by Ben Sanders
He pushed out backward through the exit door, setting off another alarm until the thing slammed shut, and started calling for help as he ran up the stairs, trying to sound breathy and panicked. There was a crowd on the other side of Metropolitan,but people were staying clear of the subway entrance. A woman rushed over to help when she saw the bloodied victim, Ludo babbling that his boyfriend was hurt, he’d hit his head, there was so much shooting. The woman couldn’t help much other than to run along beside him, hanging on to Marshall’s foot, but she unlocked the Impala and held the rear door as Ludo shoved the guy in the backseat.
There were sirens coming down Metropolitan, and the woman said he should wait for the paramedics, but Ludo told her he couldn’t hang around. He grabbed the keys and took off, like he was desperate to make it to a hospital.
Perry
He guessed people must have hid on the train, because there wasn’t exactly a stampede coming up the exit. Plenty of panic, though, traffic on Metropolitan blocked by the crowd. He stood diagonally opposite, outside the supermarket, watched the people milling around with their hands over their mouths. He could already hear sirens coming down Metropolitan. He saw Ludo run up the stairs with the last of the stragglers. He was carrying Marshall and looking desperate, talking at no one in particular. A lady went with him to the Impala and unlocked it, looking worried as Ludo put the bloodied Marshall in back. Smooth moves. He was a perfect victim.
He watched Ludo drive away, and then walked up to Grand and went into the Chase Bank and withdrew a hundred bucks from the ATM. He stepped outside and stood at the kerb, moving his jaw back and forth to try to clear his hearing while he waited for a cab.
THIRTY-THREE
Marie
The shower door was just a single glass panel with a hinge top and bottom to let it swing and a long stainless-steel handle on the outside. She pulled it open and put her shoulder against the inside face so it wouldn’t swing closed, and then knelt carefully. The panel was elevated maybe four inches off the floor so it could clear the tiled nib that bordered the stall, and it was chamfered very slightly along the edges, though not at the bottom corner.
She lay down on her stomach and hooked a foot behind the door to keep it braced, and then pushed her hands back against the bottom edge of the glass so that the corner pressed on the duct tape. She could hear the glass riding up over the fibres; there was some kind of two-way structure that probably gave it extra strength. She paused and listened. Lying there with her back arched like some weird yoga pose. Maybe rubbing would just blunt the edge. Maybe she was better just to push and hope something broke.
She tried to align the corner with the middle of the tape, spread her wrists so the glass wouldn’t punch through and slash her open, and then pushed backward as hard as she could. She could sense the tape creasing and tightening, but it didn’t give. She rubbed back and forth against the corner of the glass, the fibres humming with the movement. Why couldn’t she just grind her way through? Surely the glass was tougher than the tape. She kept at it, trying to lose track of time, trying to forget the aching in her arms.
She allowed herself a break after five minutes, rested her chin on the floor as she caught her breath. Her triceps and lower back were burning, sweat running off her brow. She counted down from five, like it might launch her with more energy, and then she lunged backward again.
And this time the corner punched through the tape.
She closed her eyes and laid her cheek on the cold tile. The sounds through the floor hadn’t changed; no rapid footsteps. She doubted Dexter could hear her.
The glass had gone through about an inch and then stopped. She couldn’t move it any further. Whatever clever mesh reinforced the tape had stopped a full tear. She shoved backward, and felt the tape give another fraction of an inch. She didn’t know how many layers she was piercing, but it felt like maybe three or four.
She splayed her wrists, opening the hole, and then pushed backward again.
THIRTY-FOUR
Ludo
The guy woke up on the ride home. He wasn’t fully with it, mumbling and running his words together, this nonsense monologue like a radio between stations.
Ludo reloaded the shotgun at a light and prodded him in the face with the muzzle.
‘You better not be faking, or I’m going to blow your head off.’
The guy kept rambling. Probably a good sign. If he was putting it on, he might’ve shut up.
The good thing about taking the Civic was that he’d had to move the Caprice out of the driveway, which meant now he could bring the Impala right in by the side door. He drove up and cut the engine and sat watching the street in his mirrors. No one out walking in this cold, no one peeping out their window, either. He left the shotgun leaning in the passenger foot well and got out and unlocked the door to the house. Then he stepped back to the car and opened the rear and pulled the guy out by his belt, dragged him up the step and inside by the collar. There, safe. He drew the pistol from his belt.
‘Ludo, is that you?’
‘Yeah, Mom, it’s me.’
He shut the door and locked it and turned on the light. The guy was still dribbling blood. Lucky it was just linoleum.
He cupped a whisper in the guy’s ear, touched the gun to his cheek. ‘If you scream, it’ll be the last thing you do.’
She called, ‘Where’ve you been?’
‘I had to get some stuff.’
‘How cold is it?’
He put the gun back in his belt. ‘Real fucking cold.’
‘What?’
He shouted, ‘Pretty cold.’
She said something else, but he didn’t hear, ears still recovering from earlier. He dragged the guy through to the kitchen and dumped him by the table, opened the cupboard under the sink. He still had the end of that roll of duct tape, and the cable lock. He put them both on the table and then stepped over to Marshall and picked him up under the arms like a toddler and set him down in a chair. His head lolled forward and he dribbled blood into his lap.
Ludo said, ‘I don’t know if you’re fucked up or not, but we’re not taking any chances.’
He picked at the end of the tape and screeched off a length and smoothed it across the guy’s mouth, wrapped it up around the back of his head and then over his eyes. He did another loop to make sure everything was stuck down firm, and then he pulled the guy’s hands behind the chair and taped his wrists together, five times around for safety. He didn’t have much tape left, so he opened the cable lock and laid it across the guy’s midriff like a seatbelt and pulled the two ends together and relocked it behind his elbows.
It was a perfect fit, like a steel straitjacket, keeping him in the chair. He stepped back and admired his handiwork. The guy looked like a human patchwork: one ear hidden and his hair sticking out at funny angles and blood running down his face, as if the tape was the only thing holding him together.
‘Ludo, what are you doing?’
He turned his head slightly, kept his eyes on Marshall. ‘I’m just fixing that pipe.’
‘What one?’
‘The leaky one.’
‘In the kitchen?’
‘Yeah, that one.’
Marshall made a wet noise behind his gag. Blood dripped into his lap. Ludo tossed the roll on the table and went into the living room to call Dexter.
Marshall
Fair to say he wasn’t feeling his best.
He was vaguely aware of being in the car, but he didn’t really wake up until Ludo was talking in his ear. ‘Don’t scream,’ or something like that. He kept acting groggy as he was dragged into the kitchen, figured if he wasn’t in a state to run or fight, it was best to go along with whatever happened, see how it played. He kept seeing Perry’s face, his mouth dropping open in relief, and it took him a while to summon the rest of the picture: he remembered the subway, the map on the wall, looking at it and thinking the stations were named wrong, because the street entrance was often about a block from the actua
l platform. It might’ve been the very last thing in his head, other than a shotgun round, if he hadn’t turned and seen Ludo there.
He questioned the logic of acting dazed when Ludo started taping him up, and it was a lot of effort to commit to the ruse when his mouth and eyes were covered and then his wrists were bound. He felt the cable lock going on. Click click. Click click click. Click. Click click.
Ludo traded shouts with his mother, and then he walked into the front room. Marshall could hear him on the phone, though he couldn’t catch what he said. He knew Ludo still had Perry’s pistol—he’d pushed it against Marshall’s cheek and then put it back in his belt. The shotgun must still be in the car.
He stretched his legs out and moved them back and forth like making a snow angel, and found the table. It wasn’t heavy. He shunted it a couple inches one way and then back. There was a door five feet behind, leading outside. Another door to his right, leading into the house. The table in front of him and the kitchen bench over to his left. He tried to lock the layout in his mind, relative positions and dimensions, a 3-D map he could fly through. It would’ve been easier if his head wasn’t throbbing. He breathed carefully through his nose, trying to hear Ludo on the phone. Words he couldn’t catch, though Dexter Vine was probably at the other end. Or maybe he was going straight to the client, telling Chloe Asaro he’d found her man.
The only good thing he could say was that he might be able to open the cable lock. It was a standard design, a fifty-inch length of wire rope with the two ends coupled with a four-wheel combination lock. At face value, tough to open, because ten digits on four wheels meant ten-to-the-power-four possible combinations. Ten thousand permutations. But by knowing the number of clicks, the only question was whether each wheel had been moved backward or forward. Meaning a grand total of two-to-the-power four, or sixteen, possible combinations. A vast improvement on ten thousand.
He drew his hands up slightly, trying to bring them outside the cable. If he could hook a thumb over, he could pull the cable around and bring the lock within his reach.
Don’t forget the pattern. Click click. Click click click. Click. Click click. Two digits on the first wheel, three on the second, one on the third, two on the fourth. He was pretty sure Ludo had worked left to right. If statistics were on his side he could get it by the ninth or tenth try. If he could just reach the lock he might be OK.
Ludo
It felt good, telling the old boy he had it all wrapped up.
He said, ‘I got him in the kitchen.’
Making it sound like the whole thing was no big deal. He sat down on the couch on a mess of magazines, glossy pages crunching. Too tired to care about making creases.
Dexter said, ‘All right, we gotta call it in. You have a pen? I’ll give you the number.’
‘Just tell it to me.’
Dexter could have called it in himself, but the stress must’ve kept him from thinking straight. Ludo heard a drawer scraping, pages flapping, and then Dexter said, ‘Here we go, here we go.’ He read out a phone number. ‘You just call it, say where you are, tell them you need an appraisal.’ ‘Appraisal.’ Like this was something real good.
Dexter said, ‘Someone’ll show up to check it’s him, and then leave you with the money. I trust you not to fucking run with it.’
Ludo said, ‘If I did I’d have to ditch my mother.’
‘Yeah. You just remember that. Where’d you leave Perry?’
‘Back in Willyburg. He’s probably headed your way, looking for his lady.’
‘OK. All right. I gotta wait around, let things cool off. I still got a cop out front.’
Ludo said, ‘How you know he’s a cop?’
‘Because he didn’t fuck off once he knocked. He’s parked up the street.’
Ludo stretched his legs out, liking the feeling of sitting there in the dark, in his own home, everything copacetic. A dude tied up in his kitchen and a payday on the way.
He said, ‘You called your lawyer guy? Whatshisface?’
‘Fitzer, yeah, he’s heading over.’
Ludo said, ‘So that works out well, then. You just watch TV, do nothing, guy out front can help keep things chilled if you have visitors. Get Fitzer to talk lawyer shit at him if he wants to come in.’
‘Yeah, but why’s he there in the first place, you know?’
Ludo took the phone from his ear, inclined his head to listen. ‘Just give me a second.’
He put the phone down and walked along the hallway.
‘Ludo, who’s that on the phone?’
He ignored her and stepped into the kitchen. The guy was sitting there just as he’d left him. Ludo put two fingers below his jaw and checked his pulse. Still alive, apparently, his ticker doing one a second. He stepped back and put a hand in the guy’s hair and moved his head back and forth, like inspecting some weird machine. The guy’s neck flopped around with no resistance and then lolled forward, chin to chest. He leaned over and checked the lock. Still intact, and the numbers hadn’t changed, either.
He flicked the guy’s ear and said, ‘Not long now,’ and then walked back down the hall to the phone. He sat on the couch again and said, ‘Sorry, just checking everyone’s behaving,’ but Dexter was gone.
He dabbed the cradle and dialled the number he’d been told. He got an answer after two rings.
‘Yes?’ A lady’s voice, white and pretty by the sound of it.
Ludo said, ‘I need an appraisal.’ Putting some sugar in it, get things off on the right foot.
She said, ‘Where?’
Ludo told her his address, and already he could see how it might play: the lady coming in with her bag of cash, sexy in something dark and tight, Ludo taking her in his arms for a kiss before they went upstairs.
She said, ‘Thirty minutes,’ crisp, like an ice maiden, and then she was gone.
Marshall
Opening the lock was going to be too difficult. Reaching it was hard enough, and with a migraine and blood running down his face, he didn’t have the concentration. Fear of death kept intruding. He couldn’t remember the turns on each wheel. He lost track of whether he’d gone forward or back. His grip slipped, and he didn’t know if he’d clicked a dial or not. It was all guesswork.
You need another way out—
Ludo came back in, and with one ear taped he didn’t hear him until he was almost at the door. He stood there a while, probably looking at him, and then he came over and took his pulse and moved his head around. The awful feeling of the guy’s huge hand in his hair, fingers digging in like they might pry his scalp off, the smell of his sweat, the sound of him breathing.
He sensed the guy lean over him, like he was checking the lock.
Marshall held his breath. Quiet without its rasping on the tape. A sharp sting and a ringing as Ludo flicked his ear.
‘Not long now.’
The floor squeaked as he walked out again.
Marshall leaned back and forth in the chair, trying to work up some slack. The cable fit him tight. It had nothing to give.
But if you don’t get out of the chair, you’re going to die.
The cable passed across his midriff and then looped across his upper forearms and behind the seatback. The only reason he couldn’t simply stand was that the restraints stopped him from leaning forward. It is impossible to just rise up out of a straight-back chair without moving your arms or your torso. He needed a prop for his shoulders, otherwise he’d just tip himself over backward. He could move over against the door, but Ludo would hear him. Likewise if he tried to push himself over to the bench.
So maybe you’re out of luck.
THIRTY-FIVE
Marie
She knew she was close. There must only be a thread keeping everything together, but the stuff was so tough she still couldn’t just pry her hands apart. She rested her head on the tile again, taking slow breaths to stay relaxed, counted to twenty to force herself to rest. Then she reached up again and found the corner of the glass and shoved t
he tape against it.
If she hadn’t pushed so hard, it might’ve been tidier, but as it happened, two things broke at once: the tape across her wrists, and the top hinge of the shower door.
She heard a crack, and when she looked up the stainless-steel bracket had ripped out of the panel, a rough bite mark where it had torn clear, and the whole thing was beginning to fall, in that very slow but determined way that heavy and expensive things always topple. The bottom hinge squeaked horribly as it twisted, and then it cracked as well. The door fell against the tiled wall of the stall and shattered, and a second later a flood of cornflake-size chips was rushing out across the floor, evidence of the break fleeing in a panic.
She didn’t need her ear to the floor to hear Dexter running. She heard his footsteps, and then a crash as he shoved aside whatever was blocking the door, and then he was in the room.
She swung the stainless-steel handle from behind her head, a big vertical arc like chopping wood, and the jagged disk of glass that was still attached hit Dexter just above the eye, a deep blow that split his brow and put him down on one knee. He raised a hand, squinted up at her through blood as she hit him again and again.
‘Please, no—’
She didn’t listen, and she didn’t look either, averted her face until he was on the floor. She tripped and slipped as she tried to step over him, forgetting her bound feet. She dropped the handle and crawled across the threshold to the bedroom. The tidiness was bizarre, like some kind of reproach: the spotless white quilt in contrast to the bloodied Dexter. She crawled to the mattress and leaned against it, tore the strip of tape from her mouth and sucked a gorgeous lungful of air. Never better, even with the scent of glue and plastic.
