Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet (19 page)

Terry unlocked the Bug’s driver’s-side door and hauled it open. Waited patiently for Tilly to climb behind the wheel. Then he slammed the door shut and walked around to the passenger-side. Climbed inside and shook himself dry like a wet dog. Rain pelted the car roof in a white noise roar. He placed the knife in his lap, the blade jutting from his crotch like a razor-sharp dildo. He held out his hand and offered Tilly the car keys. When she reached to take them, he teased his hand back. “Now we got us a deal, right?”

“You’ll let me go?”

Earnest as a politician, he said: “You hold up your end, I will.”

Tilly nodded.

He gave her the keys.

A deep breath, and then she slid the key into the ignition and turned it.

Betsy Bug grumbled awake and the radio crackled to life: “—authorities warn that Terrence LeRoy Hingle, who escaped earlier tonight from the Pine Grove State Hospital after killing several orderlies, is highly dangerous and should not be approached by the public—”

Hingle snapped off the radio.

“Well,” he said, “that’s the cat out of the bag.”

Until then, Tilly felt she was holding up remarkably well. She’d almost managed to convince herself that if she just did what he told her this would all soon be over. But she recognized the name Terrence Hingle at once. What had the papers called him? “The Sorority Slayer.” Mom had followed the Kappa Pi Massacre with ghoulish relish. She’d watched every TV crime show; read every lurid tabloid paperback. It was almost as if the brutal murder of those sorority girls was the only thing keeping her alive. “See?” she’d once said to Tilly. “I hadn’t brung you home from college when I did, that might’ve been you.”

Tilly shrank down into her seat, shaking uncontrollably.

Hingle sighed. “Now don’t go getting hysterical.” He popped the glove compartment. A flashlight rolled out and thudded into the footwell. He fetched it up and placed it on the dashboard. Then he rooted through the clutter of the glove box and found some Kleenex. “Here,” he said, tearing off a wad of tissues. “Clean yourself up. You’re no good to me like this.”

She couldn’t move. Hands clutching the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip. Hingle wadded the tissues into a ball and mopped the tears from her face like the parent of a dirty child. Tilly flinched at his touch.

“You know,” he told her, “there ain’t a bad-looking gal under all this frump. You ought to take better care of yourself, sis.”

Flattery was getting him nowhere; he frowned, offering her another tissue.

“Honk your nose,” he said. “I’m not listening to you snuffle all night.”

She took the tissue and trumpeted her nose.

“There,” Hingle said. “All better?”

Her head was welded to her shoulders but she managed to nod, if only to prevent him pawing at her with another Kleenex.

“I can tell by the way you’re carrying-on that you’ve heard of me?” Hingle said.

Tilly thought he sounded proud. She nodded again.

“Well, that’s good, I guess. Then you’ll know your best bet’s not to piss me off and to do exactly what I tell you … Right, Tilly?”

Another furtive nod.

“Let me hear you say it, sis.”

“I understand.”

With a pat of her knee, “Thatta girl.” He nestled back in his seat and snaked his arm around her headrest like a guy with his date at the drive-in.

“Alright then, sis. Let’s roll. Not too fast, not too slow.”

As the Bug pulled from the lot, and turned onto the empty street, Tilly glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the neon sign of Big Bob leering and licking his lips.

Mathilda Mulvehill was finally leaving town.

The Smokies had erected a roadblock on the county line. A fleet of cop cars was parked on the shoulder. Emergency road flares blazed on the blacktop, fizzling red in the rain. The troopers were stopping traffic and checking vehicles with flashlights. Soaked sniffer dogs glanced up at their handlers as if to say
I hope you’re not expecting me to smell anything in this shit?

Seeing the blockade up ahead, Hingle fidgeted excitedly in his seat. Tilly didn’t think he seemed overly concerned. “Time to earn your keep, sis,” he told her. “Now you just play it like Buck and the Buckaroos: All you gotta do is act naturally.” She watched from the corner of her eye as he palmed the fillet knife like a magician inside his jean jacket. He saw her watching and gave a goading grin. “Go ahead and try something,” he said. “I’ll open you up before they ever put the cuffs on me.” She looked away quickly.

The Bug joined the end of the short line of vehicles. The interior glowed red in the brake lights of the pickup in front of them. A state trooper wearing a waterproof poncho and a rain protector over his hat came towards them. Twirled his finger for Tilly to unwind her window. She rolled it down and he leaned towards the gap. Rain dripped off the brim of his hat as he peered inside the car. The trooper looked all of twelve, like he was playing dress-up in his daddy’s uniform. “Evening, folks,” he said, with all the authority he could muster. He swept the flashlight beam across the backseat. Back at the couple up-front.

Hingle leaned across Tilly and offered the trooper a sloppy smile.

“What seems to be the officer, problem?” He gave a little snort of drunken laughter that sounded pretty convincing to Tilly’s trained ear.

The trooper speared the drunk’s face with his flashlight beam.

Hingle shrank back like a vampire from sunlight. “Ow! Bright!”

The trooper smirked. “Been doing a little drinking tonight, sir?” He looked like he wished he was boozing in a cozy bar himself, than freezing his ass off in the rain.

Hingle held up his hand like a boy scout. “Officer,” he slurred, “I swear I only had a couple of beers.” He winked at the trooper, jerking his head towards Tilly with a roll of his eyes, like he was begging the guy to play along and not land him in more hot water with his old lady. “I knocked off work, then stopped for one or two with the fellas. Law-abiding citizen that I am, I figured I oughtn’t drive and so I called the ole ball and chain to come fetch me.”

Tilly stiffened behind the wheel. He’d made a mistake. Had the trooper picked up on it? Maybe she could help him along … She drummed the steering wheel lightly with her hands, like she was impatient to get her worthless drunk husband home so she could chew him out. Trying to draw the trooper’s attention to her left hand. The one not wearing a wedding ring. She prayed the trooper would notice; that he’d put two and two together and quick-draw his sidearm before Hingle had time to—

(
open you up
)

—react.

But instead he just said to the drunk, “Smart thinking. Last thing we needed tonight was to be scraping you up off the road.”

The trooper didn’t see what Tilly was doing; but Hingle did. He reached across the car and clapped his hands over hers and then planted a sloppy wet kiss on her cheek. “Don’t know what I’d do without you, honey.”

The trooper grimaced at Tilly sympathetically.

“You folks headed home now?” he asked her.

Tilly nodded, resisting the urge to wipe her face where Hingle had kissed her.

“Well, when you get there,” the trooper said, “make sure you lock up safe. You probably heard already—one of them Pine Grove nuts has escaped.”

“Another one?” the drunk exclaimed. “What in the hell are we paying our taxes for?”

The trooper ignored him. He saw Tilly shudder and was quick to reassure her. “I’m sure you’ll be fine with your fella here to protect you.” He looked at the drunk sternly. “Right, chief?”

The drunk snapped off a smart salute. “Yessir. Roger that.”

“Alright.” The trooper waved them along the line. “Go on home now. Just mind what I said to secure all your windows and doors. And try not to worry, ma’am. We’ll catch him again soon enough, and when we do he’ll
know
he’s been caught.”

Tilly thanked the trooper and started easing the Bug forwards. The jovial drunk called back to him, “Happy hunting!”

The young trooper just shook his head and spit in the rain and then glanced about sheepishly, hoping none of his buddies had seen the wind spit it right back in his face.

An hour had passed. It was closing in on midnight. They’d barely seen another car on the road, let alone more cops. The rain was letting up, dotting the windshield, the wipers grating across the glass. Tilly watched the headlights spear the wet two-lane blacktop, driving in numb silence. Hingle still hadn’t said anything about her attempt to alert the trooper. He’d found a crinkled road map in the glove compartment and was studying it by flashlight. Tilly knew some kind of reprimand must be coming. Awaited her punishment like a battered housewife dreading the sound of her husband’s key in the door.

The Bug grumbled along miles of country road; puttered through the occasional sleeping small town. The last place they’d passed through was a mostly boarded-up backwater called Camborne. The ancient wooden town sign was rotting away, listing like a neglected tombstone.

They drove on past the town.

The silence was torture; Tilly couldn’t stand it.

Finally she said, in a cracked voice: “Okay?”

Hingle glanced up from the map. “Okay, what?”

She blinked back tears, trying to keep her composure.

“I did what you said, didn’t I? I got us through the roadblock—”

Hingle arched his eyebrow. “Well now, Mathilda …” he said, folding the map and placing it on the dash, “so far as I recall I didn’t tell you nothing about trying to warn that Smokey Bear back there?”

And there it was.

Tilly choked back a cry. “I was scared— I
am
scared—
Please
!” She thumped the steering wheel with her hand; Betsy Bug tooted in sympathy. “Just take the car and let me go!”

Hingle glanced outside at the near-black wooded road. “
Here
? You want to get out
here
?” He chuckled. “Hell, any old psycho killer might come along.” He pointed the flashlight beam under his chin, shadows crawling across his face.

She bowed her head, sobbing like a child.

“But you … you pruh-pruh … promised—”

The Bug swerved across the lanes. Hingle had to grab the wheel to stop them plowing into the woods. “Alright,” he sighed. “Alright, pull her over.”

She looked at him, not trusting he meant it.

“Go ahead, sis,” he said. “A deal’s a deal and you kept up your end of it. You want to get out here, who the hell am I to stop you? Now pull her over before you wreck us.”

Betsy Bug shuddered to a stop on the shoulder.

“Th-thank you,” Tilly sobbed, fumbling to release her seatbelt.

Hingle nodded magnanimously. “A man’s only as good as his word, I reckon.”

She unfastened the seatbelt and reached for the door handle.

Then he said, “The problem you got is I’m
not
a good man.”

He flipped the flashlight in his hand like he was twirling a baton and then clubbed the heavy handle across her temple. The flashlight broke open and spewed its batteries, the light blinking out. Her head snapped back and struck the driver’s-side window, fracturing the glass in a splintered star. She sagged against the door, blood gushing from the gash in her forehead and into her eyes. And then he clubbed again and white fireworks exploded across her vision and Tilly followed the light down into darkness.

Hingle stared at the out-cold waitress slumped beside him. It always amazed him how a bitch could be so blinded by dumb fear; it was like a Judas cow leading ‘em straight into the slaughterhouse. She must have known this wouldn’t end well. Knowing who he was—
what
he was—had she truly believed he’d just let her go? Yet beyond her pitiful attempt to warn the Smokey Bear she hadn’t even tried to escape. She was pathetic, really.

Hingle traced his forefinger slowly along her legs. The hem of her uniform had ridden up her thighs. His jagged fingernail slit her nylon hose. She moaned in her sleep as his fingers spidered across her flesh. He cupped his hand gently over her left breast, catching the dull thud of her heart in his palm.

She’d keep.

He climbed from the Bug and stretched the stiffness from his legs. Glanced about the barren road. Welcome to Bumfuck, USA. He popped the trunk at the front of the car—damn quirky Beetles—then went and hauled the waitress from the driver’s seat. Carrying her like a sleeping child, he folded her neatly inside the trunk. There was no spare tire in the trunk, and she was a such a tiny little thing that she fit easy. He pulled off her shoes and tossed them inside with her. Peeled her pantyhose from her legs and used them to bind her hands tightly at the wrists. Reaching up under her skirt, he clawed off her panties, inhaled her scent like he was bagging glue, and then stuffed them down her throat to gag her.

She looked almost peaceful lying there. Well, that’d change soon enough.

He slammed down the trunk lid and climbed back in the Bug. Gunned the engine and continued driving south, placing the map on the passenger seat to guide him. He glanced at the fuel gauge and saw that the car was near running on fumes. No problem. He had more than enough money to cover the cost of gas and a pack of smokes too. He’d stop at the first place he saw.

The filling station was a decrepit wooden shack that looked about a termite or two from collapsing into kindling on the side of the road. Hingle pulled the Bug alongside the rusted pumps. Weeds sprouted through the cracks in the concrete forecourt. Above the ragged screen door the weathered red paint of the RITTER GAS & TOW sign had faded scar-pink.

Through the grimy storefront window, Hingle saw a man snoozing behind the counter. The glow of a portable TV flickered across his gaunt unshaven features. The man’s mouth was open, catching flies. The brim of a baseball cap was slanted down over his eyes like a sleeping mask. When Hingle honked the car horn, the man’s head jerked up like a dog surprised by its own fart. Prodding up the brim of his cap, he peered out the window and saw the Bug on the forecourt.

As the man sat and stared at him, it flashed through Hingle’s mind he’d been recognized, and he fingered the knife inside his jean jacket. Was the TV news showing his mugshot? More than likely, Hingle supposed. Then the man raised his hand in a lazy wave and Hingle decided he just hadn’t seen any business for some time—any people at all, for that matter.