His head hurts, the world spins quicker than he can, and his stomach throbs. The duct tape pulls at the skin and he wonders if he’s infected, yeah, infected, and he needs to take the medication, but the medication is. . The medication is somewhere, but it only helps to numb the pain. It doesn’t heal the wound, it doesn’t cure him or make last Monday go away. He wants revenge, revenge and money, and it’s hard to know which he wants more.
“Start driving,” he says, and pushes the gun toward Charlie.
His head seems to be clearing. Not much, but enough to know this isn’t all about killing people. He knows he’s capable of speech, capable of command, knows that with the shotgun he has the power to get exactly what he wants.
“I said start driving, asshole.”
He hid in the back of the car like a bug, out of sight, with the shotgun, and boy, what a good plan, a great plan, and he’s so pleased with himself he’s smiling and starting to laugh, but he must hold back the laughter, must cling to the excitement, but not let it take him over.
Charlie starts to nod and he wonders what sort of mess he would make inside the car if he were to start shooting people. People? There’s only Charlie. Anyway, the shotgun won’t shoot anything in its current condition. It’s empty.
Something digs into the side of his hip. He adjusts his position and digs his fingers into his pocket. Bracelets? Metal ones. With a chain running between them. And blood all over them. A key is sitting in one of the locks. A key that was in his satchel that he’d left on the passenger seat.
He thinks about the money. He wonders what a suitcase full of money would look like if he were to shoot a hole in the middle of it. Would it turn into confetti? Would it turn into loose change? A suitcase of money. Just think. . just think how it would feel to run his fingers through all those loose bills. .
And then he remembers! Money. He has a suitcase full of money at home! No, no he doesn’t, but he does have a suitcase full of money owing to him. Or maybe a briefcase. All of this was for money. Money is the reason he got stabbed, it’s the reason he wants revenge. In his mind he can picture part of the note he wrote to himself and he remembers that killing Feldman is about revenge, but picking up the money he’s owed is for the job he did the other night. Things may have gotten fucked up along the way, but he still got that woman killed, so really he doesn’t need Charlie at all.
Charlie is reversing now and he finds a spot where he can turn the car around.
“Don’t try anything,” Cyris says, and Charlie shakes his head. Does that mean he doesn’t understand? Or that he disagrees? Or that he won’t try anything?
When they reach the highway he tells Charlie to put his foot to the pedal.
“What’s the hurry?”
“You’ll learn soon enough,” he says, glancing into the mirror and seeing that the bitch is close behind them. “We’ll all learn soon enough.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
What’s a night without two homicidal maniacs? A boring night, that’s what. So right now I am, as they say, pretty fucking far from bored.
I don’t remember Cyris sounding this crazy, but that could be because we didn’t talk much when we first met. The only thing I can think to do is crash the car into something solid in the hope Jo can get away, but that plan has a huge drawback-she will come to help. Cyris might still be alive and I might not. Who will protect her then?
Who’s protected her so far?
Hopefully she’s already figured out something was wrong. The plan was for me to move the car, not keep driving it.
“What do you want?” I strain to keep my voice controlled.
“Shut up and drive.”
The wipers roam across the windshield, smearing the rain from side to side. I shut up and drive. No point in arguing. I try to think of a way I can signal Jo-Morse code with the brake lights or something.
“The box, what’s in the box? You saw the box? It was a present. I hope you liked it.”
“How’s the stomach?” I ask.
“Whose stomach?” he asks.
“Your stomach.”
“I’ll live.”
“That’s a real shame.”
He pushes the gun into my ribs. “Why don’t you concentrate on driving.”
I do just that, again following the orders of the man with the gun. Common practice. And I’ve been practicing a lot. When I flick the headlights to high beam the rain looks thicker. There’s no other traffic on this road in the middle of nowhere. I feel like taking my hands off the wheel and seeing where fate steers my car. I’ve had enough. Enough guilt. Enough pain. Enough of people dying around me. I’ve become a catalyst for death and I don’t like it. The heater is combining with my rage to warm me up. I’m thinking it might be like drinking alcohol when you’re suffering from hypothermia. You feel warmer, but you’re not. Your body’s fooling you. And you die. End of story.
Is that to be my story?
The rain begins to ease off. I slow the windshield wipers so that every second they sweep across and show me the dark night ahead. I watch the road and concentrate on driving over the wet asphalt. My knuckles are sore from squeezing the steering wheel. My fingers are white. Slowly I unclench them. The joints pop.
“You look tense, partner,” Cyris says.
Yeah, that’s right.
“Money, Feldman,” he says. “How much of it do you have?”
This question surprises me. I think about it. “I’m not sure. It’s all wet, anyway.”
“Wet? Wet, how? How did. . no, no, no, not the money in your pockets, the money in your bank. How many dollars do you have?”
“Nothing.”
He pushes the gun in harder. I glance at him in the mirror. He’s blinking rapidly. “That’s a lie. You’re lying, lying, and lying people catch on fire. I know you have money. I’ve seen your house, I looked at your money statements.”
“I’m a schoolteacher, not a doctor. I have a mortgage. Do you know what that means?”
“I know you’re a teacher, I know this, I know, and I’m not a moron.”
“The bank owns my house, not me.”
He draws the gun back, then pushes it in harder still.
I jerk away. The car swerves across the road. I tug at the wheel, shift down a couple of gears, and the car swerves right, then straightens. My reactions defy my thoughts of crashing. Surely Jo must know now that I’m in trouble.
“How much you got?” Cyris asks as if nothing just happened. I glance into the rearview mirror. Jo is still behind us, but much further back now. Can money get us out of this?
“Not much.”
“You owe me forty grand.”
“What?”
“I could do with some money, partner. Forty grand sounds pretty sweet.”
Forty grand. I have a strong feeling why he picked that amount. “Get a job.”
“I have a job.”
Things that didn’t make sense on Monday are making some sense now. Things seem clearer since I talked to Landry. One of the world’s biggest motives to kill, after revenge, is money. That’s exactly what Cyris is asking for now. I know he likes money. He shouted it out half an hour ago. He wants money. Was that his goal on Monday? Was he being paid?
Yes. Of course he was. The theory Jo came up with, the theory I came up with when talking to Landry, it all makes perfect sense. To kill one woman would make the police look at obvious reasons, then obvious suspects. To kill them both in a horrific and brutal way makes the entire thing look ritualistic. It makes it look like she died for an entirely different set of reasons. Like some random madman dragged them both from their homes and committed madman atrocities on them, rather than being paid for it.
Cyris is more than a mere monster. He’s a paid killer. A man who takes his job seriously enough to take on a completely different role. As horrid as it is, I can appreciate the cleverness in his process. The police are looking for some deranged lunatic because Cyris was a deranged lunatic in those early Monday hours.