Hell Within -- Chapter Five: The Humanist -- Scenes 5&6

-5-

He looked down at the clock on his dash.

7:39.

Good.

The Bridgeton Dairy Queen was situated on one corner of the parking lot of what had been the Kmart. It was an L-shaped shopping center called Stonington Plaza, but most of the shopping center had died when Kmart closed its doors.

The parking lot behind the building was dark so with the headlights off his Regency Brougham -- the old car he normally used to make a run in -- must’ve looked like nothing more than a dark metal hulk.

But he could see into Dairy Queen’s parking lot well.

It was brightly lit by amber lights.

The white escort station wagon that was the target of this stakeout sat about fifty feet away from him facing the road.

He thumped the gold cross necklace hanging from his rearview mirror, and the cross pinged against the windshield. It was not the kind of necklace that a man would wear. The chain was thin and the cross small.

Often, people who rode in the car with him would ask what it was for or where he’d gotten it. He would tell them that it had belonged to his mother.

But he’d never known his mother.

The situation connected to the necklace was the reason he’d left Alabama four years ago.

He couldn’t remember if Mandy wore a necklace or not, but he was sure there was something.

He reached in his glove box and pulled the nickel-plated derringer out and checked the chamber. He liked this weapon because it was small, and if you cupped your hand around it just the right way, no one could see it.

Aside from the owner of the cross necklace, he was the only person who’d cast eyes on it in four years. It still had the same .22 hollow point in it that it had that night. He hadn’t used it to do the deed; for that, he had a special tool. And that tool was in his left pocket.

His father had given it to him for his twelfth birthday. He’d used it for the first time in Mississippi when he was seventeen. He wasn’t in the habit of showing it to people, because it was a collector’s item -- an original Case Canoe.
In his business, anything that one could easily pawned had a way of disappearing.

Mandy had seen it once.

Just after she and her mother had moved in to his trailer.

He’d come home from making a run, and found her in his bedroom going through his things. If he’d only done something about her then, no one would have ever known.

Now he had to be careful.

He opened his ashtray, pulled out the blunt he’d been toking earlier, and fired it up. He sucked it in and held the sweet smoke in his lungs and then released it, and the familiar heaviness immediately washed over him.

And now the waiting game began.

He lifted his tattoo-laden right arm, turned his wrist over and stared at the three names in black, blue, and red.

Lacy.

Melvin.

Ginger.

Often when he was showing off his tattoos, someone would ask him what those names were, and he’d tell them they were the names of his children that he left back in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama.

But Davy had no children.

-6-

Mandy was bone weary when she stepped out of the warmth of Dairy Queen into the bitter cold of the parking lot fishing around in the Zipper pouch on the front of her backpack.

This was going to be a stressful ride across town.

She didn’t have any cash because she’d only picked up her check for the week before she’d went into the hospital today when her shift started, and she was driving on fumes. It was too late to cash it.

As for how she was going to get all of the way to Clarkesville she had no idea. Hopefully Dr. Ambrose would be kind enough to loan her a few bucks until tomorrow.

She found her keys, stepped over to the driver’s side door, and unlocked it, and then she sat down in the driver’s seat. She was stabbing for the ignition switch when she felt it.

Something hard, smooth, and cold pressed against the back of her head. She started to turn around but then came the voice.

"Don’t turn around. Crank the car, and drive into Kmart’s parking lot. I have a gun pointed at the back of your head."

The fear was instant and intense. It surged through her chest like a jolt of electricity.

She began to cry.

"Shut the fuck up," he said.

She cranked the car, and backed it out. Then she pulled into Kmart’s parking lot as he’d instructed.

"What do you want from me?" she said.

She felt his head over her right shoulder close to her ear. So close that she smelled the sweat on his forehead, and felt the heat of his breath on her neck.

"Remember what I told you about talkin to the cops?"

She didn’t look at him.

She was afraid to.

"Pull in next to my car, and when we stop, you’re gonna cut the engine and hand me your keys. I’ll get out first and when I tap your window, you’ll get out real slow. Fuck with me, and I’ll shoot you."

She pulled in next to his car and reached for the ignition.

But her hands were shaking so badly now that she could barely hold onto the keys. She managed to cut the engine off, but she dropped the keys as she was passing them back.

Davy caught them with his free hand.

"You tryin to fuck with me?"

She shook her head.

"Cut off your goddamn headlights."

She pressed her headlight knob in, and the parking lot was dark once more.

"I’m gonna get out now. Don’t even think of trying to run or scream for help. I fixed your passenger door so it won’t open."

She heard the back door behind her open and felt the back end of the car lift as Davy stepped outside. She eyed the latch on her passenger’s side door and found that he had broken it off.

Trapped.

And Davy was going to kill her.

The passenger door clicked shut, but she felt Davy watching her like a hawk. She could duck out of his view, but even if she did and managed to squirm into the back seat before he started firing at her she had no guarantee that he hadn’t broken the latches off the other doors as well.

She’d be a sitting duck.

She felt him fumbling around outside, and then came the tap at the window.

It was a gentle tap, but the shock of it was so sudden that she jumped. She opened the door and climbed out eyeing the barrel of the small pistol he had cupped in his hand.

Now she saw what he had in mind. The trunk of the big, brown Brougham was open.

Davy backed away from her.

"Get in the trunk," he said.

Mandy took a step toward him, and her eyes were so sharply focused on him that she didn’t notice the shadowy figure standing just behind him.

"Excuse me?" the figure said, and Mandy dropped to her knees at once.

Davy spun around, aiming the pistol in the direction of the voice.

"David Lester. Are you going to kill me, too, and put my name on your arm?"

Mandy crawled under her car and gaped back at the figure behind Davy, and she recognized his form. It was Dr. Ambrose.

"Back off," Davy snapped.

Dr. Ambrose didn’t move a muscle. "You won’t get away with this, you know. You think you’re smart, but you don’t know what you left behind in Alabama."

"Who the fuck are you, man?"

"You thought you weighted the body down well enough so that it wouldn’t surface, but it was discovered a week after you left."

"Get the fuck outta here!"

"The police haven’t connected you with her, yet, but they have your semen. Not only that, her mother’s gonna recognize that cross necklace instantly."

Davy backed away from him. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Damn, Davy. The girl was only eighteen. All of that torture and death over a bag of stolen dope.

Davy fired the gun but Dr. Ambrose stood in place unfettered.

Dr. Ambrose stepped toward him slowly, and Davy backed away until his foot caught against the concrete stop bar at the front of the parking space, and he fell backwards.

Dr. Ambrose continued to advance on him slowly.

Davy dug into his pocket and came out with a pocket knife. He opened it and stood up.

"Don’t come any closer," he warned.

But Dr. Ambrose didn’t stop.

Davy stabbed at him, and Dr. Ambrose grabbed the knife by the blade. The instant that his hand touched the knife, Davy fell limp to the ground.

Dr. Ambrose closed the knife and tossed it on the ground beside him.

"You can come out now."

Mandy poked her head out from under the car and eyed Davy and then Dr. Ambrose.

"Don’t worry, he’s not dead just sleeping."

She climbed out from under the car skirted around Davy, and then ran to Dr. Ambrose and hugged him hard.

Then she drew back and looked up at him. "How did you know?"

He sighed. "After last night, I had a bad feeling."

"He was only five feet away from you! How did he not hit you?"

He shook his head but said nothing.

"Is your hand okay?" she said thinking of the way he grabbed the knife.

"I’ll be fine."

She looked back at Davy, and then she turned back and cried into his chest.

(Continue to scene 7)