Twisted: The Collected Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

to him.
    But the guy, Weller, he didn’t say anything else. And I got this weird feeling. Like this pressure building up. You know, because nobody was answering his damn, stupid question. I felt this urge to say something. Anything. And that was the last thing I wanted to do. So I said, “I’m gonna move the car into the garage.” And I went outside to do it.
    I looked around the garage to see if there was anything worth taking and there wasn’t except a Snapper lawn mower but how do you fence one of those? So I drove the Buick inside and closed the door. And went back into the house.
    And then I couldn’t believe what happened. I mean, Jesus. When I walked into the living room the first thing I heard was Toth saying, “No way, man. I’m not snitching on Jack Prescot.”
    I just stood there. And you should’ve seen the look on his face. He knew he’d blown it big.
    Now this Weller guy knew my name.
    I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. Toth started talking real fast and nervous. “He said he’d pay me some big bucks to let him go.” Trying to turn it around, make it Weller’s fault. “I mean I wasn’t going to. I wasn’t even thinking ’bout it, man. I told him forget it.”
    “But what’s with tellin’ him my name?”
    “I don’t know, man. He confused me. I wasn’t thinking.”
    I’ll say he wasn’t. He hadn’t been thinking all night.
    I sighed to let him know I wasn’t happy but I just clapped him on the shoulder. “Okay,” I said. “S’been a long night. These things happen.”
    “I’m sorry, man. Really.”
    “Yeah. Maybe you better go spend the night in the garage or something. Or upstairs. I don’t want to see you around for a while.”
    “Sure.”
    And the funny thing was, just then, Weller gave this little snicker or something. Like he knew what was coming. How’d he know that? I wondered.
    Toth went to pick up a couple magazines and the knapsack with his gun in it and extra rounds.
    Normally, killing somebody with a knife is a hard thing to do. I say normally even though I’ve only done it one other time. But I remember it and it was messy and hard work. But tonight, I don’t know, I was all filled up with this . . .  feeling from the drugstore. Mad. I mean, really. Crazy too a little.And as soon as Toth turned his back I got him around the neck and went to work and it wasn’t three minutes later it was over. I drug his body behind the couch and then—why not—pulled Weller’s hood off. He already knew my name. He might as well see my face.
    He was a dead man. We both knew it.

    “You were thinking of holding me for ransom, right?”
    I stood at the window and looked out. Another cop car went past and there were more flashing lights bouncing off the low clouds and off the face of the Lookout, right over our heads.
    Weller had a thin face and short hair, cut real neat. He looked like every ass-kissing businessman I ever met. His eyes were dark and calm like his voice and it made me even madder he wasn’t shook up looking at that big bloodstain on the rug and floor.
    “No,” I told him.
    He looked at the pile of all the stuff I’d taken from his wallet and kept going like I hadn’t said anything. “It won’t work. A kidnapping. I don’t have a lot of money and if you saw my business card and’re thinking I’m an executive at the company, they have about five hundred vice presidents. They won’t pay diddly for me. And you see those kids in the picture? It was taken twelve years ago. They’re both in college now. I’m paying major tuition.”
    “Where,” I asked, sneering. “Harvard?”
    “One’s at Harvard,” he said, like he was snappingat me. “And one’s at Northwestern. So the house’s mortgaged to the hilt. Besides, kidnapping somebody by yourself? No, you couldn’t bring that off.”
    He saw the way I looked at him and he said, “I don’t mean you personally, Jack. I mean somebody by himself. You’d need partners.”
    And I figured