by John L. Monk
The chances were slim Sandra and Peter had left a key under the doormat. Sure enough, when I looked, there wasn’t one. I checked the little ledge above the door, but there wasn’t one there, either.
I’d almost convinced myself this was crazy and I needed to go when I noticed the flowerpot. It was sitting on the top step leading to the front door. In addition to dried twigs from last year’s flowers, there was a black rock about the size of a baseball sunk partially into the soil.
“You gotta be kidding me,” I said, and plucked it out. Remarkably light for a rock that size, and it rattled when I shook it.
I opened the rubber seal in the bottom and took out a brass key. Peter’s handiwork, I figured, endangering the family by hiding a house key in the third likeliest place a burglar would look. Lucky for him I didn’t want to steal anything.
I slipped inside and shut the door.
There hadn’t been an alarm last time I was there, and I didn’t see a console on the wall. Even after my shenanigans at that coffee shop and my note left in his busted-up briefcase, Peter still hadn’t thought to put in an alarm.
Peering around the familiar townhouse, another line crossed in a long list of transgressions, I noticed everything seemed in order. The same family pictures were on the wall, so Sandra and Peter clearly hadn’t moved. There were a few changes since last time—a new dining table and a painting with horses running on a beach. If they were buying new tables and artwork they had to be happy, didn’t they?
I thought about taking the picture with me when I left, or moving the furniture around like someone had been there. Maybe then they’d get an alarm—a good idea for a family with kids, living in a neighborhood with burned-out streetlamps. In that sense, my breaking-in wouldn’t be so bad, now would it?
I left the painting alone and proceeded cautiously through the house like a ghost, hating myself for being there but unable to move on. Though I thought I’d come to terms with my feelings for Sandra, I was still the guy who couldn’t forget anything, and those old obsessive feelings from college were as sharp as the day I’d first felt them.
“Poems are made by fools like me,” I said.
I knew they had two kids, though I’d only met one of them: Danielle, who I thought of as my namesake, though I suppose it could have been a family name. Cute kid, looked exactly like her mother.
When I got to Danielle’s room and peeked inside, I saw she had her own computer. I questioned the choice, what with online predators. Hopefully Sandra had installed all the proper software.
Sandra and Peter’s bedroom looked the same as last time. The covers on the bed were neat on Peter’s side, messy on Sandra’s, and something about that made me smile—a human touch from my favorite human.
There was a book on Peter’s nightstand.
Still unsure of what I was looking for, I went over and picked it up. Some kind of self-improvement book, written by a man with great hair who knew the power of positive thinking. A look at the back showed that in addition to curing gambling, infidelity, and overeating, the power of positive thinking would guide the reader down the path of a drug-free life.
More self-improvement books crowded the lower part of the nightstand, along with others I found particularly shocking: Peter was reading about angels. Not fiction, either, or not sold as such. This was testimonial stuff from people who’d had near death experiences, or people who’d gone through adversity and claimed an angel had flapped down and helped them.
I laughed. Peter the atheist was reading about angels. Did he think I was an angel?
Though I needed to get out of there as soon as possible, I ran back to the kitchen, grabbed a pen from a short ceramic jar on the counter, then hurried back to the room. I opened the only book with a bookmark and wrote in the empty space at the end of his current chapter:
Dear Pecker Colon,
Very proud of your progress, keep up the good work.
Pecker Colon was my nickname for Peter in college. Mean and silly, sure, but it’d reinforce the idea I’d been here and not some rogue book defacer.
I closed my eyes and thought carefully about my next words. I really was proud of him, and I felt guilty for the way I’d treated him in college, and again when I’d shown up and freaked him out so much he’d turned to Tony Robbins and Dr. Phil for help.
I wrote:
Just curious, but why does Danielle have a computer? At her age? Why not get rid of it? I mean you’re her dad, I get it, but the world’s a dangerous place. Did you know your lamppost is out? Anyway, the spirit world calls to me. Take care of Sandra.
I signed the note, Dan the Man.
My behavior last time had left me with this nagging worry he’d freak out, get deeper into drugs, and ruin Sandra’s life. Clearly that wasn’t the case. The house looked great and he was trying to improve himself. Happy tidings everywhere.
When I got to the living room, on an impulse, I went over and picked up their home phone, dialed an old number, and held it to my ear. When a lady picked up, I apologized for having gotten the wrong number.
“I pushed seven when I meant to push eight,” I said.
She said that was perfectly fine, it could happen to anyone, and told me to have a good evening. She sounded happy and healthy.
I hung up, feeling immensely satisfied, and strolled through the front door as if I had every right to do so. After putting the key back where I’d found it, I proceeded to where Sam had parked. Then stopped.
The cab was gone.
I turned around to see if he’d moved down the road and saw the two bodyguards from the book signing standing in the gloom about five feet away.
“Hey, Ernest,” Brian said.
“Surprise,” Sean said, and zapped me in the chest with fifty thousand volts of searing, sizzling, agony.
I fell straight backwards and hit my head on the pavement, which was like falling into a tub of cotton candy compared to that thing he’d hit me with.
Sean stood over me and said, “Boss lady wants to see you, and you know how she gets.”
He turned me over and I felt a sting in my butt. Then, together, they lifted me off the ground, dragged me over to a car, and tossed me into the back.
When the drug kicked in, I skipped right over drowsy into infinite, deathlike oblivion.
Chapter Six
I woke up in the backseat of a car.
A moving car.
Their moving car.
I was groggy, could barely move … No, my right hand moved fine, but my left hand was asleep. I rolled over, shaking it to get the blood flowing again.
“You awake, Prescott?” Brian said from the driver’s seat.
“Yeah,” I said and sat up, feeling faintly nauseous.
“Just stay quiet and enjoy the ride,” Sean said. He sounded angry. “While you were sleeping, we picked up your shit from the hotel. Why’d you switch rooms? Thought you could hide from us?”
Brian said, “Man, leave him alone. You okay, Ernest?”
“What about Sam?” I said.
“Who?” Sean said.
“The cabbie.”
“Told him to scram. Don’t worry about him.”
Time passed, and my wits slowly returned to me. We weren’t in the city. We were on 95, heading north toward New York.
“No airplanes?” I said.
Brian chuckled. “You sure pissed Lana off. Never seen her so mad. I mean, she’s crazy, you know? But damn. Told us to drive you. Said she wanted you back at the house.”
“This is illegal,” I said. “Kidnapping. That doesn’t bother you?”
I saw Brian look sideways at Sean, who returned the look, his expression worried.
“Maybe we gave him too much of that shit,” Sean said. “Prescott, you okay, man? You need some water or something?”
“Just lie back and relax,” Brian told me. Then to Sean: “What’s this we shit? You fuck up his brains, that’s your ass.”
“I gave him the right amount!”
“Yo
u better have,” he said. “That’s all I’m saying. Bitch is crazy…”
An hour and a half later, I shifted in the backseat and Brian said, “How you feeling?”
“I think I need to tinkle.”
“Tinkle?” he said accusingly to Sean. “Why the fuck he talking like that?”
“Why you asking me?” Sean said, sounding panicked.
“Hey,” I said, “just take the next exit or something. I won’t run. I just need to, uh … take a leak. Ok? And maybe something to eat.”
“No problem,” Brian said. “Feeling hungry myself.”
“You sure you’re okay?” Sean said.
“I’m fine.”
We stopped at a big travel plaza somewhere in Delaware. Brian helped me out, seeming concerned, while Sean pretended everything was fine and I wasn’t brain damaged or whatever they were worried about.
My first hesitant steps were weak and wobbly, and I had to reach out a hand to a nearby car for fear of falling over.
What the hell was in that needle?
“You need to lean on me?” Brian said.
“I think I’m fine,” I said, and continued toward the entrance.
Brian hovered close with a worried expression, as if afraid I’d faint. At no point did I feel I was there against my will, just that I was deemed helpless, an invalid. Still on their team, it seemed. Just going through a rough patch.
Sean wanted to get our orders to go, but Brian overruled him and we found a table by ourselves over near a pizza place. The food was great. And even though I knew it was crappy rest stop pizza, right then it seemed like the best I’d ever had.
A kid walked by with a soft serve cone, and now I wanted ice cream.
“Can we get ice cream?” I said.
Brian was shaking his head, staring hard at Sean. Despite that, I got my ice cream—a huge swirly chocolate and vanilla cone, dipped in chocolate that turned hard if you waited. But I didn’t wait long enough, so the first part was too soft. I ate it quickly and got an ice cream headache, but I didn’t care. I asked if we could get another.
Sean got up and stalked out of the building muttering curses under his breath.
“Sure, man,” Brian said, as if talking to his dying grandmother. “You want more ice cream? No problem. They sure look good—I may get one too. But just so you know, you keep acting crazy like that, I don’t think Sean’s gonna be working for Lana much longer.”
“Yeah?” I said.
“Doesn’t bother me, so long as you back me up. Wasn’t me who zapped you or gave you that shot.”
And just like that, I had an ally.
“I got your back,” I said.
A look of faint relief washed over Brian’s dark features, and he smiled evilly. “Don’t like that prick anyways. Always gotta be a smartass. Know what I mean?”
I nodded, was about to say totally, but settled for, “Yes I do.”
“Gimme a second,” he said.
He walked over near the wall, took out a cell phone, and made a call. He talked for about a minute, hung up, and came back.
“Time to go,” he said.
* * *
Five minutes into the drive, I couldn’t keep my eyes open … and then Brian was shaking me awake, saying, “Hey, Ernest, we’re here. You need to get up.”
Now my right arm was asleep. My head hurt from striking it on the ground, and now I wished I hadn’t eaten so much. When I got out of the car, I threw up all the ice cream and pizza from the traveler’s plaza.
“Jesus…” Sean said, jumping out of the way. “I thought he was better!”
When I raised my head, I saw we were on a circular stone-cut driveway in front of a big mansion, somewhere in the countryside. Depending on how long I’d been out, it could have been New Jersey or possibly New York. Ernest lived in New York, but my mental map had him in a more densely populated area.
After I wiped my mouth off, the palatial front doors opened and two figures walked out: Lana Sandway, dressed in simple jeans and a tight T-shirt, and a man, wearing shorts and a tank top with some kind of logo on it. As they approached, I saw he had short sandy-blond hair, and his well-muscled left arm was tattooed with spiky red and black razors.
The muscle guy spoke first. “Yo, Ernest, what’s shaking, man?”
“My stomach,” I said.
He made like he was going to punch me in the gut and follow up with a right hook, which caused me to flinch. Then he grabbed my still-tingling hand in a bone-crushing handshake.
To Lana he said, “Damn … His hand’s cold as ice. Limp as a dead fish.”
“Limp,” she said drily, staring hard at me from that triangle-shaped mantis face of hers. I could almost hear the clicking of mandibles.
“Heard how you took care of that crazy guy with the knife,” the muscle guy said proudly, like I’d joined the same club as him. “You should train with me, I’ll whip you in shape. Too much time alone staring at a computer.”
“How you doing, Jacob?” Sean said.
The muscle guy smiled at him, a predatory gleam in his eyes. “Got a match coming up in Vegas. Lot of training.”
“Oh yeah?” Sean said. “Who you fighting?”
Jacob opened his mouth to answer, but Lana stayed him with a touch.
“Now, boys,” she said. “First we work, then we play. Sean, be a dear and give us your report.”
Sean smiled thinly and said, “What, out here?”
“Where better?” she said.
Sean nodded, rolling with it, and said, “Ok. Well, the next day I waited for him in the lobby, eight o’clock. Like you said, remember? Only he didn’t come down. A little later, I knocked on his door and he didn’t answer.” He shrugged. “So I figured he wanted to be left alone, you know?”
“You figured that?” Lana said.
Sean nodded. “Yeah. I called Brian to tell him, and then ol’ Ernest here slipped out on me. Like on purpose, I think, otherwise I woulda seen him.” He looked at me. “Sorry, man…” He turned back to her. “Later on, Brian says he’s walking around in public for no reason. Then we see him going to museums and stuff. It was weird.”
Lana nodded. “I know all that. Get to the part where you shot my Ernest with a fucking taser and then drugged him!”
And just like that, everything got really quiet. Jacob was still wearing the same smile he’d had since Sean started talking.
“Right,” Sean said, licking his lips. “The next day, we figured out he switched rooms. You told us to follow him, so we did. He went to the movies. When you called and said to grab him, we figured we’d do it after. Only there were too many people around, so we waited. Then he hops in a cab, heads to the suburbs, and goes in some house.”
Lana looked at Brian.
“That one threw me,” he said, chuckling. “Almost like a whole different Ernest. Went in like he owned the place.”
“You have the address?” she said.
“Yes ma’am.”
Sean said, “So like I was saying … he was acting crazy … and we were in the suburbs … and we needed to grab him without him yelling or whatever…”
To Brian, Lana gave a barely perceptible nod.
“…and I didn’t want to … but you said you wanted him home now, and…”
Brian took a silenced pistol from under his jacket and shot Sean in the head, dropping him where he stood. Like it was the easiest thing in the world, just another thing he had to do today. And here Brian had seemed like such a nice guy. But as shocking as all that was, the only thing I could think was, I led them to Sandra. I led them right to her.
Then, whether from being hit from fifty thousand volts or some lingering effect of the drug they’d used, I fell over and passed out.
Chapter Seven
When I woke up, my shirt was sticky from vomiting again sometime during the night. I was in a bed, and my arm was hooked to an IV drip. My head still hurt, but soon I fell back asleep.
Lana Sandway woke me up later when sh
e came in with shorts, socks, and a clean shirt, which she helped me into. She grunted at me when I said good morning. Apparently she wasn’t a morning person.
Then, as if sensing the delicate state of my emotions, she said, “How do you feel?”
“Hungry.”
“I’ll send something up later,” she said. “Don’t get out of bed.”
Her manner was cold and oddly tense, as if affecting a nurturing bedside manner was pushing her to exhaustion. After she changed my IV bag, she left without so much as a smile.
For the first time, I got a good look at my surroundings. I was in a spacious room with geometrically textured ceilings, elegantly stenciled paneling in burgundy and green, and wall-to-wall marble floors. Beneath the bed was a thick rug done in a foxhunting motif. That and the recessed lightning, central air, and the decorative gas fireplace suggested new money trying to look like old money.
My chest felt sore from where I’d been zapped. But my nausea had passed, which was all the health I needed to get up and resume my place as the driver of this bus.
I pulled out the IV and held my hand over the tiny wound. When I was sure it wouldn’t bleed everywhere, I got up to look for my shoes but couldn’t find them.
Shuffling to one of the room’s three windows, careful not to slip, I opened the curtains and confirmed I was still somewhere in the countryside. The view from my second story window was vast and green with grass, with a sky-blue pond in the distance. Stands of trees and thick tufts of brush grew where the land dipped and folded into natural seams. Off to my left, the house bent sharply, forming a wide V-shape.
Lana must have had Jacob or Brian put me on the other side of the mansion, because I didn’t see the driveway.
There were several doors in the room. I poked my head out the one I’d seen Lana go through and saw a wide hallway going down about fifty feet. There were six more doorways spaced evenly along either side. From the outside, the place had seemed big and impressive, though it was harder to appreciate it now after Sean’s murder. Kidnappers and killers, all of them, and they knew about Sandra.
I needed to find a phone and warn her—or better yet, warn Peter. I felt I could convince him he was in danger. Or maybe I’d call the minister. He could go over and keep watch. That night everything went to hell at Nate’s house, he’d said he owned a gun.
