Through the Bookstore Window

by Bill Petrocelli

  Sylvia stayed with me, as I walked around the store, trying to get reacclimated to my little world that had been so suddenly violated. I heard my cell phone buzz, indicating a text message. The phone was in my purse, but it was hard for me to reach it with my bandaged shoulder. I asked Sylvia if she would grab it. I could see from the look on her face that it was something important. “It’s from Alexi.”

  Help Sands Motel

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  Marco brought the van around as quickly as he could and double-parked in front of the store. Cristina jumped in the front seat. Sylvia got in the back. As she did so, she tried to convince me to stay put and not go with them.

  “You need to take care of your injury,” she said. “I’ll keep you posted about what’s going on, but you should stay here. With your shoulder all bandaged up like that, you can’t do much anyway.”

  That was all perfectly logical, but she was dealing with me. So she knew she was going to lose that argument. I managed to crawl into the back seat and sit next to her, even though I could feel the pain curling down my back as I did so. I told Sylvia I had to go with them. She just nodded. Cristina had already located the Sands Motel on her iPhone map and was giving Marco directions. It was down in the Bayview District just off Third Street. It wasn’t the swankiest part of San Francisco by any means, but I guess it was just the right place if you’re paying a couple of hired killers to head into town to kidnap someone.

  Finding the place wasn’t the issue—the real problem was what to do when we got there. Was Alexi still there, or had they moved her? And if she was still there, who was there with her? Was it just the two men who kidnapped her, or were there more of them? And how about Blaiseck—the Komandant? Was he there too? All of my instincts said he was, but that may only have been my fear factor kicking in. What could we do against a potentially armed camp? Sylvia called the police while we were driving, urging them to send a squad car—several squad cars, for that matter. But what would happen if we got there first?

  As Sylvia hung up her call to the police, she found a text message waiting for her. She read it and got a deep frown on her face. She tapped her leg in frustration. That was her sign that she wasn’t happy.

  “A complication—that was a message from Davey Fallon.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out grudgingly. “He just picked up Susan Wilder at the airport. And as they were getting into a cab, she got the same message on her phone from Alexi.”

  “What are they going to do?”

  Sylvia shook her head that she didn’t know. “I just hope they stay out of it for a while.”

  But we both knew there wasn’t much chance of that. I knew what I’d do if I were Susan. They were on their way to the same motel.

  We were a block away when the sign for the motel appeared. As we got closer, we saw only a few cars in the parking lot. There was no sign yet of the police. Marco pulled into a spot on the street just outside the lot. The office was around the corner out of sight. There was no sign of anyone.

  He turned the engine off, and we sat there for a few seconds. My nerves were frazzled, and I could see that the rest of them were just as jumpy as I was. I was anxious to do something, but I knew we had to talk things over. There was only one entrance to the motel, and we were parked where we could keep an eye on it. The consensus of the others was that we should stay right there until the police arrived. I objected at first, but they convinced me it was best to wait. Since I had only one arm that was functioning at that moment, I was in no position to argue that we should barge right in.

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  Waiting gave me time to think—maybe, too much time to think.

  As I watched that cheap motel, swallowing another of my pain pills, I had an eerie feeling that the resolution to our little drama was going to be played out on that oil-stained parking lot. I couldn’t predict what anyone would do. Anything could go wrong. Someone might make a quick exit, or the wrong person might walk in at the wrong moment. Another might miss a cue or make a tragic misstatement. And what would happen if someone did something wildly out of character?

  Two characters left the scene immediately. Minutes after we arrived, two men walked out from the shadow of the motel rooms and got into a van parked in the lot. The sight of them raised alarm bells in me. One was definitely overweight; the other was completely bald; they were driving a van—what more did I need to know? I couldn’t prove they were the two who shot me, because I’d only caught a fleeting glimpse of them as my face hit the sidewalk. Still, I was sure they were the killers.

  But knowing who they were didn’t mean we could do anything about it. They seemed to be in a huge hurry to get out of there. The van sped out of the lot, slowing down just barely as it crossed the sidewalk, and then it made a sharp right turn into the street. Cristina had the presence of mind to record their quick exit on her phone camera, and by the time their van turned at the next corner she was already forwarding the video—along with the photo of their license plate—to the police. I was angry about losing them, but Marco pointed out that with them gone it might be easier to free Alexi from her captors. He was right, but I still wanted them—badly. As it turned out, they were gone from the scene but not from the story. We learned later that their vehicle had been picked up on a vid-cam in a parking lot at the San Francisco Airport. That led to a police scramble that finally caught up with them at one of the airline counters. They surrendered without a fight. But that was later, and this was now. The story at the motel was just beginning.

  Another person walked in from the wings. He was a tall, thin man with an odd moustache. He walked hurriedly out of the parking lot, heading for his car, carrying a small black bag. As he got closer to our car, he appeared to see us. He was already a bundle of nerves, but after he saw us, he started walking even faster. He got into a car parked behind us and pulled out of the parking space as quickly as he could. Cristina once again had her camera ready and snapped a picture of his license plate as he went by. She passed her phone to the back seat so Sylvia and I could both see it. One thing on his bumper jumped out at me, and I could see Sylvia had noticed it too. It was a decal showing that he was a physician.

  “Sylvia, we have to get in there right now. Alexi could be in serious condition, and we can’t waste a minute.”

  Sylvia tried to slow me down, but it wasn’t working.

  “Gina, we don’t know what room he came out of. We don’t even know which room Alexi is in. This could be totally unrelated.”

  “You don’t believe that any more than I do. That guy had ‘back-alley abortionist’ written all over him. We’ve got to do something.”

  The argument would have continued, but Marco interjected.

  “Are those the people you were worried about down at the corner?”

  Sylvia and I took a quick look to where he was pointing and saw Davey and Susan getting out of a cab. Sylvia muttered “oh shit” under her breath.

  “Where the hell are the cops? They should be here by now.”

  Davey had stopped to pay the cab driver, while Susan had begun walking up the slight hill toward the motel. He tried to catch up with her, but she was already near the entrance to the parking lot, peering over the short brick wall to see if she could see anything. I’m not sure I would have recognized her. Even from a distance I could see that her appearance had changed. There was no brightly colored suit like she wore around the church. She was dressed almost completely in black in a somewhat shapeless dress. Her hair no longer rested on top of her head in a styled hairdo. Instead, she wore it straight down without any pretense or purpose, letting it fall wherever it happened to be. As she got closer, I thought I could see lines on her face that I hadn’t seen before. It hadn’t been that long, but she looked like she’d gone through a lifetime of changes.

  It made no sense to wait in the car any longer. Now that Davey and Susan were there and walking into th
e parking lot, we couldn’t keep our presence a secret. Sylvia got out of the car and quickly caught up with Davey, apparently trying to convince him to hold back since the police should be there any minute. Davey looked at Susan, and I could hear him urging her to stop as well. Susan stood there without moving, seemingly waiting for someone to tell her when she could move again.

  I was a little slower getting out of the car. But I was finally steady enough on my feet to walk over to Susan. I dreaded the thought of talking to her. What could I say? I’d rehearsed what I thought should be the first words out of my mouth, but none of those words came to mind. All I could do was apologize.

  “I’m so sorry for this. I really am. I had no idea that it would come down to something this terrible.”

  Maybe I should have said something more, but my voice faltered. I waited to see what Susan would say. Anger, sadness, sympathy—any of those reactions might have been normal in that situation. But for several long seconds there was nothing. She simply stared at me with blank eyes. I was beginning to squirm.

  “You sent me pictures.”

  That was all. She kept staring at me as she said it. Was she thanking me, chastising me, or what? I didn’t know. Even now, I’m still not sure. All I know is that she was in the grip of a deep emotional wound.

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  “There they are.”

  Cristina saw them first, as the motel room door opened, and John Blaiseck stepped out. Reverend Wilder was a step behind him. Blaiseck had his body half turned, trying to help Wilder drag Alexi through the doorway. She was resisting everything they did. They saw us a couple seconds after we saw them.

  What happened next? It depends on which version you want to hear.

  I’ve ended up telling the story so many times—to the police, to hospital admission, to the press, to lawyers—that each time it comes out slightly different. Each version is the truth, as far as I knew at the time I said it. But storytelling can sometimes leave your head in a daze. All I know is that everything happened quickly—although, oddly, at that moment it felt like time had slowed down. I remember the whole scene as having been played out over a chorus of approaching sirens that got louder and louder. It almost certainly would have ended differently if the vehicles with those sirens had arrived a few minutes earlier.

  Blaiseck saw us approaching and barked at Wilder. “Get her in the car so we can get out of here.”

  Wilder tried to push Alexi in the side door, but she broke away momentarily from his grasp. It was enough for all of us to see that her wrists were tied together. There was a haggard look on her face and bloodstains on her dress.

  “What have you done to her?”

  Those words erupted as a deep, anguished scream from somewhere behind me. I could feel the power of Susan’s voice as it sailed past my head. When I turned, I saw a different woman. The blank stare was gone, and her eyes were on fire. Sylvia had her by the arm, trying to calm her down.

  Blaiseck kept staring at the rest of us, seemingly unmoved by Susan’s outburst. “Get her in the car,” he repeated to Wilder, this time a little more forcefully.

  Davey started to approach Blaiseck, urging the rest of us to stay back for a moment.

  “John, this isn’t going to do anyone any good. The police are going to be here in a few minutes, so you need to do the right thing and let her go. Her mother needs to take care of her.”

  Blaiseck glared at him. “Mind your own fucking business, will you? Her father’s taking her out of here, and you’re not going to stop him.”

  Davey tried again to get him to stop, but Blaiseck ignored him.

  “Look, John—”

  As Blaiseck turned toward the van, Davey reached over and put his hand on his arm. Blaiseck erupted. In one movement, he pulled an assault rifle from off the front seat and smashed it across Davey’s face, forcing him back against the side of the van. Davey started bleeding as he sank to the ground.

  Blaiseck turned and looked at the others. His eyes moved from face to face as the barrel of the rifle trailed along with his gaze.

  “Does anybody else want to try anything?”

  I’d seen that look before—years earlier. Blaiseck, when he was still the Komandant, had calmly walked up to one of his soldiers and shot him in the side of the head. I had no doubt he would do that again, if anyone challenged him.

  Davey tried to get up from where he had been thrown against the van, but he could only move a few steps. He seemed to be ignoring the bloody wound on his face and instead was holding onto his chest. He fell down again just a few feet from where I was standing.

  “I think I need help,” he said. His color was pale, and his voice was so weak I could hardly hear him. “I’m having a hard time breathing.”

  I knelt down next to him and motioned quickly to Cristina to help me. “We need another ambulance.” She’d already phoned for an emergency vehicle moments earlier when she first saw Alexi. Now, she nodded at me, as she sent off another emergency message.

  “He can’t breathe. We need to get his jacket off and open his collar.”

  I was having a hard time doing that with my one good hand. Cristina stepped over and pulled off Davey’s coat and unbuckled his shoulder holster. While she ripped open the buttons on his shirt, I put the gun and holster in a pile with his clothing. For some reason, I remember thinking at that moment that Davey had never attempted to reach for that gun during his confrontation with Blaiseck.

  The sirens were getting louder, and I was praying that there were a few ambulances along with the squad cars. Susan was still extremely upset, but Sylvia and Marco were trying to convince her that we couldn’t do anything by ourselves. We just had to hope the police would get there in time.

  Then Alexi made one more attempt to break away, swinging at Wilder with her tied-together fists. But she fell down near the back of the van.

  Wilder leaned over her and said, “Come on honey, let’s go back home. When we get there, everything is going to be exactly like it was. We’ll be just like we were before.”

  And there it was.

  They were just words, but they were words that made all the difference.

  Which word was it that caused things to explode? Was it “exactly”? Or maybe it was “everything”? Most likely, it was the phrase, “just like we were before.” Whatever it was, the reverend never had a chance to take those words back.

  I heard another, deep-throated sound.

  “No!”

  It was a scream so loud that I will never forget it.

  Then I heard a loud crack. And as I turned my head I could see Susan with Davey’s pistol in her hand leveling a second shot at Wilder. He had already staggered back from the first bullet while twisting slightly to his right. When the second shot hit him, he fell flat on his face. Blaiseck reached for his rifle as soon as he heard the first shot, but he reacted too slowly. Susan shot him once in the head and then once more in the stomach as he turned around.

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  Moments later, the scene was covered with flashing lights, squawking radios, and uniformed officers with pistols. But the most important people were the ones with the stretchers. Those who needed their attention were scattered throughout that dingy parking lot in little piles of humanity.

  Cristina sat on the ground next to Alexi, doing what she could to make her comfortable. Marco and Sylvia had wrestled Susan to the pavement when she attempted to turn the pistol on herself. Now they sat on either side of her, trying to hold her, while she sobbed uncontrollably. I sat with Davey as I tried to keep him calm and ease his mind about his chest pains.

  Wilder and Blaiseck were both lying apart—each in a pile of his own.

  Part Five

  Two Weeks Later

  Alexi

  She wasn’t going to say anything unless she absolutely had to. Sylvia and Cristina had coached her earlier and cautioned h
er to be careful. Jail walls have ears. She didn’t know if they were being recorded at the moment, but she didn’t want to do anything that would make the situation worse. Without Sylvia there, she would have been lost. Sylvia seemed to know everything about the place. Even the sergeant at the front desk softened up when she talked to him, especially when she asked him about his family.

  At one point, the guard even looked over Sylvia’s shoulder and smiled at her. She wanted to smile back, but she was too caught up in her own worries to do anything other than just nod in response. The hardest part was still ahead. She was afraid she might break down completely when she got to the visitor’s room and saw her mother.

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  She wanted to shut everything out of her mind. From the day she was released from the hospital to the moment she walked up to the front of the jail, she tried to keep herself busy with other things, hoping to take her mind off the worst of it. The day before Sylvia arranged to meet her at the jail, she spent several hours with Gina looking at local music stores and checking websites, trying to find a replacement for the guitar that had been destroyed. Gina had a newer, smaller bandage on her shoulder that allowed her to move around better, so they could actually get out of the house. She tried to think about almost anything other than what had happened, but her mind kept coming back to that day. Even talking about the guitar opened a door in her head that brought in bad memories.