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'Holy Mary Mother of God,' Connie said. She was breathing heavy, and her forehead was beaded with perspiration.
'He isn't going to die in there, is he?' I asked Connie. 'He can breathe, right?'
'He'll be fine. I asked my cousin Anthony. Anthony knows these things.'
Lula and I didn't doubt for a moment that Anthony knew all about stuffing bodies in trunks. Anthony was an expediter for a construction company. If you treated Anthony right, your construction project moved along without a hitch. If you decided you didn't need Anthony's services, you were likely to have a fire.
Connie locked the office, and we all piled into the Firebird.
Twenty minutes into the trip Anton Ward came to life and started yelling and kicking inside the trunk.
It wasn't that loud from where I was sitting, but it was unnerving. What must he be feeling? Anger, panic, fear. What was
I feeling? Compassion? No. In spite of Connie's expert assurances,
I was worried Ward would die, and we'd have to bury him in the dark of night in the Pine Barrens. I was going straight to hell for this, I thought. It was all adding up. I was for sure beyond Hail
Marys.
This guy's creeping me out,' Lula said. She punched a number on her CD player and drowned Ward out with rap.
Ten minutes later I could feel my cell phone vibrating. It was hooked to my Kevlar vest, and I couldn't hear the ring over the rap, but I could feel the vibration.
I flipped the phone open and yelled, 'What?'
It was Morelli. 'Tell me you didn't bond out Ward.'
There's a lot of static here,' I said. 'I can't hardly hear you.'
'Maybe it would help if you turned the radio down. Where the hell are you, anyway?'
I made crackling, static sounds, disconnected, and shut my phone off.
Hard to tell when the yelling and kicking stopped, but there were no sounds coming from the trunk when Lula parked in Vinnie's driveway and cut the engine.
It was still raining, and the street was dark. No lights shining from any of the houses. The ocean roiled in the distance, the waves thundering down onto the sand and then swooshing up the beach.
It was pitch black when we huddled around the rear end of the
Firebird. I had a flashlight. Connie had the stun gun. Lula was hands free to open the trunk.
'Here goes,' Lula said. 'Here's the plan. Soon as I get the lid up we want Stephanie to shine the light in his eyes in case the blankets come undone, and then Connie can zap him.'
Lula opened the trunk. I switched the light on and aimed it at
Ward. Connie leaned forward to zap Ward, and he kicked out at
Connie. He caught Connie square in the chest and knocked her back four feet onto her keister. The stun gun flew out of Connie's hand and disappeared into the darkness.
'Shit,' Connie said, scrambling to get to her feet.
I ditched the flashlight, and Lula and I wrestled Ward out of the trunk. He was bucking and swearing, still wrapped in the blanket.
We lost our grip and dropped him twice before we got him into the house.
As soon as we were in the kitchen, we dropped him again.
Connie closed and locked the kitchen door, and we stood there breathing hard, dripping wet, gaping at the pissed-off guy writhing around on the linoleum. He stopped wriggling when the blanket fell away.
