Nine Minutes

by Beth Flynn

“You’re happy with him? You don’t ever want to leave him?” he asked.

  “I love Grizz. I don’t love what he does. I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that I fantasize about a future with him away from this lifestyle.”

  He looked at the ground. “I’d give it up for her. I’ve tried to tell her that. I don’t know if she believes me.”

  Wow, I thought to myself. This was an admission I didn’t expect, especially from Anthony. If I was going to be honest, I think I may have been a little jealous of his last statement.

  “Has she tried to leave recently?”

  “No, not for a few months. I don’t know if it’s because she’s finally happy with me or if she’s waiting for me to let my guard down.”

  I reflected back on the last several hours. If Christy was planning to escape from Anthony, it wasn’t obvious to me. She came out of the bathroom just then and caught me in a hug that lasted longer than I expected. She didn’t say goodbye. She just looked up at Anthony, and he took her by the hand and led her out of the hotel room door. I shut it quietly behind them. I was sad to see them leave.

  I walked over to my balcony and looked down at the beach. It wasn’t long before I noticed movement to my left and realized Anthony’s motorcycle was parked up on the small sidewalk. Before getting on, Anthony turned around to face Christy. He took her face in his hands and bent over to gently kiss her on the lips. It was a tender moment, and I almost felt guilty for witnessing it.

  She’ll be fine. And I went back inside and closed the balcony door behind me.

  Grizz called me every morning and every night, and after a week I started to get a really uncomfortable feeling. I had no doubt he was going to kill Darryl, but wouldn’t he have done it by now? And again, why wasn’t I calling the police? What was wrong with me?

  I couldn’t fathom my own heart.

  ____________

  After eight days, Grizz showed up and took me back to the motel. Darryl wasn’t there, and everything seemed back to normal. I was certain Darryl was dead, but I didn’t know any details. I didn’t know if I wanted to know any details.

  Eventually, Grunt told me some things. I wish he hadn’t. It was my own fault—I asked him. He wasn’t there the whole time, but he knew enough.

  While Grizz was setting me up in a fancy hotel in Naples, his guys were looking for Willow. They found her and brought her back to the motel. When Grizz got back he immediately ordered his guys to relieve Willow and Darryl of all their clothes. He then had them walked over to the empty cement pool. He told them to walk down the steps into the pool and stay there.

  And that’s just what they did. They were trapped in the cement pool with no food or water and open to the elements for days. Hot, scorching days in July with no breeze or shelter. Their skin was soon pink and blistered. The nights were cooler, but that’s when they were exposed to mosquitos and other bugs.

  As if this wasn’t bad enough, Grizz had two poisonous coral snakes tossed in there with them. The snakes were always seeking shade during the day so Willow and Darryl could barely keep still if the sun was out. The snakes were always trying to work their way under their wilting bodies looking for relief from the sun.

  To make matters worse, Grizz taunted them. Not with words, but with actions. He set Lucifer and Damien up to guard the pool steps where they might try to climb out. He put an umbrella up for his dogs and had Chowder run an extension cord out to a couple of fans so that the dogs would stay cool. He made sure they had big bowls of water that were just out of Willow and Darryl’s reach. If Willow or Darryl tried to get out of the pool, Damien and Lucifer were ordered to attack. That was their choice. Be mauled to death by dogs or die from exposure.

  Instead of sitting around the pit at night, Grizz used them for entertainment. Whoever came to the motel would sit around the pool instead of the pit and mock the prisoners. Grizz was never there, though. They were allowed to do whatever they wanted to Willow or Darryl as long as they didn’t help them or kill them. Needless to say, some of the younger, newer members of Grizz’s group really enjoyed this. They tossed heavy rocks, firecrackers and lit cigarettes at them. The one night Grunt was there, some of the guys were spitting at them. They were so thirsty, they were trying to drink the spit. Grunt had seen enough and left.

  Willow died first. Then Darryl. They were slow, agonizing deaths that took days and were slightly prolonged by a couple of afternoon rain showers. The little bit of water they got just made their deaths drag out longer. Grizz had his guys toss them in the swamp and there was never any proof that either person had ever existed.

  I listened in disbelief as Grunt told me what happened. He was only there one time and couldn’t stand it himself. Chowder told him the rest. As much as Chowder hated what Darryl had done, the wizened gang member still thought it was too much retaliation. Even for Grizz.

  Froggy couldn’t bring himself to be there are at all.

  I felt sick. Empty.

  Where was I to go from here? I was now nineteen years old. I would be twenty in six months. I still didn’t have a plan for my life. I had not witnessed what happened to Darryl and Willow, but it haunted me. I would catch myself staring at Grizz and wondering who is this person that knows such evil? It didn’t help that he did what he did in retaliation for what was done to me and Gwinny.

  But as much as I wanted to, or told myself I wanted to, I didn’t make any attempt at change. I was in love with Grizz. I hated what he did, but I loved him.

  Unfortunately, my love for him was causing me to hate myself.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  In January 1980 I finally convinced Grizz to let me go to college. I would have graduated high school in 1978 with the rest of my peers, and I was really risking running into a former classmate. But I explained to Grizz that I would just deny it like I had at the vet a few years back when a classmate recognized me. I was already almost two years behind in earning a college degree. Sarah Jo had been at Florida State University in northern Florida since graduating high school. I enrolled at Cole Southeastern University and started working on a degree in business administration with a concentration in accounting. I recognized a person or two from high school, but they never recognized me. I kept my bangs because Grizz loved them, but I’d gotten in the habit of wearing them off my face when leaving the motel. I also had adopted a new wardrobe style. I liked to wear nice clothes, business attire, to school. If anybody recognized me, they certainly didn’t let on. The girl who supposedly ran away in 1975 had long been forgotten.

  I was walking out to my car one day and heard someone call my name. Not my real name or alias. My gang name.

  “Kit! Kit, wait up.”

  I turned and saw a really cute guy jogging toward me and smiling. I recognized him immediately. It was Sam, Sarah Jo’s neighbor. I hadn’t seen him since that summer and the incident with Neal in Jo’s garage.

  “Sam! How are you? Long time, no see.”

  He hugged me and asked, “You hungry? Can you grab some lunch?”

  I hadn’t realized until that moment how nice it would be to have a conversation with someone else. Someone who knew a little bit about my background. I was beginning to realize that secrets could be exhausting. All this time I’d been living in my own little world and had only made two girlfriends outside of Sarah Jo: Carter and Casey. They were my age and went to school with me, and even though we had distinctly different backgrounds and college majors, there was an instant connection. Of course, I couldn’t ever bring them to the motel, and our friendship in the beginning was limited to school. But at this point, I hadn’t shared my real story with my new friends. With Grunt and Moe gone, it was just me, Grizz and Chowder now living at the motel. Chicky didn’t even come around that much anymore. Since Moe died, Fess came less frequently, too. I realized I was lonely.

  I immediately took Sam up on his offer and followed him to a diner in Davie.

  We chatted for hours. It was strange because I really didn’t know Sam t
hat well, and I certainly hadn’t heard anything about him from Sarah Jo in the last few years. Sam explained how he’d watched from his living room window that summer day in 1977 as Grizz carried out his punishment of Neal. He saw me drive off and the garage door go down. He told me that less than thirty minutes later a car showed up. Two rough-looking characters went into the house and came out, escorting a crying Neal to the car. They drove off. Grizz got on his bike and left, and Neal never bothered Sam or his mother again.

  “You know, I’ve always felt bad that I couldn’t do anything to help you and Jo that day. Felt like a real wimp, Kit. I’m sorry.”

  “Please don’t apologize.” I looked at Sam kindly. “For heaven’s sake, you were a kid yourself, Sam. He was a bully threatening your mother. You didn’t do anything wrong. Please don’t feel bad. I never looked at you as a wimp. I didn’t think it then and I don’t think it now. Now, tell me, what are you doing at Cole?”

  He told me how trade school didn’t really work out. He’d found he had a knack for social skills and loved working with troubled youth. He was now working full-time at a local YMCA and going to school part-time to get his degree. He wanted to be a social worker.

  “So, um, Kit, are you still with Grizz? Are you still like his girlfriend, or something?”

  I smiled at him. “Actually, Sam. I’m married to Grizz.”

  I know this shocked him. “Wow, married.” Sam leaned back against the booth. “Didn’t expect that one. Would it be rude of me to ask if you’re happily married? Just curious, is all.”

  “No, it’s not rude. And yes, I’m happy. I love Grizz. I don’t need to tell you I don’t love his lifestyle, but yes, I love the man.”

  He nodded. “I kinda don’t get it, though. I mean, I know who he is and what he does, and you just seem like such a sweet, smart girl. I can’t imagine you with someone like him. Sorry—I know you love him. It’s just difficult to wrap my head around.”

  “Don’t feel bad. Sometimes I can’t wrap my head around it, either. I know I shouldn’t be talking about this, but I’ve tried to make up for it, at least in my own mind, by seeing if any good can come out of being with him. To see if there are any negatives I can turn into positives.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Then I told him a story. It had become a source of irritation in my marriage. Grizz had warned me more than once, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “Fuck, Kit. I can’t take you anywhere,” he’d said one day in frustration.

  I rolled my eyes. “I’ve asked you not to be such a dirty mouth.”

  “Well, I’ve asked you not to get in the middle of every Tom, Dick and Harry fight that you come across.”

  “I do it because when I’ve asked you to help, you won’t. You don’t care! So you leave me no choice but to involve myself. Besides, if we weren’t in a crappy part of town to start with, no thanks to your activities, I wouldn’t see half the things I’ve had to see.”

  “Do you want me to get arrested? Is that your goal?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. This is about helping someone, not about you getting in trouble.”

  “Yeah, but you realize I’m capable of murder where you’re concerned? If I kill someone it’ll be on your conscience.”

  This conversation happened long before the Darryl and Willow story. I knew how Grizz had killed Johnny Tillman, but I’d convinced myself that was somehow different. An isolated circumstance that wouldn’t repeat itself. After all, he didn’t have Neal killed after the garage incident.

  Grizz and I had been arguing about something that had happened earlier that day. Grizz had taken me along with him while he met with one of his associates. We were in his car and had pulled up to a seedy-looking warehouse in a bad section of Pompano Beach. I remembered being there before. There was one car parked in front of it.

  Grizz left his car running and told me, “I’ll be less than five minutes. People know my car, so nobody will bother you. Besides, I can see the car from that window.”

  He pointed to a window on the second floor.

  I’d gone on many business visits with Grizz and heard this over and over again. I knew he was right. I didn’t want to go inside and meet anybody anyway. I pulled out a book and immediately started to read.

  I hadn’t read two pages when a speeding car pulled in behind me. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw a flash of color. I looked to the left over the driver’s seat and saw the source of the color.

  It was a brand new yellow Mustang. The driver must have thought he could go around the building, but when he made a right to turn the corner, I heard his brakes squeal. I’d been to this building before. I knew it backed up to a cement retaining wall. There was no back parking lot. He quickly shifted into reverse and was backing up when another car pulled in and blocked him.

  I watched in horror as two guys got out of an unremarkable green car. One was carrying a baseball bat and was patting it against his open palm. They looked like serious criminals.

  I could see the one guy talking, but I couldn’t hear him. I leaned over the driver’s seat and put down Grizz’s window. In broken English they were telling the guy to get out of the car. If he got out and handed over the keys, nothing bad would happen. This was a car jacking.

  I looked up to see if I could find Grizz in the window. I didn’t. Surely he heard the tire squeals and would be down in a second. I waited. Nothing.

  I got out of the car and went into the same door that Grizz had gone in two minutes earlier. I went up the only set of stairs and walked in on him talking to an old man. I didn’t pay any attention and didn’t apologize for interrupting.

  “Please call the police,” I panted, trying to catch my breath. “There’s a car jacking going on down there.”

  The old man started to say something to me, but Grizz put his hand up and stopped him. “Okay, we’ll call. Go wait for me downstairs. Don’t go back out to the car.”

  “Okay,” I said breathlessly. “Thanks.”

  I walked downstairs and looked out the glass window of the door I had come through. It was just a kid. He had gotten out of the car like they told him, but he must have done something to make them mad. The one guy had him pushed up against his car while the other guy with the baseball bat was using it to skim through some bushes. Then it dawned on me what had happened. The kid must have turned off the car and got out like they told him to, but he took his keys with him and tossed them in some hedges.

  Just then, the guy holding him up against the Mustang grabbed the boy by the scruff of his neck and started marching him toward the bushes. I cracked the door so I could hear what they were saying. He was telling him in broken English that he’d better find the keys or he was going to die.

  Die? For a car? He shoved the boy down on all fours and had him scouring the bushes. I could tell the boy was starting to panic. I’m certain he wished he’d just handed the keys over and called the police. He’d tried to outsmart hardened criminals and now he was going to pay. The one guy started kicking him in the ribs as he crawled along the hedge line.

  I pulled the door closed. “Grizz?” I screamed. “Are the police coming?” No answer. I knew immediately that he didn’t call the police. This was Grizz. Grizz didn’t care what happened to other people. I knew what I had to do. I calmly walked out of the warehouse and approached the threesome.

  “Excuse me. Excuse me, gentlemen. I just thought you should know that the police are on their way. I think if you leave now, you’ll be gone before they get here.”

  All three of them stopped what they were doing, and the two criminals swung around to look at me. I could see tears streaming down the boy’s face. He had found his keys and was holding them up in one hand, still on his knees, while resting all of his weight on the other. I stopped walking. I was now close to them, but not so close that they could take a swing at me.

  “Just thought you should know,” I added. It came out hoarse.

  They didn’t move toward me or
respond to my statement. I turned around and started to walk back toward the warehouse door.

  I heard one of them muster up a serious phlegm ball and spit. I felt it splatter against the back of my head. I heard laughter.

  Just then the warehouse door flew open so hard the glass shattered. Grizz strode toward me. He must have seen me from the second floor walking toward the thugs. He’d seen the guy spit at me through the glass door right before he opened it.

  The men behind me started talking quickly in Spanish. I’d had enough Spanish in school to know what they were saying.

  “Fuck, Manny! Do you see the size of that motherfucker coming over here? Why’d you have to spit at the girl? You dumb fuck! Leave the kid and the fucking car. Let’s go. Now!”

  “Get in the car, Kit,” Grizz practically growled.

  “Don’t hurt them. Please, I don’t want anyone to get hurt, Grizz.”

  “They’ll be lucky if I let them live.”

  I didn’t go into any more detail with Sam. Grizz didn’t kill them. Enough said.

  “So basically, you knew if you intervened then he would come to your rescue and, in doing so, rescue the other victim?” Sam’s eyes were wide.

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I was doing. I’d done it before, too, but it never got as bad as the spitting incident. Usually, one look at Grizz and people always stepped away. That was the first time he had to get physical, and I’m sure he wouldn’t have if the guy didn’t spit at me.”

  “You realize he was right, though, don’t you?”

  This surprised me. I had just taken a sip of my iced tea and looked up at Sam. “Right about what?”

  “Right about not calling the police. Not getting involved. Maybe you subconsciously want him to get caught.”

  This shocked me. “No, absolutely not. I don’t want him to get arrested. I love him.”

  “And that’s it, Kit. You love him and you feel guilty for loving him so you try to use him to make situations better where you can’t. You keep doing it and it’s only a matter of time before it won’t work out. You’re lucky he didn’t kill those guys.”