Free Tony and Susan by Austin Wright Page B

to him, smiling with relief, hugging and kissing and saying, ‘We’re all right, they only wanted us to meet their friends in the trailer,’ and Tony Hastings held them, saying, ‘It’s not a dream, is it? It can’t be a dream because it’s too real for a dream.’
    The horrible loud telephone on the table next to his ear. He grabbed it to stop it, heart crashing.
    ‘Tony Hastings? Lieutenant Graves. Bad news.’
    He saw a broad net spread under the trees hung from several treetrunks to catch whatever might fall from the high branches.
    ‘They found your car in the river over at Topping. Looks like they was trying to get rid of it.’
    The strands of the net were gathered in white nodes, spots, dots, pulses, at wide intervals all across the field. ‘What about my wife, my daughter?’
    ‘Still no word.’
    Catching fruit, bodies. ‘They weren’t in the car?’
    ‘The car was empty. They’re pulling it out now.’
    He looked at his watch. He had been asleep a half hour, it was only quarter past nine. If that was Lieutenant Graves’s idea of the worst in bad news.
    ‘What do you make of it?’ Tony said.
    ‘Don’t know what to make of it.’
    A silence while they pulled up the net, rolled it in.
    ‘Sir, we’re turning this case over to Lieutenant Andes. He wants to look around. Can he pick you up in a few minutes?’
    Tony Hastings’s body full of sandbags. ‘I’m ready now,’ he said.

NINE
    If Susan wants to know what happened, she’ll have to keep reading. She hears the Monopoly game breaking up. Harsh-voiced Mike yanks soft-breasted Dorothy to her feet, while fat Henry struggles up on his own. Through the living room into the hall.
    ‘Good night Mrs. Morrow.’ He has a sharp nose and a sharp chin, a white face and grinning mouth. In the hall Dorothy leans her elbow up on Mike’s shoulder and grins sassily at him. Susan Morrow has a prudish streak, wishing whatever happens out of her sight so she won’t have to say anything. Someone slams someone in the ribs. Ouf! you motherfucker. Snuffles and giggles in the hall, hey watch it. Susan Morrow does have a prudish streak: if your friends don’t know what people don’t say where.
    From around the corner, nasal and loud, ‘Good night, Mrs. Morrow, I had a lovely evening.’ Hoot, hoo hoo. Susan needs another chapter, it’s going to take a while yet. Tell Edward: you know how to draw things out.
Nocturnal Animals 8
    The police car in front of the motel office, a man in police uniform driving, another man on the right, this one in a plain brown suit. The man in the suit said, ‘Tony Hastings?’ He waswearing a hat and twisted his hand out the half-opened window so as to shake Tony’s. Tony got in the back.
    ‘Meetcha,’ he said. ‘I’m Bobby Andes. I look into things.’
    ‘You found my car?’
    ‘They found it,’ Andes said.
    ‘In the river?’
    ‘Listen Tony, do you think you can retrace your steps, where you went last night?’
    ‘I got pretty mixed up. I could try.’
    ‘Let me be sure I understand,’ Bobby Andes said. He was a fat man short in the front seat, but his hat was big and so was his head, and his round cheeks were shaded with the coarse pepper dots of his clean shaven beard. Referred to as Lieutenant Andes on the phone. ‘Two of these guys went off in your car with your wife and daughter. And you were supposed to meet in the police station at this place called Bailey, which don’t exist.’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘And they called each other Ray and Turk?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And you went with the other man in their car – the one they called Lou.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘How did you happen to split up like that?’
    ‘I’ve been trying to figure that out ever since.’
    ‘Did they force their way into your car?’
    ‘In effect, yes.’
    ‘In effect?’
    ‘Well yes, they did. I’d say they forced their way in.’
    ‘Your wife and daughter tried to stop them?’
    ‘I’d say yes, they tried to stop