Chapter 52
CHAPTER
He liked rural areas. There weren’t a lot of people around, and residences were scattered and often isolated, making situations far easier to control here than they were in urban environments.
Bunny lived with her brother and a male cousin and, at times, their girlfriends.
The presence of so many people would ordinarily have all but eliminated the dancer as a target in Soneji’s mind, and it certainly would have if she’d lived in a city.
But Bunny’s house was well off a county road and largely blocked from sight by a kudzu infestation that crawled up the trunks of the pine and oak trees and hung down from their limbs like so much green drapery.
He saw the mailbox and slowed. Rain began to sprinkle as he lowered his window and peered down the drive into the kudzu and pines. He saw rusted gate posts set to either side about thirty yards in from the road.
Everything was as he remembered it.
Soneji drove over a rise in the road, pulled the van onto the shoulder where Bunny wouldn’t see it, and turned off his headlights.
Then he tugged down the black balaclava, put on a headlamp and a second layer of latex gloves, and stepped out of the van.
He shut the door softly and turned on the red bulb on his headlamp.
As he trotted back down the road, he peered south for headlights approaching but saw none before reaching the drive. He walked fast up the shallow grassy ditch and tiptoed across the gravel to the open gate.
Soneji swung the gate shut and wrapped the chain around the post just a few moments before he heard the growl of Bunny’s car coming. The rain was falling harder. He ignored the drops in his eyes, walked fifteen feet toward the road, pressed himself back into the kudzu, and turned off his headlamp.
The Galaxie came closer. Soneji retrieved the Bulldog pistol from his right pocket. He tugged a ragged two-inch strip of flannel fabric out of his left pocket and pushed it into the vegetation behind him.
Headlights slashed the county road, then flooded the drive as Bunny pulled in. Her tires crunched across the gravel and the car slammed to a halt a few feet from the closed gate. She threw the car in park and heaved open her door, which squealed on its hinges.
“Assholes,” Bunny slurred. She slammed her door shut and started forward. “Close the gate? Calvin, what the—”
She had no chance to finish the expletive because she had stepped in front of Soneji, so close he merely had to raise his free left hand to clamp it across her mouth. He jammed the muzzle of the Bulldog against the side of her head.
“Scream and you die, Bunny,” he said, seeing her eyes, wide and terrified. “You’re not going to scream, are you? You want a chance at a long life, don’t you? Another chance to see that son of yours?”
The dancer was trembling, but she nodded.
“Good,” Soneji said. “Now, back up with me.”
He stepped from the kudzu. He guided her backward several steps and told her to open the Galaxie’s door. When she did, he saw groceries in the back and a quart of vodka on the passenger seat beside her purse.
“Lean in,” he said. “Turn off the headlights. Turn off the engine. Leave the keys, your purse, and your groceries. Take the bottle if it’ll help.”
The dancer hesitated when he lowered the gloved hand from her mouth. He pressed the pistol muzzle harder against her temple and she did as he’d asked. The driveway went dark and quiet save for the rain and the ticking of the Galaxie’s engine.
He turned on the red light of his headlamp as she straightened up, gripping the liquor bottle, and turned to face him.
Bunny was crying. “Who are you? Why are you doing this?”
“I’m going to tell you everything, Bunny,” he said. “Just come along quietly and I promise you’ll hear all about it, and you’ll be seeing your son before you know it.”