by Joseph Lewis
“Gotta take a chance, Tom,” Earl said. “Man down.”
Albrecht knew he was right, especially not knowing how badly Ronnie was shot. Somehow, he . . . they had to get out of the room and to Desotel without getting shot. That is, if Ronnie didn’t finish him off.
“Nathan, can you get out of your room and go left away from the shooter?”
“Yeah . . . can do,” Kaupert said, more determined than scared.
“I’m going to go right,” Albrecht said. “Earl, lay down cover fire if you need to. Any movement, fire!”
Albrecht breathed slowly in, then slowly out gathering his thoughts, getting ready.
“Nathan, on my count . . . one . . . two . . . now!”
As Coffey leveled his semi-automatic rifle out of what was left of the window, Nathan and Albrecht sprinted from their rooms. Nothing or no one moved.
* * *
“Stephen, go back to the room and shut the door. Don’t say anything to the guys,” Brett said.
“You’re going with him,” Pete said.
“Listen to me. We don’t have time. The other guards will be here soon,” Brett said, watching Stephen’s bare butt disappear down the hall.
Pete began to swear at the boy, but Brett interrupted him.
“Listen, just listen,” Brett said urgently, but quietly. “Mike wasn’t the one they wanted. It was Stephen. Guards aren’t allowed to use us. We’re just for the men. So sometimes, they get a kid like Mike and use him for a couple of days.”
He stopped and pointed to the bloody wall where empty chains and handcuffs hung from the ceiling, and the small grill that was filled with cold ashes and a branding iron.
“After they’re done with the kid, they whip the shit out of him, sometimes brand him, and then if he’s still alive, they kill him. This is done in front of us to teach us a lesson.”
Pete put his hand up to his face, rubbed his jaw, and then looked back at Brett.
“We need to do this my way, and we need to do it quick before the rest of the guards come, or no one will leave here alive,” Brett said.
Pete looked at Jamie at the far end of the hallway. His expression was unreadable. He looked at Skip Dahlke and got the same expression, which was nothing at all.
“Keep the gun in your back. Unbutton your shirt about halfway down and pull out one side. Unzip your pants,” Brett said yanking out Pete’s shirt. “You have to make it look like you and I just . . . you know.”
“Fuck no!”
Brett didn’t listen to him. Instead, he picked up Pete’s hand and put it on top of his head, closing it into a fist.
“Grab a handful of my hair. When we get into the room, throw me on the bed. That way, I’m out of the way, and I can protect Mike. You tell the shithead in there that you wanted to get rough with me, but Butch wouldn’t let you. You tell him that Butch said you can do anything you want with Mike. You tell the guard that if he wants, he can have me. When he makes his move, you have the gun.”
Pete dropped his hand to his side and shook his head slowly, first looking at Brett and then at Jamie.
“This isn’t going to work,” Pete said.
Brett grabbed his hand again, placed it on his head, crying now.
“Please, we don’t have time! Trust me!”
“Jesus Christ Almighty!” Pete said.
“He hasn’t been here in a long time. He’s packed up and moved away. We have you, me, Jamie and that other guy. That’s it.”
Pete clenched his teeth and grabbed a fistful of hair.
“You forgot your zipper. Pull it down. You have to act. It’s our only chance. Honest!”
Pete took one last look at Jamie, shook his head and lowered his zipper. Then, playing the part of pervert, he yanked Brett down the hall towards the room and instead of using the key, knocked on the door.
“Give me a minute,” a voice said from the other side.
Pete heard the door unlocking and it opened. The first thing he saw was a .45 pointed at him.
“Hey, hey, hey . . . lower it, Man. Butch said I could have some time with that kid in there. You know . . . kind of rough. He said I can’t be rough with this kid.”
He shook Brett by the hair, lifting him off his feet. Brett reached up and slapped at Pete’s hand. The door opened wider and the man stepped to the side to let them enter.
“Kid, you know better than to hit a client,” the skinny man with long red hair said, lowering his gun.
Pete threw Brett onto the bed, and the man with red hair turned to watch him land, almost but not quite on top of Mike. Brett scrambled to a position covering the other boy, cradling his head in his arms. As the man turned to watch the two boys, Pete grabbed the wrist and arm of the younger man and slammed his hand on the door frame once . . . twice . . . three times and the gun dropped to the floor. As Pete twisted the man’s arm behind his back, his right foot kicked the gun out into the hallway, while his left foot and leg kicked the man’s left leg out to the side, sending the man to the floor with Pete on top of him.
Pete saw movement behind him and felt a hand reaching for his gun, but he couldn’t go after the gun or the hand because to do so, would be to lose his advantage over the younger man. He heard the gun cock. It was loud. Far louder than it should have been. Perhaps he only imagined how loud it was.
“Stop moving or I’ll shoot.”
Pete and the younger man stopped wrestling, though Pete still had a good, solid hold on him. He turned and saw Brett holding the gun in a classic shooter’s crouch: both hands on the gun, legs spread at shoulder width.
“Cuff him,” Brett said.
The man with long red hair smirked and said, “Like, you’re gonna shoot me.”
Then he laughed.
“I’m holding a .45 Beretta. It carries eight rounds in a cartridge in the handle. Let’s pretend it’s loaded with hollow points. If I cluster three shots center mass, they’ll enter your scrawny ass about the size of a quarter and come out the other side the size of a baseball. You don’t have a chance.”
He paused to let that sink in.
“Or, I could aim one glancing shot just in front of your left temple and take out your frontal lobe. That way, you might live, but you’ll be a veg. You’ll piss in a tube and shit in a bag, and you’ll eat Gerber Baby Food the rest of your life. But, hey, you won’t care because you’ll be a veg.”
He paused again.
“You wanna try me, Fuck Head? I’ve been hoping for a chance like this for two years. So go ahead and try me!” Brett said.
The man’s smirk disappeared from his face, and Pete used the plastic ties on his hands and feet and duct taped the man’s face. But instead of using one short strip across the man’s mouth, Pete wound it three times around the man’s head.
He stood up huffing and puffing and put both hands behind his head breathing deeply. Then he bent at the waist, breathing some more. Brett gently depressed the hammer, slipped it into safety, and held it out to Pete for him to take.
“You guys have it under control?” Jamie asked from the doorway.
He stood in a shooter’s crouch, the same crouch Brett had been in. The only difference is that Brett had relaxed, while Jamie still had the gun trained on the red-haired man on the floor.
“This fuck head’s name is Shawn. He was one of the guys who brought in Stephen and Mike.”
Pete stood up-right, buttoned his shirt and tucked it in, then zipped up. It was only then he took the gun from Brett. He and Jamie exchanged a look that anyone could have read as, ‘WHAT THE FUCK!’
“Mike, I’m Brett. These guys are cops. We’re all going home today.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Mike Erickson crawled as far into the corner as he could have, trying desperately to get away from Brett and the two men. His left eye was swollen shut and was dark blue-black, the color of a Midwestern thunder cloud. There was blood around his nose, and he had a badly swollen lip, cracked with dried blood around it. Pete thought he saw at
least two teeth missing, but because the boy wasn’t smiling, Pete wasn’t sure.
“Could one of you go get Stephen . . . fast? We don’t have much time,” Brett said to Pete and Jamie while not taking his eyes from Mike.
He reached towards the boy with both hands slowly, palms up, speaking softly and slowly.
“Mike, we have to get out outta here. Jamie went to get Stephen. You’re not going to be hurt again . . . ever again. I promise.”
Stephen came into the room on a run but stopped as soon as he saw Mike. His mouth opened and closed, opened and closed.
“Oh Mike . . . I’m sorry . . . Mike . . .” in a whisper that was barely audible.
“Mike, Stephen’s here,” Brett said, motioning to Stephen to come closer without taking his eyes off Mike. “Can you walk?”
Mike watched Stephen step forward cautiously, hanging back a bit, and then looked back at Brett. He shook his head.
“I’m going to take a couple of wipes and clean you up a little, okay?” He repeated, “That okay?”
Reaching very slowly for the wipes on the nightstand, he took a handful, showed them to Mike, then gently, oh so gently, touched them to Mike’s face, dabbing at the dried blood around his nose and mouth.
He did the best he could, which wasn’t much at all, and said, “Mike, can you roll over a little? I want to get your legs, okay?”
Mike stared at Brett, then at Stephen who stood a little behind Brett crying silently, then back at Brett. He reached for the wipes in Brett’s hand, and Brett gave them to him. He knelt and wiped himself off.
“Do you want me to help?” Brett said.
A tear fell from Mike’s eye, the one that wasn’t swollen, and then more tears fell. He nodded and turned around. Brett took a couple more wipes and helped Mike clean himself off. To Pete and Jamie, it seemed like a lifetime, but in reality, took only five or ten minutes.
“Okay, Mike . . . Stephen and I are going to help you walk to the end of the hallway where the other guys are. We’re going home today, okay?”
Mike nodded and tried to get out of bed. Brett was right there, putting Mike’s arm around his shoulder, while Stephen came up on the other side. With both of his arms around their shoulders, and both Brett and Stephen holding him around the waist, they walked as quickly as they could to the end of the hallway.
They opened the door to the room where the other boys were gathered, and the three of them entered awkwardly trying to fit themselves in the doorway.
“Give him to me,” Tim said, holding out his arms. “You’re Mike?”
Mike didn’t answer, nor did he acknowledge that anyone had spoken to him. The two boys lowered Mike into Tim’s arms, just as Johnny was lowered into his arms earlier. Johnny had moved, so that Tim could hold Mike in his lap, cradling Mike’s head on his chest. Stephen sat down on the other side of Mike. He hadn’t stopped crying.
“It’s okay, Stephen,” Tim said. “We’re all going home today.”
* * *
Albrecht and Kaupert circled around the back unit where they thought Desotel had run, moving slowly, cautiously.
“Nathan . . . anything?”
“Not yet.”
“Earl . . . anything?”
“No movement,” he said from his position in the motel.
“Ronnie, you okay?” Albrecht asked hopefully.
“Fuckin’ hurts,” came the answer. “Shit!”
If he was swearing, it was a good sign. Albrecht moved a bit quicker and saw a pair of legs. They weren’t moving.
“Throw your gun and raise your hands!” he commanded.
There wasn’t any movement.
“Nathan, anything?”
“I see Ronnie. Leg wound. Looks like it’s in and out.”
“It’s fucking on fire!” Ronnie answered.
“I said, ‘Throw your gun out and raise your hands!’” Albrecht repeated.
He aimed and put a shot into the near foot that was visible. Other than jumping from the gunshot, it didn’t move. Tom stood cautiously and moved towards the body on the ground, gun at the ready out in front of him. He rounded a stone bench and found the man lying on his back spread-eagle, gun still in his right hand. Albrecht kicked the gun away and felt for a pulse at the man’s carotid artery. It wasn’t really necessary to check since Ronnie put a hole into the man’s chest at the location of his heart. Nothing. He was gone.
“Nathan, we’re clear. Get to Ronnie,” Albrecht yelled. “Earl, take care of the kids. One of the guards must have a cuff key. Find it and put the kids in one room and cover them.”
Kaupert reached Desotel, took off his belt and used it as a tourniquet over the wound in spite of Ronnie’s colorful objections. In the distance, there were sirens. The cavalry was on the way.
* * *
“Where did you learn about guns?” Pete asked.
“My fuckin’ uncle’s a cop,” Brett said. “He used to take me shooting with him.”
“Fucking uncle?” Jamie asked.
“Yeah . . . fucking uncle,” Brett answered defiantly.
Pure hate boiled up and out of the boy.
“He’s the reason I’m here.”
Pete and Jamie stared at him, then at each other.
“Explain,” Jamie said.
About two weeks after he was taken, his uncle visited him and used him the same way as the Dark Man had.
“I thought he had come to take me away,” Brett said quietly. “But he came to use me just like all the other men who came in my room. He said that he had wanted me for a long time.”
Brett wiped tears from his eyes.
“One time, when he had taken me shooting, he kissed me. I thought it was weird, but I figured, ‘Okay, no big deal.’ Then he stood behind me as I took aim, and he was like coaching me, telling me to concentrate on the Campbell’s Soup can on the rock by the river. He had his hands around my waist. Then he . . . he . . . I told him not to. He kept . . . he did . . . I didn’t know what to do. When he was done, I threw the gun down and ran. I ran and ran.
“I never told anyone. I was afraid. After Ron and Frank took me, about a week or two later, he came. He told me it was all my fault. That if I just let him do stuff with me, I’d still be home.”
Jamie had his hands over his eyes. Pete stared at the boy not comprehending the brutality and coldness of it.
“The other boys . . .” Pete said. “Did someone . . .”
Brett nodded.
“Yeah, all of us. We’re here because somebody wanted us here.”
“What’s your fucking uncle’s name?” Pete asked.
“Detective Anthony Dominico,” Brett answered. “He’s in Indianapolis.”
Pete’s hunch was correct. Each of the boys was targeted by someone and then they were snatched and abducted. He walked over to Skip, explained the situation and what he wanted and told him to send it to Chet as soon as he was finished. He told Skip to tell Chet to get it out to the rest of the teams. Dahlke pulled out his cell and went into the room with the boys.
One by one, each boy gave the name of the man responsible for his being there. The only two that didn’t know who was responsible were Stephen and Mike.
“They wouldn’t know yet,” Tim explained.
What he didn’t say was that they might never know.
* * *
Pete shook his head in exasperation, nervous and perhaps fearful for the first time in his life. He had three partners to worry about, plus thirteen kids locked in a room. It was beginning to take on the appearance of a runaway train, and he felt like he was trying to stop it by hanging onto the caboose and dragging his feet. Pete knew that the only thing that would accomplish would be a pair of broken legs, or maybe death; his and others.
He dialed up Chet and said, “Send the cavalry now. We’re running out of time, and we’re undermanned. The kids are secure . . . for now. There are more bad guys than good guys, and they have more guns than we do. Hurry!” Pete said.
“Will
do.”
Pete rang off and found Brett in the hallway outside the room with the cop.
“Hey, Brett,” he said quietly. “Can we talk?”
He never got the chance. Fitz got his attention.
“Um, guys . . . we have company.”
The hairs on the back of Jamie’s neck stood at attention. He went to the door, put his ear to it, turned back to Pete and shook his head.
“A rusted out Camaro, red on white, Illinois tags 479GCE is rolling up the alley. Door going up. Two men.”
“Fitz, any way you can get in after them without being seen or getting shot?”
“Yes on the first . . . I’ll try real, real hard on the second.”
“Skip, did you get the kid info to Chet?”
“Done.”
“You gave him the names of the kids and where they were from-”
“-everything!”
“Good. I want you in the room down the end of the hall with me. You do as I say, when I tell you. Keep your head, stay calm. Jamie, take the front door.”
Brett entered Ian’s room and whispered to Tim what was happening, as much as he had heard anyway. Listening to one conversation, he had to guess at the rest. Tim nodded solemnly and gripped Brett’s forearm. Their eyes sent each other a message. The bond between the two of them and Johnny was incredibly strong.
“Brett, stay with us,” Patrick pleaded. “Please!”
Brett hugged Patrick, kissed his forehead, and said, “You have to trust me, okay?”
“Brett, please!”
“I’ll be okay. I promise.”
He took one last look at the boys and locked them in.
He looked both ways to make sure none of the cops were watching. Earlier, after he had left Mike’s room and after he had deposited him in other room with the boys, he had taken the .45 lying in the hallway, the one taken from the red-haired man, and hid it. Slowly, he backed into the room next to where the rest of the boys were. Quickly, quietly, he built himself a barricade to hide behind, yet be able to see down the hall in either direction.
Breathing easily and calmly, he waited.
