Paying the Piper

by Simon Wood

  He didn’t like the person he was becoming. He wasn’t the Piper, but he was his servant, doing his bidding without independent thought. But it was a role he accepted for Sammy’s sake.

  Scott didn’t wait for Redfern’s answer. He sliced through the triple-wrapped tape around his ankles and hoisted him from the trunk. Redfern’s legs buckled when he tried to support himself unassisted. Scott held him while he stamped the circulation back into his lower extremities.

  “Let’s go,” Scott said.

  Redfern hesitated and Scott pressed the tip of the steak knife into his back. As if he were a windup toy being started with a key, Redfern lurched forward. Scott grabbed a fistful of Redfern’s collar in case he bolted. Now that he was so close to the exchange, he wasn’t about to lose his ransom.

  “You realize he’ll kill us both,” Redfern said.

  Scott had accepted this eventuality. For his son’s safety, it was a price he would pay willingly. If he were to die tonight, he hoped he saw Sammy beforehand. He wanted one last look at his child, a chance to tell him how much he loved him, his brother, and their mom. He wanted him to carry a message back to them, to tell them how sorry he was for this and how much he would miss them all.

  “You don’t know that,” Scott said to pacify Redfern.

  Redfern whipped around to face Scott, illuminated in the light from a busted window. His eyes scanned every inch of Scott’s face.

  “You’re crazy if you believe anything else.”

  “Whatever happens to us in there happens because we deserve it. We caused a child’s death. Now we’re being judged.”

  “By the person who killed the kid.”

  “Does it matter?” Scott said and spun Redfern back around. He marched him in the direction of the nearest door before his nerve gave out.

  Redfern pulled on a side door that hung by one hinge. Generator-powered spotlights illuminated an area on the main floor between two large table saws. Instructions weren’t required; Scott shoved Redfern toward the light.

  “Are you armed, Scott?” The Piper’s voice came from high up in the building.

  Scott held the steak knife aloft, then tossed it away.

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes.”

  “You wouldn’t be lying to me, would you, Scott? A lie will get Sammy killed.”

  Sammy screamed out to illustrate the point. Until now, Scott had feared that Sammy was already dead and that all the hoops the Piper had forced him to jump through were an elaborate hoax. But Sammy was alive! Still not safe, but alive.

  Scott lunged forward. “Don’t you hurt him, you bastard.”

  “I’m coming down, Scott,” the Piper warned. “Don’t move.”

  His words nailed Scott’s feet to the ground.

  “Move from the light, and I will put a bullet in Sammy’s head.”

  “Daddy,” Sammy screamed out, “help me!”

  It tore Scott in two to hear his son in pain, but he stayed in the illuminated area.

  A shot rang out. The bullet ricocheted off the concrete floor to Scott’s left, but it wasn’t intended for him. Redfern had tried to bolt. He hadn’t gotten six feet. The warning shot kept him in place as successfully as the threat against Sammy had stopped Scott.

  Footsteps rang out on a metal catwalk in the direction of the offices. The Piper, still dressed in black with his face hidden by the ski mask, descended the stairs. He moved with the grace and speed of a dancer. He kept a gun trained on them, changing his aim with every step. He slowed when he reached the circle of lights.

  “There’s two of you and one of me, but let’s remember who has the gun.”

  From where the Piper had been, Sammy’s whimper dripped down. Scott looked up in the direction of his son, imagining him tied up and helpless.

  The Piper moved in close to Redfern. He cocked his head and looked Redfern up and down, like an animal trying to make sense of an object it had never encountered before.

  Redfern stepped back, and the Piper pressed his revolver to his forehead. Redfern winced and shrank from the weapon’s touch, but he didn’t move from his spot.

  “So, you’re Mike Redfern. You thought you could be me.” Redfern squeezed his eyes shut.

  The Piper ground the revolver’s muzzle against Redfern’s head. “Didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What audacity. How did you, a spineless worm, honestly think you could impersonate me?”

  “I’m sorry.” Redfern broke into tears. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry isn’t going to cut it. Your stupidity cost a child his life and cost me two million dollars. Now, I want to know what you’re going to do about it.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? Scott here knew what to do. I said find me Mike Redfern, and he did it. Now, what are you going to do for me?”

  “Anything. You tell me, and I’ll do it.”

  “Would you rob a bank for me, Mikey?” the Piper berated. “And steal my money back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Scott showed great initiative in tracking you down. I need to know that I can expect the same from you. How would you do it?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “C’mon, I need better than that.”

  “Okay, okay, give me a second. I’d go in there with a gun and tell them to empty the vault.”

  “That’s it—that’s your master plan? You played at being me. Is that what I would do?”

  “No,” Redfern whimpered against the weapon, “you’d do better.”

  “Then you’re no good to me. I’m better off sticking with Scott.” The Piper tightened his finger on the trigger.

  “I’ll do anything. Just don’t kill me.”

  “You’re pathetic.”

  The Piper kicked Redfern in the back of the knees, and he crumpled to the ground. Redfern spoke, but his words dissolved into an incomprehensible whimper.

  Though the Piper’s intimidation disgusted Scott, it wasn’t his place to intervene. Redfern had to fight his own battle. Scott’s gaze moved to the darkened heights, and he stared into the darkness, trying to pick Sammy out of the gloom. The sawmill’s acoustics bounced Sammy’s sobs from wall to wall. He strained his hearing to pinpoint the origin. He couldn’t be certain, but Sammy sounded as if he was in the farthest corner of the top level, probably in one of the offices.

  “Scott, kill him.”

  The order shocked Scott from his thoughts, striking him with the intensity of a slap. Before he could object, the Piper pressed the gun into his hand. The revolver’s chrome finish glinted under the spotlights. A clean weapon for a dirty job.

  “C’mon, Scott, don’t wimp out on me now.” Twisted glee entered the Piper’s tone. He’d shoved the blade between Scott’s ribs and was twisting it yet again. “You’ve been a great ally so far. Don’t fail me now. Sammy’s life depends on it.”

  Scott looked from the gun to the Piper. A smile stretched the ski mask’s opening.

  “You can’t,” Redfern said.

  It was an easy decision for Scott to make, under normal circumstances. But these weren’t normal circumstances. If he let Redfern live, Sammy died. As much as he didn’t want to kill anyone, he didn’t have a choice.

  “Scott, are you going to disappoint me?”

  Sammy called out, “Daddy!”

  “I promise you that I will make Sammy suffer.”

  Scott pointed the revolver at Redfern.

  Redfern’s eyes went wide. “Scott, no.”

  “I’m sorry, Mike. I don’t want to do this, but I have to do the best for my son.” He owed Redfern nothing.

  Redfern went to speak, but a dry heave cut his words off.

  “Scott, you never fail to surprise me,” the Piper said.

  Scott took a step closer. At this range, he couldn’t miss his target.

  “I paid,” Redfern said. “I served my sentence. My family shunned me. I had to change my name. I work a shit job. I live with the guilt
every day. I paid my debt!”

  Redfern wasn’t speaking to Scott or the Piper; he was confessing before he died. He looked directly at Scott. His tears had dried up. His eyes burned with need. He repeated, “I paid my debt.”

  “Scott, shoot this piece of shit. I’m tired of listening to him.”

  Scott reconfigured his grasp on the gun, working the weapon’s ergonomically designed grip into the contours of his hand. It didn’t want to fit.

  “You’ll have Sammy back the moment you pull that trigger.”

  Suddenly, the gun snapped into place like it had been hand-crafted for him and him alone.

  “Please,” Redfern pleaded, “don’t do this.”

  “Scott, you’re overthinking it. Just pull the trigger, and all this is over.”

  The Piper thought he knew people so well. He thought he was the great puppeteer, capable of pulling anyone’s strings. He was wrong. Scott swung the gun away from Redfern and aimed the revolver at the mouth hole in the Piper’s ski mask.

  “Do it!” Redfern shouted, struggling to his feet. “Shoot him.”

  “You’re making a big mistake,” the Piper warned, anger in his voice.

  Even face-to-face with a gun, the Piper had the audacity to be angry. After all the misery he’d brought to all those innocent people, he thought he was invincible enough to stop a bullet. The bastard sickened Scott.

  “Shoot him,” Redfern urged.

  “Shooting me will be the biggest mistake of your life, Scott.”

  “I’ve already made the biggest mistake of my life. I consider this making up for it.”

  Scott pulled the trigger—and nothing happened.

  Just as the realization sunk in, the Piper stepped forward and drove a fist into Scott’s face. An explosion went off in his nose and he saw only blinding light before he crashed to the floor.

  The Piper snatched Scott’s wrist and twisted the gun from his grasp. Redfern swept in to help, but the Piper backhanded him out of the way with the gun. The blow upended Redfern and he hit the floor hard.

  The Piper jerked out a second gun from his waistband and jammed it in Scott’s face. “You failed the test, Scott. If you’d pulled the trigger, it would have been over for you. You would have played your part, and you could have gone home to live happily ever after.”

  Blood streamed down Scott’s face as he struggled to get up, but the Piper forced him back down.

  “Now, I’m going to have to think of another punishment for you.”

  Scott’s mind leapt to Sammy. He’d made another mistake, and Sammy would end up paying the price. It was Nicholas Rooker all over again.

  “No!” he yelled out, forcing his way up.

  “Yes,” the Piper said and smashed the gun down across Scott’s head.

  Scott clung to consciousness, but his grasp slipped off its slick surface. He heard a scream before a shot rang out, then nothingness.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Scott awoke abruptly and jerked upright. He half expected to be somewhere else, but he’d been left where he’d fallen. The Piper was nowhere in sight. Redfern lay on his back, shot in his face. The sight of the corpse first stilled Scott, then electrified him.

  “Sammy!” he yelled, his cry bouncing off the sawmill’s cavernous walls.

  He scrambled to his feet and bolted for the stairs. His shoes clanged on the steel steps. He called out his son’s name over and over.

  Sammy didn’t reply.

  Scott cursed himself for being so stupid. What had he been thinking when he pointed the gun at the Piper? The Piper wasn’t going to hand him a loaded gun, leaving himself unarmed. Scott prayed the monster hadn’t taken it out on his son.

  Hitting the top of the stairs, Scott called out, “Sammy, it’s Dad. Where are you?”

  No answer.

  Scott kicked open the first office door in front of him. The door swung back and crashed into the wall, cracking the frosted-glass pane set into it. The office was deserted, long since stripped bare.

  “What have you done to him, you bastard?”

  Sammy called back. His voice was faint, dampened by fear. His cry came from the end of the mezzanine.

  “I’m coming, Sammy,” Scott called back. “I’m coming.”

  It was over. The Piper had gotten what he’d wanted and it was over. The mezzanine shook under Scott’s crashing footfalls.

  He arrived at the office and heard Sammy whimpering. The door was locked, so he smashed into it with his shoulder. His momentum and the rotten doorframe sent him hurtling into the office, robbing him of his balance. He crashed to his hands and knees. Sammy’s voice continued to call out to him, but his son was nowhere to be seen. There wasn’t any furniture to hide behind, just dirt and leaves blown in through the busted windows.

  “Sammy, where are you?”

  “Daddy, don’t let him hurt me.”

  Scott followed the sound of his son’s voice to the corner of the office. The single red eye of a minidisc player looked back at him. He went over to it and picked it up. Nausea left him light-headed. Sammy had never been here. It was another of the Piper’s tricks. That meant Sammy was somewhere else, alone, hidden away. He couldn’t imagine how frightened he must be. Anger boiled up inside him. He hurled the minidisc player at the ground, and it exploded into pieces, the disc flying out and extinguishing the red eye.

  “You piece of shit!” he shouted.

  Scott descended the stairs and again saw Redfern’s corpse, illuminated by the lights surrounding it. He approached the man he had abducted.

  The Piper had shot him only once. The bullet had entered his head just above the right eyebrow. Its destructive power had shattered the bone, collapsing his eyebrow ridge. A single red bead streaked his temple and disappeared in his hairline. This rated as minor damage in comparison to the exit wound. A trail of devastating gore splashed the floor for ten feet beyond where Redfern lay. Luckily for Scott, Redfern lay on his back, robbing him of the sight of what remained of the back of his skull.

  Scott couldn’t stop staring at the scene and felt his nausea rise again. He wrenched his gaze to the note resting on Redfern’s chest. DISPOSE OF THIS GARBAGE, the untidy line of block caps spelled out.

  What had been the purpose? Scott wondered. The Piper had wanted Redfern, and Scott had brought him. Scott hadn’t deluded himself about the outcome. He knew Redfern would die at the Piper’s hands, and he would have to live with the consequences of that. Now, Redfern was dead and Scott had to bury the body. He understood that. But the Piper still had Sammy. This wasn’t over. What dirty job would the Piper have him do next?

  Scott went out to Redfern’s car. The pickup was gone, but a shovel lay in its place. He hoped the Piper was on his way to Sammy.

  Redfern had spread a blanket across the backseat to cover up the eroded upholstery. Scott yanked it free. The trunk offered little in the way of supplies other than a plastic bag from a supermarket and the duct tape he’d used to tie up Redfern. He took them both.

  He stretched out the blanket next to Redfern’s corpse. Jerking the plastic bag from his pocket, he knelt by his head. He knew he had to do this, even if every part of his being wanted him to stop. He looked away from Redfern’s face and took two deep breaths to steady himself. Trying to not think about what he was doing, he lifted Redfern’s head. His hand made contact with his blood-soaked hair. Something shifted within the shattered skull and pressed against his hand. He gagged, but fought back his revulsion long enough to slip the plastic bag over Redfern’s head.

  Once it was contained, he snatched his hand away. It came away red. Reflexively, he wiped it on the blanket over and over until Redfern’s blood and brain matter were a dim stain in the creases of his hand. Finally, he cinched the plastic bag tight around Redfern’s neck and sealed it with duct tape.

  With his face covered, Redfern stopped being a person. He was just remains. It made Scott’s task only a fraction easier to cope with.

  He rolled the body onto the
blanket, then rolled it over and over, cocooning it, before duct-taping the blanket in place. Redfern’s feet stuck out at one end, as did the top of his plastic-bagged head. It wasn’t a perfect shroud, but it would do.

  This was the easy part. Disposing of the body was the tough part. He could bury him close to the sawmill, but he wouldn’t put it past the Piper to put a call in to Sheils. Then he’d be found digging a grave when the FBI blew in. It would certainly make for a pretty revenge. Maybe the Piper’s end game was to set him up for a crime he didn’t commit. Sheils would settle for that.

  Taking the body somewhere presented its own problems. Driving around with a corpse in the trunk was going to be hard to explain away if he ran into a cop.

  Stay or go? That was the question.

  Go. He didn’t relish hanging out at the scene of a murder longer than he had to.

  He gathered up the corpse and bundled it into the Escort’s trunk. Redfern returned to his hiding place, this time without complaint.

  Scott went back inside the sawmill. There was nothing he could do about the lights and their generator. This was never going to be a perfect cleanup, but he had to do something about the bloodstain. Mopping it up presented as many problems as leaving it. A perfectly clean spot on the ground looked suspicious when years of dirt and grime covered everything else. Disguising the blood was the only solution.

  He found a quart of engine oil sitting in the Escort’s front passenger foot well. He mixed oil with a shovelful of dirt and scattered it over the bloodstain. He had no idea if the dirt-oil mix destroyed blood evidence, but he hoped so.

  When he’d finished covering up the bloodstain, he examined his work. It didn’t make for perfect camouflage, but it was good enough. A week of rough weather should do the trick. He killed the lights and ran over to the Escort.

  Scott didn’t drive far from the sawmill to dump the corpse. He figured if the FBI was alerted to the sawmill and conducted a search for a body, just driving a mile created over three square miles of land to search. That sucked up a lot of resources and manpower.

  He followed a dirt track down a slope into a wooded area. He tugged the corpse free from the trunk and dropped it on the ground. The blanket-wrapped corpse rolled with the momentum from the fall, then gathered speed on the slope and disappeared in the darkness.