Mrs. Million (16 page)

His boning knife. He’d left it sitting atop the furnace, he remembered, and now the boy had it. Yellow light struck the blade and flashed directly into his eyes. André stepped back, hit the wall. The room became smaller. André could not take his eyes off the knife. Again, it caught light from the bulb and sent it lasering into his brain. André tore his eyes away and looked to the doorway, suddenly realizing that he might never leave this dingy, brutal little room.

“What’s the matter?” The boy asked, stepping toward him, cutting off his escape, lowering the blade as if to conceal it, or readying it for an upward thrust. André’s eyes darted wildly, delivering a mad slide show of images. The amputated leg of the Windsor lay on the floor between them. André felt himself suspended in time, knowing that he was about to act, feeling a weird, sensual joy as he gave himself to the moment. Was this what a man felt as he stepped off a precipice? He bent forward at the waist, his knees flexed, he saw his hand grasp the chair leg, bring it up above his head—

“Hey!”

—and down, striking the boy on the shoulder.

“Ow, shit, man, fuck, you—”

The boy still held the knife. André swung again, hit fingers, heard a gasp overlaid by a high-pitched scream, swung again and felt the chair leg strike skull. The knife clattered to the floor but the screaming went on. The boy staggered back, tripped over the man in the chair, fell against a pile of old storm windows. André leapt over the chair, raised his club and struck again. The sound of shattering glass sliced through the scream; André struck again, and again until the screaming stopped and he realized that the awful sound had been coming from his own throat. He backed away from the clutter of broken glass, averting his eyes from the boy’s bloodied head. He backed up until the far wall, cold gray block, struck his shoulder blades. He sank to the concrete floor, gasping, his throat raw, his body buzzing and twitching, tiny hands still gripping the bloodied chair leg, his torn fingernail throbbing with each enormous, rib-shivering heartbeat. He did not move until his eyes fell upon the cordless telephone on the floor, inches from the duct-taped man’s wide, staring eyes.

Barbaraannette said, “Hello?”

No response, only a hollow sound, and something that might be distant breathing. What had she heard? A fight of some sort, but who? The one who called had told her she could talk to Bobby, then she’d heard a lot of cursing and banging, and then that awful screaming, like a pig getting killed.

“Hello?” she repeated.

She heard a scraping sound, then a soft click. Now she could hear nothing, not even the hollow sound. Barbaraannette hung up the phone and looked down at her mother sitting quietly on the sofa, her hands folded in her lap, her face devoid of expression.

Barbaraannette made herself smile and said, “I think you’re right, Hilde. It was definitely an obscene phone call.”

Hilde showed no sign of having heard her. Barbaraannette sat down beside her mother and looked into her face. “Mom? Anybody home?”

Hilde’s pupils were constricted to pinpoints, letting in as little light as possible. Barbaraannette waved a hand in front of her face. Hilde blinked, a tear rolled down her cheek, joined a bead of drool at the corner of her slack mouth, hung there.

Barbaraannette felt suddenly and terrifyingly alone. She needed to talk to somebody, but Hilde was unavailable and she didn’t want to tie up the phone. What if those people called back? She would have to wait. A half hour, at least, then she could call someone. But who? Not Toagie. Toagie would freak out. Not Mary Beth. She wasn’t ready for Mary Beth, who would doubtless put all her energy into telling her it was all her fault. Maybe she should call the police. She thought about Chief Dale Gordon and grimaced. The last thing she wanted was to owe that man another favor.

She stood up and said, “You’re tired, Mom. Let’s get some rest.” She tried to bring Hilde to her feet, but encountered only deadweight, so she pushed her mother gently onto her side and straightened her legs. She fetched a thick wool blanket from the linen closet, covered her, then sat on the floor in front of the sofa and rested her head on Hilde’s blanketed hip. She watched Hilde’s face until her eyes closed and a soft sputtering sound came from her lips.

“There you go,” Barbaraannette said. “I don’t know where you go, but I hope you find a fast car when you get there.” Hilde began to snore in earnest, and Barbaraannette shifted her eyes from her mother’s gaping mouth to the telephone, waiting.

For several seconds after the bearded man turned off the phone and picked up the knife, Bobby thought he was about to die. He closed his eyes and tensed every muscle in his body, but when the cut came it was duct tape rather than flesh that parted. Was he being set free?

Making little
tut-tut
sounds with his tongue, the man sliced quickly through layers of tape. “You saw it, yes? Saw him with the knife. A witness, I have a witness. You saw it all.”

Bobby did not know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. He was afraid to nod or shake his head.

“I had no choice,” the man said as he cut the last few bands of tape and pulled the chair away. “Oh dear. Oh my.” He was looking at the broken leg. Bobby tried to move, but his arms and legs were still taped together. He lay on his side watching as the man tried to fit the bloodied chair leg back onto the chair. “Awful, simply awful.” The man shook his head sadly, peeling scraps of silver tape from the back of the chair. “What a waste.” His eyes rediscovered Bobby. “You poor man,” he said.

Bobby felt a surge of gratitude fill his chest, but his hopes had evaporated when the man picked up the roll of duct tape and said, “I suppose you think that I am a bad person.” He rolled Bobby onto his stomach and began adding layers of tape around his wrists. “But that is only because you do not know me.” The man stood up—Bobby could see a spot of blood on his Hush Puppies—and ascended the basement stairs.

From his new position on the basement floor Bobby found himself staring directly into the dead boy’s face, less than six feet away. He thought, it serves you right, you sorry son of a bitch. The thought brought him no satisfaction.

He closed his eyes and breathed. His swollen nostril had opened slightly. He no longer feared suffocation, but he was more certain than ever that he was going to die in that basement. He could hear the bearded man moving around upstairs, talking to himself. He could still hear the weird screaming and the wet thud of the kid’s head being caved in.

Bobby wished for a lungful of clean air, for a glass of water to appear. He forced his thoughts out of the basement, imagined himself sipping a cold one, watching Phlox in her denim shorts washing the truck. He saw himself driving, wind blasting his face, sun on his arm. He opened his eyes. The dead boy was still there, wedged into the mass of shattered storm windows, one eye open, the other battered closed and crusted with drying blood. He wished he had never come back to Minnesota. He wished that someone would turn off the light.

“Y
OU MEAN TO TELL ME
all this time he’s been hiding out in Tucson?”

“Five years, honey.”

“Damn! I been to Tucson five, six times.” Hugh Hulke looked at the butt of his cigar, grimaced, threw it to the floor. “I always figured Bobby’d head for Wyoming or Montana, way he talked about it all the time. Tucson. Damn. I coulda run across him anytime.”

“You would’ve if you’d been shopping at Wild Wally’s.” Phlox sipped her beer. She and Hugh were sitting at the spool table. Rodney, reclined on a ratty sofa against the back wall, balanced a beer bottle on his chest. Hugh shifted his chair and leaned in close to Phlox. “What’d he go to Tucson for? You?”

Phlox shrugged. “I don’t know what got him down there. Maybe he wanted to sell cowboy boots.” She lifted one of her feet onto the table, the tip of her boot nearly catching Hugh’s nostril. “He got me these. Sixty percent off.”

“I never did get those pointy toes,” Hugh said, sitting back.

“You like ’em or you don’t.” She brought her other foot up and crossed her ankles, smiling with what she hoped was an air of confidence.

Hugh grinned. “You’re a feisty one.”

“You think so?” It was working.

“You come here looking for Bobby, what were you gonna do if he was here?”

“Take him off your hands. Collect the reward.”

Hugh raised his eyebrows in mock astonishment.

Phlox said, “In fact, that’s still my plan. Of course, I understand Bobby owes you boys some money. I’d make sure you’re taken care of.”

“Aren’t you the generous one!”

“I’m the only chance you’ve got to recoup your investment. All you have to do is help me find him.”

Hugh tipped his head and frowned as if waiting for an unfamiliar sound to repeat itself. After a moment he said, “Now don’t you take this wrong, sweetheart, but if I knew how to find Bobby, what would I need you for?”

“On account of I’m the only one who can collect the reward. I’ve already arranged things with Barbaraannette.”

Hugh made a sour face.

Phlox continued. “She knows I’m the one that brought him back here. Besides, suppose you hogtied Bobby and dragged him over to Barbaraannette, and suppose she paid you the money. You don’t think Bobby would turn around and have you arrested for kidnapping?”

“He wouldn’t if he knew what was good for him,” Hugh growled.

“But Bobby wouldn’t know what was good for him, would he? You’d end up in jail for kidnapping, and you’d probably have to give the money back because the court wouldn’t allow you to profit from a criminal enterprise.”

Hugh nodded, either in agreement or to show that he was following her logic.

“So what I’m suggesting is, you help me find Bobby and I’ll cut you guys in. Ten percent. A hundred thousand dollars. That’s five times what you lost on Bobby’s land deal.”

Hugh worked his lips for a few seconds, then said, “A hundred thousand each?”

Phlox shook her head. “Total. You divvy it up however you think.”

“You think he’s out there running loose?”

“I think somebody’s got him. You saw him jump into a car, right? And whoever it is, they’ve got the same problem as you would’ve. They can’t turn him in without getting charged with kidnapping. The only person can do that is me.”

“I don’t suppose you know who’s got him?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t be here. The only thing I know is, at that gas station where you boys saw Bobby? There was somebody there in a green car that took off the same time Bobby did. Only I didn’t get the make or license.”

Hugh said, “Hey Rod Man, you catch the license on that car?”

“Nope. But it was a green Ford Taurus, maybe a ninety-four, ninety-five. That’s all I seen.”

Hugh shrugged and returned his attention to Phlox. “Okay, suppose whoever was in the green car put the snatch on our Bobby. How are we supposed to find him?”

Phlox said, “How did I find you?”

“I got no fucking idea.”

“This is Cold Rock, Minnesota, Hugh. It’s not that big a place.”

“So?”

“So how many green Tauruses do you think a town this size can hold?”

Art Dobbleman was five slices into a fourteen-inch veggie pizza and ten minutes into the six o’clock news when the telephone rang. He was pretty sure it was Maria, his ex-wife. They’d been separated for four months and officially divorced for three months now, but she still made it a practice to interrupt his dinner three or four times a week. Making sure he was being a good divorce. He took a large bite of pizza, pressed the mute button on the TV remote, picked up the phone and issued a muffled hello.

“Art? It’s me. Barbaraannette.”

“Bar-oh!” He forced the half-chewed mouthful down his throat. “Hi!” He followed it with several ounces of apple juice.

“Are you busy?”

Art looked down at his long, bare legs. He hadn’t changed clothes from his evening run, a little six-miler. “I’m just sitting around.”

“Art, I need to talk to you.”

“I’m here.”

“About borrowing some money.”

“Sure! Sure, we could do that.” He felt foolish now. He’d thought she might be calling
him,
but it was just business. He asked, “Is this— has someone found Bobby?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure. But I want to be ready. I think I better sign some papers or something, whatever you have to do, because when I need it—if I need it—I’m going to need it fast.”

“How fast?”

“Art, I can’t tie up the phone right now, I’m waiting for an important call. Could you come over here?”

“Now?” He hoped he’d have time for a shower.

“If you’re not busy?”

No shower. “I’m on my way,” said Art.

The first bite nearly turned his tongue into a twisted cinder. André guzzled both wine and water, gasping. What had happened to his wonderful curry? Could those three little peppers have produced such a mouth-searing effect? André wiped the tears from his eyes and examined the plateful of curry, poking at it with his fork. He discovered several whole Sanaam peppers hidden amidst the lamb and onions. André’s face, already flushed, turned a deeper shade of crimson. Fury rose in him with the image of Jayjay’s smirking face. Jayjay’s dead face.

The events of the past three hours scrambled for his attention; André squeezed his eyes closed, pushing away the thought of the dead boy in his cellar. The very idea was absurd! So absurd, in fact, that he found it easy to pretend that it was not so. Casting about for a tolerable replacement thought, he found himself once again in Italy, he and Jayjay—no, some other person—enjoying prosciutto and fresh fava beans, looking out over the Mediterranean. André in an off-white linen jacket, cotton trousers, and sleek calfskin loafers, no socks, the sea breeze caressing his ankles. His companion speaks, a rapid sequence of Italian words which André understands to mean that he, André, is a remarkable and mysterious man. He smiles and extracts a sheaf of lira notes—ten thousand? A hundred thousand? What was a lira worth these days? He would have to do some research. He permitted himself to consider, for a moment, the duct-taped cowboy. The man was worth a million dollars. The man could also put him in prison for the rest of his life. No prosciutto, no fava beans, no antique chairs.