Bedbugs (42 page)

He pressed down on the accelerator, and the car leaped forward, rapidly closing the distance between them. Angelo stared with cold-eyed hostility at the tall, swaying stack of hay bales on the truck bed, earnestly praying that the precariously balanced load would spill out onto the road as soon as they were past. As Mark came up close behind the truck, he eased out toward the center line and clicked on the turn signal, indicating his intention to pass.

Suddenly he shouted, “Jesus Christ!” and his foot came up off the accelerator. The car slowed down, dropping back rapidly.

“You gonna pass the mother fucker or what?” Angelo asked, narrowing his gaze as he turned to look at the driver.

“Jesus Christ,” Mark repeated, softer now as he held the steering wheel tightly with one hand and, staring gape-mouthed, pointed at the truck just as it crested the hill.

“What the—? Did you see that?”

“Yeah, so what? The asshole’s got his truck overloaded,” Angelo said. “Looks to me like he’s gonna spill the whole fuckin’ load all over the road. I’d either hurry up and pass him or hang way the hell back if I was you.”

The truck rapidly pulled away from them as Mark slowed down. He was gnawing on his lower lip as he looked back and forth between his passenger and the road ahead.

“No! No! It wasn’t that at all!” he said. His voice was twisted up high and tight, and his eyes were round and bulging with surprise. “No, it was—I thought I saw . . . something.”

Rather than say more, Mark stepped down hard on the accelerator again and sped up to catch up with the truck, which was now gaining speed on the down slope. When they were less than fifty feet behind it, Mark pointed and said softly, “Look! There! Between those hay bales on the left side.”

Angelo squinted as he leaned forward; then he almost shouted aloud when he saw a hand—a naked, pale, motionless human hand sticking out from between two of the hay bales.

“Jesus Christ. Well what d’yah know?” Angelo said. His voice was faint and flat; he hoped it registered at least a bit of surprise.

“For Christ’s sake! What the fuck are we gonna do?” Mark asked. He kept flicking his eyes over at Angelo, worry and concern etched all over his face.

“What do you mean, what are we gonna do?” Angelo said. This was far from the first time he had seen a dead person—or a dead person’s hand. “We ain’t gonna do a goddamned thing about it.”

“But there’s—”

“Could be just one of the hayseed’s gloves stuck between the bales. That’s probably what it is.”

“No. That sure as hell looks like a real hand to me,” Mark replied, not taking his eyes off the swaying load in the back of the truck.

“Well, I’ll tell you this,” Angelo said in a pleasant but forceful drawl. “We’re gonna head to the nearest gas station so I can get a wrecker back out to my car before dark. I have—” He cleared his throat noisily. “I have an important meeting back at the home office tomorrow morning, and I ain’t about to piss my time away on bullshit like this.”

“But that person—What if that’s a
dead
person in the back of that truck? What if they—I don’t know. What if they had a passenger back there, and they don’t even know something’s happened?”

“Who the fuck would be stupid enough to ride in the back of a truck in weather like this?”

“Then what if—what if those guys have killed someone. What if they’re taking the body someplace to get rid of it? We can’t just—just ignore it! What if—”

“
What if nothing!
” Angelo said, squeezing his gloved hands into tight fists that made his leather gloves creak.

For once in his life, he wished he carried a gun so he could threaten this man to do what he wanted him to do. But that would be foolish. He had to get—and maintain—control of this situation.

“I don’t have either the time or the inclination to get involved in anything like this. I think it looks like a glove, but even if there is some dead guy in the back of that truck, big fucking deal! It don’t concern me or you!”

“But what if—”

“Stop it with the
what ifs!
For all you know, these might be guys you don’t want to be messin’ with,” Angelo said, adding just a touch of menace to his voice.

Mark glanced at his passenger, obviously trying to gauge just how dangerous he might be. Then, when he saw the truck up ahead slowing down for a left-hand turn, he pulled to a stop on the side of the road. Gritting his teeth, he took a deep, controlled breath, then let it out slowly and said, “Look, Frank, I have to follow that truck—at least to see where they’re going. I think there’s a gas station a mile or two up the road from here. You can walk or hitchhike to it if you want.”

The sun was low on the horizon, and the sky was deepening to a rich purple. It was going to be dark soon. Angelo considered how ball-busting cold it was outside; then he grunted. “Too fucking bad you don’t have a cell phone,” he said. He settled back in the car seat, thinking—
Okay let this do-gooder find out what’s going on; then I’ll be rid of him.

“I swear to God,” Mark said, gripping the steering wheel with both hands, tracking the overloaded truck as it moved down the long stretch of country road. “This isn’t a main road or anything, so they can’t be going far. Just let me follow them to see where they’re going. Then—I swear to God—I’ll drive you to the gas station. You can get a wrecker to pick up your car, and I can call the cops from there. I can’t ignore something like this. I at least have to find out where they’re going.”

Angelo smiled grimly and said, “Okay, then. Better step on it, though. You don’t want to lose them, do you?”

With a loud squealing of tires, Mark cut across the main road and sped after the pickup truck. Fighting back a hot surge of anger, Angelo settled back in the car seat, wishing to hell someone else—anyone else—had stopped to help him. Then again, what could he expect out here in the boondocks like this?

4:29 p.m.

“E
nd of the line, Markie-boy,” Angelo said when he saw the pickup truck slow for a turn into a driveway. “Now turn around and let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Both he and Mark stared down the one-lane dirt drive lined with snow-covered pines and high, dirt-streaked snowplow ridges.

Mark braced his hands on the steering wheel as he pulled a quick U-turn across the road and then stopped the car, opposite the driveway entrance. His face was pinched tight with concentration as he looked down the darkening, tree-lined alley.

“You don’t think we should check it out first?” he asked. “Just to make sure?”

Angelo shook his head tightly and said, “No, I don’t. I think you should get your and my asses out of here.” He looked thoughtfully down the driveway and added, “You have no idea what you might be getting yourself into.”

Mark gnawed on his lower lip while he considered. Then, after glancing up and down the road, he sucked in a deep breath and turned off the ignition. Pocketing the keys, he snapped open the car door and put one foot out onto the road.

“Then you can sit here and wait while I check it out,” he said. “I can’t just ignore something like this.” He stared a moment at the screen of pine trees that blocked his view of whatever was down that road; then he glanced at his wristwatch. “I won’t be more than fifteen minutes.”

“The fuck you will!”

Angelo checked himself from hinging across the seat and grabbing Mark by the collar to force him back behind the steering wheel. With the heater turned off and the door open, cold air invaded the car, probing like icy fingers under Angelo’s coat collar and down his back. He couldn’t repress the shiver that wracked his body.

“Look, man,” Mark said in a trembling voice. “I don’t know where the fuck you’re coming from, but
something
. . . something
really
weird is going on here, and I have to check it out.” Again, he glanced down the driveway. “You can either sit here and freeze your ass off, or you can come with me.”

Angelo tempered his response and, smiling thinly, said, “Or you could leave the car running so I can have some heat.”

Mark smiled thinly and shook his head. “Look, Frank, I’m not exactly saying that I don’t trust you, but what’s to stop you from driving off once I’m gone?”

Angelo’s thin smile widened. “Nothing at all—except my word.”

“Why don’t you just come with me,” Mark said. “Look, we don’t have to go straight down the driveway. We can cut across that field there and stay in the woods the whole time. No one’s gonna see us if we keep to the woods.”

“You got a description of the truck and where it is. Why not just give that to the cops and forget about it?”

“‘Cause I have to see what the hell they’re up to,” Mark answered.

“You’re full of shit, you know that?” Angelo said, shivering wildly inside his coat.

He wondered which would be colder, sitting here in an unheated car or traipsing through the woods with this asshole do-gooder. After a moment, he decided that, at least if he was walking he might work up enough of a sweat to stay warm. Looking warily up at the darkening sky, he nodded slowly.

“Okay,” he said as he clicked open his door. “I’ll take a little pleasure walk with you.” He got out and slammed the car door shut. Glaring at Mark across the car roof, he jabbed a gloved forefinger at him and said, “But we’re talking fifteen minutes, tops. I ain’t about to get myself lost in the fucking woods, not with night coming on.”

Mark nodded agreement, and the two of them dashed across the road. They walked no more than fifty feet up the driveway before darting into the snow-filled woods. As soon as they were out of sight in the woods, Angelo wished for the dozenth time this afternoon that he was packing a gun so he could waste this jerk. He could take the asshole’s car, get back in Philly, and ditch the car at some chop shop long before anyone would miss the sorry bastard.

But he didn’t have a gun; so instead, he trudged through ankle-deep snow, all the while silently cursing himself for being a fool. If he was going to be walking in the cold, he should be heading to the nearest gas station. At least there wasn’t much snow under the trees; it was sheltered and did feel a bit warmer than it probably would have been in the car.

“I think I see a building over there,” Mark said, crouching behind a tree and pointing off to his right. Angelo looked in the direction Mark was pointing and shrugged when he saw the dark bulk of a barn and an unoccupied farmhouse. A single bare lightbulb glowed inside the barn. The overloaded pickup truck was backed up and parked in front of the barn door.

“Great,” Angelo said. “You’ve seen where they were going. Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“Just a minute. I want to see what they’re doing in there.”

“You know,” Angelo said, “did it even occur to you that it might not have been what you thought it was?”

Mark turned and regarded him with one raised eyebrow.

“I mean, now that I think about it, I ain’t so sure I saw any hand. For Christ’s sake! For all I know, it could have been a piece of rope or a feed bag or something.”

“All the more reason to check it out, then, don’t you think?” Mark said. “I’d feel kind of foolish, getting the police involved if that really
wasn’t
a hand.” He straightened up and began moving carefully between the trees, angling his way over toward the barn. “You coming or not?”

Angelo glanced back the way they had come, then followed a pace or two behind Mark as they moved in a direction that would take them out behind the barn. When they were halfway there, they heard the sound of grinding gears and the irregular sputter of the truck’s engine. Mark pointed to the overloaded truck as it started backing up into the wide-open barn doors.

“I’ll bet there’s a window or an opening out back where we can see what’s going on inside,” Mark said.

Angelo scowled and considered leaving the jerk behind and heading back to the car to wait; but he sucked in a deep breath and followed, mentally cursing both himself and Mark for fools.

They crouched in the fringe of pine trees that backed the barn and spent a minute or two studying the battered, ship-gray structure. It was old and weathered, the shingles looking like slabs of slate. It looked as though the next strong gust of wind would knock the damned thing over. In the gathering gloom, the barn had a hulking, dark presence that bothered Angelo. For some unaccountable reason, he imagined that indeed the barn was barely supported, and it could come crashing down on top of both him and Mark at any moment.

“So, Frank”—Mark whispered—”what do you think?”

From inside the barn, they could hear the chugging of the pickup truck, muffled voices of men talking, and heavy thumping sounds as the men tossed the hay bales to the ground. The surrounding woods were perfectly silent except for the faint hiss of wind in the pines high overhead. Angelo shivered, thinking how he could have been comfortably seated at The North Pier in Boston by now, eating a seafood dinner if that goddamned rental car hadn’t quit on him.

“You want to take a peek through that window there?” Mark asked, indicating a small, dark rectangle on the backside of the barn. Most of the panes had been painted out, but on the lower left side was a hole about the size of a golf ball, through which filtered the mellow yellow glow of light.