Bad Signs

by R.J. Ellory

  “My sister makes it,” he told Bailey. “She has a hand crank and she makes it herself. People around here love it.”

  Bailey loved it too, and by the time she was done even the guy was surprised at how much a little girl could eat.

  “So what are you doing out this evening?” he asked her.

  Bailey smiled. “We’re on a date,” she said.

  “A date, is it?” the guy said. “Well, I’ll be … you’ve come to my place on a date.”

  “Our first date,” she added.

  “Well, that,” he said, “is a cause for celebration, and as it’s your first date then dinner is on the house.”

  Bailey smiled, but she shook her head. “No, we couldn’t do that. We have money to pay—”

  “Won’t hear a word of it. You go on now, enjoy yourselves, and come back some other time, okay?”

  “Hey, thanks, mister,” she said. “That’s really kind of you.”

  He waved them out of the diner and closed up. He watched the pair of them head off down Crown Street and he wondered what it would be like to be young and in love and have the whole world out there before you.

  Bailey wasn’t thinking about the whole world at all. She was thinking about how much money they had and whether or not they could afford to sleep in a motel again.

  “Sure we could,” Clay said. “I mean, what the hell, we’re damned well nearly in Eldorado. We can make it.”

  They walked to the end of Crown Street, turned left, headed away from the diner and the sheriff’s building, and it was toward the end of the third or fourth block that Clay saw a motel on the other side that looked like the kind of place they were after. A main office, a semicircular arrangement of small cabins out behind it, a neon sign that announced Comfortable Beds Hot Water Reasonable Rates.

  “I’ll go over alone,” Clay said. “I can get away with being old enough. You wait here, and once I’ve got the cabin I’ll come back out and get you.”

  “Hurry,” Bailey said. “It’s getting cold.”

  Clay jogged cross the street and entered the main office. For a moment she saw him standing there behind the desk, and then he moved left and disappeared.

  Bailey rubbed her hands together and stamped her feet. She could see her own breath.

  It was dark now, and there was a bitter breeze down the street that made her shudder.

  She saw Clay leave the office and head along the cabins with the attendant.

  Wouldn’t be long and she’d be inside—warm, comfortable, able to sleep on a real bed with real blankets. There’d be a TV. They could watch TV again like they had last time, sat up there on the bed amidst pillows and blankets. Alfred Hitchcock and whatever.

  She heard a door close somewhere, and she shifted back a little as a pickup came down the street and the headlights illuminated her against the wall where she was standing.

  She dug her hands in her pockets and put her head down.

  The pickup slowed ever so gradually, and came to rest not six feet from where she stood. She looked up, and through the open passenger window she saw the driver looking at her. He was young, and he was smiling.

  “Everything okay here?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Sure, mister … just waiting for someone.”

  It was then that the gun appeared.

  “Waiting for me,” he said slowly. “Now get in the fucking car before I blow your head clean off your fucking shoulders.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  “Las Cruces,” Cassidy said. “I’m going to stay overnight. I’ll call you early tomorrow and let you know what I’ve decided.”

  “How were they … the federal people?”

  “I reckon they’ve got me for a crazy one. But they listened to what I had to say, and they’re going to get some pictures made up, at least. I mean … well, the truth is that we don’t know. We really don’t know if it is Clarence Luckman doing these things, or if the Danziger boy is still alive—”

  “It’s a terrible thing, John,” Alice said. “He is a boy, isn’t he? I mean, he’s not even out of his teens, and he’s somehow capable of doing these hideous and dreadful things.”

  “If he’s the one who’s doing them.”

  “He is, I feel sure of it. The more I think about it the more it makes sense.”

  Cassidy smiled. “Sometimes I wonder whether you’re the one who shouldn’t have been the detective.”

  “As if there’ll ever come a day when they’ll let women do this kind of thing,” Alice replied.

  “They should get started on it now … female intuition, you know? Could save us a fortune in lengthy investigations.”

  “So did you have dinner?”

  “I did, yes.”

  “What did you have?”

  “I had a sandwich—”

  “Go get some proper dinner, John. You can’t live on candy bars and Coca-Cola. Go somewhere and get a steak or something.”

  “Alice, really—”

  “John.”

  “Okay, okay, okay. I’ll go get a steak.”

  “And try and sleep. I know you don’t sleep well when you’re away, but try your best. Have a glass of whiskey or something. That always does the trick for me.”

  “You get some rest yourself, Alice.”

  “I’m all right, John. I’m not the one running around Texas like a maniac.”

  “Okay, sweetheart. Miss you. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “And I’ll call Mike and tell him you’re doing better but I still don’t want you out of the house.”

  “Appreciated. Love you.”

  “Love you back.”

  She hung up and Cassidy listened to the dial tone for a moment before replacing the receiver in its cradle.

  He glanced at his watch. Twenty to nine. Dinner. He had to get some dinner. He’d said he would, so that’s what he would do.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  Clay hesitated at the side of the road.

  Bailey was talking to someone. Someone in a pickup truck.

  Hell, he thought, this is the last damned thing we need. Interference from some do-gooder.

  Clay backed up and walked across the street and around the back of the truck. The guy in the truck was saying something.

  “Bailey?” Clay said quietly.

  Bailey didn’t look back at him.

  “Bailey?” he repeated, a little louder.

  It was then that he saw her hand. Down by her side, just her one hand, and she was making a motion with it. Get back, that motion said. Get away from here.

  There was silence then. The rustle of the wind through the leaves on the ground. The purr of the engine. Aside from that nothing.

  Clay shivered. He stood still for a moment, and then he took another step forward.

  He caught sight of something moving in the corner of his eye.

  The driver had seen him.

  He felt something then, something dark and terrible, and he waited, barely able to breathe, as the driver moved along the seat and opened the passenger-side door.

  As he stepped down, that sense of dark terror gripped Clay Luckman with such ferocity he could not think. He could not think even as the driver stepped down and stood in the road ahead of him, as he leveled the gun at Clay’s chest, as he started to smile in recognition. Whatever sense of relief he may have felt in learning that his brother was alive was overwhelmed by his utter disbelief and horror in seeing what he had become.

  “Well, fuck me sideways with a baseball bat,” Digger said. “If it isn’t my own fucking useless son of a bitch dumbass cocksucker of a brother Clarence motherfucking Luckman. Jesus Christ Almighty, what a coincidence we have here.”

  “Digger—” Clay started.

  Bailey looked at Clay, back to the driver. It was there in her eyes. Digger? Your brother?

  “Shut your fucking mouth, Clay,” Digger said. “You cocksucking son of a bitch motherfucker piece-of-shit coward fucker asshole … Jesus, I should shoot you right
in the head and leave you dead in the fucking street, you cunt! You left me to die back there. You left me and Earl to die back there at the store. You fucker. You asshole. You utter piece of shit …”

  “Digger, seriously … I didn’t mean—”

  Digger stepped forward. He grabbed Bailey’s hair and pushed the gun into the side of her neck. “So this is how you’ve been entertainin’ yourself, is it?” he said. He wrenched the fistful of hair and Bailey screamed. “This is the company you’ve been keepin’, eh? Not good enough for you, were we? Me an’ Earl not good enough for the likes of Clarence motherfuckin’ Luckman, is that it?”

  “Digger, you got to let her go. She’s done nothing. You want someone, you take me. I’ll go with you. I’ll go with you, Digger … just leave her alone—”

  “Shut your fucking mouth!” Digger shouted. He tugged Bailey’s hair again, and she screamed, louder this time, and he hit her in the side of the head with the gun. For a moment she lost her balance, her knees giving way beneath her, and Digger wrenched her to her feet once more.

  He walked forward, gun out ahead of him. “I’m taking her,” he said, his voice barely more than whisper. “I’m gonna shoot you in the head right now, and then I’m gonna take her and tie her up and fuck her until she can’t remember her own fucking name, and then when I’m bored of her I’m gonna cut her head off and piss all over her and then I’m gonna set her on fire. That’s what I’m gonna do to her, you piece-of-shit coward lying motherfucking son of a bitch!”

  Clay stepped back, and then with one sudden movement he lunged forward toward Digger. He went with everything he had—every ounce of strength and courage, every ounce of love he felt for Bailey, every morsel of willpower and determinism. He just rushed Digger and he didn’t care then whether he died. He had to keep Digger from hurting Bailey.

  The gun went off. Clay felt himself thrown to the side of the road. His head caught the edge of a tree trunk, and for a moment he lay there dazed.

  He heard scuffling. Bailey screamed again. Another shot. A third. The sound of the bullet thudding into the wood merely inches from his head. He rolled sideways, flattened himself to the ground, and was up on his knees even as the pickup pulled away.

  It was then that he felt the pain in his right upper arm. He grimaced, held his left hand against the torn material of his T-shirt, felt the shallow flesh wound beneath, the warmth and moisture of the blood.

  Clay was disorientated, confused, thought to return to the motel and call the police, decided against it. He started running, falling over his own feet as he went, the breath burning cold in his chest, his throat, his eyes filled with tears, the sense of abject terror as he thought of Bailey, of Digger, of what he was going to do to her …

  A sense of utter panic invaded his senses. Clay shuddered as he ran. He felt nauseous, light-headed, out of control. He reached the junction, turned right, right again, and then cut across toward the sheriff’s office once more. He didn’t know Van Horn, but he knew where the sheriff’s office was in relation to the motel.

  He didn’t stop to think of how Digger had found him. He didn’t stop to wonder if Digger had followed him all the way from Marana. He didn’t wonder at how his brother had become someone he barely recognized. He could think of nothing but what Digger had promised to do to Bailey.

  Even as he neared the sheriff’s office he was aware of something else. He wondered how he would explain himself, explain what had happened. This was it now. This was it for both of them, even if Bailey survived. Was he now a kidnapper? Had he kidnapped a young girl against her will and crossed state lines? Would he be in jail for the rest of his life?

  Clay clutched his bleeding arm and hurried on.

  Distracted, upset, anxious, he failed to notice Officer Freeman Summers getting out of the patrol car ahead of the building to his right.

  Clay walked past him, no more than ten or fifteen feet between them.

  “Hey there,” Summers said.

  Clay stopped dead in his tracks. He should have turned around immediately. He should not have hesitated. Hesitating made him suspicious. Instantly suspicious.

  “You,” Summers said. “Aren’t you Rachel Montague’s boy?”

  Again Clay hesitated, but he did not turn. “Yeah,” he muttered. And then louder, “Yes, I am …”

  “Turn around, son … you look at me now while I’m speaking with you.”

  Clay turned—slowly, cautiously. He felt the rush of anxiety in his lower gut, the tension, the sense of dread.

  “No, you’re not,” Summers said. “You ain’t no more Rachel Montague’s boy than I am. What the hell—”

  Clay thought to run then. He thought to just hightail it in any direction he could. The likelihood that the police officer would shoot him? Slim, probably wouldn’t even think of it. And then whatever doubt Clay Luckman might have had about Freeman Summers’s inability to handle this as a potentially threatening situation evaporated as Summers drew his gun and aimed it directly at Clay’s chest. Clay felt his knees turn to Jell-O. He wanted to piss himself. He felt light-headed and nauseous and for a moment he felt so disoriented he couldn’t even remember his own name.

  “Hands out to your sides where I can see them, son,” Summers said. His voice was direct and commanding.

  Clay was aware of the blood running down inside his sleeve. He didn’t want to move his hand. He had to move his hand.

  “Hands out to your sides!” Summers repeated. “I’ll not tell you again!”

  Clay dropped his hands to his sides. The quantity of blood on his jacket, his sleeve, right there on his hand was clearly visible in the light from the office windows.

  “What the hell?”

  Clay opened his mouth to speak.

  “Don’t wanna hear nothin’ but your name, son,” Summers interjected. “And don’t give me the wrong name, now. I’ll soon find out the truth, and if you BS me then you’re gonna be up to your neck in trouble.”

  Clay looked back at the young officer and he knew it was all over. He thought of the days he had spent traveling with Bailey. He thought of her dead father in the convenience store in Marana, of the money they took from the drive-in, of the night they spent in Tucson and their plan to reach Eldorado, of the gun he hid beneath the overturned car outside of Deming, of the motel—the first one—and how he’d crouched to spy through the keyhole in case he could see her naked, of Emanuel Smith and his crazy son, of how the I-10 represented their lives together for the past five days … He thought of how long it had seemed and yet how short it was. Five days. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and now Friday … and here he was, in Van Horn, looking back at the muzzle of a police forearm, and this officer, the one with really short hair, and how he couldn’t have been much older than Clay himself, and how he was now asking him his name and there was no way in the world he could tell him anything but the truth …

  And then he thought of Bailey and his own brother, and what he was doing to her in that precise moment …

  And so he said it. Said it loud and clear so Officer Freeman Summers would have no doubt.

  “My name is Clarence,” he said. “Clarence Luckman.”

  And he watched as Officer Freeman Summers’s eyes seemed to perceptibly widen, and then Clay noticed how he frowned, and how the gun he was holding seemed to waver for a second, and then the officer was shouting something at the top of his voice, shouting for the sheriff …

  “Sheriff! Sheriff! Goddammit, someone get the freakin’ sheriff!”

  And Clay didn’t understand what was happening. All he knew was that whatever journey he and Bailey Redman had made together was over. That, and the fact that he loved her.

  And so he took a step forward, and he raised his hands without thinking, and the gun steadied, and the finger tightened against the trigger, and the sound of the bullet as it left the muzzle was like a firework reflected off the surface of a lake a million years before …

  Once again, for some strange reason
, there was no pain. He spun sideways. He was aware of that. He spun to the left, and the lights of the sheriff’s office went by at a thousand miles an hour, and then he was looking at Freeman Summers’s shoes as he hurried toward him.

  And then there was shouting again, and then there was darkness and silence, and he wondered how long he would hear his own heart as it slowed down to nothing.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  She was the best-looking of all of them. There was no question in Digger’s mind that she was the best-looking of all of them. Young for sure, maybe fifteen or sixteen, but that meant that no one had spoiled her for him … And then he thought of Clay, and he wondered whether Clay had screwed her.

  Once again he felt just plain bitter and resentful toward his brother. How come someone like Clay could get a girl like this? The whole balance of things was skewed beyond belief. Well, right here and now, he was going to set that balance right.

  In the car the girl didn’t say a word. Not the whole way back. He tucked the gun between his legs and he kept to a good speed and he kept his eyes on the road, and she was sitting right over the far side of the passenger seat, right against the door, like she was trying to stay away from him as best she could, and there was a look in her eyes like she was scared, but something else … like a cornered animal, ready to fight back given half a chance.

  But there wasn’t nothing to her, and if she made any kind of move on him then he would just whack her in the head and that would be that. Not to kill her. She wouldn’t be so much fun dead. Just hit her hard enough to put her down so he could get her in the house easy.

  So all the way back—ten miles or twelve miles or however far it was—she never said a damned word to him, and the more he looked at her—just a glance over to his right every once in a while—the more appealing she seemed to him. She really was a catch. This was what he needed. A girl like this. This one he could fuck until her heart burst, and then he could fuck her some more.