Man of Wax by Robert Swartwood Read Free Book Online Page B

question. Why painting?”  
    “I just—” I shook my head. “I don’t know. It was something to do. I’m good at it.”  
    “I don’t buy it. There has to be more to it than that.”  
    The highway stretched out before me. Cars coming in my direction in the other lane, cars in front of me, cars behind me: they were all headed home, to a friend’s, out to eat, to maybe their own work. None were in the same position as me, their family held hostage, some kind of madman on the other end of a cell phone that wasn’t even theirs, that instead belonged to whoever had set this fucking thing up. For some reason, I hated each and every one of them.  
    I closed my eyes for a moment, pictured the one summer when I was a boy and went up to my father painting the backdoor. Heard the question I asked him, listened to his response.  
    “You know, Ben,” Simon said, “it won’t do your family any good giving me the silent treatment. I’m just trying to make conversation anyway, to ease the tension. It doesn’t really matter to me what makes you tick.”  
    “Then why’d you ask?”  
    Simon didn’t answer, but I could see that grin there on his goddamned face, and it made me grit my teeth. I pinched the cell phone between my ear and shoulder again, gripped the steering wheel with my left hand, while with my right I reached over and found the opened pack of cigarettes on the passenger seat.  
    Once I had the Marlboro placed in my mouth and lit, I said, “Let me talk to my wife again.”  
    “I don’t think so. You’ve already talked with her.”  
    “My daughter then.”  
    Silence. Then, “Hmm.”  
    I kept my eyes on the road, following the glow of red taillights, my foot lifting off the gas pedal.  
    “What?” I asked, my voice all of a sudden more cautious and tense than before. I flicked the cigarette out the window. “What is it?”  
    Simon said, “It’s just your daughter,” and paused. Took a few seconds, as if thinking of something. There was complete silence on his end, which made me wonder if maybe I’d lost the connection, or if maybe he’d hung up. Finally he said, “You haven’t checked the trunk yet, have you?”

 
     
     
    11

    There was no real shoulder along this particular spot of 395 but I pulled over anyway. Except pulled over isn’t quite right, seeing as how once I threw the phone down I gripped the wheel tight and slammed on the brakes. The Dodge protested immediately, its brakes screeching, the back of the car fishtailing. Luckily nobody was tailgating me, or else there may have been one ugly crash. As it was, a tractor-trailer was about one hundred yards behind, its driver not at all impressed with my driving skills, because a low horn blasted out right as it passed.  
    I barely noticed. Instead I just sat there, staring forward at the dash, and wondered just what I really wanted to do now. My mind had been feeding me blurry images since the beginning of what might be in the trunk, and now, with Simon’s help, those images had begun to gain focus.  
    More cars passed by on my left, what seemed just inches away. I ignored them all, debating what I wanted to do, until finally I cut the ignition and grabbed the key, started opening the door but then heard the rush of oncoming traffic and hesitated. Good thing too, because somebody else decided they weren’t impressed, and another horn shouted out into the night. I waited until there was a break in the cars and got out and started toward the rear of the Dodge.  
    “Please no, please no, please no,” I whispered.  
    More cars passed by on the highway, the rush even louder now that I was standing just feet away from them. The sky was clear, the temperature cool, and somewhere in the grass by the trees insects chirped.  
    And I kept whispering, “Please no, please no, please no.”  
    Somehow I made myself stop. I don’t know how long it took, how many minutes (or hours) passed, but eventually I fell quiet and