Escape

by Ray Weeks

  Do you ever wonder if you're a good person? I think most of us assume that we are, right? You get up in the morning, you go to work, you come home. You do other stuff, but it's all like that. Mundane and inoffensive.

  Maybe you get drunk a little too often. Maybe you see that the cashier didn't charge you for that box of cereal, or gave you change for a twenty when you only gave her a ten, and you don't mention it. Get in a fight with your girlfriend and call her a whore. Or with your boyfriend and tell him that he's just like his alcoholic, deadbeat dad. Maybe you regret it later, maybe you don't.

  You do these things, they seem like little things, and you don't consider yourself a bad person. Everyone screws up. Everyone makes mistakes.

  You know what I've learned? There isn't much that separates a good person from a bad person. It's like a glass of water, one that's full to the top. You can keep adding water, if you're careful enough, one drop at a time, and the water will actually rise up above the glass without spilling over. That's called something, I learned it in eighth grade. I can't remember it right now. I guess it isn't important. What's important is that you're still adding water and it isn't spilling over the glass. That's what being a good person is, is being that glass.

  But there's only so many drops you can fit into that glass, no matter how good you are, no matter how careful.

  You keep adding water, it's eventually going to spill.

  That's one way for a person to cross that line from good to bad.

  The other way is-

  Oh, I'm sorry. I have to hang up now. No, I know. I know, Phil. Yes, it would be a sign of good faith if I released a hostage, but I'm not really into those kinds of signs at the moment. I have things to do. We'll talk again shortly, maybe.

  Phil? Me again. Yeah, listen, I don't think we really need to talk anymore. If you want, you can watch it all unfold on the website. Yeah, the kid in here set it up for me in exchange for his release. Kind of a dopey looking guy, but sharp as tack.

  I don't need you, that's why. No need for a hostage negotiator when you have no intention of negotiating, right? Yes, yes, I realize that they'll want to bust in and shoot me. But here's the thing, Phil, here's the thing that should keep them at bay: I don't plan on killing everyone in here.

  Your guys storm in here, it's all over for all of us. I'm not dicking around about that. I let the computer kid take some pictures with his phone, so when he comes out, have him show you. The whole place is wired.

  Don't tell me I don't want to do that, Phil. Of course I don't want to. That's mostly to keep you guys out there while I do what I need to do in here.

  I'll kill everyone in here if you force my hand. If you let me be, I'll just kill some of them.

  No, Phil. Letting them live isn't an option.

  Tell you what. I'm going to send this kid out—don't shoot him. Get his phone, it has the pictures of the explosives. And have him tell you the web address. If what he tells me is right, I'll be streaming live on the internet here in about two minutes. You can watch what I have to say to the world, and then I'll call you back, if I'm still alive.

  What's that, Phil? What if I'm not alive? Well, that would definitely be an improvement.

  Hello there, the internet. My name's Clint. I'll be your host today. If any of you guys are tuning in—or logging on or whatever it is you do on the internet—because you wanted to look at Jason's web page, I apologize. I have temporarily hijacked it.

  Here's the deal: I was going to do this all old school—call the news stations and wait for all the vans and reporters to arrive so that my show would be televised. But then Jason told me he had a better way. He wanted to get out of here alive, you see, and I don't blame him.

  He said why not put it on the web. He had a site, I could use that, he would set it all up for me, if I would let him go. I agreed, because I have no reason to keep Jason as a hostage. I've already got a bunch of them, you see. Here, I'll lift the little webcam thing, do a panoramic shot so you can see everyone. See them?

  Those are my hostages. I'd have them wave or something, but that seems like it would be in extremely bad taste. Because these people, they don't know if they're walking out of here alive today. Plus, you know—they're tied up.

  The fact of the matter is, I don't want to kill them. Not all of them. At the moment, I have thirty-seven hostages. Thirty-one of them will walk out of here alive, if things go as planned. I intend to kill six of them.

  If the police interfere, I will push this button—see it, right here?—and I will destroy this entire building, killing everyone. I talked to a guy earlier—Phil—and I told him this.

  What I'm going to do is, I'm going to kill six people, and I'm going to show it on the internet—to the world—and then I'm going to blow my head off. That's my goal here today. My life goal, I guess you could call it.

  I had Jason pick three numbers. In my head, I had assigned numbers to all the hostages I wasn't going to kill. He picked three numbers, and then I explained to him that if for any reason I was cut from the internet, I'd kill these people.

  The first number he picked was eleven. This is hostage number eleven. Look into the camera and state your name, please. Hilda? That's a nice name. Where are you from? California? I have a sister who lives out there. Where in California do you live? Yuck. I drove in L.A. once, and promised never to return. Still, though, there are a lot of beautiful people out there. So what brings you to Jersey? A husband. Oh, yes, love will get you every time. I'm sorry you have to go through this, Hilda. Hopefully, you'll be home to your husband by the end of the day. Okay, you can go sit down right over there.

  That was Hilda. She will be perfectly fine unless I'm disconnected from the internet. I'm broadcasting from this laptop right now and watching it on another computer in one of the offices. There's a slight lag, but I see myself. That's how I know.

  Okay, the next number was eight. You, sir, what's your name? Terry. Tell us a little about yourself. Ah. I hear there's good money in roofing, but there's no way I could hack it. Up on those roofs in the middle of the summer, the sun beating down? You're a stronger man than I, sir. You ever have to do any really high buildings, stuff that scares you? Not afraid of heights? Hunh. You married? Got kids? Happily married with three kids? Hear that, internet? Happily married with three kids. That's Terry. If the police don't screw with me, Terry will be walking out of here alive, perfectly unharmed, and he will see his wife and three kids again. That's a promise. Okay, Terry, please go sit there by Hilda.

  Next number is twelve. You, sir. Your name? Jerry? Jerry and Terry. What are the odds? Okay, Jerry, what do you do? No kidding? What station? I knew you looked familiar. No offense, but I didn't ever really watch you. My wife and I usually watched re-runs of The Daily Show which came on at the same time. I've seen you a couple times, though, looking all serious behind your news desk. So what's it like being a television anchor?

  I don't even know what that means, honestly. "Anchorman." Sounds good, though. I bet people ask you about if you saw that Will Ferrell movie all the time. Well listen, Jerry, do you want to call your station or something? Will they let you do that, phone in a thing? No, not an interview—I don't have time for that. But if you want to call them and have them record your experience or whatever, that'd be fine. Yeah, just go sit over there by Terry and Hilda, okay? I'll get you a phone in a second. Oh, your cell phone? You'll have to use the speaker phone, though, since I'm not untying you. Or the earpiece, you have one of those? That would be better.

  Okay, so those are three people who will die if anyone interferes with my broadcasting. They'll also die if the police crash the party early, just like all the rest of us.

  Okay, so where to start? First of all, I was talking to a police negotiator earlier—I think I told you that alrea
dy—Phil was his name. Phil was doing a great job, but the thing is, I'm not here to negotiate.

  I only mention Phil because we were having a conversation. Right in the middle of it, Jason got the webcam up and running, so I abruptly ended our talk. Sorry, Phil.

  What we were talking about was good people and bad people. Phil had said something like, "I know you aren't a bad guy."

  And the thing is, he's right. I mean, I never considered myself a bad guy. I made my share of mistakes, sure. In high school, I was a jock, and I made fun of the band kids. In college, I ragged on the computer dorks. I've made my share of mistakes. I said that already, didn't I?

  Well, I guess it's worth repeating. I wasn't perfect. But I was a good guy. As I matured, I got better. Realized that making fun of people was a dick thing to do. I tried not to hurt people. I never slept around on my wife, I never cheated on my taxes, I never swiped stuff from my neighbor.

  I was just some guy. Some guy like a million other guys out there, who just want to live their lives.

  Don't warm up to me, though. Don't start liking me. Because the thing is, although I wasn't a bad guy, I am now.

  That's what Phil and I were kind of talking about. I made an analogy about water in a glass, about how it could fill up one drop at a time, and it would eventually spill over. That's one way to go from good to bad.

  The other way, Phil, is this: You put the glass under the tap and turn the nozzle to full blast. The water's flooding out everywhere in a split second, even though the glass isn't even full. You shut the tap off, you have like half a glass of water.

  But the pressure, the force, it fucked up everything.

  That's me, Phil. I didn't get a chance to fill up slowly, I didn't get a chance for surface tension—that's what it's called, I just now remembered—to build. I was fine one second, way below my breaking point. And then I was there, exploding.

  I'm not a good person.

  I wonder. If it had been only my wife, would I have been drops in the glass? Would I have made it through this without spilling over?

  Doesn't matter, really. Because it wasn't only my wife. It was my wife Shelly and my two children, Chad and Mark. Chad and Mark were ages three and nine. I'm not going to tell you Shelly's age because even in death that would probably embarrass her.

  As you've probably already figured out, they were killed. Slaughtered. Right in front of me. And to tell you the truth, I don't know why.

  Right about now, all the cops watching are probably starting to understand. And I hope that someone is running off to tell Victor Bellini that they just saw his wife and child on the news.

  That's who killed my family—Bellini. You've probably heard about him. He's in the news pretty regular, usually stuff about organized crime and shady contract deals and blah blah blah. He's never been to jail, but the guy's a criminal. Everybody knows it.

  Fucking slime bag. I hope you're watching. If you're watching you can give me a call on your wife's cell phone, we'll talk things over. We'll talk about how your family is now sitting on a pile of explosive and if so much as a bird hits the window, we're all going sky high. You want to talk about that Bellini, you fucking foot rot? You fucking slime?

  I hope you do. I hope I get to talk to you like you talked to me when you killed my wife and my children. My sons.

  Sorry about that break, folks. I started losing it, I guess you could say. Had to disconnect for a second. Nice job, Phil, keeping everyone from panicking, keeping them from rushing in. That would have been bad.

  Oh, and in case anyone watching is wondering why no sharp-shooters have picked me off, it's because we're all in the back of the bank. We've got the front doors locked, and I've got them wired with explosives. Lot of explosives going on in this building today, folks. I don't know much, but working demolition for thirteen years, I guess I know a little about explosives.

  Yeah, that's what I did before all of this, was worked demolition. I was the guy who went in and set the stuff, checked everything beforehand, stuff like that. It's not nearly as frightening as people think. You know what you're doing, it's a pretty safe gig. As safe as it can be when you're talking about stuff that can bring down a two-hundred story building in five seconds, anyway.

  It's not a huge explosive up front—just enough so that I'll know if anyone comes in. We also have this line of security monitors here, so I can see if anyone decides to try and sneak in. Given enough time, I'm sure the police could thwart me. I'm no evil super genius. I'm just some guy that knows how to blow shit up. Some guy who knows how easy it is to go from being good to being bad.

  I don't need much time. I want to explain my story, and I want to give it enough time so that the major news networks can find out about it. Judging by the TV in the lobby, they're already starting to.

  Victor's pretty hot shit, and when his family gets taken hostage, it's bound to make news fast. Not to say the rest of the hostages are any less important, but I'm not sure if that would be enough to make national news. Plus, we've got Jerry over there, talking to his news station. Chatting away over there. I've got to hand it to the dude—even under duress, he's sounding very professional. If you have a TV handy, you ought to check out his station. Channel 8. He comes on at nine, by the way, and if nobody gets out of hand, you'll probably be able to see him on the news tonight. Unless he's too shaken up by this whole ordeal. What's that, Jerry? Nope, he says, he'll be there. Balls of steel, that one. So tune in.

  Anyway, back to it. I said I was a demo expert. I know it sounds a little conceited to say "expert," but there's a lot that can go wrong when you're blowing shit up, and the day you stop being an expert is usually the same day you get a face full of explosion.

  Being an expert entails a lot, and I'd be lying if I said I did it all on my own. I worked with a great team, guys who really knew their stuff. We'd go in and figure out how to set the charges so the building imploded instead of bursting apart and raining down debris on all the spectators. We made sure that all of the explosives would go off—you don't want the clean up crew to step in and start scooping up live explosive along with all the dirt and mortar, right? Basically, we figure out how to make sure everything that needs to get blown up gets blown up, and things that don't need to get blown up don't.

  The first time I saw Victor Bellini in real life, I didn't even know who he was. I was doing a final check on everything in a building we were about to blow, making sure wires were attached, making sure nothing had been tampered with. Routine, right before a blow.

  It was an old hotel—the Dancing Flamingo, you remember that one? It had been closed for several years, something about a family trust and taxes or some such shit. All I heard was that nobody could figure out who it belonged to when it was still a moneymaker, and as they fought in the courts, it fell into neglect and by the time things were sorted out, the only fiscally-safe option was to blow it and do something else with the land.

  Too bad, really—she was a beautiful old beast. Built real. We had to plant all kinds of boom to take the old girl down.

  I didn't think anything much of seeing the guys in there—anyone who makes it past the tape is cleared, which means that they'll be checking in and out of the site before detonation. Basically, if they were in there, people knew it, and wouldn't let us sink the plunger until it was confirmed they were out.

  I went about my business, and got out of there. Generally, I stick around for the detonation, but I was feeling pretty bad that day—some bad shrimp—and I wouldn't have gone into work at all that day if it hadn't been such an important job.

  It really goes to show you what an evil whore life is, that your wife and children can be killed because you had the shits.

  I got a call, see. Teddy B. His real name was Theodore Bayer—how ate up were his parents, ya think?—but he didn't go by Theodore, and he sure as hell didn't go by Teddy Bayer. You met him, you'd call him pretty much whatever he wanted you to call him. Six-four, two hundred and eighty pounds of cut muscle. A
sweet guy, but he looked like a killer.

  He knew as much as me, but I had been appointed senior on this project, which was why I was in doing the final checks. Teddy B and I worked all the important jobs together, and it didn't really matter who was appointed to be in charge because we worked well together. That's why I was rushing home before the demo—I knew it'd be in good hands with Teddy.

  I was almost home when the phone started ringing.

  "What's up?" I asked him.

  "Got some guys here want to talk to you," Teddy said.

  "Tell 'em they can talk to you."

  "I told 'em that—they don't seem to want to talk to me."

  "Tell 'em to piss on an electric fence, then."

  "These aren't those types of dudes, hoss."

  "Look, man, I'm gone for the day. Not comin' back. If it's something you can't handle, like absolutely can not handle, I'll turn around. But those breakfast burritos we had this morning are about to come out of my ass with approximately the same amount of force as the shit we planted on the first three floors of the Flamingo, so I'd really prefer not to have to turn around."

  He laughed and told me he'd take care of it.

  What I didn't know then was that the guys who wanted to see me were the same guys I had seen in the building. Two of them, anyway. One of them was Victor Bellini. The other was Ralph Gomez—the bodyguard who has been brought up on charges of murder four times.

  What I didn't know then was that Victor and Ralph wanted to find out what I had seen or heard when I had happened by earlier.

  You can piece it together, right? They were killing a guy, and I walked by. I'm not real sure if they were threatening him at the time, or still smooth talking him, or what. Like I said, I'm not exactly sure why my family died.

  I know it was because they thought I saw something.

  They explained that as they beat my wife to death.

  My behavior was suspicious, you see. And when you're dealing with organized crime, suspicious behavior isn't acceptable.