The Minnesota Candidate (17 page)

“Why do you always bring that up? That was
thirty years ago, Doris. What about you? What about the time you
spent Tommy’s confirmation money at the casino? What about the time
you put laxatives in Vince’s whiskey bottle? Oh, those were some
proud moments.”

“Knock it off. You should talk. Do you think
I’ve forgotten about the time when you passed out in church, drunk
off your ass? How old were you, Marie, sixteen?”

“What about Clark and Joe Klepsky? Should we
talk about what you did with them?”

“Shut up, Marie, I’m warning you.”

“Shut up? Doris, I haven’t even warmed up, yet.
You want to relive the past? Go ahead and bring it on.”

Doris shook her head and sighed. “We sure had
some great times, didn’t we?”

“The best,” agreed Marie. “Where did the years
go?”

Doris laughed as she continued scratching. But
soon her laughing turned into sobs and snot bubbled out of her
nose. “I can’t take it,” she groaned. “We’ve got to get out of
here!”

Marie nodded and handed Doris the failing torch.
She then tore another strip from the bottom of her own shrinking
sweatshirt. “They’ll find us,” she said. “We just have to stay
strong, Doris. You have to stop that crying.”

“I know, I know. I just itch all over the place.
These damn fleas are chewing the hell out of me.”

Marie finished tying the strip of cotton fabric
to the end of the torch and she burned the tip of her fingers.
“Ouch,” she cried, “that hurt!” She then stuck her fingers in her
mouth and gave Doris an appraising look. “You sure got fat,” she
said. “I’ve always had big bones, but you used to be so skinny.
Jesus, what the hell happened to you?”

“At least I used to be skinny, which is more
than you can say. And when are you going to see a doctor about that
awful goiter on your neck?”

Marie took the torch and held it behind Doris.
“Yeah, well I hate to break it to ya, sister, but you’ve got
something going on with your back. I don’t know what it is, but it
looks like a lump of moldy oatmeal.”

Doris reached around with her fingers and began
probing her back. “Where is it?”

“You’ll never be able to reach it. The blotch is
right in middle of your shoulder blades. Ew, that thing is
gross.”

Doris stretched her arms as far as she could,
but she couldn’t find the spot in question. Finally, she gave up
and returned to her scratching. “I’m sure its skin cancer,” she
said, shaking her head. “That stuff runs in the family.”

“Yeah, that’s probably what it is. Say, do you
remember that friend of Vince’s, Bobby, or Brian?”

“Billy Vanellie?”

“That’s the guy. Whatever happened to him? He
was so good-lookin’.”

“He got run over by a truck, back before Vince
passed away.”

“That’s too bad, he was really hot.”

Doris nodded. “He had a thing for me. I could
tell.”

Marie laughed. “You thought every guy had a
thing for you. Why, you were the most conceited person in high
school.”

“I was the prettiest girl in our class.”

“Maybe you used to be pretty, but now you’re a
fat old hag, just like me.”

Normally, comments like these would have
offended Doris, but they were in a real pickle here and chatter of
any kind was far better than silence. She was hungry and thirsty
and her thighs were on fire. “When we get out of here, I’m going to
change that,” she said. “I’m going to go on a diet and start
working out.”

Marie was staring up at the ceiling and didn’t
seem to hear what had been said. “Damn, if we only had a
sledgehammer, I’d bust our way out of here.”

“I’m going to ask Tommy to pick me up some
Richard Simmons videos.”

“Hey, maybe they hid a lever down here? Think
about it, Doris. Know what I mean, like the one that opens the
bookcase? I’ll bet they did.”

“Walking is good, too. Ned Setterholm lost a
hundred pounds and all he did was walk.”

Marie was already waving the torch in front of
the near wall, probing the fieldstone with her free hand. “Will you
shut up and listen to me? There has to be an emergency exit down
here. Look around for a lever or a chain.”

Doris scratched her knees and nodded her head.
“I was just thinking the same thing, something like the lever that
opens the bookcase,” she walked over and joined Marie at the wall
and she began feeling up the fieldstone wall. They searched high
and low, methodically making their way around their stone prison
cell. Marie would stop from time to time, when she would tear off
another strip of clothing and tie it to the end of the torch. They
were down to their bras and their slacks were now shorts. The women
were almost back to where they had started when Doris shook her
head. “I told you this was a stupid idea,” she said.

Marie was down on her knees and was almost ready
to give up, when the stone she pushed on slid back into the wall.
“Stupid idea, huh?” she asked, excitedly. “Look what I found.”

Doris crouched down next to Marie and her eyes
grew large. She tried jamming her hand into the hole and Marie
pushed it aside. Marie’s arm disappeared up to the elbow and there
was a clunking sound. A second later, the trapdoor ceiling released
and it swung down, barely missing the tops of their heads. The big
trapdoor crashed into the stone wall with a heavy thud, filling the
small space in a cloud of dust and blowing out the torch. Marie
began digging in her pockets to search for the lighter, but when
the dust cleared, pale light filtered in from above them. “I knew
we’d find it,” said Doris.

Marie sighed and sized up their situation. The
trapdoor was open and that was a good thing, but they would still
have to climb a good eight feet to reach freedom. She reached up
with her arms and tried to jump. Her fingers scratched at the
hardwood floor, nowhere near the top edge. Doris gave it her best
shot, but she also fell far short of the mark. When Doris tried
again, Marie put her hand on her shoulder. “Stop it,” she said, “do
you want to break a hip? We’re going to need something to stand
on.”

“You’re not standing on my back,” said Doris.
“I’d rather break a hip than break my back.”

“What if we piled up the sand?”

“That’ll never work. We’d just sink.”

Marie leaned down and picked up the crowbar. She
looked from it to the open square above them and back to the
crowbar. “We could use this as a hook. Give me your bra.”

“Are you crazy? I’m not giving you my bra.”

Marie, who was already shirtless, dropped the
crowbar and began unfastening her own bra. Doris covered her eyes
as Marie unleashed her sagging breasts. “Don’t you see what I mean?
If we tie our bras together, we can toss the crowbar up and fish
for something to stand on. Now, take your damn bra off!”

Doris felt something run across her feet and she
quickly did as she had been told. She watched as Marie tied the
ends of the sturdy support bras together, crossing her arms over
her chest. “Be careful with that,” she said, “that’s a brand new
bra.”

Marie turned and glared at Doris, but she said
nothing. Holding one end of Doris’ bra, she made her first toss.
The crowbar went up and fell straight down, barely missing Doris as
it fell. “Sorry about that,” she said. “You should probably step
back.”

Doris took a couple steps back. “I don’t
remember seeing anything up there,” she said, “do you?”

“We couldn’t see a damn thing up there,” replied
Doris. She then tossed the crowbar a second time, and it sailed up
and out of the hole, landing with a clunk on the floor above
them.

“Did you catch anything?”

“How the hell should I know?” asked Marie,
giving her end of the bra strap a little tug. There was a thumping
sound. “Did you hear that? I think I almost had something.”

Doris nodded her head and grinned. She had heard
that and she had been about to say the same thing. They were going
to escape their cell, she was sure of it. She watched as Marie
tried four more tosses, but each time she came up empty. “You’re
going to need some more rope,” she said. She then took off what was
left of her nylon slacks and she handed them to Marie.

Marie knotted the Capri-length slacks to the end
of the bra strap. She then tested the knot and she sunk the end of
the crowbar into the sand. Marie then removed her own ragged
slacks. She then tied the legs together and she gave Doris a hard
look. “Not a word of this to anyone,” she grunted.

Doris shook her head and then she began to
laugh. Marie stared at her as if she had lost her mind, but then
she smiled. Soon, both of them were laughing like a pair hyenas,
dirty, flea-bitten, and nearly naked, they laughed for nearly a
full minute. “Oh, this is so ugly,” said Doris. “I just know that
I’m going to have nightmares about this.”

Marie shook her head and picked up the crowbar.
She then gave it a great heave and it flew out of the hole and
crashed onto something. She gave the leg of her slacks a pull and
something heavy scraped above them. “I caught something!” she
cried.

Doris, wary of what Marie might have hooked,
stepped back to the far wall. She watched as Marie strained at
their homespun rope, something heavy scraping on the floor above
them. “What do you think it is?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but whatever it is, it sure is
heavy. Maybe it’s a bench!”

“Or maybe it’s a ladder,” said Doris.

“Sure,” growled Marie, “everyone keeps a ladder
in their entryway.”

“You never know,” Doris said, watching as a
large shadow appeared at the top of the hole. She was about to warn
Marie when the shadow fell upon her. Doris heard a squeak of a
scream and then a heavy thud. Doris covered her mouth. Whatever
Marie had hooked had fallen directly on top of her. “Marie?” she
cried. “Marie? Talk to me, Marie! Marie!”

But there was no sound from Marie. Doris was now
terrified and she crept over to check on her friend. In the pale
light, Doris shoved what appeared to be a steel chest, off of
Marie. She dropped to her knees and blindly began searching for a
pulse. During this search, Doris touched parts of Marie that made
her skin crawl. She was cool to the touch and either out cold or
dead, Doris prayed that it wasn’t the latter.

Chapter 14

Tom walked outside and waited on the front
porch. He could still hear the fight as it raged up in his mother’s
bedroom, but he could no longer hear what was being said and he was
glad for that. Both Shari and Chona were strong women and neither
seemed willing to pull their verbal punches. Things heated up in a
hurry and Tom hoped they wouldn’t come to blows, or start hair
pulling or eye gouging. He sat down on the steps and watched as his
mother’s neighbor, Alice Kindersley, walked out of her house and
over to the fence. She was a retired schoolteacher with thick
glasses. She waved to him. “Hi Tommy,” she said.

“Hello Mrs. Kindersley,” he replied. Alice was
dressed in her housecoat and slippers and she held a freshly lit
cigarette. She stood at the fence and smiled, listening to the
argument with her big ears. Tom stood up and walked across the new
lawn to the fence.

“Sounds like there’s a helluva fight going on,”
said the old woman. “What’s it about?”

Tom sighed. “They’re just having a
disagreement.”

Mrs. Kindersley gave Tom a patronizing smile.
“Wasn’t that your new wife who walked in there? She sounds like
she’s really blowing a gasket.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing. What do you think of
Mom’s new house?”

The old widow shook her head and wrinkled her
nose. “What the hell does your mom need all of that room for? I
sure wouldn’t want to pay the heat bill. Don’t you people watch the
news? In case you didn’t hear about it, we’re in a recession.”

“We’ll be fine,” said Tom, not knowing if that
were true or not. “And I happen to love the new house. You do know
that having it there only increases the value of your own house,
right?”

“Like I care; when I go, my kids are going to be
at each other’s throats over this place. What I should do is leave
it to the church. That’d serve them right. They want to put me in a
home.”

Tom nodded his head. He knew both of Mrs.
Kindersley’s children, who were both nearly the same age as his own
mother. There had been whispers of putting her into a home, but
that had been all. That whispering had been going on for years.
“Sure is a nice day, huh?”

“It’s too damn hot, if you ask me.”

Tom looked away, only to see another neighbor,
Mrs. Cruikshank, walking towards them from across the street. She
walked over to stand by Mrs. Kindersley. “What’s all the bickering
about,” she said, motioning up at Tom’s mother’s bedroom
window.

“It’s nothing,” said Tom. “They’re just having a
disagreement, that’s all.”

“Sounds like it’s a great big one,” said Mrs.
Cruikshank.

Tom left the two widows gossiping at the fence.
He walked down to the street and climbed behind the wheel of the
Mercedes. He watched the old women as they pointed to the house and
melodramatically waved their hands in the air. Mrs. Kindersley said
something and both women started to laugh. A moment later, Shari
charged out of the house and she strode down to the vehicle. She
climbed in and slammed the door. “I hate that woman,” she hissed.
“Do you know what she did? She charged us another ten thousand
dollars. Can you believe it? I had to write her a check.”

Tom started up the SUV and he pulled away from
the curb. “She told us yesterday that they were over budget.”

“I know she did, but ten thousand dollars over
budget? That’s ridiculous. I told her that I was going to contact
my lawyer.”

Tom sighed and shook his head. “What about
Sam?”

“What about him? She wasn’t listening to you. Do
you really think she was listening to me? Drop me off at my car,
it’s around the corner. I’m going home. I want you to go over every
inch of that house. If something isn’t right, I want it fixed. I
mean it.”