The Lost (40 page)
Authors: Jack Ketchum
It was supposed to be empty. He was damn well
staying
.
He marched them past the Dodge wagon in the driveway and up the stairs to the porch and reached past and through them and
these people, these fucking stupid people up here they
never
lock their doors, they all think they’re living in the fucking ’50s for chrissake, they deserve whatever the fuck they get
and he pushed open the door and pushed Kath and Jennifer in, Jennifer skidding to her hands and knees and then pushed Sally. Through to a brightly lit dark-paneled hallway leading to a brightly lit living room, bare bulbs blazing on lamps without lampshades, cardboard boxes all over the place, chairs piled on top of one another and tied with twine, photos and paintings bundled together, sofa and armchairs covered with sheets tied round with more twine.
And in the middle of the room two startled people in the act of wrapping some stupid blue-and-white seascape in a sheet of brown paper, the woman holding the painting and the guy on his knees taping the wrap.
Ray showed them the gun. Waved it like a football pennant and slammed the door behind him.
“Who the fuck are you!” he said.
The guy started to stammer and moved to rise.
“Don’t. Stay right where you are, man. Don’t you fucking move! You either, lady. Now who the hell are you?”
The guy had his hands up.
I surrender
. The guy was stammering again.
“Take a deep breath, asshole. You three, over against the wall.”
They did as he said. Stood where it looked like a great big circular mirror had been until just recently. A pure white moon on the faded wall.
His ducks all in a row.
“We . . . my father’s sold the house. There are movers coming tomorrow and we’re . . .”
“Packing things up,” the woman said. The woman jittered. Like she had to go to the bathroom. He hated the bitch immediately. Let her go in her fucking pants if she had to.
“That’s right. Packing things up.”
“Uh-huh.”
He looked them over. The guy had short brown hair, blue jeans with a crease in them for godsakes, a checked short-sleeve shirt. Twenty-five-ish, thin. He was not going to be a problem. The woman wore gold wire-rim glasses, long hair in a kind of asshole Jackie flip, no makeup, pretty if you liked the type, about the same age as Mr. Cleanjeans. Her sleeveless pale blue blouse wasn’t tucked into her skirt, it just hung there. Not quite covering up the fact that she was sporting a tummy on her. The bitch could definitely use some exercise.
“What’s your names?”
“Ken. Ken Wellman. This is my wife . . .”
“Don’t tell me.
Barbie.”
“Her name’s Elizabeth. Liz.”
He couldn’t believe it. His joke was totally lost on the guy. What a putz.
“You got movers coming in tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“What time?”
“Eight o’clock. Listen, I don’t know what you want here, but please, for god’s sake . . .”
He was looking at Katherine’s handcuffs like he’d seen them for the first time and thought that maybe the cuffs were going to jump off her wrists and bite him.
“Hey, don’t worry, Kenny. Be cool, my man. You just do as you’re told and you’ll be okay. You and Lizzy here. My business is with the girls, you know? Ain’t they pretty?”
“I . . .”
“C’mon. You don’t think they’re pretty?” He laughed. “Well, shit, I have to admit they’ve looked better. They’ve been through some heavy stuff tonight. But
basically
, y’know? Doncha think? These are all my girls.”
The man shifted, uncomfortable on his knees. Uncomfortable as hell with
all
of it and scared.
Good.
“I . . . yes. They are.”
The guy was trying to placate him
.
“You’re goddamn
right
they are!”
He looked at the wife. The wife was standing still now. Rigid. With her shoulders hunched and her hands clasped in front of her down in front of her snatch like she was secretly praying and looking at the hands and what was behind the hands it suddenly hit him.
“Hey, Kenny! Your old lady! She’s
pregnant
, man. Am I correct?”
He hesitated, glanced over his shoulder at his wife and nodded.
“That’s cool, man! Hey, good for you, Ken. Good for you. You know why guys like pregnant women or women with little kids? I thought about it. It’s easy, man. It’s because a guy looks at a pregnant woman or a woman with a little kid, he knows that at least
somebody’s
fuckin’ ’em, that they can
be
fucked, know what I mean? So how far along’re you, Lizzie?”
“I’m . . . three . . . three and a half months. A little over that.”
He grinned. “Shit, that’s great. And I bet you folks want a boy, right?”
She tried to smile. It didn’t come off.
“We don’t care. I mean, either way. We’re happy either way.”
“Sure you are. You’re happy either way. Listen, I want you to help me out here. You got all this twine here and that’s just what I need. See, I want you to give me a hand with the girls. I got some serious talking to do to them and I don’t want ’em runnin’ away on me, I want ’em to pay attention, see what I mean? Hey, all this twine, all this tape you got? Shit, it’s lucky for me I ran into you. I mean it. Will you give me a hand, Ken? Lizzie?”
He watched the man look over to the girls standing against the wall. Jennifer had begun quietly sobbing. Ray hadn’t noticed. He looked back to the guy. The guy looked paler, less healthy-looking than when they’d first come in. He guessed it was understandable. He just hoped the man wasn’t gonna upchuck on him too. He’d shoot the fucker dead on the spot. He’d seen enough puke for one night.
“Whaddya say, Kenny?”
The man looked back to his wife for an answer but Lezzie-Lizzie with the fucked-up Jackie-do just spread her hands and shook her head like she didn’t know what his answer should be and now he could see that she was crying too.
What was it with gash anyway? All these fucking
tears
.
“Did you know that Sharon Tate was pregnant, Kenny? You know, Sharon Tate? The movie actress just got herself killed? Amazing, terrific piece of ass. Kath here kinda reminds me of her except Sharon has red hair and Kath’s younger of course and her tits are a little smaller. I think she was farther along than Lizzie though. I don’t remember. Hey, whatever. Who cares? She’s dead, right?”
The guy just looked at him wide-eyed and then stared down at his hands.
“I’m waiting, Kenny.”
“Mr. Wellman?” It was Katherine. “I don’t know what the others think. I can’t speak for them. But I think that for now you had better just go along and do what Ray asks you to do. I think that’s probably your best bet for now.”
He didn’t like all those
for nows
but what the fuck. Kath was making sense, basically. Whatta girl. He guessed Ken thought so too.
“All right.”
“Lizzie?”
She cleared her throat. “Yes,” she said. “All right.”
“Good. So let’s get to it. You guys don’t know about Sharon Tate? That’s fucking amazing. Where you been? You guys get to work and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Ed lied. He did lay some of the blame on Charlie. Himself too for not seeing something like this coming. When you decided to pressure a man you had to watch him like a hawk and neither of them had done that. Granted he hadn’t done much pushing of his own except to encourage Charlie to bust Pye’s party. His own sin was mostly one of omission—he’d not
dis
couraged him. But you couldn’t put responsibility in neat little packets, this much for Charlie, this much for him. Charlie at least had the excuse of having a job to do. He didn’t.
But he blamed this kid here across the desk from them a whole lot more than either one of them.
Tim Bess could have turned Ray in right after Steiner/Hanlon. Same with Jennifer Fitch. Instead they lied for him. Covered up. Fitch was paying for that now but what was this kid going to pay? He’d been a minor at the time.
Nothing. A goddamn slap on the wrist.
He did look scared as hell though. Scared was good he guessed. Scared was something. Kept moving around his half-empty can of warm Pepsi in his hands and staring at it frowning as though he’d find some sort of answer there.
“Man, I still can’t believe it. I still can’t believe he did this.”
“Believe it, Timmy.”
“I mean, the other two maybe. I can see that, from Ray’s point of view. You could maybe expect it. But Jennifer? He’s been with Jennifer
forever.”
Schilling and Ed exchanged glances. Bland glances. Glances that said
it would be nice to pummel this kid
.
“Think, Tim,” Schilling was saying. “Anybody at all.”
“That’s hard, man. There’s his drummer Roger. They’re pretty tight. But see, Roger’s deep into drugs. I mean, I can’t see him risking having Ray there and guns there and three kidnapped chicks. I can’t see him doing it. The only other guy I can think of is Sammy Nardone, he’s the one who sends us all the hash and stuff. Supposed to be some tough street guy, that’s what Ray says. From Newark and all. I dunno. I never met him.”
“You know their addresses?”
“Street addresses? Sammy’s in Irvington. I know where Roger Uves, I mean I could take you there. But not the exact address. I got them at home, though.”
The kid brightening, thinking he was maybe going home to have a look through his address book. Ed knew he wasn’t. Schilling pushed the phone across the table along with a yellow pad and pencil.
“Okay. Call your parents. Tell them to look up the addresses and phone numbers and you write ’em down for us. Lieutenant Anderson and I will be outside. We’ll be right back.”
Jackowitz had sent the Bess family home half an hour ago. Bill and June Richmond too, thank god. He didn’t look forward to seeing Bill and June again soon no matter how this all turned out. Both families had State Police cars parked outside their houses. Just in case Ray wasn’t finished yet.
“You want anything?”
“I could use some smokes, yeah.”
“Okay, sure.”
They walked outside and closed the door. Ed smiled and shook his head.
“
Lieutenant
Anderson?”
“I know, I know. Force of habit.”
Schilling ht a cigarette. Ed noticed he hadn’t offered one to Bess. But then he knew Schilling felt the same about Bess as he did.
“So let’s look at this. We’ve got every available car on the street. We’ve got State Police patrolling the highways and the lake, the campgrounds around Turner’s Pool, we’ll have dogs for the woods in about half an hour. And now we’ve got two names.”
“I don’t think much of the names, tell you the truth. Bess is right. Who’s gonna let this kid in the house with three scared girls held at gunpoint? You’d have to be nuts. Unless this Nardone character’s some real hardcase. Maybe then.”
“If he’s still in the area and if he’s still cruising around in the Chevy we’ll get him.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Question is when.”
The door opened. Bess was leaning out at them as though afraid to step over the threshold. But the look on his face was excited.
“I think I know,” he said. “I think I know where he might go.
I think I know where he’d take them
!”
“So why you doin’ all this work anyway? Why not just let the movers pack the stuff?”
Jennifer was sitting in a spindle-back chair facing the front door. Her right wrist was tied to the armrest and the man was working on the left. Triple strands of twine wound around the back of the chair and just below her breasts. Katherine sat to her right tied to the chair’s twin. The only difference was that Ray had told the woman to loop the twine around the chain connecting the handcuffs and tie them behind her to the middle spindles of the chair so that Katherine sat slightly forward on the seat.
The twine was itchy but the man hadn’t made it too tight.
“We’re supposed to be taking some of it for our apartment. Those boxes over there and . . . these chairs.” He nodded toward the ones they were sitting in and two others stacked beside her. “And some paintings.”
“New apartment?”
He nodded again. You could see the man was very uncomfortable having to talk to him.
“Where?”
“South Orange.”
“Classy, Kenny. Very classy. So let me guess, you guys are newlyweds or something, right?”
“Six months in September.”
“And what do you do for a living, Kenny? I mean, if you don’t mind my asking.”