Free Piggyback by Tom Pitts Page A

the process with Jerrod ’ s phone. There was a vibration in Becky ’ s pocket.
    “ You, too, ” he said.
    Jimmy looked out the open window, then shut it and the curtain. He noticed a land-line on the nightstand and unplugged it. He surveyed the rest of the bedroom.
    “ Bathroom attached to your room? Must be nice. ” He walked over and flipped on the bathroom light, flipped it off, and shut the door. Jimmy turned to the three on the bed and said, “ Okay then, this is where I tell you that we can do this the hard way, or we can do this the easy way. ”
    “ Who the fuck are you, pal? And why should we even be listening to you? ” Becky ’ s burst of bravado caused Tristan to wince. He knew what was coming.
    “ Okay, ” said Jimmy, “ Who here votes that I kill Becky first? Tristan, it doesn ’ t seem like she cares for you much, would you like to see her die first? ”
    Tristan shook his head so slightly it looked like he was shivering with cold.
    “ Shelly, you wanna volunteer your life before Becky ’ s, or are we going to start talking about those duffel bags? ”
    “ I told you, ” said Shelly, “ I don ’ t know what happened. I put them in the garage and now they ’ re, like, gone. I swear, I don ’ t know what happened to them. ”
    “ Well, let ’ s start with what you do know happened. How did you and your friends come to steal them from me and my friends? ”
    Shelly looked at the other two and began to stutter. “ I-I-I don ’ t know …”
    Jimmy reached into his side pocket and removed the stun gun.
    Tristan whispered, “ Jesus. ”
    Without hesitation, Jimmy moved quickly toward Becky and zapped her in the crotch. A short, loud burst of electricity. Becky flew up and backward onto the bed. He gave her one more, square in the stomach, just to underscore his sadism with the girls.
    Shelly ’ s voice went up two octaves. “ Okay, okay, okay. We took it. We got it from Kevin and Dusty and we were supposed to drive it to Salt Lake City, but we just kept it, we figured Kevin the creep would be able to afford it. We drove it here and hid the car and put the stuff in the garage. We were going to call tomorrow with a story about how we got burned in Nevada. Please don ’ t shock her again. ”
    Jimmy put the stun gun to Becky ’ s thigh and gave her another blast.
    “ You ’ re only telling me stuff I already know. ”
    “ We took some out and smoked it. The rest is all there, I swear. ”
    “ All where? ” asked Jimmy.
    Shelly started to cry. Becky was groaning and trying to recover. Groaning and whimpering punctuated with quiet curses.
    “ Let ’ s start again, ” said Jimmy. “ How many bags did you open? ”
    Between her tears, Shelly said, “ Just one, I swear. We only smoked a few joints. I swear to God. ”
    Jimmy tried to consider whether or not Shelly was telling the truth. If the girls had opened only one bag it was still possible that they didn ’ t know about the piggyback.
    “ How many bags were there? ”
    “ I don ’ t know, ” she said, “ maybe thirty, the bag was heavy. I don ’ t know. ”
    “ No, not inside, how many duffel bags were there? ”
    “ Three. Two blue and one black. I only opened one. A one pound bag from one of the big blue bags, honestly. ” Shelly was pleading, her mascara now dripping down her cheeks. Jimmy hadn ’ t noticed the false eyelashes before, but now one had come detached from her left eye. It looked like a spider trying to escape her tears. She looked pathetic; it was hard not to believe her.
     
     
    Paul and Linda were into their second vodka tonic. Linda leaned forward with both elbows onto the kitchen counter, acting enrapt in everything Paul said. He sat back in his chair, feet not even touching the ground. He flicked his ashes into the kitchen sink and blew smoke toward the ceiling. Linda didn ’ t seem to mind.
    “ Yeah, college is for suckers, ” Paul was saying, “ it ’ s just a piece of paper. I mean, if I