The Rented Mule (23 page)

“Good thinkin’.” Now wide-awake, Jenny really wanted to hear this guy’s story. “So, tell me about yourself.”

Maynard was thrilled that Jenny was talking to him. She was the most beautiful woman who he had been with in the same room. He was more than a little nervous. “I’m Jesse Ray’s cousin, by marriage… on his momma’s side. And,
well, I do a little business back home, but I’m pretty much a low-key operator.”

“Whatcha got goin’?” she asked.

“Well, I just got off house arrest; it’s a long story, and it wasn’t my fault. Anyway, I’ve been workin’ a project from home. I managed to acquire a case of Subway frequent-buyer cards and matching stamps. I’ve been sellin’ the cards… you know, the ones where eight stamps get you a free sandwich? At any rate, I’m sellin’ the cards on eBay, five for five dollars.”

“You gotta be kiddin’ me?”

“Nope. It’s a sweet deal. Five cards are worth like at least twenty bucks. It’s
real
easy money, especially when I couldn’t leave the house.”

“That’s amazing,” Jenny said. She didn’t know if she was more surprised that someone would steal Subway coupons or that someone else would actually buy them.

“And Jesse Ray’s got some really sweet e-mail scams goin’ that are generatin’ good money. I just don’t know how to do all that computer crap.”

“Me neither.” She paused for a moment and then said, “It appears that you’re a fan of Larry King.”

“Are you kiddin’? He was the king of talk. I love him,” Maynard said. “I’d straddle a mile of barbwire naked to listen to one of his radio shows over a pay phone.”

Jenny smiled big, thinking,
He may not be the brightest bulb in the box, but he knows how to handle a weapon, he’s got heart, and he sure tries hard at everythang else.
She said, “I’m not really a fan, but I use to watch some nights when I couldn’t sleep.”

“Wow, so you
did
watch him?” Maynard glowed as he felt around inside his pocket, eventually finding a whitening strip.

“Yep, I watched him a lot when Michael Jackson died. So, what’s next after this job?” she asked and then her attention
shifted to Clarence limping into the den, holding his back. “You all right?” she asked, standing up.

“I don’t know… my lower back’s killin’ me, and my groin’s throbbin’ like a sumbitch,” Clarence groaned and leaned against the wall. “I know that’s more information than you wanted… but you asked.”

Jenny raised her eyebrows and scrunched her nose.

Maynard shivered and then headed outside, presumably to finish construction of his entertainment center.

“If I could just get comfortable, I’d feel a lot better,” Clarence winced as he stretched. “You heard anything from her?” Clarence motioned at the door in the kitchen.

“No, not a peep,” Jenny said, looking at her watch. “When we sedate her again in a coupla hours, I want to go down.”

“Fine. When Jesse Ray wakes up, let’s have a meetin’ and make sure we got all our shit in one sock. What’s Larry doin’, anyway?” Clarence asked, stretching his back again.

“Some interior decoratin’. I think he’s goin’ for some kind of a redneck low-budget effect.”

Clarence groaned.

Jenny tried to take his mind off the pain by asking, “So whaddaya think of Maynard, anyway?”

“He’s okay. He’s just got planet issues.”

“Meaning?”

“He ain’t been on this planet long enough to understand some things.”

“I can see that,” she responded.
I think Maynard’s kinda cute, but I’d never be able to tell Clarence that
.

“I tell you what, though, that guy would stack greasy BBs if I asked him to.”

“You do gotta love his attitude… and his teeth,” Jenny commented.

“Yeah, he’s addicted to teeth whitener. It beats anythin’ I’ve ever seen; they freakin’ glow in the dark.”

“You hungry?” she asked, wanting to keep the conversation moving.

“Not at all… I don’t think I could keep it down.”

“Wow, you must be really hurtin’ bad,” Jenny remarked, now deeply concerned.

B
en did not realize that his mother wasn’t home. He and his buddy’s mom, who was dropping him off after the overnight party, assumed that her car was inside the closed garage. He had his sleeping bag in one hand and a small duffle in the other as he walked up the side steps to the house. He waved, and she started to back up. After ringing the bell twice with no one answering the door, he impatiently grabbed the key from under the secret rock and let himself in. His ride home took off out of the driveway upon seeing Ben open the door.

Tossing his bag on the den floor, he switched on the television and manually tuned into the Discovery Channel.

“Mom?! Dad?! I’m home!” he screamed, plopping down on the couch. Ben hadn’t gotten much sleep at the party, and his tired little body welcomed the solitude. It wasn’t long before he was sound asleep.

Cooper left the Promised Land refreshed. With each passing mile, however, an uneasy feeling began creeping in, and then it hit him full throttle as he was filled with more thoughts and conflicting emotions than he could process. He had willingly and eagerly walked right to the edge of an abyss with Brooke. He now knew how easy it would have been to cheat. If he had gone to the game and Brooke was there, it would have happened. He felt it in his bones.

Cooper’s thoughts jumped to his parents.
No way was there even the hint of infidelity in their relationship.
They sometimes joked that they stayed together to make each other miserable, but the truth was they had been very happily married for forty-five years.
How’d they do it?

Knowing that when he left Kelly yesterday he had actually planned to break his marriage vows was haunting him. But for that moment of clarity while riding his tractor, he would have destroyed not only himself but also his family and his relationship with his children, if not their own value systems.
I’m such an idiot! Lord, please, please forgive me. If my marriage is over, then I need to make it real. I gotta man up about this. No more dancin’ around it!

Sundays were usually peaceful and easy for Cooper, but not today. His stomach was in a knot. He plugged in his cell phone charger and dialed home. No one answered. That really didn’t surprise him. He knew the kids were out and that Kelly could be walking or in the shower getting ready for church.

Setting the cruise control on seventy, he then dialed Gates, hoping that he had made it back to his hotel without any problems. He listened to it ring five times and then someone picked up but didn’t say anything right away.

“Gates?”

“Umm hmmm,” an unsteady voice replied. “Yeah? Hello?”

“Gates, it’s Cooper. You okay?”

“Yeah, man. My head’s killin’ me though. Whew. What a night, what a game. Where the hell are you?”

“I’m headed back to Montgomery. Do you need me?”

“No, dude, I’m okay… I just haven’t gotten up yet.”

“Everything go smoothly last night?”

“Naw. My date ditched me before the game even started, that bitch… so did Brooke, but the Lawler boys had a big time anyway.”

“Brooke left early?”

“Yep, and she was smokin’ hot too. Shoulda seen her! Damn. Man, she was
extremely
disappointed when she found out that you couldn’t make it.”

“Thanks for takin’ care of her, and I appreciate ya entertainin’ the guys.”

“No problemo. So you and Brooke got a little sumpten goin’ on?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Of course, I’m sure. Why you askin’?”

“Well, it was kinda awkward when Kelly called lookin’ for you last night, right before kickoff.”

“Really!?” Cooper asked, surprised she hadn’t tried calling his cell phone.

“It kinda felt like she was checkin’ up on you. I told her that you weren’t here yet but that you were on the way.”

Cooper didn’t want to explain his mess to Gates, so he simply said, “Okay. Thanks buddy. That’s fine.”

“Then, get this, she asked if Brooke was there. By name.”

“What?! Shit! Really? What did ya say?”

“I said she was there but had just gone to pee. Dude, look, if I need to be coverin’ for ya… you gotta give me a heads-up.”

“No, it’s nothin’ like that. Thanks. I’ll see ya in the mornin’.”

Cooper ended the call. His stomach was suddenly in a painful knot. He was now dreading two conversations with Kelly that he had to have very soon. He tried again unsuccessfully to reach Kelly.
This sucks!

T
he Client snuffed out his cigarette and grabbed the television remote control. He waved it around, bouncing the beam off a wall behind him as he impatiently flipped through the news channels. He didn’t really believe her disappearance would be on TV so soon. Maybe tonight the story would start to get some local traction. By tomorrow, it could be statewide, front page, above the fold, lead television news story, news. With a little luck it would be a slow national news day and the networks or national cable news outlets might pick up the story; he craved CNN or Fox News coverage.
Oh, the damage they’ll do,
he thought and laughed aloud.

Lighting another cigarette, he strolled down the hall to his secret room. He unlocked the door and then walked inside. For a moment, he stood in the dark, the only illumination coming from down the hall, staring at the flat-screen monitors hanging on three walls. He clicked on the master remote, and each screen popped to life and thus began the synchronized electronic shrine built for his obsession. He
shut the door. Thousands of high-resolution, digital photographs and video clips looped continuously. Each photo or clip materialized, shone vividly for eight to fifteen seconds before fading and being randomly replaced. Neatly surrounding all sides of the monitors was a vast collection of necklaces, earrings, panties, and even a few tufts of human hair. Very little of the walls were visible.

The Client would sit for hours in the center of the room, watching the screens and staring at his treasures. Doing so gave his life purpose. Focus.

He sat down in the vinyl-covered chair, soaking into his demented brain all the sights, smells, and textures.
My plan can’t fail. I’m so much smarter than all those idiots out there
, he thought.

The Client leaned back his head and closed his eyes. He knew he should rest, but he was far too jacked up on crank. He hadn’t slept in days. He switched the monitor directly in front of the chair to television mode. To the right side of the main image, which was tuned to CNN, a picture-in-picture column of eight other of his favorite news stations played. The monitors to his left and right were devoted to the slide and video show.

Sitting inside the room, he monitored a state-of-the-art, handheld digitally trunked police scanner that was connected to an external antenna. So far, there had been no interesting chatter. He had received one phone call from his hired man who reported everything was in play but provided no details. After hanging up and having a bump of coke, he became eager for details of the mission.

To satisfy himself, he sprayed a mist of her perfume into the air and inhaled deeply. After placing stereo headphones on his ears and cranking up the volume to “their song,” he leaned back and stared deliriously around the shrine.
Not
much longer, and she’ll be mine,
he thought and believed it to be true a few minutes later.

O
bviously, Clarence was in excruciating pain. He grimaced and groaned almost every time he moved, but he could not be still. His forehead was covered in sweat. He tried sitting at the table but couldn’t get comfortable, so he paced the floor.

“Dog, you look like shit,” Jesse Ray offered as he sat down on a cheap folding chair.

“You don’t look so great yourself,” he said with a grunt.

Maynard was eating Fruit Loops from a Cool Whip bowl. He had just finished an hour of jail cell exercises. Jenny had stolen a few glances at him doing push-ups shirtless, but at the moment she was worrying about Clarence.

“Let me take you to the ER. Clarence, you gotta get checked out,” Jenny insisted. “It could be serious.”

“I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I’ll be fine.” Looking at the group, Clarence said, “Okay gang, pay attention. Here are the rules. The basement door lock
never
comes off unless we’re goin’ down. We always
wear our masks. Always. We re-dose her before she regains consciousness. She won’t remember much, if anything, if we do it that way. Two hours a day we will let her come to just enough to eat, drink, and use the toilet. We’ll keep her in fresh Depends, to be safe. We gotta check her diaper every time we dose her. Change her and clean her up, if necessary. It ain’t fun, but it’s important to keep her from gettin’ an infection. The supplies are all laid out. Put dirty diapers inside the five-gallon bucket. It’s got odor-killin’ plastic bags inside, and the lid’s airtight. Whenever she’s awake, even a little bit, we make her think her husband’s behind all this. Jesse Ray’s got scripts for everybody. Got all that?”

Everyone nodded their agreement or said, “Yep.”