Bad To The Bone (34 page)

"For fuck's sake," Denny complained, taking
off his coat and throwing it over the kilo. "How conspicuous can
you get?"

He mispronounced "conspicuous," but somehow
I didn't think it was the right time for a vocabulary lesson.

Number One was silent, thinking. He stared
at me in the rearview mirror. I forced myself not to look back. I
didn't know what he was thinking, but just the fact that he was
thinking made me sweat.

"What makes you think he took off with some
other bitch?" Number One finally asked. Well, he's half-right, I
thought philosophically.

"I told you, he was talking to her on the
phone. I was in the bathroom, washing my face. After he hit me." I
sniffled for effect. "The water was running. He thought I couldn't
hear him. But I was listening at the door."

"You were listening at the door?" Denny
asked skeptically.

"Damn right I was." I tried to sound
indignant. "I knew something was up. Jeff acted all funny when I
got back to the room. I told him you had promised to let us off the
hook if we returned everything, but he just looked at me like I was
too stupid to bother with."

"Makes sense," Denny offered. "The jerk
still doesn't want to give it up. I'm tired of tracking his ass.
Let's go in and take care of it."

"Shut up, Denny." The first guy was silent
for a minute. "Give me the license plate number."

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the
scrap of paper with the license plate number of the car Tawny had
"borrowed" on it.

"Florida plates," Denny said. "He had
another bitch stored down there. She probably waltzed right past
us."

The first man had started to tap the
steering wheel with one of his cuff links. The sound was driving me
nuts.

"This is the deal," he said, twisting the
ignition key. The sudden sound of the engine startled me. "We'll go
looking for Jones and this new bimbo he's with. We'll give you half
an hour, maybe a little more. But only because you brought us this
present." He tapped the kilo. "Denny, get this out of the front
seat."

"Put it in the trunk?" Denny asked.

Number One stared at him. "No, Denny. Shove
it up your ass." Denny stared at him seriously, as if calculating
circumference, enthusiasm and length. "Yes, put it in the trunk,"
Number One finally said.

Denny scrambled from the car and Number One
pounded his head gently against the steering wheel.

"Good help is hard to find," I said. I was
just trying to establish rapport.

He turned around and glared at me. "You
better not be lying to us, lady."

"Why would I bother to bring you a kilo of
coke if I was lying? I could have taken off with it. I came to you,
remember?"

He didn't say anything, so I launched into
an in-character lament. "Hey," I said angrily. "I'm the victim
here. I thought Jeff loved me. He told me just to hold the stuff
for him for a few weeks until we could split it. He didn't tell me
he'd stolen it from you guys. He was using me. I hate him as much
as you do."

"Oh, yeah?" Number One asked dryly. "Funny.
He told us you had stolen the stuff and that's why he was in a
bind."

"Well, he would say that, wouldn't he? The
lying, cheating, no-good, dirty scumbag of a—" I launched into a
word-for-word repeat of one of Tawny's more colorful character
descriptions. Number One listened in impassive silence until Denny
rejoined us in the car.

"What's the matter?" Number One asked his
partner. "Get your dick caught in the trunk?"

"Good thing it's not a compact," I chimed
in.

Denny began to laugh. "Hey, get it? Compact?
It wouldn't be big enough." One thing about guys, they'll always
laugh at a joke that depicts them as larger than life.

"Shut up, Denny," Number One said as he
pulled out from the parking lot. "One idiot to a car is more than
enough."

"Hey, where are we going?" I asked. "Let me
out. I did my duty."

"You gotta be kidding," Number One said.

"No, I'm not kidding." And I wasn't. This
wasn't part of the deal. They didn't need me. They had Tawny's
license plate number and a description of her car. And I needed out
of their car, so I could sic the cops on all three of them.

There was no response from the front
seat.

"Let me out or I'll jump," I threatened.

"Go ahead." Number One accelerated. The car
sped up to fifty miles an hour.

"That's smart. Get stopped by the cops with
a kilo in your trunk."

Number One slammed on the brakes and the car
screeched to a halt. He sat for a moment, hands locked on the
steering wheel. I didn't like the silence.

"Listen to me, you dumb bitch," he said
quietly. "You're not getting out of this car. And if we can't find
your boyfriend, we'll settle for sending him a message through
you."

"He doesn't care about me. Killing me won't
make him feel bad."

"No, but it will make me feel better."
Number One pulled away again while Denny laughed dutifully at his
joke.

I began to wonder how the hell I would ever
get out of this one. Ten minutes later, I was still wondering.

"Okay," Number One said sourly. "That's
every motel in this entire shithole. No car matching this supposed
car. How does that make me feel?"

"Thorough?" I suggested. No one laughed.
"She wouldn't be stupid enough to stay right next door. She's
probably staying somewhere nearby." God, how I hoped that I was
right.

So did Number One. He looked at his watch.
"Let's hope you're right."

Denny pulled a cellular phone from his
pocket and started to dial.

"What are you doing?" Number One asked,
irritated.

"I've got a lot riding on the Lakers game.
I'm just calling in to check—"

"Hang up the phone," Number One ordered.

Denny quickly folded it up and stowed it
away—but it gave me an idea.

I waited a moment until Number One's
attention was back on the highway. Then I slipped the cellular
phone out of my knapsack. I didn't want to pull out the gun. Not
when it was two against one. And not when my only option was to
blow one of their heads off, then duck and pray. When it comes to
wholesale carnage, I'll pass every time.

I held the phone upside
down, close to my leg, so the glow of the LED would not give it
away. I'd read a newspaper article a couple of months ago about a
woman and her baby who'd been kidnapped when some yo-yo stole their
car. She'd called the cops on her cellular phone and kept an open
line long enough to signal her whereabouts.
If it had worked for her, it might work for me. But calling
911 cold was useless. They'd have no clue as to what was going
on.

Only Bill would know what to do. What the
hell was his number?

The redial button. Bill was the last number
on it. Shit, which one was it? I closed my eyes and mentally
relived those moments in the hotel room. Think, I ordered myself.
You were sitting in a chair, you reached for the phone, you dialed,
you hung up, you tried again. Your finger is reaching for the—

First button on the left. Top of the row.
That had to be it.

I faked a cough and pressed the button. The
LED flickered slightly. I held it lower. Please god, don't let them
hear Bill's voice on the other end.

"Where are we going?" I asked loudly, after
letting enough time pass for Bill's answering machine to pick up
and start recording. Both men jumped when I spoke. "Sorry, didn't
mean to scare you. I just wondered why we were heading west. I
mean, there's not much west of South of the Border. Get it? Get the
joke?"

I was prattling, trying to let Bill know
where I was and that I needed help.

They ignored me. "Look, I've been along
Route 9 a zillion times," I said. "There's hardly any motels on
it."

"What are you?" Denny asked. "An expert on
motels?" He leered at me. "I bet you are intimately familiar with
mattresses from here to Maine."

"Excuse me," I said. "South of the Border is
about as racy as I get." I saw a town sign ahead. "What the hell
are we doing in Petrie? There's nothing here but a bunch of old
farmers."

"Shut up," Number One said. "Or I'll have
Denny pistol whip you."

Denny looked alarmed at the suggestion.

"You wouldn't really pistol whip me, would
you?" I asked. Hear that, Bill? We're talking pistol whipping. And
that's just for starters.

"No," Number One admitted. "I wouldn't risk
cracking my gun on that rock hard head of yours. Just shut up and
sit back."

"I can't shut up," I explained in a pleading
voice. "It's my worst habit. Jeff says I talk too much. The
bastard. He was always telling me what was wrong with me. I want
you to find him and kill him. You don't know what he's done to me.
He promised me we'd get married and now he's run off with some
bitch named Tawny. Who has a name like that anyway? Tawny. What a
joke." I raised my voice on her name. If Bill Butler was listening
and didn't grasp the implications of that one, he was too dumb to
help me.

"If we find him, will you cut me some
slack?" I asked. "Give me some credit for returning that kilo and
helping you find him and his new girlfriend? We could call it even.
Just let me walk away." I was too near hysteria for them to pay
much attention to what I said. They'd tuned me out.

"There's nothing here," Denny said. "Maybe
we ought to try the eastern road."

"Yeah," I agreed eagerly. "Let's look on
Route 9 over toward Dillon. I think there's some cheap motels near
the..." I searched for a plausible story. "...the railroad tracks."
Hey, when you come from the wrong side of them, they're never far
from your mind.

"How do you know?" Denny asked. "You from
around here?"

"Shut up with the small talk," Number One
ordered. But he pulled a U-turn and headed back the other way.

"U-turns are illegal on Route 9," I said.
Get it, Bill. "It's no joke. South Carolina cops are murder.
They'll write you a ticket for jaywalking."

Both men ignored me. The car picked up
speed. "This Lumina's got pretty good pickup," I said. "What is it,
last year's?"

"You a fucking car enthusiast?" Number One
asked. "What the hell do you care what my car is?"

"I care about the color," I said. "I'm a
girl, remember?"

"Oh yeah?" His voice was sarcastic. "Well,
this is charcoal gray, so don't get your panties in a twist."

"I like charcoal gray," I protested. "It's
so... classic." Thanks dickhead, for letting Bill know it was a
charcoal gray late model Lumina heading east on Route 9 somewhere
near South of the Border.

"There's South of the Border again," I said
as we sped past the complex. We kept going on the small
southeast-to-west highway that traverses I-95.

"I can do without the fucking travelogue,"
Number One muttered.

I shut up. I could afford to now. The
connection was still open. I'd keep it open. It was my only
chance.

"Can we turn on the radio until we get
there?" I asked. I wanted to mask any sounds from the other end of
the line.

"Get where?" Number One asked sourly.
"You've got fifteen minutes left."

"They have to be at a motel between here and
Dillon. It makes sense. Except for South of the Border, there are
no other motels for sixty miles either way you go on I-95. So this
new bitch of his must be staying somewhere on Route 9. If she's
nearby and she's not in the other direction, then she has to be
staying—"

"Shut up," Number One ordered again.

I sat back and waited. Eight very long
minutes later, the glow of a small town appeared up ahead.

"Street lights," I announced. "I didn't even
know there was a town between South of the Border and Dillon." We
passed a small road sign. “Taylorsville," I said. "There's probably
three people who live here: Taylor, Taylor and Taylor."

"Denny," Number One said, "If she keeps it
up, shoot her."

"In the car?" Denny asked, appalled. "You
said we'd take good care of it if I let you—"

"Shut up, Denny," Number One ordered
angrily.

"There's a motel!" I
shouted, relieved. "See?
The Rainbow
Lodge.
God, what a tacky sign. You'd think
they could come up with something besides a leftover sixties
rainbow."

"Quit screaming in my fucking ear!" Number
One yelled. "I'm not blind. I see it. You're really starting to
piss me off with your motor mouth."

I didn't care. I was living on hope, getting
my energy from a fantasy unfolding in my head. Bill had to be on
the other end of the line. He had to be.

"Come on," I urged, "let's check it
out."

"This is a waste of time," Number One
muttered. But he pulled into the gravel parking lot. Three cars
were parked in front of a low, redwood building.

The car on the far end was Tawny's.

"Holy Christ," Denny said, staring at it.
"The bitch was telling the truth."

"It's her car," I said. "I told you. She's
inside with Jeff, right now. I know she is. They have the rest of
your drugs." If I could get them to go inside, I could slip away
and call the cops.

"There is someone inside with her," Denny
added. "Could be Jones."

"There is?" The words were out before I
could stop them. "How can you tell?"

"Look," he said, pointing to the window.
"It's better than a peep show."

Sure enough, a light shining at the back of
the motel room perfectly silhouetted a slender figure bent over
someone on the bed, creating a pornographic puppet show through the
curtains.

"Nice body," Denny pointed out. "Let's break
in now while she's naked."

"Shut up, Denny," Number One said
automatically. "I need to think."

I was too upset to argue. Jeff was even
stupider than I thought. He had hitchhiked back the other way. He
had met Tawny after all. How had he gotten through to her? He must
have known where she'd gone when I ran her out of her own room. I
was so stupid. All he'd had to do was thumb a ride to a phone and
call her. And now they were having some sort of celebratory boink
to commemorate their victory over me. Oh, god. They'd kill Jeff for
sure. Not even the thought that he'd go while doing the one thing
in the world he was half-decent at calmed me. If he died, it would
be my fault. Well, his really, for being so utterly stupid in the
first place, but his blood would still be on my hands.