by Giles Blunt
This was fun, right?
She would have been having fun if it weren’t for this little ache floating around under her rib cage. She kept hearing Owen’s voice, that throaty whisper when he’d said, “God, you are so beautiful.”
It wasn’t the first time a man had said that to her, but there was an intensity about Owen that made her just know he really meant it, that he was truly thrilled to be with her. A quarrel developed between Sabrina the Romantic and Sabrina the Free.
Sabrina the Romantic: Owen saved me from a beating and I shouldn’t have swiped his stuff.
Sabrina the Free: Oh, please. He’s a guy. He just wanted to get into your pants. And you shouldn’t have let him.
Sabrina R.: Owen knows stuff. He likes lots of things. He’s curious and funny. I liked being around him.
Sabrina F.: He’s a born thief and liar, and if the circumstances had been reversed he would’ve done exactly the same thing to you.
Sabrina R.: He seemed like he always wanted to give me things, not take them. Besides, we have a lot in common. How many guys am I going to meet who know what it’s like to grow up in a criminal family?
Sabrina F.: Since when is that a recommendation? How many guys in Facebook put Professional Thief in their list of good qualities? You want to be free, you stay away from romantic entanglements, especially with junior criminals.
Sabrina R.: Yeah, but he made me feel so good.
Sabrina F.: Oh, please. Now we’re going to be led around by the crotch?
Sabrina R.: Not just that way, in every way. He made me cheerful-not a word you hear a lot. That afternoon at Carlsbad was one of the best times I’ve ever had in my life.
Sabrina F.: Girl, don’t be a fool. You got yourself a Mustang and the open road and a lot of money. The world is your oyster.
Sabrina R.: Then how come I feel so bad?
Sabrina F.: Take a look at yourself in that rear-view, honey. What could be better than the wind in your hair and a tank full of gas?
As a matter of fact, Sabrina did not have a tank full of gas. The needle was showing about an eighth of a tank.
A sign on the road said, Been taken for granted? Imagine how God feels. And then the red and white disc of a Texaco station appeared at the top of the next hill.
“I knew you’d have to stop sooner or later, sweetheart.” The arrow was stuck on a service centre just east of Lost Gap. Zig held the accelerator steady at ten over the limit.
He passed a pickup truck that had an asphalt roller in the back. Then there was a yellow school bus. He rounded a curve that combined a Chevy dealership and a Dairy Queen, and then the Texaco sign came up on the right.
A couple of cars were jockeying around the pumps, but there were only a few vehicles in the Wendy’s parking lot: pickups, minivans, SUVs, some dusty-looking Mazdas and Toyotas. Then he saw it: a brand new candy-apple Mustang with the top down, parked by the fence in the shade, a girl car if there ever was one.
Sabrina finished the last of her Coke and emptied her tray into the bin.
In the washroom she spent quite a while attacking her hair with a brush, without much effect. Her thighs were bright pink below the denim skirt, and the pale stripes of skin under her tank straps were vivid. Definitely time to put the top up, she thought as she stepped back out into the sunshine.
The Mustang looked cool out in the lot. Some guy had parked his gigantic SUV next to it, which made the Mustang look like a toy. He had the back door open, rummaging, and came out unfolding a map.
Sabrina got into the Mustang and put up the canopy. It worked like a charm, little motor whirring away. She was about to back out when the engine quit. She tried the ignition again-nothing. She waited a second, tried again. Still nothing.
“Damn.” She reached into the glovebox for the owner’s manual.
The SUV guy came into her line of sight and pointed at the hood of her car, eyebrows raised.
Sabrina rolled down the window. “I don’t know what I did wrong,” she said. “I just got the car yesterday and I haven’t figured everything out yet.”
“Try it again,” he said.
She tried it again, but the engine stayed utterly inert.
“You just got this?” he said.
Sabrina nodded. “Yesterday. Better not be anything major.”
“Naw, I bet I know what’s wrong. My daughter has a Mustang.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Fuel injection is my guess. Brand new car, sometimes takes a few miles to settle in. Injection timing goes off and the engine just shuts down.”
“You’re kidding. Is this going to be a regular problem?”
“Shouldn’t be. You want to just pop the hood and I’ll take a look?”
“Um, I don’t know where the release is.”
“Just under your seat, to the left.”
She pulled it and the guy raised the hood. Silence for a couple of minutes, and then she felt the whole front of the car dip down and up a couple of times, as if he was really yanking on something.
“Try it now!”
She hit the ignition and the thing turned over first time.
He put the hood down carefully and came round to the passenger side.
“That’s fantastic,” Sabrina said. “Was it what you thought?”
“Exact same thing as my daughter’s. Fuel injection.”
“Awesome. I don’t know how I can thank you.”
He opened the passenger-side door and got in.
“I do.”
Owen clicked on Update.
“She’s moving again,” he said. “We can’t be too far behind, but she’s left the service station.”
“Marvellous,” Max said. “How are we supposed to know which car is hers?”
“We should be able to come right up on it. Maybe she got a Mustang like she was fantasizing about.”
They drove in silence for a while, Max keeping it steady.
“We’re just going to take our stuff back,” Owen said. “Okay, Max? I don’t want you going all King Lear on her.”
“I only want what’s mine, lad. I’m not a vindictive man.”
Owen knew this was true, but he couldn’t help adding, “I mean it, Max.”
“It would behoove you to worry more about Zig.”
“I’m trying not to think about that.”
“Shit,” Owen said. “I think we’ve passed her.”
“We haven’t passed anything but families with dogs and dune buggies for the past fifty miles.”
“Pull over, Max. She turned off somewhere.”
“There haven’t been any turnoffs.”
“Max, will you please for God’s sake pull over?”
There’s nothing like having a gun pointed at you to make you realize how much you want to live. Sabrina really didn’t want to find out what it felt like to have little bits of lead whizzing around inside her. She thought of herself as a reasonably good talker, a diplomatic person amenable to compromise, and persuasive when she had to be. The question was, what kind of entity was this on the other end of that gun?
“Why’d you pick me?” she asked him.
“You know why.”
“You want the car.”
“If I wanted the car, the car would be gone.”
“You want sex.”
He used the gun barrel to push a strand of hair back from her face.
“It’s not my primary motivation.”
“So what do you want with me?”
“I got a whole inventory of reasons. They’re growing by the minute. You certainly have a nice chest.”
“Watch your mouth.”
The man laughed. Not a pretty sound.
“You have a gun,” Sabrina said. “It’s not necessary to be an asshole as well.”
He’d already made her turn off the highway onto a smaller road that twisted back the way they had come. Sabrina was keeping a close watch on the passing landscape, trying to memorize it. They were surrounded by trees
now, and the forest was getting thicker and thicker-not at all what she had expected in Mississippi. She kept hoping they would reach some kind of open space. Where the hell were cotton fields when you needed them?
“Were you looking for me specifically?” she said. “Or did I just happen to be unlucky?”
“Luck’s got nothing to do with it.”
“So you were looking for me specifically.”
“Affirmative.”
“If that’s true, how would you find me? Nobody knows where I am.”
“Bill gave me directions.”
“Bill wouldn’t do that. Bill would come himself.”
“If he could.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means what it means.”
“Is this a kidnapping? You imagine someone’s going to pay a ransom? Believe me, I am not a person anyone’s going to pay good money for.”
“That’s just low self-esteem talking. You might want to work on that.”
They came to a dusty crossroads.
“Take this left,” he said.
“Which will take us where?”
“Don’t worry about it. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“Suppose I decide not to.”
“Do that, and a bullet will enter your body. Somewhere painful.”
Sabrina made the turn. It was a narrow dirt road, heavily rutted. An ancient real estate sign, shotgun scarred, came up on the right, advertising cottages for sale.
“You’re thinking of buying a Forest View cottage?”
“Maybe I’ll buy all of them,” he said. “Open myself a money-making enterprise.”
By the look of them, the Forest View cottages had been boarded up fifty years ago, having no doubt hit hard times after the interstate went through. There wasn’t much other than trees to draw tourists or anyone else out here-no hills, no lake-and the road was a wreck that threatened to rip the floor out of Sabrina’s brand new car.
They went a little farther and then the guy said, “Stop here.”
A single sagging cottage on one side of the road. Other than that, no houses, no farms, just the road winding off through the trees.
“Switch off and open the trunk.”
Sabrina switched off and pulled the trunk release.
“Show me the stuff.” He clicked the safety off his automatic. “Now.”
She got out and lifted the trunk lid. “It’s in the suitcase.”
He gestured with the gun. “Show me.”
She bent into the trunk and undid the clasps of her suitcase. The canvas satchel she had lifted from Max and Owen was inside. She held it open for him to see.
“I like it. All right, put it back.”
She closed the satchel and set it back in the case. As she was closing the trunk lid, she felt a sharp pain in her right hip and spun around.
“What the hell-”
The man held up a hypodermic and smiled. “Medication time.”
“What the hell is that?”
“Short-acting sedative.”
“You bastard.”
Sabrina started back toward the front of the car. Her right leg was going soft.
He got in the seat beside her. “May cause drowsiness. Do not exceed recommended dose. Do not operate heavy machinery.”
“Fuck you.”
She hit the ignition, but her eyelids were starting to weigh several pounds each.
“You’ll thank me later. Everybody likes a good nap.”
“I’ll kill you,” she said, and made a swipe at him, but her hand fell heavily against his arm. Everything felt like it was wrapped in cotton.
“I won’t do anything you haven’t done before. I just didn’t want things to get confrontational.”
She felt herself being lifted and carried, and then the ground below her, a stick or something digging into her back.
When she woke up, she was face down. She had no idea how long she had been out. It could have been five minutes, it could have been an hour. Pine needles stuck to her face. Her body felt thick and heavy, as if her veins were full of syrup.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“What did you do?” she tried to ask, but she could hear it didn’t come out right. She started to move, lifting herself up on one elbow. Then there was another pinprick.
“No,” she managed to say, and then she was out again.
Next time she woke up, she was looking at bits of sky, a canopy of trees.
She didn’t feel as wasted this time. Maybe the shot had gone astray-or maybe she’d been out longer. She ran a hand over her face and sat up. The forest floor swayed beneath her like a hammock.
“Yoo-hoo,” he said. “Hello there, sleepyhead.”
She tried to stand but couldn’t quite make it. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her back down.
“You have an interesting body, I have to say. Nice slow curves. Soft and hard in all the right places. Smells good. Tastes good. I took the scenic route, so to speak.”
“What did you do, you creep?” She pulled her skirt back into shape.
“Well, let’s just say you’re not gonna enjoy riding a bike for a while.”
Sabrina struggled to get to her knees.
“No, no, sweetheart, you just relax. We got all day here.”
He reached behind and pulled up a small vinyl case, unzipped it, and pulled out another syringe. Sabrina rolled away from him and got to her knees, unsteady.
“Slow down there, sister. Time for your booster.”
Somewhere beyond the trees a car pulled up.
“Keep your mouth shut,” Zig said. “Or you’re dead.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Car doors slammed. Voices. One of them unmistakably Max’s.
“Not a sound,” Zig said, and gestured with the gun.
A twig snapped.
Sabrina made a run for it, forcing her legs to work. I’m going to get a bullet in the back, she thought. I’m going to die on this godforsaken road in this godforsaken state, and-
There was a gunshot and a tree spat bark at her face. She fell into some bushes. She could see Owen, and then Max, behind the trees on the other side of the road. How did everyone in the entire world know where to find her?
She crawled through the bushes, twigs and rock biting into her knees and shins. Zig jumped on her from behind and hauled her up by her hair, but not before she closed her fist around a sharp stone.
He gripped her arm like he would snap her wrist, forcing her to the edge of the trees. He yelled across the road.
“Come any closer, Max, the girl gets it.”
Max’s face appeared from behind a tree. Also a revolver.
“Zig? Is that you? I am extremely disappointed in you, Zig. A former classmate turning on me in my twilight years.”
“You’re a thief, Max. You should understand by now how thieves think.”
“Nonsense, sir. You insult the profession.”
“The profession doesn’t care.”
Sabrina brought the stone up hard and caught him in the side of the head. Zig staggered to one side, and she ran for her car. Her legs were still sluggish and she nearly fell, but she made it. The keys were on the floor.
“Sabrina, wait!”
Owen’s panicked face glimmered among the trees. She hit the gas.
“That girl has an impressive instinct for survival,” Max said quietly.
“I think she’s hurt,” Owen said.
“Her welfare is not first among my concerns at the moment.”
“Hey, Max,” Zig called. His head appeared around the corner of the cottage. “What do you say we call it a draw?”
“There are two of us and only one of you. We have a vehicle and you do not. How is that a draw?”
“I’m more ruthless than you,” Zig said.
“No doubt the late William Bullard would agree with you. Not to mention a brace of my colleagues. Clarify one point for me, Zigler. If you and your henchmen are the Subtract
ors, why are you minus two nipples?”
“That’s a long story, Max.”
“I have the time.”
“I don’t feel like going into it right now. I’d rather reiterate an earlier point: I am your basic ruthless criminal. I’m not all bad, but it would be fair to call me … uninhibited. Whereas you, on the other hand, are kind of a pussycat. I mean, you pride yourself on it, right? Max Maxwell, the gentleman thief.”
“Appearances deceive,” Max said. “The devil may take a pleasing shape.”
“Max,” Owen said quietly, “I’m gonna run to the car.”
“Don’t. He’ll shoot you dead in your tracks.”
“Well, you shoot at him first. Keep him busy.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. These are real guns, real bullets.”
“On three. One …”
“Don’t.”
“Two …”
“Owen, for God’s sake.”
“Three.”
Owen took off and Max reached around the tree, firing a series of shots across the road. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop Zig from firing at the same time, and Owen had to dive right back.
“Okay,” Zig called out, “now I have a question for you.”
“Fire away,” Max said. “So to speak.”
“How are you going to get to that car without me putting a bullet through your head?”
“Can I rely on your good nature? On your reputation as a gentleman?”
“You could try.”
Owen touched Max’s shoulder. “How many bullets do you have left?”
“In a word? One.”
“Shit. What about blanks?”
“There’s a box in the trunk of the car.”
Zig appeared around the corner of the cottage again. “Look, Max, I’m willing to call a truce here. Why don’t you throw out your gun and we’ll call it a day?”
“No deal,” Owen called out. “You throw out yours first.”
“No, thanks,” Zig said. “But I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll put it away.”
There was a pause, then Zig stepped out into the open, hands in the air.
“Okay, look,” Zig said. “I know you’re not gonna shoot me in cold blood, and I’m not gonna shoot you either. I got my hands up. Gun’s in my pocket. Just come out of there and we’ll work this out.”
