by Mike Faricy
“Wayne, we’re lost. You don’t know how to get where we want to go. It’s getting dark. We’re trying to rescue the kids, your kids. Now come on.”
“No way, man.”
“Okay, give me the keys.”
“What?”
“You heard me, I said give me the keys.”
“Are you kidding? I…”
I had my pistol out and pointed at his knee. “I will not hesitate, Wayne, honest to God. Now give me your damn keys. You can stay in your stupid truck, but give me the damn keys, now. Hurry the hell up, while I’m still in a good mood.”
Wayne pulled the keys out of the ignition, tossed them at me and mumbled, “Asshole.” Then he looked out the driver’s window, pouting. I hurried into the gift shop.
The place was crammed with stuff, gifts for kids, for him, for her, gifts for grandma. I guessed Wayne probably wasn’t the first guy to sit in his truck in front of the place. “I’m sorry, we’re about to close,” a pleasant voice said from behind the counter. She was a redhead, maybe mid-twenties and quite attractive, from what I could see of her.
“Actually, I was hoping you can help, we’re in a hurry and lost, looking for an address. We could probably walk there from here if we knew the way.”
She smiled. “I’m really bad at that sort of thing, but Penny might be able to help. Penny,” she called. “Penny!”
A beaded curtain behind the counter parted and a child of the sixties stepped out. Her gray hair was pulled back, then braided to somewhere down below her shoulders. She wore what looked like a long, ill-fitting dress that probably went all the way to the floor, although I couldn’t tell because she was standing behind the counter. She had a ring through her nose, twenty or thirty bracelets around either wrist and piercings along the top of both ears that looked like a zipper. As she took three or four steps toward me the bracelets rattled and the scent of incense seemed to float into the room.
“This gentleman seems to be lost and is looking for an address.”
“Yeah.” I handed the paper with Wegger’s address to the gorgeous redhead. She passed it on to the sixties hippie.
“Oh, yes, not the first time we’ve been asked about this place. I suppose another party?” she said and shot a disgusted look in my direction.
“No, just going to pick up three small children.”
“Children? They let this individual near children?” she said, then looked over my shoulder and out the large picture window at Wayne sitting behind the wheel of his red Ford F-150 with the bright yellow flames painted across the hood. “You’re not attending some sort of orgy-fest?”
“I don’t know anything about that, ma’am. I’m just trying to get three little kids out of there as fast as I can.”
She studied me for a long moment. “Well, I’m not too sure of the Karma I’m sensing. I can only hope you’re on the level. Turn your truck around. Go three-quarters of a mile down the road. You’ll come to a series of five streets, take a left on the third one. Stay on it until you run out of pavement and you’re on gravel. I believe this location is the second left once you’re on the gravel. If you drive to the point where you can see the river, you’ve gone too far. Enjoy your trip,” she said, sounding like she meant anything but, then handed the paper to the redhead and pushed back through the beaded curtain.
“I’ll see you to the door and lock up,” the redheaded girl said. She opened the door for me, then in a soft voice said, “Sorry about that, she was at some sort of party there where everyone threw their keys on the table and you just, well, ended up with whoever…except no one picked up her keys.”
“Gee, I can’t imagine why.”
“Child of the sixties, in case you didn’t pick that up.”
“Yeah, well, thank you for your help.”
She quickly looked over her shoulder, then half whispered, “Hey, if you guys are having a party, I’ve got a couple of friends, we ‘dance’. Two hundred bucks an hour.”
“What?”
“You think I make enough to buy her out earning minimum wage here? Besides, ‘dancing’ is all tax free.”
Wayne honked the horn on the truck, then waved at us.
“I better go, we’re running late.”
“Just remember, I’ll be stopping for one in the bar down the street, it’s never too late for fun. Here, take my card, just in case.” She handed me a business card, what looked like a brass pole was on one end of the card and then the words, ‘More than you can handle’ looking like they’d just spun off the pole. A phone number was in the lower right corner.
“Thanks,” I called over my shoulder as I hurried to the truck.
Wayne honked the horn again, then called, “Hey, Veronica,” and waved at the redhead as I climbed in.
“You know her?”
“Almost positive she was one of the strippers at Wegger’s that night. Got this tattoo that says ‘Party Time’ right above…”
“Come on, let’s get going, you can tell me about it on the way. Make a U-turn and head back the way we came.”
The redhead was still standing in the doorway and Wayne honked one more time before chirping his tires while making a U-turn on main street and speeding out of town. The hippie’s directions were right on the money. We turned left on the third street, then drove until we ran out of pavement. Maybe a quarter of a mile beyond was a gravel drive heading into the woods. A rural mailbox set on a post was next to the drive. The mailbox didn’t have a name, but the address on the side was the same as the one Iggy had written down for me. Wayne began to pull into the drive.
“Wait a minute, don’t go in there.”
“It’s where the kids are, ain’t it?”
“I hope so, but we don’t want to be driving up to the front door. No telling what he’ll do to the kids, well, or us, for that matter. Pull further down the road, out of sight, and we’ll go in through the woods. You got a weapon?”
“Ummm, not really.” Wayne gave me a sort of dejected look, then brightened and said, “Hey, I got me a softball bat in the back of the truck.”
“That’ll do, just watch where you swing that thing. Now, let’s get moving. It’s after eight, and God only knows how far we’ll have to go through those woods.”
Wayne grabbed his softball bat out of the back of the truck and we started in through the woods, making our way parallel to the gravel trail. There was a good deal of undergrowth, vines, and a fair amount of mosquitoes. After about twenty minutes we saw lights shining through the trees and headed in that direction. A few minutes later we saw a massive, contemporary structure with cedar shake siding. There was a large shed off to the left of the building. A bright red Cadillac Escalade sat in the drive in front of an open attached garage door. The personalized license plate read EGGHEAD.
Chapter Forty-Three
“This here’s Wegger’s joint,” Wayne said. “I’m sure of it. There’s a big picture window on the other side that looks out onto the river. I remember because that’s where the girls were dancing. See, Wegger, he had this coffee table sort of thing, and that redheaded gal from back at the gift shop, Veronica, she was up there shaking and…”
“Let’s see if we can spot the kids, Wayne.”
We scanned the front of the structure but didn’t see any movement outside, nor inside, for that matter. We moved around the side, there were only three smaller windows, all up close to the eaves. They looked like they were along the ceiling of the second floor, or maybe even on a third floor. No light shined from the windows so we moved around to the back.
A large stone patio with an outdoor fireplace, a porch swing and a large picnic table looked out onto the river shore. The patio was illuminated by a half-dozen spotlights. What was probably a boathouse with a stone foundation, cedar shake walls and roof rose up from the river shore. A boat dock of white metal decking rested on green posts set in the water and extended out into the river. A white pontoon boat, I guessed maybe twenty-five feet long, was tied alongside the d
ock.
The picnic table was a single slab of wood that looked like it was the center cut from what had been a very large tree. It was maybe five feet wide and about ten or twelve feet long. At one end sat three kids, I recognized JD. He was actually sitting at the end of the table with his brother and sister on either side. They all seemed to be involved with iPads. I couldn’t see Bonnie’s sister, Chrissy, anywhere. Delmar Wegger sat a few seats away, he was sipping from a can of beer and had a number of empties scattered on the table in front of him. His head seemed to weave from side to side, and even just sitting there, he appeared fairly intoxicated.
“Thank God, there they are, let’s grab ‘em. I’m getting eaten alive out here. One swing and that dude is toast,” Wayne said, then slapped a couple of mosquitoes and started to move out of the woods toward the kids.
I grabbed him by his belt and pulled him back. “Bonnie’s sister isn’t there.”
“Chrissy? Screw it, she never liked me, anyway.”
Who could really blame her? “I’ve got an idea, let’s go back in front.”
“What? You gotta be kidding me.”
“No, come on, I want to shut this bastard down. It’s getting close to nine.”
“But…”
“Wayne, come on, we’re gonna make you the hero on this, okay?”
“Well, okay, but you better not be bullshitting me.”
We made our way back through the woods toward the front of the place. Still no sign of movement from inside the house, and I conjured up a picture of Niles Wegger sitting in front of a bank of computer screens all displaying some large clock ticking away. The moment the clock struck nine he would automatically connect to Iggy’s system.
“Wayne, I want to check out that shed.” I said once we were back in front of the place.
“Are you nuts? What the hell for? This is crazy. I’m going back to grab those kids, and then we are so out of here.”
“I just want to check, if there’s a saw we could cut the power to the house, grab the kids, and find Chrissy.”
“Yeah, and we could bake a cake, too. You’re fucking crazy, man. Now, I’m grabbing those kids and we’re getting the hell out of here before anything else happens. I don’t really give a damn about Bonnie’s computer bullshit. And if Wegger tries to stop me, I’m going to knock him out of the park, too,” he said, then jabbed me in the arm with his softball bat.
“Ten minutes, just give me that.”
“I’m telling you…”
“Come on, hell, it will take you a good five just to get back there.”
“Okay, okay, but you better make it fast. I’ve wasted too much time on you already.”
“Thanks,” I said and hurried across the drive to the large shed. The door was locked with a brass padlock, but a key was in the base of the lock. I turned it and the padlock opened. I pulled the door open, stepped inside, then pulled it partway closed, hoping it would still let some light in. Unfortunately, there just wasn’t that much light to let in at this hour. I rutted around in the dark, stumbled into a lawnmower, a number of shovels, hand tools, a stack of paving bricks next to a snowblower, and what I think was a tent. Then on the back shelf I felt what had to be a chainsaw. I grabbed it, along with a plastic gas can, hurried out of the shed and down the gravel drive. I’d seen three phone poles heading into the property from the road with the power line attached. After a few minutes I spotted one not far off the drive.
I hurried alongside the pole, gave the chainsaw a half-dozen pulls before it coughed and finally fired up. I cut a large notch in the pole, heard something snap and then nothing. I stepped to the other side of the pole and cut straight across to the center of the notch. There was another snap and the pole jumped up, sailed a few feet from the stump, dragged across the ground and then did absolutely nothing. It just stood there still connected to the power line, wobbling back and forth. I kicked it a couple of times and it moved ever so slightly, but that was all.
I followed the line further out toward the road until I came to the next phone pole and repeated the procedure. The same thing happened, only this time, once I cut it the pole jumped twice as far then just leaned at a forty-five degree angle sort of wobbling up and down. I set the chainsaw at about the five-foot mark and began to cut through the pole again. The pole suddenly cracked, reversed direction, ripped the chainsaw out of my hand, then swung back again, knocking me to the ground. A moment later there was a loud crack and a flash back toward the house, and then everything was quiet.
I looked around for the chainsaw but couldn’t find it. After a brief moment I hurried to the drive and ran back toward the house. I was almost on top of it before I saw the thing. All the lights were off, I’d managed to cut the power. I heard something off to the right and ducked alongside the Cadillac. Wegger suddenly ran out the front door and around the side of the house
I followed him around the side of the house and onto the back patio. He was heading for the kids when I shouted and pulled my pistol. “Stop right there, or so help me, I’ll shoot.”
Wegger turned, raised his hands, then started walking backwards. “I’m not sure you want to do that, Haskell. You miss and hit one of these children, it won’t be very pretty,” he said, then suddenly bounded off of the patio and into the darkness. I hurried toward the kids, Stella and Buddy were crying, J.D. looked like he was about to. Delmar appeared to be passed out in his chair.
“It’s okay, guys, it’s okay. We’re safe, we’re going to go home.”
Wayne suddenly stumbled out of the woods. “I, I was just about to get him, then you got in the way.”
“You see Chrissy anywhere?” I asked.
“Hey, I got these here kids, she’s a big girl, she can just take care of herself.”
“I think she’s still in the boat,” J.D. said. “That mean guy tied her to one of the chairs when we got here.”
“Like I said, she can take care of herself. Lord knows, she never done me no favors,” Wayne said, then looked around nervously.
“You just get these kids back to their mother.”
“You ain’t got to tell me twice. Come on, kids, let’s go see your mom. Maybe take them things with, consider it a little present from me. Okay?” Wayne said.
J.D. gave him a funny look but picked up all three iPads. Wayne tucked Buddy under his arm and said, “I think I done enough around here.” He glanced up at the far corner of the house, looking toward the second-floor window. “Man that Veronica gal on that coffee table. I tell ya…”
“Maybe get these kids home, Wayne. It’s been kind of a crazy day. Wegger is out there somewhere, I’m going to try and find him.”
That last statement seemed to get Wayne’s attention, and he glanced around nervously. “I guess you’re right, better get them back to their mom,” he said, then hurried around the corner carrying Buddy while J.D. grabbed Stella’s hand and followed.
Chapter Forty-four
I walked out to the edge of the patio and looked toward the river. It was dark, although I was able to make out the boathouse down along the shore. There were a handful of solar lights stuck in the ground around the patio, they gave off a little light but not much.
Delmar, sitting in a chair at the picnic table, hadn’t moved an inch during all the commotion. A number of beer cans were scattered across the table and two lay on the ground under his chair. His feet rested on a cooler and his head was tilted back, snoring. Suddenly, a sort of heavy gurgling came from down by the river, and in the next moment the engines on the pontoon boat throttled up and it headed out into the river.
I ran down to the river and out onto the dock, but all I could do was watch the night lights on the pontoon fade toward the middle of the river. My cellphone rang a moment later.
“Yeah.”
“Dev, are you okay?”
“Yeah. What about…”
“Wayne just called, he rescued the kids and got the power to Wegger’s cut off. He’s bringing them home and said you we
re lost in the woods and…”
“No, I’m not lost in the woods. I’m watching Wegger head down the river in a pontoon boat. He doesn’t seem to be in any special hurry. Did he get access to your computers?”
“He was on for less than a minute when he suddenly went offline. Iggy’s trying to find that particular system he was on but hasn’t been successful. I never thought I’d ever say this, but thank God for Wayne.”
“Yeah, something you don’t hear everyday. He’s bringing the kids back to you, right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, call the police, get them involved, let them know what’s happened. The sooner we get Wegger locked up, the better. I’m going to try and get Chrissy.”
“Be careful,” Bonnie said. I disconnected and hurried back to the house. Delmar was still snoring in the chair. I went in through a patio door and attempted to get my bearings. There were a half-dozen laptops arranged on two desks positioned against the wall. I unplugged the laptops, then stacked them up and carried them over to a couch. I slid them under the couch, then wandered around the room as my eyes began to adjust, looking for a way up to the second floor.
I found a staircase that led me up to a large sort of living room. One entire wall was all glass and looked out onto the river. There were a number of lights out on the water, and it was impossible to tell which one of them was Wegger’s pontoon boat. I noticed the coffee table in the corner Wayne had mentioned. To the right was a kitchen area, open to the living room.
I hurried over and ran my hands across the white marble counters, searching for car keys. I found a set hanging by a hook on the side of the refrigerator, grabbed them and headed out the front door. I clicked the button on the keys, mercifully the lights blinked and the Escalade chirped.
I hopped in behind the wheel, fired the car up, threw it in reverse, then spun round and hurried out the drive. I picked up speed once I reached the pavement, then hurried into town. I had no idea where the police station was, or even if there was one, but I could see the bar Veronica had mentioned. I could only hope she wasn’t a fast drinker.
