by Ray Backley
Dan turned to Vinnie, gritted his teeth. “Tell me what you’ve done with her first. I swear I’m not a violent man, but I’ll kill you if you’ve hurt her.”
“You’ll what?” Vinnie glanced at the pistol buried in Dan’s torso. “Do you even know what this thing is?” His spare hand flew over and grabbed Dan’s right hand, which he examined. “What the hell, pussy hands? You haven’t done a day’s hard work in your life, have you? Now I’m not even sure I need a gun to deal with a guy like you, but I’ll tell you this: don’t make the mistake of thinking it isn’t loaded or I won’t use it. If you’re still unsure, just try to imagine what the interior of this car would look like with the contents of your belly splattered all over it. Now stop thinking about that and drive, or your shitty little life ends right here and right now. You got me?”
Dan drove. After taking a left out of the hotel parking lot and a few more turns they were on the freeway north. It was then that Vinnie whipped a plastic loop out of his pocket and threw it over Dan’s head, lassoing him around the neck, holding onto a leash attached to the loop. It made Dan flinch, nudging the car to the right before he recovered his composure, only to see Vinnie putting his end of the leash around his own wrist and pulling it tight.
“What the hell’s that for?”
“Surely you’ve used a zip tie before, pussy hands?”
“A what?”
“You want me to show you how it works?”
“God. No.”
“Good. All you need to understand is that what’s around your neck is also attached to my hand by this cable. It’s just in case you had any ideas of crashing the car or running away. If that happens – or, for that matter, if I decide to run away – this cable goes taut, the zip tie around your neck tightens up. These guys are high strength industrial versions, and they don’t loosen. It’s a one-way ticket to asphyxia for you, pussy hands. It means I can put my gun away and we can relax.”
“You mean you can relax.”
“Well, that’s where you’re wrong, my dear Daniel.” He twisted his neck one way and then the other, stretching the muscles. He watched the scenery go by for a few seconds, then said, “You can relax too, I have a story to tell you and all you have to do is listen.”
“You’re going to tell me where Phoebe is?”
“No, no, no. Much more interesting than that. I’m going to tell you what it was like screwing your lovely wife when she was a sweet fourteen-year-old.”
“Jesus Christ, Vinnie. Just don’t, okay? I really don’t want to hear what you have to say.”
“Excuse me?”
Dan felt the cable between them go taut, and the skin on his neck pinch as the zip tie tightened a notch.
“Okay, okay. If you have to.”
“Thank you. In that case I will.” He coughed theatrically to clear his throat, then started talking.
Dan tried to blot out the noise – to silently lah-lalah over the sordid crap coming from the passenger seat. He tried and failed to ignore the details of every drug Karen took and every man who took her.
After five minutes he could listen to no more.
“Enough, already. Can you just tell me what the fuck you actually want?”
“From you, pussy hands? Absolutely nothing. So just shut up and drive on, or I’ll pull this cable so tight your balls will pop out of your eye sockets.”
Dan shut up and drove on.
Chapter 20
It was a long, tiring drive north of Los Angeles and beyond. Dan had seldom been up this way before so didn’t know the geography too well, but judging by the signposts, they weren’t too far from Bakersfield, a region he guessed Vinnie might have originally come from because it was on the way to Fresno.
For most of the journey, Vinnie had been giving him the lowdown on what Cath had been like when she was fourteen and called Karen, and specifically what they’d gotten up to together in his bedroom. The details made him gag a few times, and forced him to seriously consider veering the car off the road even though he knew it would mean certain death for him one way or another. So he was glad when, after seeing nothing but parched, golden, California scrubland for twenty minutes, they reached their destination.
The downside was that five minutes later, Dan once again found himself being forced down into a basement. At least this time he was conscious.
In another life he might see the humor in that. Not now. However, as Vinnie led him down the steps, one huge upside became apparent: Phoebe. She was dirty and clearly upset, but she was here and she looked unharmed. He so wanted to rush toward her, scoop her up in his arms and hug her, but the damn plastic thing around his neck was always threatening to strangle him if he moved too far from Vinnie. That didn’t turn out to be a problem: his little sweetie screamed with a kind of twisted delight the moment she set eyes upon him, and ran over to him, dissolving into a fit of sobs, grabbing his legs, clinging on as if he were a life raft.
“It’s okay,” Dan said softly. “Daddy’s here. You’re safe.” He held her head close, caressing her long locks, his hands feeling the sweat and filth embedded in them. He glanced around. He was becoming a little tired of dingy basements, a sentiment not lost on Vinnie.
“Getting to be a habit of yours, huh?” Vinnie said, waving the gun vaguely in Dan’s direction. “First your dear lady locks you up in a basement, now I do. Makes me wonder what else me and her have in common.”
Dan sneered. “Don’t you dare compare yourself to her. You’re lucky I don’t—”
“You won’t do shit, pussy hands. You’ll do as I say so long as you have that collar on and I have this gun. Now, I hate to break up this cutesy little reunion party, but I’m afraid it’s zip tie time, can’t have you two just roaming around down here, can we? My dear Daniel, I need you to step away from little lollipop, face the wall, and put your hands behind your back.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I’ll put a bullet in your head and you’ll never know what your sweet little daughter and I get up to with each other. Your choice, pussy hands.”
“Okay,” Dan said, teeth grinding. “How about you take this thing off of my neck?”
“All in good time. Just turn around, hands behind back.”
A few minutes later, Phoebe and Dan were seated on the concrete floor, hands tied behind their backs and also tied to heavy duty metal eyes that had been screwed into the wall.
Vinnie pulled a sharp craft knife out of his pocket and reached out for Dan’s neck, making Dan flinch away.
“You want this damn thing off or not, pussy hands?”
Dan said nothing, but inched closer. Vinnie pulled the knife up and the zip tie that had been cutting into Dan’s neck for over an hour fell to the floor.
“Thank you,” Dan snapped.
“My pleasure. Does sir require anything else?”
“When was the last time Phoebe had something to eat or drink?”
Vinnie’s reply was a stare and a shrug, then he turned and headed for the steps.
“Do we get any drink or food at all?” Dan shouted. “Or are you going to just leave us here to rot?”
Vinnie turned back and stepped toward him. He gave a thoughtful, upturned smile, gazed through Dan and then shook his head. “I don’t recall being able to request food and drink when I was locked up in Quentin. I just had to eat it when it appeared in front of me. Might be good for you to know what that feels like.”
“You won’t get away with this.”
Vinnie grunted a laugh. “From where I’m standing, looks like I already did, pussy hands.”
“You know you’ll be rooted out eventually. Both of you.”
“Both of me? What the hell are you talking about, you stupid asshole?”
“You have a contact in the police or the witness relocation authorities. We know. It’s the only way you could have found out where we live.”
Vinnie laughed again. “You know that for a fact? Do you really?”
“And ho
w else would you have known what motel we were staying at?”
“Didn’t Karen tell you? I’m telepathic.”
“She’s not Karen anymore.”
“I see,” Vinnie said, nodding knowingly. “I get it. You’re mad at her for lying to you all these years. Have to say, I’d feel just as betrayed if I was in your shoes. Let me ask you, pussy hands, if you get out of here, do you think you’ll ever be able to forgive her?”
“You’re the telepathic one. You tell me.”
Another laugh, this time forced, drawn out to twist the knife. “Very good, very funny, but I’m not really telepathic. And there’s no insider cop passing me information.”
Dan frowned. “So, how did you know where we were staying?”
Vinnie crouched down, face to face. “Oh, you’re such a disappointment, Daniel. When I was given Karen’s new identity and found out she was married, I expected her husband to be a smart guy – smart enough to work that one out, anyways.”
There was silence, like Vinnie was mocking him.
“And?” Dan said.
Vinnie just shrugged, like it was obvious. “You forget, I was being interviewed at the cop station. We talked about your cell phone a lot. When they let me go free, I heard them saying they needed to return it to you. I guessed the chances of you coming down to collect it were fifty-fifty. I waited for you outside the cop station and followed you when you drove off. You led me straight to that Toledo place. Simple, really, wasn’t it?”
Dan remembered: the battered old white Toyota sedan. “You devious son of a b—”
A slap to the head silenced him.
“Cut that out, asshole. I know I owe you, but give me some credit here for working things out, okay?”
“You owe me?” Dan asked. “What do you mean by that?” He immediately regretted the question. He was damned if he was going to give this guy even more satisfaction by playing his game.
“Oh, I know there was luck involved too, but I owe you for leading me straight to the Toledo. Without your help I wouldn’t know Cath and little Benjie are there. The best thing is that I don’t just know the motel, I even know the room number.” He let out a grizzled laugh. “Hey, no. I’m wrong. The very best thing is that Karen – or Cath – doesn’t know that I know. If you see what I mean.”
Cath was busying herself sorting out the clothes Dan had brought around to the motel. That and keeping an eye on the clock, working out how long Dan had been gone. And checking her cell phone for missed calls. And worrying. About Dan. About the length of time he’d been gone.
It got to the stage where the clothes were as tidy as they could be, and Benjie was happy watching TV, and she had nothing else to do, and her anxiety needed extinguishing.
She called Dan’s cell phone. She expected either Dan or a cop to pick up.
Neither of those answered the call.
“Hi again, lollipop.”
She collapsed into a chair. Was this some kind of sick joke?
“Vinnie?”
“And just who were you expecting?”
She checked the number she was calling. Definitely Dan’s cell phone.
“But . . . why do you have Dan’s cell phone?”
“You know you can work that one out, lollipop. Could it be because . . . I . . . have . . .”
The bastard was waiting for her to finish the sentence.
“You have Dan?”
“Didn’t I say you could do it?”
“But why . . . and . . . and how did—”
“The how and the why aren’t important here, Karen. The only thing that’s important is that you remember to order just a small takeout pizza, just enough for you and little Benjie. No Dan tonight. Possibly no Dan ever again.”
“Could I speak with him?”
“You know what? You’ve lied to him, you’ve caused his daughter to be kidnapped by one horrible man, and now, because of the sordid past you hid from him, he’s tied up and can’t even hold his own dick to pee. I could be wrong – and call me an angel of doom if you want to – but I figure he’s starting to fall out of love with you.”
“You wouldn’t know love if it bit you on the nose.”
“You could be right, lollipop. But that’s not the issue here. On the drive over here, I told your beloved husband about all the things you used to do for me back in the day, and I figure he was pretty surprised at that different side to you he never knew about. Now he knows more about you, I don’t think he’ll ever want to hear your name, let alone have a conversation with you. So no, you can’t talk to him.”
“What the hell do you want from me, Vinnie?”
“What do I want? Hah! As far as I remember, you called me. So the question is, what do you want?”
“You know what I want. I want my daughter. I want my husband. I want you to get out of my life.”
Vinnie let out a lighthearted sigh over the phone. “But don’t we all want stuff we can’t have?”
“What are you going to do?”
“I have no idea, and at this moment I really don’t care. I have a half a mind to suggest we meet up to talk, but bearing in mind the little stunt you pulled last time we met, do you blame me for not trusting you?”
“Just cut the bullshit and name your price, Vinnie.”
“I’m not sure I have one. What I do have is an aim; an ambition you might say. And I’ve already told you what that is. Two down, one to go. Take care of little Benjie, won’t you, lollipop?”
He hung up and Cath launched her cell phone across the room. It landed on the couch and bounced down onto a rug.
“I’m not sure what more we can do,” Detective Carlton said when Cath called him and explained the conversation she’d just had with Vinnie. “Of course, we’ll report this as a second missing person case.”
“But they’re not missing, they’ve been kidnapped. Kidnapped. Can’t you bring Vinnie in for questioning again?” Cath heard a sigh, and for a second she thought it was all she was going to get, so quickly added, “Jesus Christ, isn’t it obvious what’s happened here? Can’t you people think?”
“Mrs. Brewer, we need some kind of evidence he’s involved. His legal representative warned us that he’ll file a complaint of police harassment if we go near him again without justification.”
“He’s taken my husband and my daughter. Isn’t that enough justification?”
“We don’t know that.”
“You honestly think I’d make that up? Call my husband’s cell phone if you want to. Talk to Vinnie.”
“Mmm . . . we tried that before and he didn’t pick up.”
“Well, doesn’t the cell phone give off a signal? Can’t you trace it?”
“Not that accurately, and not at the press of a button, but . . . uh, let me look into that. I’ll call you back. Leave it to us.”
“You know what, Detective? Don’t bother calling me back. Find my husband. Find my daughter. And as for leaving it to you, let me tell you, I’ve just about had enough of ‘we can’t do anything’ and ‘we have no proof’ and ‘we had no choice but to let him go.’ You have no idea of how pissed off I am that one dumb guy fresh out of San Quentin is running rings around you while you sit around doing diddly-squat. So don’t call me back; just find Vinnie and keep him behind bars.”
“Look, we’re doing our best, Mrs. Brewer. We’ve taken action appropriate to the circumstances. You and your son are in a safe location. He doesn’t know where you are. We’ve interviewed him but it didn’t lead to anything. What else can we do?”
“You can get real. And also, you can help me get my car. You see, we don’t have a car now because, guess what, my husband didn’t bring it back and I’m pretty sure Vinnie took it and burned it or dumped it into a river while all you guys could do was sit around with your thumbs up your fat asses eating pizza and making lazy excuses for not doing your jobs.”
“Mrs. Brewer, I—”
“Oh, don’t even. I’ll get a cab back to the house and collect the c
ar myself.”
“I wouldn’t advise—”
“I don’t need your advice; I need you to do your job.”
Cath slammed the cell phone down onto the table.
An hour later, the cab dropped Cath and Benjie off at Lancaster Drive. The road was empty when she drove off in her anonymous grey Honda Civic, and was still empty behind her by the time she reached the junction at the end. That was good; nobody was following.
But a detour would be better, partly to confuse anyone who might be following, but mostly because she needed to visit the hardware store.
She didn’t know exactly what she wanted in there, only that some ideas were swirling around in her head, but twenty minutes later she came out with a small lump hammer, a craft knife as sharp as a scalpel but bigger, and a hand saw. She fixed Benjie in his seat and scanned the scene around her before getting into the car and driving off, checking the rear-view mirror every couple of seconds.
As soon as she parked outside the motel room her cell phone went off. For a moment she felt sick, but it wasn’t Dan’s number; so it wasn’t Vinnie.
“Mrs. Brewer, this is the police, just letting you know that we’re across the way, constantly keeping an eye on your motel room. You’ll both be safe.”
She looked behind her, across the tree-dotted lawn between the parking lot and the road.
“Dark blue sedan,” the man said. “You’re looking at us right now.”
“Oh, well . . . thank you,” Cath said, “And uh, tell detective Carlton I’m sorry I was a bit off with him earlier.”
“I’ll pass that on. Take care, Mrs. Brewer.”
Cath stayed in the car for a few minutes, observing the motel room next door to hers, looking for signs of movement. So long as there were none, it was good news. She held the bag from the hardware store in one hand, Benjie’s hand with the other, and hurried inside room 6. She stood still for a few seconds, listening and thinking. She was tired, but she needed to get the ball rolling. She had to talk to whoever was on reception, and then she had to get to work.
