by Greg Barth
The deputy stared at Tom Carson a moment. “You don’t know then, do you?”
“Know what?” Tom sat on the love seat across from the deputy. He grabbed the bottle and took a drink from it.
“Well, Tom, there’s no easy way to say this. Selena escaped from prison. She’s a fugitive from the law as we speak.”
“Get out,” Tom said.
Bostic raised his hand. “I’m lying, I’m dying”.”
“You’re fuckin’ kidding me.”
“It’s all over the news, Tom. Hell, everybody’s talking about it. They even got her picture up at the post office. She looks good.”
“Well, you know, I got the dish cut off. I don’t have one of them digital converter boxes, so I don’t get nothin’ on the rabbit ears. Most of what I watch is on the VCR.”
“Shit, man. I didn’t know you didn’t know.”
“Why’d she bust out for?”
“No idea, man. But if you hear from her, I need you to call me. It’s for her own good. You want what’s best for your daughter, right?”
“I’m worried about her. I’m worried she’s gonna get herself hurt.”
“Me too, Tom. Will you call me if you hear from her?”
“Yeah. I’ll drive down to the Exxon and use their phone.”
“Here’s the other part of why I’m here. Me and some of the guys have been worried about you.” Deputy Bostic gestured toward the whiskey, the pistol, and the overall messiness of the living room. “Frankly, we think you’re depressed.”
“You think so, huh?”
“We want to help cheer you up. Throw you a party like old times.”
“Old times?”
“Yeah. Magnus and Roman’ll come over. Bring some entertainment. Your brother, Judd, he’s coming in on it. Couple of others, too.”
“Judd ain’t got no money for something like that.”
“He’s already put up his share. Don’t know how he came by it. I’m sure I don’t want to know.”
Tom shook his head. “Shit like them parties, that’s what destroyed my family.”
“That girl was always going to be wild, Tom. You know it. You could only do so much.”
Tom considered it. “What kind of party?”
“Girls. That kind of party. Girls and dope. The best kind.”
“I always felt like I couldn’t control her, you know?”
“You got no reason to feel guilt, Tom. You did the best you could. You were a good father to her.”
“I tried so hard to raise her right.”
“You did as much as anybody could, Tom.”
Tom scratched the stubble on his chin. “A party, huh?”
“For old time’s sake.”
“That might be some fun.”
“I’ll let the guys know. We’re going to do it soon. Have it right here. You don’t got to go nowhere.”
“That’ll be convenient. Can I get you a drink of something, deputy?”
“I’m on duty, Tom. But there’s one thing you could get me.”
“What?”
Deputy Bostic gestured to the stack of VHS tapes on a shelf beside the TV. “Any of those tapes got Selena on them?”
“Uh, some do, yeah.”
“I’m thinking it could be good research for me, seeing as how she’s on the run and all.”
“Go on. I don’t look at ’em. Take what you want.”
“I don’t have a VCR. Everything’s on Blu-ray these days.”
“Blu-ray? You want to look at ’em here? Now?”
“You don’t mind?”
Tom got up and looked through the old tapes. He grabbed one and slipped it in the player. He turned the TV on. He adjusted the tracking until the image was as clear as he could get it. He picked up the remote, pointed it at the TV and turned the volume up enough so they could hear it.
Deputy Bostic watched Selena on the TV screen. He leaned forward to see her more clearly. “You know what, Tom? I believe I will take a drink after all.”
Tom went to the kitchen and got a glass. He poured whiskey from the bottle and handed the glass to Bostic.
After about ten minutes of viewing the tape, Bostic leaned back in his seat and began fondling himself through his pants.
Tom sat back in the loveseat and thought about the upcoming party. He’d have to clean the place up. He’d need to get some snacks. He wondered what girls even liked these days.
“You got a paper towel or something?” Bostic asked.
Tom went to the kitchen and got a roll. He brought it back and tossed it to the deputy. “You want any privacy?” he asked.
“Nah, it’s all good.” Deputy Bostic unzipped his pants. “Feel free to join in.”
“I didn’t know shit about how to film nothing way back then,” Tom said.
“Hey, you know what would be really fucking cool. I mean really fucking cool? Imagine Selena showed up for this party, huh? Wouldn’t that be fucking awesome? She’s out. She’s gotta go somewhere. Damn, that would be so fine.”
Tom reached to pick up the bottle. His hand hesitated. He looked at the pistol on the table for a long moment. He looked up at the image on the TV screen. He looked over at the deputy on his couch.
The pistol was right there.
The bottle. The girl on TV. The party. The pistol. The deputy on his couch. Tom was dizzy from it all.
Everything was suddenly a choice. So many options. The question he had to answer was, what kind of man was he?
Tom Carson reached past the pistol, picked up the bottle of whiskey and twisted off the cap. He took a long pull from the bottle.
He looked back up at the image on the TV. He couldn’t take his eyes off the girl on the screen. His girl.
Tom realized he’d made his choice already. He’d chosen Hell a long time back, no coming back from that. Why try to be anything other than what he was?
He got up, walked down the hall to her bedroom. He knelt down and felt for something under her bed. The room smelled just like her. Intoxicating.
When he returned, Tom held a small pair of cotton underwear in one hand.
Deputy Bostic looked up. “Holy shit, is that what I think it is?”
“Yeah. She was here a while back. She left these. Forgot about them.”
“But are they…?”
Tom looked down at the underwear in his hand. “Yeah,” he said. “They are.”
Bostic licked his lips. His eyes darted from the TV to the panties that Tom held in his hand. “That’s like finding the Holy Grail right there. I’ll give you a hundred dollars right now for—”
“Fuck you. Tear me off one a’ them towels.” Tom sat down on the love seat.
T WENTY-EIGHT
Selena
“I’M NOT PICKING all this shit up,” Ragus said.
We stood in the living room. He stared down at me from his six-foot, four-inch height. He was like a giant redwood that could fall and crush me any second. Didn’t matter. I wasn’t intimidated.
He shook his head. “Why would I?”
“You feel guilty about shooting me,” I said.
“You seriously going to use that? You shot me too, you know. I’m not buying this.”
“Actually, you are,” I said. “All of it.”
“An archery set?”
“No. Read it again. A compound bow for hunting. Be sure they nock that string. Have them set the draw weight just a bit lower than they ordinarily would. Something for a woman. I need broadheads for deer hunting.”
“We don’t deer hunt in Johnson City.”
“We’re not going to fucking Johnson City.”
He sighed. “That shit with your family again? You’ll wind up back in prison.”
“I wouldn’t have been in prison if not for you.”
“Hey. I helped break you out.”
“You fucking... what? Helped? My ass. You were standing there smoking a cigarette while I broke my own self out.”
“I didn’t want to interrupt
your action. If the van’s a rockin’, I don’t come a knockin.’ And you know I helped with the getaway.”
I shook my head and sighed. “Look, Ragus. You did help me, alright? But… let me try to explain. How do I put it? You know how sometimes you might see a guy across the room? I mean, if you’re a woman. And he’s hot, and you think about how great it would be to have sex with him. And the next thing you know you’re lying in bed next to some snoring asshole who farts in his sleep and all you can think about is how you just wasted yourself—about how the guy and the whole experience wasn’t even worth the cost of the Plan B pill you’re going to have to buy in the morning at Target?”
“I gotta admit, you’ve lost me,” he said. “You’re not talking about us, right? Because that doesn’t sound like us. You’re describing sex with some other guy, I think.”
“No.” I rolled my eyes. I was so frustrated. “I’m trying to tell you how I feel.”
“Wait. Is this girl talk? Because I’m not into this whole feeling shit. I’ve got none of that ‘emotional capital’ to spend. I don’t even watch daytime TV.”
“I’m talking about my life.”
“Again. I got nothing.”
I drew a deep breath. “Let me tell you a story then. Let’s try that, okay? It’s about something I haven’t thought about in a long time. I don’t think these are suppressed memories or any of that shit. I don’t know. I just haven’t allowed my mind to go there, you know?”
He stared at me. Patient.
“Anyway. There was this morning. I was in my teens? I’d had a lot to drink the night before. I used to drink some with my dad and his friends. I woke up and I had that headache? And that dry mouth feeling?”
He nodded.
“I couldn’t remember the night before. I must’ve blacked out. The sun was up, but the room was dim. I had thick drapes. I was in my bedroom on my small bed. I wasn’t wearing a shirt, and my underwear was all… I don’t know… out of place, you know? Like everything had been pushed out of the way.”
He watched me speak in silence.
“It’s not like I was a virgin, but, anyway, I, uh, I put a hand down and checked my crotch. My underwear felt swampy, my hair sticky.”
“Somebody messed with you,” he said.
I nodded. “I sat up. I remember it now, just like it was this morning. I look down in the floor next to my bed, and—” I swallowed “—my father was on the floor next to me. Naked.”
“Jesus, kid.”
“Let me finish.”
“Okay.”
“There was another girl there next to him. My age. Maybe younger. She was naked too. She had a black collar around her neck.”
“Collar?”
I nodded. “I saw girls treated like animals. Abused. Hurt. By my uncle. By my father. It didn’t start that way, you know? It started… different. But it got there.”
“Yeah, that’s some shit.”
“I think they were going to do that to me. It was a business for this other guy. I know they were.”
“Rough childhood. You should let bygones be.”
“Funny thing is, I was there a while back. Not long ago. At my dad’s place.”
“Yeah? How was that?”
“I was still in denial. I needed him.”
“He fuck you?”
“What? God no. Jesus. So crude.”
“Well this is your story. I’m just trying to understand. I don’t have the hormones to deal with this kind of shit.”
“I sobered up enough in prison to start thinking…”
Ragus sighed. “What do you want to do, Selena?”
“I don’t know yet. Maybe something terrible.”
“And you think this will help?”
“I don’t know. It might not. But he’s still doing it. Not to me but to other girls. It might be my last chance to do something right. Something good.”
“But terrible.”
“Yes.”
“And you want me to help you.”
“I just want you to get me the stuff.”
“I can kill your old man. Just not now. When it’s safe.”
“What? I didn’t say anything about you—”
“I don’t do subtle, okay? If you’re telling me all this bad stuff about somebody and you don’t want me to hurt him, then you have to be more specific about what you want me to do. How you want to stop this.”
I looked away and shook my head. He was getting too far ahead of me. I was supposed to be the one winning this argument. “I just want to go and… see. I need to see. I just have to know. Maybe they stopped.”
“Then get it out of your head. There’s no way we’re going to make good with your old man. The cops will be watching his place. It just can’t happen. It’s too reckless. Not worth it.”
“Look. I’m serious. I’m not going to be worth anything until I do this. I have a way we can do it that’ll work. And I have to do it now. I’ heard about a party they’re throwing for my dad. Everybody will be there. All of them in one spot at one time. I can see. I can know. I can stop what they’re going to do. I can—”
He shook his head again. “There is no we. I’m not a part of this.”
“I can do it that way too. But I need your help getting the stuff.”
“Jeez,” he said. He held up the handwritten list I’d given him. “You want any fancy camouflage panties to go with all this?”
It dawned on me then that he liked me, but liked me as some little girl that needed a guy to take care of her. I’d forgotten I’d been talking to a man. I’d forgotten this was all about him, not me. I realized convincing him was much simpler than I thought. “It’s alright, big guy,” I said. “I’ll make sure you can still find me in the woods in my camouflage panties.”
He looked up from the list. “What do you mean by big?”
“We need more coke too,” I said.
“When you say ‘big guy’ you mean big in a good way, right?”
“Um, sure, baby. Yeah. Big in a good way. That’s what I meant.”
“I mean, I’m tall. I’m big boned. A lot of place to hang muscle. There’s not a lot of fat.”
I put my hand on his strong upper arm. “You’re built just right. I like big men.”
“So, big in a good way?”
“Yes, baby. So much in a good way. There’s nothing wrong with big.”
He smiled at me. “I’ll get your stuff, but I want you in those cowboy boots when I get back. And I won’t leave you disappointed like that… story you were telling about that guy. Whatever that was.”
I pressed myself against him, rubbed my pelvic bone against his leg. “I’ll be on the couch. The boots will be on my feet. And they’ll be far, far apart from each other. I won’t be wearing anything else. And I’ll have a spot warmed up and ready for you. How’s that sound?”
And just like that, the argument was won.
I’d soon be on my way home to crash a party.
T WENTY-NINE
Selena
THE RIDE BACK to eastern Kentucky was the most pleasant trip I’d taken in months. I was able to drink. Ragus kept an unhealthy supply of junk food in the car. I played the pop hits station the whole trip—and Ragus hated it. I was jamming to Lady Gaga, Miley, and Pink as the miles flew by.
The car was climate controlled and comfortable.
The Marshal’s pants were still on the floor of the passenger side. I was shocked Ragus hadn’t tossed them out. This was pretty damning evidence. I kicked them back under the seat.
The last couple of days at the safe house we’d worked together to change my appearance. I doubted anyone would be fooled for long. Ragus cut my hair to a length just above my shoulders. He bleached it blonde then added an auburn color back in.
“Your dark roots will be a bitch,” he said.
He got me some color contacts that made my eyes green. I hated them.
He encouraged me to wear the boots. I complied, but I was suspicious about his reason
s. But looking taller wouldn’t hurt. My ankles had healed enough that they weren’t terribly uncomfortable.
“You can’t be showing those tattoos,” he told me. I had clothing that would keep them covered. “And you can’t ever let anyone get your fingerprints. Not ever.”
I felt like a new woman as I rode in the car with him. I was hitting a pleasant level in my bottle of bourbon.
I was mulling over his comments about fingerprints as he drove. I was more than a little buzzed. “Do I strike you as the type of person that worries about shit like fingerprints?” I said.
“No.”
“Me neither,” I said. “But why do you think that?”
“You’re an emotional killer,” he said.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Well, first of all, you’re a girl.”
I scoffed at this macho bullshit. To be more specific, I scoffed in an overtly drunken, redneck girl kind of way. Trust me on this, it’s a unique form of the scoff.
“It’s true,” he said. “Women kill out of emotion. You’re no exception. I’ve seen you in action. Frankie White? You stored up all that wrath for the day of judgment, and you poured it all out on him at once.”
“What’s second?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said first of all and then launched into this masculine diatribe.”
“Okay. Second, you wouldn’t kill anybody on a Monday morning for no good reason.”
“Um, I’m sorry, but what the fuck did you just say? This sour mash must have killed one too many brain cells, but it sounded like you just did some kind of loose association or something there.”
“What I mean is, you’re not a professional killer like I am.”
I laughed. “Professional? You? Bullshit.”
“It’s true.”
“In your own delusions of grandeur,” I said.
“I’m a cold killer. I don’t care about emotion. I kill for very different reasons.”
“Face it. You get a thrill out of it. You’re a sick sociopath, psychopath, or some-fucking-or-another-path.”
“Not true.”
“Right.” I took another pull from the bottle. I put my boots up on the dash.
“This isn’t about me. This is about your inability to concern yourself with leaving DNA evidence everywhere. It’s like you walk into a crime scene and premature ejaculate all over everything.”
