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but there’s something in your eyes that says maybe.
That’s never. Never say never.
—Never Say Never,
ROMEO VOID
COUSIN FRANKIE’S TRAILER,
SLEEPYTIME MANOR PARK ESTATES,
4:01 PM PDT
IT’S A FUNNY THING how time passes when you’re tied to a bed with duct tape across your mouth and awaiting the return of someone who just might kill you if they haven’t found what they’re looking for. Not that Jimmy thought it would necessarily go that way, but it makes a guy think, and tied to the bed by rope that bit into his wrists whenever he tried breaking free, Jimmy’s mind skipped like a needle across a scratched record, digging into the groove containing a ditty about somebody covering up for Ducroix’s killing Evie . . .
Evie.
. . . and now, in and around wrenching at the rope binding his wrists and ankles, thinking if he could draw it close enough, maybe he could gnaw through it like a rat . . . Nope, nothing, not a goddamn thing . . . he was confronted by what to do now as it related to tonight and the chasing of a dream he’d shared with Evie for so many years so many lonely years ago.
The rope was nylon cording that would not give.
Through the trailer’s thin, aluminum skin, Jimmy could hear Doris’ T.V. , tuned to an old re-run of Family Feud and Richard Dawson saying, “And the survey says!” Then the ding and one family clapping. Jimmy knew the Feud wouldn’t last long, Doris being a chronic channel-changer.
Jimmy tried rocking the bed a little bit, see if he could maybe get some slack in the rope, some way to get at the knots, just a little something something . . . and got a big fat nada. The frigging bed was secured to floor somehow, hell, it might be attached to the trailer’s frame for all Jimmy knew, and it wasn’t budging an inch.
His captor, Uncle Martin, while apparently never having sampled Pizza George’s delicious fare, did have access to Pizza George’s level of intel. Notably, that there was a carpet cleaning van floating around Norcestor and Imperial last night at the same time Ducroix vanished.
Uncle Martin had tortured him some more, see if Jimmy would change his story. Best part was when he said, all seriousness, “I want you to know this hurts me more than you. I respect the arts, I really do.”
Priceless stuff.
Then bent Jimmy’s fingers back some more, asking, “Where’s Ducroix?” That and, “What about a bag? Did he have his bag?”
Apparently, at some point, Ducroix had some black bag with something Uncle Martin thought was very important. Where the bag was, Jimmy had no idea. It was only a matter of convincing Uncle Martin in a very boring conversation, if you wanted to know the truth; frankly, torturous questions about douche-bags is both tedious and time-consuming, especially with a show tonight.
Finally, after a while, Uncle Martin had left, saying he was gonna check up at the studio, see if Jimmy was lying.
Such a trusting guy.
Now, Jimmy listened to a car coming up the lane and clinched up a little until he recognized the sound of the Widow Dennison’s ‘74 Skylark.
Laying there, strapped to the bed, he had time to wonder who the guy really was. One thing Jimmy notice, whole time he’s in the trailer, he’s careful about fingerprints, even to the extent of taking the time to wipe down his prints with a paper-towel and taking it with him. Why he hadn’t worn gloves if he was so concerned, Jimmy didn’t know, but Jimmy watched the whole thing from the bed and noticed one thing: the guy hadn’t wiped the duct tape across Jimmy’s mouth.
Jimmy got to thinking again about the little tweaker who kept the van out over night, one Evil Roscoe hired two days ago, his first day on the job and he doesn’t return the van and from the first moment he’d seen him, Jimmy knew he was straight out of prison, that look in his eyes that comes from constantly trying to see out the back of your head.
Maybe he went down Norcestor to buy drugs, maybe he —
Jimmy heard the door-knob turning, thinking maybe Uncle Martin was back to give his fingers another go at the bendable Olympics, thinking this as the trailer shifted with somebody taking a step and then another . . .
It wasn’t Uncle Martin. It was Doris, wearing a silk half-robe and her lips rouged in red.
Doriz gazed fondly at Jimmy tied tightly to the bed — Jimmy tried telling her to untie him before Uncle Martin returned but the duct-tape made communication impossible — before a broad smile spread across her lonesome, craggy face.
The last thing Jimmy allowed himself to remember was Doris opening her robe to those sagging elderly breasts . . .
Behind duct-tape, no one can hear you scream.
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