The Taking of Libbie, SD (Mac McKenzie #7)

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.”