Chapter 35
“Why’d you do that you damn bastard?” Rudy asked as Tony slipped back into the driver’s seat.
“She pissed me off,” Tony said as he glared out the windshield. “Would you rather I shot her?”
Rudy glowered at him but Tony didn’t make eye contact. He began to twist so he could lean over the seat to check on Natalie but, before he turned enough, Tony shouted, “Eyes, forward, goddamn it. You can’t help her now. Find me new wheels.”
Rudy shook his head and turned back to the front. Except for the sound of sniffles from the floor in the backseat and the rain’s thump on the roof of the truck, there was silence.
After a few minutes, though, Rudy said, “Look.”
“Right on time.”
-
Jose` Osorio had driven for several minutes on his way to work at the Grand Coulee Dam. He thought about his daughter Rosa and how it seemed only yesterday he held her in his arms for the first time. Now three years had passed. She was such a daddy’s girl and he loved every minute of it. This afternoon, he and his family had celebrated her birthday. The vision of the surprise on her face when his wife, Yolanda, wiped white cake icing on her nose rather than feed it to her anxious mouth would be with him for the rest of his life. He had the picture to remind himself of the moment when his mind got too feeble to do it on its own.
Ahead of him about a mile he could see another vehicle every time he came to the top of a rise in the road. As he descended, it’d disappear again.
*
Tony made sure the pistol was tucked into the waistband of his jeans under the poorly fitting tan tweed jacket he hadn’t taken off since he left California. He stepped out of the truck and waved as the car approached.
*
Nancy and Steve Mulden had finished a late lunch and decided to take a drive in their Toyota RAV4. Tomorrow they’d hitch it to the back of their motorhome and begin to head toward Imperial County on the Mexican border in Southern California, “Where the sun heads for the winter” as their slogan states. Today, even though the shifting layers of gray clouds threatened rain, they wanted to enjoy a drive in the nearby Cascade Mountains to see the last visages of the fall colors.
They had driven about ten miles from their RV when the rain got heavier. Steve switched the wipers from intermittent to full-time and turned on the headlights.
“This keeps up and we’re going to be watching the fall colors from inside here,” he said and turned toward his wife.
“We’ll just make the best of it,” she said with a smile, always ready to put a positive spin on everything. It was one of her more endearing qualities and one of the many reasons Steve felt happy to have had her in his life for the last forty-three years.
Just ahead of them a man stepped from a burgundy pickup and waved his arms signaling them to stop. Steve applied the brake.
“Don’t stop,” Nancy said. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know but something tells me this isn’t right. Just keep going.”
“Sounds pretty heartless, poor guy out here in the rain, possibly broken down but, if you say so.” He stepped on the gas pedal again and powered past the man in the road.
*
Tony stood in the middle of the road while the rain pattered on his dark greasy hair and flipped them the finger as he watched them go up the rise and out of sight.
“Go to hell,” he shouted.
He turned back toward the open driver’s door of the Ram and saw another vehicle approaching from the same direction as the RAV4. As he had just done, he waved. This time, the car slowed to a stop.
“Everything okay?” Jose` Osorio asked.
Tony walked across the road and stooped to look into the window of the Subaru. It had one occupant.
“Is now,” he said in a conversational tone.
Tony pulled the gun out and pointed it at the man. “Out of the car!”
The man’s eyes fixed on the silver barrel but, without further instruction, he opened the door. As he stood, he threw his arms up in surrender.
“Please don’t shoot. I don’t want no trouble.”
“Tain’t no trouble,” Tony said, “Over here.”
Tony nudged the pistol into his side and forced him toward the rear of the car. As they began to walk, he waved at Rudy to move everything over to the new ride.
*
Rudy jumped out and opened the back door. Natalie, still on the floor, had blood around her nose and upper lip, and tear stains on her face. To get her out he had to lift her body to the seat and then slide her out the side door. He took her in his arms, carried her to the car, and placed her on the back seat.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he laid her among the children’s toys, stale French fries, and an infant seat. “Really sorry about all of this.”
*
Tony lead Jose` around the back of the car and into the field. He prodded him in the back ever forward with the muzzle of the .357. They were about thirty feet from the road when Tony forced him to kneel on the muddy ground amid a growth of several dead sagebrush plants.
Tony was in his zone—the kill zone—and it fed his rage when the man, his hands still over his head, trembled so much he could barely manage to get out the words, “Please …, t … take my car. D … Don’t shoot …, I h … have little children.”
“They won’t be the first maggots to grow up without a dad,” Tony said and placed the gun between the man’s eyes.
The pressure churned, boiled, and clawed behind Tony’s eyes. All other thoughts surrendered to the energy force. It demanded an immediate explosive discharge. He watched the whites of his victim’s eyes expand as they filled with terror and, like an addiction, he was powerless to stop the slaughter that expelled. As he pulled the trigger and watched the man’s pleading eyes turn to a lifeless stare, the temporary release oozed from his soul. It wasn’t over. No, not yet, but it’d satisfy for now.
*
After Rudy settled Natalie, in the middle of moving the supplies to the car, at the pop, he jerked out of the backseat and stood upright. He looked over the roof of the Subaru. Tony stood ten yards into the field. The gun still smoldered with black smoke but the other man had fallen from view. Rudy stooped to look inside at Natalie. His heart of dread caught in his throat as her wide eyes broadcast her silent horror.
*
“Get in the goddamn car,” Tony shouted as he walked toward the driver’s side of the sedan.
Tony started the Subaru, slammed the gearshift into drive, and continued in the direction the sedan had already been pointed, toward SR 21. It was an old car but still in better shape than Ma’s Impala.
He felt no remorse for taking another life. Since the first time he had stolen a kid’s lunch, his mantra had been “there’s a right way to keep ahead of the authorities—leave no witnesses.” Natalie had let two slip away in their Jeep and he had left one last night at the convenience store. Those mistakes alone might yield dire consequences and thwart his plan, so he couldn’t afford to repeat them. He wouldn’t give the cops the satisfaction of the last word. Yet, with work still to do, the noose ratcheted another notch tighter. Time was running out. He had to act soon.
He looked over at Rudy. The rain had transformed his sweatshirt into the spotted gray coat of a leopard. He had pulled the hood over his head again sulking over some stranger’s demise. Tony knew he wasn’t cut out for this. He was a weak excuse for a human being. He didn’t deserve the air he stole to exist. The world would be a better place without him, yes, but he had shown not a single quality that he was worthy of Ma’s vindication. His sacrifice, if it came to that, wouldn’t absolve anyone.
“I’m sure that cop made us,” Tony said, “and they’re probably laying a trap for us right now. We’ve got to find another way out of here.”
Rudy didn’t move.
“Damn it, Rudy, get the map.”
*
Rudy didn’t reply but looked around the front bench seat and finally found the map inside a plastic grocery bag among some of the supplies from the convenience store. He unfolded it and tried to orient himself.
He was spent. Tony couldn’t be harnessed and he just didn’t know what to do. No plan to save Natalie—except trust and Canada, two separate things too distant to be viable—had surfaced and, even if it did, so exhausted, he might not recognize it if it took a bite out of his ass. And then, the trail of bodies they had left behind. If the clerk in Oregon had died, the man they just left in pools of mud and blood had become the fourth murder victim since they left LA. While he wanted to escape from Tony and take Natalie with him as far away as possible, the uneasiness of knowing the police tightened the net gnawed at him.
Natalie had promised she’d put in a good word for him if they got caught but he could see in her eyes she was beginning to lose faith in him. So, unless he could save her, he was alone. He had watched enough true crime shows to know that if a death occurred during the commission of another felony, everybody in the party is charged with murder. If he could find a way to run away before they were caught, maybe he could save them both.
“Maybe we need to go into hiding until it gets dark,” Rudy said.
“Good idea. Find us a place to hole up.”
They pulled up to the stop sign at the intersection of SR 21. Tony looked right, left, and then right again.
“Let’s go back the way we came,” Rudy said and looked up from the map toward the highway. “If I have my bearings, we should come to a country road within a few miles. We can turn off there and maybe find someplace to hide.”
Tony made a left turn and, after they had driven south for a few miles, Tony yelled, “D’ya see that?”
Rudy focused on where Tony pointed. “No, what is it?”
“There it is again, police lights coming toward us. Must be a couple of miles down the road. Damn it, where’s that turn off?”
“I’ve been watching the mile markers and it should be coming up on the right in a mile or so.”
“Shit, that cop’s gonna be on us before then.” He pulled the gun out of his belt with his right hand and hung his arm over the back of the seat. He looked in the mirror towards the bloody face in the backseat. “Stay down or so help me god, if you so much as breathe heavy, I’ll take great pleasure in killing you right here.”
*
Natalie gazed past the long, silver barrel of Tony’s gun. She could see in his frozen eyes the same soulless stare she had seen in the motel room and thought of the poor man who, just moments ago, happened to be in the wrong place and paid with his life. She resigned herself to stay still. As Tony swung the gun back toward the front seat, she had one more paralyzing thought—I, too, am a witness.
*
“You too, Rudy,” Tony said. He rested his hand in his lap, kept it on the gun with his finger on the trigger.
Tony tried to look casual as Rudy laid his body on the front seat out of view but, as the black SUV drew closer, his heart began to beat in rhythm with the blue and red strobe lights. Even though he knew the cops had no idea what he was driving, he felt exposed.
When the black SUV reached a quarter-mile away, he followed the car in front of him as it steered onto the shoulder of the road. He lowered his head to hide his face but kept his eyes on the driver’s side rearview mirror.