Psychosomatic Read online

  What made Alan really lift his eyebrows was what he didn’t expect to see. Under a long silk skirt were two legs, crossed, barefoot. There were arms in the sleeves of her sweater, elbows on the armrests, hands together in her lap. She noticed him looking and smiled.

  “Prosthetics. Makes me feel like a real person. People who don’t know can’t tell with a glance.” Lydia sipped the straw, causing the chair to roll backwards. “Please, come in. What happened to your face?”

  His fingers brushed the gauze. “I fell, skinned my cheek. Nothing serious.”

  She led him to a bright living room, all the windows open, curtains like ghosts in the breeze. There was a leather recliner at the end of the couch, and Lydia rolled next to it. Alan sat close at the edge of the couch, sank into the deep cushion. He set the camera on the coffee table in front of him.

  “I was surprised you called, Mr. Sony. Not your real name, is it?”

  Alan shook his head. He got it off the camera, spur of the moment thing.

  “Would you like a drink? Have to get it yourself, though.”

  Alan felt embarrassed, couldn’t look at her for too long. She was beautiful, but obviously tired in spirit. The legs were perfect—made to order. He tried to visualize the nubs.

  “I have a tape. Your husband, I found out later. I happened to be driving by this morning—”

  “No lies. Not a good way to start. He hired you?”

  She surprised him into the truth before he thought better about it. “Well, um, sure. That’s it.”

  “Did he get to Cap? Rig the fight?” The look on her face was severe, about to break down and cry. “I hired the wrong man, didn’t I? You’re here to show how my money was wasted.”

  Alan shrugged. “Listen a minute, okay? Things didn’t go as planned. Ronnie tried pulling a gun on Cap, and Cap toasted him. Crushed his windpipe. We knew it was rigged, but pulling a gun, geez. Cap didn’t sign up to die, right?”

  Lydia nodded. News of her husband’s death seemed to soften the lines on her face. It was peace. Alan wondered how much of a bastard Ronnie had been to her.

  “I know some guys, always boosting cars from the side of the interstate. All the breakdowns people leave for a while. So, I’m thinking about this, and it hits me that we should strap Ronnie in, leave him on the side of the road. Who would notice? Except those car thieves, maybe.”

  “No way to trace it back?”

  “If they find him quickly, sure, all the lab work. I cleaned out everything best I could. Motive, stuff like that, I’m clean. I hope you paid Cap in cash.”

  “Of course. They won’t connect it to me. Or you. And Cap?”

  “Well, it’s his head, right? He would have sung if caught, and then they come looking for you. So Cap is sharing the car with Ronnie. I told him Ronnie’s gun was a fake—it wasn’t. After setting up Ronnie, with Cap still leaning through the driver’s window, I put the gun in Ronnie’s hand and shot the poor son of a bitch in the chest.”

  Alan said it like a tough guy but he remembered how he flinched when the shot went off, how he couldn’t open his eyes for a minute or two after, how he gagged and nearly threw up on the way back to his car. He’d never killed a man before and couldn’t lose the image of Cap’s shocked dead face.

  Lydia said, “There are so many mistakes in that. They’ll see through it.”

  Alan shrugged, cleared his throat. “Best I could do off the top of my head.”

  “May I see the tape?”

  They watched it, from the birds in Alan’s backyard at the beginning right until the point where Ronnie pulled the gun and the battery died. Alan took the tape from the VCR, said he was going to burn it later. Then he waited, hoping she would offer.

  She did. “I have to thank you. I feel much better. You would accept a token of my appreciation?”

  “Sure, of course.”

  “Any particular needs?”

  “Six hundred dollars.”

  Lydia blinked, surprised. “So exact. Gambling debt?”

  “Something like that.”

  Lydia leaned her head towards the bar. She spoke into her headset mike, and Alan heard another click.

  “There’s a safe behind the bottles on the second shelf. Take what you need, close it when you’re done.”

  In the small safe, there were four piles of cash, all about half a foot tall. Alan counted out his six hundred, closed the door, then showed Lydia, letting her know he was honest. She nodded, led him to the front door. Before stepping out, Alan said, “Mind a question?”

  “Go right ahead.”

  “Why did you hate Ronnie so much? I mean, he cause you to lose your limbs?”

  Lydia grinned. “No, not that. We were already divorced when this happened. Car wreck. Before that, he mailed alimony checks—big ones. After the accident, he tried to smooth things over, wanted to take care of me. For a while I couldn’t resist. Still, the way he did things…”

  “Yeah, I understand.”

  “No, not yet. See, one night he brought a date over, both of them drunk. They started making out on the couch. Started peeling clothes off, started drilling her. It took an hour, like some porno flick, all those different positions.”

  “What a bastard.”

  “Oh yeah. It turned me on,” Lydia watched Alan’s face. “When they were done, they left without a word, left me alone. That was what hurt the most. Mr. Sony, do you know how long it’s been for me? Don’t you find me the least bit attractive?”

  Alan didn’t move or speak for a long moment, then he smiled and closed the front door, leaned over and kissed Lydia’s cheek.

  He said, “Lead the way.”

  *

  After midnight, Alan drove home in his Monte Carlo with the windows down, rock radio station blasting Sammy Hagar, thinking that once he paid those guys off for the car, he was going to put in a CD player. And he would definitely see Lydia again very soon.

  TWO

  Terry and Lancaster were installing a battery into a Chevy Cavalier they’d found near the Franklin Creek exit on the shoulder of I-10 when the State Trooper’s patrol car rolled up and parked between the Chevy and Lancaster’s F-150 pick-up. He punched the siren, then sat in the car a couple of minutes while big rigs, cars, and SUVs whizzed past like roaring smudges.

  Terry leaned against the Chevy, hands in the pockets of his Abercrombie and Finch khaki shorts, an oversized bowling shirt covering a beer gut, and a cap pulled low above his eyes. He stared at the trooper, blonde mustache and small eyes, hard to read. Lancaster stepped from behind the raised hood, a tight Nautica T-shirt stretched over muscled-up chest and shoulders, in cut-off jeans. Short dark hair and a face that narrowed to a strong pointy chin. He wiped his hands on a rag, shrugged, then ducked back to the battery.

  The trooper, a tall thin man, stepped from his car and stalked over to the guys, leaving plenty of room in case he had to draw down on them. The shoulder of the road was wide with a narrow grassy ditch separating it from the woods.

  He nodded. “Morning.”

  Terry nodded back. “We’re doing fine. Don’t need any help.”

  “What’s the problem, anyway?”

  “Damn battery, or the alternator. I can’t tell. My friend brought a new battery so we can at least get it back to the house.”

  The trooper shook his head, the hat teetering. He laughed a bit, moved his right hand to his pistol.

  “Bullshit,” he said, doing Gleason from Smokey and the Bandit. “You boys are trying to sell me a fab-ree-cation.”

  Terry pushed himself off the car, nice and slow. “What are you talking about?”

  “This one?” The trooper pointed at the car. “It’s my wife’s car, you dumb fuck. She called me an hour ago, and I dropped her off at home, came back to take a look.”

  Terry squinted. “You sure about that?”

  The trooper reached for his handcuffs. “Both of you, against the car.”

  Terry pulled his hands from his pockets, turned an
d placed them on top of the driver’s side door. “What did we really do? Just trying to help, save you the trouble of doing the work yourself.”

  “You lied to me.”

  “A little, but no harm done. You get a free battery.”

  The trooper stepped closer, an inch away from cuffing. Lancaster’s arm arched from behind the hood, hand wrapped around a small .380. Two shots like balloons popping. The bullets smashed into the trooper’s shoulder and chest, dropping him. He was still strong enough to yank his gun free, get off a shot that missed Terry by a hair, clanged off the hood and shattered the windshield.

  Terry shrunk. “Jesus! What the fuck?”

  Lancaster moved fast as the trooper’s free hand groped for his radio. He stepped on the trooper’s wounded shoulder, grabbed the gun and twisted as the grip gave way to pain. He slipped the gun into his waistband, took the radio, then dragged the trooper by the shirt off the road, through the grassy ditch and into the woods.

  Terry watched the road for brake lights, see if anyone had noticed and would stop, turn around. A few minutes went by. Nothing. Six years working together, Lancaster always high strung but never homicidal. Terry thought he was too rough with Crabtree the day before, but killing a cop? It freaked him out. He followed Lancaster into the woods. They were sweating in the July heat, over a hundred, and the shade of the trees calmed their nerves a little.

  Terry said, “Shit, in front of God and everybody. What the hell?”

  “We were so damn close. His wife’s car? Come on, you couldn’t talk our way out of that one.”

  “You didn’t let me try.”

  “He was about to cuff you. Hey, no need to thank me.”

  “Call it a loss now. Blows out the windshield, shit. We’ve got to book it out of here.”

  “What about the battery?” Lancaster said. He stomped the trooper’s shoulder again. High-pitched scream. The blood was soaking his shirt, spreading fast.

  “Was that necessary?”

  Lancaster shrugged.

  “Get the battery double-fast. I’ll take him in his cruiser, you follow in the truck.”

  “What’s the plan?”

  Terry shook his head. “I can think better driving.”

  *

  Six years conning, three years boosting cars from the Mississippi roadsides and they’d never been caught. When trouble closed in, Terry was good at charming their way out, a natural born con artist. Even though Lancaster always carried a piece, shooting the trooper was the first time he fired it while working with his friend.

  Maybe Terry could have smoothed it out. Lancaster admitted that as he tailed the cruiser off the Interstate exit ramp and north on Franklin Creek Road, a badly paved two lane that twisted up into the country. Lots of nice homes and big yards, then there were old trailers, small churches, tiny gas stations, torn papers and beer cans circling tree trunks.

  Maybe. But Lancaster was bored. Working with Terry made them decent money if middle-class was the goal. They needed to risk a lot more to get the big payoff. Hit a casino, a bank, or put the big squeeze on a millionaire. Lancaster even suggested they get back into the drug scene, deal in heroin and meth. Terry had laughed at the idea. Laughed, he sure fucking did. He won’t be doing that anymore. Lancaster grinned, thinking it was a test. He hoped the boy could handle a new way of doing things. Lancaster liked to work the same way he liked having sex—rough.

  His oil-stained hands tightened around the steering wheel as he remembered two years in Angola prison, his foot pressed the gas a little heavier. The truck gurgled and responded, closing the gap between the vehicles. Best thing to do would be drop the car in a lake, burn the body, scatter the bones as far apart as possible. And if Terry disagreed, maybe Lancaster would have to kill him, too.

  *

  Terry knew there was a pond around the area big enough to sink the car, and he was headed that way. Figured out how to turn off the radio after already knocking out the camera that had caught every moment of the encounter. The car smelled like aftershave.

  He glanced in the rearview. Lancaster rode his bumper, a severe look on his face. Terry was always afraid his partner would crack and go on a psycho rampage he had only witnessed once, near sunrise in the bathroom of a motel. Lancaster dunked a barfly’s head into the tub filled with ice cold water, demanding she tell him his breath wasn’t so bad and show it by kissing him. She did. She was shaking. He paid her and she backed out of the room holding her clothes to her stomach.

  Lancaster had told him it was a bad night, too much gin. Terry thought the beast was always there under the surface, alcohol just an easy excuse. What they were doing with the cars, like with Crabtree, was supposed to be about intimidation, psychology. Lately, Lancaster was quick to go nuclear, and if he kept it up, they were sure to get caught. Terry was beginning to believe he should break up the team, go back to college for those final classes he needed for his criminal justice degree, and join the other side. He thought he’d be great at it because by being a criminal, he knew how they thought.

  The trooper stirred in the backseat, startling Terry. Lucky he cuffed the guy, a precaution, even though he thought the trooper was nearly done bleeding all his blood. Terry glanced at him, then back at the road, which had ended at a T, a Baptist church straight ahead. Terry turned right, then looked at the trooper again. This time, the eyes were open and staring back.

  “It’s not fair. I’m going to die over this, and it’s not fair because you two punks got lucky. Not even a real shoot out.”

  “I’m sorry, really,” Terry said, surprised how much he really meant it. “But don’t say we got lucky because you got sloppy.”

  A pained chuckle, sharp breath. “Say it’s some of both, then. A shoot out with dangerous criminals, okay, I can live with dying like that.”

  Terry tapped the steering wheel, nervous rhythm, and kept quiet, hoping the trooper would shut up and keep bleeding. He wished Lancaster would back off his tail.

  “My wife, my son—”

  Terry said, “All right, I got that whole hero thing you want. You probably tell them every night how you love them, ‘In case I don’t come back.’ Like you get anything more than drunks and pot runners.”

  “I don’t have to listen to this.”

  “Hey, you’re right. That was too harsh, man.” Terry wondered if he should let the guy write a final letter or something.

  The pond wasn’t far. Terry remembered this road now, one he’d driven down many nights while seeing a girl up this way back when he was in high school, just got a car. She had long dark hair, country girl accent, liked to go barefoot. Terry loved that perfect walking cliché. They used to make out in her bedroom while her parents were home, the radio loud on a contemporary gospel station. Yeah, she used to live off this road.

  “Can’t you at least make it look like I died in a real fight, like I had a chance?”

  “Oh, man,” Terry sighed, again thinking, Might as well give him a last request.

  “Let me call in for help, and they’ll find me dead. Please don’t let them figure out the truth.”

  Terry blinked, blinked, held his eyes shut, then opened them. Another look in the mirror. Lancaster still right on his back bumper, panic turned to anger turned to determination. The trooper was right. It wasn’t fair. Terry thought about it for another minute, then asked the trooper, “You got another gun in here?”

  *

  Lancaster had an urge to the bump the damn cruiser, forgetting it was Terry in there instead of a couple buzzcut troopers with those dead eyes that always looked at him like he was a bug on somebody’s burger, crawling around in the mustard.

  Then there was a commotion, looked like Terry was slapping at the wire mesh behind him, and the brake lights flashed quick and the car swerved and veered onto the roadside, the steep incline, stopping half a foot from a tree. Lancaster pulled over and put the truck in park, jumped out as Terry sprang from the car, the trooper’s gun held high, a small video camera in his
other hand, trying to cover his head and run low to the ground.

  “Another gun!” Terry yelled. “He hid a fucking gun!”

  Lancaster looked at the trooper, propped against the door and pointing a .38 revolver at the window. One, two, three shots slammed into the window, wild spider-webbing all over it, until one slug made it out and dropped into the ground, puff of dirt rising. Lancaster felt the adrenaline rush build and do his thinking for him. He took four steps closer to the door, unloading his gun into the trooper’s body. It jumped like popcorn the first two shots, then took the rest lying still.

  Terry ran up behind Lancaster. “We’ve got to go. I’ll wipe off my prints and we’re out of here. He’s called for back-up.”

  “Where’d he get the radio?”

  Terry twisted his mouth. “They carry two of everything.”

  “No they don’t.”

  Terry grabbed Lancaster’s shirt and pulled, saying, “A radio under the backseat. Get in the truck. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Terry turned for the truck, took two steps, then heard more shots, flinched and spun. Lancaster had fired at the car, making big holes in the doors.

  “What was that?” Terry said.

  “I thought he moved.”

  “Whatever. I swear, though, he had me dead to rights for a second there, point blank. Ready to roll?”

  Lancaster thought something about the story wasn’t fitting. Just a feeling, but it would keep him out of jail at least tonight, and maybe they could lay low for a while. A lot less work to do since they wouldn’t have to drown the car and burn the trooper. So things worked out well enough. He walked back to his truck, slipped inside.

  Terry wiped the door handle, the steering wheel, the trooper’s gun. He tossed it into the dead man’s lap, which Lancaster thought was a bit weird. Then he noticed the dead man’s hands, free and spread wide.

  Terry climbed into the truck, held the camera in his lap, and Lancaster looked at him before pulling the stick into gear. “I thought you cuffed him?”