The Interloper Read online

  “What are you talking about?” he demanded.

  “What do you think I’m talking about?” Hanley asked, exasperated. “It’s all over the news about you butchering this girl. They found her all chopped up in a house you had rented, and they got a drawing of you and that you’re traveling with a white bull terrier. Goddamn it, Willis, are you some sort of sicko who gets off on doing shit like that to young girls?”

  Willis’s mind raced as he thought about what must’ve happened. “Kate went back to that house while Luce was watching for me,” he said. “It had to be that. Luce did this.”

  “Luce is the same guy who ripped all of you off? The one you left dead in a swamp in Rhode Island?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, it fucks you just the same. The new face can’t wait anymore. I got it set up for tomorrow.”

  “Okay.”

  Hanley gave him an address in Akron, Ohio that Willis needed to be at by ten o’clock the following morning and what the cost was going to be. “You need to lay low as much as you can. They’re out there looking for you. And you need to get rid of that dog. Not just dump it, but put a bullet in its head. Every second you’re out there driving with that dog is another second the cops might pull you over. And you can’t leave that dog alive to identify you later. These fucking dogs and their sense of smell, you know? It won’t matter whether you got a new face or not, the dog will still pick you out of a lineup.”

  “Alright.”

  “I mean it, Willis. You owe me over thirty grand. You want to take chances and act stupid, that’s your problem, but not until you pay me what you owe me.”

  “I said alright.”

  “You’ll kill that dog?”

  “What did I say?”

  Willis disconnected the call. He looked over at Bowser, who was laying on the passenger seat with his nose buried under his paws. Instead of pulling over so he could force the dog out of the car, Willis kept driving. When he could, he got onto the Mass Pike and headed toward New York.

  He was taking a chance with toll booth operators, but he was betting that they hadn’t seen the news yet, and it appeared his bet paid off when three and a half hours later he double-parked in front of an apartment building in Queens. Three weeks earlier, an eighteen year-girl who lived in the building took care of Bowser for a day, and the two of them seemed nuts about each other. Bowser, on recognizing the building started making excited pig grunt noises while his tail beat rapidly against the seat. Willis took him out of the car and rung the apartment for where the girl lived. When she answered the door, she kept the door open no more than three inches. Bowser became more excited on seeing her than if she had been a hundred and five pounds of bacon. The girl, though, gave Willis a fearful and timid glance, and looked like she was trying to decide whether to scream or slam the door shut.

  “Whatever you saw on the news isn’t true,” Willis said. “I had nothing to do with that woman. But I need to find a new home for this dog. Someone who’ll take good care of him. Are you willing?”

  She nodded and opened the door enough to let Bowser in, and then pushed it shut.

  Willis stood awkwardly for a moment as he considered opening the door so he could tell the girl how much Bowser liked bacon. But he didn’t. Instead, he turned and walked down the stoop. He felt a strangeness in his chest as he walked to his car. Whatever crack to his heart Bowser had opened up was scabbing over quickly, and Willis needed some time to adjust to it. Three hours into his drive to Ohio, he realized he felt nothing, and he was okay with it.

  Thank you

  I’d like to thank all these generous folks whose kickstarter donations allowed The Interloper to be published:

  Diamond Level ($50+)

  Mary Blumenthal

  Jessica Boar

  Allen Luedeking

  Jeff Michaels

  Mike Sockol

  Steve Taschereau

  Gold Level ($25+)

  Vinod Bhardwaj

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  Jamey Calhoun

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  Benjamin Del Cid

  Terrie Farley Moran

  Christopher Irvin

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  David Kanell

  Kyle Lybeck

  Mark Nevins

  Danny O’Dell

  Patrick Ohl

  Derek Pandolfo

  Laura Pzena

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  Frank Solensky

  Mark Sullivan

  Paul Tremblay

  Dan VanderKooi

  Silver Level ($10+)

  Jack Green

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  Dan Luft

  Table of Contents

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Part 2

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part 3

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19