CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The white room is bright against the deep darkness of the night. Diablo sits on the bed, head canted to one side as he watches Nadine stuff her belongings into a pair of duffel bags. She wears a skin-tight short white tennis dress that she had chosen in the hope it would put her in better mood, moving never any fun and it’s always worse when you’re doing it because plans haven’t worked out. Nadine wants to get back to the tennis world, wants to be optimistic about the chances of her life improving, so two minutes after the packing session started she found herself removing the tennis dress from the drawer and, rather than placing it in a duffel bag, decided to wear it. After squeezing into the sausage like casing of the dress, she pulled her hair back into a ponytail with a scrunchie. Her racquets were stacked against the wall. She would pack them last, placing them in the front seat next to her, charms to invoke blessings for a new life.
All of the windows are open but the house still retains the heat of the day. Nadine is looking forward to cooler nights. The thank-you note to the man from the bank that allowed her to occupy the foreclosed property she is now vacating sits on the bureau. She will track down his mailing address when she gets to Seattle and send it from there. Once she arrives in Seattle she will look for a tennis instructor job. A country club, a municipal court, she does not care. Right now she does not want to think about how difficult that will be, Seattle not being any kind of tennis capital. It is the cold and the rain that beckon her, and the vast ocean. Nadine wants to learn how to sail. She will have to meet a guy with a boat, but does not think that will be a problem if she puts an ad on a dating site. The pictures of the Pacific Northwest she has checked out on-line have captivated her with their nordic beauty. Gloomy weather and rolling, forested topography make it the un-desert, and for Nadine, who is looking to forget as much of the past two years as she possibly can, that is a major selling point. Her plan is to drive to San Francisco, spend the night, then power straight through to Seattle the next morning. She has mapped it out and figures the journey to be about twenty hours. She isn’t thrilled to be doing it alone but she will have Diablo for company.
She zips the duffel bag shut and turns toward the laptop sitting on her desk against a white wall bleached from the sun. The house felt like a microwave oven for much of the six months Nadine has lived here and she will be glad to see the last of it. She settles into the flimsy desk chair and turns the computer on. As it boots up, she ponders her options. One: send the emails Hard wrote to several media outlets. Two: send a note along with a picture of her manga kitten tattoo and an admonition the reporters or bloggers ask Kendra about the matching one she has.
She tries to remember if Hard and Kendra know each other. Can’t recall. And isn’t Hard backing Kendra’s husband’s opponent? The two of them can’t possibly like one another so it would certainly be amusing to see them yoked together in this situation.
Gazing into her laptop, smiling to herself, she creates a file stuffed with enough incriminating material to give a tabloid editor heart palpitations. If it isn’t enough to ruin lives, it is certainly of a level to cause serious career problems. She is determined to bury Hard Marvin and whatever public future he has envisioned in that big gleaming head.
But what does she have against Kendra? When she asks herself that question and considers the answer, here’s what comes back: Nothing, really. An affair that didn’t work out is hardly news and it isn’t as if she’d been driven cheetah wild with love. They had been sexually attracted, had acted on it, and then it had ended, just like the countless other American relationships that rose and fell simultaneously in this era of readily available sex that comes without warning, stays for the evening, and departs without consequence. And how many of those people are considering providing innuendo about their ex-lovers to the news media? Not many, Nadine guesses. Why is she even considering implicating Kendra? She hadn’t intended to threaten her until they were seated across from each other at Melvyn’s. That had not been the plan at all. The threat emerged as a result of Kendra’s understandably upset reaction to Nadine’s attempt to draw her into the scheme. The woman has done nothing to Nadine and Congressman Randall Duke is barely on her radar. The prevaricating brute of a police chief dishonoring his marriage vows is of interest to the media since he is in the middle of an election campaign and exposing his misbehavior can be morally justified in Nadine’s mind, but the allegations about a Congressman’s wife in a bawdy romp that rest on the skimpy evidence of matching tattoos on their respective nether regions? Kendra is a private citizen, so Nadine is already operating in a morally hazy area (that she is constantly operating in this area is not something that occurs to her). There is no doubt Hard deserves the veritable soufflé of indignity he will be forced to devour. But not Kendra. The ambivalence Nadine has been feeling comes into sharper focus now. Her loathing of Hard, complicated by her continuing sexual attraction to him, has dashed brain inhibitors designed to control extreme behavior. She has been on the verge of striking out indiscriminately at anyone within her range, and knows that violates one of her few deeply held principles. Nadine is well aware that she is not a particularly good person. But neither does she think she is the kind of black-heart who would try to obliterate someone purely from spite. In her view, Hard deserves it. He will reap the whirlwind, but Kendra will be spared.
She thinks about Hard: the trysts, the shooting guns in the desert, the assurances.
Baby, I’ll be like a bad dream to you, Nadine promises as she types an address. She slides the cursor to the document file and attaches the Hard Marvin file to the email. Images of the day in the desert with Hard flood back, the feel of the gun in her hand, Hard pressing against her, the sun burning into her skin. Her sense memory of the Glock’s powerful recoil is disrupted by a high-pitched buzz.
The doorbell.
Cleaved from her daydream, she has enough presence of mind to hope it isn’t someone from the bank that owns the mortgage on the house. She briefly thinks about not answering but knows her presence has already been revealed by the houselights. Quickly she checks her reflection in the mirror. Thinks the tennis dress, which she has not worn in months, makes her ass look big so she slips a pair of jeans on under it and zips them up. Nadine opens the door and sees a young man holding a pizza and a check.
“You order the pepperoni?” Diablo is at her feet, lunatic barks tearing through his tiny throat.
“I didn’t order any pizza.” She shushes the dog, smiles apologetically. The pizza smells good.
The man looks at the check, then back at Nadine. “This is your address, right?” He shows the check to Nadine, who keeps the yapping Chihuahua at bay with her foot as she examines it.
“Yeah, but I didn’t order this.”
“You sure?”
“I’d remember. I didn’t order a pepperoni pizza.” Nadine says she’s sorry he had to come out here for nothing, shakes her head sympathetically. But this motion is arrested by the abrupt arrival of a hand over her mouth and what feel like rings clinking against her teeth. Jerked back, neck twisting, she flashes that it is Hard, and feels a perverse gladness for a moment—he’s paying attention!—then remembers Hard does not wear rings. Nadine is dragged into the house. The pizza man follows, yanks the door shut behind him. Adrenaline fires madly and a powerful survival instinct kicks in. A writhing alligator, she digs an elbow in the abdomen of her unseen assailant and reflexively bites the hand covering her mouth and she hears him curse. The pizza man drives a fist into her stomach and she gasps for air as the man with the rings grunts and throws her to the floor. She kicks at him, connects with a knee. A yell of raw pain. Another loud curse as Diablo clamps his jaw on exposed flesh. The dog yelps at the kick he receives and Nadine can hear him whimper as if from another dimension. Unable to breathe she claws violently. Tackled, flipped on her stomach, panicking. She catches a glimpse of the ring man. Middle aged, with short, graying hair, his eyes flare as he rolls her. Palms on the floor,
she pushes up, but her wrist is yanked away and the dead weight of the man’s body on her back causes her to crash to the floor, her face grinding the carpet. She’s suffocating now, can’t draw breath. A knee jams into her spine. Then both men are on her and there is a stabbing pain as shoulders wrench sharply, hands yanked behind. A piece of duct tape seals her mouth. She can taste her own blood. Wrists bound, then legs. Another piece of duct tape ends Diablo’s contribution to the noise level. Her cheek pressed against the floor, Nadine can see the pizza man toss the apoplectic dog into a drawer and boot it shut. A pillowcase slips over her head eradicating the room. With superhuman effort she forces a gasp of oxygen into her lungs. Nadine bucks and kicks until something blunt smashes into her head and she lies still. Throbbing, she again hears the sibilant hiss of duct tape being ripped from its spool and then it’s wrapped around her neck, affixing the pillowcase. For a moment she thinks they’re going to choke her with the tape and is relieved when she is able to resume breathing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
House Cat has no experience as a kidnapper, but in the new economy a person needs to adapt. Take work where you can get it, punch the clock and don’t ask questions. When he got the call, he contacted Odin because he knew the man was a stone killer, U.S. government trained. House Cat had done time for breaking and entering but he’d never snatched a human being. Didn’t want to, either. It wasn’t like he had qualms, just a weak stomach.
The plan: secure the target in the trunk, drive the target back to Odin’s place, stow the target blindfolded in the abandoned camper in the backyard until the middle of the following week. Feed her. Give her water. Let her go.
Catch and release.
The lights are off and the place is dark. House Cat stands at the front window looking out over the street. Odin sits on the couch, having helped himself to a bag of potato chips. Nadine lies on the floor, hands tied behind her with rope, feet bound, a pillow over her head and electrical tape sealing her mouth. Diablo’s muffled barks escape intermittently from the drawer into which he has been stuffed. House Cat figures he’ll let the dog live. Doesn’t want to shoot it and breaking its neck too risky, the little rat-catcher obviously borderline feral. In the glow of the streetlights, the nearby houses look like a stage set with their empty front yards, their dark windows. The neighborhood is middle class and the tan stucco single story homes are well kept. The one notable detail is the absence of vehicles in the immediate area. This is because several homes on the street are in foreclosure, so they are empty.
The men have been waiting nearly an hour. They want to make sure the place is completely quiet before they relocate Nadine.
House Cat heads into the bedroom and removes a thin blanket. Returning to the living room, he lays it on the floor next to Nadine. Odin puts the bag of potato chips down and grabs Nadine’s ankles. House Cat takes her shoulders and they roll her on to the blanket and quickly wrap her up. Then House Cat rips two pieces of duct tape, each about a yard long. He hands one to Odin who seals the blanket at Nadine’s feet. House Cat does the same at the head. Their parcel ready, House Cat takes a last look out the front window. The street is deserted. Grabbing one end of the rolled blanket, he signals Odin to take the other. The two of them lift Nadine. She pitches and bucks but Odin thumps a fist into her head. There’s a groan from within the blanket and she goes limp. When they carry her out of the house the cooler air hits them. Arriving at the car, they lay the wrapped blanket on the driveway. Odin opens the trunk and the two of them bend to pick her up. Nadine rolls but they quickly arrest her movement, lift her and toss her in the trunk. House Cat slams it shut. He looks up and down the street. No signs of life.
Odin is behind the wheel and they cut north, toward Route 62. He stares straight ahead. House Cat wonders if he’s nervous. He’s strangely calm himself, everything having gone easy after the initial struggle. The Sonny Bono Highway is behind them and the desert spreads out on both sides. To the west a forest of giant steel windmills, arms whirling crazily in the moonlight. They climb into the hills, neither man talking. Houses dot the hillsides, a business strip up ahead with a Korean restaurant, a Pentecostal storefront church, a unisex hair salon and a service station. They drive by a couple of walled developments, only the roofs visible. The Bonnie Dunes trailer park, hookups available, drifts past the windshield. House Cat thinking about the down payment on the bed and breakfast.
The road is a sweet dream as they climb into the hills, smooth and easy. The high headlights of a truck are bearing down on them now, beams shining into their eyes. The snatch went without a hitch and this has House Cat pondering a little improvisation. He looks at Odin, staring straight ahead, gripping the wheel. Knows Odin is the right man for the job, his military background excellent training for this kind of hardcore stunt. Figures he might be amenable to upping the ante. The open-backed truck whooshes past, its piled-high cargo of quarry rock visible for a blink. The slipstream causes a barely discernible shudder in the car. Deeper into the hills the road curves and heads west.
“I was thinking,” House Cat says. “Maybe we find out a little more about this girl we got in the trunk, find out who her people are.”
“Then what?”
“Hold her for ransom.”
Odin nods. Sounds like a pretty good plan. Rolls down the window to let some air in the car. House Cat peers into the distance, sees the glow of a night business up ahead. Probably a convenience store. There was nothing to drink at Nadine’s, House Cat thinking he might like some liquid refreshment. Better to stop out here. There could be Sheriff’s deputies on Route 62 so best make straight for Antelope Valley once they hit the highway.
“Feel like a beer?”
Then the car swerves wildly, House Cat’s stomach reels as he jerks his head to the side, sees Odin twisting the wheel, looks out the window and registers rocks the size of cinderblocks scattered across the road, then feels a sickening thump and hears what sounds like a gloved fist hitting a speed bag as the car lurches and shudders to a stop. Flat tire. Shit.
“Rocks must have fallen off that fuckin truck,” Odin says.
“Yeah.” From House Cat, like understanding the provenance of their misfortune makes it easier to deal with.
House Cat asks if there’s a spare and Odin tells him it’s in the trunk. The two of them get out and head to the back of the car. The stillness of the desert at night is unearthly. House Cat breathes deeply, gazes up at the sky, takes in the immensity, the quiet, clean air filling his chest, the man feeling nearly spiritual as he thinks about the boundless future so he’s not prepared for the jagged scream he hears a moment after his partner opens the trunk. Grunts of pain and to his left Odin is imploding, collapsing, there’s a blur then House Cat feels like he’s been shot as Nadine is pressing a piece of metal into his side and the 75,000 volts liquefy his spine, the pain radiating like a demonic pin wheel, urine running down his leg, bowels loosening. House Cat has heard of neuromuscular incapacitation, but to experience it is something else altogether. Lungs immobilized, excruciating, can’t inhale or exhale. Drops to the ground, smacks the pavement, the dull blow a relief compared to the sensation he just experienced. On his back now, neck stiff, eyes wide in shock, palms flat against the gritty roadway. Slowly, muscular control asserts itself. He can hear the other man’s staggering footsteps and his curses. House Cat rolls on to his side and pushes himself to a standing position. Sees Nadine running, her dress a white smudge, toward the lights in the distance, tennis trained legs carrying her swiftly toward the store, it’s yellowish lights, it’s perceived safety. House Cat quickly realizes they did not tie her tightly enough and had they bothered to look through her pockets they might have found the Taser, thus forestalling the events with which they are now dealing. Berates himself for not remembering this simple procedure. Nadine, meanwhile, jackrabbits down the highway, her shapely form shrinking in the bright headlights. Odin pulls the stolen military pistol from under the seat. Nadine further away now, Od
in giving chase on unsteady legs. House Cat follows at a slow trot, his muscles not having entirely recovered from the shock.
The convenience store looms in the distance like a Mars station, a lone single story structure glowing in a vast nightscape. Nadine dashes beneath a plastic sign mounted on a metal pole reading Super #1 Store. Her breathing ragged, she doesn’t look over her shoulder. If she did she would see Odin closing the distance between them, hurtling through the dark, backlit by headlights, arms pumping, a gun gripped in his right hand.
The place is long and narrow, a refrigerator case packed with beer and soft drinks to the right and a counter to the left, two aisles of groceries perpendicular to the door. The wall behind the counter is stocked with liquor bottles. The place smells of disinfectant. The lone counterman a Latino in his forties. Seated on a high stool, overweight and tired looking, a birthmark the size of a nickel on his left cheek. Glances up from the copy of Hustler he’s reading and stares at Nadine heaving, pulling a cell phone from her pocket. She tries to open it, hands shaking so violently it drops to the floor and skitters down an aisle then she’s screaming in a voice like thumbtacks for the clerk to call the police. Yanked from his torpor, the man rises to his feet, shouts what’s going on? Call the police someone wants to kill me! Nadine whirls and locks the door behind her. The counterman pulls out his phone, and is dialing 911 when the first bullet shatters the glass, catches Nadine just below her collarbone, sends her reeling toward the twilight. The counterman ducks out of sight as Odin’s hand reaches through the broken pane, and click unlocks the door. Pushes it open, steps into the store, out of breath, raging. Nadine lies on the floor, a red stain spreading on her tennis dress, blood pooling around her, gurgling in her throat. Odin eases up when he sees the results of his first shot. He casually walks over and pumps two bullets into her chest. Then reflexively looks for surveillance cameras. Sees one mounted above the liquor wall pointed at the door. Knows he’s going to have to destroy whatever it’s feeding to, but figures he might as well blow out the lens, too. He’s getting a bead on it with his gun when the counterman pops up like a jack-in-the-box with a sawed-off, boom, sonic, ear shattering through the store and Odin grunts in pain as the buckshot tears flesh off his left arm, neck and the side of his face. Glass splinters in the refrigerator case, beer, soda, gingko-infused iced tea shoot out of the perforated cans bathing the floor. Odin pivots toward the cash register, squeezing the trigger and puts two bullets into the counterman, one in the head, one in the neck, blood spurting backward baptizing the whiskey bottles red. The counterman drops like a bag of laundry. Odin looks at Nadine’s prostrate form. Her right leg twitches and then she is still.
Angry Buddhist (9781609458867) Page 18
