Giles Blunt - Crime Machine

“You want some tea or not?”

“Tea. Sure. Why the fuck not? Where’d your partner go?”

“He went looking for the house,” Delorme said, and regretted it right away. Wished she’d said something that meant he’d be back in one minute.

“If he finds it, he’s gonna wish he had an army with him.”

Delorme turned and took a hop toward the door.

Behind her, a creak, and the sound of the man’s feet hitting the floor.

She hopped as hard as she could and that got her into the other room, but the man’s full weight hit her and slammed her to the floor, the pain forcing a scream out of her.

He pulled back hard on her hair. “Hold still.”

Delorme twisted onto her back and brought her good leg up and around his face. She forced him back and he let go of her hair, but as he fell he yanked at her broken leg and she shrieked in agony.

When Delorme regained consciousness, he had her belt buckle undone and was trying to slide her pants down. He had put the gun aside on the floor. Delorme reached for it, but he got to it first and clouted her in the temple.

She hit him a hard backhand, her knuckles catching him in the eye.

He swung again with the pistol, but the floor took most of it. Delorme got hold of the barrel and twisted and the man let go. The gun flew out of her grasp and hit the floor somewhere behind her head. The man lunged for it, his face so close she could smell his breath. She pulled him closer and bit his cheek. The sudden heat of his blood on her face.

The man roared and clutched his cheek, blood spilling through his fingers. Delorme reached back for the gun and the man grabbed her throat and punched her face. His knuckles slid on blood.

Delorme grabbed his waist and felt the knife handle. The man lunged for the gun and she undid the snap and got the knife out. He reared back with the gun in her face and she brought the knife up and jammed the blade just under his arm.

He screamed and dropped the gun and fell sideways to the floor. When he reached for the gun again, Delorme twisted and brought the knife down hard on the side of his head. The bone gave way and she could feel the blade lodge in his temple.

She held on to it and felt the force drain out of him. It was as if he were becoming smaller under her hand. He lay there, half curled, still breathing, staring at some fixed point through and beyond Delorme. Blood flowed from his face wound into his eye, but the eye didn’t blink. Delorme kept her grip on the knife until he stopped breathing, and for a while after.

She rolled back and dragged herself toward the bunk. She took up the gun and, when she had twisted herself into a seated posture with her legs out in front, held it in her lap.

“Fucker,” she said. Her breath came in ragged gasps. “Teach you. Fucker.”

“We’re never going to get to the highway if you keep falling on your face,” Nikki said. The old man was floundering just ahead of her. The storm had abated somewhat, but the snow was still flying and sticking to Nikki’s eyelashes so that it was hard to see. And it was deep. Their snowshoes sank six inches and more into the top snow, making progress difficult for Nikki, let alone for an ancient geezer like Mr. Kreeger.

He staggered to one side, nearly toppled, but finally managed to right himself.

“The sooner I get you to that highway,” Nikki said, “the sooner I can get back and curl up in front of that fireplace.”

The old man turned to face her. “If we were really going to the highway, the obvious way to go would be the road. There’s a plough blade on the front of the Range Rover, you know.”

“I’m not old enough to drive.”

“I am.”

“We’re going this way.”

“Even on foot, the road would be faster.”

“For the last time, we can’t take the road. Papa will be coming back that way, and if he sees me helping you escape, it’ll be game over for both of us. Jack could come back that way too, and I don’t want to die, Mr. Kreeger, do you?”

Papa said the old man had to die but how she did it was up to her. So she had come up with this phony escape plan. There was no reason why the guy should die miserable. This way he would go out happy at least. He thinks he’s finally free and boom, she shoots him in the back of his head and puts him to sleep.

“When did your so-called Papa go out? I didn’t hear him leave.”

“You didn’t hear the fight? He booted Jack out and then he took off himself.”

“Uh-huh. Drove out into the blizzard, did he?”

“As a matter of fact, someone came to pick him up. Guy in a Jeep.”

The old man looked at her and shook his head in disgust.

“Yes, sir. They took off right after Jack did. Guess those Jeep tracks got covered pretty fast. I have no idea where they were going or when they might be coming back, but this is the first and likely only time I’m gonna be on my own with you, so would you please for Christ sake take advantage of it and keep your skinny butt moving? I thought old people were supposed to be wise.”

“That’s right. And young people are supposed to be innocent.”

“Okay, so we’re even.”

The old man kept looking at her. His face was thin, elongated, and his papery cheeks were blotchy from the cold. He put Nikki in mind of a rabbit, and she was about to yell at him to turn around when he finally did so. Turned and took a step through the snow, then another, wide-legged, duck-like.

“See, it’s not so bad,” Nikki said. “We’ll have you on that highway in no time. Someone’ll come by and pick you up.” She knew it didn’t really make sense. What possible reason could she have to send him safely into town? She’d made him solemnly promise that he’d wait a day before he called the police, but obviously he’d call them first thing. He must know Papa was at the house waiting for her to come back and announce she’d done it. Meanwhile she was terrified of bumping into Jack. Jack clearly inhabited the boundary line between the kind of craziness you can live with, and the kind you can’t.

The old man stopped. Even through his heavy parka she could see his shoulders heaving. He turned to her again.

“Dude, are you on crack? We have to keep moving. Or have you just not noticed we’re in the tail end of a blizzard?”

“How old are you, young lady?”

“I’ll be fourteen in February.”

“Fourteen in February.” He smiled, long rabbity teeth amid cheeks of high pink. “In February I’ll be seventy-six years old.”

“OMG, we have such a lot in common! Would you keep it moving, please.”

The old guy didn’t move, intent only upon her, the hunting rifle in her hands-in case she saw a pheasant for dinner, she’d told him. “That man isn’t your father.”

“Yes he is. In every way that counts, he is.”

“Raised you, did he? From the time you were a baby? Changed your diaper? Got you into school? Made you do your homework? Read to you at night? Taught you to read and write, and how to get along with people? Raised you like a dad?”

“Raised me, no. Rescued me, yes. I was one death-bound fuck-up, Mr. Kreeger, and Papa saved me from the solid brick wall I was smashing my head into.”

“You were living on the streets?”

“Anything bad you can imagine, I was doing it. Now get moving before I become hostile.”

“I wouldn’t call where you are right now rescued.”

“What?”

“I wouldn’t call the place where you find yourself right now being rescued.”

“You don’t know the place I was previously.”

“And I wouldn’t call Papa anything resembling a father.”

“You don’t know the man.”

“Have you looked in the bunkhouse, Nikki?”