Someone doesn"t want me to leave.
But let"s see them try to stop me, because clothes are the last thing I"ll require. I"ll probably be naked and in bed with Betty for most of the trip anyway. All I need is my wallet and maybe a crate of sick bags. I start to feel more positive, knowing I"m less than twenty-four hours from a brave new world.
The front door opens.
I fall silent, listening hard. I close the bathroom door.
Someone steps inside and gently closes the door behind them. Their footsteps are made gingerly, silently, and I listen with a lump swelling in my throat as the extremely light footfalls first enter the living room. There is a pause, but then they"re on the move again, quicker this time, taking less trouble not to be heard. The intruder enters the bedroom, maybe expecting to take me by surprise in there.
Again the footsteps stop.
Everything goes silent.
Even my breath seems barely audible, mainly because I have stopped breathing.
The intruder is probably taking in the graffiti on my bedroom wall. It buys me time to look for a weapon, but the best I can come up with is a fake porcelain lavatory brush.
The silence is becoming unbearably loud now. It is attacking my eardrums with its nothingness and booming around inside my head.
What was that?!
Something moved-right outside the bathroom door!
How did the intruder get there without making a sound?
I grip the lavatory brush so hard that my knuckles lose all their natural color.
The thunderous silence returns.
Christ.
Quarterback builder, quarterback builder . . .
The door is pushed gently open.
This is it.
Judgment Day.
The door opens wider.
Quarterback builder, quarterback builder . . .
Wider still.
Qb, qb, qb . . . Do I have to abbreviate everything?
Wider and wider.
I was so close to becoming a hero.
Agent Wade stands tall, imposing, and evil, framed in the bathroom doorway, his blue eyes a piercing evil cobalt.
"Hi, Dougie."
It"s as though someone has injected me with a paralysis-inducing drug. The kind Tony uses on his victims.
"You finished in there?"
I still can"t seem to speak.
"Saw you decorated your bedroom."
It is then that I notice that Agent Wade is wearing William Holden"s false eyebrows. The same ones I took from his glove compartment.
"It"s different, I"ll give you that."
I glance to my left and see that my left arm is working independently of me, raising the toilet brush into the air, fingers still clenched around the handle.
"I didn"t see anyone turn up at Grillers. Apart from some kid. . . . Guess KK didn"t show, huh?"
My arm stops in midair, the lavatory brush raised like a weapon, and I hear myself growl. A low, guttural sound.
Agent Wade looks pretty p.i.s.sed off. "What have we got to do to get that guy? I really thought we had him."
He closes the bathroom door and walks softly into the living room. He feeds in a sheet of clean paper and starts typing. I hear him give a loud and impromptu belch and can easily make out the familiar sound of a lid being unscrewed from a gin bottle. The gin is poured into a tumbler-a seriously healthy measure-and the bottle is banged down hard on the coffee table. Agent Wade lifts the tumbler to his lips.
"Geronimo."
I listen as he takes a big gulp. Using my right hand, I have to physically unclench the fingers of my left hand from the toilet brush and watch as it drops at my feet. I stay there, listening to the end of the world begin.
After spending most of the next twenty minutes typing furiously, Agent Wade suddenly erupts in a flash of rage. "Christ. All I do all day is type! Type, type, type! It"s all paperwork, this job. Pure freaking paperwork. I didn"t join up to sit behind a desk all day."
I had yet to see Agent Wade sitting anywhere but on my sofa, and his outburst breathes life into my limbs. I emerge in time to see the typewriter nearly hit me full in the face as Agent Wade hurls it at the wall a couple of inches to the right of me.
"Why didn"t he show, Dougie? Why the h.e.l.l didn"t he show?!" Agent Wade is already drunk, and his blue eyes have turned watery gray. It"s like the gin has risen up his torso, gone on past his neck, and now laps behind his eyes. He stinks of the stuff.
"What did you do with my clothes?"
"Huh?" Agent Wade lurches drunkenly toward the sofa and lets himself fall facedown onto it.
"Where are they?"
"Where is he? Where"s KK?" His speech is badly slurred.
"You"re KK, you stupid a.s.s."
"Where is he, Dougie? I"ve spent three years on the road, driving everywhere, I"ve been in more KFCs than anyone on the d.a.m.n planet. I"m hooked on the stuff . . . I"m a chicken wing junkie."
"Listen to me, you drunk-you"re the Kentucky Killer. You found him years ago. Just look in the mirror."
Agent Wade raises his bleary-eyed head, and I can almost hear the gin sloshing around inside him. "Is it you? Are you him? Are you? Tell me, Dougie . . . are you KK?"
As I look at Agent Wade, I know without question that it"s time for him to die. I don"t care how I do it, but this is the end of the road for the Kentucky Killer.
I roll up my sleeves, revealing my sinewy Douglas Fairbanks Jr. wrists, and I study my hands as I bring them up and can the feel raw power surging into them. These fingers could strangle a lion. I take a step toward Agent Wade, who has let his head flop back down. I take another step as he grunts and s...o...b..rs over the sofa, nestling into it, making himself comfortable as he moans. "Where the h.e.l.l is he?"
I get closer and closer. Agent Wade snorts, can"t get his breath, and then coughs. I freeze, wait for him to nestle down again. I get within a foot of him, bring my hands up, find that I"m talking to myself over and over. "Die, die, die, die . . ."
Agent Wade starts snoring, long inhalations, his back rising and falling with each snore. From this angle I can"t really strangle him, but I could snap his neck. That"ll make up for Cher.
I go for his throat, but before I can lay a finger on him, Agent Wade has his gun out and the barrel is wedged hard against my left eyeball. His gin-ridden breath clouds over me as his eyes bore into me.
"Try and stick to the plan, Dougie. Huh?"
CHUCK, NORRIS, MYRNA, LOY,.
LOBSTER ON MY MIND.
I STILL CAN"T BELIEVE STILL CAN"T BELIEVE that the sun is shining and take it as a good omen. It streams into my room, and as I lie in bed, feeling this bright new dawn burning away the last traces of dark cloud, I stretch and yawn, casting off last night"s h.e.l.l. I went to bed in my clothes and don"t have to bother doing anything other than slipping on my loafers. I go to the bedroom door, open it a fraction, and peek through at Agent Wade, who lies unconscious, still facedown in the sofa. I"m not even going to attempt to sneak past him-the guy"s quicker than a cobra-and instead go to my bedroom window, slide it open, and climb out into a fine spring day. that the sun is shining and take it as a good omen. It streams into my room, and as I lie in bed, feeling this bright new dawn burning away the last traces of dark cloud, I stretch and yawn, casting off last night"s h.e.l.l. I went to bed in my clothes and don"t have to bother doing anything other than slipping on my loafers. I go to the bedroom door, open it a fraction, and peek through at Agent Wade, who lies unconscious, still facedown in the sofa. I"m not even going to attempt to sneak past him-the guy"s quicker than a cobra-and instead go to my bedroom window, slide it open, and climb out into a fine spring day.
I jimmy the lock on Agent Wade"s car door, jump in behind the wheel, and pray that the engine catches the first time after I hot-wire it. After five attempts it starts, and I"m already halfway down the road when Agent Wade charges out of my house, waving his gun around and yelling, "Come back, you little freak . . . come back here now!"
I nestle back into the leather-look seat, take the first left onto the highway, and press the pedal to the metal, as they say. Nothing"s going to stop me now. Not even the fact that I have no earthly idea how to drive a boat. Though I hope to have mastered it by the time Betty and I reach the Gulf of Mexico. I"ve decided we can sell the boat when we dock and use the money to set up a roadside caravan diner. Once we get that up and running, we can think about expanding. Within two or three years, we could even be rivaling KFC.
I get within a mile of the harbor in time for breakfast, which I grab at a drive-in Hannibal Hanimal joint and eat greedily at the wheel of Agent Wade"s car. I scatter the debris of the meal all over his seats, even opening the salt packet and shaking it into his in-car radio system. I decide that he should know what it feels like to have something you love desecrated, and this simple little act helps make up for the mess Agent Wade has made of my house. And my life.
I leave the car about half a mile from the harbor and walk the rest of the way. It is so good to be out without oilskins, and I even nod to a few pa.s.sersby, who look as happy as I do that the sun has finally broken through.
The harbor itself is a hive of happy, whistling sailors, as they clean their boats, run guylines here and there, crank up the engines, replace the shattered gla.s.s of their fog lights, and paint sections of faded woodwork. The security guard whirrs along the wooden jetty in a motorized wheelchair, his feet still heavily bandaged, and even he has time to pull up beside me and shoot the breeze.
"h.e.l.l of a day."
"h.e.l.l of a day."
"Perfect sailing weather."
"Perfect."
"Still as a mill pond."
"You said it. Mill pond still."
I can"t wait to become a sailor. I really can"t, and I make a mental note to get a captain"s hat as soon as I can-and maybe even a pipe.
I walk on down the same jetty that I thundered along not so many nights ago now, running for my very life. I suppose in a way I"m still running-or at least chugging-but today I know for certain that I"m going to get away.
The Teacher Teacher floats proudly near the end of the jetty. The car tires that are nailed all along its side rub up against the peer, squeezing in and out as if the boat itself is breathing. I board the boat like an admiral, marching onto it with an air of belonging. I look and feel like I was born to sail the seven seas. floats proudly near the end of the jetty. The car tires that are nailed all along its side rub up against the peer, squeezing in and out as if the boat itself is breathing. I board the boat like an admiral, marching onto it with an air of belonging. I look and feel like I was born to sail the seven seas.
It takes me all of five seconds to find Chuck Norris sitting in the captain"s chair, and as I turn and scramble for my life, I slip and fall down a hatch into the living quarters below. I land hard, coming face-to-face with Myrna, who lies out on the same bunk I had slept in. I say face-to-face merely as a figure of speech, because her head is obscured by a KFC bargain bucket-just the way Chuck"s was.
I crawl away on all fours, scurrying like a rat as far away from Myrna as I can get. I sit up, wedged against the wooden wall of the living quarters, believing that I can"t have woken up yet, that I"m still in my bed, tossing and turning from a terrible nightmare.
The boat bats against the jetty, the sunlight arrows in as the sun climbs higher, and Chuck and Myrna are as dead as the dodos Chuck once made that really cra.s.s joke about.
Sure, this is a nightmare, but I"m not dreaming it.
I have to find a phone, I have to call Betty, tell her the plan has changed.
Oh G.o.d . . .
What if Agent Wade"s got to Betty as well?
Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.
A boat pa.s.ses, sending a big ripple thudding into the side of the Teacher. Teacher. It also sends Myrna skidding off the bunk and onto the wooden floor. The family bargain bucket rolls off Myrna"s head, and there is a typed note stapled to her forehead. I crawl slowly toward the note, reach out, and s.n.a.t.c.h it from Myrna"s head before scrambling back to the sanctuary of the living quarters wall. It also sends Myrna skidding off the bunk and onto the wooden floor. The family bargain bucket rolls off Myrna"s head, and there is a typed note stapled to her forehead. I crawl slowly toward the note, reach out, and s.n.a.t.c.h it from Myrna"s head before scrambling back to the sanctuary of the living quarters wall.
End I stare at the note, my eyes blurring, unable to focus until I wipe them with the bottom of my black velvet jacket. I try hard to keep a level head as the houseboat bobs up and down. I can hear normal life outside as sailors stop to chat, gulls squawk, and engines phut-phut phut-phut on their way out to sea. on their way out to sea.
I take a big breath, determined to be a part of the real world and not be dragged any further into this serial-killing madness. I edge low past Myrna, find some steps, and crawl up them into the steering cabin. Chuck is still there, tied to the captain"s chair, and I force myself to shove my hand underneath the KFC bargain bucket and grope around for the note that is stapled there. I tear it off and then duck down as another boat chugs past, the captain waving to Chuck, and then double taking when he realizes that Chuck is modeling some very fancy headgear. The captain sails on past, probably wondering where he can buy a cool hat like that.
The I put the two typed notes together and realize that I was meant to read Chuck"s note first. That"s so typical of me.
It is all I can do to keep from haring along the jetty, screaming at the top of my lungs, but somehow I manage to walk in an orderly fashion, nodding to smiling sailors and trying to smile back as much as I can. The security guard in the wheelchair whirrs over to me when he sees me and offers a broad weather-beaten grin.
"Perfect day for it."
"f.u.c.k you."
I don"t bother to even glance at the security guard"s stunned face as I march onward, walking faster and faster, until after a quarter of a mile I can bear it no longer and break into a jog. The jog develops into a sprint, and my arms and legs are like nuclear-powered pistons as I career toward Agent Wade"s car. I"ve got to get to Betty.
I start the car at the third attempt, rev the engine hard, and then hear someone speak as though they are about to belch.
"June, June, June . . ." Tony tuts like a monkey. "You sorry little f.u.c.k."
I can smell strawberries on Tony"s breath as he leans forward from the rear seat and figure he must have gone somewhere upmarket for breakfast. The shattered wing mirror lands on the pa.s.senger seat beside me-the same one that Tony shot on the night he lopped off Burt"s head. He belch-talks again.
"I picked this up, sent it to forensics, and they ran a check for me. Clever guys, these forensic gents. Got me a license number. Seems you"re running around in a government-owned car. Should be executed for that, June. That"s as close to treason as it gets."
"Look, uh . . . I know what you"re thinking, Tony, but believe me, you are badly mistaken."
Tony isn"t listening. "You any idea what the Club meant to me?"
"You"ve got to listen to me. Betty"s in trouble, Tony-"