Ragged Man

by Ken Douglas

  He opened his eyes in the dark place and he tried not to breathe so hard. The snot in his nose had dried and hardened, leaving dust-filled boogers behind. He wanted to pick his nose more than anything, but his aching arms were still bound. He lay quiet and listened, wishing he had some of that magic power powder.

  Click clack, click clack, click clack, the clicking rock had acquired a clacking cousin, or maybe it had been there all along and he just hadn’t been able to hear it. He could hear it just fine now, though. His ears were wide awake, like they had never been awake before and his nose was sharp, too. He smelled the gas can, and an old dirty oil smell, and a cigarette smell, and they were all mixed with the dead cat smell, and it was hot.

  His mind took him back to the black and white western and he saw himself tied on the railroad tracks. An old black steam engine, followed by a billowing, black-black cloud was bearing down on him, its wheels going, click clack, click clack, click clack. He had to stop himself from crying. If he cried his nose would make more snot. He would pass out again and maybe not wake up this time. He fought his terror and ripped his mind away from the TV western and the bearing down train.

  He searched behind his back for the cold steel of the sharp Bowie knife. It wasn’t there. He felt along the floor of the trunk, somehow the knife must have moved, he thought, then he felt it. The steel blade seemed to be calling to him and he answered with bone-aching fingers, running them along the smooth surface and thanking God.

  He inched the blade toward his bonds, by clutching the hilt in his left hand and the blade between the thumb and forefinger of his right. He sawed on the ropes the way two lumber jacks move a giant saw through the base of a giant redwood. A smile crossed his pursed lips when he felt the knife slice through the first layer of rope, and the blood drained out of them and went straight to his tingling hands. Then he sliced through the second layer and his hands were free.

  He started to remove the tape from his mouth, when he felt the car slowing down and he was caught up in indecision. If the bad man was stopping for gas, he could scream and maybe the gas station man would save him, but maybe the man would kill the gas station man, then kill him. But what if he wasn’t stopping for gas? What if he was stopping because they were wherever the bad man wanted to take him? If he screamed then, the man would most surely kill him, like he had killed his dad.

  The car stopped and he decided. He left the gag on and rolled onto his back, concealing the fact that he had freed his hands. He closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. He heard the door open, then close. Then he heard footsteps walking on gravel. They were coming toward the trunk. He closed his eyes harder.

  He felt the knife by his side and wondered if the Ragged Man would use it to kill him. He didn’t want to die and he was afraid like he’d never been afraid before. He tried to stop his jaw from quivering and his knees from shaking. He was hot, covered in sweat, dirty and he smelled as bad as the dead cat. His throat was parched dry and his hungry stomach ached for food, but he was determined not to cry, even though he couldn’t get that Jim Bowie knife out of his mind.

  He shuddered and almost shit his pants when a loud explosion roared through the trunk. Then it was followed by another and he did. His bowels relaxed and it oozed out, hot and wet, filling his pants with the shit stinking stuff. He fought not to gag, because with his mouth taped shut, to gag was to die.

  Then his ears rang for a third time as the man beating on the trunk said in a purely evil voice, “Are you alive in there?”

  He squeezed his eyes tight, trying to shut out the stink and the fear.

  “ Fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of a spoiled little brat.”

  “ These are the times that try men’s souls,” he mentally said, “when the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will shrink from their duty.” His father used to say that whenever times were hard, and times were hard right now, he thought, anxiously whispering the words, “These are the times that try men’s souls. These are the times that try men’s souls. These are the times that try men’s souls. Oh God, please make him go away. Please, please make him go away.”

  But J.P. knew he wasn’t going to go away. He just wasn’t. The man was going to open the trunk and use the knife to cut him into pieces and it was going to hurt a lot and there was going to be an awful lot of his blood running all over his face and his body and his clothes. He wondered if the man would kill him in the trunk or if he was going to take him out. He hoped he would take him out. He didn’t want to die in this dark place. He didn’t want to die at all. He wanted the man to go away, but when he heard the horrible sound of the key sliding and clicking into the trunk lock, he bit into his lower lip, because he knew for sure the man wasn’t going to go away.

  He heard the key turn and peeked out of his eyes. He saw light begin to enter and chase out the dark. He closed his eyes back tight, but his ears felt the whoosh of cool air and heard the clunking noise as the trunk popped open. He clenched his fists against the fear.

  “ Shit, you stink,” the deep voice said.

  J.P. hoped the man would think he was asleep and maybe leave him alone.

  “ I know you’re awake, so you might as well open your eyes.”

  J.P. closed them tighter.

  “ Shit your pants, did ya? Well, I suppose if I was in your place I’d be scared shitless myself.” The man laughed.

  J.P. felt the man brush his side as he reached for something in the trunk.

  “ Know what I have in my hand?”

  J.P. knew.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Rick’s first impulse was to pick up the phone and call the police, but then he realized they wouldn’t believe him. They’d jail him without bail and J.P. would be killed.

  It angered him that he’d allowed himself to be followed from Christina’s. His ruse last night may have fooled the desk clerk and the police, but that investigator either wasn’t fooled or he’d figured it out later. Rick thought he was better than that. He’d spent most of his adult life looking over his shoulder, but if the kidnapper had known where he was, why didn’t he tell the police and have him arrested for the murder of his friends?

  He started to pick up the phone, to call Sheriff Sturgees in Tampico. He was a man he could trust. But he stopped himself in mid-reach. If the kidnapper was the killer and he was working with the police, he might also have the Sheriff’s confidence. No, he was on his own. He would have to figure out a way to save J.P. and catch or stop the killer himself, without help.

  The first thing he had to do was to get out of the motel room. If the killer knew where he was, he was at his mercy. He could call the police at anytime and, if he was in custody, there was no way he could help J.P. He picked up the birdcage, then got an idea. He put the cage down and stepped out of the cheap motel room into the early morning mist, leaving the bird behind.

  He crossed the street, making sure he wasn’t being followed this time. He walked around the block, making doubly sure he was unobserved. When he returned to his starting place, he walked back into the motel office and to his great relief the pimply-faced youth from the night before had been replaced by an elderly woman engrossed in her knitting.

  He told her he wanted a room for a week. When she handed him the registration form he thought of J.P., named after the Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, and registered under the name John Bonham, Led Zeppelin’s dead drummer. He paid cash in advance and wasn’t surprised when the blue-haired woman didn’t ask him for any identification or ask why he had no baggage.

  After he had completed the formalities, he crossed the street to the mini market, bought a toothbrush, toothpaste, razor blades, razor and shaving cream. Then he returned to the room he’d slept in and picked up Dark Dancer, before going to his new room to brush his teeth, to shave and to think.

  In the small bathroom, he sprayed shaving cream onto his hand and shaved slowly, trying to concentrate on the nooks and crannies of his face, dragging the blade several times over the ro
ugh spot below his chin. When he reached the scarred area under his left ear, he gently shaved around it.

  Finished, he washed off the remaining lather with hot water and brushed his teeth. He was marginally refreshed and had enjoyed the five minutes away from his problems, but now they were flooding back. He had to figure out a plan of action and act on it.

  He had less than forty-eight hours to get to Tampico and stop whoever or whatever was bent on killing his friends. He couldn’t call for help, without running the risk of going to jail. He couldn’t drive, without running the risk of being picked up driving into town and he couldn’t fly, because he was sure the airport would be staked out.

  There seemed to be no way for him to get to Tampico, without running the risk of getting caught and yet if he didn’t, J.P. would surely die. The killer had shown him, with daylight clarity, that he intended to continue tormenting him. And the killer had shown an amazing ability to ferret out his close friends and do away with them in a gruesome manner.

  Evan and Sherry murdered in New York. Danny murdered on the river in Texas. Tom and his new wife, killed in broad daylight in Pasadena. Christina, Torry and Swell, vanished in the night. And if he didn’t do something, J.P. would be next.

  He left the bathroom, picked up the shirt he’d worn the day before and as he was putting it on a thought hit him. He could fly to Tampico in Christina’s plane. It would be the last thing anybody would expect. But first he would have to get the keys. They were somewhere in her house and that meant he had to go back.

  He did a few stretching exercises to get his blood moving and to calm his nerves. Then he went out into the day and headed toward her house. There were four police cars blocking the street, a crime lab van sitting in the front driveway and a crowd of gawking onlookers.

  He joined the crowd, acting like another innocent bystander, and watched. After awhile two of the police cars left. Some of the crowd left. One of the remaining two police cars left. Two uniformed policemen draped a yellow banner across the front door bearing the words Police Line Do Not Cross. The last black and white left. More of the crowd left. The crime lab van stayed and Rick wandered away with the last of the crowd.

  He felt so useless, with nowhere to turn, no one to turn to, no friend he could count on for help. He was truly alone, like he had never been before. Everybody he loved was either dead or gone and if he failed to get to Tampico in time, failed to find the boy once he got there, and failed to stop the killer, then J.P. would be dead, too. He didn’t know how he would or could save the boy, much less get to Tampico. It all seemed so impossible.

  And even if he was able to get the keys to the plane, he still had to get to the airport. He damn sure couldn’t take a taxi. The last thing he needed was for an underpaid cabby to alert the police. He also couldn’t rent a car, for if he was worried that the police had given his description or possibly his photo to the city’s cabbies, then they also would have the rental companies covered, too.

  And once he got to the airport, he had to fly the plane, something he hadn’t done in over ten years. And he not only had to fly it, he had to fly it over five hundred miles, at night. And even if he accomplished that, he still had to land. Ten years was a long time, and landing an airplane, even a small Cessna, required experience and perfect precision.

  He thought of Ann and how she had always encouraged him to try the impossible. She was the one who had pushed him to branch out into CDs, to learn to fly, to learn off road racing, to race, to travel to the most dangerous parts of the world. He imagined hearing her clear voice.

  “ Bury your doubts. The keys will be there. You will be able to fly the plane. You will get there in time. You will find J.P. and you will save him. Be positive, be strong, get mad, get even.”

  Hot anger burrowed into the river of blood running through his veins. It was now, more than ever, clear to him that J.P. had seen a Bowie knife on the porch the day Ann died, and that meant that the man who had J.P. was somehow, someway responsible for Ann’s death. He had taken away the life of his love and Rick was going to make him pay.

  He found himself wandering back toward Christina’s, where he saw that the crime lab van was still there, but he hadn’t really expected it to be gone. They would more than likely be there most of the day, he thought, and then he saw it, parked two houses away from Christina’s. A beautiful 1956 Chevy Nomad.

  An idea began to form, but it would mean some shopping. He smiled to himself, despite his desperate situation, because it felt good taking action, acting instead of reacting. He walked up to Second Street, the trendy shopping area of Long Beach’s Belmont Shore District. McCain’s Records was just opening and Elliot’s Hardware next door already had customers inside and down the street was the small, but high priced Kornyphone Stereo Store next to Howdy’s Candies. He’d be able to get everything he needed in just a few blocks and satisfy his sweet tooth as well.

  At McCain’s he bought Brainwashed, the George Harrison CD that came out shortly after his death. He bought a portable CD player to listen to it at Kornyphone’s and at Elliot’s he bought a claw hammer and a screwdriver. He decided to pass on the candy, instead buying a ham and cheese to go at the Toasted Deli and then he went back to the motel, where he ate his sandwich, then stretched out on the bed nearest the door and listened to the gentle Beatle till he fell asleep.

  He didn’t wake till well after dark.

  He approached Christina’s empty home with caution. It was a clear night. The neighborhood was quiet. The crime lab van was gone, but the yellow police warning tape was still pasted to the front door. He kept walking and turned the corner when he reached the end of the block. Less than a minute later he turned a second corner and approached the house from the alley behind.

  When he came to her back gate, he ripped off the yellow banner, opened it and went into the backyard. He walked to the back door like he belonged. He stepped up to the porch, wrapped a wash cloth that he had lifted from the motel around the hammer’s head and, like he’d done it a thousand times before, he tapped the laundry room window, sending shattering glass inside to cover the washer and dryer.

  With his arm in the window, he was able to reach the security latch that helped keep the back door locked. He had no problem with the double deadbolt, he simply used the key Christina had given him over five years ago.

  He didn’t have to look long or hard for the keys. They were on a key hook next to the refrigerator. He pocketed the key ring, then left through the back door, going out the back gate.

  He retraced his steps up the alley and around the block, till he was again in front of her house. He continued on, till he came to the ’56 Nomad, where he again brought the washcloth covered hammer into play, swinging it against the driver’s side windwing, sending shards of safety glass over the front seat as he had sent glass over the washer and dryer. And for the second time in a matter of minutes, his arm snaked in a window where it didn’t belong to unlock a door.

  He swept the glass from the seat. Then he took the screwdriver out of his back pocket and reached under the dash, pushing the metal end of the screwdriver into the ignition, making a connection between the positive and negative posts. The car started just as they all did during fifth period lunch when he had been in high school. He would not have been able to hotwire any car made in the last thirty years, but in the good old days, when everybody left their doors unlocked, any kid with a screwdriver or the tin foil from a pack of cigarettes could start a car.

  He drove back to the motel, where he retrieved Dark Dancer. He left the key on the television, hopped back into the car and settled back for the short ride to the airport, listening to oldies but goodies on a push button radio that was just about a half a century old.

  Fifteen minutes later he was standing in front of the red Cessna he’d sold to Christina so long ago, during better days.

  He unlocked the door and climbed in. He set the caged bird in the back seat, removed the control wheel lock, checked to make su
re the ignition switch was off and turned the master switch on. He visually checked the flaps by flipping the flap switch, raising and lowering them. He tried to think of what to do next. Then the folly of what he was attempting hit him. His hands started shaking. He started to sweat. He studied the controls. Did he pull the carburetor heat out or leave it in? What was the frequency for ground control? It had been too long. He had no business flying. It was a stupid thing he was doing. There was no way he was going to get to the runway, much less take off.

  He flipped the master switch off. He needed help and there was nowhere he could turn. Then he thought of the Flight Room. A cafe with a bar across the street from the airport. Pilots used to hang out there. He bet they still did.

  “ Hang in there, Dancer,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

  Ten minutes later he took a seat at the only empty table on the cafe side of the Flight Room. The bar was through a red curtain, past the restrooms at the back of the cafe. He’d have no use for anybody over there. Any pilot worth his salt wouldn’t fly tonight if he was already drinking.

  “ Can I help you?” The voice had a musical lilt to it. He looked up as the waitress handed him the menu. The Flight Room had been in the same location, serving pilots as long as he could remember. It hadn’t changed. Even the smile on the aging waitress with the sweet voice was the same.

  “ I remember you,” Rick said.

  “ And I remember you.” The waitress smiled, blue eyes twinkling.