Chapter 51
CHAPTER
Early in the evening on Monday, three days before he was to start his new job at Washington Day School, Gary Soneji could not take it anymore. The hunger, the desperate need, had been building in him ever since his big fight with Missy.
The two of them had argued bitterly all weekend over everything from the wedding to finances to Roni’s day care.
Part of him wanted to just divorce Missy—or kill her—but another part of him acknowledged that his marriage to Missy gave him valuable cover, cover he was sure he would need in the future. But another fight like that and who knew what he might do to her.
Leaving home that morning, he’d decided to give in to the hunger.
He was now two hours south of Washington, DC, waiting to sate his appetite.
He wore the workman’s coverall and sat in the battered white panel van, a black balaclava rolled up on his forehead.
He’d parked the van in a dirt lot across the street from a strip club called Tillie’s, a low, gray cinder-block affair with a garish neon sign on a lonely route just north of Richmond near the town of Short Pump.
Two summers ago, when he was working to drum up new heating-oil business in the region, Soneji had often visited Tillie’s. He’d been obsessed with a dancer there named Bunny Maddox. Lean physique, large breasts, and wild mane of auburn hair.
He’d not only thought about taking Bunny to the Pine Barrens; he’d planned it all out, knew just how he’d grab her. Now he was going to put his plan into action.
Soneji sat there in the van, hoping that Bunny still worked the early shift. She tried to clock out by eight thirty so she could be home for her kid.
The boy had to be—what, five? Six? Not that he really cared. He remembered Bunny telling him that half the time, her kid lived down in Florida with her mom and older sister.
“I get anxious,” Bunny had told him, running scarlet fingernails down his cheek the last time he’d paid her to dance for him. “Which makes me want to get high or drink or both. Which gets me in trouble. Makes me a shitty mom sometimes.”
Soneji wondered if that was still true as he watched a dancer leave through the employee door at ten past eight. Then five more women from the day shift came out and drove away. He didn’t want to go inside the strip club and risk showing up on a security camera.
At eight fifteen, Bunny was still a no-show. Eight twenty, same thing.
At eight twenty-eight, he was thinking that it might be time to head north. He’d actually started the van when Bunny Maddox came out the door and stumbled slightly as she crossed the lot.
“Still has problems,” Soneji said, smiling. He felt a little breathless as he watched Bunny climb into a Ford Galaxie that had seen far better days.
Soneji waited until she’d pulled out of the parking lot and swung onto the county road heading toward Richmond. His heart beat faster. He put the van in gear and drove after her at a distance, telling himself to breathe deeply and slowly against the anticipation swelling in him.
There was no room for any sloppiness.
As Soneji had seen her do repeatedly during his scouting trips in years past, Bunny drove from the club to the closest Virginia state liquor store, where he knew she’d buy her usual pint (or quart) of vodka.
Anticipating that she’d continue her typical pattern, Soneji drove ahead to her next stop, a Winn-Dixie about a mile away.
He parked the van and waited patiently with a panoramic view of the rest of the lot. Bunny’s Galaxie came rumbling in ten minutes later. After parking, the dancer ducked down where she could not be seen, probably so she could take a swig off her newest bottle.
The second he saw Bunny leave her car and wobble her way to the grocery store entrance, Soneji felt a sense of overwhelming confidence. If he stuck to his plan, took every precaution, and avoided sloppiness, Bunny Maddox was his.