Bitch Factor – Chapter 6
The way Parker Dann figured it, he’d gotten careless, let his guard down, and deserved to be caught. But it still felt lousy being outsmarted after all his careful plotting, playing the “model citizen,” waiting for the holiday court break so no one would miss him for a week or two. That bounty hunter must be part bloodhound to guess he’d head for Canada.
How many years since he’d lived there? Twenty? Twenty-five? Next time he got loose he’d throw a dart at the map, shoot for someplace he’d never lived before. The beach, maybe. Yeah, he’d always wanted a waterfront home, surf pounding right outside his door.
He yanked the heavy chain that shackled him to the rear floorboard. The chain slid out of his numbed hand and rattled around his feet.
Flannigan, she’d said her name was. Wasn’t that the name he’d heard muttered around the jailhouse, waiting for bail to be set?
Inmates talked about her like she was some kind of mind-reading magician, showing up at places she couldn’t possibly know about. One guy’d been successfully dodging the law for nine years. Joined the Mexican army, and nobody even came close to finding him. Then he crossed back into Texas to see his daughter get married. When he left the church, there was Flannigan waiting at his car.
Parker rubbed his chest where she’d hit him with the friggin stun gun. Felt like a mule kicked him in the gut, then trampled on his head.
Nudging the chain aside with his stocking foot, he studied the U-bolt attaching the chain to the car floor. She hadn’t even let him put on his shoes or shirt before hustling him out to the Mustang. Now there she was in the motel room, poking around, packing up his stuff, he hoped. Maybe she’d bring him a shirt before he froze solid.
He yanked the chain again, hands flexing quicker this time., No way he’d ever work that U-bold loose. The shackle locked around his ankle looked simple enough, if you knew how to pick locks, which he didn’t. If he could find a nail or a piece of wire, might as well give it a try. Might get lucky.
Otherwise, he’d bide his time till he got a chance to snatch her keys. Twelve hundred miles back to Houston… she’d have to let him out sometime… and he must outweigh her by eighty pounds. Pure mass had to count for something, magician or not. He’d shove her down and sit on her.
Mighty Mouse, that’s what the inmates had called her. Big Joe Bonner swore she’d brought him down in ten seconds flat.,
“Shee-ut. Reached out to knock the little runt out of my way, maybe cop a feel of those fine tits while I’m at it. She grabbed my wrist in some kind of devil’s grip, had me on my knees before I could spit.” Exaggerating, of course. Bonner must weigh three hundred pounds. Only way to save face after being brought in by a woman was to make her out to be Superbroad.
But Pico, a quiet, hard-eyed Hispanic, his acne-scarred face devoid of expression, had taken up the story from where he squatted on his heels in a corner to avoid sitting on the floor.
“Same bitch brought my brother in. Rudy makes it halfway to Monterrey, stops at a cousin’s house maybe ten minutes. Gets back in his car, drives twenty feet down the road—the engine quits. While Rudy’s head’s under the hood, Flannigan cuffs him, man, throws him in her trunk. Hauls him back across the border.” Pico gave everybody a look that said the punch line’s still coming. “Cousin finds the car. Later, he tells Rudy the bitch stuck a potato up his tailpipe. A goddamn potato, man.”
After that, half the guys in hearing distance had bounty hunter stories, each one trying to top the last. But the ones featuring Flannigan were the most colorful.
Dann watched the motel-room door open and close, Flannigan striding toward the car, carrying his plastic bags, stun gun clipped to her belt. Have to stay clear of that thing.
The inmates all agreed on a couple of points. Said if Flannigan got on your trail there was no shaking her. Someone said she used to be a hotshot ADA, had a good chance at the top job. Then one day she up and quit, no explanation.
Dann heard her pop the trunk, toss his bags in, close it. When she strode around to the passenger side, he caught a brief full-length profile, and an unexpected stir of appreciation gave him a start. The woman was a looker, no denying that. The cut of her curves awakened carnal appetites that had gone woefully dormant these past few months.
She opened the front passenger door, leaned in, and slid a panel open in the steel mesh separating the front and back seats. Parker got his first unobstructed view of her face: full mouth, well-shaped lips, sunny complexion over fine bones, no-nonsense chin. But it was the lusty brown eyes that gave her away. This bitch might walk, talk, and kick butt like a man, but inside she was all woman. And women had soft hearts.
“Here’s a shirt and coat, Dann.” She shoved them through the opening. “And some dry socks.”
The rolled-up socks bounced off his chest, hitting the chain with a thud and a rattle.
“Guess you think I’m Houdini.” He jiggled his cuffed wrists with just the right amount of impotence. Wasn’t a woman alive could resist male helplessness. “How am I supposed to put them on?”
She motioned him to turn around. Parker suppressed a smile as he heard a click and felt the cuffs separate.
“What about my shoes?”
“Packed.”
“Guess you didn’t notice the snow. Guy could get frostbite.” he grinned his most puppyish grin.
“You won’t be walking anywhere until we get to Houston.”
So much for charm.
“Well, what about my car?” It was a wreck, sure. He’d bought it to get by until the city released his impounded Cadillac. Paid hard-earned money for it. “Can’t just leave it here in the parking lot.”
“You won’t need any wheels where you’re going.”
Shit! “Tell me, lady, were you born a bitch, or did it come with your training bra and pubic hair?”
She cocked an amused eyebrow, then snapped the mesh panel shut and slammed the passenger door.
What a lousy friggin mess. Bracing one foot against the door, as high as he could lift it, Parker studied the shackle lock.
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” Thoreau had written. Parker had never felt desperate until the day he was arrested and charged. Mostly, he took life as it came, hard or easy. Never accomplished much, but then he hadn’t aimed at making any great marks in the world. He had lusty appetites, and he was unashamed of those. “In the long run men hit only what they aim at.” Henry David Thoreau hadn’t minded jail, but then he wasn’t facing twenty years. Parker aimed to stay out of jail. No way he was going back to court. He’d watched the jurors’ faces that last day. If the trial had ended there, he’d be in Huntsville now, staring at up to twenty years behind bars. He’d rather they shot him.
Meet me here next week for the chapter of Bitch Factor.
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