“Dark green.”
“Any vanity plates?”
Guthrie looked at him for a moment, uncomprehending.
“I mean do you have one of those stupid plates that say 2-FAST or BIG BUX or any of that shit?”
“No…no, just regular tags.”
“Registration and inspection up to date?”
“Of course.”
“‘Of course,’” Ruger repeated, shaking his head. “I break into your house, kick your ass, and am planning to steal your car, and you sound offended when I ask if your inspection is up to date.”
“The car’s fine. Why don’t you take it and go?”
“I will, I will, but not yet. There’s just a few things I got to do yet.”
The phone rang, but Ruger made no move to answer it. He merely let it ring itself out. He finished the drink and set the glass down primly on the side table. Val was amazed: he must have poured five fingers’ worth into the tall milk glass and he’d downed it all in six or eight gulps. How much whiskey was that? A quarter pint? What would he be like when the whiskey hit his system?
“Okay, next question, Mr. Guthrie,” Ruger said with no trace of a slur in his voice. “Do you have a stretcher?”
“A stretcher?”
“Yeah.”
“No. A stretcher? Why would I have a stretcher?”
“You got anything I could use as one?”
Guthrie frowned. “I guess you could take a door off its hinges and use that. Who’s hurt?”
“Hey, hey, now, I didn’t say you could ask any questions.”
“Okay,” Guthrie said in a soft, placating voice. “Sorry.”
“Okay then. How ’bout a wheelbarrow?”
“Sure. We have a couple of those.”
“Where?”
“In the shed. Small yellow building next to the barn.”
“Is it locked?”
“No.”
“No?” Ruger chuckled. “Aren’t you afraid of thieves?”
Guthrie looked at him coldly. “Not usually much of an issue way out here.”
Ruger just shook his head. “Okay, and how about rope? Or that gray tape, whaddya call it?”
“Duct tape?”
“Yeah, duck tape. You got any duck tape?”
Guthrie nodded. “Couple rolls.”
“Where?”
“In the cellar.”
“Rope?”
“Some in the barn. Washing line, bailing twine in the cellar.”
“Good, good.”
Ruger rocked in his rocker for a little while, again pursing his lips, the smile coming and going, and his reptile eyes staring blackly at them. “Okay, then,” he said at length, “here’s the plan. Val, you are going to go fetch me some rope and some of that duck tape. You go fetch it and come right back.”
Val’s heart hammered in her chest as she thought about all the things in the cellar. She stood up quickly and turned to go, but immediately Ruger was on his feet, too. He grabbed her shoulder, spun her around, and looked into her eyes. She didn’t know what he was seeing there, but his face seemed angry at first, and then his smile crawled back. He slowly shook his head. “Uh-uh, honey. You sit your pretty ass back down. I was born at night, darlin’, but it wasn’t last night. Sit down.”
She let her gaze fall away and slowly crept back to the couch and sat down. Her father handed her the ice pack she had dropped and she pressed it back it place. Connie was staring at her with a total lack of understanding.
“I think,” said Ruger, reaching out with the toe of his shoe and nudging Connie’s knee, “that I’ll let the Stepford Wife go.”
“M…me?”
“Y…yes,” Ruger mocked, “y…you.”
“Down the cellar?”
“No, I want you to run down to the drugstore and fetch me a bottle of baby aspirin. Yes, the fucking cellar. Don’t you pay any attention?”
“For rope?” Connie said in a five-year-old’s voice.
“And tape. You get them and then hustle your white bread ass right back up here. No tricks, no stalling. Just get the stuff and come right back.”
“By myself?” Connie seemed to be having a hard time grasping the specifics of her mission.
Ruger rolled his eyes. “Jeez, can you really be this fucking dumb?” He looked at Val and Guthrie, who were studying the pattern of the rug on the floor. He sighed. “Okay, so you probably are this fucking dumb. Whatever. Just go and get the stuff and come right back.”
Connie backed away from him, nodding numbly. She reached the entrance to the hallway, bumped against the door frame, half spun, and then fled down the corridor. Ruger saw her open the door at the far end and listened to her feet clattering on the wooden steps. He leaned against the door frame and called out, “Remember, darlin’, no games. Just find the stuff and hustle back.” Turning to Guthrie, he said, “She isn’t too bright, is she?”
“She’s just scared.”
“What about you?” he said to Val. “Are you scared?”
“Of course I am,” she said bitterly.
“Maybe, but you aren’t scared stupid like your sister.”
“I’m scared enough, mister.” The image of the EPT test kit upstairs in the medicine cabinet flashed into her brain, unbidden and immediate. Her eyes wavered and fell away, down to her hands twisting in her lap.
Ruger looked at her, measuring her. “Good,” he said after a slow moment.
In the cellar, Connie tramped down the last steps, walked blindly past the gun cabinet, past the workbench with its collections of awls and screwdrivers and utility knives, past the wall phone, and made a hectic beeline for the closet where the clothesline was kept. She snatched up two plastic-wrapped fifty-foot lengths, and from a lower shelf she took a huge roll of dark gray duct tape. For some reason she clutched them to her chest as if they were sacred objects, spun on her heel, and fled back upstairs. She turned off the light and bathed all of the actual objects of salvation in useless darkness.
“Good girl, now go sit down.”
Connie went obediently to the couch, turned, and sat down, smoothing her skirt around her. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, ankles together, eyes downcast. Ruger looked at her as if she were something from another planet, which, in a way, she was, if he was typical of the world that he came from. The bundles of rope lay on the coffee table, but Ruger held the roll of tape, tossing it lightly into the air and catching it one-handed.
Val glanced at Connie, feeling sorry for her sister-in-law. It was apparent to Val that Connie had retreated — fled — into herself. Beyond the last name she’d taken in marriage she shared absolutely nothing in common with Val. Connie had grown up wealthy, soft, and sheltered. She was middling intelligent, good-hearted, truly loved Mark, aspired to no heights beyond maintaining a household, and apparently spent very little time in her own thoughts. Generally her chatter was borderline inane and Val routinely tuned it out when she could, and for the most part didn’t really like Connie very much. Now, though, she loved her and wanted to hug her and shelter her.
She was also assessing Connie, wondering if maybe she had placed a 911 call downstairs, or had secreted a knife somewhere in her clothes, but as wonderful as that would be, Val doubted if it was true. Connie just wasn’t like that. As far as Val could see, if Connie had strength of any kind — either wit or courage — it was so deeply submerged that she was unaware of it.
“Now,” said Ruger, pouring another finger of bourbon, “anyone want to guess why I had Miss Polly Purebred fetch this stuff?” He took a sip, then knocked it back. “No guesses? Well, I can see it in your eyes. If you think that I’m gonna tie you up, that’s right. That should tell you something, shouldn’t it?”
Val shook her head.
“I think he means,” said her father, “that he wouldn’t bother tying us up if he meant to kill us.”