She shifted on the bed; her ass felt raw — bedsores, possibly. Today was Thursday — tonight was Thursday; it was dark out the cabin windows (when it was light, there was nothing to see but snow and trees). She was dressed just as she had been Sunday when she’d been shanghaied: bulky lavender turtleneck sweater and matching cords; her suede boots were under the bed — she wasn’t sure what became of her gold jewelry. She was sitting up, pillow behind her, her left hand cuffed to one thick rung of the bed’s maple headboard. The arm was sore and stiff, particularly her shoulder, which ached; her whole upper back ached, as a matter of fact. Sleeping that way, as she had for four nights now, was awful; the first night, she’d kept waking herself up, turning in her sleep only to yank her own chain — but she was used to it now. She had been here forever, after all.
The square room had two single beds, separated by a bed stand on which was a phone; and at the root of the other bed was a small rabbit-eared TV on a stand. Over at the right was the only door, and just left of the door, catercorner from where she lay, was a little off-white kitchenette area, the only part of the room that wasn’t dark-yellowish-varnished knotty pine. Just opposite her was the bathroom. To her left was a window, nailed shut.
On the bed stand, near that teasing phone, was a Sony Walkman with assorted tapes: the Cars, David Bowie, Billy Idol, Tears for Fears and (perhaps most appropriately) Simple Minds. That Lyle listened to such tapes first amazed, then amused, and finally depressed her. She had tried to engage him in a conversation about Bowie, and Lyle had said, “I like some oldies.” Further observations about the music he listened to included liking the beat and a “smooth” sound and “It has a cool video.” Lyle was born to rate records on American Bandstand.
In fact, Lyle was “bummed out” (a leftover hippie phrase that seemed oddly anachronistic, coming from the lips of this eighties Li’l Abner) that the cabin’s “tube” didn’t get MTV. No cable out here in the country, no satellite dish either apparently; just rabbit ears. Nonetheless, Lyle seemed able to settle into soap operas and game shows, during the day, and sitcoms and cop shows in the evening, his stupidly handsome face impassive as he watched the moving images on the screen, often while listening to his own alternative track on his Sony Walkman — The Cosby Show with Billy Idol voice-over, Hill Street Blues starring the Cars.
He had not been mean to her. He did not seem to have a mean bone in his body (nor a brain in his head, but at least he wasn’t sadistic). Her first thought, upon waking handcuffed to a bed, with the two men standing at the foot of it staring at her, was rape.
But Lyle hadn’t touched her. The other one had felt her up some, pretending to just be moving her around — nothing overt. This one was Lyle’s “pa,” an almost handsome, white-haired, blue-eyed apparition; he was in his sixties, this one, a frightening son of a bitch with a gentle, charming smile through which shone the intelligence — and sadism — his son lacked. She had only seen him once, that first night, but the threat of him hung over her captivity like a rustic cloud. Lyle, who spoke with his pa on the phone every few hours, was in the old man’s sway, obedient as a well-trained dog and nearly as smart.
That first night had been the worst, or close to it. Her anger ran a race with her fear and came in a close second. She had all but snarled at the old man at the foot of the bed: “What the hell is this about?”
And Lyle’s pa had leaned a hand over and patted her leg; she kicked at his hand, but he anticipated it and pulled it away and smiled sweetly at her. “This is about your boyfriend, honey. And you go kickin’ people, and you’ll wind up with your feet cuffed, too. Mind your manners, hear?”
She heard; she heard bloodcurdling insanity and rage churning under his phony milk-of-human-kindness tone. She knew immediately that Nolan was in at least as much trouble as she was.
“If your man loves you, honey,” said Lyle’s pa, “you’ll be just fine. You’re gonna have to camp out with us for a few days, is all. We’ll treat you right. Just don’t you make a fuss.”
“Nolan will...” she started, then thought better of it.
“Kill us?” Lyle’s pa smiled. “I hardly think so.” He walked around the side of the bed and put a surprisingly smooth palm against her cheek, smiled at her, as demented as a TV preacher. “We got something that’s precious to him. He’s gonna do just like we say.” Some edge came into the voice: “And so are you, honey. So are you.”
“How... how long will I be here?”
“A few days, darlin’.”
“A few days.”
“Thursday. Make yourself to home. Don’t cause trouble. Be a good girl.”
The old man had soon left, and she was in the company of the good-looking boy. He had been polite.
“Pa says you can go to the bathroom,” he said, “long as you don’t overdo it. We got supplies here. There’s a microwave.” That meant frozen dinners, as it turned out; three a day (breakfast was scrambled eggs and sausage but in the little frozen-dinner format). At first she could barely look at the stuff, let alone stomach it; she soon learned to do both.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked Lyle, looking for humanity in this empty-headed hunk.
“Pa told me to.”
This turned out to be a standard reply. Discussion of morality and ethics with Lyle was about as fruitful as exploring theology with a bust of Darwin (who would have appreciated Lyle, who single-handedly proved the theory of evolution).
Helplessness hit her in waves. She couldn’t get through to this autistic twerp, and she felt sure that when the father showed back up, she’d be in deep, deep shit for the opposite reason: the father was smart. And crazy.
And he hated Nolan. She came to know that for a fact later on, but she sensed it from the beginning. She smelled revenge in this. This wasn’t just about forcing Nolan into some heist. It was about getting back at him.
Lyle, on the second day, admitted that. She’d had to ask him again and again, and Lyle had winced at her persistence and retreated to his Walkman headphones; but later, when he was getting lunch in the kitchenette (minus the Walkman — he couldn’t microwave and listen to music at the same time), she started in again and finally he said: “Your boyfriend killed my uncle and two of my cousins. He’s a bad man, your boyfriend.”
She was dead. That was her death sentence, and Nolan’s. Unless he could find, her, somehow — but how? She was out in the boonies somewhere — the state police and a fleet of helicopters couldn’t have found her. And even if they could, Nolan wouldn’t go to them. This was out of his old life: he couldn’t go to the police. And she wasn’t sure she wanted him to: these creatures would kill her, if he went to the police. Like swatting a bug.
She had cried, then; heaving sobs. She didn’t care if the boy heard her — she’d cried the night before, from pain, from fear, but some light of hope and dignity had made her stifle the sounds, not wanting her snoring captor in the next bed to be wakened by her despair, not wanting to let him know, let them know, that they had beaten her down so soon, so easily.
But now that she knew human emotions barely seemed to register with Lyle, she just let go: the tears, the sobs, racked her body. It was a relief, in a way, and as the crying jag subsided she felt better, and a fire within her began fanning itself, bringing her back to life.