Free Witch Lights by Michael M. Hughes Page A

someone apparently dying in the basement.
    William raised his head. “And I
knew
going to the carnival was a bad idea. I knew it but Cora wanted to go and she kept begging me and I felt so bad saying no and it made me feel stupid. And I was selfish, Mom. I just wanted to do something that was fun and—”
    “William, stop it. It’s—”
    “It’s all my fault, Mom, that Ray is gone and we’re here and—”
    “Stop.” She held his face in her hands. Looked into those oh-so-childlike but oh-so-grown-up eyes. “You and I are going to get out of this. We’re going to get away from here, as far away as we can, and back to somewhere normal. No more of this running and hiding shit.”
    His eyes widened at her use of profanity.
    “It’s not your fault that we’re here. We didn’t choose any of this.”
    He stared.
    “You and me, kiddo. We’re gonna get away from Mr. Banana Hammock and his army of smelly jerks. The first chance we have to get out of here, we’re going to do it. You in?” She proffered her little finger. “Pinky promise.”
    He wrapped his pinky around hers. “You and me, Mom. But we’ll find Ray, right? Because I know he’s looking for us. I felt it tonight.”
    “We’ll do everything we can. I sure hope so. But right now, it’s you and me. First things first.”
    She squeezed him again and thought
How in the name of God are we going to get out of this?
    —
    The road stretched ahead of them, surrounded by nothing but inky black vegetation that blurred into the night sky. The headlights of the van sent flickering yellow cones across the pocked and cratered dirt road. Mantu drove while Ray stared into the darkness wondering what Ellen and William were doing now. Were they safe somewhere, sleeping? Were they tied up in some horrible concrete room like they’d been at Crawford’s? Were they even alive? He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, gritting his teeth. He couldn’t let the rage overwhelm him, but it felt like he was hanging on by a thread—and the thread was ready to snap.
    “You okay,
amigo
?” Mantu asked.
    Ray sighed. “Yeah. I can’t stop thinking about them.”
    “They’re okay. I don’t think he wants to hurt them. I think he just wants to use them. As collateral. He’ll keep them as long as he can to get the best deal.”
    “A deal with the bitch.” It was an unwritten rule that they never used her name. “That’s supposed to comfort me?”
    “I’m just trying to be truthful with you. You want comfort, there’s a whorehouse about an hour from here. Twenty
quetzales
for twenty minutes.”
    “I can see why your career as a comedian never went anywhere.”
    Mantu snickered. “You’d be surprised. I was good. Real good. Maybe not my-very-own-HBO-special good, but things were looking up. Running into some bad shit is what ended my career. Well, that and the pounds of cocaine I shoveled up my nose before Micah came along. He saved me, you know. I wouldn’t be here now if it hadn’t been for him.”
    Ray turned. Mantu’s eyes were shadows and his face looked skeletal in the light from the dashboard. “You never told me. About how you joined with them.”
    “Like I said, it’s a long story. We never had time.”
    “We have time now,” Ray said. “And a full tank of gas.”
    Mantu’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Okay, Ray. You asked for it. But you’re gonna have a few more gray hairs before I finish.”
    —
    “I was doing a gig at a club in Philly. I was just a kid back then—young and dumb. I’d go from club to club, do my set early in the night, and crash at someone’s house. I was drinking pretty hard. Doing a lot of coke, too. It was the eighties—everyone just did lines right out in the open in the clubs. Well, at least until Len Bias.”
    Ray nodded. He’d managed to avoid the hard-partying scene, but he’d watched a couple of his old girlfriend Lisa’s friends go through piles of nose candy.
    “But the gigs were getting better. People