Page 136 of Never Flinch

Halfway across the lobby her phone rings. It’s John Ackerly. “Hey, Holly, how are you?”

“Fine. And you?”

“It’s been an exciting day at Happy.”

“What happened?”

“Obstreperous drunk. He did some damage—to the bar, not to me—and the cops took him away.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Not the first time for something like that, won’t be the last. I called because I talked to an old guy named Robbie at a meeting last night, and again just before the shit hit the fan. He said the guy you’re looking for—”

“ThatIzzy’slooking for,” Holly says.

John laughs. “Calling bullcrap on that. I know how you roll—once you start, you don’t quit.”

Holly doesn’t dispute this. “Go on.”

“Robbie remembered something the guy said. ‘Try to get someone to clean up elephant shit at ten in the morning.’ Or words to that effect. It was at a meeting and got a big laugh. Doesthatmean anything to you?”

“No.” And it doesn’t. Except it makes her recall her trip to the auditorium the night before. Why, she doesn’t know. She thinks of pulling up in the employees’ parking lot in her boat of a Chrysler. Sista Bessie’s tour manager and the Mingo’s Program Director waiting to meet her.

For a moment she almost has whatever has been eluding her, but before she can grasp it, she’s back on how great it was to watch Barbara dance and sing while the band got its groove on… and it’s gone.

“Well, I told you what I heard,” John says. “All I can do. I’m leaving the bar early and meeting up with Jerome. We’re bringing Sista Bessie to the hotel. Don’t hate me for hanging out with the stars.”

“I’ll try not to,” Holly says.

“Jerome’s riding with her to Dingley Park. Doing the bodyguard thing.”

“Bodyguards everywhere,” Holly says. “We are busy people.”

“But nobody has to clean up elephant poop,” John says, and again she almost has it… has something, anyway… but it slips away again.Give it time, she thinks.Give it time and it’ll float to the surface.

Then she thinks that’s what they say about drowning victims.

4

1:50 PM.

To Trig it’s like the second performance of a play. This one goes a little smoother, as second performances tend to. Barbara arrives in an Uber but sends it away, which solves one problem. She speed-walks to the service door, gives him a quick smile, and hurries inside. He grasps her around the waist and shoots her up—déjà vuall over again. She struggles, then sags into unconsciousness.

Trig bundles her into the Transit van and binds her as he bound Corrie, only this time also duct-taping her to a side stanchion so she can’t roll around and kick the side of the van when she comes to, perhaps attracting attention. He pops her purse into the Giant Eagle bag along with Corrie’s phone, more rolls of duct tape, and a large can of Kingsford charcoal lighter fluid.

Trig thinks of his father sayingPractice makes perfect. He used to say that when they were facing off in the driveway, Trig with his own little hockey stick. His father would flick the puck at him and thump him a good one on the arm every time he flinched away.

Practice makes perfect.

And:Gone. That’s all you need to know.

“And Ididknow,” Trig says.

The young woman’s eyes flutter but don’t open. The breathing through her nose is snotty but regular. Trig drives to the Holman Rink.

Two down, two to go.

The big ones.

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