“And your daughter?”
“She’s out with her friends. Is this about her? Is she all right?”
“No, it’s not about her,” Sheriff Mills slipped his gun away. “Where is he, Bill?”
“Who?”
“That fellow who was here?”
“The guy whose car broke down?” Agnes asked. “He left in the tow truck.”
“No, not him. The guy calling himself Greg.”
“Greg?” Agnes asked. “Well, he’s gone too. What’s this all about?”
“Who is he?” the sheriff asked.
“He’s my late brother’s son,” Bill said.
“He really is your nephew?”
“Much as I hate to say it, yeah.”
The sheriff put the gun away. “That Sloan, the man who called the tow truck from here — he had this idea that maybe Greg was that escapee. We thought he’d held you hostage.”
“What escapee?”
“A killer from that prison west of here. A psychopath. He escaped a couple of hours ago.”
“No!” Agnes said breathlessly. “We didn’t have the news on tonight.”
The sheriff told them what Sloan had mentioned about how odd Greg had behaved — and how the Willises clearly didn’t want him there, were even afraid of him.
Agnes nodded. “See, we…”
Her voice faded and she glanced at her husband, who said, “It’s okay, honey, you can tell him.”
“When Bill lost his job last year, we didn’t know what we were going to do. We only had a little savings and my job at the library, well, that wasn’t bringing in much money. So we had to borrow some. The bank wouldn’t even talk to us so we called Greg.”
Clearly ashamed, Bill shook his head. “He’s the richest one in the family.”
“Him?” Sheriff Mills asked.
Agnes said, “Yep. He’s a plumber… no, sorry, a ‘plumbing contractor.’ Makes money hand over fist. Has eight trucks. He inherited the business when Bill’s brother died.”
Her husband: “Well, he made me a loan. Insisted on a second mortgage on the house, of course. And plenty of interest too. More’n the banks woulda charged. Was real obnoxious about it, since we never really had him and his dad over when he was growing up — my brother and me didn’t get along too good. But he wrote us a check and nobody else would. I thought I’d have another job by now but nothing came up. And unemployment ran out. When I couldn’t make the payments to him I stopped returning his phone calls. I was so embarrassed. He finally drove over here tonight and stopped by unannounced. He gave us hell. Threatening to foreclose, drive us out in the street.”
“That’s when Mr. Sloan showed up. We were hoping he’d stay. It was a nightmare sitting here listening to him go on and on.”
“Sloan said he was scarred. Like knife wounds.”
“Accidents on the job, I guess,” Bill said.
“What’d he mean about a woman who died a few years ago?”
Nodding, Bill said, “He wouldn’t tell us exactly what he meant.” He looked at Agnes. “I’d guess that must’ve been his girlfriend. She died in a car wreck and Greg sort of inherited her son for a few months. It was a mess — Greg’s not the best father, as you can imagine. Finally, her sister took the boy.”
The sheriff remembered something else that Sloan had said. “He said he heard something in the other room. It seemed suspicious to him.”
Agnes blushed fiercely. “That was Sandy.”
“Your daughter?”
A nod. The woman couldn’t continue. Bill said, “She came home with her boyfriend. They went into her room so she could change out of her uniform before they went out. The next thing you know — well, you can figure it out…. I told her to respectus. I told her not to be with him when we were home. She doesn’t care.”
So it was all a misunderstanding, Sheriff Mills reflected.
Bill laughed faintly. “And you thought Greg was the killer? That’s wild.”
“Wasn’t that far-fetched,” the sheriff said. “Think about it. The guy escaped at five tonight. That’d be just enough time to steal a car and get to your place from Durrant in early evening.”
“Guess that’s right, “Bill said.
The sheriff returned to the door and started to open it.
Bill said, “Wait a minute, Hal. You said Durrant?”
“Right. That’s where the prison is that guy escaped from.”
Bill looked at Agnes. “Didn’t that fellow Sloan say he’d just come here from Durrant?”
“Yeah, he did. I’m sure.”
“Really?” the sheriff asked. He returned to the Willises. Then asked, “What else did you know about him?”
“Nothing much really. Just that he said he sold computers.”
“Computers?” The sheriff frowned. “Around here?”
“That’s what he said.”
This was odd; Hatfield was hardly a high-tech area of the state. The closest retail computer store was fifteen miles south of here. “Anything else?”
“He was pretty evasive, now that I think about it. Didn’t say much of anything. Except he did say his parents were dead.”
“And he didn’t seem very upset about it,” Agnes offered.
The sheriff reflected: And Sloan was about the same age and build as the killer. Dark hair too.
Damn, he thought to himself: I didn’t even look at his driver’s license, only his business card. He might’ve killed the real Sloan and stolen his car.
“And that was another thing. He said his car overheated,” Bill pointed out. “You’d think a salesman’d be in a new car. And you ever hear about cars overheating nowadays? Hardly ever happens. And at night?”
“Mary, Mother of God,” Agnes said, crossing herself, apparently finding an exception to the rule about blasphemy. “He was right here, in our house.”
But the sheriff’s mind continued further along this troubling path. Sloan, he now understood, had known there’d be a roadblock. So he’d disabled his car himself, called Triple A and waltzed right though the roadblock. Hell, he even walked right up to me, ballsy as could be and spun that story about Greg — to lead the law off.
And we let him get away. He could be—
No!
And then he felt the punch in his gut. He’d sent Sloan to police headquarters. Where there was only one other person at the moment. Clara. Twenty-one years old. Beautiful.
And whom the sheriff referred to as “his girl” not out of any vestigial chauvinism but because she was, in fact, his daughter, working for him on summer vacation from college.
He grabbed the Willises’ phone and called the station. There was no answer.
Sheriff Mills ran from the house, climbed into his car. “Oh, Lord, please no…”
The deputy with him offered a prayer too. But the sheriff didn’t hear it. He dropped into the seat and slammed the door. Ten seconds later the Crown Vic hit sixty as it cut through the night air, hot as soup and dotted with the lights from a thousand edgy fireflies.
* * *
No reconnaissance this time.
On Elm Street downtown the sheriff skidded to a stop against a trash can, knocking it over and scattering the street with empty soda bottles and Good Humor sticks and wrappers.
His deputy was beside him, carting the stubby scattergun, a shell chambered and the safety off.
“What’s the plan?” the deputy asked.
“This,” Sheriff Mills snapped and slammed into the door with his shoulder, leveling the gun as he rushed inside, the deputy on his heels.
Both men stopped fast, staring at the two people in the room, caught in the act of sipping Arizona iced teas. Dave Sloan and the sheriff’s daughter, both blinking in shock at the hostile entrance.
The officers lowered their weapons.
“Dad!”
“What’s the matter, Sheriff?” Sloan asked.
“I—” he stammered. “Mr. Sloan, could I see some ID?”
Sloan show
ed his driver’s license to the sheriff, who examined the picture — it was clearly Sloan. Then Mills shamefacedly told them what he’d suspected after his conversation with the Willises.
Sloan took the news good-naturedly. “Probably should’ve asked for that license up front, Sheriff.”
“I probably should have. Right you are. It was just that things seemed a little suspicious. Like you told them that you’d just come from Durrant—”
“My company installs and services the prison computers. It’s one of my big accounts.” He fished in his jacket pocket and showed the sheriff a work order. “These blackouts from the heat are hell on computers. If you don’t shut them down properly it causes all kinds of problems.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, sir. You have to understand—”
“That you got a killer on the loose.” Sloan laughed again. “So they thought I was the killer…. Only fair, I suppose, since I thought Greg was.”
“I called before,” the sheriff said to his daughter. “There was no answer. Where were you?”
“Oh, the AC went out. Mr. Sloan here and I went out back to see if we could get it going.”
A moment later the fax machine began churning out a piece of paper. It contained a picture of a young man, bearded, with trim, dark hair: the two-angle mug shot of the escapee.
The sheriff showed it to Sloan and Clara. He read from the prison’s bulletin. “Name’s Tony Windham. Rich kid from Ann Arbor. Worth millions, trust funds, prep school. Honors grad. But he’s got something loose somewhere. Killed six women and never showed a gnat of regret at the trial. Well, he’s not getting through Hatfield. Route 202 and 17’re the only ways to the interstate and we’re checking every car.” He then said to the deputy, “Let’s spell the boys on the roadblocks.”
Outside, Sheriff Mills pointed Dave Sloan to the garage where his Chevy was being fixed and climbed into his squad car with his deputy. He wiped the sweat with a soggy paper towel and said good night to the salesman. “Stay cool.”
Sloan laughed. “Like a snowball in hell. ’Night, Sheriff.”
* * *
In Earl’s Automotive, Sloan wandered up to the mechanic, who was as stained from sweat as he was from grease.
“Okay, she’s fixed,” the man told Sloan.
“What was wrong with it?”
“The cap’d come loose and your coolant shot out is all. Feel bad charging you.”
“But you’re going to anyway.”
The man pulled his soggy baseball cap off and wiped his forehead with the crown. Replaced it. “I’d be home in a cold bath right now, it wasn’t for your wheels.”
“Fair enough.”
“Only charged you twenty. Plus the tow, of course.”
Any other time Sloan would have negotiated but he wanted to get back on the road. He paid and climbed into the car, fired it up and turned the AC on full. He pulled onto the main street and headed out of town.
Ten miles east of Hatfield, near the interstate, he turned into the parking lot of a Greyhound bus station. He stopped the car in a deserted part of the lot. He climbed out and popped the trunk.
Looking inside, he nodded to the young bearded man in prison overalls. The man blinked painfully at the brilliant light above them and gasped for air. He was curled up fetally.
“How you doing?” Sloan asked.
“Jesus,” Tony Windham muttered, gasping, his head lolling around alarmingly. “Heat… dizzy. Cramps.”
“Climb out slow.”
Sloan helped the prisoner out of the car. Even with the beard and sweat-drenched hair he looked much more like a preppy banker than a serial killer — though those two activities weren’t mutually exclusive, Sloan supposed.
“Sorry,” the salesman said. “It took longer than I’d thought for the tow to come. Then I got stuck in the sheriff’s office waiting for them to come back.”
“I went through two quarts of that water,” Windham said. “And I still don’t need to pee.”
Sloan looked around the deserted lot. “There’s a bus on the hour going to Cleveland. There’s a ticket in there and a fake driver’s license,” he added, handing Windham a gym bag, which also contained some toiletries and a change of clothes. The killer stepped into the shadow of a Dumpster and dressed in the jeans and T-shirt, which said “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.” Windham pitched his prison outfit into the Dumpster. Then he hunched over and shaved the beard off with Evian water and Edge gel, using his fingers to make certain he’d gotten all the whiskers. When he was finished he stuffed his hair under a baseball cap.
“How do I look?”
“Like a whole new man.
“Damn,” the boy said. “You did it, Sloan. You’re good.”
The salesmen had met Tony Windham in the prison library a month ago when he was supervising upgrades of the penitentiary computer systems. He found Windham charming and smart and empathic — the same skills that had catapulted Sloan to stardom as a salesman. The two hit it off. Finally, Windham made his offer for the one thing that Sloan could sell: freedom. There was no negotiation. Sloan set the price at three million, which the rich kid had arranged to have transferred into an anonymous overseas account.
Sloan’s plan was to wait for one of the hottest days of the year then, pretending there’d been a momentary electric blackout, would shut down the power and security systems at the prison using the computers. This would give Windham a chance to climb over the fence. Sloan would then pick up the killer, who’d hide in the trunk, specially perforated with air holes and stocked with plenty of water.
Since he’d be coming from the prison, Sloan had assumed that every car would be searched at roadblocks so he’d stopped the car outside one of the few houses along Route 202 and left his coolant cap off so the car would overheat. He’d then asked to use the phone. He’d intended to learn a little about the homeowners so he could come up with a credible story about suspicious goings-on at the house and distract the cops, keep them from searching his car. But he’d never thought he’d find as good a false lead as the crazy plumber, Greg.
I realized that there’s no difference between life and death. Not a bit. Whatta you think about that?
Sloan gave Tony Windham five hundred in cash.
The killer shook Sloan’s hand. Then he frowned. “You’re probably wondering, now that I’m out, am I going to clean up my act? If I’m going to, well, keep behaving like I was before. With the girls.”
Sloan held up a hand to silence him. “I’ll give you a lesson about my business, Tony. Once the deal closes, a good salesman never thinks about what the buyer does with the product.”
The boy nodded and started for the station, the bag over his shoulder.
Sloan got back in his company car and started the engine. He opened his attache case and looked over the sales sheets for tomorrow. Some good prospects, he reflected happily. He turned the AC up full, pulled out of the parking lot and headed east, looking for a hotel where he could spend the night.
You believe in God, Sloan?
No. I believe in selling. That’s about it.
That’s your soul then.
Dave Sloan reflected, It sure is.
Warmed to ninety-eight point six.
A NICE PLACE TO VISIT
When you’re a natural-born grifter, an operator, a player, you get this sixth sense for sniffing out opportunities, and that’s what Ricky Kelleher was doing now, watching two guys in the front of the smoky bar, near a greasy window that still had a five-year-old bullet hole in it.
Whatever was going down, neither of them looked real happy.
Ricky kept watching. He’d seen one guy here in Hanny’s a couple of times. He was wearing a suit and tie — it really made him stand out in this dive, the sore thumb thing. The other one, leather jacket and tight jeans, razor-cut bridge-and-tunnel hair, was some kind of Gambino wannabe, Ricky pegged him. Or Sopranos, more likely — yeah, he was the sort of prick who’d hock his wife for a big-screen TV. He was way pissed off,
shaking his head at everything Mr. Suit was telling him. At one point he slammed his fist on the bar so hard glasses bounced. But nobody noticed. That was the kind of place Hanny’s was.
Ricky was in the rear, at the short L of the bar, his regular throne. The bartender, a dusty old guy, maybe black, maybe white, you couldn’t tell, kept an uneasy eye on the guys arguing. “It’s cool,” Ricky reassured him. “I’m on it.”
Mr. Suit had a briefcase open. A bunch of papers were inside. Most of the business in this pungent, dark Hell’s Kitchen bar, west of Midtown, involved trading bags of chopped up plants and cases of Johnnie Walker that’d fallen off the truck and were conducted in the men’s room or alley out back. This was something different. Skinny five-foot-four Ricky couldn’t tip to exactly what was going down but that magic sense, his player’s eye, told him to pay attention.
“Well, fuck that,” Wannabe said to Mr. Suit.
“Sorry.” A shrug.
“Yeah, you said that before.” Wannabe slid off the stool. “But you don’t really sound that fucking sorry. And you know why? Because I’m the one out all the money.”
“Bullshit. I’m losing my whole fucking business.”
But Ricky’d learned that other people losing money doesn’t take the sting out of you losing money. Way of the world.
Wannabe was getting more and more agitated. “Listen careful here, my friend. I’ll make some phone calls. I got people I know down there. You don’t want to fuck with these guys.”
Mr. Suit tapped what looked like a newspaper article in the briefcase. “And what’re they gonna do?” His voice lowered and he whispered something that made Wannabe’s face screw up in disgust. “Now, just go on home, keep your head down and watch your back. And pray they can’t—” Again, the lowered voice. Ricky couldn’t hear what “they” might do.
Wannabe slammed his hand down on the bar again. “This isn’t gonna fly, asshole. Now—”
“Hey, gentlemen,” Ricky called. “Volume down, okay?”
“The fuck’re you, little man?” Wannabe snapped. Mr. Suit touched his arm to quiet him but he pulled away and kept glaring.
Ricky slicked back his greasy dark-blond hair. Easing off the stool, he walked to the front of the bar, the heels of his boots tapping loudly on the scuffed floor. The guy had six inches and thirty pounds on him but Ricky had learned a long time ago that craziness scares people a fuck of a lot more than height or weight or muscle. And so he did what he always did when he was going one on one — threw a weird look into his eyes and got right up in the man’s face. He screamed, “Who I am is the guy’s gonna drag your ass into the alley and fuck you over a dozen different ways, you don’t get the fuck out of here now.”
More Twisted: Collected Stories, Vol. II Page 38
