Ken Douglas - Ragged Man

“ Not that far. Let’s get your bird and go. I want to be back before the girls get home from the movies.”

“ I hope he’s okay, he hasn’t had any food or water for a whole day.”

“ I’m sure he’ll be fine.” They rode up to the sixth floor in silence, but when the doors opened, J.P. shot out of the elevator and ran down the hall. By the time she reached the room, J.P. had the door open and was inside.

“ He’s okay,” J.P. said. “I’m gonna get him some water from the bathroom.” He was back in a few seconds with a plastic cup. He poured some of the liquid into Dancer’s water bottle and Christina watched while the bird drank.

“ He looks big for a pigeon.”

“ He is, it’s cuz he’s a racing homer. They’re bred to fly far and fast. He’s got lots more muscles than commies.”

“ Commies?” she asked.

“ Regular, everyday pigeons are called commies.”

“ Oh,” she said. He started to pick up the cage and she asked, “Do you have any clothes?”

“ Oh yeah.” He set the bird back on the bureau, went to the closet and tugged out two suitcases.

“ You don’t travel very light,” she said.

“ I was gonna stay with my dad for awhile.”

“ I’m sorry.” She looked around the room. “Where’s your father’s things?” She knew Tom always traveled with his tapes. She didn’t want to leave them to cause unnecessary questions later.

“ Next room.” J.P. opened the connecting door. Apparently they went straight from checking into the hotel to the record meet, because they hadn’t started to unpack. She found two suitcases at the foot of the bed. She opened one and seeing it full of female things, set it aside and opened the other.

“ That’s your dad,” she said to J.P. One change of clothes and about a hundred tapes. “They can’t all be Zep.”

“ Mostly,” J.P. said “But he was into Pink Floyd too. Probably lots of Floyd there. We should take this with us. His customer list is in there.” He pointed to a ledger wedged in among the tapes.

“ I was thinking the same thing.” She closed the suitcase and carried it into J.P.’s room. “Okay, time to go.” She carried two suitcases. J.P. carried one and the bird cage and they made their way to the elevator.

She still felt like calling the police, but she was starting to think if she did, she might get Rick into trouble. If the boys were up to something, she didn’t want to be responsible for getting Rick sent to jail.

It seemed like forever before the elevator showed and when it did, it wasn’t empty. They rode down with two couples that had been drinking too much in the rooftop bar and a large black man who looked like he’d rather be wearing anything else then the new suit he had on.

“ What kind of bird is that?” One of the men asked.

“ Racing homer,” J.P. said. “He’s fast.”

“ I had racing homers when I was your age,” the black man said.

“ Really? Any five hundred milers?” J.P. asked.

“ Some. You’re going to let him go?”

“ I was gonna but-”

Christina squeezed his shoulder and he bit back the sentence. She smiled at the black man, who got off on the third level.

“ Gonna let him go and he’s gonna fly away home,” one of the women said. It didn’t sound like a question and J.P. didn’t answer. Christina didn’t think those people should be driving, but she was a strong believer in minding her own business. She nodded at them when they acknowledged her, but when the elevator door opened, they were out of her mind.

“ We’ll leave the stuff here and go get the car.” They set the suitcases and the birdcage by the elevator and they started toward her car, with Christina leading J.P. by the hand.

A can clattered across the garage, but Christina barely heard. She was in a hurry to get home to the twins, and once again she wondered what Danny, Evan and Tom had been up to. She didn’t think it was drugs. She knew that Evan did coke, but Danny and Tom never touched the stuff. Tom didn’t even smoke cigarettes. But whatever it was, it had to be big and there had to be a lot of money involved for someone to kill them all in such a way. She hoped Rick had no part of it, but she was afraid that maybe he did, otherwise why hadn’t he told her to call the police right from the get go?

“ Christina, look,” J.P. said. She felt his hand tighten on hers as she followed his pointed finger.

“ Shit!” She stooped to look at the front tire. “Someone cut it up good.” She ran her hand along the slice. “Son-of-a-bitch!”

“ And the back one too. Someone with a big knife.” He was trembling. “The Ragged Man.”

“ The other side as well,” she said, then asked, “What Ragged Man?”

“ He’s a killer with a sharp knife, a Jim Bowie knife. I think he’s the one who killed my dad. I-”

Tires screeched around the ramp, heading up, cutting off J.P. Words. The sound echoed in the underground garage. Christina wanted to call out, but it was too late, the two couples from the elevator were gone. She looked over the tops of the cars. The elevator was across the garage. It didn’t seem like a short walk anymore.

“ Listen,” J.P. whispered.

“ What?”

“ No noise,” he said. “No sound, it’s like when the Ghost Dog walks in the woods. I gotta get Dancer.” He started to tug away, but she closed her hand on his, holding him fast.

“ What are you talking about?”

“ The Ragged Man’s dog,” he squeezed her hand back. “The Ragged Man, you know, what I said, the man who killed my dad.”

Somebody kicked another can and the rattling across the concrete electrified the silence.

“ Down!” She pulled him to the floor behind the car. He was shaking and tense. She felt his sweaty, child hand in hers, and she started to get angry.

She let go of his hand and opened her purse. J.P. grinned when he saw the gun in her hand.

“ We should be okay now. The Ragged Man doesn’t have a gun.”

“ He could have bought one.” Her whisper was forced and clipped. She didn’t understand what the boy was talking about and this wasn’t the time to be humoring him. They were in serious trouble and she needed all her concentration.

“ I can’t let him hurt Dancer.”

“ We can see the cage from here. If he gets anywhere near it I’ll put his eyes out,” she said.

“ Does he look okay?”

“ He’s fine,” she said.

A wine bottle came flying from out of nowhere and smashed on the wall behind them, exploding with a shattering sound that made her scream. This time J.P. did the hand squeezing and she calmed down.

She wanted to jump up and shoot the bastard, but there was nobody to shoot at. Maybe J.P. was right, she thought, maybe he didn’t have a gun.

Then the lights went out.

“ He knows where we are,” she whispered into his ear. “We have to move.” She shifted the gun to her left hand and gave him a reassuring squeeze with her right. “We can’t take the elevator, we’d be too much of a target, so we’ll use the stairs.” The stairway leading up was adjacent to the elevator. “We’re going to crawl along the cars. I’ll go first, you stay right behind me.” Without waiting for him to answer, she started crawling along the row of parked cars.

More glass shattered behind them. Another wine bottle, she thought. She was tempted to let loose a few rounds, but didn’t. She didn’t want to let whoever was out there know she had a gun, because despite what J.P. said, he might have one, too. The last thing she wanted was bullets flying in all directions.

Then the man started moving. His hard shoes ricocheted off the concrete floor, each step, a thunderclap in a hollow cave, and the steps were coming toward them. She reached back and grabbed J.P.’s hand and started crawling faster. The steps stopped and she did, too. He was listening. Trying to find them in the dark and now the dark was as much their ally as their enemy. If they remained quiet he’d never find them and sooner or later someone had to come.