Warpath

I grab her face, tilt it up to me. No blood, swelling or otherwise. Eyes puffy from crying. Edges of her mouth rubbed raw from the gag. I look her up and down. Squeeze her shoulders, rotate her arms in my hands, pat her hips. She bears her own weight.

“Move quick, Molly. Quick.”

“Richard! Richard! That guy! He’s beat up and he’s so high—I think—”

“I know, I know. Round two is coming right up.”

I kneel, cut her ankle bindings. Stand. Even with her stark, red eyes and the way the terror of the past few minutes have stained her, have bled upwards and out through her skin like grease, she is gorgeous. And alive.

“Richard! He’s inside! He’s—” but her voice distorts with the first runner of color across my vision. Not again. Not again.

“Not again.” I grumble. “Smear.”

“Richard! No! You’ve got to—”

“Quiet. Get out. Call PD. Go. Go!” I push her away and she stares at me for a second and I turn away. My car is eight stalls down. “Go!” I shout over my shoulder and stumble towards it. Get in. Got to. Just get in—

I look back. Molly is beating feet through the intersection. A car honks but she keeps on keepin’ on. Makes it to a grocery store.

Six stalls and the deluge begins. Purples squiggle and make noise. They give way to a calming pink and I get four stalls away. Some old lady gives me the bug eyes as I lumber past her, dragging each foot and my lips wet with drool.

Two stalls and my left eye goes cold and blank. I risk it and try to run. Zombie shuffle. Hand on my door handle and I feel it bulge up in my guts. Knees weak. Colors start to run down my brain, freezing everything as they come. Door open. Head inside and the world falls away in a gorgeous waterfall of everything in my mind being dumped out into my lap.

39

The world falls back into place one starkly distinct pixel at a time; a puzzle piece falling light as snow until it collects to my head and fills in another missing bit of me.

Each cuts like an icepick through my forehead and my eyes feel like they’ve swollen twice their size. My knees burn and I can feel a breeze travel up my thighs. I peel my face off the pleather driver’s seat and find that I went black, dropped to my knees on the parking lot and hit the seat face first.

Tore the knees out of my pants. No cops, no medics called to a check the welfare in the parking lot. Armed man passed out in his car. Thank God for the little things.

I pull myself up; see where I pissed my pants. Taste bile. Look over eight stalls. No shitbox. I lean my head back, ease a smoke into my mouth. A cop car cruises by on the street, turns into the grocery. Molly.

Fresh kidnappings give you a tiny window of action before the trail shits the bed. Sure, the bad guy may send a ransom note or whatever, but unless he wants to exchange the victim for money, you’re looking at someone’s life clock winding down. For about twenty minutes that was Molly.

Better to not dwell on all the rape/murder victim images flooding my mind. Stop putting my best friend’s wife’s face on all their bodies.

I feel self-satisfied that I trashed old boy’s apartment and beat the fuck out of

him. Took away his haunts, his resources. He wanted vengeance, but needed it on the fly. This hardware stop...I can’t imagine what he bought.

But then I look down to Graham’s cellphone and see a little dot blinking, superimposed on a map as it travels south. Nineteen blocks deep so far and counting.

My money is on that he doesn’t know Molly is gone. But he might. In the end it doesn’t matter. Maybe I’ll go find out what he bought. And then use it on him.

40

Three-story construction in the ghetto, all flat concrete walls and unfinished rebar.

No windows, doors. Nothing permanent. Just boards hastily nailed into place. In the lot next to it is a sister construction. Just as unfinished and left to rot in the world. Molly’s shitbox blends in with the neighborhood. The trunk is left standing open, as if the rapist left it that way so his little dove might return when it sees how inviting that cavern is.

And in this neighborhood, locked in a truck might be the safest place.

The dirt under the rear end is scrambled and torn up like he was standing there as a hive of bees attacked. Footprints and ruts in the soil where his heels dug in, swirls and scrapes like he was dancing for his life. Must have been when he flung open the trunk and found her missing. Just lost his shit right then and there. Tantrum the likes of which nobody this side of Honey Boo-boo has seen. Like Keith Moon and Stephen Dorff had a lovechild and set it loose in a hotel room. That kind of mess.

The taillights bashed in. The bottom lip of trunk lid looks like he found some way to slam it open and shut without it locking on him every time. The tire jack must be comfortably resting on the front seat since it appears he threw it through the back window.

Cry baby.