The Silver Bear Read Online Free PDF Page B

I’ve done a thoughtful thing for this girl, and the clerk is back looking at his binder before I even leave the store. Maybe I can pull this off, talk to this girl, gain some insight into her world and what she imagined she would be doing with her life. Find out where her life took the left turn instead of the right, where she missed the exit and eventually got lost and discovered that her map was terribly inaccurate. Maybe I can learn about someone for once, someone whose life had been like my mother’s, with no hidden motives.
    In the car, I slide back behind the wheel and put the six-pack on the seat so the girl will see it when she returns. It’s as simple as that, buying her breakfast, giving her this six-pack of beer, and that smile will come to her lips again, and she will lean back in her seat, and she will be warm and rosy, and she won’t have to say things like cocksucker and pee and we can have a normal conversation like normal people.
    A moment exists in time—a flash of a moment—right before you realize how fucked you are. You can’t explain it scientifically, but a shiver settles on the back of your neck as though someone placed an ice cube there. The fine hairs on your neck stand erect like they’ve been jolted with electricity. A rush of heat flashes through your body and your muscles all contract in unison. This happens instantaneously, when your mind hasn’t quite caught up to your body’s impulse. It is what I felt when I happened to glance in the back seat.
    My duffel. She had reached for my duffel and I had immediately seized her arm and jerked her around hard. Therefore, there must be something valuable in the duffel. She must have taken it while I was in the store.
    I bolt from the car and around to the bathroom, knowing instinctively the clerk’s eyes are riveted on me. Nothing. Just a key stuck in the open door of a filthy bathroom and no trace of the girl or my bag. Behind the Texaco, a thick growth of trees, a country road leading to oblivion, and no sign of the fucking girl. Pandora has climbed out of her box.
    My breath escapes quickly, four quick bursts, and then I’m off into the woods. I don’t even know what goddamn name to call her, to call out, so I just stay quiet, a determined expression now blanching my face. I have to improvise, to hunt her quickly. How long will the clerk look at that rental car parked in front of the store before he calls the police with a declaration that something a little strange is going on down at the Texaco? He saw the girl. He saw me. He saw her go around to the back and then he saw me spring from the car after her. Had I even shut the door of the car? I’m not sure. Son-of-a-bitch, how had I let this get so out of hand?
    I have five minutes, maybe ten to find her before the clerk ventures out to see if we’re in the bathroom together. After that, who knows? Another five minutes to call the police? I’m fucked. That’s all there is to it.
    Trees everywhere, and then, a clearing, and I catch a glimpse of her just as she crosses into the growth about a tenth of a mile from where I stand. She caught sight of me, too, and I spot a panic in her face usually reserved for wild prey. Maybe she’s seen what’s in the bag and she’s spooked. But she hasn’t dropped the duffel either; I can see its yellow flash caught against her dark skirt.
    I close the distance in no time. She’s skittish, and she makes a mistake, turns and trips over a dead oak stump. Her hands go up as my footsteps crunch through the dead leaves, on her back, arms bent, scrambling, scratching the air, trying to get me off before I’m even there.
    And then my foot comes down on her neck, twisting her face into the dirt so that those pretty teeth are smeared with earth.
    “No, mister. Please. I don’t want it. I didn’t mean to . . . I didn’t mean . . . I didn’t mean . . .”
    Fighting with everything she has, every inch of strength she can muster, her arms wailing at my