See Tom Run (16 page)

He needed about eight uninterrupted hours of shuteye
and a square meal.

After a shower.

He turned onto his street, pulled up in front of his
house and did a double take—

There was a car parked in the driveway!

Although he didn’t recognize the car, its presence
could only be good news: maybe someone had brought his family back
home!

“Whose car is that?” Erin said.

“I don’t know but I’m hoping that Peg and the kids
are in there right now. Maybe somebody found them!”

“That would be great!”

Tom pulled up behind the car and shut of the engine.
He glanced at the license plate and recognized the name of the auto
dealership advertised on the frame, which was located in
Smithtown.

That was odd, to say the least.

“Maybe you’d better stay here while I check this out,
come to think of it,” he told Erin.

“But you said—”

“I know what I said, but I want to be sure it’s safe
before you come in. Once I’m sure that it is, I’ll come back and
get you.”

Erin was visibly miffed. “I want to go, too! It’s not
fair!”

Tom looked directly into her eyes. “Listen, Erin. We
have no idea who is in my house right now. It could be a good thing
or it could be trouble. I just don’t want to take any chances.”

“Okay. I’ll wait here. But come back as fast as you
can, you promise?”

“I promise.”

Tom grabbed the flashlight and opened the car door.
He shut it gently and made his way to the side door. It was dark as
pitch inside, which was not a good sign. If Peg and the kids were
in there, they certainly would have at least lit some candles or
fired up the fireplace.

He paused before opening the door and glanced back at
the mysterious car parked in the driveway. It was an older model
Pontiac, green, and looked to be around a mid-nineties model. Who
in god’s green earth would be visiting from Smithtown? he wondered.
Peg’s family hailed from Columbus, so it almost had to be either a
friend or a relative of his—someone with an awfully good reason to
warrant the two-hour drive.

Tom crept over to the garage. He was not going to go
into the house without some kind of weapon. He found a crowbar,
recalled Bummer for a second, then carried it with him over to the
side door. Opening the door as quietly as he could, he stepped
inside.

From the laundry room, Tom could just make out a tiny
orange glow coming from inside the kitchen. It looked like the end
of a lit cigarette. He took a whiff and recognized the pungent
smell of burning tobacco. At that same moment, the glow intensified
as the person at the other end of the cigarette took a long
drag.

“Come on in, Tom,” a voice suddenly rang from the
darkness.

Tom flinched.

A flashlight flicked on and its beam shone directly
into his eyes.

“And ya can put down that goddamn crowbar.”

The man’s voice was gruff sounding with a heavy
southern Ohio drawl. It wasn’t the least bit familiar.

“Who are you?” Tom asked, feeling his heart rate go
up a notch or two.

“Right now, that’s for me to know and you to find
out. I want you to drop that piece of iron (pronounced “arn”) and
walk toward me real slow-like,” the voice commanded.

“No way—this is my house and I’m not going to drop
anything!”

Click.

Tom knew that was the sound of a gun cocking in the
darkness.

“Ya sure about that, Tom? I’m bettin’ ya might wanna
reconsider if ya don’t want a slug in yer haid”

“Okay, I’m dropping it!”

He let the crowbar fall to his feet; the dull
clanging nearly deafening.

“There ya go. Now come toward me real slow. Or as God
is my witness, I’ll waste yer sorry ass.”

Tom moved tentatively toward the man holding the
flashlight. He couldn’t make out any of his features except that he
was thin.

“That’s far enough, right there,” the man said. “Now,
I’m gonna light a candle so we can see each another. I want you to
just stand there nice and still for a second.”

Tom watched anxiously as the stranger grabbed a
butane lighter off the kitchen table, flicked it and lit a candle.
As amber light filled the kitchen, Tom gazed at the man’s face,
trying to determine if he’d ever seen him before. He was heavily
bearded, had a broken nose and wore his long, greasy hair in a
ponytail. Tom was fairly certain he had never laid eyes on him
before.

“There. Now have a seat and we can begin our little
chit-chat,” the intruder said, gaping at him with bug eyes that
looked like he was on crystal meth.

Tom sat down across the table from him and said,
“What do you want with me?”

“Hold on and I’ll tell ya in a minute. First I want
to get something to drink.”

The man got up, went over to the refrigerator and
took out two warm Michelob Ultras. “Here,” he said, offering one to
Tom.

“No thanks, too early for me,” Tom said, trying to
appear under control while in fact he was terrified of this
scary-looking redneck.

“Suit yerself,” the stranger said, screwing off the
bottle cap. He kept the gun trained on Tom as he sucked down
several huge gulps of beer.

“Ahhh, that’s better. Now down to the business. I
don’t reckon you remember me, Tom, but I lived on the west side of
Smithtown back in the eighties around the same time you shuffled
off to New York. I’d seen you around in the bars from time to time
but we never talked none because you were one of them city fellahs
and I was just what you thought of as a hillbilly or whatever.
Which I didn’t really give a big shit about because I figgered as
long as you never messed with me or any of my buddies, I wasn’t
gonna start no trouble with you.”

Tom thought back to those cobweb-shrouded days twenty
years ago, trying to place this guy’s face in a bar. He looked just
like the other typical hicks from the sticks: ultra-long dirty
hair, full beard and that same sort of startled, demented look as
the good ol’ boys in Deliverance—

But the guy didn’t ring any bells.

“Anyway, my name is Donnie—Donnie Shortridge. Now,
does that name sound familiar to you?”

In fact, it did, but only faintly. Tom recalled the
name Donnie Shortridge but couldn’t place exactly where he’d heard
it before.

“Not really,” he said. “Should it?”

“Aww, it sure as hell
should!
But like I said
before, your type of folk didn’t give a shit about my type so you
probably don’t want to remember. Don’t really make any big shit to
me, anyway.”

Tom noticed that the longer this Donnie character
talked, the more anger showed in his face. He was scowling at him
now, looking like a time bomb ready to blow any second.

Tom needed to keep this in mind, whatever the guy
wanted from him.

“My memory is pretty fried, Donnie. Too much booze
over the years, I guess,” Tom quipped, attempting to add a little
humor to the conversation.

Donnie’s expression didn’t change one iota.

“You’re a goddamn pussy, Tom. You don’t know what
drunk is.”

Hmmm, Tom thought. He’s getting downright nasty
now.

“Let me throw another name at ya,
Tom, and I’m betting that you’re gonna remember
it!
How about the name Mindy
Conkel?”

Mindy Conkel. Tom did recall her name. She was the
girl he’d picked up at a bar one night. Really good looking but a
little on the sleazy side. He’d taken her to her place and had a
pretty good time. And that was about it—he’d never seen her
again.

“Yeah, I do remember Mindy. Why do you ask?”

Donnie’s expression went from angry to furious.
“Because, motherfucker, she was my wife and you fucked her!”

Tom’s heart skipped two beats and his head felt like
a lead weight all of a sudden.

Shit! So that’s what this is all about …

He decided to play it cool. “I what? No way, Donnie!
What makes you think I did that?”

Donnie drained the bottle, opened the other one with
his yellow buckteeth and spit the cap out onto the table. “Because
I just know, fucker! She told me!”

Tom thought back, trying to recall exactly what had
happened the night he had picked up Mindy Conkle—

He’d been at the Short Stop Pub with Mike and Jeff
that night. They had all been fairly smashed when all of a sudden
these two chicks came over and sat down at their table. One was
Mindy and the other was—hell he couldn’t remember what her name
was. She was pretty ugly though, which made Mindy look all that
much better.

One thing led to another and Mindy began flirting
with him big time, rubbing his leg and pressing her tits against
him every time she said something into his ear. Before long, she
asked him if he wanted to go to her place and he had happily
agreed.

They had gone to her downtown apartment, which was a
little rough and seemed to fit her personality to a tee. They drank
some more and eventually went to bed together. About all he could
recall from that point on was that she was a good lay but he
couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there the next morning. Mindy
Conkel was not exactly the stuff that dreams were made of. But he’d
had a very good time, and that was a fact.

Mindy had never said anything about being married or
mentioned any boyfriend. And she definitely had not been wearing a
wedding band—he would have been keeping an eye out for that no
matter how drunk he’d been. In fact, he could recall her mentioning
a roommate named Sarah—

So she had definitely not been married to Donnie
Shortridge at the time—

“Donnie, I swear to you that Mindy was single when I
went out with her. And I only went out with her one night. I think
you have the facts wrong—”

Crash!

Donnie’s fist came down so hard on the table that the
beer bottle jumped an inch or two into the air.

“Don’t tell me I ain’t got my story straight, you
fuckin’ shit! Whether or not we was married at that exact time
don’t make no difference—you banged her when she was my woman!”

“Donnie, listen. If you were dating Mindy at the
time, she never told me, and that’s the truth! Had I known she had
a boyfriend, I would never have uh, been with her. I swear!”

“You mean you would have never fucked her, that’s
what you mean.”

“Donnie, I did not do that. We just played around a
little.”

“Played around a little, my ass! That’s the same
goddamn thing she tried to tell me at first. Then she couldn’t deny
it anymore because she was knocked up!”

Tom suddenly felt lightheaded—like something buried
deep in the muck and the mire for years had risen to the surface.
This story was beginning to have a very unpleasant ring to it.

He had in fact gotten a call from Mindy Conkel one
day. Not long after he’d moved to New York. And he had put that
call so far out of his mind, it wasn’t until now that it came back
to him.

Mindy Conkel had called to tell him that she was
pregnant with his child.

He had blown her off, telling her that it was next to
impossible that he had gotten her pregnant, given the
circumstances. They had only slept together once, he had argued.
The odds were totally against it.

Besides, he had thought, there was no way he was
going to let this chick screw up his new life in the Big Apple!

Mindy continued to insist that the child was his and
Tom had finally gotten so angry that he simply hung up on her. As
it turned out, he’d never heard from her again.

So he had promptly forgotten all about it—

Until now.

Tom knew he had to find a way out of this situation.
If he didn’t, there was little doubt that Donnie Shortridge was
going to kill him.

“Are you trying to say that I got her pregnant?” he
said.

“That’s right, I know ya did!”

“How could you know that, Donnie? What makes you
think it wasn’t you?”

“Because, asshole, I took a paternity test. I started
having my doubts about her when she got knocked up once I found out
that she had fucked you, too. And even though the bitch swore up
and down that you weren’t the father, I didn’t believe her.

“But the clincher was that the kid had dark brown
hair and brown eyes. Mindy and I both have blue eyes and blond
hair. This kid didn’t look one goddamn bit like me! So I got tested
one day. And sure enough, the kid wasn’t mine.

“I got real mad and real drunk after I found out the
results of that test. When Mindy got back from work that night, I
beat the crap out of her. Broke her arm, a couple of ribs and
smashed her face in pretty good. The cops came and I ended up
getting a prison term. All because of you, motherfucker! You messed
up my whole goddamn life!”

The man was so roaring angry now that the veins were
popping out of his neck. Tom almost shot up and ran but the gun
pointed at him made him reconsider.

“Donnie, I’m sorry. But that still doesn’t prove I
was the father—it could just as easily have been someone else—”

“You stinkin’ sonofabitch—now you’re makin’ Mindy out
for an even bigger whore than she is! No, she may be a bitch but
I’m sure you were the only other bastard she’d screwed. So that
makes you the daddy and the one that not only screwed up my family
but got me sent to the southern Ohio pen for five fucking
years!”

“Even if I were the father, which I really doubt,
that wouldn’t make it my fault you got sent to prison, Donnie. I
mean, it sounds like you could’ve used a few anger management
sessions or something—”

Tom knew as soon as it came out that this had not
been a wise thing to say.

Whack!

Donnie backhanded him with a beer bottle. It hurt
like bloody hell.

“Fuck you, man! Don’t be telling me about needing
anger management!”

Tom almost laughed out loud at the irony, but his jaw
hurt too much.