sheriff.”
The sheriff ran back to his car and jumped in. His deputy climbed into the passenger seat and they skidded 180 degrees and sped off toward the Willises’ house.
Sloan watched them vanish and climbed back in the truck, then said to the driver, “Never thought I’d end up in the middle of this.”
“Most exciting call I’ve ever had,” the man replied, “I’ll tell you that.”
The driver pulled back into the highway and the flatbed clattered down the asphalt toward a faint band of light radiated by the heat-soaked town of Hatfield, Michigan.
* * *
“I don’t see anybody but the Willises,” the deputy whispered.
He’d made some fast reconnaissance of the bungalow through a side window. “They’re just sitting there talking, Bill and Agnes.”
Three male officers and two women — five-eighths of the Hatfield constabulary — surrounded the house.
“He might be in the john. Let’s go in fast.”
“We knock?”
“No,” the sheriff muttered, “we don’t knock.”
They burst through the front door so fast that Agnes dropped her soda on the couch and Bill made it two steps to the gun rack before he recognized the sheriff and his deputies.
“Lord of mercy, you scared us, Hal.”
“What a fright,” Agnes muttered. Then: “Don’t blaspheme, Bill.”
“Are you okay?”
“Sure, we’re okay. Why?”
More Twisted: Collected Stories, Vol. II Page 37
