Ridley Pearson - Cut and Run

“Sounds like there’s a lot you don’t know. Not very reassuring.”

“As long as they don’t have you, Penny’s safe.” God, how he hoped he was right. “And whatever you do that they ask will only ensure that both of you are killed.”

The Explorer complained as it climbed a long twisting hill, revealing pumpkin patches and apple orchards and unexpected colors brought on by early frosts that had yet to reach the city. The leaves were changing here, a swirling mix of maturing oranges, reds, and browns. Paint by number. PICK YUR OWN-3 MILES AHEAD. The Orchard House was just around the next bend. Her body stiffened once again, telling Larson that she recognized it, too.

In the motel room’s dimly lit bathroom Paolo dabbed a slippery antibiotic cream into the red, raw, self-inflicted wound on his abdomen, addressing the infection. In the mirror, covered in the white flyspecks of someone else’s flossing, the chaotic scar tissue, the randomly drawn bumps and lines that lay across his chest and midsection reminded him of dead worms on blacktop after a hard rain.

His eyes shifted focus in the speckled reflection. Behind him and to his left he encountered the bound ankles, knees, and shoulders of the little girl tucked into the bottom of the open booth that served as a closet. She wore a pair of his dirty socks tied around her head, the ends connected by a shoestring, the bulging knot jammed into her mouth.

Having phoned in the girl’s abduction-his success-to Philippe, he now awaited instructions as to what came next. He placed down the tube of cream. The girl turned away from him as he double-checked her gag and the duct tape on her wrists and ankles. He repeated this ritual every five minutes. Kids could be tricky little things.

“I don’t like this, either,” he said to her, though he might have been talking to himself again. “I told you that.” The girl made no indication of hearing him. “It wasn’t exactly my idea, snatching you up like that.” Now, for the first time, she turned her head. Her sad eyes, bloodshot and irritated to a pitiful pink, pleaded with him. Then he watched as she caught sight of the mosaic of his scars.

Whimpering, she turned away again.

Paolo slipped on a black T-shirt. He tried again. “I can remove this stuff, you know? Penny? Are you listening? The tape. The gag. You understand? You could watch cartoons. Whaddya think?”

He stood and fumbled with the remote control. “You want to watch cartoons?” He cycled through the channels, hitting mostly ads. No cartoons. He tossed the remote onto the bed, pissed off at it.

“Come on!” he said to her. “Do something. Nod, if you want me to remove the gag.”

She cowered into the corner of the closet, a tight little ball of pale fear.

“Nothing I’d rather do than cut you loose. You understand that?” He studied her. “All we need is an agreement, and I can cut you loose. No screaming, no fighting-and I remove the tape and gag. Okay?” He moved closer to her, craned down to where he could smell her fear, and said, “Do you think you’re helping anything?”

Her head pivoted slowly. Her nose was runny, and he went over and got her a tissue and brought it back and held it at her nose so she could blow, and she did. Not just once, but a couple of times.

“See?” he said. “I want you to be as comfortable as possible. This is going to work out.”

She nodded and tried to speak. Paolo grinned ear to ear. His eyes brightened. He reached out to pet her head, but thought better of it.

“By nodding you’re promising me you won’t do anything stupid-won’t shout or anything like that. Are we both clear on that?”

Penny nodded for a second time.

“All right then. Yes. Good.” He was already loosening the gag. “Real good.” The sock fell down around her neck.

Penny said softly, “I’ve got to go potty.”

A few minutes later he’d untied her and helped her to stand. Her knees, ankles, shoulders, and wrists ached. She leaned on him for the first few steps, trying to find her balance.

“You can shut the door,” he said. “But don’t lock it. If I hear you lock it, I’m going to have to bust it down. And then our deal is over, and I’ll have to tie you back up.”

Frightened, she managed yet another nod.

“Okay. Go on and do your business.” Penny entered the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She dropped her pants and pulled down her panties and sat down to pee, but her mind was on escape. She was hearing her mom telling her all this stuff she never really bothered to listen to. Over and over, the same boring stuff. Stuff about where to go if they were ever separated, how to scream and run, how to bite. Her mom had once showed her everything in the kitchen that could be used to hurt someone, telling her over and over that she was only showing her this stuff in case it was absolutely necessary, in case someone tried to rob them or something like that . But the way she’d said it, the something like that was the important part. This felt like one of those times: something like that.

She looked around. Dental floss, a toothbrush, a tube of ointment .

She reached forward and grabbed the ointment, because one of the things her mother had showed her had been all the stuff under the sink, and how most of that stuff if squirted or sprayed into a man’s eyes would blind him. She squeezed a little dribble out onto her finger and held it close to her nose and smelled it. It didn’t smell like the kind of stuff that would hurt your eyes. She put it back.

“You done in there?” he asked through the door.

“Almost done.”

A plastic basket that was supposed to look real held tiny bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and lotion. Next to that was a brown tray with two coffee mugs and a little dish with plastic-wrapped coffee creamer and sugar. In the corner, a coffee maker.

Her eyes returned to the coffee mugs.

She finished up and pulled her clothes back up, but her eyes never left those two coffee mugs. The image was vivid in her mind because she’d been the one who had knocked the mug off the kitchen counter and broken it. Like the mug, she’d then broken into tears, made all the worse when her mother had cut her finger picking up the pieces. That bleeding finger was so present in her mind now because she’d glimpsed the awful man’s stomach-all those scars and that one fresh cut-and somehow the two things connected in her thought. Blood .

He knocked.

It spiked through her like a jolt. “I know. I know!” She didn’t need to try to sound annoyed with him.

She wrapped one of the coffee mugs in a towel, several layers thick. She could feel the man about to open the door. As she wielded the towel up over her head with her right hand, her left tripped the toilet flush, wanting the noise. Just as the toilet crashed into a gurgle, she flung the towel to the bathmat on the floor and felt the cup shatter.

Opening it, she selected a decent-sized curved, triangular shape, handling it delicately, remembering how effortlessly it had cut her mother. She closed up the towel as the toilet finished its coughing and glugging, wrapped it into a ball. Now what? She looked for a place to hide it. She spun around in a panic. Where? she wondered.

She placed it into the garbage can. Too obvious.

“Okay. Open up!” Only the thickness of the door separated them.

She pulled back the garbage can’s white plastic bag liner and stuffed the towel and its contents beneath the bag that she now saw held the scabby remains of an orange peel and several pieces of crumpled tissue. She returned the liner around the lip of the garbage can, wrapped her chunk of pottery in a wad of toilet paper, and slipped it into her front pocket. Then she changed her mind and put it into her sock, behind her ankle where it fit well.