Paul Cleave - The Killing Hour

I want to kill him so badly that it hurts. I grit my teeth and my eyes are burning and I see a shade of red that can only be blood. I want to take the gun from his hands and use it to club his head into the highway. I want to run over his twitching corpse.

“For forty grand,” Cyris continues, “you can have her back. It’s the money you owe me, partner, for screwing me the other night.”

“I’ll get it, okay? You can let her go and take me instead. We can go to the bank in the morning and I can get you the cash,” I say, knowing how stupid it sounds.

“No can do, partner. She comes with me.”

“You don’t need her.”

“Oh, but I do, I do, yeah. I get lonely during the day.”

“I can get the money first thing! Please! By ten o’clock everything can be settled.”

“Sorry. I’ll be sleeping like a baby.”

“What about in the afternoon? Come on, give me a break here.”

“Don’t sound so desperate, little Charlie, little, little. The day’s no good for me. The night’s no good for me either. I’ve got me some important plans.”

I don’t want him alone with Jo for two whole days. I don’t want that at all. “No deal.”

He reaches out and shoves Jo against the car, then points the gun at her. “Pick a limb, partner.”

I raise my free hand. “I can get you the money. But two days? Jesus, surely you can see my problem with this.”

“And that’s just it. It’s your problem, not mine, yours.” He laughs. “Partner, if you’re unhappy we can cancel the whole transaction. Is that how you want it?”

I shake my head. I’ve seen how he cancels transactions.

“Good. I’ll ring you at home at nine o’clock tonight. Be there.”

“If you touch her. .”

“You’ll what? Huh? Kill me? Don’t worry, partner. I don’t damage my investments.”

He pushes her into the driver’s seat of my car and slams the door. Clutching his stomach, he moves around to the passenger side. I stare through the side window at Jo. She stares back and attempts a smile that says, Don’t worry, things will be fine. I attempt the same smile, but who are we kidding?

I meet Cyris’s eyes. I want them to be dead, reflecting only a vacant mind, but they’re alive and brimming with ideas. Half a minute goes by, then Jo puts the car into gear and slowly pulls away. She goes only ten yards before the brake lights come on. Her arm appears out the window and she tosses out the handcuff key and the modified car key. They land in the middle of the road. Then the red brake lights die and the car rolls forward.

By trying to be a hero on Monday I’ve signed Jo’s life away. I rest my head against the door. The headache is back. I can taste failure in the back of my throat. I could have driven into a tree. I could have fought Cyris while he was behind me in the car. I look down the road. The taillights are two distant red specks riding toward infinity. They look like eyes-demon eyes. They disappear around a distant bend.

They disappear and I am alone.

The rain cannot wash away the rage or the fear that leaves me standing motionless next to my car. Hope and despair have both reached out for me, but hope couldn’t get a grip. And why would it? I’m standing in Landry’s shirt, his socks and shoes, and my underwear. My mind has recognized defeat and is slowly shutting down. Jo is dead even though she’s behind the wheel of my car and speeding toward the city.

I lean into the car and release the hand brake. I push against the door frame with my left arm, my right beneath my left armpit because of the handcuffs. My legs try to tangle as I gain more speed, and when my left leg clips the edge of the car I lose my balance. My hand slips from the door frame and I fall, my right knee hitting the asphalt hard. I pull myself into a sitting position and get onto my feet. I look down at my knee and can see it bleeding.

I tighten my grip on the car and start over. The car builds speed once again, and when I can tell momentum will take me to the keys, I limbo into the car and put both hands on the wheel. I can’t steer because the steering wheel has locked, but I pull the hand brake when I reach the keys. I twist my body and lean out. The keys are closer to the other side of the car, out of reach. I look for something to help and find it when I look up and see the antenna. I pull it upward and when it’s at its longest I bend it back and forth until it snaps off. I lean down and start fishing. It only takes a few moments to hook the handcuff key. I undo the cuffs and drop them onto the passenger seat. I lean under the car and grab the screwdriver.

Racing toward the city, I search for the taillights of my Honda, but can’t find them. When I enter the city I drive aimlessly around, but it’s pointless. They’re gone. Jo is gone. And there’s nothing I can do until I pay to get her back.

I head home. I never liked driving Jo’s car, and I like it even less now. The seats are low and I often hurt my back getting in and out of it. It’s not the kind of car you can use if you have kids-you’d break your back getting a child in and out of a car seat. I smile thinking about that, I smile thinking of the children we didn’t have, but used to talk about having. We never named them, we thought it weird to name somebody until you’d met them. I don’t know why I’m suddenly thinking about them, and even though they bring a smile to my face, I’m actually feeling sad for their loss. These kids will never exist. They died six months ago in the bar. No matter what happens, even if I get Jo back, she’ll never want to see me again.

I park up the driveway and leave the screwdriver in the car and walk around the gate and swing open my busted back door. I stare at the phone and even take two steps toward it, knowing I need to call the police and knowing just as well that I can’t. Cyris will kill Jo if I do. He may kill her anyway. The time to call the police is over and, anyway, it’s not like my experience with them is one I want to risk repeating.

I walk down the hallway. Last time I made this walk I was in cuffs and had a gun pointed at me. When was that? It feels like a few days ago, but it’s only been a matter of hours, maybe five or six of them. I look at my watch, but I can’t figure it out, and really it doesn’t matter. I stand in the bedroom doorway and stare at the cardboard box. I have to get rid of it. I can’t sleep in my house with the body part of a woman I failed to save. I don’t look inside it because Landry told me what was in there. Kathy deserves to be buried in one piece, but I can’t return the box to the crime scene. I can’t take it to the morgue. Can’t put a stamp on it and mail it in.

These thoughts disgust me, but they’re there, just logical progressions really, like a mechanic figuring out how to take a car apart, or an accountant carrying the one. Kathy is dead and for her to rest in peace her death needs to be avenged. That’s all. It doesn’t matter where her body ends up. I grab a garbage bag out of the laundry and put the box inside. I put my bloody shorts in there too. Then, turning the lights off, I stumble through the house and into the garage. I find a shovel.

My house is on the corner of a cul-de-sac. My backyard borders another house, but behind that are huge pastures. To get there I have to walk into the street and to a dirt driveway angled up between two homes. It’s nearly five o’clock in the morning, but I still pause to scan the neighborhood. No people. No lights. Nobody to care what’s happening to me. I head up the driveway. The wet ground sucks at my shoes.

I’ve been walking two minutes when I realize why I’m doing this. I need to bury this piece of Kathy, not just for her, but for me. It could help. It could make the ghosts go away.