Rage Against the Dying - By Becky Masterman Page 0,31
ease. While this went on I considered my options:
1. Run like hell and hope he didn’t catch me.
2. Disable him here and call the cops.
3. Find out who he was.
I should have gone for number two. What the hell was I thinking? Maybe it was when he pulled on the yarn around his neck and drew up a foil-wrapped condom from under his shirt. That made me mad. So when he suddenly stepped forward and knocked the rock I was holding out of my hand, I decided to go for number three, try to find out how many times he had done this before and where the bodies might be hidden before he could lawyer up. There was some logic operating, you see, I wasn’t just pissed off.
I let him wrench my arm behind my back, slap the piece of duct tape over my mouth, and force me toward the van with enough struggle to be convincing. Once inside the van I caught my breath and had second thoughts, thinking I might have done something stupid. During the trip into the van I was better able to judge his strength and balance against mine, and it was closer than I had anticipated. Plus it felt like I was about to wrestle in a phone booth.
But Black Ops Baxter’s training kicked in. The man grabbed for the dowel that I was holding toward him like you do with a snarling dog, and cut his hand on the blade attached to the bottom. When he recovered from his surprise and charged at me, I was concentrating so hard I could feel the air he displaced. I feinted to one side, so he hit the back of the van. I twisted faster than he’d expected, buying time to get some distance and leverage to use my stick in a way that would do more good.
He managed to roll to one side where his tools were held against the wall and pulled the pliers off. If he got one good shot at me with those I’d be done.
My blade got there before he could secure his grip, as I hooked the tool through the joint and popped it out of his way. Now it was his turn to stop and regain his breath. Unlucky for me, when we had stopped moving he was still blocking the door.
“Round and round we go, where we stop nobody knows,” he said. He sucked at his palm and seemed to lose focus for a moment, as if fascinated by the taste of the blood.
I started to speak and realized the duct tape was still hanging from one corner of my mouth. I loosened it and grimaced with the pain as it reluctantly gave up my cheek. I slapped its sticky side against the metal wall, then reached up and fingered a tendril of my white hair which had fallen when my hat came off in the struggle outside. Put him off guard, get some information. “You were attracted to this, were you? You like older women?”
“Actually you’re a little young for me,” he said, in a crouch, swaying. “This time is different.”
“How old do you usually like?” I asked, doing a little swaying of my own so I wouldn’t stiffen in the cramped van.
“Old enough so when they go missing people don’t do AMBER Alerts and put them on milk cartons. Women no one will miss.”
“Ever tell anybody what you do?” I asked.
He shook his head with what looked like regret. “Not lately, unless you count the Internet. But nobody takes you seriously there. Everybody talking all kinds of shit, mostly.” He opened his mouth to speak again, then shut it.
So it was my turn. “How do you do it?”
“You really want to know?”
“Sure do.”
He whistled like this time really was going to be different. He didn’t know the half of it, but my admission had made him chatty. “You know how most guys do stuff that gets messy? Okay, I might get a little blood, you saw it on the floor, but mostly I don’t do that. I break their bones instead.”
“You break their bones. That sounds familiar.”
“Can’t be. I’m the only one who does that. It’s my ‘signature.’”
“Unique,” I said to encourage him.
“Totally. You know, you’ve got some balls for an old broad. This is going to be more fun than I figured.”
“It’s clever, too, that you’ve got your setup here in the van.”