The Taking of Libbie, SD (2 page)

The carpet remained intact, yet I was able to fold the broken piece of wood fiber on top of the rest of the lid. I uncovered a hole big enough to accommodate a hand—but only one. I rolled onto my shoulder and pressed my back and hips against the trunk wall and lid as I eased my right hand under the wood fiber while slipping my left hand over the top of it. I pushed as deeply as I could until the broken edge of the mat butted up against the strong nylon restraint. My knuckles skimmed over hard rubber but nothing else. I removed my hand and worked the disposable cuffs farther up my wrists. I got maybe an extra inch to work with, although the nylon was now cutting off the circulation in my hands. I eased my right hand back into the hole again. This time my fingertips touched metal. I flicked at it, and it moved toward me a fraction of an inch. I flicked at it some more until I was able to get a firm grip. I strained and manipulated and pulled until at last I was able to ease the tire iron through the hole. Actually, not a tire iron but a lug wrench—one end had a socket that fit over the wheel’s lug nuts, the other a prying tip that was used primarily to remove hubcaps.

He shoots, he scores
, my inner voice announced.

My arms and hands were aching, so I dropped the wrench on the floor while I worked the cuffs down to the narrow part of my wrists. I flexed my fingers until circulation returned. My entire body was now smooth with perspiration; I felt the sweat soaking my blue boxers.

“Okay,” I said aloud.

Once I had the wrench, I turned my attention back to the trunk lid. It didn’t take long to realize that there was no opening to insert the tip, no way to get leverage. So again I twisted and turned my body until I had access to the corner of the trunk. I jammed the lug wrench in the space between the metal bracket and the car frame, pressing the pry tip hard against the red-tinted lens. Nothing happened. I pressed harder. Given how many busted taillights I’ve seen over the years, I expected the lens to be fairly fragile. It wasn’t. I pounded on it with the curled tip without creating so much as a scratch.

Put your back into it
, my inner voice ordered.

Harder and harder I struck the wrench against the lens. Finally it cracked. The crack grew. A small triangle of plastic chipped off. A hole formed. The hole grew larger. I pushed the wrench through the hole as far as possible. Would anyone on the highway see it? A better question, would anyone be alarmed enough to do something about it? Probably not, I told myself. I needed something else. All I had was my shorts.

Should I dangle them out of the hole like a flag? I asked myself. Well, why not?

Before I could remove them, though, the taillights inside the trunk lit up, and the car began to slow. One bulb began to blink—a right turn. It went out. A few moments later, it blinked again—another right. The car sped up, and then the brake lights flared. The blinking light said left turn. As the car turned, I heard the squeal of tires followed by the bellow of a horn.

“Yes,” I said aloud. This was going to work.

I hooked my thumbs under the waistband of my shorts and began to ease them down, trying to work them over my hips. The lights flared again; the car slowed to a halt. A stop sign? I wondered. No. Car doors opened and closed. Dammit.

I heard a muffled voice. “Look at this. Do you believe this?” An unseen hand jiggled the lug wrench and pushed it back into the trunk.

“Now we know why that asshole flipped us the bird back there,” a second voice said.

I pulled my shorts up.

Knuckles rapped on the trunk lid. “Hey, McKenzie. Do you hear me?”

“I hear you,” I said. What else was I going to do, pretend I wasn’t there?

“We’re going to pop the trunk. Don’t do anything stupid, okay? We don’t want to have to Taser you again.” Apparently he expected a reply, because he rapped on the trunk lid again and said, “Did you hear me?”

“I heard you.”

There was a popping sound, and the trunk opened. Harsh sunlight flooded the compartment. I brought my hands up to shield my eyes.

“Roll out of there.” The tall one was speaking. The short one was standing off to the side. He had a clear shot of me with his Taser.

“Who are you guys?” I said.

“C’mon, c’mon, we have a long way to go yet.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see when we get there.”

“Is it a secret?”

“Get out of the trunk.”

I managed to swing my legs over the edge and, as the man said, rolled out of there, using the back of the car to leverage myself more or less into a standing position—my legs were weak and uncertain. I looked around. We were in a small clearing surrounded by poplar trees. A dirt road led away from the clearing. There was another car, a Ford Taurus, parked ten yards away and facing the road. The car had South Dakota plates. There were no buildings and no sound of traffic.

“We expected you to be rolled up into a ball and weeping like a child by now,” the short man said. “We underestimated you.”

“I’ll say,” said the taller man. “Turn around, McKenzie. Go ’head.”

I turned.

The shorter man pressed the business end of the Taser against the small of my back. “Don’t even think of moving,” he said.

“What should I call you guys?”

“Lord and Master.”

“Which is which?”

“Hold your hands out,” the taller man said. I did what he told me. He reached across with a tool that reminded me of small wire cutters except it didn’t have any sharp edges. He hooked the cutter over the nylon straps and severed them. The cuffs fell away. “Put your hands behind your back.”

“What is this all about?” I asked.

“Hands behind your back.”

The shorter man nudged my spine with the Taser. “You heard him,” he said.

I did what the taller man told me, and he recuffed my wrists, properly this time. “C’mon,” he said.

The shorter man stepped backward, but didn’t lower the Taser, as the taller man spun me around. He pushed me toward the Taurus. I nearly stumbled but managed to keep my feet. When we reached the rear of the car, the taller man popped the trunk.

“Inside,” he said.

“Why are you taking me to South Dakota?” I said.

The two kidnappers exchanged surprised glances as if I had guessed a deep, dark secret.

“C’mon, fellas,” I said. “You can tell me. Why are you doing this?”

“For the money, why else?” said the smaller man.

“What money?”

“The reward.”

“Reward?”

“Five thousand dollars.”

“Plus expenses,” said the taller man.

“For what? What did I do?”

“We didn’t ask.”

There was about ten minutes of rough roads and me bouncing up and down, landing painfully on my hands and shoulders, before the ride smoothed out. I assumed we were on the freeway again heading God knew where at high speed. I felt the turns; they were wide and gradual.

The kidnappers had warned me to behave myself after stuffing me inside the trunk, and I said I would. Believe me, I would’ve given the lie to it if I could have. This time, though, with my hands cuffed tightly behind my back, there was nothing to work with. I could only hope it was a short ride. No such luck. I had no way of knowing the time, but I had the sense that hours were passing. It wasn’t long before I felt the urge to relieve myself. I shouted my need to the kidnappers. Again, they either couldn’t hear or chose to ignore me. Finally, I gave in to nature’s call, soaking my shorts, my leg, and the floor mat. I promised myself I wouldn’t be embarrassed. I promised myself I wouldn’t become angry. I was both. I couldn’t help myself. And soon a third emotion—the worst of all—supplanted them. Helplessness. It covered me like a heavy, wet blanket. I had never felt so utterly defeated. Eventually the car slowed, went up a steep incline, took a few turns, and came to a stop. The familiar sounds of a gas pump in use told me we were in a service station at the top of a freeway exit ramp. Yet I couldn’t even muster enough resistance to kick the trunk lid or yell for help.

Then one of my captors did a foolish thing. He rapped rhythmically on the trunk lid—shave and a haircut, two bits—and laughed. What the hell was that? Trash talk? He was trash-talking me? That sorry sonuvabitch. You don’t talk trash until the game is over, and this game was far from over. Who the hell did he think he was? Cretin–Derham Hall did the same crap when I was playing hockey for Central High School. We were down 6–1 at the beginning of the third period, and they started talking trash. So me and Bobby Dunston and the rest of the guys beat the hell out of them for fifteen minutes—we hit them so hard and so often their ancestors were probably still feeling it. We lost 7–6 in OT, but those elitist punks knew they were in a game. Now these smart-ass kidnappers were giving me the same business? I don’t think so.

I know some people might think this reaction was silly given the circumstances, but trash talk was something I knew, something I understood. It rearmed me with anger; it filled me with indignation. If those bastards thought I had given up …

Think it through
, my inner voice told me.

Typically bounty hunters are hired by bail bondsmen to rearrest felons who have skipped out on their bail and return them to the court system. It’s entirely legal for them to go into most states and bring out an escaping felon. However, these guys switched cars. There was no reason for them to do that unless they were afraid they were spotted leaving the scene and an alert was issued on them—which meant they knew that there wasn’t any paper out on me and that what they were doing was illegal. Also, bounty hunters usually are paid only a percentage of the bond for their work. These guys were getting expenses. That told me someone outside the court system had probably employed them. At the same time, I couldn’t pretend that it was all just a terrible mistake, that they grabbed me thinking I was someone else—they had called me by name. Twice. So I was left with the very real possibility that Lord and Master had been hired to kidnap and transport me to an undisclosed location so I could be killed at the pleasure of their employer. Possible, except the killer would have to suffer a pair of potential witnesses who could blackmail him, who could barter him in exchange for a plea bargain from the state should the need arise. No, there was something else in play. I knew that sooner or later I would be let out of the trunk. Sooner or later my hands would be freed.

Yeah, all right, I told myself. All right. There was nothing I could do for now, so I did nothing, resolving to conserve my energy for the moment when I would have use for it. The time would come, and soon. Then I would get my revenge. Shave and a haircut, two bits, my ass.

I fell asleep, for how long I couldn’t say. When I woke, my body was sheathed in sweat. It was insufferably hot inside the trunk, and I knew I was becoming dehydrated—I was starting to feel both light-headed and nauseous. I yelled for relief. My head throbbed from the exertion.

Time passed. I rolled over in the cramped quarters, strained to stretch my legs, tensing my body in an isometric exercise. It took more effort than it was worth. There was a dull, throbbing ache in my shoulders, my elbows, my wrists and hands. I tried not to think. Not of Nina or Shelby or Bobby Dunston or my father and mother or of my life in general. There was no need. I had been in trouble before. Slowly roasting inside a locked trunk—that didn’t even make my Top Ten list. Or so I told myself.

I continued to sleep sporadically during the long journey, and with each awakening I felt less confident. The darkness was becoming increasingly cruel, and I experienced a
Twilight Zone
moment, imagining that I was already dead and this was my hell, driving endlessly in the trunk of a Ford Taurus. Doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo … It was a dangerous frame of mind, and to alleviate it, I sang softly to myself, singing Gershwin, Porter, Springsteen, Dylan, even Petula Clark until the lyrics became incomprehensible. I envisioned myself as a guest on a talk show—Regis and Kelly, Ellen DeGeneres, Larry King, Bill O’Reilly,
The View
, nothing that I ever actually watched—talking aloud until the conversation became as oppressive as the heat. The slowing of the car, the multiple turns, the rolling stops and starts, the final stop followed by the quieting of the engine and the opening and closing of car doors—none of it even registered until the trunk squeaked open and the compartment was immersed in light.

“Out,” a voice said.

I didn’t move, couldn’t move, except for my eyelids, which I sealed against the glaring light.

“I said outta there.”

A hand on my shoulder prodded me.

“Hey, McKenzie. Ah, Christ. Give me a hand.”

Two pair of hands seized me under my arms and dragged me from the trunk. Someone slapped my face.

“C’mon, McKenzie.”

“Don’t do that,” I said.

I wanted to strike back now that I had the chance, throw some snap kicks at these bastards and hurt them like I had promised I would with every passing mile. Only my legs were both stiff and weak as they unfolded under me; they weren’t strong enough to support my weight. I felt like every muscle and joint in my body was rusty. The kidnappers had to hold tight to keep me from falling.

“Look at this,” said the shorter kidnapper. “He pissed himself.”

“Well, duh,” said his partner.

I opened my eyes, closed them, opened them again and blinked against the sun. We were in an asphalt parking lot, white lines painted neatly on the pavement. It burned my bare feet, and I instinctively went up on my toes. There was a street, also asphalt, beyond the lot. Across the street was a bank. First Integrity State Bank of Libbie. A display flashed time and temperature.
2:33 PM
.
97°F
.

The kidnappers spun me around and dragged me toward the glass doors of a blond-stone building. There was a name spelled out in silver letters attached to the stone. city of libbie police department. The sight of it cheered me. I think I might even have smiled. I used to be a cop. I liked cops. Cops didn’t murder people. Except on TV and in the movies. And in New York and L.A.