16. Contemplating the Olive (D1)

__ "Whatcha gonna do? Ya gotta open the door for the kid," Munson grinned.
__ Ardy kept glancing from the door, to Doug, to Munson.
__ Doug sneered down the barrel of the pistol toward the killer. "We don't gotta do anything. We can just not answer the door, lunkhead."
__ "Lunkhead? Oh, that's a good one, bird tester."
__ "My name is Mr. Testerbird, jackass."
__ Munson laughed. "Even better."
__ Ardy barked in a harsh whisper, "Would you two knock it off?"
__ Doug offered, "Can you read the guy's mind?" and nodded toward the door.
__ "Don't bother," Munson croaked, cleared his voice and shouted, "Hang on! Be right there!"
__ Both Ardy and Doug flinched. Doug darted forward with the Glock. His hand tensed on the trigger.
__ Ardy pushed the barrel of the gun up and stepped between them, "No!"
__ "That's my girl," the killer crooned.
__ Ardy and Doug: "Shut up!" Then Ardy, "Just a minute. I gotta get my purse."
__ The kid beyond the door said, "Um. No prob."
__ "Help me with him."
__ Ardy and Doug took a minute circling and re-circling the throne, trying to find the best grip, test the heavy chair's strength tipping it from side to side. Doug suggested they could each get on one side, tip it back a bit, and slide Munson into the next room or the kitchen.
__ "There's a door to the bedroom. Kitchen doesn't have one," Ardy suggested.
__ "Good point."
__ But as the two tipped back the throne they discovered it was much heavier than anticipated. Both let out a grunt, Ardy groaned with the strain and Doug let out a huff of exasperation. Munson decided to make matters worse by wiggling as they tipped him back.
__ The chair gained momentum and slipped through their fingers, landing with a loud thud on the hardwood floor. Munson let out a grunt but then started chuckling like an idiot.
__ "Watch him," Doug said, and raced to the couch, across to the bedroom, back again. His arms were overloaded with blankets and pillows.
__ Ardy said, "What are you going to do with those?"
__ "Burry him."
__ Munson laughed harder. "That's ironic."
__ As Doug wrestled a wad of damp rag into Munson's mouth and wrapped his head in duct tape, Ardy went for her purse and fished out some cash. She got to the door just as the kid on the other side started to lose his patience and knock again.
__ "Coming." She glanced back and saw that Doug had arranged the blankets and pillows to look like -- well, it didn't look like anything beyond an overturned heavy chair with blankets and a killer underneath, but it was the best he could do.
__ This is stupid. I'm an idiot. It's not going to work, Doug thought.
__ "What did you say?" Ardy frowned at him.
__ "Wha? Nothin'." He nodded toward the door.
__ Ardelene Jacobi threw on her best fake smile and opened the door as she fished into her purse.
__ The kid was just that. No more than seventeen or eighteen, he had starchy white-blond hair under a crooked Pizza King cap. He wore a matching red windbreaker over a Korn t-shirt and jeans, and his shoes showed the one-sided wear of a skateboarder. His eyes were bright blue but the bags under them betrayed long nights of videogames or drug-scoring mischief, Ardy could be sure which, but she knew they weren't from test cramming. The car was a gray primered Monte Carlo with a Pizza King sign strapped to the roof. Metal music blazed from the open door.
__ Upon seeing Ardelene barefoot, tracing up her slender legs to her shorts and settling on either side of the mast of the sailboat on her t-shirt, the boy grinned. "Hey."
__ Ardy held the purse up to block the view of her chest as she continued digging inside. She also stood so there was no clear view of what's going on inside. "How much?"
__ "Are you the psychic chick?" the teen asked. He shifted his weight to his other foot and no longer appeared to be in a hurry.
__ "Yeah, that's me. How much?"
__ "Wow. That's cool. My ma believes in that crap, but not me."
__ Ardy looked up and met his eyes, "How much?"
__ "Maybe I can come by and have my fortune told some time, huh? Maybe. That'd be cool -- oh, it's sixteen fifty minus tip -- You could prove you're psychic by tellin' me somethin' you couldn't possibly know."
__ Ardy withdrew a ten, a five, and two singles and handed them to the kid who took the money without counting it and stuffed it in his jean pocket.
__ "I thought I heard a man's voice before. You gotta customer?" the kid persisted as he slowly handed the pizza box over to Ardy. He stood kind of angling himself toward her as though he was contemplating a risky move, not quite releasing the box when Ardy tried to take it from him.
__ "Nobody but me," Ardy said. "You must've heard the TV."
__ "Oh," the kid smiled. He licked his lips and finally released the box.
__ Ardy took the food and started to step back into the room.
__ The Pizza King kid took a step forward too.
__ That's when she blurted out, "When you were twelve, you pushed your six year-old sister off the swings in Billy Laird's backyard. You broke her jaw and knocked three teeth down her throat. You swore her to secrecy under the threat of a beating and later told your parents she fell out of a tree. Just last year you copped a feel on Lydia Hutchin's at the Junior Harvest Dance
when she feel asleep on the bleachers. You got so excited you had an accident in your pants and had to leave. Now get the hell away from my shop."
__ Ardy stepped back and kicked the door shut with a slam. She spun and collapsed her back against it and took three exhausted breaths before sniffing back tears and straining to stay quiet.
__ Munson was buried in bedding and hadn't heard what went on at the door, and Doug only heard bits and pieces. The latter now stared at Ardy with his mouth hanging open.
__ They both held that position until the car door slammed and the kid pulled away, the Monte spewing gravel from her drive before screeching away down Route Nine.
__ "You okay?" Doug asked after another moment.
__ Ardy took a final deep breath and smiled. "Let's eat."


__ After righting Munson's chair, removing his gag and fixing the table, the three sat around the pizza box and ate. Doug had suggested he would feed the killer his slices, but Ardy let Doug keep the gun and instructed him to shoot Munson in the face if he didn't behave. Then she untied his left arm so he could eat.
__ They ate in silence for a short while, not realizing how hungry they all truly were.
__ Surprising to both Doug and Ardy, Munson was the first to speak. His voice was calm and friendly and added to the illusion that they were just three friends enjoying a late night snack together.
__ He said, "Thank you, Ardy. Doug."
__ The couple looked at each other. Doug suggested, "What for?"
__ Munson didn't meet their eyes. He centered his gaze on a small olive stuck to the cardboard in the pizza box. "I just been thinkin'."
__ Ardy finished chewing and swallowed. "What about, R. Lee?"
__ Doug shot her a glance for using the killer's familiar name but let it slide.
__ "You all are gonna save me."
__ "Save you?" Doug asked. "From what? The cops? Oh, don't even think that you're --."
__ "From Hell."
__ Ardy and Doug looked at each other. Neither spoke.
__ Munson glanced at each of them, then back to the olive. "I'm sorry. I just feel kina... I don't know.... Repentant?"
__ "That's good, R. Lee. That's the first step." Then to Doug, "Re-tie his arm so we can clean up this mess?"
__ "Sure."
__ Munson cooperated while Doug carried out her wish. He didn't even struggle after they left him alone.
__ In the kitchen, as Doug folded and crushed the pizza box into the garbage pail, he whispered, "You're not serious?"
__ "About what?"
__ "Letting him go."
__ "Now who's the mindreader?"
__ Doug huffed. "Don't need to be. It's obvious you're fallin' for his line of malarkey. I think we should call the cops."
__ "Maybe you're right," Ardy offered with a shrug. "We'll just leave him tied up for now. And... I just want to relax a bit before we call the Covert P.D. He wont' do anything."
__ "Hope you're right," Doug said. He smiled at her and left the kitchen as she stacked plates in the sink.
__ He worries too much and reacts too quickly, Ardy thought. She couldn't tell Doug how right he was; that Munson was daydreaming about slitting both their throats and chopping up their bodies the entire time he was eating.
__ And she couldn't tell him that the Pizza King kid was planning a return.
__ Or that he was planning on bringing his buddies and some booze.
__ Ardy yawned. That made her smile. There would be no rest this night.