Ken Douglas - Ragged Man

The car stopped and he decided. He left the gag on and rolled onto his back, concealing the fact that he had freed his hands. He closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. He heard the door open, then close. Then he heard footsteps walking on gravel. They were coming toward the trunk. He closed his eyes harder.

He felt the knife by his side and wondered if the Ragged Man would use it to kill him. He didn’t want to die and he was afraid like he’d never been afraid before. He tried to stop his jaw from quivering and his knees from shaking. He was hot, covered in sweat, dirty and he smelled as bad as the dead cat. His throat was parched dry and his hungry stomach ached for food, but he was determined not to cry, even though he couldn’t get that Jim Bowie knife out of his mind.

He shuddered and almost shit his pants when a loud explosion roared through the trunk. Then it was followed by another and he did. His bowels relaxed and it oozed out, hot and wet, filling his pants with the shit stinking stuff. He fought not to gag, because with his mouth taped shut, to gag was to die.

Then his ears rang for a third time as the man beating on the trunk said in a purely evil voice, “Are you alive in there?”

He squeezed his eyes tight, trying to shut out the stink and the fear.

“ Fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of a spoiled little brat.”

“ These are the times that try men’s souls,” he mentally said, “when the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will shrink from their duty.” His father used to say that whenever times were hard, and times were hard right now, he thought, anxiously whispering the words, “These are the times that try men’s souls. These are the times that try men’s souls. These are the times that try men’s souls. Oh God, please make him go away. Please, please make him go away.”

But J.P. knew he wasn’t going to go away. He just wasn’t. The man was going to open the trunk and use the knife to cut him into pieces and it was going to hurt a lot and there was going to be an awful lot of his blood running all over his face and his body and his clothes. He wondered if the man would kill him in the trunk or if he was going to take him out. He hoped he would take him out. He didn’t want to die in this dark place. He didn’t want to die at all. He wanted the man to go away, but when he heard the horrible sound of the key sliding and clicking into the trunk lock, he bit into his lower lip, because he knew for sure the man wasn’t going to go away.

He heard the key turn and peeked out of his eyes. He saw light begin to enter and chase out the dark. He closed his eyes back tight, but his ears felt the whoosh of cool air and heard the clunking noise as the trunk popped open. He clenched his fists against the fear.

“ Shit, you stink,” the deep voice said.

J.P. hoped the man would think he was asleep and maybe leave him alone.

“ I know you’re awake, so you might as well open your eyes.”

J.P. closed them tighter.

“ Shit your pants, did ya? Well, I suppose if I was in your place I’d be scared shitless myself.” The man laughed.

J.P. felt the man brush his side as he reached for something in the trunk.

“ Know what I have in my hand?”

J.P. knew.

Rick’s first impulse was to pick up the phone and call the police, but then he realized they wouldn’t believe him. They’d jail him without bail and J.P. would be killed.

It angered him that he’d allowed himself to be followed from Christina’s. His ruse last night may have fooled the desk clerk and the police, but that investigator either wasn’t fooled or he’d figured it out later. Rick thought he was better than that. He’d spent most of his adult life looking over his shoulder, but if the kidnapper had known where he was, why didn’t he tell the police and have him arrested for the murder of his friends?

He started to pick up the phone, to call Sheriff Sturgees in Tampico. He was a man he could trust. But he stopped himself in mid-reach. If the kidnapper was the killer and he was working with the police, he might also have the Sheriff’s confidence. No, he was on his own. He would have to figure out a way to save J.P. and catch or stop the killer himself, without help.

The first thing he had to do was to get out of the motel room. If the killer knew where he was, he was at his mercy. He could call the police at anytime and, if he was in custody, there was no way he could help J.P. He picked up the birdcage, then got an idea. He put the cage down and stepped out of the cheap motel room into the early morning mist, leaving the bird behind.

He crossed the street, making sure he wasn’t being followed this time. He walked around the block, making doubly sure he was unobserved. When he returned to his starting place, he walked back into the motel office and to his great relief the pimply-faced youth from the night before had been replaced by an elderly woman engrossed in her knitting.

He told her he wanted a room for a week. When she handed him the registration form he thought of J.P., named after the Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, and registered under the name John Bonham, Led Zeppelin’s dead drummer. He paid cash in advance and wasn’t surprised when the blue-haired woman didn’t ask him for any identification or ask why he had no baggage.

After he had completed the formalities, he crossed the street to the mini market, bought a toothbrush, toothpaste, razor blades, razor and shaving cream. Then he returned to the room he’d slept in and picked up Dark Dancer, before going to his new room to brush his teeth, to shave and to think.

In the small bathroom, he sprayed shaving cream onto his hand and shaved slowly, trying to concentrate on the nooks and crannies of his face, dragging the blade several times over the rough spot below his chin. When he reached the scarred area under his left ear, he gently shaved around it.

Finished, he washed off the remaining lather with hot water and brushed his teeth. He was marginally refreshed and had enjoyed the five minutes away from his problems, but now they were flooding back. He had to figure out a plan of action and act on it.

He had less than forty-eight hours to get to Tampico and stop whoever or whatever was bent on killing his friends. He couldn’t call for help, without running the risk of going to jail. He couldn’t drive, without running the risk of being picked up driving into town and he couldn’t fly, because he was sure the airport would be staked out.

There seemed to be no way for him to get to Tampico, without running the risk of getting caught and yet if he didn’t, J.P. would surely die. The killer had shown him, with daylight clarity, that he intended to continue tormenting him. And the killer had shown an amazing ability to ferret out his close friends and do away with them in a gruesome manner.

Evan and Sherry murdered in New York. Danny murdered on the river in Texas. Tom and his new wife, killed in broad daylight in Pasadena. Christina, Torry and Swell, vanished in the night. And if he didn’t do something, J.P. would be next.

He left the bathroom, picked up the shirt he’d worn the day before and as he was putting it on a thought hit him. He could fly to Tampico in Christina’s plane. It would be the last thing anybody would expect. But first he would have to get the keys. They were somewhere in her house and that meant he had to go back.

He did a few stretching exercises to get his blood moving and to calm his nerves. Then he went out into the day and headed toward her house. There were four police cars blocking the street, a crime lab van sitting in the front driveway and a crowd of gawking onlookers.

He joined the crowd, acting like another innocent bystander, and watched. After awhile two of the police cars left. Some of the crowd left. One of the remaining two police cars left. Two uniformed policemen draped a yellow banner across the front door bearing the words Police Line Do Not Cross. The last black and white left. More of the crowd left. The crime lab van stayed and Rick wandered away with the last of the crowd.