Twenty-six
"The stash," a harsh voice whispered in her ear. "Is
it here in the house, Missy? Nod, yes or no."
The pressure relented enough to allow a gasp of
breath. She clutched his forearm in a frenzy of panic and confusion. It
wasn't the same arm! Ruben wasn't the same man who had attacked her in
the garage!
She shook her head slightly.
"I'm going to let you go, Missy, but I've got a gun.
It's small and quiet, and it'll punch a hole in your head without making a
mess. Don't run and don't scream, because I don't want to hurt you."
He let her go gradually. Lori took deep breaths of
precious air and remained carefully in place until the dizziness passed.
"Turn around slowly."
She turned.
He grinned down at her as wickedly as ever in the dim
gray light filtering in from upstairs. His eyes were cold, one of glass,
one of human flesh, both bright with evil. "I thought you'd be the smart
one of the bunch," Ruben said. "Now where's the stash, Missy? Where did
you gals put it?"
"But Carol would have told you!" she cried. "Why did
you have to hurt her?"
Ruben gave a nonchalant shrug. "Carol was pissed at me for running out on her like I
did. She got a little carried away and managed to bang her head on the
woodwork. Which was unfortunate when I found my stuff was gone, but it's
water under the bridge and irrelevant at the moment. What did you
bitches do with my stash?"
"We hid it," she said.
He cocked his head in disbelief. "You didn't turn it
over to the cops?"
"No, but we all know about your drugs! Either you
just take it and leave us alone, or we go to the police!"
Ruben chuckled. "Clever scheme. Where'd you put
it?"
"In some rocks at the county park."
He grabbed her right wrist and jammed the small gun
in her side. "I've got a car parked a block from here. You and I are
going to go to it and talk. We've got a serious problem to resolve, you
and I."
He guided her up the stairs. "I saw a kid through
the window earlier. Where'd she go?"
"That was my daughter! I don't know where she went!"
He shoved her from room to room in a quick search of
the house. Ironically, the storming night had become a place of sanctuary
for Wendy, and her own warm, dry house a deathtrap.
Someone pounded at the back door. Ruben's arm lashed
about her neck again. His grip lifted her feet from the rug.
"Damn!" He pressed the barrel of the gun against her
head. "Whoever it is, get rid of them! Don't make me hurt anyone! I
will if I have to, Missy! I'm not letting this hick town drag me down!"
He let her go and ducked from sight. Lori walked on
rubbery legs to the back door. She felt spacey and disoriented, knowing
her life hung by a thread.
She opened the door to a downpour. Karen and Amy
stood on the bottom step of the porch, soaked to the skin in the rain.
Amy gazed up at her in silent desperation. The look on Karen's face was
horrible. "You can't come in," Lori said. Her voice sounded wooden even
to her own ears. "I've got problems. I can't talk to you now."
Karen fought to control her rage. "I warned you this
would happen!"
"Karen, it's not what you think," Lori said in a
monotone. "Go home and I'll talk to you in the morning."
Karen shrieked, gesturing wildly with her arms. "But
he's drawing again! He's drawing pictures of Gloria! Damn you,
Lori! You've betrayed me! You betrayed your own daughter! I'll never
forgive you!"
Karen turned away and fled into the heavy mist. Amy
gave a feeble wail of indecisive panic, her thin print dress plastered
against the sharp curves of her gaunt body. She turned and went in
pursuit of the larger woman.
Ruben rushed up from behind and jammed the gun
against her neck. "Out the front way before those silly bitches come
back."
Ruben left the front door open behind them. A cold
wind warning of an abrupt change in seasons thrashed the trees and roared
as if a living thing. He shoved her down the walk ahead of him. She
thought briefly of Leslie as the wet cold penetrated her clothing, and
then her flesh to the bone. Leslie and the twins would panic if it began
to lightning and thunder.
Ruben shoved her off to one side at the corner. A
large, rusty car awaited at the curb. "Not much style," he said, "but not
so conspicuous as the Caddy." He held the passenger door open for her and
slammed it behind her. He circled the front of the car, climbed in behind
the wheel, and started the engine. The heater kicked in and instant
warmth spread across her feet.
He turned to face her. His right arm dangled over
the seat. His left hand held the pistol leveled at her midsection. "Who
knows about my business?"
She looked up to meet his hard gaze, shaking
uncontrollably, but reasonably able to think clearly. "My most
trustworthy friends know everything. As long as none of us are harmed, no
one else will ever hear of it."
Ruben's eyes narrowed. "What happened while I was
gone? There was a house next to Carol's. Where did it go?"
"Your friends burned it. They thought it was Carol's
house. They were looking for something. They didn't find it. I guess
they wanted to made sure nobody else would either."
Ruben looked astonished. "I knew you were the smart
one. Smart and good-looking to boot."
Her stomach convulsed.
He laughed at her discomfort. "We could team up, you
and me. You've got nothing going for you in this hick town. You know
that white Caddy? I'll paint it hot pink for you."
She only stared at him.
He shrugged after a time. "Okay, so it was worth a
try. But we still have a sticky problem to settle, you and I."
"You can have your drugs back. What else do you want
from us?"
"It's not the drugs I want, Missy. You don't need to
know the details of what went down, but I had a quarter of a million
dollars in my back pocket, and I blew it. If some friends of mine find me
out, I'm dead, and so maybe are you and your friends for getting
involved. It's that simple. So I can't take the chance no more. The
drugs are worthless to me. All I want is to get out of this rotten mess
alive."
"We won't tell," Lori said softly.
"I need to know for sure. I'm tempted to make you
disappear as a warning to the others. I don't know how else to work it."
"They'll go to the police, you bastard!"
"You'd have the guts. I don't think the others
would, Missy. I think they’d bury your pretty ass and keep their mouths
shut for sure."
Her tears flowed freely. Enraged and helpless, the
shaking of her body intensified. Ruben was going to kill her and probably
Carol and Amy as well, if she didn't come up with a plan to guarantee
their silence. She thought furiously for a resolution, but even if she
managed to appease Ruben, she still had Henry Kahn to contend with. She
had no way of defending herself against men with money and men with guns.
A curious idea surfaced and held her attention.
Ruben noticed her change of expression. "What's the matter? What's going
on in that pretty head of yours?"
She fought to translate the brutal notion into
words. "My husband ran off with a woman who has a rich husband. A
jealous husband. Or maybe she stole money from him. But we're caught in
the middle, the kids and me. Kahn has threatened us. He thinks he can
get to Dave through us."
"Are you sure you didn't lift that from some cheap
soap opera? What are you getting at?"
She floundered for words and glanced at him
hopefully. "You don't care what happens to those packages? You just want
to get rid of the stuff?"
"I've got to get rid of the stuff, and I need a
guarantee that you won't snitch on me. So what do you got up your
sleeve?"
"Give Kahn the drugs."
Ruben drew back. "Do what now?"
Lori calmed herself and spoke in a firmer tone of
voice. "Give Henry Kahn the drugs."
He stared at her until the meaning of her words sank
in. "You want me to plant the drugs on this Henry Kahn's property and let
him take the heat, is that it?"
"It would be a conspiracy," Lori said eagerly. "I
wouldn't dare talk. I’d go to jail or get killed. My friends would have
to keep quiet to protect me."
Ruben nodded thoughtfully. "Give me some more dope
on this Kahn character."
Lori outlined the summer's events involving the
three-way conflict between Dave and Henry Kahn and Kahn's wayward wife.
Ruben stared out into the rain with an intense frown, and Lori felt
light-headed with exhilaration. The idea was blatantly infantile and
evil, and brilliant in its simplicity. "Would it work? Could you do it?"
"It would be a bad thing to do to your Henry Kahn.
Can’t guarantee it will work. Worth a try, though.”
"I have a right to defend myself and my children!
I'm doing the best I can!"
Ruben leaned closer and spoke softly. "If I do it,
you'd be behind an eight ball right along with me, because if they find
out I had the coke and framed a man I don’t know and never met, they’ll
know you’re involved. Until death do us part, Missy."
Lori nodded eagerly. "That's fine by me, as long as
you take your stuff and leave and never come back.”
He stared at her. It was like looking into the eyes
of a snake. "Okay." He leaned back and put his gun in a shoulder
holster. "Deal is done."
Lori floundered. "Is that it?"
He eyed her with amused belligerence. "That's it, as
long as the stuff is where you say it is and as long as you don't try to
get any smarter with me than you already have, because I don’t think I
could handle much more of it."
The downpour intensified during the drive to the
park. The walk through the dark woods in the middle of the storm was
going be the most terrible ordeal of her life. She sat huddled against
the door, enveloped in heat, but chilled to the bone, refusing to think
ahead further than one swipe of the windshield wiper after another.
