She drew down the seat belt and snapped its buckle into place.
Stay calm and wait for the right time.
She turned her head and again looked at the side mirror. Toby and Duane were no longer in sight.
How long have I got? she wondered.
No way of knowing.
Enough time to make a call?
But Toby had jerked the phone’s plug out of the cigarette lighter and thrown the phone to the floor. It was probably in front of the passenger seat somewhere. In the darkness, it would be hard to find.
And she couldn’t even try without freeing herself from the belt around her neck.
And if she did manage to find the phone and plug it in, the damn thing wouldn’t work anyway without the engine going—and Toby had taken the ignition key.
Forget it, she thought.
What about honking the horn?
With the engine off, it might not work, either. But even if it let out a blast loud enough to wake the dead, it’d probably do her more harm than good.
In an area like this, people learn to ignore such late-night sounds as car horns, burglar alarms, gunshots, shouts and screams. The chances of anyone coming to the rescue were slim to none.
More than likely, Toby would be the first to respond.
The hell with that, Sherry thought.
She checked both the side mirrors, then opened the console to the right of her seat. She knew it was where Duane liked to store his cell phone. She also knew he kept a coin purse, a few maps, and some napkins inside it.
But what else?
She took out several napkins and dropped them onto her lap. Then she thrust her hand into the deep compartment and felt around.
Ever since the ’92 riots, a lot of LA people carried handguns in their cars. Sherry did. So did most of her friends. It was illegal, but they figured they would rather face a jury than a funeral. So they hid a firearm in their glove compartment, in their console, under their seat, or even in a special holster secured out of sight beneath the dashboard.
Not that Duane’ll have one.
Unless he’s the biggest hypocrite on the face of the earth.
Was.
He used to call Sherry a “gun nut” and argue, “A gun never solved anything.”
Doesn’t mean he hasn’t got one, Sherry told herself as she rummaged through the console. Every so often, it turned out that some of the biggest anti-gun activists in the country were packing firearms in secret. They wanted to take away everybody’s guns except their own.
If Duane had one, though, he wasn’t keeping it in his console. Not a gun, no weapon or tool of any sort. Not even so much as a can opener.
Sherry lowered the lid.
With the belt around her neck, she couldn’t reach the glove compartment. She couldn’t reach under her seat, either.
Nothing to find, anyway, she thought.
Thanks for killing me, Duane.
She suddenly felt glad that she’d never made love with him.
Then she felt sick about thinking such a thing.
I got him killed, and I never even let him have me. Always put it off, made excuses…as if we had all the time in the world. And now he’s dead.
Is this his way of getting back at me? she wondered.
For what? For not making it with him? Or for sending him out to buy condoms? Or for bringing a homicidal lunatic stalker into his life and getting him murdered?
He’s got plenty of reasons to hate me, Sherry thought. But they had nothing to do with depriving her of the means to save her own life.
Blame that on dumb, misguided idealism. You didn’t believe in guns, Duane, so I pay the price.
She wished this was her Jeep Cherokee.
She carried a .380 in the console. By now, she would have it in her hand…
It’s not in my Jeep now, she realized. She’d removed the automatic and left it in her apartment before taking her car in for the transmission repairs.
What if I can get Toby to take me there?
Earlier, not even thinking about her gun, she’d tried to talk him into it. The idea was so they could use the bed. For some reason, he’d been against going there.
Oh, yeah. Because I’m friendly with my neighbors.
Good old friendly me, she thought.
Using one of the napkins, she dabbed at the cut beneath her left breast. It no longer seemed to be bleeding. She wiped the area below it all the way down to the waistband of her skirt. Then she gently touched the wound with a fingertip. The sting made her wince, but she eased her finger along the length of it. The cut seemed to be a curving line about three inches long, but very shallow.
Wherever we go, she thought, I’d better try to put some antiseptic on it. And a bandage. He must have some first-aid supplies…
Sherry suddenly remembered that, during the same earlier discussion about where to find themselves a bed, Toby had spoken up against taking her to his place. But even earlier, he’d mentioned wanting to take her there.
Can’t make up his mind about that.
Probably has something to do with Sid. Whoever the hell Sid is.
Sid’s the guy who kills Toby for losing the car keys.
So he’s living with his mother and this Sid?
Maybe Sid’s his stepfather.
Keeping her eyes on the side mirror, Sherry picked up a fresh napkin and gently wiped her face. The soft paper’s dryness felt good, rubbing through the sweat and grime—and probably blood.
Whoever Sid is, she thought, it sounds as if he’s strict with Toby. Maybe he’ll take my side. Or maybe the mother will.
On the other hand, the gun’s at my apartment.
I know damn well it’ll take my side.
Toby’s reflection rushed across the side mirror. He was running up the alley, naked from the shoulders down, the beltless robe flowing behind him in the wind, the butcher knife waving in his right hand.
Chapter Twenty-two
Toby climbed into the van and closed the door. He was panting for breath. Lowering the knife against his bare thigh, he slumped low in the passenger seat.
“Did it,” he gasped.
“Where’d you put him?” Sherry asked.
Toby shook his head. “Just…Couldn’t pick him up. Too heavy. So I…hadda just drag him.”
Though Sherry had seen him drag Duane past the rear of the van, she decided not to mention it. If she told about seeing the body, Toby might suspect she’d noticed Duane’s open, bloody shorts.
She didn’t want to go where that might lead.
“So you didn’t put him in a dumpster?” she asked.
“Huh-uh.”
At least Duane had been spared that.
“Where did you leave him?”
“Found a…laundry room. Unlocked. Just off the alley. You know, like what they have…for apartment people. Dragged him in.” Toby let out a couple of gaspy laughs. “Almost did a load. His stuff. Figured… we wait here till it’s clean.” He shook his head. “Too much mess. I just…left him on the floor and got outa there.”
Thank God, Sherry thought. She hated to think what Toby might’ve wanted to do if they’d had to wait for the clothes to get done.
“Are we ready to go?” she asked him.
“Go where?” he asked.
“It’s up to you. We can go to my place or yours.”
“Why not…stay here a while?”
Sherry cringed. “Here?”
“We can go in the back of the van. You know? And lie down. There’s blankets. We can rest and stuff.”
And stuff.
“Just for maybe like an hour,” Toby added.
“Isn’t it messy back there?”
“Sort of,” he admitted. “But it’s nothing that won’t wash off.”
“You ever try to wash blood out of clothes?”
“We’ll leave our clothes here on the front seats.”
Oh, this is getting better and better.
“It sounds like a pret
ty neat idea,” Sherry said. “But you know what? Wouldn’t you rather wait till we’re someplace safe? Where we’ll have privacy?”
“We got privacy here.”
“Right now, we do. But this is somebody’s regular parking stall, Toby. They might come back any minute.”
“Well, yeah.”
“Also, there’s no telling when somebody might go into the laundry room and find Duane. If that happened, we could have cops up the ying-yang.”
“I guess,” Toby muttered. “But I bet nobody’s gonna find him till morning.”
“We shouldn’t take a chance like that. Not when it’d be so easy to drive somewhere else.”
“I don’t mind staying here.”
I do!
Sherry turned her head, feeling the soft rub of the belt against her neck, and looked at Toby. “Anyway, there’s no bed here. Didn’t we already agree that we wanted to wait and do it on a bed?”
In the darkness, she saw the vague shape of his shoulders rise and fall. “I don’t know.”
“And we wanted to take a shower first. Together.”
“Yeah?” He sounded a little confused, but pleased.
“Yeah. We agreed, didn’t we? To take a nice long shower together before we get in bed? We’ll soap each other all over till we’re squeaky clean. You want to do that, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, we can’t do that here.”
“We can do it at my house.”
“Or at my apartment. If we go to your house, Sid might not let you take a shower with me. He might not let you do anything with me. At my place, there’d only be the two of us.”
He moaned with indecision then said, “I don’t know.”
“If we go to my place,” Sherry said, “we can skip that stuff about crashing the van and…” An idea struck her. “I’ve got screwdrivers.”
“Huh?”
“If we need to take the license plates off the van, I have screwdrivers. Which means we won’t have to buy one at the Speed-D-Mart.”
“We got money now,” Toby pointed out.
“Yeah, but look at how we’re dressed. Neither of us can go in a store like this. Now we won’t have to. And we can change into some clothes so we don’t look…” She shook her head. “Face it, anybody who sees us is going to know something is wrong.”
“That’s for sure,” Toby muttered.
“At my place, we can put on some decent clothes.”
“You got guy stuff?”
“We’ll find you something to wear. I mean, just about anything would be better than that bloody robe, don’t you think?”
“Guess so.”
“And we can do whatever we want and we won’t need to worry about Sid bothering us.”
“Yeah, okay.” Toby put the key into her hand.
“Before we go,” she said, “you’d better take this belt off me. If we happen to drive past a cop and he happens to look over this way…”
“Good idea.” Toby clamped the knife between his teeth, then climbed through the space between the seats. Standing behind Sherry, he started to untie the belt.
She slid the key into the ignition.
“Don’t start it yet,” Toby said.
“I won’t.”
I could!
She saw herself twist the key and gun the engine and plow through the wall.
That’d sure catch somebody’s attention, she thought. But how’s it suppose to save me? I’d still be stuck in the van with Toby. He’d have plenty of time to kill me before anyone came along to see who’d wrecked the carport.
And then he might kill some of them.
Besides, she told herself, it’d be incredibly stupid to do anything risky at this point.
Save the risky stuff for when we get…
“Got it,” Toby said. He slipped the cloth belt away from her neck.
But he didn’t come back to his seat. A few seconds after removing the belt, he reached down from behind Sherry with both hands. He spread her blouse wide open and cupped her breasts.
Sherry gripped the steering wheel.
Toby’s hands moved gently. She could feel them trembling. They caressed her slowly, lightly, as if studying the
texture of her skin. “So smooth,” he whispered.
“Thanks.”
“These’re my first.”
Wonderful to hear it. “Really,” she muttered. “Yeah. Nobody else has ever let me. Just…never mind. She doesn’t count.”
Whose breasts don’t count? Sherry wondered. And why not?
“Oh, now they’re getting goosebumpy.”
That’s ’cause you make my skin crawl.
“That’s because it feels so good,” she said. “The way you’re touching them.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said.
His thumbs glided in circles around her nipples. The feel of them made her want to shudder.
Just take it easy, she told herself. Go along with it. Go along with everything. Let him do whatever he wants. The only thing that matters is getting out of this alive.
Unraped, if possible—but alive, that’s the main thing.
Behind her, Toby moaned.
Sherry began to writhe in her seat.
When his hands tightened on her breasts, she moaned as if lost in pleasure.
Don’t overdo it.
I’m his prisoner and I’ve gotta act like it or he’ll figure I’m up to something.
“We’d better stop now,” she said.
Toby squeezed her right breast so hard she gasped and flinched rigid.
“We stop when I wanta stop,” he said.
“I know. I wasn’t…I just meant…we don’t want to get caught here, do we? Don’t we want to go over to my place?”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“I thought we agreed…Ow!” She twitched with pain as he drew a fingernail along her cut.
“We didn’t agree on nothing.” He took his hands away from her breasts and slapped her face, whapping the right side, then the left, then the right, then the left, his open hands taking turns, striking her just hard enough to make each side of her face sting, then burn.
Soon she began to cry, but she kept her own hands on the steering wheel, knowing she would only make matters worse if she tried to resist.
He’ll pay for this!
He’ll pay for everything!
He kept slapping the sides of her face.
Then, through her sobbing sounds and the quick claps of the blows, she heard Toby start to laugh.
Thinks this is funny?
Sherry suddenly realized that she was wrong about the strange, gaspy sounds. They weren’t laughter.
He’s crying!
He gasped and sobbed and choked as he smacked her.
Sherry twisted the ignition key. As the engine grumbled to life, Toby’s hands went still. “What’re you…doing?” he blurted.
“Getting us out of here.” She shoved the shift lever to reverse and backed the van out of the carport. “You’d better take your seat.”
His two hands clutched her neck.
She swung the van into the middle of the alley and eased it to a halt.
He still had her by the throat, but he wasn’t squeezing very hard.
“I’m not trying to pull anything, Toby. But we’ll be in trouble if we don’t get away from here.”
“What do you care?”
“I don’t want to be caught in the middle.” She put on the headlights, took her foot off the brake, and started driving slowly up the alley. “Why don’t you get back into your seat before you fall down? I’ll drive wherever you want me to.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“No tricks?”
“No tricks.”
“Better not be.”
Sherry eased the van to a halt.
Toby took his hands away from her neck. When he climbed into the front and sank into his seat, his robe hung open. He held the kni
fe in his right hand. With his left hand, he wiped his eyes.
“Are you okay?” Sherry asked.
“Yeah.” He sniffed.
“What the hell were you crying about? I was the one getting hit.”
“They were…tears of joy.”
Chapter Twenty-three
“Did you decide we’ll go to my place?” Sherry asked, starting the van forward again.
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess.”
She stopped at the end of the alley, took a few seconds to pull her blouse shut, then turned onto the street. “We’re not very far away,” she said.
“I know. I been there, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“I been there a lot.”
Obviously, he’d been there often enough to notice that Sherry was on friendly terms with quite a few of the other tenants.
But had he been inside?
Maybe not. He could’ve made those observations by catching glimpses of her through the courtyard gates. Or by watching her arrive or depart.
Her building didn’t have a subterranean parking lot like Duane’s: just rows of parking stalls at the front and back. Her space was in front. Toby might’ve easily watched her leave the building with a neighbor, chatting as they went to their cars.
“How we gonna get in?” Toby asked.
Sherry felt a sudden collapse inside.
Oh, my God!
“You got keys?” Toby asked.
“No. I…They’re in my purse.”
“And where’s that?”
“In your car, I guess.”
“That’s where it’s at, all right.” He laughed or sobbed quietly, sniffed and rubbed his eyes. “Looks like every damn thing you or me own is locked up someplace.”
“Where’s your car?”
“None of your business.”
“All we have to do is go to your car and get my purse out. Then I’ll have my keys and we can drive on over…”
“How we gonna get into my car? I locked it up and took my keys with me—and you locked them up in Duane’s room. Which probably has cops in it by now.”
“Can’t we get my purse, anyway?”
“How?”
“Maybe your car isn’t locked. Maybe one of the back doors, or something…”
“It’s locked, all right. It’s got one of those remote-control dealies where you push a button and it locks all the doors. Sets the alarm, too.”