The Hostage

by Saul, Jonas

  It was two minutes to eleven in the evening when he sat down in front of the television to check in on the local news.

  He turned on City Pulse 24, the all-news channel.

  A picture of him sat on the screen. A police sketch artist had done a mock up of his face from all the witnesses. The reporter was at the scene of a brutal murder in an apartment building in the 700 block of Victoria Park Avenue. A woman had been beaten, raped and stabbed to death.

  “Homicide detectives are looking for this man. He was witnessed entering the building by a woman with her two children. The woman said he appeared to be quite rude.”

  The screen changed to film the legs of two men.

  “These two men claim the suspect called them on in the lobby of the building as they came off the elevator.”

  “Can you tell us anything else?”

  “Yeah, man, this dude was crazy. We be walking off the elevator minding our own bizness and he be all up in our face and asking us what our problem is. My cuz and I don’t understand white dudes coming up on our turf and saying sh—(beep) like that.”

  “There you have it. Police are getting close to identifying this man.”

  Drake’s picture was back on the screen.

  “This man is considered armed and extremely dangerous. If you see this man do not approach him. Call the Toronto Police at…”

  He turned the T.V. off. Lies, all lies. Those guys called him on. The woman with the kids was rude to him. He didn’t kill anyone and yet the police were looking for him for murder.

  This wasn’t a dream as much as a nightmare. No way all this was happening.

  Could his dad have set this up? If so, why?

  He reached to the end of the couch and grabbed the phone. After pressing the number four and holding it down, the phone speed dialed his parent’s place.

  Six rings and the machine picked up.

  Damn, where were they?

  He knew his parents would be asleep by this hour but he still wanted to talk to his dad. He needed answers and he needed them now.

  There was no where to turn, no where to run.

  Who was the bald guy and what did he want?

  A light flashed across the ceiling of his apartment. Drake dropped lower into the couch as if he could disappear through the cushion. He studied the stucco roof, waiting to see it again.

  Nothing.

  The only window was the living room window. He was on the second floor of Applewood Towers. It was conceivable that a car’s headlights could have crossed the window and bounced off his ceiling.

  Only, he’d never seen it before.

  Instead of checking the window and the surrounding area outside, Drake got up and checked the apartment door to see if he’d locked it when he got home earlier that afternoon.

  The door was bolted.

  He turned into the kitchen, retrieved a steak knife from the set on his counter and made his way slowly to the edge of the curtains on the right side. The apartment was dead quiet. No sound emitted from the surrounding apartments either. At this time of night only a random car or two would pass below.

  Unless the police had found him. Maybe they were preparing to storm the building and take him by surprise and into custody?

  He reached the curtains and edged them away from the wall. From his vantage point he saw nothing untoward. No movement except for one vehicle driving west on Bloor Street. He watched it go until lost from view.

  His senses were on full alert. Thinking became clearer. A part of him wondered if he was a military man in a past life. How could he fall into the role of fugitive so easily? Earlier that day, back in the apartment next to 1408, putting on the two T-shirts had surprised him. As if he knew the plan and how to execute it. But he didn’t. At the time it had struck him as a good idea.

  He let the curtain fall from his hand as nothing else moved outside. He was just being paranoid.

  He stepped in front of the glass and looked through from the center area where the light would’ve come in. There was something on the window near the left side corner. He bent to have a look, moving the curtain on that side out of the way.

  Someone had written a word.

  When he got the curtain fully out of the way he could see it for what it was.

  Got You.

  He stood back. Got who? Who could’ve written that? When did they write it? When he was asleep? And who has got him?

  He leaned in closer to examine the message. It was written on the inside of the window in the condensation.

  That meant either he wrote it in his sleep or someone else had been in the apartment just as he had suspected moments before.

  Or that someone was still here.

  Drake turned from the window, stood to his full height and lifted the steak knife up in front of him.

  “Hello?” he asked out loud.

  Not again, he thought. I just did this.

  “Anyone there?”

  He received no response. The apartment was dark except for the dim light coming in off the streetlights and parking lot lights close to his apartment. He knew the landscape of his home better than any intruder.

  It was time to act. He could think later.

  He grabbed his wallet and cell phone, dropped the steak knife on the end table by the couch and got to the apartment door without incident. The peep hole on the door revealed no one, not even cops.

  He opened the door, stepped out into the lighted hall and locked the apartment door behind him. He looked both ways and chose the closest stairwell. It would only take one flight of stairs and then he’d be outside and in his car.

  With no destination in mind, he headed down the corridor with an urgency he felt in his bones. Someone had been in his apartment. Probably while he slept. Whoever these people were they were excellent lock pickers because the bolt on the door was secure. If their goal was to kill or attack him, then why not do something about it while he’d slept? Why taunt him like that?

  “What the fuck is going on?” he asked the empty hallway.

  Down the stairs and outside into the cool June evening was easy. It was the walk through the parking lot that tore at his ability to remain calm, knowing that losing it now would not be cool.

  Then he saw the bald guy’s pick-up truck. It was parked in the corner of the lot. He couldn’t discern anyone behind the wheel.

  Where was he? So my premonition was accurate. He was here, in my apartment. Possibly still there as far as I know.

  He slowed and turned to look up at his balcony. No lights were evident behind the dark windows.

  Should I go back up and deal with this?

  He decided against it.

  This wasn’t the time for a confrontation. He needed to figure things out first. Maybe the light on the ceiling was a flashlight beam from the bedroom where the bald guy had been. Perhaps he’d finished what he was doing in there and made to leave but got caught by surprise as he saw Drake sitting up on the couch.

  No, he would’ve heard the television.

  If he was in my apartment, what would he be doing in my bedroom?

  Six steps from his Pontiac he realized that he should have checked the whole apartment before leaving. What if they planted something else? He had a suspicion that what happened earlier in Scarborough wasn’t random. This guy and whoever was involved with him wanted to set Drake up.

  He took another glance at the pick-up. Was that even the bald guy’s truck? How could he know for sure?

  A car passed on Bloor Street, the only noise in the area at this late hour as Drake made it to his car. He inserted the key, unlocked the door and opened it.

  A loud metallic sound made him jump. He felt hairs rise all over his body as he tried to ascertain what caused the noise.

  Instantly, there was another one.

  A flash of light caught his eye. He looked to the left and saw the bald guy standing there, his right arm raised and pointed at Drake.

  A third metal clanging sound came after a
short burst of light emitted from the Bald guy’s hand.

  I’m being shot at.

  In the second of realization, Drake looked down at his car and saw three bullet holes in the door.

  Holy shit.

  Insane. The guy was insane.

  Drake ripped open the door and dove into his car, leaned down as far as he could and cranked the engine. It started instantly as it always did.

  His hands shaking, his heart rate off the charts, Drake dropped it into drive and dared a peek above the dashboard as far as he could to see where he was going. Two more metallic bangs resounded in the relative quiet of the neighborhood.

  By the time Drake had fully turned the car around, squealed to the exit of the parking lot and got as far away from the bald guy as he could, one more shot from the guy’s gun shattered Drake’s back window.

  He screamed as the glass cascaded in little pieces throughout the backseat.

  It was almost midnight. No cars were passing Applewood Towers when Drake hit the gas in a frenzy and almost lost control of the wheel as he turned onto Bloor.

  He hit the curb, lifted up on the grass and turned back into the road, finally correcting the steering and racing straight away from his building like he had a broken cage of weasels scurrying around inside the car.

  Chapter 3

  He knew what would happen next. The police would be called to Applewood Towers because of the gunfire. Someone in his building would recognize his picture. Within an hour of the authorities showing up at his building they would have a name for the face. They would also have his apartment and whatever else the bald guy had done to further his aim whatever that may be.

  This was way out of control. He had to put a stop to it but couldn’t come up with a solution. Maybe he could call a lawyer and explain everything. Then together, they could meet with the police and explain his side of events. He’d even take a polygraph. But wouldn’t that look like an admittance of guilt to lawyer up?

  It was 12:10am. He had nowhere to go and a busted out back window. He was liable to get pulled over for that alone and then everything would blow up in his face.

  He’d just been shot at. Maybe that was something? At least he could prove it with the holes in his car.

  It occurred to him that he needed to get to his dad before the police did. Once they realized who he was, they’d know where to find his parents. He couldn’t stay with them but he could go and wake his father to get some answers. Maybe a change of clothes, a shower and a shave. Then he’d change vehicles.

  He drove the speed limit and at times under it. The empty side streets and less traveled roads were his route. Hiding from the authorities so he wouldn’t get pulled over was one reason. The other was he could avoid being followed by the bald fucker.

  He checked his mirrors too many times and drove too careful, but continued on without intrusion through the dark Toronto night.

  He was fifteen minutes away from his parent’s house on Hunter Street in the Jones and Pape area of the Danforth and he couldn’t shake the image of the snake tattoo on the side of the head of the bald guy. Who was he? What did he want? Was Drake a random pick to terrorize? Did the idiot do this often to allow him to murder people and get someone else arrested?

  Even if someone hired him to go after Drake, who could that be? He didn’t have any enemies that he knew of. Thinking back throughout his life there might be a few schoolmates he bugged but that was child’s play. He was swarmed once in a mall and punched in the face but they were the aggressors and that was many years ago. Nothing in his life ever elevated or was serious enough for murder.

  Maybe finding out the identity of the girl in apartment 1408 could shed some light on what was happening to him?

  He could use a camera. Next time he would take a picture of the bald guy and send it anonymously to the police and say that he was a murderer. Would it be asking for too much hope that they could pin everything on baldy before Drake got picked up or killed?

  In the last five minutes of the drive Drake contemplated how his father was involved. There’s no way Drake would accept that his dad had been a part of the carnage of the last ten hours. No way.

  There had to be an explanation.

  Drake pulled onto Jones Avenue. He edged along until the sign came into view for Hunter Street. He took the left and cruised up Hunter, carefully watching for movement of any kind. Cars were all parked on the right with little parking pass stickers purchased at Toronto City Hall in their windshields. As he passed each one Drake checked for the parking passes. Any car without one didn’t belong but all twelve vehicles he passed had one. He also didn’t see anyone sitting in any of the cars staking out his dad’s place.

  He made it to the end of Hunter Street where he did a three point turn and drove back down to park in front of his parent’s home. After turning off his old Pontiac, Drake sat there and studied the outside. If anyone lay in wait this would be the best time to bolt. He was still behind the wheel of his car. A quick turn of the key and he could race out of there. The last thing he wanted to do was get out and expose himself to a crazy gunman if one lingered in a bush somewhere.

  A soft breeze wafted in through the open back window. He could hear nothing from outside but the din of traffic from Jones Street. Hunter Street remained quiet at 12:30am as it always did.

  Satisfied that no one followed him and that no one knew where he was yet, Drake unlocked his door and stepped from the vehicle. He turned, locked the door and shut it softly. Another look around confirmed everything was fine.

  This running for your life shit really messes with your sense of paranoia, he thought.

  He made his way around the car, up the walkway and to the front door without anything happening. A part of him felt surprised.

  How could that be? Isn’t someone going to jump out and shoot at me?

  But there was no movement. No sound and nothing happened.

  He knocked on the front door of his parent’s home. At this hour they would definitely be asleep but before using the back door as he did for years when he was in high school, he had to try a few more times to make sure. He knocked louder and longer this time and then waited. Another glance around the front yard, the street and his car told him he was alone. If he was being watched they were hidden quite well.

  Time to use the back door.

  Drake walked down the steps and took the cement path around the side of the house to the back. He flipped the latch on the gate and quietly opened it. If someone lay in wait this would be a good spot. Undetected by the houses in the front and unseen by the houses in the back across the alley, an intruder could remain hidden there, waiting to pounce.

  Again with the paranoia. Although if the last ten hours taught me anything it was to be more alert.

  No intruder jumped him. No gunman fired at him and no one tried to stop him as he moved one of the patio chairs away from the sliding door that led into the kitchen.

  The door locked normally. If anyone attempted to open it the door would remain steadfast. Drake knew that when you lifted the door an inch using the handle, it also lifted the catch, slipping it out of place when lowering the door. Then it was no longer secure.

  With quiet precision and deft hands he lifted the door and eased it along its track.

  Something about what he was doing felt too easy. An idea formed in his head. The bald guy had more purpose than framing a random person for murder. The meeting was set up by Drake’s dad. Once the police had captured Drake, as the bald guy had wanted because he would’ve had limited foresight into Drake escaping, he had to know that Drake would explain everything. He’d start with his father and they’d come and pick up his dad to sweat him too. An investigation would’ve ensued and Drake would’ve gotten a lawyer. In the eyes of a jury, doubt that Drake murdered the girl in apartment 1408 would’ve been established. A proper rape kit at the hospital would reveal no Drake Bellamy DNA anywhere.

  That led Drake to believe the bald guy was up to some
thing else. Something deeper. But why had he been at Drake’s apartment? He had to have been there when Drake was asleep on the couch. If the guy wanted him dead he could’ve killed him right then.

  That explains why he missed when firing his gun. He wasn’t aiming to kill. His goal was to have the police called. Once they showed, all the pieces of the puzzle would fall together and the authorities would know the name of the man in the dead girl’s apartment in Scarborough.

  But that took him back to square one. What would be bald guy’s end purpose if it was just to have Drake picked up by the cops? Nothing made sense. The only thing he figured from all of it was that the bald guy did have a goal and that goal was to make Drake’s life miserable. Or worse, he was trying to ruin his life.