Read Online The Suicide Motor Club by Christopher Buehlman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Christopher Buehlman
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start walking toward the couch. A dark suspicion tried to form in her mind but she pushed it down. It came up again anyway, attached to a memory from the farm in Kansas. A huge, mottled pig hanging upside-down over a bucket, flies in the air.
She opened her mouth now, meaning to scream, but the bald man took the
TV Guide
from her hand, rolled it into a tube, stuck it in her mouth. He said she should hold it and bite down so she did, her saliva soaking the newsprint.
Now a big man with a neck brace had her ankles and she went upside-down, awkwardly bumping her head on the cushions. She nodded because she had been right about the pig, making the magazine go up and down. She saw carpet, shoes, the girlâs bare feet, plumbed with eely veins. She saw the black manâs faraway eyes, his shiny chin, then looked along his powerful forearm. His wrists were raw, like heâd been tied.
The bald man whispered in his ear, smiling.
The bald man had sharp teeth, like a dogâs.
She saw what the black man was holding.
A carpet knife.
âSorry,â he said, bending to her but not really looking at her. âIâm sorry.â
He said it the whole time.
â
THE RAMBLER WAS FOUND PARKED ONE BLOCK AWAY.
Jack Smalls remembered nothing that happened in the Trautmann house, not even how he got there, why he stayed in the house. He had been found at the kitchen counter eating bacon he had fried up himself; a neighbor had seen his dark face through a gap in the curtain. His public defender swung between hopelessness and exasperation. Bail was set so high even Buddyâs Liquor Lounge wouldnât serve as collateral on the bond. Buddy told everyone whoâd listen how Jack had been framed, that he was a good man, that something real fishy had happened, though his theories on what changed from week to week.
Betsy Trautmann was laid to rest that Thursday in a white casket, next to her husband. Six of her typing students got permission to come, though only two of them did. Erich Mueller attended in a wheelchair pushed by his teenaged son, the German instructorâs mustache oiled for the occasion.
As dictated in her will, Betsyâs headstone read
DEVOTED WIFE
GELIEBTE LEHRERIN
11
Missouri
âMY NAMEâS NIXON, JUST LIKE THE PRESIDENT, BUT IâM NO TRICKY DICK. MINE only knows one trick. Okay, two. My nameâs Luther, and that rhymes with . . . well, just Luther. If I were older than you, I could be long-in-the-toother. Huh? If your mom watched a play I might John-Wilkes-Booth-her. Huh? Right?â
Did this jerk really just talk about his dick to me?
Barb blinked once, slowly, letting her eyelids rest shut for a half second as if praying for the angel of removing nuisances to whisk this tiresome, pale man away from the sidewalk table she and her cousin had unwisely chosen. She pushed her fingers through the tableâs wrought-iron curlicues. She didnât know she was doing it. To Barbâs horror, her cousin, Peggy, actually seemed pleased that someone was paying attention to her.
âRight,â Peg said to their guest. Now she nodded at the long red muscle car he had pulled up in not three minutes ago. âNice ride. That yours?â
Peggy was actually
encouraging
the jerk. It wasnât as if she were desperate. Sure, Peggy was a little wide in the hips and tried too hard to look like the teenagers, wearing her pink lipstick and headbands, but she had a pretty face. Not like the man who had set his glass of boozyice on their table, as if by accident, responding to Barbâs flinty gaze by saying, âSorry, I thought you were my friends.â There was nothing pretty about Luther Nixon.
âMaybe we are your friends,â Peg had said, âonly you just havenât met us yet.â It had been all Barb could do not to roll her eyes. Luther had wasted no time pulling up a heavy iron chair, dragging it on the bricks as if to make sparks.
Peggy was a
She opened her mouth now, meaning to scream, but the bald man took the
TV Guide
from her hand, rolled it into a tube, stuck it in her mouth. He said she should hold it and bite down so she did, her saliva soaking the newsprint.
Now a big man with a neck brace had her ankles and she went upside-down, awkwardly bumping her head on the cushions. She nodded because she had been right about the pig, making the magazine go up and down. She saw carpet, shoes, the girlâs bare feet, plumbed with eely veins. She saw the black manâs faraway eyes, his shiny chin, then looked along his powerful forearm. His wrists were raw, like heâd been tied.
The bald man whispered in his ear, smiling.
The bald man had sharp teeth, like a dogâs.
She saw what the black man was holding.
A carpet knife.
âSorry,â he said, bending to her but not really looking at her. âIâm sorry.â
He said it the whole time.
â
THE RAMBLER WAS FOUND PARKED ONE BLOCK AWAY.
Jack Smalls remembered nothing that happened in the Trautmann house, not even how he got there, why he stayed in the house. He had been found at the kitchen counter eating bacon he had fried up himself; a neighbor had seen his dark face through a gap in the curtain. His public defender swung between hopelessness and exasperation. Bail was set so high even Buddyâs Liquor Lounge wouldnât serve as collateral on the bond. Buddy told everyone whoâd listen how Jack had been framed, that he was a good man, that something real fishy had happened, though his theories on what changed from week to week.
Betsy Trautmann was laid to rest that Thursday in a white casket, next to her husband. Six of her typing students got permission to come, though only two of them did. Erich Mueller attended in a wheelchair pushed by his teenaged son, the German instructorâs mustache oiled for the occasion.
As dictated in her will, Betsyâs headstone read
DEVOTED WIFE
GELIEBTE LEHRERIN
11
Missouri
âMY NAMEâS NIXON, JUST LIKE THE PRESIDENT, BUT IâM NO TRICKY DICK. MINE only knows one trick. Okay, two. My nameâs Luther, and that rhymes with . . . well, just Luther. If I were older than you, I could be long-in-the-toother. Huh? If your mom watched a play I might John-Wilkes-Booth-her. Huh? Right?â
Did this jerk really just talk about his dick to me?
Barb blinked once, slowly, letting her eyelids rest shut for a half second as if praying for the angel of removing nuisances to whisk this tiresome, pale man away from the sidewalk table she and her cousin had unwisely chosen. She pushed her fingers through the tableâs wrought-iron curlicues. She didnât know she was doing it. To Barbâs horror, her cousin, Peggy, actually seemed pleased that someone was paying attention to her.
âRight,â Peg said to their guest. Now she nodded at the long red muscle car he had pulled up in not three minutes ago. âNice ride. That yours?â
Peggy was actually
encouraging
the jerk. It wasnât as if she were desperate. Sure, Peggy was a little wide in the hips and tried too hard to look like the teenagers, wearing her pink lipstick and headbands, but she had a pretty face. Not like the man who had set his glass of boozyice on their table, as if by accident, responding to Barbâs flinty gaze by saying, âSorry, I thought you were my friends.â There was nothing pretty about Luther Nixon.
âMaybe we are your friends,â Peg had said, âonly you just havenât met us yet.â It had been all Barb could do not to roll her eyes. Luther had wasted no time pulling up a heavy iron chair, dragging it on the bricks as if to make sparks.
Peggy was a
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