CRIME THRILLERS-A Box Set (28 page)

Molly handed over the Coke bottle and lay her head on the window ledge. "Never mind then," she said quietly. "I don't care." And at that moment she didn't.

"You want...tamale? Chalupas?" It was the first words the girl had bothered to say. She
did
know English.

Molly didn't raise her head. She said, "I don't care. I don't care if I starve to death."

She heard her walking away, small bits of gravel stone crunching into the sand beneath her heels. Sometime later when the sun was high overhead and Molly fell into and out of bizarre dreams, the girl returned with three tamales wrapped in wax paper, and another icy Coke. This time she didn't wait for the empty. She left immediately for the cantina.

Molly wolfed down the food, grateful to have it. She needed to go to the bathroom. She wondered if she was going to get used to the feeling of bloat and fullness, wondered if her bladder would expand or if she might have to release it while she sat tied in the car seat. She had held it all day in Lannie's house, trapped in the bathtub. It was Lannie, upon untying her, who let her use the toilet right away, standing guard outside while Cruise called down the hallway for her to hurry, it was past dark, they had to leave.

In the sultry, stifling afternoon a little boy came by the car swinging a tin can tied by string to a stick. Molly called him over. "Hey, kid! C'mere a minute."

The boy was about six, big black eyes, a youthful and trusting grin splitting his face. The grin dissipated the closer he came to her. She knew she must look a fright with her hair uncombed and full of sand, her face tired and scratched. She thought the boy wouldn't be able to see inside the car, see that her clothes were ripped. But when he came closer, dragging the can behind him, he stood on tiptoe. He put hands on the window frame, and his eyes widened on seeing her naked breasts.

"Look...I..."

He was fleet as a startled deer, running from the car into the dirt street, disappearing between houses, his can rattling along the ground beside him.

"
Damn.
"

Sweat rolled down her temples into her eyes and stung with her own body salts. She leaned down to wipe her eyes against the strips of fabric hanging from her shoulder. She wished she could hide the bra, could cover herself. She wished the girl would come back so she could beg her help just once more. She was sure she could convince someone to help her, if she only tried harder, pleaded with more zeal, cried more furiously, shouted longer and louder.

She thought this, kept her hope alive, until the sky darkened and the sun died in flames of red and gold glory. The skinny rooster strode the street again, crowing in confusion. Men laughed and made jokes when they came to touch her hair before entering the now lively cantina.

Cruise appeared in the doorway in the dull gray twilight. He looked rested and washed, his hair reflecting light from inside the cantina. He wore the same clothes, the long-sleeved blue shirt, the navy slacks, but something was different about him, and Molly couldn't put a finger on what it was. His upper body looked...bigger, maybe. No, it was his arms. He had Popeye arms. Arnold Schwarzenegger arms. They looked so thick they bulged and stretched tight the material of his shirt. How could he have done that?

Before he could get into the driver's seat, she said, "I have to go to the bathroom. I have to put on some clothes."

He sat down in the seat, leaving the car door open. It was the first time he had seen her partially unclothed and she blushed and looked down at her hands, ashamed of her nakedness. She hunched her shoulders, but that produced a slight cleavage that distressed her so she tried to relax. It wasn't her fault The Nubs were bare. It was
his
fault those men had touched her...had done those things to her. He was the one who should feel shame. Nevertheless she ducked her head and tried pretending it didn't matter.

"Can I get a shirt?"

He reached behind him, his movement causing her to jerk sideways. He hauled her blue carryall into his lap and unzipped it. He drew out a T-shirt with pink flamingos imprinted on the front and a legend below that spelled out FLORIDA in lime green.

He threw the bag in the back seat.

"You'll have to untie me first."

"I'm going to. Gimmee time." He carefully unraveled the rope and slipped the loops from her hands."You can take it off your feet yourself," he said.

She leaned down, her nipples brushing against her thighs as she took the rope from her ankles. She shivered as if a mild bolt of electricity had shot through her veins. Even her nipples were raw. She was going to bawl again if she thought about the men who molested her.

Her muscles ached, her back was a solid pain zone, and her poor backside--her buttocks felt dead as stones. The T-shirt fell into her hands as she sat up. She turned her back to Cruise, wriggled out of the torn blouse, slipped the shirt over her head. She zipped the jeans over the pudge of her bloating stomach, sucking in as she did so.

"The bathroom?"

He nodded, and stepped out of the car. She opened her door, had a little trouble lifting her legs to the ground. She had to lever herself from the seat by hanging on to the top of the door. Her legs felt wooden. Her bottom tingled and stung now, the circulation coming to life. She groaned, took a step away from the car. Cruise stood back, giving her a chance to make it on her own.

"Where?" she asked.

"Go inside. There's a bathroom behind the curtains at the back, near the stairs."

She hobbled into the cantina, trying not to look anyone in the eye. Some of these same men had been the ones who assaulted her the night before. She didn't see the girl who brought her food and Cokes. She kept her gaze lowered, watching her footsteps as she shuffled across the room, the crowd opening a passageway as she moved through it. The noise in the bar died down to an uneasy silence.

"Damn you," she muttered at Cruise beneath her breath. "You bastard."

He was right at her back. "Shut up. Just keep going."

"Damn you."

She made it without falling down, but her rear was a pincushion of new sensations. She slipped past the flowered curtains, across a dark hall, past the shadowed stairs, into a dirty bathroom painted a shade of red she'd never seen before. Cruise shut the door for her, stood outside waiting. She had to lower the toilet lid with the tip of one finger, afraid of the splashes and dark spots around the rim. She couldn't hurry fast enough to get her jeans undone and stripped down her legs; she was dribbling water before she ever lowered herself to the seat. She never sat on public toilet seats, but this time she hadn't the strength to hold herself suspended over it. She covered her face with her hands in despair when she saw there was no toilet paper. All these small things might build to such a peak they destroyed her, she thought. The humiliation of it. The helpless feeling, the refusal of everyone to lend a hand to save her from Cruise.

She sat for a long time, long enough for Cruise to grow impatient and call for her to come out. She found brown paper hand towels to clean herself. She washed her face, though there was no mirror, and used a minuscule sliver of soap to get the sand and grime from her arms and hands. The grains stung as they were washed across the scrapes on her arms. By the time she exited the urine-splattered bathroom, she could walk without imitating a cripple, and her kidneys had stopped hurting.

She held her head high as she pushed open the door to confront Cruise. This time he took her arm as if instinct told him she was in much better shape than when she'd come into the cantina, that she needed watching now.

"Some friends you have, Cruise," she said as they passed through the room and out the door. She tried jerking her arm loose, but he kept his hold.

"Only the best."

"Yeah, real high achievers with prominent IQs."

"Get in the car, it's late. No one cares about your bitching."

She sat in stony silence as he wove through the back streets into the middle of Mexicali. Would he really kill her if she jumped from the car at the border crossing and accused him of kidnapping and murder? Would he have time? Could he take two guards, various passersby, and her all at once?

The more she thought about it, the less she saw she had to lose. She couldn't depend on getting a stranger's help again. That hadn't seemed to work out; it just got people killed. She couldn't run away. He always brought her back.

If she wanted to get out of this alive, she'd have to take greater risks. Nothing less would do.

#

Mark Killany couldn't get an audience with any police officer who would tell him anything. They had gotten the word from Globe. They didn't believe he had a legitimate gripe. They didn't believe his daughter might be with the killer. And they had enough mayhem on their hands, they didn't need him in the way. That was the message.

All he thought he could do was listen to radio reports and follow the trail west. After leaving the police station, he drove to the freeway and found a restaurant. He had to eat. The sun lanced through the windshield where he parked in the lot facing the feeder road. He searched, couldn't find his sunglasses. He also couldn't stop yawning. He felt sleep grabbing at him like a pickpocket. Sneaking up and putting the touch on him, moving off a little, coming back for another try.

After breakfast, orange juice, more coffee--a last ditch attempt to stave off sleep--he made his way to the car and collapsed in the seat. He sat rubbing his eyes with the balls of his thumbs. He didn't think he had enough energy to find a motel. He could sleep in the car. Maybe he could park it around the side in the shade.

He started the motor and put the car into reverse. He parked next to a black van in the lee of the building. Perhaps the occupant had decided on a quick nap too.

He scooted down in the seat until his neck fit comfortably against the headrest. His eyelids came down like weighted curtains. He didn't drift into sleep; it came over him like a crushing ocean wave, taking his consciousness with it.

In his dreams he saw a very large man, long hair, mustache, beard. The man was walking a swinging bridge across a deep chasm. He herded Molly before him, forcing her to take another step. If the rope bridge broke, Mark knew the man would let Molly fall into the rocky depths without trying to save her. He'd first save himself. Mark stood on a narrow path before the bridge calling out, "Molly! Molly, come back!"

He groaned and stuttered in his sleep, twisting in the car seat. His knees knocked the steering wheel. His neck slid off the headrest until his face pressed against the rolled window.

The dream renewed itself, played over again, an old film on automatic rewind. He saw the man, Molly ahead of him being prodded across the dangerous swaying bridge. Below the rocks lay in velvet purple shadows, beckoning.

He called to her, "Molly...oh please..."

#

Cruise knew he was in trouble. He had never before wanted to harm himself. The fresh cuts on his arms were deep and would surely leave scars. Yet it wasn't enough to let out his mounting trepidation. Nothing seemed to be of help. The visit to see his father. The whores in Mexicali. His witness.

Especially his witness. She was less than useless to him. Just as soon as he found the right place, he was dumping her. It was possible he didn't need witnesses anymore--a really novel thought that left him uneasy. He might not get lonely again. He had too much to deal with to keep a close watch on someone else.

There was something loose inside him,rattling around and causing him profound concern. Could it be doubt? He had never doubted before, never worried that what he did--the killing--might be unwarranted, an aberration. The day he buried his brothers, he thought he was free to do as he pleased. He would never again be threatened. But maybe the threat was inside him, hiding there, always waiting. And here it was back again despite his years of living by his own code--that threat he felt racing toward great pain and retribution. It was as if he had found a way to avoid it for only so long and now it had returned to mock him. To destroy him.

The doubt, if that's what it was, whispered about coming annihilation. Payback.

And he did not know why.

The uneasiness ate at him like a wildfire cancer. His arms itched intolerably. The girl at the cantina had bandaged them for him with a torn white sheet. He could hardly pull on his shirt over them. Now they burned and screamed to him to reopen the wounds. Let the blood flow. Release the ballons of grief welling beneath the taut skin before he exploded.

At the border crossing the frenzy to do something was upon him. He squirmed in the seat and had trouble keeping still. Looking normal. Appearing sober and sane.

"You feel okay, buddy?" one of the border guards asked, peering in at him.

"Oh, sure. I feel fine." The words felt like shards of glass on his tongue. He thought he might have grimaced. He looked at Molly to keep his face from the guard's inquisitive view. She had her hands on her thighs. If they bothered to look very closely they would see the rope burns. He reached over and covered her left wrist with his hand. She opened her mouth as if to say something, closed it. Her eyes were in a panic, gray wolves fighting to get free of traps.

He knew then what she meant to do. His hand tightened on her wrist. Her mouth twisted and she let out a small whimper.

"Do you have anything to declare?" the guard asked.

"Nothing," Cruise said, pinning Molly with his gaze, warning her not to make a move, not to say a word.

He glanced at the guard. His mind was suddenly brilliantly clear. If he'd been playing chess, he'd have been at least five moves ahead of the border guard. "My daughter and I have been on a pleasure trip to Mexicali. We didn't do much shopping."

"Fine." The guard marked something on a clipboard he carried. "And where were you born, sir?"