“Do it again and see what it gets you,” Lee invited, and now there was something
deadly in his voice. He was getting ready to go all the way. Dykstra was sure of it.
I’ll testify in court. And when they ask me what I did to stop it, I’ll say nothing. I’ll say that I listened. That I remembered. That I was a witness. And then I will explain that that is what writers do when they’re not actually writing.
Dykstra thought of running back to his Jag—quietly!—and using the phone in the
console to call the state police. *99 was all it took. The signs saying so were posted
every ten miles or so: IN CASE OF ACCIDENT DIAL *99 ON CELLULAR. Except
there was never a cop around when you needed one. The closest tonight would turn
out to be in Bradenton or maybe Ybor City, and by the time the trooper got here, this
little red rodeo would be over.
From the women’s room there now came a series of thick hiccuping sounds,
interspersed with low gagging noises. One of the stall doors banged. The woman
knew that Lee meant it just as surely as Dykstra knew it. Just vomiting again would
likely be enough to set him off. He would go crazy on her and finish the job. And if
they caught him? Sec ond degree. No premeditation. He could be out in fifteen
months and dating this one’s kid sister.
Go back to your car, John. Go back to your car, get in behind the wheel, and drive
away from here. Start working on the idea that this never happened. And make sure
you don’t read the paper or watch the TV news for the next couple of days. That’ll
help. Do it. Do it now. You’re a writer, not a fighter. You stand five-nine, you weigh
162 pounds, you’ve got a bad shoulder, and the only thing you can do here is make things worse. So get back in your car and send up a little prayer to whatever God
looks out for women like Ellen.
And he actually turned away before an idea occurred to him.
The Dog wasn’t real, but Rick Hardin was.
Ellen Whitlow of Nokomis had fallen into one of the toilets and landed on the hopper
with her legs spread and her skirt up, just like the hoor she was, and Lee started in
there after her, meaning to grab her by the ears and start slamming her dumb head
against the tiles. He’d had enough. He was going to teach her a lesson she’d never
forget.
Not that these thoughts went through his mind in any coherent fashion. What was in
his mind now was mostly red. Under it, over it, seeping through it was a chanting
voice that sounded like Steven Tyler of Aerosmith: Ain’t my baby anyway, ain’t mine,
ain’t mine, you ain’t pinning it on me, you fuckin’ hoor.
He took three steps, and that was when a car horn began to blat rhythmically
somewhere close by, spoiling his own rhythm, spoiling his concentration, taking him
out of his head, making him look around: Bamp! Bamp! Bamp! Bamp!
Car alarm, he thought, and looked from the entrance to the women’s room back to the woman sitting in the stall. From the door to the hoor. His fists began to clench in
indecision. Suddenly he pointed at her with his right index finger, the nail long and
dirty.
“Move and you’re dead, bitch,” he told her, and started for the door.
It was brightly lit in the shithouse and almost as brightly lit in the rest-area parking lot, but in the notch between the two wings it was dark. For a moment he was blind, and
that was when something hit him high up on the back, driving him forward in a
stumbling run that took him only two steps forward before he tripped over something
else—a leg—and went sprawling on the concrete.
There was no pause, no hesitation. A boot kicked him in the thigh, freezing the big
muscle there, and then high up on his blue-jeaned ass, almost to the small of his back.