Then he turns and hits the floor with a jumbled thud.
Well, what the fuck just happened? He fucking wants this?
No, that can’t be it. It can’t be. That has to be the alcohol talking, or something in the roofies that I gave him. He’s been here, drinking and celebrating, living it up ever since he killed my sister, and that’s the only explanation that makes any sense.
“Hey, this isn’t a fucking hotel. No sleeping on the floor,” Jayson, the bartender, says.
I nod, let some of the shock and surprise I’m feeling come into my voice, and call out, “I know. He just kind of passed out on me.”
“He does that. A lot. If he weren’t such a good customer, we wouldn’t let him in anymore.”
“I’ll get him out of here. I’m parked out front. But I don’t think I can carry him. Can you give me a hand?”
Jayson shakes his head, and for a moment, I regret giving him a tip. Why be nice to the guy if he won’t help me facilitate this kidnapping and murder? All I need him to do is help me carry the body.
“I can’t. But Bruce can,” he says. Then he calls out above the general din of the bar. “Bruce, can you give Adriana a hand here with Ricky? He’s passed out again.”
Moments later, Bruce, who looks like the second-generation descendant of a silverback gorilla, is by my side. He doesn’t just help me with Ricky — he carries him for me. “Where do you want this piece of shit?”
“I’m in the silver Taurus out front,” I say. Then, seeing a flicker of something on his face and feeling self-conscious, I add, “It’s a rental. I don’t normally drive a Taurus.”
I don’t. I have a 2002 Toyota Tacoma that was my first vehicle, that my dad and I turned into an off-roading truck. Vanessa and I would sometimes go off-roading together, where we’d drive out to the Chequamegon forest and drive like reckless fools to try to embarrass all the boys. Most of the time, we’d fail — we didn’t know what we were doing — but we had fun doing it.But that was when Vanessa was still my sister, still alive, and the only mud she liked was whatever spattered the windshield of the truck, instead of the shit she’d stick in her veins.
But old pickups aren’t the best vehicles for kidnappings. However, an inconspicuous, old sedan that no one would willingly look at twice is perfect.
“I don’t judge. We all hit our low points. I see it all the time, working here.”
I sigh. There’s no point in arguing; Ford Taurus or not, this is the low point in my life. But now that I’ve hit rock bottom and found the man who murdered my sister drinking in the sketchiest of bars in Sacramento, maybe now I can start healing. Maybe life won’t seem so empty after this. Maybe I won’t keep seeing Vanessa’s face in my dreams, wondering what might have happened if I had actually found her before she became a brief blurb in the obits section in fucking Boise.
It’s not like I wasn’t trying. It’s not like I didn’t go to sleep most nights hoping that, maybe, tomorrow I’d wake up and have a text or an email or a missed call from my sister. That’s all I could do — hope. Hope that she’d decide she was done dropping off the face of the earth and that she’d want to come home to her family. To the people who would love her no matter what she’d done.
“Thanks, Bruce,” I say, and open the door of the car as he dumps Ricky’s body in the back seat. “Appreciate it.”
“Ricky’s a big pain in the ass. If you could get him to settle up on his tab and then, you know, never come back here again, I’d appreciate it.”
“I’ll see what I can do to get him out of your hair for good. No promises, though. I just feel so sorry for the guy. He’s such a wreck. I’m going to get him home and maybe, I don’t know, leave him a note or something telling him not to be such a fucking asshole all the time.”
“He’s lucky to have found you. You have a good night.”
My lips stay sealed in a tight line when he says that — I don’t want to smile; especially the kind of smile that wants to come out at that comment. Lucky to have found me? No, Ricky’s lucky days of living and partying it up after killing my sister are over.
I slip into the driver’s seat, start the engine, and look back at him over my shoulder. He’s snoozing away, off in wherever a murdering piece of shit like him goes to dream.
“It won’t be long now.”
He twitches. Murmurs. “Vanessa.”
I hit him across the face; he’s so drugged it doesn’t wake him. “Fuck you for saying her name.”
I drive.
Not long after, we’re in an even seedier part of Sacramento, parking in the lot of a place called the “Red Eye Motel.” A bloodshot, neon eye looks down from the billboard, and gives the parking lot a dystopian hellscape vibe; they take cash only, the front desk guy watches porn on his phone at full volume, and the vending machine is empty except for spider webs and a single tuna sandwich. The vending machine isn’t refrigerated.
“Not much longer now,” I say. Then I get out, grab a rolling dolly from the trunk that I’d picked up at a hardware store earlier, and set it by the back passenger side door. With a few grunts and curses — mostly at having to touch Ricky DeMarco — I heft his bulk onto the dolly.
“The fuck you doing?”
The voice makes me turn and release my grip on the dolly as I pull it into the squeaky, rusted elevator. A man dressed in a hoodie and torn “Sailor Moon” pajama pants, his back resting against the door of room ‘17’ and a forty in his hand, peers at me with eyes that shine in the red glow of the hotel’s neon sign.
