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Friday, July 24, 2015

54 Born to Make the Kill

Harman Rathbone used the shoulder of US 101 for a bike lane as he peddled his cruiser toward Lincoln City. A beautiful fall day, he had worn a medium weight jacket which, under the sharp angled sun, made him feel warm and comfortable. The early evening air felt cool and refreshed his flushed cheeks. The familiar and welcome burn in the muscles of his legs as they worked the tires against the loose gravel in the highway’s shoulder and the strong throb of his heart as it pulsed against his temples made him realize how good life was.

One of the shoe strings on his Reeboks felt loose, but he saw just ahead the gas station where he always picked up the evening newspaper. He pulled into the lot and stopped the bike in the driveway. He unzipped his jacket and dismounted. With the kickstand in place, he bent down to tie the shoe.



Tony tore through the door, spun quickly around the front of the van and jumped into the driver’s seat. He thrust the Colt into his waistband, tossed the newspaper at Rudy, and dropped the grocery bag on the floor between the two front seats. He reached for the bare ignition wires. “They know who we are, shit!”

“Why’d you shoot that kid?” the panic in Rudy’s voice unmasked.

The engine fired and Tony slammed the Ford into drive. “Leave no witnesses. The police know who I am and now we’ve left a credit card trail.”

“How’d they find us?” Rudy asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t take time to read the paper, just saw the headline and our picture. How’d they get that picture anyway, damn it? Read it aloud.”

Tony floored the accelerator and tore away from the fuel pumps toward the highway.



Harman heard the engine of a two-tone blue van and realized, as it began to roll towards the gas station’s driveway, he and his bike stood right in its path. He jumped back on the saddle to save it.



As the van lurched forward, Rudy turned to see if the other station attendant was anywhere in site. He hoped Tony had forgotten about him or maybe didn’t even know he had been there. Otherwise Tony would kill him too, but he was nowhere to be seen. He turned back towards the windshield.

“Watch out!” he yelled.



One eruption hadn’t been enough to satisfy the compulsive pressure behind his eyes. The drunk in the yellow coupe had born witnessed in his last seconds to the vengeance Tony recompensed on his gnarled world. The boy inside had just been collateral damage but the man on the bike would be swept away in an explosive flow he couldn’t outrun. Tony steered the van straight toward the man.



Horrified, Rudy braced his hands against the dashboard and watched as the old man’s body collided with the hood of the van. From his expression just before impact, Rudy could see he had predicted no escape. The power of the van accelerating toward the highway forced the man’s body to twist. His head crashed into the windshield face first. Rudy, only inches away from the most horrific sight he had ever witnessed, couldn’t tear his eyes away. The face that met his was terrified, tortured, and yet still alive. Its eyes were filled with horror and plead for mercy, but his mortality had been reduced to the silent scream coming from the gapping mouth pressed against the window.



Tony slammed the brake hard to disengage the body from the van. “Out of my way, damn it,” he shouted, and as soon as the man’s face began to slide down the glass with streaks of blood left in its path, he stomped on the accelerator. The van rocked and pitched as it rolled over the brutal chaos.

Tony screeched, “Ha, ha, haaaa,” as he heard the sounds of the man and the bike sweep under the tires. The resonance of his voice reverberated throughout the van and was so hideous in its timbre, Satan himself would have slapped Tony on the back with pride had he witnessed it.



All Natalie could hear in that horrific moment was a shriek like a chainsaw’s whine as it tears through sheet metal. Her ears filled with the terrifying screech. She didn’t hear the man strike the windshield nor the sounds of his crushed bones under the tires, just the shrill wail which deafened all other reality out of existence. It wouldn’t quit but rang in her head until she realized the rage came from deep inside her. When she gasped for breath, it stopped.



“Shut the hell up,” Tony shouted. “What’s that damned newspaper say?”

He wrestled the steering wheel under control as the van came about on the highway and the tires bit into the pavement with a squeal. He began to feel another laugh birth deep inside as he drove without regard to any other living being through Lincoln City and he let it roll out of his belly.



Rudy looked toward him and for the first time realized he was riding shotgun to a mad man. Natalie had been right, he had no conscience. This man was dangerous—a lunatic. He and Natalie’s demise were imminent unless he could find a way to stop it. He turned and looked at Natalie. Her terror filled eyes showed agreement with his assessment as the silent tears flowed over the blackish swelling of her bruised cheeks

The pit of his stomach began to surge and he rolled down his window just in time to vomit the contents out and down the side of the door.

When the queasiness passed, he rotated his head back toward Tony. He knew it was pointless to plead, but he had to try. “You’re out of control. We have to stop this before someone else gets hurt.”

“Shut your whining hole and read the paper.”

Rudy stared at him as long as he thought safe and then resolved to find the above-the-fold front-page news story. Horrified, he found his picture along with Tony and Hank. No matter what he did now, if they were caught he would be complicit in their capital crimes, and all this before his eighteenth birthday. He could only hope for leniency if the law caught up with him—maybe they would try him as a minor—or a quick death if Tony’s pistol would be his fate.

He read the article aloud.

“… In a telephone interview,” Rudy continued as the story concluded, “with Special Agent Angela Hawk of the FBI—”

“The FBI?” interrupted Tony. “Shit, shit, shit! What else?”

“Ah,” Rudy said and found his place. “She stated that with the help of the Lassen County sheriff’s department, they had located the suspect’s abandoned vehicle and determined the three men may have continued to head north on US 395.”

“Damn it, if they found Ma’s car, they know we stole this piece-of-shit van.”

When Tony didn’t go on, Rudy finished reading. “The three men are also wanted for questioning in an unrelated case in Reno, Nevada where they have been linked to a man who was murdered in a casino parking lot on Friday.”

“Goddamn, they’ve tied us to that?” Tony mumbled. “We’ve got to dump this van.”
_____
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