Mrs. Million (31 page)

Someone in the Isuzu was moving around. The door opened. Was that Hugh Hulke? Art turned his head. It was Hugh all right, with something in his hands—a shotgun! Art dropped the gearshift into drive and stomped on the accelerator, ducking his head as low as he could. He heard a shot, then a second shot and suddenly his car was traveling in a slightly different direction, one tire blown. He cranked the wheel to the left, trying to stay on the road, but he overcompensated and the car spun into the ditch. A third shot shattered the rear window. Art scrambled out the passenger door and, keeping his head low, took off running.

“She’s gonna kill me,” Rodney moaned.

Hugh pumped a fresh shell into the shotgun and aimed, but the guy had disappeared over the top of the hill.

Rodney climbed slowly out of the car. “You might just as well shoot me, Hugh. Just shoot me now.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Hugh growled.

“Look at her car, man. Would you look what he done to it?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s history. Big fucking deal.” He started toward the Plymouth. “C’mon, Rod Man, we got work to do. Lets just hope the guy’s got a spare in his trunk.”

Rodney didn’t move. “Just shoot me now.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m dead.”

Hugh raised the shotgun and aimed it at Rodney’s belt buckle. “Okay then.”

“Wait!” Rodney screeched, crossing his hands over his groin. “I was kidding.”

“All right then. C’mon, let’s get this thing on the road.”

Following instructions, Barbaraannette drove to the landing at Sorenson Lake, turned around, and headed back, looking for a white paper bag.

She had really started something. The strange thing was that even now she did not really regret it, at least not yet. An important and not altogether pleasant chapter of her life was about to come to a close. No matter how it ended, her life would go on. She hoped that several lives would go on. She hoped Art was okay. She hoped that Bobby was okay, and Phlox, and that nobody would die on account of her one foolish moment in front of the TV cameras. Except maybe this André Gideon.

Barbaraannette drove slowly, watching the road. A white plastic bag in some bushes caught her eye; she stopped. The bag was in shreds. The man had specified a paper bag on the road, not a plastic bag in the brush. She continued on. Less than one mile farther down the road she came upon a white bag, bright with menace, standing upright in the precise center of the roadway.

“W
HERE DO YOU THINK
we are, Pook?”

“In the woods someplace. It sounded like we were driving slow over leaves and sticks. I can hear birds.”

“He’s been gone a long time.”

“You miss him?”

“Not much…what are you doing, Pookie?”

“What do you think?”

“Seems to me you’re tugging at my belt buckle.”

“I got one free hand, I figured I’d use it.”

“I don’t have any raincoats, honey.”

“We’re probably dead anyways.”

“You’ve got a point there. Let me just shift around here. Oh! You really do have a point!”

“I just couldn’t resist you no longer.”

“You really think we can do this?”

“Why not? I did it once in the back seat of a VW bug, wasn’t even this much room.”

The woman rolled to a stop on the opposite shoulder. André clenched his teeth. She was not supposed to stop, she was supposed to simply throw the money out and continue on her way. He thought he had been quite clear.

For a few seconds she sat in the car, then got out carrying the briefcase. She walked over to the paper bag and looked inside. André, twenty yards away, considered shooting her, but he was not entirely sure he could hit her at that distance.

She straightened up and looked around, looking straight at him for a moment but not seeing him in the brush. She returned to her car, rested the briefcase on the hood and stood there waiting.

After a minute she shouted, “I have your money here!” She lifted the briefcase and thumped it on the side. “You want it, you bring Bobby to me.”

André cleared his throat and raised his voice. “I am pointing a gun at you, Mrs. Quinn. Leave the briefcase by the side of the road and drive away”

She turned toward him, peered into the brush. “No. You show me Bobby.”

“If you do not do as I say, I will shoot you.”

“No Bobby, no money.”

André cocked the gun and took careful aim, placing the sights dead center on the woman’s midriff. He stroked the trigger with his forefinger, wondering whether he could hit her. If he missed, she might panic and flee with the money. She must have felt the danger, because she brought the briefcase in front of her and hugged it. André considered his options. A new, even more brilliant plan asserted itself. Perhaps this could work out to his advantage. He could lure her up to his car, take the money, and leave her there with her precious husband. André’s mouth tightened in a grim smile. Beware your desires, Mrs. Quinn. Of course, he would have to kill them all. He would simply take the woman’s car to the airport. It might be days before they were found. The solution struck him as elegant, efficient, and inevitable.

He stepped out where she could see him.

“Mrs. Quinn?” He pointed up the overgrown logging road. “Your husband is up there, in my car. If you will accompany me, I will take you to him.”

André Gideon was smaller than she had imagined him. Barbaraannette kept the briefcase in front of her and her eyes on the gun.

“Are you coming?” he asked.

“You bring Bobby here, to me.” She did not want to follow this man into the woods.

André scowled and walked toward her. When he was a few feet away he raised the revolver and pointed it at her face.

“If you do not come with me, I will kill you here and now and take the money and take your car and your husband and his friend will likely die of thirst in the trunk of my car.”

Barbaraannette looked at the gun, at his small white hands. “How far is it?”

“Not far.”

Barbaraannette took a breath. “All right. I’ll come with you, but you go first.”

“We will go together.” André gestured with the revolver.

Barbaraannette crossed Miller’s Road, walking sideways, keeping her eyes on André, holding the briefcase between them. They entered the logging road side by side, watching each other, walking like a pair of mating sand crabs.

“I know who you are,” Barbaraannette said.

“No you do not.”

“Everybody knows who you are. You’re André Gideon. You teach at the college.”

“You are wrong on both counts. I am no longer with the college, and my name is now Adam Grappelli.” He stopped. “Mrs. Quinn, why have you created all this trouble for me?”

“Me? I’m not making any trouble.”

“I disagree. You made a perfectly straightforward offer to pay one million dollars for your husband’s safe return, is that not true? Yet you refused to pay me.”

“That’s not true. I was ready to write you a check.”

“You involved the police.”

“No. That wasn’t me. My sister did that.”

“Even now you refuse to give me the money.”

“I have it right here. I just want to make sure about Bobby.”

“Yes. You want your precious husband.” He began walking again. “May I make an observation? The man is no great prize.”

“I know what he is.” They continued up the road. Barbaraannette saw the reflection of sunlight on glass. The green Taurus. They both stopped. “What’s that noise?” Barbaraannette asked. The car was squeaking. They moved closer. It was visibly shaking. Barbaraannette turned to André, or Adam, or whoever he was, and found herself once again staring into the barrel of his revolver.

“Your husband and his little friend are in the trunk, Mrs. Quinn.” He laughed. “I believe they may be trying to escape.”

Barbaraannette edged forward, getting herself between André and the car, still holding up the briefcase.

André said, “Put the briefcase down, please.”

Barbaraannette shook her head. “You let him out first.”

“You can let him out yourself.”

Barbaraannette backed up until her hip touched the car, felt it shaking. She banged her palm on the trunk lid and raised her voice. “Bobby? Is that you?”

The shaking stopped.

“Barbie?”

André was smiling, a weird light in his eyes. “You see? Now set the briefcase down, please.”

Barbaraannette did not like the look on the man’s face. Something was wrong with him. He was a man about to do a terrible thing. She sidled to her left, holding the briefcase out as a shield.

“Mrs. Quinn, you are trying my patience. Put it down, please.”

Barbaraannette shook her head, her eyes locked on the gun. She saw his finger tighten an instant before the flash and boom reached her senses.

All Art knew to do was to run. First, to run away from Hugh Hulke and his shotgun; second, to find Barbaraannette. She was somewhere ahead of him. She was supposed to meet the man on this road, but Art did not know whether it would be a hundred yards or ten miles, or farther. All he knew was to run. If he came upon her, then perhaps he would know to do something else.

The sound of leather soles slapping tarmac, the chuffing of his breath, the Shockwaves traveling up through his skeleton. Faster, he commanded. The tempo increased. How far had he run? Two miles? Three? He could run harder, but without knowing how long he would have to continue, he settled into a seven-minute pace, six strides per breathing cycle, stretching out on the downhills, shortening his stride on the uphills, coming up over each rise with new hope. He had been running for twenty minutes when he rounded a bend and saw Barbaraannette’s car parked on the shoulder a quarter of a mile ahead. Art slowed, his head swiveling left and right, looking for Barbaraannette. He tried to run silently, his senses keyed to any sound or movement. Other than the car, all he saw was a white paper bag in the middle of the road. He kept moving. Where was she? He heard a muffled explosion—a gunshot? He stopped, trying to locate its source. A second shot came to his ears, ahead and to the right. Art picked up his pace, running flat out now, refusing to let his mind form an image.

The first shot hit the briefcase dead center, knocking it out of her hands into her chest; she bounced off the side of the car and fell to the ground. The second slug cut a trough across her left thigh, ripping through denim and flesh. Barbaraannette howled, grabbed the briefcase by the handle and hurled it at André. The corner struck his forehead; he staggered back, recovered, aimed the revolver at her again and pulled the trigger.

The hammer came down, but the gun did not fire. André pulled the trigger again with the same result. He threw the gun aside, and started toward Barbaraannette, his face a mask of rage. He hadn’t needed a gun to deal with young Jayjay, he would not need one for this woman.

Barbaraannette scrambled to her feet, feeling the pain in her thigh as from a distance.

“You shot me,” she said. She spread her arms and took a step toward him. “Do you know what I’m going to do to you?”

André stopped. He could see all of her teeth and nails and—he suddenly realized—he had no weapon at all, not even a chair leg. He glanced down at the briefcase, grabbed it by the handle and fled back toward Miller’s Road.

Art spotted an opening in the trees, an old logging road, fresh tracks in the soft earth. He veered toward it, had just stepped off the shoulder when he came face-to-face with a man running in the opposite direction. Art took in the man’s face, and the familiar briefcase. Without slowing he closed his hand and dropped his shoulder and brought all of his momentum into a single roundhouse blow. He aimed for the chin, but the man ducked and Art’s fist caught him directly on the nose.

It was good enough. The guy went down, flat on his back, and lay there without moving. The briefcase continued on without him, tumbling end over end, coming to a rest in a clump of bramble.

Art kept running, air ripping through his lungs. He heard something farther up the trail—voices?

He saw the car first, then Barbaraannette standing behind it, looking into the trunk making a peculiar gasping sound. Was she sobbing? Art slowed and tried to control his breathing. Scanning the surrounding woods. The man might have an accomplice. He saw no one else. As he approached, he realized that Barbaraannette was not exactly crying. She was laughing.

He called out her name.

She looked up. “Art?” Her face displayed a collision of emotions—laughter, fear, relief, and agony. One leg of her jeans was stained dark with blood.

“You okay?” he said, stupidly.

Barbaraannette nodded, pointing into the trunk of the Taurus. Art came up beside her, swung an arm around her shoulders, looked where she was pointing. Wedged into the trunk was Bobby Quinn, his pants pulled down to his knees, his very white, slightly pimpled ass pointing directly at them. Attached to Bobby’s front side was a blond woman, her blue leather skirt hiked up around her waist.

“I do believe they’re stuck in there,” said Barbaraannette.

“You damn right we’re stuck. Are you gonna help us out or not?” Bobby said.

“Who is she?” Art asked Barbaraannette.

“My name’s Phlox,” said Phlox. “And I claim the reward. I found him and I brought him and I found him again.”

Art frowned. He couldn’t help asking, “How on earth did you get into that position?”

“It’s a long story,” Bobby growled.

Art shook his head in bewilderment. He took a closer look at Barbaraannette’s wound. “He shot you?”

“It’s just a flesh wound.” Barbaraannette winced at his touch. “I always wanted to say that.”

Bobby said, “Hey! How about a hand here?”

Barbaraannette’s mouth twitched. She put one hand on the trunk lid, winked at Art, and slammed it shut.

“Hey! Hey!” Bobby’s muffled pleas were barely intelligible.

“Let’s go,” she said. “Is my car still out there?”

“It was last I saw.”

“I thought maybe he had taken it.”

“If he’s a smallish man with a beard, I don’t think so. Can you walk?”

“I can limp if you’ll give me a hand.”

Art put his arm around her and they started down the road.