Henry leans in real close. “It took us three weeks to find the fuckers that did it. And when we did, we made Saddam Hussein look like Santa fuckin’ Claus.”
The old guy in the bath-robe looks away, then sags back into his chair. On the TV screen Mr Jones is replaced by some scary-looking woman with orange skin and perfect teeth, going on about drain cleaner.
“I don’t want to get involved,” says the guy, picking at a tomato sauce stain on his robe.
“I don’t give a shit what you want.” Henry takes his jacket off and unbuttons his shirt. “You’re going to tell me everything you know. Starting with that Winnebago…”
Chapter 7
“Where the fuck you two been?” asks Jack when we get back to the car. The wind’s getting up again, rain speckling the ancient Ford’s windscreen.
Henry smiles. “Had to talk to an old army buddy.”
I climb back behind the wheel. “Did you have to dangle the poor bastard off the roof?”
Shrug. “Jogged his memory, didn’t it?”
He has a point. I put the car in gear — getting a nasty grinding noise — and pull out onto the road.
“Christ,” says Jack from the back seat, “not another one. We’re leaving a trail of bodies all over the place. . Someone’s going to notice!”
“Relax.” Henry lights up another one of his stinky cigars. “He’s not dead. Just needs to change his underwear. And now we got something the Feds don’t.” He smiles and opens the passenger window, letting the smoke spiral out into the cold night. “Seems that Winnebago had Iowa plates — Polk County — with some sort of little man on them. And up front, on the dashboard there’s a little statue of Jesus and one of them hula Elvises.”
He grins, saving the best for last. “And a bumper sticker: ‘In God We Trust’.”
Yup, it’s amazing what being dangled by the ankles sixty feet above a car park can do for a guy with a bad memory who doesn’t want to get involved.
Jack leans forward, all excited. “We gotta tell the cops. Call the Feds or something — they can chase down the plate!”
Henry takes a good long draw of his cigar. “Fuck the FBI.”
“Oh, come on, you gotta be kidding me! We want Laura back, don’t we? They got contacts and shit — computers. They can track him down!”
“And then what? Arrest him? Lock him away somewhere nice and safe where he’ll get three square meals a day, Oprah and Doctor Phil on the TV? Pert little nurse with big tits giving him fuckin’ sponge baths?” Another lungful of smoke. “Ain’t going to happen. You and me both know Laura’s already dead. Yeah, she looks like butter wouldn’t melt, but I seen her kick the shit out of guys twice her size. Mr Jones taught her all that stuff we learned in basic training — ninety ways to kill a guy with your bare hands. No way some weirdo grabbed her and bundled her off in his shit-brown Winnebago. He’d have to kill her first.”
Henry takes the cigar from his mouth and stares at the glowing red tip. “This ain’t a search and rescue mission, Jack, this is revenge. We’re going to find this Sawbones asshole and we’re going to take him back to New York. Where Mr Jones will make sure he spends the last few months of his miserable life in a shit-heap of pain.”
I point the car west on the Interstate, coaxing it up to a lumbering fifty miles an hour. Damn engine sounds like it needs the last rites and a decent burial.
It’s a shame about Laura — she was a good kid. Smart. Bit kooky, but nice with it. I’ve known a lot of guys like Mr Jones, and their kids are always assholes. They see their dads with all this power and people afraid of them and shit, and they think they deserve some of that too, just ’cause they’re the boss’s son or daughter.
Laura was always like a normal person. And she’d make you coffee if her dad was on the phone or something and you had to wait. I liked her.
But Henry’s right — if this Sawbones guy has got her, she’s dead.
Chapter 8
Laura Jones — Not quite dead yet
It’s dark, and it’s raining. Again. Laura tries to get comfortable, but she can’t. The cable-ties dig into her wrists and ankles, not quite tight enough to cut off the blood, but tight enough to hurt. There are more cable-ties looped through her bonds and a set of rings bolted to the Winnebago’s floor, making sure she doesn’t go anywhere. Her head’s pounding. The gag doesn’t help much either.
She’s sitting with her back to the stove, rocking back and forth as the motor home bounces through yet another pothole. Trying to brace herself so the noose around her neck doesn’t choke her as the Bastard driving weaves his way along some God-forsaken back road.
Laura closes her eyes and tries to doze. Maybe if she can get some sleep she wouldn’t be too tired to come up with a plan.
A final lurch and the Winebago stops.
One of the other girls — with a bruised face, her eyes like something caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck, starts to cry. Her sobs are muffled by the gag. Not loud enough to drown out the sound of rain hammering on the roof.
There are four of them in here. Laura and three others. None of them much older than nineteen at a guess. All of them scared.
Up front, the Bastard is singing softly to himself — some sort of hymn — and then he pushes through the curtain hanging between the front seats and the living area. Click — and a pale, half-hearted light flickers through the back of the Winnebago.
The place is filthy, the carpet covered with dirt and stains that Laura doesn’t want to think about. Everything is a mess, the windows covered up with flattened cardboard boxes, held in place with duct tape. It smells of fear and sweat and piss.
Four young women and the Bastard.
He steps nimbly over the crying girl and reaches for the holdall on the table, making sure to steer well clear of Laura’s feet. Once kicked in the knee, twice shy. She tries to tell him exactly what her dad’s going to do to the Bastard when he catches him, but all that escapes the gag is, “Mmmmmgh mmmmmnt, mnnnninmmmmt!”
The Bastard smiles down at her, unzips the holdall and pulls the tazer out, waggling the thing at her. “Now, now. We don’t want to be electrocuted again, do we?”
New Jersey — Wednesday — Two days ago
Brian is such an asshole. Telling her he’s going to Harvard when they’re both supposed to be going to Yale. Asshole, asshole, asshole. She storms out of the cinema, throws her head back and shouts it out loud, “Brian James Anderson is an ASSHOLE!”
Harvard.
And he’s got the nerve to act all shocked when she pours her Diet Coke over his head.
She wipes a tear away with the heel of her hand. She’s not going to cry over him. He’s an asshole and a jerk and she wishes she’d never accepted his school pin. They were supposed to be going to Yale!
She stops on the sidewalk and holds up a hand as a yellow cab goes past. Son-of-a-bitch doesn’t even slow down. Men!
Of course, what she should do is call her dad, ask him to come pick her up, but then she’ll have to tell him why she isn’t getting a lift home. And he’ll ask her what’s wrong. And she’ll start to cry. And then Dad will probably get Henry to kick the crap out of her boyfriend. Not that Brian doesn’t deserve it. .