Fifteen minutes.
“I’ve got to go to the bathroom, Marlin.”
“You really gotta pee, gal? You’re not shittin’ Marlin?”
“I really do. Can I get up? Really slowly?”
Marlin nodded. He’d straightened, the gun pointed right at her chest. “I’ll go with you, Marty. No, I won’t watch you pee, but I’ll be right outside the door. You do anything stupid and I’ll let my pa cut up that pretty face of yours.”
“No, Marlin, I’ll cut up this gal’s pretty face. First I’ll cut off all her hair, scrape my knife over her scalp so she looks like a billiard ball. Then I’ll do a picture on her face. You got that, gal?”
“I got it.” Ten minutes. Calvert and Williams Streets. She wasn’t familiar with them, but Dillon would be.
Her downstairs bathroom was disgusting. It stank of urine, of dirty towels, of dirty underwear, and there were spots on the mirror. “Did anyone ever tell you you were a pig, Marlin?”
She wished she’d kept her mouth closed. He punched her hard in the kidney. The pain sent her to her knees.
“I might be a pig, Marty, but you’ll be dead. Not long now and you’ll be dead and rotting and my pa and I will be driving into Virginia. There’s some real pretty mountains there and lots of places to hide out. Do your business now, Marty. We’ve got to get out of here. Hey, you gotta pee because you’re so scared, right?”
“That’s right, Marlin.” She closed the door on his grinning face, heard him lean against it, knew he was listening. She knew she didn’t have much time.
He banged on the door just as she flushed the toilet. “That’s long enough, Marty.”
When she walked out, he shoved her back in. He looked around. “I’m not the pig. It’s my pa. He never learned how to do things ’cause his ma never taught him anything, left him lying in his own shit when he was just a little tyke, made him lie in his own shit when he was older, just to punish him. She wasn’t nice, my grandma.”
“She doesn’t sound nice,” Lacey said. “Why’d you come here, Marlin? Why do you want to kill me? It’s a really big risk you’re taking. Why?”
He looked thoughtful for a long moment, but the gun never wavered from the center of her back. “I just knew I had to take you out,” he said finally. “No one can beat me and get away with it. I thought and thought about how I could get out of the cage in Boston and then that judge just handed me a golden key. Those idiot shrinks were a piece of cake. I acted all scared, even cried a little bit. Yes, it was all so easy. There was my pa, sent me a message in prison, and I knew where he was waiting. All I had to do was get in Brainerd to the Glover Motel just at the western edge of town. There he was, had clothes for me, everything, a car with a full tank of gas. I knew then that I could get you, take you out, and then I’d be free. Actually, it was Pa who hit that FBI guy in Boston, nearly sent him off to hell where he belongs.”
“I know. Your pa used your driver’s license. We got the license plate.”
Marlin wasn’t expecting that. “Well, I told Pa to be careful. He was sure he’d knocked the FBI guy from here to next Sunday, but he didn’t. He really got the plate, huh? No matter. Everything’s back on track now. I just wish that the FBI guy had gotten his.”
Hannah moaned from the kitchen.
“Now, let me see if you tried to leave any message for that muscle boy you’re sleeping with.”
She didn’t move, barely breathed. And waited. He poked around a bit, then straightened. “You’re smart, Marty. You didn’t try anything. That’s good.”
Hannah moaned again. They heard Erasmus say something to her. They heard a sharp cry. The bastard, he’d hit her again.
“You’ll come, won’t you, Marty? You’ll come to me at the center of the maze? My pa will kill her slow if you refuse. It sounds like he’s already got started. You got the picture now, don’t you?”