The Escape Diaries (12 page)

Moose grunted a
response, climbed in the van, started it, and drove off. About twenty more
minutes passed before he finally parked and got out.

           
Go
away,
I silently willed him. Nothing happened. I waited a few beats, then
cautiously raised my head and peeked out through a side window. I knew
immediately where I was—Five Points on the east side of Milwaukee, where
Murray, Farwell, and North all come together to create a traffic nightmare.
Hoolihan’s Bar was off on the left; the Oriental Theater was to the right.

           
The
van’s back door opened. There was a silence, then Moose spoke.

 
          
“You
can come out now.”

Escape hint #10:

Sell it with skin.

           
I
felt as though someone had stuck a turkey baster down my throat and sucked all the
air out of my lungs. Busted, five feet from freedom. I crawled out from under
the bench, sprang out of the van, knocked Moose Cap sideways, and took off
running.

           
 
That’s what happened in my mind’s eye.
Here’s what actually happened: my cramped legs accordioned on me and I crashed
to the pavement. Moose Cap grabbed me under the armpits, heaved me to my feet,
and propelled me along the sidewalk. Ordinarily a man hauling a woman in
manure-stained clothes along a public street would attract attention, but this
was the lower east side of Milwaukee; among the kids scoring drugs, the street
people sifting through dumpsters, the drunks staggering out of Hoolihan’s, and
the Goths spilling out of
The Rocky Horror
matinee
,
Moose and I
were just street theater.

           
I
couldn’t yell at someone to call the police. The price on my head was enough to
keep a crackhead in product for six months. Moose manhandled me around a
corner, into a building, and up a flight of stairs. Easily sidestepping my
kicks, he fished a key out of his jeans, unlocked a door, and shoved me inside.

           
This
was his apartment, I assumed. It wasn’t the milk crate and pizza box décor
suggested by his overall grunge, but a high-ceilinged place with hardwood
floors, comfortable-looking furniture, and walls hung with photos. Through an
arched doorway I glimpsed a kitchen with a porcelain sink and old-fashioned
glass-fronted cabinets.

           
“Bob
was right,” Moose said. “You
do
smell like cow shit. It hit me like a
ton of bricks when we got back in the van.” He let go of me, but didn’t take
his eyes off me. “Get those clothes off.”

           
“Go
screw yourself!”

           
Being
raped by this creep would only be one notch above being molested by Norbert
Lautenbacher while hanging from a pipe, but it wasn’t going to happen. I lunged
toward a lamp on an end table, snatched it up, and swung it at the guy with all
my strength. Unfortunately, he was too tall and I only managed to whack his
shoulder. Reacting as though I’d swatted him with a newspaper, Moose wrenched
the lamp out of my hand.

“I don’t find
manure a big turn-on. Your virtue is safe with me. Come on—bath time.”

           
He
dragged me into his bathroom and locked both of us inside. This bathroom wasn’t
going to make the starting lineup at the Vonnerjohn Design Center. Its floor
was laid with those nickel-sized tiles all old bathrooms have, made of some
substance that will be here long after the rest of the planet is a big cinder
in space. There was a radiator under the window currently being used to dry wet
socks, an old, plain white toilet, and a claw-footed tub the size of an ice
rink. A jock strap hung jauntily from a towel bar.

           
“Shower
stopped working a year ago,” Moose shared as he tidied up, tucking the jock
strap and socks underneath the sink. “So I started taking baths. Got so I liked
’em. I read halfway through
War and Peace
in that tub, until I got so
bored I didn’t care which side won the damn war. Now get your clothes off.”

           
“All
right,” I said, stalling, trying to keep my gaze away from the window. “But
I’ll need some privacy.”

           
He
looked at me. “You’re a scary woman, you know that? You survived a tornado, a
wall of exploding toilets, and a four-story leap out of a barn. For all I know,
you can turn into a bat and fly out a ventilation duct. So. You think I look
dumb enough to leave you alone in here?”

           
No,
actually—I didn’t think he looked dumb at all. His eyes stayed on me,
unblinking. Eyes the color of Hershey Kisses, but not as warm and sweet, and
they didn’t miss much. We stared at each other, taking each other’s measure. He
was linebacker big, not the sort of cameraman who’s going to get pushed around
while filming a riot. He had lots of straight
,
dark brown hair and bristles way past five o’clock shadow—getting on
toward midnight. His general scruff made it hard to judge his age. Early
thirties maybe?

He leaned over
the tub, ran hot water, and dumped in half a bottle of shampoo. “Swish that
around and you’ll get some great bubbles.”

           
The
water got higher. Bubbles bubbled, froth frothed. The scent of coconut shampoo
mixed with the stench of drying manure. My eyes darted around the room,
searching for something to use as a weapon. Punch the cabinet mirror and go for
his jugular with a shard of glass? Rip off the toilet seat and clobber him?
Strangle him with his own jockstrap? There had to be some way out of this
situation, but my tired brain refused to function.

           
“Take
’em off.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Or I do.” The arms were hairy
and muscular. The chest was encased in a T-shirt that looked as though it’d
been used to clean a car engine, the long legs in old, ripped jeans. What a
slob! I know, I know—people in glass houses and all. But this guy had
chosen
to look like a slob.

“Bath,” he said.

           
Fine.
He was going to win this particular battle. But the war ain’t over yet, jerko.
Hopping from foot to foot, I slid off my cheap prison-issue sneakers—more
hole than canvas by now—peeled off my wet, slimy socks, ripped off the
garage sale sweats and T-shirt, unhooked my bra, and slid out of my underpants.
I flung the whole stinking mess at Moose’s feet with a
screw you
flourish. Then I climbed into the tub.

           
Hot,
soapy water. Sheer, decadent, exquisite, toe-curling bliss. I shuddered in head-to-toe
ecstasy, not caring at the moment whether my captor was a serial rapist with a
bathtub fetish. I submarined beneath the suds, immersing my whole head. When I
surfaced, blowing like a whale, Moose was bent over the tub, looking concerned.

“Scared I was
going to drown myself?” Ticking off this thug was probably dangerous. He might
have control issues, and if challenged, would go all gonzo. At the moment,
though, I was too hungry, tired, and battered to rein in my anger.

           
He
backed away and sat down on the toilet seat. “Nah. You’re a survivor.”

           
I
looked around the room for the hidden camera. “I’ll bet you’re filming this.”

           
He
looked insulted. “What kind of person do you think I am?”

           
“The
kind who sells pictures of naked jailbirds to tabloids.”

           
“I’m
a highly respected photojournalist.”

           
“Bullshit.
You shoot car wrecks and burning buildings for a third-rate TV station.”

“We’ve moved up to second-rate.
We’re seventh in the local ratings.”
“Out of what?”

“Eight.”

I splashed around
in the water, watching him out of the corners of my eyes, trying to figure his
angle. Was he another Lautenbacher, turned on by the notion of sex with a
female convict? Lots of guys wanted to be pen pals with inmates. Women in stir
received marriage proposals all the time. Some guys wanted to bring inmates to
Jesus, some wanted the privilege of conjugal visits, and some just wanted the
chance to get their hands on a woman whom they felt deserved to be tortured and
killed.

So where was
Moose on the whack job scale? He appeared to be normal enough, in a grubby kind
of way. He wasn’t even that bad-looking, if you didn’t count his nose, which
looked as though it had collided with a baseball bat.

“If you knew I
was in your van, why didn’t you turn me over to the cops?” I asked. “There’s a
big reward on my head.”

Don’t say
head, stupid!
It might give him images of my severed head in a pillowcase.

But I couldn’t
seem to shut up. This guy irritated me so much I just wanted to jab the hell
out of him. “If you collected the reward you could probably buy some new jeans.
Maybe get a shave and a haircut.”

“I don’t care
about the reward.”

           
Ominous.
People who didn’t care about money were, in my experience, deeply warped. Or
fabulously wealthy. Which this creep obviously wasn’t or he wouldn’t be living
in Five Points. I kept on my guard, waiting for him to lunge at me.

He got to his
feet, but it was only to pick my dirty clothes off the floor and toss them in
the wastebasket. He leaned against the sink, keeping his eyes a scrupulous two
inches above my head, but this sudden regard for my maidenly modesty was a bit
too after the fact. “The reason I haven’t turned you in?” he said. “Because I
wanted to hear your side of the story. About your husband’s murder. The truth.”

You can’t
handle the truth:
Jack Nicholson’s great movie line immediately leaped to
mind, but I rephrased it. “Yeah? Well, guess what? No one wants to hear the
truth.” Lots of bitterness and self-pity there. I thought I’d gotten it out of
my system long ago, but apparently a reservoir still remained.

He swiveled his
eyes to mine. “Try me.”

I scrubbed my
neck, which in three days had morphed way beyond ring-around-the-collar into
circle-of-crud territory. Why was I talking to this guy? It wouldn’t make any
difference what I told him. He was going to go ahead with whatever twisted
scenario he had planned for me anyway.

“The truth. Okay.
I’m innocent. I didn’t do the crime.”

           
“Lady,
I saw the video.”

Everything always
came back to that damn video.
Nabbed by Nanny-cam!
shrieked the
tabloids, knocking the story of the televangelist caught cavorting with the
porn star off their front pages.

“It’s not me on
that video,” I said.

           
“Then
how do you explain it?”

           
“The
woman in the video is wearing a nightie. I don’t wear nightgowns. I wear
pajamas.”

He spread his
hands. “There you have it. Conclusive proof of innocence.”

I grabbed the
shampoo bottle, poured the glop over my head, and worked the lather into my
hair.
Damn,
that felt good! As I raked my fingers across my itchy,
sweaty scalp, clots of straw, hay, and various creepy crawlies worked loose and
plopped into the water.

I ran more hot
water, stuck my head under the faucet, rinsed out the shampoo, wrung out my
hair, and settled back against the warm, sudsy porcelain, determined to enjoy
what would probably be my last bath. The odds were looking very good that I
would soon be returning to cold showers once a week, always keeping one eye
peeled for Mona the Monobrow, who liked to sidle over and offer to lather up my
backside. That is, if this nut job didn’t chop me into little pieces first.

I held the
shampoo bottle under the tap and filled it to the brim with water, making no
attempt to keep my boobs covered. If Mr. Seeker-of-Truth got interested enough,
he might forget he was supposed to be keeping me prisoner and start thinking
about something else. Get him to come a little closer and I’d
give
him
War
and Peace;
I’d smack him in the gonads with the bottle of Head and
Shoulders, then I’d step over his writhing body and make my escape.

I was tired of
thinking of him as
Moose.
“What’s your name, anyway?” I asked.

           
“Labeck.”

           
“Labeck.
So that’s what—Canadian?”

Ignoring my
question, he asked, “What happened to your wrists?”

Ugly red gashes
braceleted my wrists, souvenirs of the Sunnybrook Farm torture chamber. I
shrugged. So many nasty things had happened since I’d escaped, I could barely
keep track of my cuts and scrapes.

“You didn’t try
to—”

“Slash my
wrists?” Anger boiled up in me. I’d come within an inch of being sexually
assaulted by a sex-crazed yokel, and now Moron Number Two thought I’d tried to
slit my wrists? “Yup. Suicide by baling wire.”

“Those cuts need
disinfecting.” Rummaging through his medicine cabinet, he found a bottle of first-aid
spray. He stepped toward the tub. “Hold out your hands.”

To hell with
that. Snatching the bottle out of his hands, I first-aided myself, splashing a
molecule or two of the liquid onto my wrists. I didn’t trust antiseptic stuff.
Get a scrape at Taycheedah and they treated you with a caustic solution that
felt like salt rubbed into an open wound.