Saturday
The next morning a pale, anemic sun rose on Leroy Summers, who was speeding south on I-75, heading from Kentucky into Tennessee. He was driving their old camper, now sporting new decals (NRA, USA) that would identify them as sportsmen and patriots. Inside, it displayed a different array of decals—flags from each state where they’d grabbed a cutie, had fun with them in their upper berth and finally dumped their bodies miles away from where they’d grabbed them. For the past ten years, their system had worked perfectly. A dozen different states. Leroy had lost track of the cutie count.
“So tell me about Little Miss Poontang,” said Chet, lighting another cigarette. Just as Leroy had figured, the word timid had gotten inside Chet’s head, and at dawn he’d shown up at the camper, guns and gear in hand.
Leroy pulled a battered black album from under the driver’s seat. Usually, he kept it shoved beneath his mattress at home. It held all their memorabilia–pictures of their cuties—little hair ribbons and woven bracelets they kept as trophies. In the wrong hands it would send them both to death row; never did he leave town without it.
“Her info’s in the back. She lives in southwest North Carolina, on the lam with her father. Claims he’s dragged her up and down the Appalachian Mountains for years. She’s sick of it.”
“A child custody thing?”
“She’s never said,” replied Leroy.“She’s not chatty like most of ‘em.”
Chet peered at the pages devoted to Kimmeegirl.“Never given you any bullshit about all her cute boyfriends, or rich parents, or being a cheerleader?”
“Nope. She claims she sits home every night playing Scrabble with her old man.”
“That’s pretty weird. You sure she’s not scamming you?”
“What makes you say that?”
Chet studied her picture. “She’s way too pretty to be sitting home playing board games. She’s probably some cop, setting you up. Maybe even the FBI.”
For a moment, Leroy had a pang of doubt. Had Kimmeegirl scammed him, the ultimate scammer? He considered it for a moment, finally deciding no. He’d texted her for months. He knew real when he heard it. He could sniff out deception like a bad fart.
They rolled on, Chet flipping through the album, chuckling over a few of his favorite pictures. Suddenly he started squirming in the seat, finally pulling a white plastic hair barrette from under his butt.
“Look what you forgot, Mr. I Got Rid Off All The Evidence.” He held the barrette up. Two long reddish hairs still clung to it.
“That was Spitfire’s,” Leroy said softly.
Chet flicked at a tiny brown spot with his fingernail. “There’s still some blood on it.”
Leroy flashed back to Spitfire. Fierce as a little wildcat, she’d fought them from the get-go, all teeth and claws. When those deer hunters wandered up and banged on the camper door, she’d screamed like a banshee, quieting only after Chet took a hammer to the back of her skull. They’d dumped her body in some park in Pennsylvania and beat it back home, practically shitting their pants every time they saw a cop.
“We’d better get rid of this,” Chet told him.“Cops ever find this, we’re cooked. They have stuff that lights up bloodstains like a laser. And they’re still looking for that girl.”
“Toss it,” said Leroy. “Spitfire sure doesn’t need it anymore.”
Chet rolled down the window and heaved the barrette out, along with his cigarette. Leroy watched as the last remnant of Spitfire bounced into the early morning darkness, just another piece of junk on the highway.
The sleet that had greeted them at the Tennessee state line now began to cover I-75 in a fine, icy snow. The pavement grew white as they passed Knoxville, with mean little flakes slickening the road and making the camper’s rear end swing wide on the curves. Chet curled up in the back bedroom while Leroy drove on, dreaming about Kimmeegirl. What a treat to have all that young flesh, completely under his control. He was thinking of all the things he would do when the gas light on his dashboard came on. He pulled off at a truck stop, and after he filled the tank and emptied his bladder, he texted Kimmeegirl. On my way. CU soon! When he got back in the camper, he found Chet sitting in the driver’s seat.
“Show me where we’re supposed to go,” he said. “And you can sleep while I drive.”
Leroy pointed at a miniscule spot on his map. “There. Unaka.”
“Unaka? As in you naked?”
“Yeah,” said Leroy, remembering when he’d asked Kimmeegirl the same question. “Kind of.”
Chet gave a bray of a laugh. “All right! I’m down with gettin’ this girl naked!”
They went on, Chet driving as Leroy curled up on the bed, trying to sleep through a ride that grew more and more like the Tilt-A-Whirl on a midway. After almost getting tossed to the floor twice, he gave up on sleep and made his way back up to the passenger seat.
“Where the hell are we?” he asked, watching huge flakes of dizzying snow hit the windshield.
“Highway 64. Following the Ocoee River.”
“We’ve left the interstate?”
“Miles ago,” said Chet. “You put the snow tires on this crate?”
“Last month,” said Leroy. “But we’ve only got the donut for a spare.”
“Terrific,” Chet said with a grunt.
Leroy buckled himself in the passenger seat. As they crossed into North Carolina, the bad twisting road turned into a worse one, dipping into low spots where standing water had frozen to ice.
“Shit,” said Chet as he downshifted, teasing the camper up a mountain. For hours they crept along, when finally, at a wide curve in the road, their headlights flashed across a bank of trash dumpsters.
“Hold on,” said Leroy. “This might be it. Let’s see if we can find a sign or something.”
Chet stopped to let Leroy climb out of the camper. Immediately his feet flew out from under him, and he hit the ground hard, flat on his ass. Chet leaned on the horn, doubled over in laughter.
“Fuck you,” yelled Leroy, his tailbone burning. He got to his feet and limped over to the dumpsters. When he stooped down and wiped the snow from the biggest one, it revealed the stenciled letters UNAKA RECYCLING. He smiled, gratified. Kimmeegirl had told him the truth, just like every other stupid girl in love. Carefully, he picked his way back to the camper and hopped in the warm cab.
“This is it. We meet her here at noon tomorrow.”
Chet looked at him, incredulous. “At a bunch of trash dumpsters?”
“That’s what she said.”
Chet stubbed out his cigarette. “Leroy, unless that girl is an Eskimo, there’s no way she’s meeting us here tomorrow.”
“She knows snow, Chet. She’s lived in Maine. Canada, even.”
“I don’t care if she’s lived with penguins at the South Pole. This is a goddamned blizzard. If we stay up here overnight, we’ll get snowed in big time.”
Leroy frowned. Chet was usually an intrepid driver, rarely spooked by bad weather. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying I think we should let this chick go and get the hell back home,” said Chet. “These snow tires drive like they’re bald and according to you, we’ve only got a damn donut for a spare.”
Leroy sank back in the seat. He wanted Kimmeegirl badly—she was so special, so different from the pudgy, pimply-faced others.
Chet pressed his case. “Leroy, there’s a ton of cuties out there. Don’t you have three or four others on the line right now?”
“None this pretty.” He tweaked his brother with a sly glance. “None that come close to Darlene.”
“Pretty isn’t worth taking a header into one of these ravines. Not even Darlene’s worth that.”
Chet started to make a careful, snow-crunching U-turn in front of the garbage bins when Leroy put a hand on his arm.
“Wait,” he said. “I Googled this girl’s camp—I think I know where it is. How about we just go get her?” He grabbed the album, turned to a page with a map. “It’s not that far. We go in, grab her, and beat it before the weather gets worse.”
His brother gazed at him as if he’d lost his mind. “What about her old man?”
“I don’t know. Tie him up. Pop him if we have to.” Again Leroy pointed at the map. “We’re so close. We can go in there and be out of this mess in time for dinner.”
“This one’s really gotten in your head, hasn’t she?”
Leroy shrugged, suddenly embarrassed.“Yeah. I guess she has.”
Chet leaned over the steering wheel, gazing up through the windshield. The sky looked as if it was shaking thick pieces of itself to earth. After a long moment, he said, “How far is it exactly?”
“According to her, an hour’s walk,” Leroy replied. “An hour’s walk in good weather is what–probably an hour’s drive in the snow?”
“Are you sure you know where it is?”
“Totally,” Leroy lied. Screw the snow. He wanted this girl, bad.
Chet let a breath out through his teeth that sounded like the hiss of a snake. “I’ll give it a go,” he finally said. “On one condition.”
“What?”
He flicked his Zippo and grinned. “I get her first.”
Leroy didn’t like those terms, but the important thing now was just to get there, any way they could. He could think of how to outwit Chet later.
“Okay,” Leroy conceded. “This one’s all yours, right off the bat.”