Harvard. .
How could he do that to her?
She’s not going to cry. She’s not. . Yes, she is.
Laura’s so miserable she almost doesn’t hear it — a pitiful mewing sound. A kitten, in the alleyway. She peers into the dark space between a hair salon and a flower shop, both closed for the night. There’s a cardboard box sitting in a doorway, about halfway down the alley, caught in the glow of a security light.
She can see a pair of little fuzzy ears moving around in there.
Laura takes a couple of steps towards it, then freezes, and pulls the pepper spray from her purse. Never hurts to be too careful. But there’s no one there, just the cardboard box with a single black and white kitten in it. The poor thing must be hungry. She squats down in front of the box and wipes the tears from her eyes.
“You been abandoned too?” And the tears are there again.
She picks the kitten out of the box, holding the little furry bundle against her chest, turns. . and it all goes into slow motion. A scuffing noise behind her — and she starts to spin round. But she’s not fast enough.
It feels like a punch in the kidneys, and then the electricity kicks in, shooting through the muscles of her back, making everything scream. And as her legs give way, and she starts to fall, all she can think of is that if she lands on the kitten the poor thing will be crushed.
Laura’s head slams into the alley floor and everything goes black.
The back of a filthy Winnebago — Today — Friday
The Bastard pops the tazer back in his holdall, and picks up the cardboard box from under the table, making cooing noises at the kitten inside. “Who’s Daddy’s little angel?” he says. “You are. Yes, you are.” Then he tucks the box under his arm and walks back through the curtain, singing The Lord is My Shepherd as he goes.
The next sound is the driver’s door being slammed.
Laura knows that when the Bastard returns he’ll have another girl with him. And then they’ll be back on the road again. One Step closer to Christ knows what.
Chapter 9
It’s nearly midnight and we’re driving along the Interstate, listening to some bullshit talk radio station, because that’s all this God-damned car will pick up. Henry’s sitting in the passenger seat, arguing with the callers — even though they can’t hear him — and drinking from a fresh bottle of Old Kentucky.
I can’t decide if the smell of bourbon’s making me feel hungry or sick.
‘I just wanna say,’ says some cracker on the radio, ‘that this isn’t about gun control, it’s about not treating women with the respect they deserve!’
“Course it’s about gun control, you stupid bitch!” says Henry, “How can it not be about gun control? How stupid are these people? Hello! Wake the fuck up. Isn’t about gun control my ass.”
“Yeah, well,” I say, “what do you expect from people who got nothing better to do on a Friday night than call some lame-ass radio show?”
Jack’s in the back, trying to sleep as the counties slowly drift by outside: McLean, Woodford, Tazewell, Peoria, Knox. . We get a small laugh on the way out of Knox — the next county’s called ‘Henry’. “Hey, look,” I say, “you’re five miles away!”
Henry toasts the big sign with his name on it as we cross the county line.
Then twenty-five miles later we’re driving through the last chunk of Illinois, Rock Island. It’s not even eleven miles wide, but it takes us nearly half an hour to cross the border into Iowa. God-damned car steers like a boat, brakes like an oil tanker, and accelerates like. . You know what? I can’t think of anything that accelerates this slowly. My fucking apartment moves faster than this.
The radio fizzes and crackles as the signal fades, so Henry fiddles with the dial. Back and forth, looking for something to listen to. We almost get a country and western station, but Henry says he’d rather listen to a fat guy farting. And then it’s more late night talk radio.
‘. . in three weeks,’ says a man’s voice. ‘OK, you’re listening to KFBM — Scott County Radio, all talk, all of the time. We’ll be back after these messages. .’ Then it’s ads for tractor dealerships and farming shit. ‘Right, we’re on the air with a regular caller — Jason. What’s on your mind, Jason?’
‘Yeah, you see that America’s Most Wanted tonight? That Sawbones guy? Travellin’ all over the country and snatching girls?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘What I want to know is how come the Feds can’t catch this guy?’
“’Cause they’re assholes, that’s why,” says Henry, back into his bourbon again. “Tell you, half the people who call these programmes need locking up. The other half should be taken outside and shot. Back of the head. BAM!”
Then some woman calls in and proves Henry right. ‘You know what,’ she says, her voice all nasal, like she’s got a cold, or a finger jammed up there, hunting for her brain, ‘I saw that Jones guy on the TV going on about his daughter. You know what I heard? I heard he was a mobster. He’s out there running drugs and prostitutes and murdering people, and we’re supposed to feel sorry for him because his daughter’s gone missing?’ She gives one of those sarcastic laughs. ‘You know what I call it? I call it God’s judgement. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap!” It’s in the Bible, people — ’
Henry looks at me, then switches the radio off. He doesn’t even bother shouting at it.
“So. .” I say at last, “what we going to do when we get to Polk County?”
Henry shrugs and takes another swig. “We get ourselves a list of all the Winnebagos registered in Polk and we go visit each and every one. When we find the one with a hula Elvis and an ‘In God We Trust’ bumper sticker, we kick the shit out the owner and take him back to New Jersey.”
I nod. Wondering how the hell we’re going to get the list, but Henry’s a lot smarter than me — he’ll figure it out. “You think the Weasel in the morgue was right?” I ask. “That, you know, the girls might still be alive?”
Henry shudders. “Christ, I hope not.”
“Yeah. . you’re probably right.” More miles drift by in silence. “What you think he does to them? You know, after he cuts their arms and legs off?”
“I don’t know, Mark,” he says to me, “and I don’t really want to know.”
Chapter 10
The back of a filthy Winnebago
Laura’s almost asleep when the side door is flung open. Orange streetlight spills in through the opening, draining the colour out of everything. The Bastard’s back and he’s not alone — he’s got a girl thrown over his shoulder.
He dumps her on the Winnebago’s filthy carpet, then climbs in after her, pulls the door shut, and switches on the pale, flickering lights. The Bastard grabs the new girl by the armpits and drags her backwards until she’s up against the fridge, then cable-ties her hands and feet to one of the rings bolted into the floor. He’s humming Nearer, My God, to Thee as he works, with a great big grin on his face.
And then he strokes her leg, starting at the ankle and going all the way up to the fleshy part of her thigh. Squeezing it as he bites his bottom lip.
The Bastard shivers, crosses himself. Then stands.
“Repent,” he says, throwing his arms wide, “for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” He smiles down at them. “Now we can all go back to the garden.”
He ducks back outside, returning with the kitten in its cardboard box, stroking its fur and telling it how good it’s been. How special. The Bastard puts the box back under the table, then picks his way between the five women, staying out of Laura’s kicking range. He may be a bastard, but he’s not stupid.