The Mad and the MacAbre (9 page)

"I don't know! That's the whole problem! If
we can find an answer, I'll do it, but I can't think of one! I
probably shouldn't have kept you alive even this long. The police
could be on their way right now."

"They're not."

"I'll make it quick," Charlie promised. "I
never do, but this time I will. It'll be over in seconds. You'll
hardly even feel it."

"My name is Patti."

"I don't care."

"I just want you to know that. My name is
Patti."

"I said I don't care." Charlie ran a hand
through his hair, thoroughly frustrated. She was ruining his
celebration with Kutter.

"I can come up with a plan," Patti said.
"Just give me time. Give me an hour."

Charlie considered that. It was a bad idea,
a terrible idea, but it seemed fair to give her a chance. She might
come up with something brilliant. If he could resolve this
situation without murdering her and risking having the police hunt
him for the rest of his free life, it would be worth taking the
chance on keeping her alive awhile longer.

"Okay," he said. "I won't kill you yet."

"Thank you."

"Put your thinking cap on. I'll go get you
some food. Do you like cereal?"

* * *

Charlie closed the basement door behind him
as he stepped into the kitchen. He didn't have any steak in the
house, and though there was a twenty-four-hour grocery store not
too far from his home, he wasn't sure it was a good idea to leave
the house right now. He and Kutter would just have to celebrate
with bacon strips.

He walked into the living room. "Kutter!
What the hell--?"

Kutter stopped chewing on the couch cushion.
He'd exposed a piece of the stuffing, and another bit of white
fluff was on the floor.

"Why are you chewing up my couch?" He
hurried across the room. Kutter ran to the other side, thinking it
was playtime.

"You idiot, I was going to buy you a steak
tomorrow! Steak! I bet you've never even had a steak. A big, thick
juicy steak on the way and you're trying to eat my couch? Why would
you do that? Huh? Why?"

Charlie stood there, waiting for an answer.
Then he remembered that he was unlikely to receive one.

He couldn't believe this. He hadn't even
been the dog's official owner for half an hour and Kutter was
chewing up the furniture.

He sat down on the damaged couch. Kutter
jumped up next to him.

"Go away. I'm mad at you."

Kutter prodded Charlie's hand with his cold
wet nose, seeking petting.

"No. You don't deserve to get petted. You're
a bad dog. Good dogs don't chew up couches. Only evil ones do
that."

Kutter continued to prod him. Charlie
reluctantly petted his head.

"What's wrong? Were you just stressed out
because your old owner tried to take you away?"

That might've been it. Byron's unexpected
presence might've confused the poor animal. And Kutter might've
been scared by having Charlie go down into the basement so soon
after Byron left. Maybe he thought that Charlie had left him
forever.

"I'm sorry," said Charlie. "You're not a bad
dog. We'll make up." He took Kutter's paw in his hand and shook it.
"Deal?"

Kutter licked his face.

* * *

Charlie watched the 11:00 PM news to see if
there was anything about Patti. Nothing. That wasn't
surprising--she'd hadn't been missing for very long, and if she
lived on campus and had a boyfriend, it might not be unusual for
her to come home late.

He had time.

"What a waste," he told Kutter. A beautiful
girl in his basement, and he simply didn't feel like torturing or
killing her. How had his life turned out this way?

He decided not to go downstairs to check on
her. She'd be fine until tomorrow. Then Charlie would call in sick
to work, and spend the morning either following Patti's plan, or
disposing of her body.

* * *

The alarm went off as usual at 6:30 AM.
Charlie got up, threw on a robe, took Kutter for a quick walk, came
home, brushed his teeth, and then practiced his "sick voice" a few
times. He thought it sounded pretty good. He considered leaving his
voice mail without using a script, then lost his nerve and wrote
down what he wanted to say. He kept it simple--giving more
information than was necessary made it sound like a lie.

He dialed Bob Testiro's number. It rang
twice.

"Hello?"

Charlie froze. Bob
was
never
in this
early. "Uh, Bob? It's Charlie Stanlon."

"Hey, Charlie, what's up?"

He considered coughing into the phone, then
decided it would sound forced. "Nothing much. I'm just calling in
sick."

"What's wrong?"

"Sore throat. Some aches and pains."

"Charlie, we're already two people down this
week. I worked all day Saturday and half a day yesterday to get
ready for the global operations center's visit. You really can't
fight through a sore throat and some aches and pains?"

"I...guess I can."

"Thanks. It's just really not a good time
for you to be out. If you're still not feeling well on Tuesday, it
won't be an issue. See you in a bit."

Charlie hung up. That hadn't quite gone as
planned. He couldn't afford to get fired, so it looked like he'd be
going in to work today.

It would be fine. He'd left women in his
basement countless times while at work. It even made the day more
pleasant, knowing they were down there. He'd simply have to treat
this situation no differently than any of the others. If there'd
been a witness, the cops would've been at his door by now, so he'd
just trust that the security measures he already had in place were
sufficient. And maybe this was a good thing. His job was pretty
boring, so he'd have all day to brainstorm ideas on how to let
Patti live.

And after he dealt with that, he thought he
might build Kutter a doghouse.

* * *

Charlie stared at the stapled papers.

Alicia had been doing so well, but there it
was, stapled in the top center instead of the top left. Only one of
them--the others were done correctly--but this could be the start
of a trend. If he didn't say something, the entire batch of papers
could be improperly stapled tomorrow. He'd have to pluck out all of
the staples and redo them, which wasted staples and put his
fingertips at risk for puncturing.

He started to type an
e-mail to Bob, then stopped after "
Bob, I
need to bring to your attention
--"

Alicia was always nice to him. She was the
one who'd suggested that he keep Kutter. If he hadn't listened to
her, Kutter could've been gassed or adopted by an unloving home.
She'd said that if he had a problem with her, he should bring it to
her directly, so that's what he'd do. She deserved that much.

He picked up the flawed papers and walked
over to her desk.

"Uh-oh, did I screw something up?" Alicia
asked.

Charlie shook his head. "No. It's all
fine."

What was he saying?
It
wasn't
fine. It
was wrong in a way that he'd already asked her to fix. Why was he
suddenly compelled not to mention it?

Coming over to her desk was a mistake. He
should've just e-mailed Bob. It was never a good idea to change the
plan.

Alicia was a lot more beautiful than he
remembered.

"I just wanted to tell you that I get to
keep the dog," he said. "The real owner came over, but he's letting
me keep him."

"Really? That's great! I bet you're
thrilled!"

"Yeah. So...thanks."

"For what?"

"For your help."

"Oh, I didn't do anything. I just told you
to keep him."

"That helped."

Alicia smiled. "Well, then I graciously
accept your thanks. Now tape a damn dog picture to your monitor.
That's the rule."

"Okay."

She returned her attention to her work.
Charlie didn't leave. His mouth had dried up and he ran his tongue
all over the inside, trying to replenish the moisture so he could
speak.

"Did you...did you want to get coffee
sometime?" he finally asked.

Her smile faltered. Just for a fraction of a
second, but it faltered.

"You know," she said, "some of us get drinks
after work on Wednesdays."

He knew. Alicia had mentioned it a couple of
times, but he always declined the offer. It sounded boring.

"You should come with us."

Did she really want him to come along, or
was she just trying to get out of a coffee date? He was almost
positive it was the latter. He couldn't blame her for that.

"I didn't mean it like that," he said. "I
wasn't asking to...I wasn't asking because I wanted to..."

"No, no, I understood. Coffee as friends.
I'm sure you have a rule against dating co-workers just like I do.
But you really should come with us for drinks on Wednesday. Coffee
counts as a drink."

"Maybe."

"Is that a legitimate maybe, or a maybe
meaning no?"

"A legitimate one."

"Great! We'll look forward to having you
along."

Charlie returned to his desk, feeling
humiliated. He never should have asked her out. That was idiotic.
There was no possible way she'd ever have said "yes," and now she'd
go around the office telling everybody what he'd done.

He could hear her voice: "Oh, he's got a
cute little crush on me! It's so adorable!" She probably thought he
was a pathetic little puppy, following her around, too stupid to
know that she was out of his league.

He wasn't sure if he should go with them on
Wednesday or not. Most likely, Alicia had just invited him to
escape from the awkward social situation.

He'd leave her alone from now on.

* * *

After an endless day, Charlie drove home. At
least he knew Kutter wouldn't decline his invitation to go for a
walk.

As soon as his key touched the lock, he
could hear Kutter's happy barking on the other side of the door. He
opened the door and his best friend gave him the usual wildly
enthusiastic greeting. "Good boy," Charlie said, crouching down and
petting him. "You're always a good boy, aren't you?"

He glanced over at his couch.

No new tooth marks. No stuffing all over the
floor.

However, there was a big puddle of vomit on
the left cushion, much of which had trickled down the front and
onto his carpet.

"Aw, come on, Kutter, why would you do
that?" Charlie asked. "You couldn't hold it in until I got home?
I've got an entire kitchen of tiled floor that you could've puked
on. Why did you need to do that on my couch?"

Kutter did not answer.

"What are you even eating
that you would've--aw,
shit!
"

Literally.

"That's horrible, Kutter. Horrible. That's a
horrible thing to eat and a horrible thing to vomit on my couch. I
can't believe you would do that."

Charlie's was not always a
life of great dignity--after all, he'd once found himself in his
basement sobbing over the corpse of a victim who'd died too
soon--but he'd never eaten and thrown up his own feces. Even his
moments of most intense shame were never
that
low.

"You suck, Kutter." Charlie glared at his
dog. "If I had let you lick my face before I saw that, you'd be out
on the street."

Oh well. If there was one thing that
Charlie's home didn't lack, it was cleaning supplies.

He took Kutter for a much shorter walk than
usual, then brought him back inside and took off his leash. When
Charlie opened the basement door, Kutter pushed past him and ran
down the stairs. Charlie didn't bother calling him back--Kutter
couldn't jump up on the table, and Patti couldn't get down, so it
really didn't matter if the dog was down there or not.

He had mentally run through scenarios all
day, trying to figure out how he could let Patti go without putting
himself in serious danger. He couldn't think of any, except to
leave her here and flee to his cabin, but even in that scenario
he'd be more likely to get captured and arrested than if he just
killed her. Still, he was the first to admit that he didn't always
think of every possibility, and he hoped that she'd been more
successful.

Kutter scampered around the room while
Charlie cut off Patti's gag. "Do you have to go to the bathroom?"
he asked.

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

She looked scared, but she also looked
defiant. She could be as defiant as she wanted--she was still
strapped to a table, and she wasn't getting away.

"I tried to find a solution," Charlie said.
"I really did. What did you come up with?"

"Here's what I came up with. If you kill me,
my parents will hunt you down to the ends of the earth. You will
never know another moment of peace. You will--"

Charlie put his hand over her mouth. "I
didn't ask you to come up with a speech. Is that really all you've
got for me? A threat? All this time down here and your answer is to
tell me that your parents will seek revenge?" Charlie was
incredulous, but it also made him feel a little better about
himself. If she'd spent about twenty hours in a basement with
absolutely nothing to do but think about how they could work things
out, and even she was unsuccessful, then there truly had to be no
answer. It wasn't just him.

He pulled his hand away. "They'll torture
you," Patti said.

"They'd do that even if I let you go."

"They'll fuck you up."

Charlie picked up the knife. "You didn't do
what you were supposed to. This isn't my fault."

"You'll burn in hell."

"You think I don't know that?"

"They'll—"

"Enough! Do you want the blade in your
throat or in your heart? You pick."