Stuart MacBride - Sawbones

Laura dives left, into the corn. Stalks whip past as she runs deeper into the darkness, the leaves slapping wet against her legs and face. She’s making a hell of a lot of noise and she knows it. But not as much as that fucking Winnebago.

Or the dog.

The barking’s getting closer.

The Bastard’s set the dog on her and it sounds HUGE.

Oh God, oh God, oh God. .

She risks a glance over her shoulder and trips on a clump of something. With her hands tied behind her back she can’t even break her fall — Laura slams face-first into the muddy earth between the massive stalks of corn, all the breath leaving her in one painful rush.

She doesn’t want to do this any more. She wants to be home in bed. She wants to be safe. She wants to be in the kitchen with Mom, sharing a cup of coffee. She wants to curl up and cry.

But if she does that, he’ll catch her for sure.

So she fights her way to her feet and starts running again. The breath hissing in and out through her nose as she pushes herself harder than she ever has before. Running for her life.

The dog’s quicker.

She can hear its paws skittering through the mud behind her. Rattling the corn stalks, barking, growling. Getting closer. And closer. And. .

Des Moines, Iowa

The Fish Trap Lounge is a dingy bar in a concrete strip-mall on Army Post Road. Ouside, the sun’s baking the sidewalk, but in here it’s dark — some people would say the guy who owns the place should get some more lights in here, but they’d be missing the point, wouldn’t they? It’s supposed to be dark. That way no fucker can see what you’re up to.

It’s half-ten in the morning, and I’m nursing a cup of bitter coffee, trying to blunt the edges with way too much sugar and cream. Still tastes like shit, though. Henry’s on Bud Lite with a bourbon chaser, and Jack. . well, Jack’s sulking ’cause Henry tore a strip off him for his lousy shooting last night. Then Jack shouted back how it was all Henry’s fault for making us steal that piece-of-shit Ford in the first place. How if we’d stolen a decent car we would have caught the bastard.

So Henry hit him. Again.

The bar’s owner is a short, round guy with a shaven head, glasses, a big moustache and a T-shirt with no sleeves showing off a lion’s head tattoo. He clatters a big plate of hot wings down on our table and tells us they’re compliments of Mr Luciano, whose right-hand man will be here as soon as he’s taken care of a little business.

We thank him, and he goes back to whatever the hell it is bar-tenders do when they’re not delivering chicken wings and messages for the local mobsters.

Jack picks up a wing and takes a bite, winces, then drops it back on the pile. “Fucking loose tooth. .” He runs a finger around the inside of his mouth.

Henry glares at him. “Don’t put it back on the plate! You think we want to eat stuff with your spit on it?”

Thank God, Jack has enough brains to keep his big mouth shut this time as he picks the wing up and dumps it in the ashtray instead.

“I should fucking think so,” says Henry, but he doesn’t help himself to the pile. Not after spending so long glued to the toilet last night — blaming the breakfast burrito Jack bought him. So that means all the wings are mine. Which is cool.

I’m halfway through them when the front door opens and a big guy in a black and yellow Hawkeyes jacket saunters into the bar and straight over to our table.

“One of you guys called Henry?” He’s got that strange Iowa accent, the one that goes up and down in the middle of sentences for no reason.

Henry nods at him. The guy looks like he’s in his mid forties, getting a bit heavy round the middle, but he carries himself with the same kind of quiet violence you see in grizzly bears. He sits at the table and helps himself to a wing — stripping the meat off the bones as the barman hurries over with a pint of beer and a bottle of hot sauce.

“Right,” says the guy when Mr Short-and-Bald goes away again, “I understand you need a favour, Henry.”

“For Mr Jones. Yes.”

“What d’you need?”

“Winnebago — it’s got Polk County plates with a little soldier on them.”

“Uh-huh,” the guy nods and another wing vanishes. “National Guard plates — it’s an infantry man, couple of planes in the background?”

I nod. “I didn’t get the registration on account of our car exploding, but it’s something like ‘Swooner’ or ‘Stoner’?”

He shakes his head. “Won’t be ‘Stoner’, we got laws against people putting disrespectful shit like that on their licence plates.”

“OK,” says Henry, “so we’re looking for a brown Winnebago that belongs to the National Guard?”

“Nope.” The guy takes the top off the hot sauce and splashes it over the remaining chicken wings. “Them there’s vanity plates. Don’t cost that much. If you’re a fire fighter, you can buy fire fighter plates. If you’re a war veteran you can buy war veteran plates. For the ones with the little soldier on them, you got to be in the National Guard. You got to get your unit commander to certify you’re still on active duty every year you got those plates on your vehicle.”

Henry leans forwards. “We need an address.”

“Not going to be easy. Half the state’s in the Guard. Iowa’s big on doing its patriotic duty.” Another wing gets turned into bones, then the guy downs his beer, belches, and says, “Stay here.”

We watch him leave.

Jack scowls at the bar, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “I still say we should go to the Feds with this.”

That gets him ‘the look’ from Henry.

“No.”

“But — ”

“I have to tell you no again,” says Henry, “I’m going to break your arm.” He finishes his bourbon and places the glass carefully on the tabletop. “I’m sick of you whining and moaning and not doing what you’re fuckin’ told. You want to live to see New York again? You keep your fuckin’ mouth shut.”

Jack looks at him, then at me. For a moment I think he’s about to say something, but he doesn’t. He does what he’s told. Looks like he’s finally hearing that little voice. This time he’s not going to poke the bear.

Which is just as well. Jack’s a big bastard and I don’t fancy having to drag his dead body out into the woods to bury it.

The middle of nowhere

Laura comes back to life with a cough, only she’s still got the gag in her mouth, so it comes out like a dry retch. Everything hurts — arms, head, chest. . Her left leg stings and throbs. . and it takes her a moment to remember why. To remember where she is and just how fucked up her world has become.

She’s sitting in the driving seat of an ancient, long-dead car, both wrists secured to the steering wheel with more cable-ties. She’s seat-belted in, but just in case that’s not enough, the Bastard has chained her to the seat as well.

The throbbing pain in her left leg is getting worse, and she looks down to see her jeans stained with blood.

It’s all coming back to her — the scrabble of the dog behind her, paws on mud getting closer. A sudden moment of silence as it leaps, and then the pain as it sinks its teeth into her leg, whipping its head back and forth, tearing out chunks of meat. The sound of her own muffled screams. And then the Bastard’s there, hauling the dog off her, so he can punch and kick her instead. She can barely see out of her right eye now.

Laura tries not to cry. She knows it isn’t going to help. But it’s no use — she’s sore, miles from home, scared, bleeding, and she wants her mom and dad so badly. .

She cries till there’s nothing left but dry heaving sobs, then even they subside and she’s left feeling hollow and empty.