Body Rides (5 page)

‘Okay. Good.’

‘Good?’

‘Just that we don’t have to worry about his pants and gloves. Anyway, even if you did leave some prints, all that stuff we piled on him’ll probably mess them up pretty good.’ He frowned down at the oblong, bushy mound.

‘What?’ Elise asked.

‘I’m just wondering if we should go ahead and take them anyway, just to play it safe.’

‘Take what, his pants?’

‘And gloves.’

‘Are you kidding?’

‘You could wear his pants,’ Neal said.

‘Not a chance. It’s awful enough having his shoes on. If you think for one second . . . no way. Not his pants. Let’s just go.’ She took hold of Neal’s hand and pulled him along beside her.

‘Are you sure you aren’t leaving anything behind?’ he asked.

‘I’m sure.’

‘You didn’t have a purse, or . . .’

‘No purse. Some blood, that’s all. I guess I’m leaving some of that behind. Along with some sweat and tears.’

‘Nobody can identify you from any of that.’

‘What about DNA and that sort of thing?’

‘They might be able to match you to it, but first they’d have to know who you are. You’d basically have to be arrested and indicted before they’d ever run tests like that.’

‘You seem to know a lot about . . . crime things.’

He shrugged. ‘Not that much. I see a lot of movies, read a lot of books. Watch some trials on TV. That’s all.’

Before stepping out of the trees, they stopped and scanned the field, the nearby streets, the sidewalks and yards. They saw no one. A couple of porch lights. A few lights showing through windows. But no headlights.

Elise let go of Neal’s hand and started to run. More of a quick jog than a dash. Neal guessed that she might be afraid to go all-out wearing the large shoes.

He rushed along beside her.

At first, he had almost objected to running.
We’ll look too conspicuous
. But he realized it would be a silly argument. At this hour of night, coming through this no-man’s-land, they were so out of place that running wasn’t likely to draw any additional attention.

Better to hurry and reach the street as fast as possible. They’d be far less conspicuous there.

Except she’s not wearing anything but my shirt
.

And a dead man’s shoes
.

As he jogged by her side, he glanced all around. So far, so good. Still nobody in sight. Still no cars coming.

Doesn’t mean we aren’t being watched
.

Doesn’t matter, he told himself. In this light, somebody’d have to be right in our faces to get a good look.

A block to the left, the street suddenly brightened with the lights of a car approaching the intersection. ‘Watch out,’ Neal gasped. Moments later, the headlights appeared. No turn signal, but the car started to make a left-hand turn.

Elise dropped. Neal dropped.

They were both flat on the ground before the headlights swept by.

Neal kept his head down as the brightness washed over him and went away. Not moving, he listened to the car’s engine. A steady, windy noise.

What if it’s a cop car?

What if it stops and the cops get out?

The thoughts sickened him.

But the car kept on moving. As its engine sound began to diminish, Neal raised his head. Just a regular passenger car. Near the stop sign at the corner, its brake lights came on, doubling the red brightness of its rear end. Though no turn signal started to blink, the car turned right and headed for the underpass.

In front of Neal, Elise rose to her hands and knees.

The shirt tail covered less than when she was standing. A lot less. Neal glimpsed the pale curves of her buttocks, the dark split between them, the backs of her legs. He turned away quickly, feeling guilty.

Looking over his shoulder, he saw the car disappear into the underpass.

When he faced forward, Elise was scurrying up. The shirt tail slid down and covered her rump.

Neal scrambled to his feet and ran after her.

Watched her leap the railroad tracks. Watched her duck through the gap in the chainlink fence. Watched her crouch by the side of the van.

A few seconds later, he crouched facing her.

They both huffed for air. His heart was slamming.

‘What’ll we do . . . with his van?’ Elise asked.

‘What’s in it? Anything of yours?’

‘Blood, sweat, whatever.’

‘Clothes?’

‘No.’

‘Jewelry? Purse?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Fingerprints?’

‘My hands were tied behind me. I was on a mattress.’

‘What’s in there?’

‘I don’t know. It was dark. Should we drive it away? We could leave it a few miles from here, or something.’

‘We didn’t bring the keys.’

For a few moments, Elise didn’t speak. Neal heard her quick breathing. Then she said, ‘One of us could go back for them.’

‘That’d be fun.’

‘Yeah. Any volunteers?’

Neal imagined himself running all the way back, entering the darkness of the trees, creeping over to the body, reaching into the bushy mound, feeling blindly, digging a hand into a pocket of the dead man’s leather pants. All alone.

And what if he’s not dead, after all?

And if he
is
dead – a corpse?

I’m all alone in the dark, digging into the pocket of a corpse.

And while I’m busy at that cheerful task, Elise is waiting for me here, all by herself. God only knows who might happen to come along . . .

Have her wait in my car.

Big improvement.

Neal was not about to let her go for the keys while he stayed behind. If it came to that, he would go instead.

‘We could both go back,’ Elise suggested.

‘Let’s just leave the thing here. Even if we had the keys . . . The less we have to do with the van, the better. You never know. We try driving it someplace, we’re just asking for trouble. Somebody might see us. We might get stopped by a cop. We’d have to worry about leaving prints inside – hair, blood. Let’s not bother. It isn’t all that conspicuous here, anyway. It could probably sit here for a week without anyone giving it a second thought.’

‘You’re probably right about that.’

‘Besides,’ Neal said, ‘there might be something inside that’ll incriminate the guy. Which would be good for us, in case we do end up getting caught.’

‘Okay. So we leave it here?’

‘Might as well. I’ll drive you home in my car. Wait here for a
minute. I’ll back it up to the rear of the van.’

Leaving Elise crouched beside the van, Neal hurried to his car. He jerked open the door. The overhead light came on. He dropped behind the wheel and swung the door shut, quickly but silently. The car went dark.

He reached to the ceiling, removed the courtesy light’s plastic cover, and popped the bulb out of its socket. After tossing the cover and bulb onto the passenger seat, he dug the keys out of his pocket. He fumbled in the darkness for the ignition key, found it, slid it in and gave it a twist. The engine started.

Keeping the headlights off, he backed slowly to the rear of the van. He stopped and shifted. Brakes on, he called out the window, ‘Stay low and get into the back seat.’

Eyes on the side mirror, he watched Elise rush forward. She squatted beside his car, reached up and opened the rear door. After climbing in, she pulled the door shut gently.

Neal drove forward.

He kept his headlights off.

After turning right at the corner, Neal put his headlights on. ‘You okay back there?’ he asked.

‘Fine.’

‘Why don’t you stay down for a few minutes? I’ll go ahead and drop off the videos.’

‘What time is it?’

He glanced at the bright green numbers of the clock. ‘Twelve forty-five. Guess there’ll be a late charge.’

‘I’ll pay it.’

‘It’s no problem. Let’s just make sure nobody sees you.’

A couple of minutes later, he steered into Video City’s parking lot. Though brightly lighted, it was nearly deserted. A few cars remained on the lot, as if abandoned there. The store’s interior was dimly illuminated. Nobody seemed to be inside. Nor was anyone roaming the lot – or loitering near the entrance.

More often than not, a filthy vagrant could be found in front, standing sentry at the video return slot. All set to snatch the videos
out of your hand, drop them into the slot, and demand a fee for the service.

Neal had wondered what to do about the guy.

He didn’t want to risk an encounter. Best to keep the videos and drive on by . . . return them tomorrow.

He was glad to find the post deserted.

‘Coast is clear,’ he said, and swung into the space in front of the return slot. ‘Stay down, though. This place is really well lighted.’

He climbed out of the car and walked casually toward the slot, swinging the two videos by his side and keeping his back to Venice Boulevard. It had a fair amount of traffic. He knew he could be seen by anyone in the passing cars.

The night was somewhat cool. After such a hot day, however, nobody was likely to find it peculiar that he didn’t wear a shirt. He hoped Venice was too far away for anyone to notice his injuries, filth and blood.

He dropped the videos through the slot, one at a time, then turned around.

A cluster of cars approached on Venice, still crowded together after being released by a nearby traffic signal.

Neal raised his forearm and rubbed it across his face as if wiping sweat away. He kept his face hidden until after he’d turned toward his car. Quickly, he pulled open the door and climbed in.

‘How’d it go?’ Elise asked from behind him.

‘No problem.’ He backed out of the space and steered toward one of the exits. ‘Where to?’ he asked.

‘Well, you said you’d take me home.’

‘To your place.’

‘That’d be perfect,’ she said. ‘Do you know how to get to Brentwood?’

‘You live in
Brentwood
?’

‘If it’s too far away . . .’

‘No, no. I’ll drive you anywhere you want. Hell, I’d drive you to San Francisco if that’s what you want.’

She made a soft, laughing sound. ‘Brentwood will do fine.’

‘Venice runs into Bundy, doesn’t it?’ he asked.

‘Centinela, I think. It turns into Bundy after a while.’

He made a right-hand turn out of the parking lot and onto
Venice Boulevard. ‘Where did that guy get you?’ he asked.

‘At home.’

‘In Brentwood?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And he brought you all the way over here?’

‘It’s where we ended up.’

‘Weird. Maybe this was his home territory. That’d make sense, I guess. If he wanted to take you someplace familiar to him.’

‘I don’t know,’ she said.

‘Do you live in an apartment building?’

‘A house.’

‘A house in Brentwood?’ Smiling over his shoulder, he glimpsed Elise curled across the back seat. ‘You must be loaded.’

‘Pretty loaded.’

‘Great.’

‘You’re not going to suddenly hate me, are you? Just because I’m well off?’

‘Nah.’

He felt a certain disappointment, though.

‘Hope not,’ she said. ‘Some people act as if it’s a sin to have money.’

‘Not me,’ he said. ‘Do I look like a Commie?’

She laughed softly.

‘Do you live alone?’ he asked. ‘I mean, I’m just wondering why this jerk didn’t . . . uh . . . why not do everything to you right there in your own house?’

‘He wanted to get me screaming. Maybe that’s why he took me away. One good scream at my house, and the cops would’ve gotten hit by so many 911 calls they’d think the Martians had landed. It’s a
very
quiet neighborhood. And very nervous. All my neighbors know I live alone. And they know I’ve had some troubles with my ex-husband. I think they’re all expecting him to drop in on me some night with a knife.’

‘This wasn’t him, was it?’

‘No. No, no. This guy was a complete stranger.’

‘Sent by your ex-husband?’

She didn’t answer for a while. Then she said, ‘I doubt it. I think this guy just picked me at random. Maybe saw me out shopping today, or something, and followed me home. You know?’

‘Maybe. But if he was hired by your ex-husband this might not be the end of it.’

‘All right if I sit up, now?’ she asked.

‘It might look funny, the front seat empty and you in the back.’