Carl Hiassen - Sick Puppy

"My pants?" said Mr. Gash.

"They're wet."

"Yeah, they are. From the rain."

"I know," Desie said, "but it's cold on my skin. Could you please take them off? The shirt, too." She was lying on her back, covering her nipples with her hands. Now it was purely about survival; nothing could be done for Twilly, who was either dead or dying. Desie would cry for him later, if she made it.

Mr. Gash sat poised on the edge of the seat. "Don't you move," he told her. "Don't you even blink."

He unzipped his brown shoes and placed them under the seat. Then he tugged off his damp trousers and laid them across one of the headrests. Next came the shoulder holster, then the shirt.

"What's that?" Desie asked. Even in the dark she could tell it was a most unusual garment.

"Bulletproof vest," Mr. Gash lied.

"Is that from a snake?"

"Sure is. Wanna touch?"

"No."

"It's dead. Go on and touch it."

Desie did what she was told, tracing her fingertips across the corrugated scales of the hide. She shivered not at the sensation but at the thought of where it had come from.

"Please take that off, too," she said.

As Mr. Gash fumbled to unlace the corset, he said, "Mrs. Stoat, I don't think you get it. This isn't a goddamn honeymoon, it's what the cops would call an aggravated sexual battery. And you're making me more damn aggravated by the minute."

When he climbed on top of her, she robotically positioned a hand on each of his shoulders, which felt greased and lumpy. Something hard poked her neck, and she correctly assumed it was the handgun.

Mr. Gash said, "Oh shit."

"What?"

"There's a leak in this damned car."

Desie looked up and noticed a dime-sized hole in the Roadmaster's roof. The hole was from the bullet that accidentally fired from the killer's gun when he smacked it against Twilly Spree's head. Now water was dripping from the hole onto Mr. Gash's bare torso.

"Right down the crack of my ass," he reported sourly.

He sat up and hastily plugged the leak with a wadded-up discount coupon for chicken-flavored Purina. Then he again lowered himself on Desie, saying, "Now. Finally."

She resolved not to fight; Mr. Gash was too muscular. But she had another plan: to will herself paralyzed from the neck down, so she wouldn't feel him. It was a technique Desie had developed while engaged to the multi-baubled Andrew Beck. Later, the self-numbing hypnosis had proved useful with Palmer Stoat, during the nights when his Polaroid antics became tedious.

Her trick was to imagine she was living in a borrowed body, through which she could see and speak but not feel. And at first she didn't feel anything of Mr. Gash.

"Gimme second." His breathing came in a heavy rhythm, as if he was practicing a meditation. "Just hang on," he said.

Elatedly, Desie thought: The creep can't get it up!

But relief gave way to gloom, for she realized he would kill her anyway – probably even sooner now, in a violent rage of frustration.

"Help me out here, babe."

He was grinding against her with somber determination. His hipbones banged into her hipbones, his chest slapped against her breasts, his chin dug into her forehead ...

Desie fought off waves of nausea – the man stank of rancid perspiration, syrupy cologne and unlaundered clothes.

"I'm not ... used to ... this." Mr. Gash, panting gaseously.

The rank heat of his breath made Desie shudder.

"Used to what – women?" she said. "You bi?"

"No! What I'm not ... used to ... is one woman. I'm used to ... more."

"How many more?"

"Two ... three. Sometimes four." He told her what he liked to do (and have done to him) while hanging in his lizard-skin sling from the ceiling.

"Whew," Desie said. "Can't help you there, chief."

Mr. Gash stopped grinding and pushed himself up on his arms. "Sure you can. There's lots of things you can do, Mrs. Stoat."

Twilly awoke facedown in mud. He blew clods out both nostrils when he lifted his head.

His head! He'd never known such pain. He tried to spit and again nearly blacked out. His left ear clanged like a fire alarm. The whole side of his skull felt flaming hot; liquid and distended.

Twilly thought: I guess I've finally been shot. He was incensed but not especially afraid, which was a chronic problem in his life – anger supplanting normal, well-founded fears.

Twilly had an unhealthy lack of concern for his own safety.

He rolled over and saw stars. They vanished behind a wispy curtain of fast-moving clouds. It was nighttime and a hard rain was ending. Twilly didn't know where he was, or what he was doing there, but he had a hunch somebody would bring him up to speed. He raised an exploratory hand to his head and located a large raw knot, but no bullet wound. His fingers came back sticky so he held them in front of his face to check the color of the blood; the brighter the better. That's when he knew he'd lost the vision in his left eye.

"Hell," he muttered.

With a forefinger Twilly gingerly probed the socket and was relieved to find the eyeball externally intact. Slowly he raised on his forearms, teetering in the sloppy mud. Overhead the stars and clouds spun madly around the treetops. Twilly waited patiently for the world to slow down. With his good eye he discerned bulky motionless shapes on either side of him – to his left, a bulldozer; to his right, a boat-sized station wagon.

Progress, he told himself.

Gradually the locomotive ringing subsided and Twilly could make out distinct noises – the wind in the pines, an incongruous jingling in the understory, almost like sleigh bells ...

And, from inside the car, a muffled struggle.

Twilly tried to stand, bracing himself on the fender. He noticed it was shimmying. Once on his feet, he felt dizzy and sick to his stomach. Meanwhile the jingling sounded closer, causing him to speculate it was all inside his head; something loose or broken.

But the station wagon was rocking – not much, but enough to keep Twilly's shaky equilibrium in flux. Miserably he sunk to his knees and listed against the car, his cheek mashed against the cool steel. He groped for purchase and found a door handle.

There he hung like a drunken rock climber until the latch clicked and the heavy door swung open. Twilly lost his grip and slid limply to the mud. He lay blinking at the heavens as his eardrums pealed with the jingle bells of the oncoming sleigh. Where's the snow? he wondered sleepily.

Moments later, Twilly saw the sleigh shoot over him, a hulking black shadow that momentarily blotted out the stars and the clouds. He smelled it, too, though it didn't smell like Christmas. It smelled like a big wet dog. From inside the car came a startled cry, and suddenly Twilly remembered where he was, and what was happening. He remembered everything.

"He'thinks it's a game," Desie explained.

"Make him let go!"

"He won't hurt you."

"Get him off me, goddammit, so I can kill him."

The mutt was riding Mr. Gash as if he were a pony. The wet, filthy mutt! Its yellow fangs were planted on his neck – not hard enough to break the skin, but firmly enough to bring severe distress to Mr. Gash, who was not an animal lover. (He regarded the 911 tape of the testicle-chomping chow as one of the most harrowing in his extensive collection.)

"I've shot dogs," he hissed at Desie, "for a lot less than this."

"He thinks we're playing."

"You mean he's pulled this shit before? While you were screwing?"

"To him it's wrestling. He hates to be left out." The combined weight and aromas of the two animals, the Lab and Mr. Gash, made it difficult for Desie to speak up.

"Who taught him how to open a car door?" Mr. Gash said snidely.

"I dunno. That's a new one."