Quarry in the Middle - Max Allan Collins [50]
I minimized my movement, but the tarp was so heavy, and the boat’s trajectory loping enough, the engine noisy enough, that I figured I needn’t worry too much. The tape looped around my hands put them in a praying position, but I hadn’t stooped to prayer just yet. I still had better options.
And the best one was to find something sharp enough to work at the duct tape. These guys weren’t the brightest, or maybe their boss Jerry G wasn’t, because if they’d used any kind of rope, I really would have been praying—and making every promise to the Man Upstairs you can think of, about my new reformed life. As it was, they’d used duct tape.
And duct tape is designed to tear easily.
“River’s a rough fucker tonight,” a high-pitched, whiny voice said from the bow.
“Pretty, though,” came a more mellow, lower-pitched voice from nearer me, at the stern, working itself above the motor. “Nice clear night, for so choppy.”
This was the black guy, I’d venture. He had a soothing bass, with an Isaac Hayes vibe to it. The asshole at the bow was clearly white, probably the bearded head-butt artist with the beer belly.
“Wish to fuck I’d brought a jacket,” the white guy said.
“You got that right.”
“Is that why the river’s so empty? Too fuckin’ cold?”
“Yeah. Normally, this time of year, even this time of night? You’d have some assholes out drinkin’ and drownin’.”
“There was a few up nearer River Bluff.”
“Yeah. They’ll be more down Ft. Madison way.”
The river seemed to settle down a little. I wished they would start talking again. I’d thought the way my wrists were bound, I might be able to get my fingers down to where I could get enough purchase to do some judicious ripping. But that wasn’t happening. So now I was trying to explore the bottom of the boat, and find something sharp to work the duct tape on.
Two or three minutes went by before the white guy blurted: “Will you look at that full the fuck moon! Not a goddamned cloud in the sky. Look at them fuckin’ stars!…Ever wonder if anybody’s up there lookin’ back down at us?”
“What, like God, you mean?”
“Naw, not Jesus or nobody. I mean, outer-space-type aliens. You know, Star Trek shit. E.T. phone the fuck home?”
The black guy chuckled.“I don’t think so.”
“What, so then, like, we’re all alone down here? Whole great big universal galaxy, and it’s just us idjits? I mean, what are the fuckin’ odds?”
“Odds, one hunnerd percent.”
“How you figure?”
“One hunnerd percent, fool. Ain’t no aliens on a star.”
“And why is that, smart-ass?”
“Because a star is a gaseous mass.”
The white guy made a farting sound with his lips. “You’re a gaseous mass.”
“Maybe so. But I ain’t a ignorant redneck gaseous mass.”
That shut the white guy up.
I was enjoying the conversation—not because of its intellectual aspects, or its rustic American humor, but liking that these two stupid sons of bitches were distracting each other, while I was moving my hands down to where the metal hooks for a middle bench would’ve been, had it not been removed so the boat could be used for hauling contraband and dumping bodies and other fun and games.
I damn near laughed—the black guy on a bench at the stern, the bearded idiot on a bench at the bow, and me in the middle again. Didn’t take long at all, and made zero noise (at least any that registered), using the metal edge of that fastener to carve through the duct tape.
The white guy asked, “Where should we dump the cocksucker?”
“Let’s give it another ten miles or so.”
“Before Ft. Madison, though.”
“Yeah. Before.”
“…You know, my brother’s in there.”
“Huh? Where?”
“Ft. Madison! The pen!”
“What’s he in for?”
“Killed a dude at a register, 7-Eleven.”
“That was stupid.”
“Well, the dude had a gun under there. That’s self-defense!”
The black guy had no comment.
I had removed the duct tape from my mouth, for comfort, not practicality, but had decided that I could not risk undoing the tape locking