Amateur Night

by K. K. Beck

  At times like this, she was angry with him. He had been a Formula One driver, so it wasn't so strange his having died the way he did. He lived with the threat of death. She went into her life with him knowing that, as much as a girl of twenty-three knows anything. But if he had loved her as much as he had loved winning and going as fast as he could, would she be in this parking lot now, at the mercy of some sociopathic thug?

  I will not, she said to herself, fall apart. I will not give that son of a bitch Johnson the satisfaction. She gave the tires one last look— why, she didn't know. Perhaps she was crazy enough to think she could wish them whole again.

  They weren't whole. She straightened up and sighed.

  A man approached her. Her whole body tensed, expecting for just a second that it was Johnson, but it was an older, burlier man in a baseball cap.

  “Boy, what happened to you,” he said, looking down at the tires.

  “I'm not sure. They were okay when I pulled in here,” she said. She knew she'd seen him before, then she realized he was the irritable tourist she'd met at the herb farm.

  “Weren't you buying some garlic a while back?” she said. “On Denman Island.”

  “That's right, at that hippie herb farm.” He snorted. He looked back down at the tires. “Do you belong to Triple A? You're going to have to get a tow. Way out here in the middle of nowhere. It could be a real hassle.” He said it without sympathy; more as a matter of interest. And with the same sense of superiority he'd shown at the herb farm. You stupid woman, he seemed to be saying. Why did you have to get your tires slashed out here.

  She waved a hand dismissively at the car. “I don't have time for a tow,” she said. “I've got to get somewhere. I'll worry about the car later.”

  “I'm going north,” he said. “To Port Hardy. There isn't much between here and there as far as I know. I could send a tow truck down for you if you want.”

  “Do you think you could give me a lift?” she said.

  He frowned. His disposition hadn't improved much since he'd been challenging the Denman Island herbalist. “I suppose,” he said.

  She glanced over at the car whose occupant was still hunkered down behind a map. Nobody needed to look at a road map that long.

  “I'll pay for the gas,” she said, rather desperately.

  “It's okay,” he said, sighing morosely.

  She grabbed her bag from the trunk and followed him over to his camper, a big hulking white vehicle. He opened the door for her and she climbed up. Inside it was warm and a little steamy. There was a bundle of maps and tourist pamphlets and a wicker fishing basket on the seat. She pushed them aside to make room for herself. The rain beat heavily on the roof of the vehicle. He came around to the other side.

  Please, she said silently, pull out of here and get going. She tried not to look anxious. He took off his baseball cap and ran a chubby, veined hand over his bald head. It seemed to take him forever to get the car in gear and get out of the parking lot.

  She watched the other car in the side mirror. Its lights went on, then it disappeared from view. She couldn't turn around and look out the back window, but she feared they were being followed.

  After they had been on the road for a few miles, she relaxed. At least nothing could happen to her here in the car. She tried to force herself not to look in the side-view mirror. She didn't want this guy to think she was being followed.

  “That's terrible, someone ripping your tires like that,” he said. “You don't expect that up here. In the city, maybe. With all those crazy kids running around. But up here in the woods?” He shook his head.

  “I know,” she said. “It gave me the creeps.”

  “You should have called the police,” he said.

  “I just wanted to get away,” she answered. “I really appreciate your giving me a lift.” She glanced back in the mirror, read, OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR. There wasn't any sign of that car she thought might be Johnson's. She relaxed a little more.

  “You up here fishing?” she said, glancing over at the wicker basket.

  “That's right. Camping a little. It's not bad up here.” He was still frowning, which made Jane think that he was one of those habitually irritable men who seem to think they're supposed to disapprove of everything, even when they're having a good time.

  She leaned back and combed out her wet hair with her fingers. He was going at a nice seventy miles an hour, thank God. They should be in Port Hardy in an hour and a half or so.

  “What brings you up here?” he said

  “Oh, business,” she said vaguely.

  “What kind of business?” he said. The windshield wipers clacked furiously.

  Another sign from the timber company, advertising the fact that the trees they were passing had been planted in 1948, flashed by. FORESTS FOREVER it said.

  “The timber business,” she said. Then, in case he asked her anything about it, she added. “Pretty boring really. I'm in the accounting department.”

  “I was an accountant for years,” he said gruffly. “I didn't think it was boring.”

  “Oh, you're retired,” she said. She'd rather talk about him than about accounting procedures, of which she knew absolutely nothing, and be exposed as a fraud. “Are you enjoying your retirement?”

  “Do a lot of fishing,” he said laconically.

  Jane had a theory that no one was really boring. Even bores had a half hour or so of material in them. This gentleman, however, seemed to be the exception. Which was probably just fine. She really didn't need much more excitement. A little hiatus was a good idea.

  “If you don't mind,” she said, “I could use a little nap. I've been working hard and traveling a lot.”

  “Mmm,” he murmured.

  “Audits,” she added by way of explanation, and put her head against the window. She doubted she could sleep, but she wanted to think rather than make conversation.

  But a second later, with her eyes closed, she found the motion of the car had actually made her sleepy. It was kind of a relief not to be driving herself. Maybe she should call the restaurant from Port Hardy. Tell them she'd be back later for the car. She could find the name of the town from the map. There was only one restaurant in town.

  Right before she drifted off, another thought teased her from her subconscious. Something about garlic and the herb farm on Denman Island.

  Chapter 28

  She didn't know how long she'd been asleep. When she woke up, she was looking at more trees. The road looked a little narrower, though. It was two lanes, with a bright shiny new yellow line painted down the middle. What was it that she'd thought about just before she went to sleep? Garlic.

  Bernardo had loved garlic. He thought it was good for colds and chomped away at cloves of it. She smiled. She wasn't angry with him anymore. Who knows what would have happened if he'd lived? Lately, she'd begun to think they might not have been together by now anyway. Hardly anyone else they had known back then was still together. People change. But of course Bernardo couldn't. He would always be the same wonderful, charming person he'd been on the day he crashed. When that oddly consoling thought had first leapt into her mind, she'd felt guilty. Now she was getting used to it. She no longer looked wistfully at old couples who'd been together for years.

  Old couples together. Garlic. That was it.

  “How was that garlic?” she said. “That you bought at that herb farm?”

  “Garlic is garlic,” he said.

  “Did your wife like it?” she said. “You said she'd sent you out for it as I recall.” Why was he alone?

  He looked over at her. “It was okay.”

  “Where is your wife?” she said now, puzzled.

  He didn't say anything for a long time. In that silence, Jane felt a prickle cover her whole body, as if every pore had tightened.

  “She's not feeling well,” he said after a while. “She's taking a nap in the back.”

  “I'm sorry to hear that,” said Jane.

/>   The long pause before his explanation convinced Jane he was lying. And he'd said it defensively, as if he didn't care whether she thought he was lying or not.

  Suddenly he turned the wheel sharply to the left, off the road and onto gravel. Some kind of a forestry sign flickered by.

  “Where are we going?'' she said sharply. “Is this the road to Port Hardy?”

  “Shortcut,” he said. “Logging road. They have a lot of speed traps up here.”

  The landscape had changed dramatically. Skimpy alders, a few feet high, lined the road, growing like weeds out of the gravel, cordoned off by a tuft of dusty horsetails.

  They went past the rusted-out hulk of a clothes dryer and some unidentifiable strips of metal, a burnt-out quarry, flooded over with brown water.

  This was logged-over territory, without even the delicacy of a fringe of forest to protect the motorist from the sight of ravaged land. Ahead loomed two peaks of naked rock. The rock was peppered with stumps, but the earth had washed away.

  “Where are we going?” she said sharply again, knowing that a firm tone would make no difference, that she was completely at this man's mercy. Was he an opportunistic deviant who, once she had climbed into his car, decided she was his, to do with as he pleased, then perhaps junk her like a rusted-out old clothes dryer?

  They raced past a river littered with gnarled stumps, curly roots waving in the air, wedged into a gravel bank; past rocks covered in yellowish moss and blackened by slash burning.

  She couldn't leap out of the truck. There was nowhere to hide. But he did look out-of-shape. She might be able to outrun him if she plunged into the hideous landscape.

  “Wow,” she said disingenuously, “I thought the road to Port Hardy was pretty clear and straight. Are you sure we want to take these old logging roads?”

  She sounded stupid. What was he supposed to say? “I guess you're right. I'll turn around and take the route you think is best.” That wouldn't jibe with any male behavior she'd ever observed.

  He grunted in reply.

  “Got a map or anything?” she said. “I can't imagine where we are.”

  Suddenly he startled her by sounding frightened. “Shut up!” he said. His voice almost squeaked.

  “What?” She didn't know whether the fear in his voice should give her hope or scare her even more.

  With horror, she watched him, one hand on the wheel, the other scrabbling in the fishing tackle basket next to him. He came up with a knife.

  “I'll use this,” he said. “I swear to God I'll use this.”

  Just then he swerved to avoid a lumbering silky black bear, nosing around the side of the road, followed by its cub. The bear moved around inside its skin as if it were a size too big, the pelt sliding around the giant shoulders. “Damn,” he said.

  “I don't understand,” said Jane, for whom the bear held little interest. “Please. What is it you want?”

  He didn't answer. He was driving very fast now. But in his right hand he held the knife. It was stainless steel with a serrated blade. The kind of thing you would use to gut a fish.

  When the car stopped, then she should make her move. Run for it. Climb a tree. Isn't that what you were supposed to do if a bear was after you? He didn't look like he could climb a tree after her. He'd give up and go away. And then she'd hide like an animal, creep out later, maybe hail some passing vehicle—a logging truck driven by some safe, kind person. There couldn't be a lot of sociopaths out here. In small, sparsely populated places like this, they'd be spotted right away. Not like this madman, with his nervous, mean face.

  Climb a tree, that's what she'd have to do. She hadn't actually climbed a tree since she was a kid, but she thought she could do it. She imagined pulling herself up, arm over arm. He'd be pulling at her ankles. Yanking her to the ground. Gutting her like a fish perhaps.

  The road grew worse. Rocks blonked against the undercarriage of the vehicle. She glanced over at the ignition. Her only chance was to get him out of the camper and get away in it. But how in God's name could she do that? Could she pull the keys out of the ignition, stop the vehicle?

  At least then she'd be closer to the main road. Who knew how far these logging roads went into the woods. They'd been logging in British Columbia since the nineteenth century, as far as she knew.

  She felt a horrible pang of despair and pity for herself; she could die out here, in this scabby, ruined landscape. Her body would lie for weeks, maybe forever if he chucked it into a ravine. Then the animals would scatter her bones. No one would ever know what had become of her.

  Tears of fear and rage began to form in her eyes. There had to be a way. She'd always believed she could talk her way out of anything. But she was afraid to talk to this man. He had seemed so frightened. Now, barreling along, he seemed purposeful, focused on the road

  If she was silent, maybe he would forget about her entirely. She tried that for a moment, but the sheer terror that inaction created in her was too much to bear. Better to try something. Anything.

  Perhaps if she managed to invoke pity in him. Surely somewhere there must be some core of goodness, of pity. She sniffed. “Please don't hurt me,” she whimpered. And she added, “I have children.”

  “Shut up,” he said. This did seem to upset him. In fact, it seemed to enrage him. “Shut up about your kids.”

  “I'm sorry,” she said, hating herself for apologizing. But she took some solace in the fact that his reluctance to hear about her fictional children seemed to be based on some flicker of guilt.

  She kept scanning the surrounding landscape, searching for some way out. Looking for an escape in case through some miracle the car stopped and she could leap out. Here and there the forest started up again, making the road dark and cool-looking, providing inky openings into the dense undergrowth, openings that looked like safe caves. Irrationally, she projected herself mentally into those caves as they flew by.

  If guilt wasn't enough to stop him from whatever it was he planned to do, maybe fear would do it.

  “There was a guy in that parking lot where we started out,” she said. “He saw me leave with you.”

  He frowned. “I didn't see anyone,” he said. Something about the trace of doubt in his voice, as well as the tinge of guilt she'd heard before, convinced her this guy hadn't done a lot of this in the past. After all, she had practically begged him to give her a lift. If he planned to rape or kill her, maybe it was a crime of opportunity.

  And if she did get raped or killed or both, it would be the fault of Johnson, slashing her tires like that.

  “What are you going to do with me?” she said.

  “I don't know,” he said. “Don't worry about it,” he added ludicrously.

  “I'm sorry I asked you for a ride,” she said. “Just drop me off here, leave me here, I won't tell anyone. I'd be so grateful that I wouldn't tell anyone. You didn't mean to hurt me. I don't believe you're really a bad person.”

  Like hell, he wasn't a bad person, she thought to herself. While she was pleading, trying not to whine or let fear come into her voice, trying to sound calm and reasonable, she was imagining cutting him up with his own knife, slitting his throat, leaving him here to die in the woods, his blood seeping out of him into some of the yellowish moss that draped the burnt-out rocks.

  They passed another fork in the road. There were three battered, metal, bullet-riddled signs stacked on a tilted pole—DEVIL'S BATH. KATHLEEN LAKE. ETERNAL FOUNTAIN. She memorized them in case she managed to escape somehow and had to hike back out. He stayed on what seemed like the main route, toward Devil's Bath.

  “Of course I'm not a bad person,” he said rather indignantly.

  She felt a little leap of hope.

  “That's why you'll let me go.”

  What he said next startled her. It cast doubt on her theory of the lone creep with a screw loose, bent on rape or the thrill of killing a woman, suddenly snapping, taking advantage of opportunity, perhaps even telling himself it was all justified because s
he'd asked for a ride.

  “You're name is Jane da Silva, isn't it?” he said. “That's what you told that herb woman. You gave her a card and you wrote your name on it. And she said Jane da Silva. I heard her clearly.”

  “Why do you care what my name is?” she said. Could it have something to do with looking for Brenda? After all, he was there with the herb lady, and her name was Brenda MacPherson. “Look, I don't know your name, and I don't know who you are. If you just leave me out here it will take me hours to get back. You can get far away, and we can forget this ever happened.”

  Of course, we are on an island, she thought to herself with some tiny satisfaction. If she did get out of here, she could call the cops and maybe they could watch all the ferries leaving the island. Maybe they'd catch him and put him away for years so he wouldn't terrorize anyone else again, ever.