Unspeakable (18 page)

Thankfully the diversion worked to change the subject. Delray pulled a frown. "I sent him packing and told him not to bother me again with any offers to buy my ranch. Then he went to work on Anna."

Jack looked across at her. They'd been avoiding making direct eye contact, although he had been aware of every movement she made, and he got a sense that she was just as conscious of him. Their nervousness was silly. They were grown-ups, not kids. They hadn't done anything in the barn except touch hands.

Of course, now that he knew the nature of Delray's feelings, he would never look at her without remembering that.

But now he looked at her inquisitively and Delray said, "Tell him, Anna. He'll get a kick out of it."

With Delray acting as interpreter, she recounted her conversation with Emory Lomax. When she was finished, Jack said, "I thought he was just a jerk. Turns out he's a total creep." From the hallway, Jack had overheard enough to form a low opinion of the banker. If Lomax were an honest businessman, a person with integrity, he wouldn't have resorted to blackmailing Delray with his connection to Carl Herbold. The way he had come on to Anna proved the guy had no ethics, and that he was an egotistical asshole to boot. It was a dangerous combination.

"Tell Jack what you said to him," Delray said, chuckling. She turned to Jack, but Delray translated her signs into words. "I pretended to be flattered. When he suggested that we get together, I called him an... an ugly name," Delray said, amending it because of David. "I told him to take his slimy hands off me or I was going to kick him in the you-know-whats." David licked out the bowl of his spoon. "Kick him where, Grandpa?"

"I get the picture," Jack said, grimacing. "You should have gone ahead and done it, Anna." She smiled at him. Extending his empty bowl, he said, "Are seconds allowed? Please?" He watched her as she spooned the ice cream from the canister. Light coming from inside the house through the front windows lit only one side of her face. The other was softened by shadow. Hot as the evening air was, her skin looked cool. She made no wasted motions. When melting ice cream got on her fingers, she unselfconsciously licked it off. Then Jack became aware of Delray watching him watch Anna. He ate the second helping of ice cream in record time, said good night, and left the Corbetts on the porch. For a long time, he stood beneath the spray in the minuscule shower in the trailer, repeating countless times, "Don't do something stupid and blow it, Jack. Don't blow it."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I
t was a wide-spot-in-the-road kind of town. At this time of
night, the sleepy streets showe
d no

signs of life. A single traffic light was perilously suspended above the main intersection, but either it had burned out or had been turned off at a designated time, because it wasn't even blinking yellow. Windows were dark. Not even an alley cat stalked the deserted streets. But Carl Herbold was on the prowl.

For several days the Bailey farm in northwestern Louisiana had made a perfect rest stop. Carl couldn't have asked for more comfortable accommodation. The pantry and food freezer had been well stocked. There were more channels on the television than he and Myron could watch. The house had central air-conditioning that maintained a cool seventy degrees. Carl had got downright nostalgic when it came time to say good-bye to the place. The widowed Mrs. Bailey and her old-maid sister had lived there alone ever since G.R. died. Reasoning that relatives and neighbors were bound to check on the two old ladies periodically, Carl had decided this morning that he and Myron should move on. It was dangerous to stay too long in any one place when law enforcement agencies—local, state, and federal—were after your ass. They had left the sisters resting in peace at the bottom of their water well with bullets in their heads.

Carl had never been good at waiting. He was a man of action. He and Cecil had nixed the idea of reuniting immediately after the prison escape. The heat would be on full blast. Cecil would be closely watched until the authorities became convinced that the Herbold brothers were too smart to do something so predictable and risk Carl's being recaptured. So they had agreed on this cooling-off period. But with the rendezvous still days away, the idle time was making Carl antsy. And money had become a concern. While the late Mr. Bailey had provided his heirs a home with all the amenities, the sisters had to have been the most frugal bitches ever to draw breath. They kept no cash in the house. Even when Carl had turned Mrs. Bailey over to Myron to play with, the spinster had sobbingly sworn she had no cash to give them beyond the small amount she carried in her purse. Twenty-seven lousy bucks.

But the joke had been on Carl. After killing both of them, he had spent days searching the house from attic to cellar. None of the typical hiding places had turned up a dime. Who would've guessed the old bitches were telling the truth when pleading for their lives?

Most of the forty dollars Cecil had left them in the car had gone for liquor, food, and gas. They would need money soon. So the plan now was to acquire some cash without ereating too much of a ruckus. An in-and-out operation would be ideal.

"That looks like an easy place, Myron," Carl said as they cruised beneath the town's single, nonfunctioning, traffic light. "What do you think?"

"Sure, Carl."

"We'll get us some money and pick you up a few PayDays. How's that?" He was glad Myron was so agreeable, but he wished his partner in crime wouldn't grin so big. When Myron peeled his lips away from his teeth like that, revealing puffy pink gums, he was one ugly son of a bitch.

The gas station was constructed of corrugated tin and appeared to have been there for at least half a century. The gas pumps in front were the only nod toward modernity, and they looked to be only a couple decades old. Branches of a large chinaberry tree spread across the roof, casting a deep shadow over the entire building, which Carl considered a bonus. The deeper the darkness, the better. He drove around to the back of the building, parked the car, and got out. Securing the back door was a flimsy padlock, which he opened with a bolt cutter that Cecil had had the forethought to place in the trunk for just this sort of emergency. He led the way through a cluttered storage room, which smelled of rubber and motor oil, into the commercial area. Myron trudged along behind him.

" Shit! "

Carl, hands on hips, thoroughly exasperated, glared at the cash register. He had expected a relic, a brass fixture with buttons with numbers on them and a little bell that rang when the cash drawer shot open. Or maybe even something as crude as a cigar box chock-full of money. Who would have expected a dump like this in a one-horse town to have a sophisticated, computerized cash register like the one he was looking at? He couldn't seem to buy a break. First, the old ladies had had no hidden treasure trove. Now this.

"How am I supposed to get into that?"

It was a rhetorical question, but Myron, who had found the PayDays in the rack of candies and chewing gums, replied, "I dunno, Carl. Break it."

"You can't break it, you dumb shit. It's got a code, numbers you gotta punch... Why in hell am I trying to explain fucking technology to a moron? Toss me one of those Hershey's bars."

"You want almonds, Carl?"

"Why not?"

Myron threw the candy bar underhand. Carl reached out to catch it.

"Hold it right there, you sum'bitch!"

Carl turned toward the shout. The twin barrels of a sawed–off shotgun were lined up even with his eyeballs. The Hershey's bar fell to the floor.

"Don't shoot," he blubbered. "No!" he cried when he saw Myron out of the corner of his eye about to spring. If that shotgun went off, his head would be ground meat before Myron reached the other man. "We're sorry, Mister. We're sorry. We didn't mean you any harm, we just—"

"Shut up. You," he said to Myron, "keep your hands in sight and move over here by your buddy."

"What should I do, Carl?"

Way to go, Myron. Call me by name. However, Carl was chiding himself, too, for being so careless. He had laid his pistol on the countertop. His back was to it, and it was out of reach. Stupid, stupid! The only option left him was to play scared for this yokel. "Do what the man says. We're caught."

Myron's big feet shuffled across the linoleum floor. "Are we going back to the prison?" Carl swore right then and there that if he got out of this alive, he was going to personally cut out Myron's tongue.

"Y'all them boys that escaped the prison up in Arkansas?"

"Don't shoot us," Carl pleaded, faking a catch in his throat. "We're—"

"Jee-zus," the man exclaimed in a whisper. "Good thing I happened by. Saw your car outside." Carl asked, "Is this your place?"

"Damn straight. I figured you was just some kids. Never thought—"

"Daddy?"

What happened then was a blur, even to Carl, who enacted it.

The gas-station owner whipped around to admonish his offspring for disobeying his orders and leaving the car, where she had obviously been told to stay put. All Carl needed was that split second to shove the butt of the shotgun into the man's gut. The shotgun never discharged, a miracle that Carl never understood. Myron, acting intelligently, a miracle in itself, snatched up the girl and clamped his large hand over her face, preventing her from screaming. In less than five seconds, the momentum shifted. Carl and Myron were once again in possession of all the weapons and in control of the situation, while the man who hoped to apprehend them was bent double, retching dryly, and begging for his life.

"Whew," Carl said, retrieving his candy bar from the floor and tearing off the wrapper, "I feel a lot better about this situation now. Don't you, Myron?"

"Yeah, Carl."

Carl bit off a few squares of chocolate. "Better uncover her nose, Myron, or you're going to suffocate her. But keep her mouth shut."

"Please don't hurt her," the man gasped.

"Never entered my mind," Carl said, acting affronted. "Did it enter your mind to hurt this girl, Myron?"

"No, Carl."

"See?" Carl taunted. "We don't want to hurt anybody. And we won't." He rammed the butt of the shotgun into the man's face, making pulp of his nose and knocking out his front teeth. He fell to all fours, moaning and pleading with God to help him. "Now, see, all that weepin' and wailin' and prayin' isn't going to do you any good," Carl told him. " 'Cause you're the only one who can help yourself. All you've gotta do is open up this cash register. Then we'll leave you in peace. Don't you think that's fair?"

"Okay, okay. Just don't hurt us."

The man pulled himself up by a sheer act of will and staggered to the counter. The poor bastard's hands were shaking so badly he could hardly get the thing powered up, but he managed it. He keyed in the code and the cash drawer opened.

"See how easy that was?" Carl clapped him on the back in congratulations, then stabbed him in the kidney with the shank he'd honed in prison. Three vicious thrusts. When Carl withdrew the handmade knife the last time, the man collapsed onto the floor.

"Not a shot fired," Carl mused aloud, smiling. "It's about time I caught a break." The girl whimpered in terror, drawing Carl's attention to her. He hadn't really taken much notice of her before; he'd had other things on his mind. But now as he stuffed his pockets with the money in the cash drawer, he looked her over.

She was wearing shorts and a striped jersey for a sports team of some kind. Tall socks that covered her thin calves. Athletic shoes. She was around fourteen, he would guess. Not a kid, not quite a woman. But woman enough. He started getting hard. If it weren't for the time it would take...

'Tell you what, Myron, I'm going to let you drive for a spell. Would you like that?"

"Gee, Carl, that'd be fun. Can I have some more PayDays?"

"All you want. I'll get them for you. You take her out to the car and put her in the backseat. Don't let her make a sound."

Bless his heart, Myron did exactly as he was told. Of course, he cut off the girl's source of oxygen in the process of keeping her quiet, so that by the time Carl joined them in the car she was unconscious, making the roll of duct tape he had found in the storage room unnecessary. He taped her mouth anyway, just as a precaution.

By the time Myron drove past the city limit sign, Carl was already enjoying himself in the backseat. Immensely.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"T
hey say it was Carl Herbold. Him and that guy he escaped with. They say they's the ones that did it."

"They ain't saying any such thing. They're saying they're suspects. "

"Same as."

"What country you living in? This is America. We've got a constitution that gives us rights. Innocent till proved guilty, remember? Mornin', Ezzy."

The regulars at the Busy Bee coffee shop on the town square were, as usual, discussing the hottest news story of the day. Whatever the story happened to be, they sliced and diced it as efficiently as those kitchen gadgets on the infomercials that cut up raw potatoes in seven different ways.

It was also customary for them to argue points of that news story, no matter if those points were universal principles, abstract themes, or minute factual details. Today the argument seemed to be focused on the details.