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“The b—box...” he weakly motions to the mail organizer/key hook which adorns the wall next to the front door.
I look; see two pegs but only one set of keys. Two handcuff keys strung on the ring. Graham’s then. Graham’s unmarked car is out in the driveway. Molly’s car, the shitbox as we call it, is not.
I nod, leave.
I light up a smoke as I cross through the front door, take the steps in one drop and hit the grass. I work Graham’s phone and find the cell phone locator app he has installed on it. Molly’s phone comes up, a flashing dot superimposed on a map. The street is labeled; nine blocks north and three to the west.
Got the location, got the getaway car. I walk past the black and white with its door standing wide open, flick my cigarette inside. Hopefully it’s that rookie cocksucker who thinks I’m any old reporting party waiting for him at the end of the drive.
“Sorry, pencil dick. I’ve got someplace to be.” And I roll out. Nine blocks to the north and three to the west.
38
The first time I saw Molly, I thought of classic Hollywood.
The way her hair seemed to glow in the sunlight like a halo. My wife’s did that. No one else’s did until Graham introduced me to his bride. Her big smile, capped under high cheekbones. Molly wore her eye shadow in a complete circle around her eyes, which set them off as a sparkling, dazzling electric blue.
“Richard, this is Molly. She’s the one who liked the Oktoberfest brew over the autumn lager,” Graham said as he motioned to her, quaintly dressed in gray plaid with red lips.
We were waiting outside a steakhouse so I could catch a smoke before we were seated. He had been bugging me to meet his wife for months and I had kept putting it off because Denise in Records said she’d seen Molly and thought Molly was a whale who fancied herself a whore.
Couldn’t be further from the truth. I should have known; Denise herself needs to buy two airplane tickets and gets easily threatened by any woman who isn’t dead. Women are so catty.
“Don’t marry her then,” I said, extending a hand to shake hers. “The Oktoberfest was swill compared to the lagers.”
Graham and I had been drinking the local brewery’s stuff a lot around that time. I knew Graham had been dating Molly since before he’d become a cop and they were married shortly after he graduated the academy, which was great for their honeymoon.
“I see why Graham has kept you hidden from me for so long, Richard,” Molly said, shaking my hand.
“Why’s that?”
“Because I punch anyone who drinks that autumn lager.”
“You beat your husband?”
“He drinks Oktoberfest at home with me. I think he’s humoring you with that lager.”
I gave Graham a sidelong glance. He shrugged, turned red.
“Sonofabitch, Graham,” I said. “Your wife is going to punch me and you’ve been lying about beer? This whole time?”
Graham put an arm around Molly and said, “I think our table is ready.”
I never invited him for an autumn lager again. I don’t booze with liars.
Reaching back to those memories, how her strawberry perfume mingled with my rib dinner that night, I think to how Graham would never say anything without bringing his wife into the conversation. How they never had children. How they almost adopted twice before being nitpicked and rejected at the last minute. Once I saw her looking at a professional picture of all these happy, chubby babies lined up and smiling, and her hand absently caressed her own womb. Found nothing. How Graham told me she had four brothers and two sisters.
But she was happy. She was fulfilled. A good man loved her and now she’s stuffed in her own car and if I don’t do something right now, she’s as good as morgue-bound.
I check the blinking dot on the phone and gun it harder.
Hardware store.
The shitbox is parked out in BFE, near the exit to the road. I roll up and leave my own car running, charge up to the driver’s side and see it’s empty. Molly’s cellphone is in the cup holder where she leaves it all the time. She also has a bad habit of leaving the window rolled down and therefore has a bad record of said cell phone getting stolen right out of her car.
The rapist has left it unrolled as well. I lean in, pop the trunk. A muffled scream. I come around the car and she’s bound but flailing about, trying to kick in the face whoever walks up.
“Good girl,” I say and dodge a blow. Lean in; lift her out with an arm. Shut the lid. Pocketknife cuts her gag and wrist bindings. She starts bawling and wraps her arms around my throat. I squeeze her tight and watch the hardware store’s front entrance. No skeezy perv coming out.
