by Mike Faricy
A sober guy could have spun around and drilled me a half dozen times. Fortunately, I was dealing with Carlos. He appeared to be groggy and still feeling no pain. He staggered another step, and mumbled, “Wait, what the hell?” just before I slammed into him and the Sig Sauer erupted.
My arms were crossed as we connected and in one fell motion I looped the cord around his neck then pulled that sucker tight and held on as we tumbled over an end table, sending a table lamp crashing onto the floor in the process. The Sig Sauer fired as the lamp crashed and the noise started the girls screaming. They sat wide eyed with their arms wrapped around one another, frozen in the partial darkness as our two shadows thrashed and kicked around on the floor.
We rolled over on the floor two or three times until we were wedged up against the wall. Carlos was on top of me and he slammed the back of his head into my mouth a couple of times. I rolled him off onto his side and jammed my knee up into the middle of his back then pulled on the cord even harder. I saw his arm crank the Sig Sauer over his head and I shifted my head to the side just a moment before he fired a round. The muzzle flashed and I rolled us back and forth a couple of times in an attempt to slam his head into the wall.
The girls screamed. I pulled with all my might as he clawed at the cord around his neck trying to loosen it. I rolled him over on top of me and slammed his head into the baseboard trim. He continued to claw and groan at the cord wrapped firmly around his neck. I could hear him gurgle and croak and he suddenly began to kick wildly. He waved the Sig Sauer and fired another round, this time into the ceiling.
The front door suddenly burst open and a number of very large figures stormed into the room. Light flooded in from the illuminated hallway, but I was too focused on strangling Carlos to pay much attention.
Suddenly heavy paws ripped the cord out of my hands and Carlos rolled off me, face down onto the floor gagging and gasping for air.
“I don’t believe it, Haskell? You?”
Ava screamed from behind us and ‘Fat Freddy’ jumped.
“Jesus Christ, are these the kidnapped kids?”
My ears were ringing, I was having trouble hearing and then a pair of hands lifted me up to my feet. I recognized the war shield tattoo with the eagle feathers, biceps the size of basketballs and the pulled back hair. He still wore the black T-Shirt that said ‘SECURITY’ and he eyed me for a moment before he laughed and said, “No offense, dude, but you look like shit.”
“Get him a towel or something. Christ, Haskell, you’re dripping blood all over everything,” Freddy said.
Carlos was still lying face down on the floor inhaling deeply. The Sig Sauer rested a very long reach away against the wall. He looked like he was about to make a try for the thing when Freddy placed a black cowboy boot on his hand and then applied all three-hundred-and-fifty-plus pounds of weight.
“You are one stupid son-of-a-bitch, you know that?” Freddy said looking down at Carlos.
Carlos groaned from all the weight on his hand.
Some guy came out of the bathroom with a wet washcloth and handed it to me. I dabbed it gently on my face and immediately pulled it away from my split lips. The cloth was covered with my blood.
“Relax, it probably looks worse than it really is, maybe go into the can and get cleaned up,” Freddy said then shifted his weight back onto Carlos’s hand and ground his heel back and forth. It sounded like twigs snapping and Carlos let out a deep, painful groan and grabbed his wrist with his free hand in an effort to pull it out from underneath Freddy’s boot.
I took a step toward the bathroom and the girls suddenly began to cry.
“Come on, you can come with me. These are our friends, they’re gonna bring us back to your mom.”
“We’re gonna have to see Tubby first,” Freddy said, “And we better get the hell out of here. You got about sixty seconds then we gotta be making tracks.”
The girls ran over to me and we hurried into the bathroom. A glass rested on the sink and I quickly filled it with water and then gingerly rinsed my mouth. I stupidly glanced in the mirror and barely recognized the bloodied creature staring back at me.
The swelling from two days ago had disappeared and the bruises had turned a deep purple then morphed into a sickly brownish-green along the outer edges. My lips were swollen and looked like the victims of a very bad Botox injection, but the bleeding seemed to be subsiding. The girls turned round and stared at the tub and shower rather than watch me rinse my mouth out again.
“Let’s go, Haskell,” Freddy called from the living room.
I took the girls by the hand and we hurried back down the front hall and out the door. I couldn’t see Carlos anywhere.
As we hurried down the hallway toward the elevators, one of the doors to an adjacent unit began to open and Freddy used a deep voice and said, “Police. Please lock your door and remain in your unit until we give you the all clear.”
I heard the click of a lock from inside the unit as we walked past. We quickly made our way down the hallway past the bank of elevators to the fire exit. “No cameras,” Freddy said. “You able to do five flights?”
“I’d jump over the railing if it got us away from Carlos. Hey, just a minute, we forgot something,” I said and ran back into the condo.
“Catch up, we’re heading down,” Freddy called after me.
I did a quick check of the living room, the kitchen and the bathroom. I hurriedly looked through the master bedroom when suddenly, there was the pink suitcase just barely peeking out from under one of the pillows. I quickly opened it up, took two bundles of cash and stuffed them in my pockets then ran back out the door to catch up to Freddy. They were already two flights down, fortunately the girls weren’t able to go all that fast and I caught up to them just as they made it to the bottom and we entered the main floor lobby together.
“I want my mommy,” Ava cried as both she and Emma grabbed onto my hands.
“We’re on our way, honey, don’t worry. That bad man won’t be bothering you anymore.”
One of Freddy’s thugs was already behind the wheel of the black Escalade with the motor running as we exited the building. Freddy quickly waddled ahead and opened the passenger door for us then oozed into the front seat. I lifted Ava into the backseat, Emma hopped in after her and then I followed. I hadn’t quite closed the rear door before we took off.
When we got to the security gate, the driver punched in a code from a piece of paper he held then floored it as soon as the gate opened. We hadn’t been on Shepard Road for more than thirty seconds when a squad car with flashing lights appeared in the distance and shot past us heading in the opposite direction toward The Peabody.
“We’re gonna have to watch it, they’re getting faster on their response times,” the thug behind the wheel said to Freddy.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
We pulled into a small parking lot tucked behind The Derby. It was posted with a sign that simply read “PRIVATE” and was barely illuminated by a single light hanging over the metal door marked “Employees Only.” In one of the busiest sections of town the lot had six parking places, four of which were unoccupied, suggesting no one was stupid enough to challenge Tubby’s privacy statement.
We pulled in front of three large dumpsters, as we piled out of the Escalade Ava asked, “Is mommy here?”
“We have to stop here for just a minute and then they’ll take us to mommy,” I said. “That alright by you, Freddy?”
“Come on, we’ll see what the boss wants,” he said as the thug who had been driving punched a code into the back door of the building. There was an audible buzz and a snap and then he held the door open for us. Freddy led the way up a set of steep, wooden stairs. The walls on either side of the stairs were painted a glossy dark grey up to maybe four feet then a lighter grey from that point to the ceiling.
Emma followed behind Freddy, running her hand along the wall since there wasn’t a handrail while I carried Ava and the pink suitcase.
The air
held just the slightest hint of steak still lingering from the evening dinner trade along with maybe some roasted garlic and the strong scent of baking bread. I wasn’t sure what time it was, but the streets had been pretty quiet on the ride over so it had to be late.
Freddy was halfway down the hall by the time the girls and I made it to the top of the stairs. Light drifted out of an open door at the far end of the hallway and we hurried in an attempt to catch up to Freddy. He knocked on the doorframe then waited for us to join him before he stepped inside. We followed a step or two behind him, Emma held tightly onto my hand with the suitcase.
The room was fairly large with a gas fireplace centered on one wall. Fancy dark oak paneling running maybe six feet up was wrapped around all four walls. The floor was covered in a dark burgundy carpet that was so thick I seemed to sink a little with every step. Two windows on the wall opposite the fireplace were covered with heavy, red velvet drapes. The drapes were edged with a dingy gold fringe that seemed to give the entire room a morbid sort of look, not unlike a 1950’s mortuary.
Centered between the two windows was an enormous, polished wood desk with vicious gargoyle heads carved into the corners. Behind the desk, holding a snifter of brandy and nibbling from a large plate of chocolate-covered pastry sat massive, red faced, multi-chinned, Tubby Gustafson.
“Well, come in, come in, come in,” Tubby called spitting crumbs across the desk as he waved us forward. He stuffed the remainder of a pastry into his mouth then began to lick his fingertips as we approached.
Emma hung back, clinging even tighter to my hand. Ava tried to bury her head deeper into my shoulder.
“It’s alright, don’t be afraid, here, I’ve even got a special treat for you,” Tubby said and pushed the pastry plate across the desk toward us.
He looked up at me and said, “I have to say, Haskell, the past couple of days have apparently done absolutely nothing to improve your appearance, good Lord. And you two little ladies must be the Emma and Ava that we’ve all been hearing so much about on TV. Now which one of you is Emma?”
Emma grasped my hand a little tighter, stared at the floor and said, “That’s me.”
“You’re the oldest, aren’t you? Here, sweetheart, how about a little nibbly?” Tubby said and leaned across the desk to hand her a pastry.
Emma cautiously took it from Tubby then examined it carefully.
“Go ahead, darling, taste it. They’re very good.”
She took a tiny bite then seemed to brighten after the first taste and took another larger bite.
“There, see, I knew you’d like it, they’re one of my favorites. We make them here, right downstairs. It’s,” Tubby glanced cautiously around the room as if he were looking for spies hiding under the chairs before he spoke. He lowered his voice to almost a whisper and said, “It’s a secret recipe, very secret.”
Ava watched her sister take that large second bite and although she still held on to me tightly she cautiously glanced over at Tubby.
“And you must be, Ava, I bet you’d like one of these too, wouldn’t you?” Tubby said then raised the plate. Ava reached over and snatched a pastry then squirmed to indicate she wanted to be set down.
Tubby watched the girls with a look of satisfaction. It was as if he’d already gotten his good deed for the day out of the way in the wee hours of the morning and he had the remainder of the day to misbehave. “Haskell?”
“None for me, I….”
“Don’t kid yourself, I wasn’t offering. They’re for the children and me, besides look at those lips, God, you’re in no condition. Do you actually walk around like that, blood all over your shirt, you need a shave, no doubt a shower, and this is the sort of example you set for impressionable children?” Tubby said and shook his head.
“How did you find us?” I looked from Freddy to Tubby.
“Our friends up at the Grey Wolf, you might say we have a sort of working relationship.” Tubby replied and then reached for another pastry. “Apparently a car was stolen, a Mercedes, I believe, up on the north shore.”
“Yeah, Carlos grabbed it from a couple, tied them up in their home, a pretty fancy place up on the North Shore, they….”
“That dude with the ponytail, he’s part of the security team at the casino,” Freddy said while Tubby crammed an entire pastry into his mouth causing his cheeks to bulge like a chipmunk gathering nuts.
“Yeah, I thought I recognized him.”
“You went all that way just to gamble? That seems crazy when you can lose your money just as easily right here in town,” Tubby said spraying more bits of pastry and chocolate across his desk.
“Not really, I followed Carlos up there, then, well it’s a long story, but I ended up with the girls, and Carlos stole that Mercedes.”
“Like I was about to say, that guy from the casino, they were his folks, it was their Mercedes,” Freddy chimed in as he settled into a chair over by the fireplace.
“Then they must have followed this,” I said and took the transponder out of my pocket and placed it on Tubby’s desk.
“Thing looks like a doorbell, what the hell is that?” Tubby asked.
“A transponder, it sends out a GPS signal, it’s how they tracked the car, the Mercedes. Tracked us all the way down here in the cities, and it sent the signal they picked up when we were at The Peabody. I grabbed it out of the trunk of the Mercedes. See we were locked in a basement and this naked, drunk woman on a coffee table….”
“Spare me the details,” Tubby said then reached for the largest pastry on the platter and crammed two-thirds of it into his mouth.
“So, Carlos O’Kelly?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t worry about him,” Freddy said.
“Speaking of which,” Tubby said, licking his fingers and pointing to the pink suitcase.
I placed the suitcase on his desk, unzipped it and then spun it around so it faced Tubby.
He slowly opened it up and stared for a long moment. Finally he looked up, smiled at me for a half-second and said, “Lovely.” Then he zipped the suitcase closed, set it on the floor next to his chair and grabbed another pastry.
“I think our deal was forty-eight hours, Haskell. You’re late, however under the circumstances, I’ll let it go, this time. Girls, would you like another?” Tubby said and held out the plate of pastries to the girls.
They each snatched another one, then Emma said, “Can we go home, please?”
“I want to see my mommy,” Ava said.
Tubby nodded and said, “A splendid idea, we’ll take my car. Freddy, get a couple dozen of these pastries in a box for the girls, a treat to take along when we bring them home. Let me make a few quick phone calls first. Haskell, the bathroom’s through that door over there. You don’t have a lot to work with, but try and maybe make yourself look half-way presentable.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
It was dark and I guessed a good while past closing time based on how empty the streets were as we made our way toward Isabella’s town-home. Both girls were sitting on my lap and snuggled tightly against me.
Tubby turned halfway round in the passenger seat and looked at me. The nice guy tone he’d used when sharing the chocolate pastry with the girls was gone and he was back to his usual cranky self. “It’s good the girls are safe, at least for now. The cops are gonna have a lot of questions. I think it would be wise if you didn’t mention our involvement other than saving your sorry ass at The Peabody, got it?”
“But….”
“Don’t say anything about O’Kelly dropping in at my card game, don’t mention the car we loaned you?”
“Yeah, and don’t mention my phone call to you ‘bout him picking up that chick at The Lumberyard. We don’t need that kind of trouble. It will just bring more stupid questions,” Freddy chimed in.
“We wouldn’t want anything happening to these kids or their mother now, would we? Do we understand one another?” Tubby asked, not really waiting for an answer. “Good,” he said a secon
d later. He nodded then turned round and stared out the window as we drove on in silence.
A few blocks from home Emma recognized the grocery store as we drove past and she shouted, “Look, Ava, Kowalski’s.”
Ava blinked awake and seemed to come alive as she sat up straight and suddenly began to take in the familiar surroundings.
Two blocks later Fat Freddy made a right hand turn onto Isabella’s dark street. “You just shut the hell up and let me handle things, Haskell,” Tubby said. “One can never have enough good PR, besides the way you look right now you’ll be lucky if they don’t lock you up and just throw away the key.” Both he and Freddy chuckled about that for the next couple of blocks until we approached a crowd of people gathered out in the street in front of Isabella’s town-home.
“What’s all this?” I said more to myself than anyone else. A half dozen news vans were parked along both sides of the street. All the lights were on in Isabella’s. The news crews suddenly rushed towards us and swarmed around our moving vehicle.
“What in the hell would be the point of doing a good deed if no one knew about the damned thing?” Tubby said.
Freddy edged the Escalade through the crowd of news reporters and camera crews as he pulled over to the curb in front of Isabella’s. The maple tree in front of her town-home had the faded yellow ribbon tied around the trunk. It was same ribbon I’d had to take down a few years ago when Danny didn’t make it back.
The crowd of reporters circled round the Escalade as Tubby pushed his door open and shouted, “We got, ‘em. We got ‘em. They’re safe and sound ladies and gentleman, safe and sound. I just couldn’t sit back and watch. I felt we had to do something, my heart was breaking….”
“Mommy, mommy,” both girls screamed in unison just as the front door flew open and Isabella sailed down the front steps.
Emma kicked the car door open and in an instant Ava was off my lap jumping out the door behind her.
They wound up in a tight embrace in the small front yard, the three of them; Isabella, Emma, and Ava, no one letting go of the other. Two uniformed officers were trying to keep a semblance of order and failing miserably as the crowd of reporters and camera crews circled round and round. Tubby kept right on talking. Pandemonium reigned.
