I tried to raise my right hand but couldn’t. I rolled my head over to the side and found out why. Junior was holding me down against the bar. I couldn’t move, couldn’t fight, nothing. My life kept slipping away, my blood being sucked out of me, down into Bert’s cold, white body. This wasn’t fair. I didn’t want to die. Not like this. “Please stop,” I whispered.
Pearl stopped chanting long enough to say, “Not yet. Not yet.”
“Please don’t,” I said. Cold lethargy settled through my limbs, anchoring my body to the smooth finished wood of the bar. I wished Misty would say something, anything, now; I didn’t care what they did to her. But I couldn’t see where she was. The reality of the situation hit me hard. No one was going to save me. I realized with an absolute certainty that I was going to die; I was going to die, my blood stolen, drop by drop. I had to think fast. But my mind was a blank gray slate. Nothing.
Pearl resumed chanting, cutting away at Bert.
My blood kept sliding away, my unforgiving, betraying heartunknowingly pumping it out of my arm, down the greasy tubing. Something sparked in my mind, fizzled quietly. I blurted out, “I know where the buckle is.”
Silence filled the restaurant.
“Bullshit,” Junior said.
I sensed Pearl watching me, so I said, “I know where it is. I know where Fat Ernst hid it. I watched him.”
“Is that so,” Pearl said quietly.
“He hid it in one of the hamburgers,” I whispered. “I saw him.”
“In the hamburgers?” Pearl asked.
“Yes, I saw it.”
“Well,” Junior said, “thanks for the tip, Archie. We appreciate it.”
I spoke fast, feeling a faint numbness creeping through my body. “Kill me and you’ll never find it.” That got their attention. “It’s not in the fridge. I put the meat somewhere else.”
Pearl grabbed my chin, jerking my head over so I was staring into her melted-wax face. “Where is it?”
I stared her dead in the eye and repeated, “Kill me and you’ll never find it.” Pulling my right arm out of Junior’s grip, I reached over and yanked the needle out.
Pearl looked down at Bert. She reached out and touched his neck, feeling for a pulse. After a moment, she said, “He’s back with us.” She turned her attention back to me and nodded. “He’s alive but just barely. You show us where the buckle is, and we’ll let you go.” She said evenly, “If I find out you’re lying, I’m gonna cut off your dick and choke you with it. Then I’ll feed you to the worms. Understood?”
I nodded. “And if I give you the buckle, you’ll let me and Misty go.”
Junior grinned when I mentioned Misty.
Pearl said, “Of course.”
“Okay. I’ll give it to you. But I’m gonna need gloves, a plank out of the wall over there, your snow shovel, and a shitload of duct tape.”
CHAPTER 31
Junior shouldered his way through the dangling insulation and splintered wall back into the restaurant, stomping across the Cadillac’s hood, carrying what I needed. He pulled me off the bar and held me up as my legs found the strength to stand. I swayed back and forth, dizzy from the loss of blood, feeling empty somehow. I looked up, found Misty watching me carefully from her place in the booth. We locked eyes for a brief instant, but it was enough. Enough for her to wink, slowly, deliberately. Enough to know that she was worried about me, that she was with me.
“Where is it?” Junior asked, clamping his fist around the back of my neck.
“Out back,” I gasped, and felt my feet almost lifted off the floor as Junior marched me along, slamming my face into the swinging kitchen door. He shoved me into the stove, hard enough to drive the air out of my chest in one quick rush. I watched the tiny blue pilot light dance and disappear. Before I had a chance to take another breath, Junior yanked open the back door and threw me out onto the loading dock. I hit the wet wood and rolled to the edge, nearly falling into the open Dumpster.
The rain was still falling. I put one hand on the metal edge of the Dumpster. It was almost completely filled with black rainwater. Several dark lumps floated at the scummy surface. I pushed myself to my feet, scanning the horizon frantically for any signs of help. Nothing but water and the distant trees lining the freeway. Another foot and the water would be washing over the loading dock. Everything, as far as I could see, was under at least three or four feet of floodwater, leaving a surging brown landscape of foam, trash, and floating cornstalks.
And somewhere down there, down in the cold water and mud, the worms waited.
Junior smoothed his pompadour back and stepped closer. “Where is it?”
I tilted my head at the Dumpster. “In there.”
Junior shook his head, dropped the plank onto the dock, and tossed the gloves and duct tape at me. While I got ready, the water got higher, rising another three, four inches. In about an hour or so it was going to wash over the loading dock and into the restaurant, covering the floor. I stood at the edge of the loading dock, looking down into the Dumpster. My arms were wrapped with several layers of duct tape from my shoulders down to my wrists. Huge leather gloves encased my hands, floppy leather fingers sticking out at least two to three inches from the tips of my fingers.
Junior waited impatiently on the other side of the shovel, arms crossed, ignoring the rain that ran through his hair and left greasy trails down his face. Pearl waited in the doorway, out of the rain. She said she didn’t want the rain ruining her makeup. But she kept a tight grip on Misty’s leash.
Misty watched silently from near the doorway.
I hoped my guess about the buckle was right. At first, I had thought that Fat Ernst would have hidden it in his Cadillac, but that would have been too obvious. Then, at the last second, I remembered the glint of something shiny peeking through the raw hamburger meat when I dumped the boxes in the Dumpster. It was time to find out.
I dropped the plank across the Dumpster, shook it to make sure it would hold, and eased out over the black water. I’d wrapped duct tape around my boots and legs, up my knees, as well. I was hoping it would be enough to stop the worms from chewing through to my skin but had no way of knowing whether it would work. I inched out to the center of the plank, keeping my butt planted firmly on the splintered wood, legs splayed, feet braced against the top of the Dumpster walls.
Junior handed me the shovel and said, “You got five minutes, zipperhead. After that, no buckle … no more nice safe seat.” He put his boot on the edge of the plank and gave it a little shove to demonstrate.
I held the shovel on my lap, taking several deep breaths. The stench coming out of the Dumpster reminded me of Slim’s pit. Actually, the two places weren’t too different. Both were full of rainwater, rotting meat, and the goddamn worms. Except this Dumpster was worse. There wasn’t just rotting meat under that water; Heck’s body was somewhere down there too. I didn’t want to think about what the worms had done to him. So I held my breath, got a good, solid grasp on the handle, and slowly sank the tip of the blade into the thick black water.
Instantly, thousands of tiny worms rose to the surface. It was worse than I had thought. Not only had Heck’s body been infested with the worms, the meat from the boxes was also full of them. There had been plenty of food, plenty of water, and plenty of time. And now the Dumpster was literally teeming with thousands, maybe millions of worms. My skin started to crawl, and it was all I could do not to drop the shovel and roll back onto the loading dock.