Corrie ignored the question. Soon the door closed and she lay there, alone once again, listening to the sounds of the television and the voices in the outer office. She tried to keep her breathing normal, tried to forget what Brad had said. One more year and she was out of this loser town, this butt-crack capital of Kansas. One more year. Then it was goodbye, Medicine Shit Creek. It occurred to her, for the millionth time, that if she hadn’t blown it in tenth grade she’d already be out of here. And now she had done it to herself again. Well, no use thinking about that.
The door to the outer office tinkled again. Someone new had come in. A conversation began in the outer office. Was it Tad, the deputy? Or her mother, sober for once? But no—the new arrival, whoever it was, spoke so softly that Corrie couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. The sheriff’s voice, on the other hand, took on a hard edge, but Corrie couldn’t make out the words over the blaring of the television set.
Eventually, she heard footsteps enter the back room.
“Swanson?”
It was the sheriff. She heard him draw heavily on his cigarette and smelled the fresh smoke. There was a rattle of keys, a click as her cell was unlocked. The rusty iron door creaked as it opened.
“You’re out of here.”
She didn’t move. Hazen’s voice sounded particularly thick. Something had made him mad.
“Someone just made your bail.”
Still she didn’t move. And the other voice spoke. It was low and soft, with an unfamiliar accent.
“Miss Swanson? You are free to leave.”
“Who are you?” she asked without turning around. “Did Mom send you?”
“No. I am Special Agent Pendergast of the FBI.”
God. It was that creepy-looking man in the undertaker’s getup she’d seen walking around town.
“I don’t need your help,” she said.
His voice still heavy with annoyance, Hazen said to Pendergast, “Maybe you should’ve saved your money and stayed out of local law enforcement business.”
But Corrie had grown curious despite herself. After a moment, she asked, “What’s the catch?”
“We’ll speak about it outside,” said Pendergast.
“So there isa catch. I can just imagine what it is, you pervert.”
Sheriff Hazen issued a burst of laughter that degenerated into a smoker’s hack. “Pendergast, what’d I tell you?”
Corrie remained curled on the folding bed. She wondered why this Pendergast was offering to bail her out. It was clear that Hazen didn’t particularly like Pendergast. She remembered a phrase: the enemy of your enemy is your friend. She sat up and looked around. There he was, the undertaker, arms folded, looking at her pensively. The little bulldog Hazen stood next to him, arms squared, scalp glistening under the thinning crew cut, razor rash on his face.
“So I can just get up and walk out of here?” she asked.
“If that’s what you want,” Pendergast replied.
She got up, brushed past the FBI agent, past the sheriff, and headed toward the door.
“Don’t forget your car keys,” called Hazen.
She paused in the door, turned, held out her hand. The sheriff was standing there, dangling them in his hand. He made no move to give them to her. She took a step forward and snatched them.
“Your car’s out back in the lot,” he said. “You can settle up the seventy-five-dollar towing fee later.”
Corrie opened the door and went outside. After the air-conditioned jail, it felt like walking into hot soup. Blinking against the glare, she made her way around the corner and down the alley to the little parking lot behind the sheriff’s office. There was her Gremlin, and there, leaning against it, was the pervert in the black suit. As she approached, he stepped forward and opened the door for her. She got in without a word and slammed the door behind her. Slipping the key into the ignition, she cranked the engine, and after turning over a few times it coughed into life, laying down a huge cloud of oily smoke. The man in black stepped away. She waited a moment, then leaned out the window.
“Thanks,” she said grudgingly.
“It was my pleasure.”
She pressed the accelerator and the car stalled. Shit.
She restarted it, revved a few times. More smoke poured out. The FBI man was still there. What the hell did he want? She had to admit, he didn’t really look like a pervert. Curiosity finally got the better of her and she leaned out the window once again.
“All right, Mr. Special Agent. What’s the catch?”
“I’ll tell you while you give me a lift back to Winifred Kraus’s place. That’s where I’m staying.”
Corrie Swanson hesitated, then opened the door. “Get in.” She swept a heap of McDonald’s trash off the passenger seat onto the floor. “I hope you’re not going to do something stupid.”
The FBI agent smiled and slid in beside her as smoothly as a cat. “You can trust me, Miss Swanson. Can I trust you?”
She looked at him. “No.”
She popped the clutch and peeled out of the parking lot, leaving behind a pall of oilsmoke and a nice ten-inch pair of tire marks on the sheriff’s asphalt. As she careened out of the alley and slewed onto the street, she was gratified to see the stumpy little sheriff tumble angrily out the door and start to shout something just as her black contrail obliterated him from view.
Eleven
The commercial district of Medicine Creek, Kansas, consisted of three dun-colored blocks of brick and wooden shopfronts. It took Corrie three, perhaps four heartbeats to reach its edge. As she jammed on the accelerator, the rusted frame of the Gremlin began to shake. There was a pile of some three dozen tapes littering the space between the front seats: her favorite death metal, dark ambient, industrial, and grindcore music. She riffled through them with one hand, passing over Discharge, Shinjuku Thief, and Fleshcrawl before finally selecting Lustmord. The dislocated, eldritch sounds of “Heresy, Part I” began to fill the small car. Her mother refused to let her play her music out loud in the house, so she’d retrofitted a tape player to the old Gremlin.
Speaking of her dear, nurturing parent, it was going to be a bitch going home. By now, her mother would be half drunk, half hungover—the worst combination. She decided she’d drop this Pendergast guy off at the old Kraus place, then go park under the powerlines and kill a few hours with a book.
She glanced over at the FBI man. “So, what’s with the black suit? Somebody die?”
“Like you, I’m rather partial to the color.”
She snorted. “What’s this catch you were talking about?”
“I need a car and driver.”
Corrie had to laugh. “What, me and my stretch AMC Gremlin?”
“I came by bus and I’m finding it rather inconvenient to be on foot.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. The muffler is shot, the thing goes through a quart of oil a week, there’s no AC, and the interior is so full of fumes I’ve got to keep the windows open, even in winter.”
“I propose compensation of a hundred dollars a day for the car and driver, plus a standard rate of thirty-one cents per mile for fuel and depreciation.”
A hundred bucks was more money than Corrie had ever seen at one time. This couldn’t be happening, it had to be some kind of bullshit. “If you’re a hotshot FBI special agent, where’s your own car and driver?”
“Since I’m technically on vacation, I haven’t been issued a car.”
“Yeah, but why me?”
“Quite simple. I need someone who knows Medicine Creek, who has a car, and has nothing better to do. You fit the bill. You’re no longer a minor, correct?”
“Just turned eighteen. But I’ve got another year of high school. And then I’m out of this Kansas shithole.”
“I hope to have concluded my work here long before school begins next month. The important thing is, you doknow Medicine Creek—don’t you?”
She laughed. “If hating is knowing. Have you thought about what the sheriff’s going to think about this arrangement?”