flynn_gillian_gone_girl (1) (858987), страница 24
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The mandidn’t even give a backward glance. I said hold on, motherfucker! The runner remainedsilent amid the yelling, but he picked up speed and shot down the mall corridor, in andout of the ashlight’s glow, his slicker apping behind him like a cape. Then the guyturned acrobatic: leaping over a trash can, shimmying o the edge of a fountain, andfinally slipping under a metal security gate to the Gap and disappearing.“Fucker!” The Hillsams had turned heart-attack red in the face, the neck, the ngers.They took turns grunting at the gate, straining to lift it.I reached down with them, but there was no budging it over half a foot. I lay downon the oor and tried threading myself under the gate: toes, calves, then stuck at mywaist.“Nope, no go.” I grunted.
“Fuck!” I pulled up and shone my ashlight into the store.The showroom was empty except for a pile of clothing racks someone had dragged tothe center, as if to start a bon re. “All the stores connect in the back to passageways fortrash, plumbing,” I said. “He’s probably at the other end of the mall by now.”“Well, then let’s go to the other end of the mall,” Rand said.“Come out, you fuckers!” Joe yelled, his head tilted back, eyes scrunched. His voiceechoed through the building.
We began walking ragtag, trailing our bats alongside us,except for the Hillsams, who used theirs to bang against security gates and doors, likethey were on military patrol in a particularly nasty war zone.“Better you come to us than we come to you!” Mikey called. “Oh, hello!” In theentryway to a pet shop, a man and woman huddled on a few army blankets, their hairwet with sweat. Mikey loomed over them, breathing heavily, wiping his brow. It wasthe scene in the war movie when the frustrated soldiers come across innocent villagersand bad things happen.“The fuck you want?” the man on the oor asked.
He was emaciated, his face so thinand drawn it looked like it was melting. His hair was tangled to his shoulders, his eyesmournful and upturned: a despoiled Jesus. The woman was in better shape, with clean,plump arms and legs, her lank hair oily but brushed.“You a Blue Book Boy?” Stucks asked.“Ain’t no boy, anyhow,” the man muttered, folding his arms.“Have some fucking respect,” the woman snapped. Then she looked like she mightcry. She turned away from us, pretending to look at something in the distance. “I’m sickof no one having no respect.”“We asked you a question, buddy,” Mikey said, moving closer to the guy, kicking thesole of his foot.“I ain’t Blue Book,” the man said.
“Just down on my luck.”“Bullshit.”“Lots of di erent people here, not just Blue Books. But if that’s who you’re lookingfor …”“Go on, go on, then, and nd them,” the woman said, her mouth turning down. “Gobother them.”“They deal down in the Hole,” the man said. When we looked blank, he pointed.“The Mervyns, far end, past where the carousel used to be.”“And fuck you very much,” the woman muttered.A crop-circle stain marked where the carousel once was. Amy and I had taken a ridejust before the mall shut down. Two grown-ups, side by side on levitating bunny rabbits,because my wife wanted to see the mall where I spent so much of my childhood.
Wantedto hear my stories. It wasn’t all bad with us.The barrier gate to the Mervyns had been busted through, so the store was open aswide and welcoming as the morning of a Presidents’ Day sale. Inside, the place wascleared out except for the islands that once held cash registers and now held about adozen people in various states of drug highs, under signs that read Jewelry and Beautya n d Bedding. They were illuminated by gas camping lamps that ickered like tikitorches. A few guys barely opened an eye as we passed, others were out cold. In a farcorner, two kids not long out of their teens were manically reciting the GettysburgAddress.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war … One man sprawled out on the rug inimmaculate jean shorts and white tennis shoes, like he was on the way to his kid’s T-ballgame. Rand stared at him as if he might know the guy.Carthage had a bigger drug epidemic than I ever knew: The cops had been here justyesterday, and already the druggies had resettled, like determined ies. As we made ourway through the piles of humans, an obese woman shushed up to us on an electricscooter. Her face was pimply and wet with sweat, her teeth catlike.“You buying or leaving, because this ain’t a show-and-tell,” she said.Stucks shone a flashlight on her face.“Get that fucking thing off me.” He did.“I’m looking for my wife,” I began.
“Amy Dunne. She’s been missing since Thursday.”“She’ll show up. She’ll wake up, drag herself home.”“We’re not worried about drugs,” I said. “We’re more concerned about some of themen here. We’ve heard rumors.”“It’s okay, Melanie,” a voice called. At the edge of the juniors section, a rangy manleaned against a naked mannequin torso, watching us, a sideways grin on his face.Melanie shrugged, bored, annoyed, and motored away.The man kept his eyes on us but called toward the back of the juniors section, wherefour sets of feet poked out from the dressing rooms, men camped out in their individualcubicles.“Hey, Lonnie! Hey, all! The assholes are back. Five of ’em,” the man said. He kickedan empty beer can toward us.
Behind him, three sets of feet began moving, men pullingthemselves up. One set remained still, their owner asleep or passed out.“Yeah, fuckos, we’re back,” Mikey Hillsam said. He held his bat like a pool cue andpunched the mannequin torso between the breasts. She tottered toward the ground, theBlue Book guy removing his arm gracefully as she fell, as if it were all part of arehearsed act. “We want some information on a missing girl.”The three men from the dressing rooms joined their friends. They all wore Greekparty T-shirts: Pi Phi Tie-Dye and Fiji Island.
Local Goodwills got inundated with thesecome summer—university graduates shedding their old souvenirs.The men were all wiry-strong, muscular arms rivered with popping blue veins.Behind them, a guy with a long, drooping mustache and hair in a ponytail—Lonnie—came out of the largest corner dressing room, dragging a long length of pipe, wearing aGamma Phi T-shirt. We were looking at mall security.“What’s up?” Lonnie called.We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground … the kids werereciting in a pitch that was close to screaming.“We’re looking for Amy Dunne, you probably seen her on the news, missing sinceThursday,” Joe Hillsam said.
“Nice, pretty, sweet lady, stolen from her own home.”“I heard about it. So?” said Lonnie.“She’s my wife,” I said.“We know what you guys’ve been getting into out here,” Joe continued, addressingonly Lonnie, who was tossing his ponytail behind him, squaring his jaw. Faded greentattoos covered his fingers. “We know about the gang rape.”I glanced at Rand to see if he was all right; he was staring at the naked mannequinon the floor.“Gang rape,” Lonnie said, jerking his head back.
“The fuck you talking about a gangrape.”“You guys,” Joe said. “You Blue Book Boys—”“Blue Book Boys, like we’re some kind of crew.” Lonnie sni ed. “We’re not animals,asshole. We don’t steal women. People want to feel okay for not helping us. See, theydon’t deserve it, they’re a bunch of rapists. Well, bullshit.
I’d get the fuck out of this town ifthe plant would give me my back pay. But I got nothing. None of us got nothing. Sohere we are.”“We’ll give you money, good money, if you can tell us anything about Amy’sdisappearance,” I said. “You guys know a lot of people, maybe you heard something.”I pulled out her photo. The Hillsams and Stucks looked surprised, and I realized—ofcourse—this was only a macho diversion for them.
I pushed the photo in Lonnie’s face,expecting him to barely glance. Instead, he leaned in closer.“Oh, shit,” he said. “Her?”“You recognize her?”He actually looked stricken. “She wanted to buy a gun.”AMY ELLIOTT DUNNEOCTOBER 16, 2010DIARY ENTRYHappy anniversary to me! One full month as a Missouri resident, and I am on myway to becoming a good midwesterner.
Yep, I have gone cold turkey o all things EastCoast and I have earned my thirty-day chip (here it would be a potato chip). I amtaking notes, I am honoring traditions. I am the Margaret Mead of the goddamnMississip.Let’s see, what’s new? Nick and I are currently embroiled in what I have taken tocalling (to myself) the Cuckoo Clock Conundrum. My parents’ cherished heirloom looksridiculous in the new house. But then all our New York stuff does. Our dignified elephantof a chester eld with its matching baby ottoman sits in the living room looking stunned,as if it got sleep-darted in its natural environment and woke up in this strange newcaptivity, surrounded by faux-posh carpet and synthetic wood and unveined walls. I domiss our old place—all the bumps and ridges and hairline fractures left by the decades.(Pause for attitude adjustment.) But new is nice too! Just di erent. The clock woulddisagree.
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