Time to wait and worry.
But what if I’d slept longer out in the boonies? What if I woke up and there hadn’t been enough time left to make it back here for the deadline?
Would I have come, anyway?
I mean, by 10:30 or so, Lisa probably would’ve been beyond saving. (If not dead, at least too messed up to be worth the trouble.) So why risk everything?
Well, as I guess I’ve already figured out, tonight doesn’t really have much to do with saving Lisa. It has more to do with my own survival. If I don’t take down Tom and the other guys, I’m as good as dead.
So here we are.
I’m parked by the side of the road about fifty feet from Tom’s front gate. I don’t want him getting suspicious, so my plan is to wait until maybe five till ten before driving up to the gate.
That’s about ten minutes from now.
There’s a lot about the gang I didn’t get around to telling. For one thing, maybe I should’ve made a list of the names of everybody we killed. I know most of their names, but ... too bad. No time for that now.
A lot of things I could’ve told.
What I should’ve done was to talk while I was driving here. It was a pretty long drive, and I would’ve had time to get into a lot of stuff. The trouble was, I thought the bitch had busted my machine. It wasn’t till I got here and had a while to kill that I took a look at it and saw it was just that the batteries had gotten knocked loose.
While I’ve still got a few minutes, I should mention what I did to the gal after I woke up. That’s when we were still out in the desert and I’d just noticed how late it had gotten to be.
I was in too much of a hurry to bother with getting her dressed. Nobody was around, anyway. I just dragged her out of the car, both of us butt naked. She stayed asleep. Asleep or out cold, I don’t know which.
After she was out, I put her down on the ground. You should’ve seen her. She looked great, sprawled out there. The sunlight had a beautiful, reddish look to it that made her hair sparkle like gold and gave her skin a soft, ruddy glow.
She was just gorgeous.
I hate to say it, but I might never see anything that glorious again ever. Maybe that’s how come I want to spend some time talking about it, now.
Life has its moments of huge, miraculous beauty.
You want to pay attention when one of those moments comes along, and not miss it or treat it lightly. Because they don’t come along very often. And someday, one of them will be your last.
Oh, man.
I suddenly have this awful feeling I’m gonna die in Tom’s garage tonight.
If that happens, I’ll never get my chance at ... Guess it’ll be very good luck for Jody Fargo, huh?
Anyway, I’m running out of time.
What I did after putting the gal on the ground, I went and took Dusty’s rifle out of the trunk. Then I straddled her, my feet basically lined up with her tits. I raised the rifle overhead by its barrel and swung it down at her jaw.
As I swung, I shouted, “FORE!”
The butt of the stock caught the side of her jaw, just the way it was supposed to.
It didn’t knock her jaw flying, but it sure did knock it sideways.
Oh, shit, I’m running out of time.
I should’ve just thrown her back into the trunk after that, but like I said, she looked so great. I’m not one to miss out on life’s occasional moments of splendor, so I got down and fucked her one last time. I could see her jaw swelling up even while I was pumping her. Then I threw her into the trunk. Then I got dressed and made tracks for Tom’s place.
The reason I broke her jaw was to make it so she wouldn’t say anything to Tom and the guys. The one thing I sure don’t want is for her to deny she’s Jody when we get in there.
Oh, man. Time to start moving.
Here we go.
If I don’t make it ... Shit, I had big plans for these tapes. They’re all in the car, here. Maybe I should’ve dropped them off at my apartment, or mailed them to someone ... I don’t know. Too late for any of that, though.
I’m coming up on the gate. It’s very well lighted and has a security camera. The monitor’s in the garage, and so is the button they’ve gotta push to open the gate for me.
I’ll open the window and put this on my lap till ...
“Hi, guys. Right on time, huh? I’ve got Jody in the trunk. She’s alive and kicking, just like you wanted. And I killed the boy. It all went great!”
Okay, the gate is starting to swing open.
Here we go.
I don’t have to drive through.
But I’m doing it. I mean, I’m sort of committed at this point.
I should be committed. This is a lunatic move. Suicide.
A real Gary Cooper move.
That’s Cooper in For Whom the Bell Tolls, in case you’re wondering, where he stays behind to cover the retreat—even though he knows it’ll be his ass.
“I do this for you, Maria. You go, and I will go with you.”
Bullshit he goes with her. He bites the dust and turns into ant food.
Off to the side there, back in the trees, that’s where we did Hester Luddgate.
I wish there was something I could do with these tapes.
Oh, well.
I’ll just leave them in the car when we go in. Somebody will find them. Whoever happens to survive the upcoming epic, The Gunfight at Tom’s Garage.
Produced, written, directed by and starring the great Simon Quirt!
If the wrong person finds these tapes, they’ll never see the light of day. Guess I’ve got to survive, or at least make it so Tom and the other guys don’t.
If I can save Lisa ...
“Lisa, if you’re listening to this, I want you to make sure these tapes aren’t destroyed. I’m willing them to you. Take them to a lawyer, maybe. The cops should listen to them, but they might be worth something so make sure you keep all the rights. You deserve something out of this mess I got you into. Maybe a lawyer can put you in touch with an agent, or something. Maybe they can make a book or movie out of this and my exploits will be immortalized.”
Okay, I’m stopping here. Tom’s mansion and the garage are just up the driveway. I can see them from here. Everything looks dark, which is normal.
The guys are probably waiting for me inside the garage.
Unless Tom has maybe sent Mitch and Chuck outside to cover me—or bushwhack me.
Oh, man.
This is it.
I’m gonna climb out of the car now, and haul Jody—or whoever she is—out of the trunk. My human shield.
Oh, man.
Four against one.
Great odds, if you happen to be the Terminator.
Oh, well. If I bite the dust, let it be said that I did what I had to do and didn’t back down.
Talk to you again soon, folks.
Or maybe not.
Adios, amigos.
Where the fuck’s a crapper when you need one?
Part Eleven
Home, Sweet Home
Chapter Forty-one
Jody tossed and turned and sometimes groaned. She knew she had only been in bed for forty-five minutes, but it felt like hours and hours.
She’d expected to fall asleep immediately. After all, she’d been very tired—drained—and this was not some lousy motel with a noisy air conditioner and a hard pillow. This was home.
Familiar, peaceful sounds came through the open window. So did a mild breeze that was almost, but not quite, cool enough to make her sit up and reach down past her feet for the top sheet. If she covered herself with the sheet, she might be too hot. This was just about right, sprawling here in her nightshirt.
Maybe if it weren’t twisted around her like this—squeezing her, putting pressure on a few sore places, cutting off her circulation.
She sat up, pulled at her nightshirt and struggled to unwind it. When it was hanging loose, she lay back down. She folded her hands beneath her head. She could feel the rear
of the nightshirt rumpled between the small of her back and the mattress, leaving her rump bare against the sheet. The hem in front was only slightly lower than her waist.
Felt just fine that way.
But it wouldn’t do. Not with Andy in the guest room. Not that he was likely to sneak around in the middle of the night and spy on her.
You never know about him, though.
Pushing at the mattress with her heels, she raised her rump. She gave the hem of her nightshirt a tug to bring it down several inches, then lowered herself.
Better.
Not quite as cool and comfortable, but now at least she didn’t feel so exposed, so vulnerable.
It isn’t Andy that bothers me, she realized. It’s him.
He was here.
Right here in my room. Looking around. Going through my drawers. Looking at my personal stuff. Touching things.
He took a nap in my bed, just like some warped version of Goldilocks.
He actually took my stuff and wore it!
God only knows what else he did when he was here.
She had a feeling that her father was keeping things to himself. A lot of things. She wished she could’ve listened to the tapes, herself.
“Be grateful you didn’t have to,” Dad had said. “I don’t want you to ever listen to them. That goes for you, too, Andy.”
“What about me?” Sharon had asked.
“I wouldn’t, if I were you. I wish I hadn’t heard them, but I really didn’t have much choice in the matter. My God, I knew there were a lot of sick, evil people out there, but ... these guys were monsters. And that Simon fellow ... thank God he’s dead. Thank God they’re all dead.”
Jody wished she could hear the tapes, though. Dad had spent most of the afternoon at the station, listening to them with Nick Ryan. He hadn’t come right out and said so, but Jody supposed there must be at least five or six hours’ worth of recordings by the nut.
Dad had definitely given them an abridged version when he got home.
He’d managed to compress the whole story into less than an hour so that Sharon could hear it all before leaving to get ready for the start of her shift.
Closing her eyes, Jody could see him at the kitchen table. He had turned his chair around so that he could straddle its seat and lean forward, arms crossed over the top of its back. He’d told most of the story in a soft, calm voice, almost as if he were bored by it. Near the end, though, the upturned corner of his mouth had started to twitch sometimes.
The twitching had begun when he told about Simon breaking the girl’s jaw with the rifle butt. “He did it so Karen wouldn’t be able to tell anyone that her name wasn’t (twitch) Jody. After that, he put her back into the trunk and drove her to Tom’s place. That’s where he finished putting his story on tape. He left the recorder and tapes in the glove compartment of the Cadillac, then he apparently (twitch) took Karen out of the trunk and they headed for the garage.
“He wanted to make it look as if he was cooperating, but he was armed to the teeth. He went in with an Army model Colt .45, plus a two-shot .45 Derringer and a Smith & Wesson .357 magnum revolver. He talks about all those weapons on the tapes, and they were also found in the rubble this morning.
“We think he went in holding Karen in front of him. He said he wanted to (twitch) use her as a shield. But something must’ve gone wrong. Somehow, she got away from him. Maybe he had to let go of her so that he could have both hands free for shooting. Or she might’ve surprised him somehow, and made a break. Maybe she even got away from him after he’d sustained some wounds during the fight. If she recovers, she oughta be able to tell us exactly what happened. Her part of it, anyway.
“However it all went down, Karen was shot once in the back (twitch) with a .45, probably by Simon. She (twitch) fell on the driveway a fairly good distance from the garage, so she didn’t end up burned (twitch) like the rest of them.
“These guys were using candles and kerosene lamps to light the garage. To give the place atmosphere, maybe. But that’s why the place went up. We think one of the lamps got hit by a stray bullet.
“When the fire department arrived, the garage was totally engulfed. They couldn’t send anyone in till after they’d knocked down the fire. By then, everybody inside was dead. A female was found suspended from a rafter (twitch) by chains, and had shackles (twitch) around her wrists. She was apparently Lisa. Whether she was still alive at the time Simon went in ...” He shrugged. “Either way, he didn’t manage to save her.
“God only knows what happened in there. One thing was pretty clear, though; Simon didn’t shoot all of them before they got to him. There was some hand-to-hand fighting, and he got hacked up pretty good by a saber. He was found with two other guys on top of him, all three of them twisted together and charred black. The bodies of the other two men were found nearby. It looks as if Simon shot those two, and then got jumped by the pair who ended up in the heap with him. If Karen was in there, maybe she’ll be able to tell us something about how (twitch) it all went down at the end. We’ll also know more after the autopsies have been done on Simon and the others.”
As he’d said that, Sharon had pushed her chair back and stood up. “I’ve gotta get a move on. Maybe you can fill me in on whatever else ...”
“Will you come back here when your shift is over?” Dad had asked.
For a few moments, they’d stared at each other.
“Do you want me to?”
“Yup. Sure do.”
She’d taken a deep breath and raised her eyebrows. “You do understand, Sergeant, what time that’s likely to be?”
“Maybe I’d better give you a spare house key.”
Dad had left the kitchen with her.
When they were gone, Jody had glanced at Andy, expecting some funny looks or lewd cracks about her father and Sharon. But Andy sat motionless and silent, frowning at the table.
Soon, Dad had returned and resumed his seat. “I guess it’s about time we started thinking about supper. Do you like pizza, Andy?”
“Huh?”
“Pizza.”
“Let’s not rush into things,” Jody had interrupted. “I want you to tell us what else he said on the tapes. There must’ve been a lot more than you told us. I mean, you spent all afternoon listening to ’em.”
“I think I covered everything you need to know about.”
“I wanta know everything he said.”
“No, you don’t. Now let’s drop it and ...”
“But he was in the house, Dad. He was in my bedroom. He was in my stuff.”
“I know. And I know it must seem creepy.”
“He was a madman. And a pervert.”
“I know, honey. I know. Look, if you feel nervous about sleeping in your bedroom tonight, you can sack out on the sofa.”
“The sofa’s lumpy.”
“I know, but...”
“I want to sleep in my own bed. It isn’t fair for him to take it away from me ... ruin my own bedroom for me.” Even while speaking, she’d realized that she must sound awfully selfish and petty. Whining about her bedroom. Simon and that horrible gang had slaughtered Andy’s whole family, butchered no telling how many other people ...
“It’s all right,” she’d said. “I’ve just gotta get used to the idea and ...”
“Maybe if we go into your room and give it a really good cleaning up ...”
“We cleaned it while you were over listening to the tapes,” she’d explained. “We cleaned the whole house, didn’t you notice?”
“Not really.”
For the first time in a long while, Jody had felt a smile come to her face. “Sharon’ll be real glad to hear you didn’t even notice. She worked her butt off.”
“I helped, too,” Andy had muttered.
“Those lab guys made more of a mess than ... the guy.”
“Simon.”
“Yeah. Him.” She didn’t need to be reminded of his name. She would probably never forget his name. But she didn’t w
ant to speak it. “Anyway,” she’d continued, “they left fingerprint powder all over the place.”
Blinking like someone who’d just woken up, Andy had said, “Could you tell me something, Jack? How come they wanted to look for his fingerprints here if he’s dead?”
“It’s because there’ll be a major investigation into ... everything. Even Simon’s break-in here. Everything about him and his friends. We’ve gotta find out exactly who was involved, what everyone did and when.”
“Didn’t you say he told the names of all the other guys?” Jody had asked.
“He did, but he might’ve left people out. Or he might’ve named people who weren’t in the gang.”
“Like to get them in trouble?” Andy had asked.
“For whatever reasons. For all we really know, half of what he said on the tapes might’ve been lies.”
“Only half?” Jody had asked.
“Well, there’s no question that he told the truth about a lot of it, honey. Things he said match up with what we know about ... about what happened at Andy’s house on Friday night, for one thing. And about Hillary Weston and her husband. About the homeless person he hit with his car in the alley on Saturday night. And those two men he shot in Hollywood so he could take their dog. About his ... his visit to our house. Also about what he did to Karen’s parents.” Another shrug. “We don’t have confirmation of his story about the triple-murder in Indio, but it’s probably just a matter of time. Maybe that kid—Henry—lived alone and made up the story he told Simon about his mother being away at work. If it was something like that, it might be a while before their bodies are discovered.
“When it comes right down to it, kids, we don’t have any reason to believe he lied about anything at all. Every word on those tapes might very well be the truth. But even so, he only managed to tell a small part of the story. There are huge gaps. We need to fill in every gap and get the full picture of what these guys have done.”
Jody squirmed on her bed.
I don’t care what the rest of them did. I just need to know about that pervert who was here.