Ragged Man (26 page)

He caught the furry beast under his feet as he straightened his legs, dragging it along the floor of the trunk, crushing its tiny ribs under his heels, and the trunk was filled with its scream. For a second he thought that it didn’t sound the way the rats in the movies did, but he didn’t wait to puzzle it out. Once his legs were straight and his knees were locked, he rolled onto his back, tightened his stomach, raised his legs, like his mother when she does her leg lifts, and brought them down hard onto the small beast, smashing the life out of it with his bare heels.

And as the life ran out of the little animal, J.P. knew that it was no rat. He started to cry as the light turned green and the car started to pick up speed. He had done a terrible, horrible thing. He was saddened like he’d never been saddened before. He felt worse than he did when his father had moved out. Worse than when his first pigeon had died. Worse than when Janis went missing and her parents were killed. And worse than he did the other day when his father was killed.

It wasn’t right. He knew it wasn’t right, but he couldn’t help it. He didn’t make his father leave. It wasn’t his fault that the pigeon, or Janis, or her parents, or his father, or Sylvia were dead, but it was his fault that the little animal at his feet in the dark, smelly trunk was dead. If only it had been a rat, a big mean rat, a mean rat that was going to chew on his bloody side, a chewing rat that wouldn’t stop chewing till he was dead, but it wasn’t a rat, and he knew it wasn’t a rat. It was Torry and Swell’s cute, fluffy little kitten, and he hadn’t even named it yet.

She wasn’t going to eat him. She was probably as scared as he was—and he’d killed her. He wanted to get even with that mean, sleazy, lousy, punk of a man that scared him so much and tricked him into killing the little cat.

The car turned again in a wide arc. It felt like they were getting on a freeway as he slid toward the sharp thing and then he had an idea. Maybe it was sharp enough to cut the rope that was binding his hands behind his back.

He used his feet to push himself against the bottom of the trunk, moving the sharp thing from his upper to his lower back, so he could reach it with his hands. A small triumph. He felt the sharp thing and knew what it was. It wasn’t part of a sharp pendulum at all. It was a knife and as he ran his hands along the blade he knew what kind of knife it was and he was scared. It was a Jim Bowie knife.

He turned it and started working the rope against the blade, cutting into the fibers. His heart picked up speed. He began breathing fast, through his nose. He tried to stop his frightened tears and he started sniffling as his nose filled with snot. He sawed harder against the rope as panic rose. He wasn’t able to breathe. He tried to suck air through the tape that covered his mouth, but couldn’t. He felt his lungs scream as they cried for air. He swallowed snot. He got light-headed. He saw stars, gagged and passed out.

As he came slowly awake through a sleep-fog haze, J.P.’s subconscious was feeding him the words. Free the Dome Ring. Free the Dome Ring. Free the Dome Ring. He used to worry all the time about the Dome Ring. He wondered what it was and why everybody sang about setting it free. He thought some terrorists had it and wouldn’t let it go. Then on his fifth birthday he found out there was no Dome Ring. He felt foolish at first, but he’d grasped the idea of the Amazing Dome Ring held by evil bad guys and even if the real words in the song were Let freedom ring, he still saw in his mind’s eye, a silver and gold magic ring, with a small diamond dome on it, where the magic power powder was kept.

He opened his eyes in the dark place and he tried not to breathe so hard. The snot in his nose had dried and hardened, leaving dust-filled boogers behind. He wanted to pick his nose more than anything, but his aching arms were still bound. He lay quiet and listened, wishing he had some of that magic power powder.

Click clack, click clack, click clack, the clicking rock had acquired a clacking cousin, or maybe it had been there all along and he just hadn’t been able to hear it. He could hear it just fine now, though. His ears were wide awake, like they had never been awake before and his nose was sharp, too. He smelled the gas can, and an old dirty oil smell, and a cigarette smell, and they were all mixed with the dead cat smell, and it was hot.

His mind took him back to the black and white western and he saw himself tied on the railroad tracks. An old black steam engine, followed by a billowing, black-black cloud was bearing down on him, its wheels going, click clack, click clack, click clack. He had to stop himself from crying. If he cried his nose would make more snot. He would pass out again and maybe not wake up this time. He fought his terror and ripped his mind away from the TV western and the bearing down train.

He searched behind his back for the cold steel of the sharp Bowie knife. It wasn’t there. He felt along the floor of the trunk, somehow the knife must have moved, he thought, then he felt it. The steel blade seemed to be calling to him and he answered with bone-aching fingers, running them along the smooth surface and thanking God.

He inched the blade toward his bonds, by clutching the hilt in his left hand and the blade between the thumb and forefinger of his right. He sawed on the ropes the way two lumber jacks move a giant saw through the base of a giant redwood. A smile crossed his pursed lips when he felt the knife slice through the first layer of rope, and the blood drained out of them and went straight to his tingling hands. Then he sliced through the second layer and his hands were free.

He started to remove the tape from his mouth, when he felt the car slowing down and he was caught up in indecision. If the bad man was stopping for gas, he could scream and maybe the gas station man would save him, but maybe the man would kill the gas station man, then kill him. But what if he wasn’t stopping for gas? What if he was stopping because they were wherever the bad man wanted to take him? If he screamed then, the man would most surely kill him, like he had killed his dad.

The car stopped and he decided. He left the gag on and rolled onto his back, concealing the fact that he had freed his hands. He closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. He heard the door open, then close. Then he heard footsteps walking on gravel. They were coming toward the trunk. He closed his eyes harder.

He felt the knife by his side and wondered if the Ragged Man would use it to kill him. He didn’t want to die and he was afraid like he’d never been afraid before. He tried to stop his jaw from quivering and his knees from shaking. He was hot, covered in sweat, dirty and he smelled as bad as the dead cat. His throat was parched dry and his hungry stomach ached for food, but he was determined not to cry, even though he couldn’t get that Jim Bowie knife out of his mind.

He shuddered and almost shit his pants when a loud explosion roared through the trunk. Then it was followed by another and he did. His bowels relaxed and it oozed out, hot and wet, filling his pants with the shit stinking stuff. He fought not to gag, because with his mouth taped shut, to gag was to die.

Then his ears rang for a third time as the man beating on the trunk said in a purely evil voice, “Are you alive in there?”

He squeezed his eyes tight, trying to shut out the stink and the fear.

“
Fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of a spoiled little brat.”

“
These are the times that try men’s souls,” he mentally said, “when the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will shrink from their duty.” His father used to say that whenever times were hard, and times were hard right now, he thought, anxiously whispering the words, “These are the times that try men’s souls. These are the times that try men’s souls. These are the times that try men’s souls. Oh God, please make him go away. Please, please make him go away.”

But J.P. knew he wasn’t going to go away. He just wasn’t. The man was going to open the trunk and use the knife to cut him into pieces and it was going to hurt a lot and there was going to be an awful lot of his blood running all over his face and his body and his clothes. He wondered if the man would kill him in the trunk or if he was going to take him out. He hoped he would take him out. He didn’t want to die in this dark place. He didn’t want to die at all. He wanted the man to go away, but when he heard the horrible sound of the key sliding and clicking into the trunk lock, he bit into his lower lip, because he knew for sure the man wasn’t going to go away.

He heard the key turn and peeked out of his eyes. He saw light begin to enter and chase out the dark. He closed his eyes back tight, but his ears felt the whoosh of cool air and heard the clunking noise as the trunk popped open. He clenched his fists against the fear.

“
Shit, you stink,” the deep voice said.

J.P. hoped the man would think he was asleep and maybe leave him alone.

“
I know you’re awake, so you might as well open your eyes.”

J.P. closed them tighter.

“
Shit your pants, did ya? Well, I suppose if I was in your place I’d be scared shitless myself.” The man laughed.

J.P. felt the man brush his side as he reached for something in the trunk.

“
Know what I have in my hand?”

J.P. knew.

Chapter Seventeen

Rick’s first impulse was to pick up the phone and call the police, but then he realized they wouldn’t believe him. They’d jail him without bail and J.P. would be killed.

It angered him that he’d allowed himself to be followed from Christina’s. His ruse last night may have fooled the desk clerk and the police, but that investigator either wasn’t fooled or he’d figured it out later. Rick thought he was better than that. He’d spent most of his adult life looking over his shoulder, but if the kidnapper had known where he was, why didn’t he tell the police and have him arrested for the murder of his friends?

He started to pick up the phone, to call Sheriff Sturgees in Tampico. He was a man he could trust. But he stopped himself in mid-reach. If the kidnapper was the killer and he was working with the police, he might also have the Sheriff’s confidence. No, he was on his own. He would have to figure out a way to save J.P. and catch or stop the killer himself, without help.

The first thing he had to do was to get out of the motel room. If the killer knew where he was, he was at his mercy. He could call the police at anytime and, if he was in custody, there was no way he could help J.P. He picked up the birdcage, then got an idea. He put the cage down and stepped out of the cheap motel room into the early morning mist, leaving the bird behind.

He crossed the street, making sure he wasn’t being followed this time. He walked around the block, making doubly sure he was unobserved. When he returned to his starting place, he walked back into the motel office and to his great relief the pimply-faced youth from the night before had been replaced by an elderly woman engrossed in her knitting.

He told her he wanted a room for a week. When she handed him the registration form he thought of J.P., named after the Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, and registered under the name John Bonham, Led Zeppelin’s dead drummer. He paid cash in advance and wasn’t surprised when the blue-haired woman didn’t ask him for any identification or ask why he had no baggage.

After he had completed the formalities, he crossed the street to the mini market, bought a toothbrush, toothpaste, razor blades, razor and shaving cream. Then he returned to the room he’d slept in and picked up Dark Dancer, before going to his new room to brush his teeth, to shave and to think.

In the small bathroom, he sprayed shaving cream onto his hand and shaved slowly, trying to concentrate on the nooks and crannies of his face, dragging the blade several times over the rough spot below his chin. When he reached the scarred area under his left ear, he gently shaved around it.

Finished, he washed off the remaining lather with hot water and brushed his teeth. He was marginally refreshed and had enjoyed the five minutes away from his problems, but now they were flooding back. He had to figure out a plan of action and act on it.

He had less than forty-eight hours to get to Tampico and stop whoever or whatever was bent on killing his friends. He couldn’t call for help, without running the risk of going to jail. He couldn’t drive, without running the risk of being picked up driving into town and he couldn’t fly, because he was sure the airport would be staked out.

There seemed to be no way for him to get to Tampico, without running the risk of getting caught and yet if he didn’t, J.P. would surely die. The killer had shown him, with daylight clarity, that he intended to continue tormenting him. And the killer had shown an amazing ability to ferret out his close friends and do away with them in a gruesome manner.

Evan and Sherry murdered in New York. Danny murdered on the river in Texas. Tom and his new wife, killed in broad daylight in Pasadena. Christina, Torry and Swell, vanished in the night. And if he didn’t do something, J.P. would be next.

He left the bathroom, picked up the shirt he’d worn the day before and as he was putting it on a thought hit him. He could fly to Tampico in Christina’s plane. It would be the last thing anybody would expect. But first he would have to get the keys. They were somewhere in her house and that meant he had to go back.

He did a few stretching exercises to get his blood moving and to calm his nerves. Then he went out into the day and headed toward her house. There were four police cars blocking the street, a crime lab van sitting in the front driveway and a crowd of gawking onlookers.