Here Comes the Night (4 page)

Just over the hill above the parked Mustang, Oklahoma’s next
teenage rodeo star was riding horses with her boyfriend. Only seventeen, Candy
Myers had already blown everybody away by breaking a national barrel racing
record at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie. Replays of the breathless performance
had made her an instant celebrity in the rodeo world.

Now in serious training for the Grand Finals in Las Vegas,
she had saved a precious hour to see her boyfriend, Mickey Mullin, the only kid
from her high school who’d ever had the nerve to ask her out. His only bragging
right was raising blue ribbon Angora sheep with the Future Farmers of America,
yet he’d somehow found the guts to blurt out an invitation to a dance, and
they’d been inseparable ever since. Except, of course, for her non-stop
training schedule.

“Slow poke,” she teased him.

“I’m just gettin’ warmed up. Are you kidding?”

They slowed their horses and pulled up side by side, facing
one another.

He could smell honeysuckle around them, and then her sweet
gardenia perfume. That was always like a little secret between them, the
fragile scent of her skin, just waiting under the smells of shined leather
boots and chaps.

Mickey wrapped his hand around her neck and pulled her
close. He always wanted to kiss her, but it was sweeter out here, where they
were completely alone. It was a long, lingering one.

Candy sighed as they parted. “I’m mud puddle crazy about
you, you know.”

“Yeah, you say that now,” he teased her.

Then, all the while knowing he’d lose to her again, Mickey
gamely challenged her to a sprint up the long hill that led from her house in
the valley up to the paved highway. Candy patted her quarter horse’s
butterscotch neck and grinned at him.

“Sure your nag is up to it?” she grinned.

“Been waitin’ all day to strut her stuff. We’ll see how well
your little
prima donna
can climb,” Mickey yelled back. In an instant he
managed to get a quick start, leaving Candy to make up the difference.

Not that it would be a problem for her.

By the time Erika got back in the car, Tony had figured out
how to patch everything up. He even let her abruptness pass without comment
when she said, “Let’s just go back to the city, okay?”

“Hey, I’m sorry, baby,” he said. “Sometimes I…I know I get
wild. But I really need you…so much.” Erika searched his face, wanting this to be
true. Then he slipped something into her hand. “I want you to have this. It’s
not much.”

Erika opened her hand to find a delicate chain holding a
pale coral cameo. She wondered where he’d stolen it. “Where’d you—?”

Tony took her hand. “It was my grandmother’s.”

“It’s really nice, Tony,” Erika said, slipping the necklace
on. She knew it was too nice, too convenient. Besides, he had said he didn’t
have any family. She smiled at him, but knew it was useless for him to bother
keeping his lies straight anymore. Best if she broke it off as soon as they got
back to the city.

“We’ll head back home. Just one more drag, okay?” Tony
grinned, and before she could say anything, he’d cranked up the sound system,
floorboarded the accelerator, and they were screaming up the steep hill in
front of them, fishtailing and kicking up gravel.

Candy and Mickey heard the mega-volume music from the
Mustang before they actually saw the car. Her horse had turned skittish and
tried to slow down, but Candy was so intent on winning she kept gigging her on
up to the crest of the peak.

Behind her, Mickey noticed the dust cloud on the other side
of the hill and realized what was about to happen, but Candy couldn’t hear him
calling. Then, in the same instant, they both seemed to grasp it. Time froze
for a split second.

Tony was screaming happy as the Mustang almost left the
ground at the top of the hill. He barely glimpsed rider or horse before the
Mustang’s front fender slammed into the pale quarter horse, lifting her up and
throwing her off the road.

Candy Myers popped off the saddle and sailed even farther,
flip-flopping through the air like a limp doll, landing in a wheat field with a
dull thud.

As Tony tried to veer the Mustang away, he almost clipped
the second horse as well. He went ashen. Erika grabbed his arm. Though crumpled
badly in front, the car still ran.

Terrified, Tony pushed her arm off, frantically searching
for a plan as the Mustang idled slowly forward.

“Oh my God, oh my God, no,” Erika cried. “Stop.”

“Shut up. I’ve got to think.”

“Tony, stop the car.” Erika grabbed his arm. But Tony didn’t
brake.

She screamed, “They could be dead.”

Strangely, this seemed to decide it for him. Tony suddenly
rammed the gas and the car leapt forward.

Erika turned to look behind them and saw the young man leap
from his horse and run into the field toward the thrown rider. Stunned that
they were driving away, Erika turned and glared at Tony.

Then she looked back at the road, and they both realized at
the same moment that they were caught in the rural version of a
cul
de
sac
. “Tony, this is just a big driveway leading in and out of that ranch,”
Erika yelled. “There’s nowhere else to go.”

“Cocksucker,” Tony screamed and jammed on the brakes. He
stared at the pristine, rambling house for a moment, then yanked the wheel,
pulling the car around in a sharp U-turn and headed back toward the hill.

When Mickey Mullin finally reached Candy in the field, he
couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead. There was surprisingly little blood,
but her body lay shattered, one leg and arm twisted so unnaturally, it was as
though the bones had been snapped backward.

He felt for and found her pulse. It was light, but there.
The agonized neighs of her prized quarter horse cut through the air for an
excruciating few moments. Then it was over for her. Mickey counted it a
blessing they wouldn’t have to shoot her.

Then, in utter amazement, he heard the same car engine cut
through the buzz of insects which had settled over the hilltop. He stood and
watched it scream up the incline and flash past him.

Mickey shook his fist at it. “Bastard,” he screamed. “You
son of a bitch.” Then he covered Candy with his shirt and leaned in close,
praying she could hear him. “I’ve gotta leave you for just a few seconds to go
get help. I will be back.”

Tears whipped off his face as he jumped onto his horse and
raced down the hill to the Myers’ ranch.

In the Mustang, Erika tried to grasp everything that was
happening. She could not get past the fact that Tony hadn’t stopped, didn’t
seem to have even considered it.

He looked over at her, as though he knew what she was
thinking.

“Baby, I’m on parole. If I stop, I’m dead meat.”

“But that girl…” Erika said, starting to cry.

“Pull it together. Right now all we got to think about is
getting rid of this car. Either help with that or shut the fuck up.”

The night lights along Exchange Avenue blinked on when it
turned to dusk. The colored lights in the front window of the Wrangler Bar
& Grill framed the drunken face of Angie Wesner sitting at the bar.

She was on her third martini, but it wasn’t working. With
each warm sensation as the vodka went down, she felt more and more dejected.
Angie had already tried Gordon’s office on her cell phone. That was safe
enough. Just a wife checking on her late husband. But Angie knew, even through
her fuzzy haze, that calling Buck from her phone was out of the question. The
alcohol, however,
had
helped her rationalize that if she used a public
phone…

So once more, she slipped to the back of the bar, found more
coins, and dialed his cell from the pay phone. The same four buzzes, then his
voice mail. “Hello, you’ve reached my mobile number. Since I can’t take calls
right now, you know what to do. You can also try my office number…”

Same old yada yada. As the night came on, her anger veered
toward a sick, depressed feeling. Like rocks in her stomach. That was how she
had described it as a child, when she’d made the mistake of talking to a DHS
case worker. The dull woman with bad dentures and a sickly sweet lavender smell
had found it easier to go with her stepfather’s story of an out-of-control teen
than believe a foul-mouthed kid, it turned out. It had made Angie feel like a
chewed up chicken bone, tossed to the ground. So she had lived with rocks in
her stomach until she ran away at fifteen.

Disgusted, she threw money down on the bar and wandered out
into the deserted street. She didn’t know whether she wanted to cry or kill
somebody.

The storefronts were dark except for one at the end of the
street—the Crazy Horse Saloon. Music from there poured out onto the sidewalks.

Under his smelly hood, Buck heard the garage door scrape
open. Meatface and Jorge’s feet hit the ground as they jumped up.

Through a wall of pain, he’d been listening to them talk
nonstop pussy and bitch about their busted up hands from the beating they’d
given him. He had felt like telling them to come over and check out what was
left of his face.

Blood had dried up in his nose and he was back to struggling
for a decent breath. He was afraid even if the hood came off he wouldn’t be
able to see. It hurt even to blink his swollen lids.

A raw fear had gripped him since the moment he’d been
grabbed in the alley. These guys were paid muscle, no one to reason with. Maybe
he could figure out a way to approach the anorexic Twigs, but she was even
scarier than the men.

Buck knew he had been worse than stupid. It had been
reckless and dangerous not to check in with these people as soon as the sun
came up. He was sure now of some kind of invisible network that somehow relayed
his winnings even before he left the game at dawn.

At first he had been terrified they would kill him. Then he
realized the situation was not that simple. They needed him alive to get their
money, but they would never let this pass before inflicting a tough lesson.

The sound of bags being set down and then Twig’s dry raspy
voice announced, “Pizza and a twelve-pack, boys. Who’s hungry?”

Jorge and Meatface scooted to her. “That’s why we’re in love
with you,
jefe
,” Jorge said, slurring a little.

“Dig in,” she said and strolled over to the couch. “How’s
our boy?” She pulled off Buck’s hood. “Wow, you fellows had yourselves quite a
Friday night, didn’t you?”

“We had to bring him back around three times,” Meatface
offered. “Our Sooner honcho has lost his stamina.”

“You said call you while he can still talk,” Jorge said.

Twigs stood over Buck. “Hey, look at me, High Roller.” Buck
just sat, head drooped.

Suddenly Meatface, waving a pizza slice in one hand, scooted
over and whopped him upside the head. “Hey, show the lady some fuckin’ respect
when she tells you somethin’.”

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Twigs said to Meatface. “Enjoy your
pizza.” Then she sat beside Buck and spoke low, intimately, with him.

“The boys get a little excited sometimes when I let them
loose. Looks like they went a little overboard.” She looked back up at them.
“You give him the ‘ludes?”

“Sure thing,” Jorge said a little too quickly. In fact, his
eyes looked like he’d taken them himself.

“Alrighty then. Let’s try this again.” She wetted down some paper
towels at the industrial sink and handed them to him. “Here. Clean out your
nose so you can breathe.”

Grateful, Buck blew out the mucus slowly, but pain still
shot through him. It did ease his breathing a little, though.

“Better?” she asked. He nodded. “Okay, now do you remember
why you’re here?”

He nodded again.

“There, that’s progress, see? Now we can move on to what
happens next.” She rose and got a leather sheath out of her large purse. She
pulled out a full-sized old time barber’s straight razor.

Buck felt faint for a moment. “Oh, God,” he moaned, bile
bubbling up in his throat, “what are you doing?”

The flash of steel brought Meatface scurrying over
immediately. Red pizza sauce dripped down the front of his shirt. “Alright, make-uh-my
day. Where are you going to start?”

Twigs shot him an annoyed look. “I’ll call you when I need
you.”

Meatface sauntered off, shrugging his eyebrows like Groucho
Marx to Jorge.

Twigs picked up the straight razor and touched her fingers
to the edge. “Now, Mr. Dearmore, let’s just review. You knew you owed us the
money…”

Buck interjected. “Yes, but—”

“Fifty thousand, plus interest. Yet who did you get in touch
with last night? After you cleaned out the city’s patriarchs?” She quickly
added. “I heard the old boys weren’t too happy.”

Buck’s voice was shaky. “I was going to call, but it was the
middle of the night.”

Twigs mocked him. “Right. And I bet it was busy
all day
at
the bank, too. Friday and all.” She leaned into him. “We gave you 12 hours, Mr.
Dearmore. We’re not monsters.

“I swear to God,” Buck began, “I know how it looks, but I
really was—”

She cut him off with a head shake. “No, no, we’re done
talking, see? My instructions are to take one of your thumbs now, and another
finger for every additional hour from now until we have your payment.”

Buck barely held back a scream. He was sure he was going to
throw up. “Oh no. No, God, please. I can’t—
”

Meatface, who’d been watching, mesmerized, piped up. “No
more ‘Hail Mary’s’ for you, huh, big guy? Hey, Twigs, can I do the honors?”

Jorge laughed. “Yeah, like man, you ain’t even going to be
able to
hold
a football without thumbs.” Meatface started to pantomime
someone without thumbs trying to pass a ball. This sent both guys into peals of
laughter.

Twigs snapped her fingers at them. “Listen up, now. How many
fingers would that be before midnight, boys?”

“School’s out,” Meatface said, waving off her math question.

“Geez, you’re dumb as a stick,” Jorge scoffed at him. Then
to Twigs, flirtatious. “Okay, so first we gotta find out what time it is. What
time is it?”

Twigs laughed and turned back to Buck. “Wait. What am I
thinking? Buck here is the banker, the numbers man. How many fingers would that
be, Buck?”

Sheer panic had taken over Buck’s mind. He was throwing out
anything now. “Listen. Do you know
who I am?
This will be huge news. Not
just something buried somewhere, but splashed across the front page.”

“Do you believe this guy?” Twigs picked up the straight
razor. It glinted against the bare overhead bulb. She walked straight to him,
motioning the boys to join her. “Move him over to the sink. Won’t be so messy.”

“Why don’t we just take one for every hour we already been
here?” Meatface complained. “That’d be practically one hand.”

“We’re not cavemen,” Twigs said, then continued like a
history lecturer. “In the old days, they’d take off their whole hands, you
know. But that was a problem because most of them just bled out or died of
shock. There’s an art to this shit. You don’t just go in whacking.”

Buck felt reality slipping away as their muscled arms lifted
him up and dragged him across the room. His ears were ringing and he couldn’t
get a breath. The physical memory jolted him back to all those years ago when
the stadium would roar to their feet on third and long, like an angry coliseum
demanding a gladiator’s death. When even your teammates could look at you like
you were the only one who’d fucked up. But Coach had told him a thousand times,
“That’s when you let go of how things were supposed to work out. Then you got
to make it up as you go. That’s all. Figure out your Plan B.”

So between the cot and the sink, Dearmore let go forever of
the idea of coming out of this unharmed. He had to do something. Fast.

They got him in position, Meatface executing a bear hold on
his torso, Jorge ready to put all his weight on his arm and hand.

With a scary precision, Twigs flicked the razor and moved
in. “Hold out his thumb, boys.”

“Wait a minute,” Buck said. “Hold on just a second.”

Twigs paused. “I’m listening.”

“I still have it all, and then some,” Buck said. “I can take
you to it.”

“Hear that, fellas?
Now
he can take us to the money.
Now that we’ve gone digital.” She laughed at her own joke. “You aren’t
suggesting it’s at your place, I hope. Because we’ve already tossed that and
didn’t find shit.”

“No, not there, but it’s someplace safe,” Buck assured her.

“You’re still going to lose the finger, you know,” Twigs
said. “I can’t help that. It’s a done deal from on high.”

“I know,” Buck said quickly. “I’ll take you there right now.
All I ask is that you let me pick which finger.”

Twigs’ smile was genuine. “Well, what do you know, boys? The
asshole thinks he’s a negotiator.”