Megan Abbott - Detroit Noir

They headed for the island’s center. The Peace Carillon loomed up, narrow and white like that black-burning candle. Usually Belle Isle’s spacious vistas calmed Leora’s spirit, but not today.

At Central they turned east again, toward the island’s wilder end. “Will we see any deer?” Kevin asked.

“No tellin,” Leora answered.

“I think we should get out when we get to the woods. They’re never going to walk up close to a car.” He took his hand back to hold himself up off the seat cushions with two stiff arms, a sure sign of determination. “We could hide ourselves behind some trees.”

Leora was about to tell him about the one time she’d seen them here, a whole herd, eight or ten wild deer, crossing Oak-way bold as you please. But the driver interrupted her thoughts. “A fine idea, Mester McGinniss,” he said, as if he was the one to decide those sorts of things. “We’ll do just that.”

No one else on the road before them or behind them, and the driver took advantage of that to step on the gas again. What was the man’s name? Farmer, she recalled, and was ready to speak up sharp to him, white or not, when he slowed down. Way down.

He grinned back over his shoulder at the boy, a nervous grin not coming anywhere near his pale eyes. “Like that?” he asked. Kevin nodded, grave as his uncle the judge. “You ever try driving?” Leora clamped her lips firmly shut to make sure she didn’t call the man a fool to his face.

“Maybe when we get safe into the woods I’ll take you up on my lap, let you to steer a bit afore we ambush them deer, Mester McGinniss.” Farmer turned to the front. “If your mammy won’t mind.”

“I ain’t his mammy.”

“Beg pardon, but I thought that’s what—”

“Mammies is Southern. I’m Kevin’s nanny .”

Farmer muttered something, his voice low, lost under the quiet engine’s. She should have kept her own counsel. She should have, but there was only so much a body could take, and after nearly thirty years of passing up on pound cake and plucking her eyebrows and creaming her hardworking hands and pressing her hair and dyeing and altering her employers’ worn-out gowns so you wouldn’t hardly recognize them, Leora was not about to sit silent while some ignorant peckerwood called her after a fat, ragheaded old Aunt Jemima. And her so light-skinned. Even at forty-two, she was better-looking than that. Not long ago, she had been beautiful.

Mr. McGinniss had called her irresistible.

Shadows covered the car hood, the road ahead, the view out of either window. Thin shadows, thickening as she noticed them, leafless branches crowding together to warm their sap in the spring sun. They were in the woods, and suddenly that ignorant driver had swung onto an unpaved side road. The car slowed to a crawl, ruts and puddles rocking it along. Farmer stopped again, for no reason Leora could see.

“Is this where we hide to look for the deer? And I can learn to drive?” the boy asked.

“Yessir, Mester McGinniss. This here’s the place. Just let me take you on my lap.” The driver got out and went around the back to Kevin’s side. As Farmer opened the door, the fear smell came off him in great stinking waves like a waterfall. Leora reached for Kevin. She got him by his waist and held him as Farmer grabbed his arm, lifting him half off the car seat.

The boy screamed. They were pulling him apart, hurting him. Leora loosened her grip, but only for a moment. Then she had him again, by his wool-clad thighs this time, and they were both out on the ground, Farmer yelling and yanking Kevin’s arm, jerking him around so that Leora rolled in the mud. Sharp pains, blows to her sides that made her sick. Someone was kicking her and she screamed, held on tighter as if the boy could keep away the pain.

“Stop.” It was a man’s voice, sounding quiet above all the noise, like smoke above a flame. Leora held Kevin solidly in her arms, sat up on the muddy ground and looked.

There were three of them. The driver Farmer, or whatever his real name was, and two more. The others wore masks, but she recognized one by his sweater, a thick gray cardigan bunched up over his broad hips. He had been sitting on the sawhorse at the construction site. He had a gun. It was aimed at her. And beside him stood a thin man in a long coat with his hands in the pockets.

“What do you want?” Leora asked. The thin man snorted.

“Shut up, mammy.” Farmer rolled his shoulder, wincing like she’d hurt him. Good.

“Bring the car closer,” the thin man said. The driver went off out of sight down the dirt road, past the Caddy. That left two. Could she run away and lose them in the woods?

“Stay down,” said the thin man. “And no more noise out of either of you.” The one with the gun lifted it, like it was something she might have missed.

She didn’t ask again what they wanted. They were kidnappers, had to be: the danger that dirty burning signified. That’s what these men were up to, like in the papers; why else would they be doing this?

Kevin started crying and shivering, and Leora turned her attention back to him. “Shush now,” she told him. “Ain’t nobody gonna hurt you, baby. They just gonna ask your daddy to give them some money is all.” She hummed the lullaby Big Momma had taught her, soft, no words, so only he would hear, and stroked his hair back from his face. No words. She had never been able to bring herself to sing them.

It worked well enough; his sobbing wound itself down to where she could listen in on their captors.

“—shoulda waited to give the signal on a day she wasn’t riding along.”

“Farmer said he’d be able to separate them. Said he’d have no problems.” A short pause. “Find a way to tie and gag her too. Give me the gun. Somebody could come along any minute.” Smart, that one in the long coat. In fact, she heard an engine now, getting louder, nearer. The police? They had a station on the island’s other side.

“On your feet, mammy.” She looked up from Kevin’s dark-lashed eyes. The sweatered man held out one hand to help her up; a dingy-looking red bandana drooped from the other. She got her legs under her and stood up on her own, the boy a soft weight in her arms. She could see through the leafless trees now, and it was only the black-and-purple sedan from the construction site coming toward them. The man took her by the elbow. The sedan stopped, and he started to steer her to its back door.

“No.” She planted her feet as firm as she could. Prepared to fight. The thin man had said it himself: Stay here and someone would come along eventually. No telling where they’d take her once they got her in the car. Not anyplace she’d want to go.

“I’ll shoot you,” the thin man said. He stepped nearer and the gun’s muzzle dug into her neck. She couldn’t tell if it was hot or cold or both. “I will. Give me half a chance,” he said, and she decided she’d better believe him. Maybe he wouldn’t; maybe a gun would make too much noise. She wasn’t going to find out.

Leora laid Kevin down on the car seat the way she would for a nap. He looked up at her accusingly, as if the kidnapping was her fault, and opened his mouth to say something, but she shook her head and put her finger to her lips. She tried to get in next to him, but the gun pressed harder. “Hold up,” the thin man told her. She stood as still as she could.

The driver got out with a short piece of clothesline hanging from his arm and went into the back on the other side.

“Farmer, my father’s going to be very angry at you.” Kevin’s voice sounded firm and fragile at the same time, like pie crust. “You’d better bring us home right away.”

“All in good time, Mester McGinniss. Give me your hands here, and put ’em together at the wrists. Don’t make us have to shoot nobody, now — yes, that’s the way. I’ll have that gag now.” The sweatered man moved to the other door. They stuck the dirty red bandana over the boy’s mouth.