Soul Hostage

by Jeffrey Littorno

  All of this happened so quickly that the room was absolutely silent for a few seconds as the body twitched on the floor. Then a scream from the young mother broke through. Her scream was from being scared by the sound of the gun not from seeing what had happened. Luckily, an aisle full of bread and cookies blocked the view of the hostages. The last thing we needed was for the group to get hysterical.

  Right then I realized that Joey’s plan was to kill all of these people before we left the store. That actually made sense. They had seen us very clearly and could give the police good descriptions. Logically, killing them would be the way to go. But I wasn’t here to kill people. I could justify robbery, burglary, mugging, extortion, and a whole lot of other stuff. But murder was different.

  “Okay, if you think listening to some crazy old drunk is going to pay off, I’ll tag along.” I said quickly to Joey. My words were to distract him rather than show any true optimism about the plan of action.

  Before anyone else had a chance to speak, Louis Stoaffer cleared his throat and announced enthusiastically, “Great! It’s settled then. Shall we get started?”

  Joey and I and maybe everyone else in the room stared at the old man as he continued, “So what should we do with these fine people?” He nodded toward the group of hostages and then turned his gaze to Joey. “Any ideas?” he asked with a wink.

  It seemed to be another inside joke where I was on the outside.

  Joey answered with a wink of his own, raised the pistol, pointed it in the general direction of the terrified hostages, and started to slowly swing it between them.

  “Hold on!” I surprised myself by stepping forward. “I have a better idea.”

  Louis Stoaffer looked at me with a sort of amused expression.

  I looked around the area quickly and not seeing what I wanted moved into the office. All the while, the others watched me with confusion. Well, not everyone looked confused. The old man continued to look on with amusement.

  On the concrete floor in the corner of the office, I found what I wanted and quickly returned to the other room.

  As I moved toward the others, I quickly flipped through the magazine. It was some movie magazine with lots of pictures of famous actors. There was a picture of Brad Pitt with George Clooney. I considered using this one, but they were too well known to work. Finally, I saw an advertisement with a couple of guys standing around a truck supposedly discussing the great gas mileage and dependability of the vehicle.

  “Okay, I want everybody to look at this picture and describe the two men.” I walked closer so that they could get a better look.

  The blonde leaned near so that she could see. “Okay, there is one thirty-ish looking guy with brown hair and a light brown beard. He’s kind of husky. And…”

  She was interrupted by the young mother. “And the other man is older with dark black hair. He might be the other one’s father…”

  The elderly man spoke up, “No I think he’s an insurance salesman.”

  “It doesn’t matter what his job is! I want you to describe him!” My comment came out more loudly and more impatiently than I had intended, and the people in front of me recoiled a little.

  After a moment, the elderly woman spoke up to correct her husband. “No, he looks too athletic to be an insurance man. Look at those muscles. He is very fit. I think his hair looks a little fake like maybe he’s wearing a toupee.”

  “Yes! Her husband agreed with her. “You’re right, Gwen. He looks like he works out.”

  “Good! What else?” I was actually enjoying this.

  “The younger guy has no wedding ring but the older guy does,” the blonde observed.

  “Interesting point,” I commented lightly.

  The humor was not lost on the others as they laughed enthusiastically. For a brief instant, everyone seemed to forget the dangerous predicament in which they found themselves. Joey quickly stepped forward to remind them.

  “Good thinkin’, Thomas. Better to have a false ID than a pile of bodies” Joey said, and the laughter instantly stopped. “Anyways, looks like we’re all havin’ a good time here. So as long as we’re gettin’ to know each other so good, I want ev’rybody to give me their driver’s licenses.”

  For a few seconds, no one moved as if confused as to what they should do.

  “I want yer driver’s licenses!” Joey cleared up the confusion instantly. He turned to Louis Stoaffer. “You too.”

  With a flash of a smile, the old man responded, “I have to apologize. I lost that important document about ten years ago.” His chuckle was shared by Joey.

  Licenses were quickly removed from purses and wallets and passed forward to Joey who made a show of looking at each carefully.

  “Oh, Jennifer, put on some weight, haven’t you?” He commented to the blonde woman. Her reaction was a brief look of cold hatred before lowering her eyes.

  “Okay, Jennifer, William, Gwendolyn, Laura, and…” Joey looked at the children with a puzzled expression. “What’re the kids’ names?”

  Laura looked up with a face full of terror and appeared unable to speak.

  Joey continued, “Oh, it don’t really matter. What alluh yuh should remember is we know yer names and where yuh live. What my very smart friend here did was show yuh the description to give tuh the police.”

  He looked around at his audience who appeared to be listening carefully and so he continued but in a louder voice, “Now, jus’ so we understand each other, if I look in the paper or watch the news in the next coupla days and see a little drawing that don’t look like those fags in the magazine, I’m gonna come back here to-” He pulled a license out of his hand. “I’m gonna come back here tuh four forty-five Almond Drive.” The elderly couple looked up with the expected frightened response. “And then, I’m gonna pay a visit to… Well, yuh got the idea.”

  “What about him?” The blonde asked indicating the old man.

  “Whadda yuh mean?” Joey answered impatiently.

  “How should we describe him?”

  I could see the genuine confusion on her face as well as sense Joey’s growing annoyance. “Don’t you think the police will know what he looks like? I asked quietly.

  She turned her eyes to me. “Well, I’ve lived here since I was six-years-old, and I have never seen him before. So I don’t know that the police have.” The others nodded in agreement.

  “Well, I guess you can tell them whatever you want about him or just leave him out. I don’t expect him to be with us too long any way.” I turned to see the old man smiling at the slightly-veiled threat.

  I felt a little uneasy with the news that no one there had seen Louis Stoaffer before then.

  Before I had much time to consider this fact, Joey broke in, “Okay, let’s tape them up.” He produced rolls of silver duct tape from somewhere.

  We quickly went to work on them. For my part, I tried to place the tape as gently as possible without hurting anyone. This effort was not made by Joey as I heard squeals of pain from the elderly woman.

  As I taped her hands, feet, and mouth, the blonde woman glared at me with the same hatred she had earlier directed at my partner. Once done with her, I looked into the very frightened eyes of the children as I stuck strips of tape across their mouths as gently as possible. It was not a sight that was easily forgotten.

  Once we were finished, Joey looked over all the tape as if he didn’t quite trust my dedication to the job. When he was satisfied that they were secured, he asked, “Okay, yuh ready to get outta here?”

  Just as I was about to answer, I looked towards the old man snatching rolls of peppermint candy off the shelf and shoving them in his pockets. Then something caught my eye from beyond him outside of the front window. The same two cops that I had seen earlier were walking slowly by. Luckily, they seemed completely uninterested in anything that might be happening inside the store.

  Without waiting any longer, Joey moved next to Louis Stoaffer and grabbing the back of his arm just above the elbo
w pushed him toward the door at the back of the store.

  And I followed.

  Chapter 2

  You want to hear something funny? I kind of looked up to Joey. It was not like I had to stand on my toes or anything. I mean, he was about five six, and I am just about six foot tall. That was supposed to be a joke.

  Anyway, I looked up or admired him for his total lack of restraint. Joey did whatever popped into his brain. He did not care about right or wrong or what other people might think or who could get hurt. That is total freedom, and it sort of made Joey and I complete opposites. Besides the fact that I am a lot taller than him, Joey looked sort of Mexican and I am too thin and too white. We definitely made an odd couple. But the differences went deeper than appearance. I worried about doing things I knew were wrong and then worried about getting in trouble for doing things I knew were wrong. But Joey did not care about anything except doing what he wanted to do

  Most of us have a voice inside telling us something we are doing or thinking about doing is wrong. Whether you choose to call the voice a conscience, a higher power, or messages from aliens, most of us pause to think about what the voice is saying. I say most people, but Joey was not like most people. Either the voice was not there, or he managed to completely ignore it. I am not sure which it was. It does not matter. What matters is Joey never even hesitated. When he felt like doing something, he just did it. Of course, so far today the things he had felt like doing had resulted in three corpses, and the day was still young.

  We wasted no time crossing the empty lot at the back of the store. By the time we got to the car parked on the other side, I had pretty much resigned myself to going along for the ride. Going along for the ride was exactly what I had always done.

  Of course, it was not as if a whole load of other options were available to me at that point. I do wonder about it though. If I had known how weird and messed up things were going to get, would I have gone along with Joey and Louis Stoaffer? But it doesn’t do any good to think about “what-ifs”. Like they say “you can’t change the past”.

  The thing that matters is I got into the car.

  It was a big old light blue Lincoln Continental with white interior and suicide doors. We had swiped the car out of a church parking lot the previous afternoon. The license plates we put on the Lincoln came from a little car in a shopping mall.

  Joey opened the rear door on the passenger side and the old guy slid inside. He looked at me and grinned before sliding inside next to him.

  That left me to drive. I had no problems with driving, but the idea of having a crazy old man sitting behind me was not exactly pleasant.

  “Where to?” I asked as I glanced into the rearview mirror. Joey was looking out the window like he was checking to be sure no one was following us. That certainly made good sense.

  What didn’t make sense was the look of absolute delight as Louis Stoaffer looked straight at me in the mirror and said, “Oh, we should go to the beach!”

  Joey’s head spun away from the window to glare at the old man. Stoaffer had calmed down quite a bit from the shaky speed freak I had seen a few minutes before. Still, there was something not normal, not natural. I could not quite put my finger on it. All I was sure about was that the old guy made me feel really nervous.

  “First, just get us away from here.” Joey said without taking his eyes from Louis Stoaffer. “Then as we’re goin’, we can figger out if this old man’s body is gonna be thrown out along the road.”

  The store was not far from the highway which was why we had picked it. It was very convenient. Joey looked out the window in all directions to be sure we were making a clean getaway. We were on the highway headed north before anyone said anything else.

  “Okay, old man, I want to-” Joey began before being interrupted.

  “Louis Stoaffer. That’s my name.” The old man reintroduced himself with some pleasure as if meeting new friends. “If we are going to be spending time together, I think we should know each other’s names.”

  He looked toward Joey expecting some sort of introduction. The response he got didn’t quite seem to be the one he had been expecting.

  “Fuck you, Louis Stoaffer!” Joey immediately showed why he was a role model for psychopaths everywhere. “We ain’t gonna be buddies, and we ain’t gonna be spendin’ time together. Jus’ tell us what you were talkin’ about in the store, and we’ll let you outta the car. Otherwise, jus’ shut the hell up!”

  You would have thought Stoaffer had just been told that his puppy died. All the energy left his body. His shoulders sagged and his lower lip pushed out. For a minute, I honestly thought he was going to cry.

  When he made eye contact with me in the rearview mirror, he appeared to get some of his energy back. “Louis Stoaffer,” he announced to me hopefully

  “Yeah, so I heard.” I wasn’t trying to be a jerk, but the old guy gave me the creeps.

  I kept driving north with no destination other than a place that was not here, but it was hard to keep my eyes on the road instead of looking at our strange passenger in the rearview mirror. The world directly outside the car offered little in the way of distraction. The dry foothills were covered with dead weeds and scrub oaks with a few bony horses and scrawny cows shuffling through the dust.

  The old man kept his eyes down for maybe thirty seconds before suddenly raising them and smiling energetically again.

  “Oh, well, never mind. We will have time to get to know each other later.” His eyes darted around at Joey and me. “The important thing is we’re off on a grand adventure now.”

  A grand adventure, the phrase nearly caused me to laugh out loud. A grand adventure is definitely not what I would call this.

  While I repressed my laughter, Joey made no such attempt, and a roar burst from his chest. “A grand adventure!” He had to catch his breath before continuing. “Yeah, that’s right! Here we are startin’ a grand adventure! Jus’ three guys on a road trip!” Joey’s explosive laughter echoed throughout the car.

  The sound did not have the calming, light effect of most laughter. I had seen Joey’s laughter turn to brutality in a heartbeat so many times that it now caused a sense of dread to grow within me.

  His body continued to shake with the ripples of giggles and chuckles for what seemed like a long time.

  Finally, he took a deep breath and said, “Whoa, okay now that we had a good laugh, it’s time tuh figger out what we’re gonna do next.”

  He looked closely at the old man next to him for a moment before saying anything.

  “Well, Lou?” Joey grinned. “Where’re we headed on this grand adventure?”

  The old man didn’t respond instead he was perfectly still just staring straight ahead with a big smile on his face.

  “Hey!” Joey roughly prodded Louis Stoaffer’s shoulder. “Where’re we gonna make this big score you were talkin’ ‘bout in the store?”

  There was still no response from him for a few seconds. All of a sudden, the old guy took a huge gasp of air like he had just come from under water or something. He looked around with obvious confusion in his eyes. It was the same kind of look as a drunk waking up in a strange place with no memory of how he got there. Considering the fact Louis Stoaffer was obviously no stranger to the bottle, such a reaction should not have seemed out of place. But then again, somehow nothing about the strange old man seemed right.

  In a matter of seconds, he seemed to recover his senses and become comfortable once again. The old man looked at Joey with a wide grin on his face but said nothing as he popped another peppermint Lifesaver in his mouth.

  Finally, after shaking his head in disbelief, Joey asked with a humorless chuckle, “Well, have you got any idea where we’re goin’, Lou? Or was the whole story jus’ a buncha bull shit?”

  Stoaffer’s grin grew to the point where it seemed like his face would be torn in two. His eyes shifted to the rearview mirror to make contact with my own before looking back at Joey.

  “Don�
��t worry, my friends.” Something about the way he said friends and smiled made the back of my neck tingle. “You just need a little faith.”

  Like I said before, I had known Joey for a long time and seen him react to situations in some shocking ways. Right then, none of that mattered. I was never shocked more than by what he did next.

  After a moment in which nothing within the car seemed to move, my short, dark partner threw back his shaved head in utter joy and let loose a roar of genuine, unbridled laughter.

  “Ah, this guy!” Joey exclaimed as he moved to Louis Stoaffer, threw his arm around the old man, and pulled him closer. With his left hand still holding the gun, he tussled Louis’s already wild gray hair with his right. “You hear that, Thomas? ‘You just need a little faith’!” He jerked his head back again and howled with laughter.

  I watched in the mirror as his body continued to shake with glee. Louis Stoaffer remained still and simply kept staring back at me with a smile glued to his wrinkled face.

  Once Joey appeared to have regained control of himself, I said, “Joey, we don’t have time for this shit. We need to figure out what we are going to do. Right now, we’re headed nowhere. So let’s make a plan and then get off the road as soon as possible.”

  I didn’t bother to look in the mirror to see what was going on behind me. The silence from the backseat gave me a picture of Joey pouting, because I had not shared in his delight.

  After a moment, he grumbled, “Okay, you’re right. So where to, Lou?”

  I looked in the mirror to see Joey glaring at the old man. Stoaffer seemed completely unaware of the scrutiny as his ever-present smile broadened once again.

  “Well … I … I suppose we should head south.” The uncertainty was pretty obvious in his voice.

  I felt my body tighten with anger at having been taken in by this crazy old man. My irritation continued to grow, but it was nothing compared to the rage burning in the backseat.