Paul Cleave - The Killing Hour

“Whose stomach?” he asks.

“Your stomach.”

“I’ll live.”

“That’s a real shame.”

He pushes the gun into my ribs. “Why don’t you concentrate on driving.”

I do just that, again following the orders of the man with the gun. Common practice. And I’ve been practicing a lot. When I flick the headlights to high beam the rain looks thicker. There’s no other traffic on this road in the middle of nowhere. I feel like taking my hands off the wheel and seeing where fate steers my car. I’ve had enough. Enough guilt. Enough pain. Enough of people dying around me. I’ve become a catalyst for death and I don’t like it. The heater is combining with my rage to warm me up. I’m thinking it might be like drinking alcohol when you’re suffering from hypothermia. You feel warmer, but you’re not. Your body’s fooling you. And you die. End of story.

Is that to be my story?

The rain begins to ease off. I slow the windshield wipers so that every second they sweep across and show me the dark night ahead. I watch the road and concentrate on driving over the wet asphalt. My knuckles are sore from squeezing the steering wheel. My fingers are white. Slowly I unclench them. The joints pop.

“You look tense, partner,” Cyris says.

Yeah, that’s right.

“Money, Feldman,” he says. “How much of it do you have?”

This question surprises me. I think about it. “I’m not sure. It’s all wet, anyway.”

“Wet? Wet, how? How did. . no, no, no, not the money in your pockets, the money in your bank. How many dollars do you have?”

“Nothing.”

He pushes the gun in harder. I glance at him in the mirror. He’s blinking rapidly. “That’s a lie. You’re lying, lying, and lying people catch on fire. I know you have money. I’ve seen your house, I looked at your money statements.”

“I’m a schoolteacher, not a doctor. I have a mortgage. Do you know what that means?”

“I know you’re a teacher, I know this, I know, and I’m not a moron.”

“The bank owns my house, not me.”

He draws the gun back, then pushes it in harder still.

I jerk away. The car swerves across the road. I tug at the wheel, shift down a couple of gears, and the car swerves right, then straightens. My reactions defy my thoughts of crashing. Surely Jo must know now that I’m in trouble.

“How much you got?” Cyris asks as if nothing just happened. I glance into the rearview mirror. Jo is still behind us, but much further back now. Can money get us out of this?

“Not much.”

“You owe me forty grand.”

“What?”

“I could do with some money, partner. Forty grand sounds pretty sweet.”

Forty grand. I have a strong feeling why he picked that amount. “Get a job.”

“I have a job.”

Things that didn’t make sense on Monday are making some sense now. Things seem clearer since I talked to Landry. One of the world’s biggest motives to kill, after revenge, is money. That’s exactly what Cyris is asking for now. I know he likes money. He shouted it out half an hour ago. He wants money. Was that his goal on Monday? Was he being paid?

Yes. Of course he was. The theory Jo came up with, the theory I came up with when talking to Landry, it all makes perfect sense. To kill one woman would make the police look at obvious reasons, then obvious suspects. To kill them both in a horrific and brutal way makes the entire thing look ritualistic. It makes it look like she died for an entirely different set of reasons. Like some random madman dragged them both from their homes and committed madman atrocities on them, rather than being paid for it.

Cyris is more than a mere monster. He’s a paid killer. A man who takes his job seriously enough to take on a completely different role. As horrid as it is, I can appreciate the cleverness in his process. The police are looking for some deranged lunatic because Cyris was a deranged lunatic in those early Monday hours.

What role is he trapped in now?

We pass a reflective sign extended out over the highway from a large white pole. Christchurch is only forty-five miles away. We’ll be there in well under an hour. I slide the heater control to the little picture of feet. I’ve thawed out slightly. The ice in my veins is melting. The fear isn’t.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.” I keep on driving.

“You’ve got two days,” he says.

“What?”

“Didn’t I make myself clear? Are you an idiot?”

“Humor me.”

“Two days. Forty grand. I’m sure you can arrange that.”

“Sure.”

“Speed up, I don’t want to be out here all night.”

I speed up and the headlights in my mirror get smaller.

“Faster!” he shouts.

I push my foot down and Jo’s headlights soon disappear. Ahead of us the two eastbound lanes of the highway narrow into one. The road winds around a bit, but the view doesn’t change-just pastures and more pastures. When Cyris tells me to pull over I do the opposite. I speed up and I switch off the headlights. We’re going to crash, but if I’m lucky Jo will drive right on past.

Cyris smashes me in the head with something, and as the world goes darker, he begins tugging at the wheel. He’s leaning over the backseat and I’m too woozy to try and stop him. He puts the gearshift in neutral. My foot is still on the accelerator, but only revving now. He hits me again. The colors flare behind my eyes for maybe the hundredth time this week and I’m left to wonder if those colors will ever go away. He keeps steering the car. It’s slowing down. He reaches around me and pulls out the screwdriver key. When the colors behind my eyes dissolve I start looking for Cyris. He’s already outside, slamming the passenger door closed. I go to open my door and my right arm stops painfully short. Handcuffs hold me to the steering wheel.

Landry’s cuffs.

Christ. I’m living in a world of déjà vu.

Cyris taps on the window with the barrel of his gun. I look out and see him waving my keys at me. His scraggly beard moves as he grins. I swear at the windshield, spraying a fine mist of obscenities across the glass. At the same time I tug on the handcuffs, going through the same motions I went through earlier tonight and getting the same results. My wrist is already swelling.

I unclip the seatbelt and reach for the door handle with my left arm, pulling on it, then push the door with my foot. I turn my body so I can stand. My right arm stays inside the car, the handcuffs stopping me from standing straight. Cyris is moving off the opposite side of the road just as Jo comes around the bend. Past the shoulder is some long grass that he ducks behind. I stand as tall as I can, the handcuffs pulling my skin and hurting the bone, and I wave erratically at her so she knows there’s trouble. But she’s thinking maybe flat-tire trouble, or engine trouble. Just not Cyris trouble. But then Cyris steps out into the road and levels the shotgun at her. There must be a moment where she thinks she might be able to run him down before he can open fire, but then she must dismiss it because she pulls over and stops.

Cyris signals for her to get out of the car. She does.

“Looks like we’re having ourselves a reunion,” he shouts. He moves slowly toward us, then stops between the headlights of the car I’m driving. “Your husband here owes me money,” he says. “Forty grand to be specific. He said I could look after you until he can get it. It’s like layaway.” He takes a few steps toward me. “Isn’t that right?”

I don’t answer him. Jo says nothing. He turns the barrel of Landry’s shotgun so it’s pointing at her face. She doesn’t look scared or intimidated, but I don’t doubt that she is.

“The plan’s simple,” he says. “You give me the money and she gets to live. You take too long with the funds, I teach her about suffering. You get my point?”