After Midnight (12 page)
I thumbed the safety back on, then reached over and set the pistol on the edge of the sink.
When I was done at the toilet, I pulled up my cut-offs and fastened the belt tight enough to keep them from falling down. Instead of putting the pistol into my back pocket, I slipped it into the right front pocket. That way, it would be easier to take out.
Then I washed my hands.
There was a mirror above the sink.
I hardly recognized myself. My hair looked strange—damp, ropey and coiled. My face was shiny with oils and sweat. The afternoon in the sun had turned it a dark, coppery color. My eyes looked all wrong—the whites too white, the gaze too intense.
I looked a little mad, a little wild.
Like someone well suited for bloody work.
I washed my hands with hot water, using the nice soap. When I finished, my hands smelled like spring flowers. I rinsed my face with cold water. I cupped some water to my mouth, and had a few swallows.
After drying, I used the towel to wipe the faucet and toilet handles and the light switch. I put the towel back on its bar, then shut off the light with the edge of my hand. Standing in the dark, I slipped my hand under the front of my shirt and grabbed the doorknob to let myself out.
“Ready?” Judy asked.
“All set,” I told her.
Our beer mugs were gone.
Along with my fingerprints!
Smiling, I said, “You cleaned up already?”
“Yeah. I hate coming back to a mess. Did you want your mug?”
“I just thought I might have a drink of water.”
“It’s already washed, but I’ll get you a clean one.”
Already washed!
“Never mind,” I said, pleasantly relieved. “We’d better go.”
“Are you sure? It wouldn’t be any trouble.”
“Yeah. Hey, I’d just end up having to pee again.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s go.”
Judy walked in front of me. I followed her toward the door, the pistol swinging in my pocket, rubbing against my thigh. She opened the door, then stepped aside.
I went out into the hallway. Nobody was there.
Judy came after me, using the outside knob to pull the door shut. Then she gave it a couple of twists and shoves to make sure the door was locked.
Which took care of any prints I might’ve left on the knob. Side by side, not saying a word, we walked down the silent hall to the foyer. There, she whispered, “Where’d you park Tony’s car?”
“In the lot.”
“
This
lot?”
“Yeah.”
“You found an empty space for it?”
“I put it in L. Is that okay?”
“Fine. That’s right next to mine.”
As we hurried down the stairway, she said, “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we leave it there and take my car?”
“Are you sure you want to?” I asked.
What does this do to my plan?
Not that I actually
had
a plan anymore.
“This whole business is pretty hairy,” she said. “Going to the woods at this time of night. I’d just rather be doing it in my own car. At least I can be pretty sure it won’t break down on us.”
“Fine by me,” I said. “You drive.”
“You point the way.”
We came out of the stairwell into the parking lot.
Nobody else seemed to be around.
My loafers clopped loudly on the concrete floor. Judy’s sneakers were nearly silent.
“If we find Tony,” she said, “we’ll bring him back here so he can drive himself home. Unless he needs emergency treatment.”
“There’s his car,” I said, pointing at it.
“Yeah.”
It looked just fine sitting there. A few shiny drops of water sparkled on the trunk and rear bumper, but I saw nothing to worry about.
“That’s a good place for it,” Judy said. “Nobody ever parks there but guests. It can stay right where it is for a few days, if he needs to be hospitalized or something.”
“I don’t really think he’ll need to be hospitalized,” I told her.
“Exciting, isn’t it?” Judy said as we reached the top of the driveway ramp.
“What is?” I asked.
“This. Going out like this.” She swung her car onto the road and picked up speed. “I never go anywhere this late at night. I’m almost always asleep by now.”
“Me, too,” I said, but I wasn’t really paying attention.
I was preoccupied, just then, with my feelings of relief. Now that we’d left the apartment building behind us, I was finally free of Tony.
I mean
free!
He and his car were
gone!
Adios, toot-toot, bye-bye!
I would never go near them again, and nobody would ever find out what I’d done.
Not even Judy.
I looked over at her. She kept turning her head, glancing around like an eager tourist. There wasn’t much to see, though, unless you’re fascinated by empty streets, porch lights and darkness.
“It
is
exciting to be out like this,” I told her.
“Sort of spooky, too,” she said.
“If you think it’s spooky now, wait till we get to the woods.”
“I can hardly wait.”
“Do you know how to get there?” I asked.
“I can find Miller’s Woods all right, but I’m not sure about the turn-off to the picnic area. How about you?”
“I’m pretty sure where it is.”
We were nearing the business district, so I said, “You’d better not take Central. When I came through, there were some unsavory characters hanging around.”
“We can do without unsavory characters,” she said.
A block short of Central, she turned onto the same street I’d used earlier. It looked deserted.
“The fewer people see us,” I said, “the better.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Two gals by themselves.”
“Are you trying to scare me?”
“We just have to be careful, that’s all. You never know who might be out there.”
“Most people are all right,” Judy said.
“Not the sort who are cruising the roads at this hour.”
“We are.”
“We’re the exception. Anyway, it only takes one lunatic to spoil the night.”
“You’re a regular cockeyed optimist,” she said.
“That’s me.”
“Maybe instead of a lunatic, we’ll run into a wonderful, charming stranger.”
“Run over one?”
“
Into
.” She turned her head and smiled at me. “You’re a trouble maker.”
“Yep.”
“I know ’em when I see ’em. I’m one, too.”
“You? A trouble maker? You seem like such a
nice
girl.”
“I’m that, too.”
“How can you be nice
and
a trouble maker?”
“I make benign mischief.”
Normally, I might’ve laughed at that. It was a pretty cute thing to say,
benign mischief
. But it almost made me cry.
Here Judy was, out in the middle of the night on a mission of mercy. Having herself an
adventure
. She’s nervous but excited and having fun, saying cute stuff, and she doesn’t have the slightest inkling that I’m going to leave her dead in the woods.
It was awfully sad if you think about it.
And I couldn’t
help
but think about it, riding along in the car with her.
On her last ride.
Too bad she wasn’t an ugly, snotty, miserable bitch. Then I wouldn’t have felt so bad.
“Are you okay?” she asked after a while.
“I guess so.”
“You’re kind of quiet. Worrying about lunatics?”
“Sure am.”
“Well, I think we’ll be perfectly safe as long as we stay in the car. We really shouldn’t need to get out, I don’t think.”
“Maybe not,” I agreed. “Depending on Tony.”
“With any luck, we’ll find him walking along the roadside before we even have to go into the woods.”
“I sure hope so,” I said.
But I didn’t really think it stood much chance of happening.
We were nearly to the town limits when Judy said, “Uh-oh.”
“What?”
“Here comes your lunatic, now.”
“Very funny.” Twisting sideways, I looked out the rear window and saw a pair of headlights in the distance.
“Man,” Judy said, “he’s really barreling down on us.”
“Just drive normal,” I told her. “Don’t speed up or anything. It might be a cop.”
“That’d be fine by me.”
The car bore down on us, full speed.
“What the hell is he
doing?
” Judy blurted.
The headbeams surged in through the windows and glared off our rearview mirror.
“God!” Judy cried out. “He’s going to ram us!”
But he didn’t.
At the last instant, the car swerved to our left.
It started to roar past us, then slowed enough to match our speed.
It wasn’t a cop car.
Cops don’t drive Cadillacs. Not in Chester, they don’t. Not in any town I’ve ever heard of. This thing looked like a giant old gas-gulping monster that belonged in a junk yard, not on the road. A real old clunker, but its engine sounded
hot
.
As it tooled along beside us, the guys checked us out.
Two of them.
Judy gave them a glance, then turned her face straight forward.
I was leaning toward the dashboard so I could look past her. I had a lousy view of the driver, but the one in the passenger seat looked like a tough guy. He stared back at us. He looked all of about eighteen years old and had a crew cut. A cig dangled off his lips. He wasn’t wearing a shirt.
“Real charming,” Judy said quietly, as if addressing the windshield.
“Don’t do anything. Don’t even look at them.” As I gave that advice, I settled back into my seat and stopped looking at them myself.
A few seconds later, the car sped past us and swerved into our lane, barely missing our front bumper. Judy hit the brakes. As I was thrown forward, she flung an arm across my chest. Her arm didn’t stop me, but my hands did. I slammed them against the dashboard.
The Cadillac pulled away from us.
“You okay?” Judy asked.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“Bastards,” she muttered.
We were moving along at a crawl.
The Cadillac kept going, gaining speed, and soon vanished around a bend in the road.
Judy gave us a little gas. As we picked up speed, she took a deep breath. Then she said, “Maybe you’d better put on your seatbelt.”
“Not me.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t use them. I’ll take my chances with the windshield.”
“Yeah?” She gave me a look, but there wasn’t enough light in the car to see whether she was smiling, smirking, frowning, or something else. “I’ll keep mine on,” she said. “Safety first.”
“No faith in your own driving?” I asked.
She laughed.
We glided around the bend. Ahead of us, the road was dark except for the moonlight. No sign of the Cadillac.
“You think they’re gone?” Judy asked.
“Looks that way,” I said. “But things aren’t always how they look.”
“I guess they were just fooling around.”
“Looks that way.”
“Could’ve gotten ugly. Maybe this wasn’t such a hot idea, after all.”
“What?” I asked.
“Coming out to look for Tony. I mean, what if those two guys had gotten
serious
?”
“Do you want to call it off and go back?”
She didn’t answer for a few seconds. Then she said, “I guess if they’d meant to nail us, they would’ve done it.”
“Probably.”
“Probably just wanted to give us a thrill.”
“As long as they don’t show up again,” I said, “we might as well keep going. We’re more than halfway there.”
“Gone past the point of no return?”
“Yep.”
“Gotta keep going, then.”
“You and me, babe.”
She turned her head toward me. Again, I couldn’t see her expression. She said, “Can you imagine what a couple of guys like that might do if they got their hands on Tony?”
“On
Tony?
”
“Yeah.”
“Wouldn’t be pretty.”
“I’d like to be there to see it,” Judy said.
“Whoa! What kind of talk is that? We’re on a mission to rescue the guy!”
“That doesn’t mean I wish him a full and rewarding life of health and happiness. Not after what he did to me. And to
you
, for that matter. It’d be sort of neat to see him really get creamed by a couple of punks.”
“I did a pretty good job on him,” I said.
“But just think what a couple of punks like that might do.”
“You shock me, Judy. I am truly shocked.”
“Sure you are.”
“Now, give me a clue. Why exactly
are
we driving out here to rescue him?”
“Good question.”
“Maybe we
should
turn back.”
“Nah,” she said. “Can’t.”
“Why not?”
“It’s my fault he’s out here tonight. I’m the one who made him nuts. He wasn’t a bad guy before I made him crazy. It’s my fault he beat
me
up, and it’s my fault he attacked
you
.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it’s true. I got him into this mess, so I’ve now gotta help him get out.”
“Whether you want to or not.”
“Yeah, sort of. No, I want to. I mean, we had a lot of great times together. Before he went off the deep end.”
“You just feel sorry for him.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I was in love with him. That sort of thing…I can’t just pretend it never happened. He was the most important thing in my life for a while. The things we did…they’re all part of me, and always will be…in spite of everything else.”
“You’re nuts,” I said.
She laughed softly. “Think so?”
“Yeah. You sound like you’re
still
in love with him.”
“Maybe with the way he used to be.”
“Well, that guy’s gone forever.”
“I know. It can never be the same. But still, I owe him. For the good times, and because this crazy stuff happened because of me.”
“You gonna kiss and make up with him?”
She let out a sharp laugh. “No way!”
“Yep. And you’ll take him back to your place…supposedly so he can pick up his car. But before you know it, you’ll be asking him in for a beer. Maybe a coffee. Then wham! You’re all over each other.”
