by JJ Zep
Yet here I was, about to be thrown off a skyscraper by two gormless goons and I was powerless to stop it.
I tried digging in my heels and they lifted me off the floor, tried squirming loose and they held me tighter.
Eventually, we reached the edge. I’ve never been particularly afraid of heights and I’d been to the top of both the Empire State and the Trade Center. But it feels a little bit different when you know that within the next minute or so you’re going to be plummeting the 600 feet to the hard ground below.
Cobb nudged me now, “Come on Clark Kent,” he laughed, “start flapping.”
Despite myself I looked down, to the street and the miniaturized cars way below. I had that crazy feeling where you almost feel yourself falling, almost feel like flinging yourself off the ledge.
I felt Cobb place his hand between my shoulder blades and begin to push.
Then I heard the crackle of the radio and Tucci’s voice, saying, “Earth to dimwits, earth to dimwits.”
Farley answered, “Boss.”
“Is it done yet?” Tucci demanded.
“We’re just about to…”
“Is it done yet?”
“No, but…”
“Good. Bring him down.”
“Boss?”
“I said bring him down.”
“We don’t get to…”
“No, you bring him safely down or I’ll come over there personally and bounce your fat ass off of East 2nd Street. Do you understand?”
“Yes, boss,” Farley said sulkily.
seventeen
We made considerably better time getting back to the station house than we had on the journey out. Farley and Cobb were pissed at having missed out on their morning’s entertainment and they pushed me so many times with their rifle barrels that by time we got there I felt as though I had been tenderized.
Tucci was waiting on the sidewalk when we arrived, two of his men in close attendance. A couple of black Hummers like the one I’d wrecked were parked at the curb.
When Tucci saw us approaching he spread his arms like a benevolent grandfather and broke into a broad smile, “Mr. Collins,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell us who you are? We could have saved ourselves all this unpleasantness.”
Then his expression changed and he said to Farley and Cobb, “Get this fucker upstairs.”
I was marched up two flights and taken to what looked like an interrogation room. The walls were painted a dull, battleship gray and there was no furniture other than a steel topped table that was bolted to the floor, and three fold-out steel chairs.
Cobb sat me down in one of the chairs being none too gentle about it and then he and Farley left with a few parting remarks of ‘dickwad’ and ‘pecker wood’, thrown over their shoulders.
To my left there was a large mirror and I’d seen enough cop shows to know that there was a hidden observation room behind it. I wasn’t sure if there was anyone behind the glass, but it did give me the strange sensation that I was being watched.
What I really wanted to know was why I was here at all? Why was I still even alive? Why had Tucci changed his mind about dropping me from the tower?
Not that I was complaining you understand, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it could only mean one thing. And if I was correct, then the short flight from the roof of the BOK Tower may have been a preferable option after all.
I sat there for what seemed like an hour and then Tucci entered the room and I saw that my fears were well founded. There were two men with him, and while they didn’t look much like Jake and Elwood, they were Corporation agents nonetheless.
They walked in and surveyed the room like I wasn’t there at all, then sat in the chairs opposite me. One of them put an aluminum briefcase on the table.
Tucci was left without a seat, and he looked annoyed by that. He stalked from the room, leaving the door open. Outside I could see a passageway painted a similar shade of gray. I could see something else too, a slim waft of smoke, as though someone was out there smoking.
I heard Tucci returning, dragging his chair like a spoilt child. He walked in and slammed his seat down, slumped into it and then flashed the Corporation agents a look of disgust. They simply ignored him and continued staring at me.
“You’re Chris Collins,” one of them said, and before I could respond he continued, “I’m agent Roy, this is agent Stu. We’re here to help you.”
“Help me how?”
“You have some information we need, vital information, crucial information, you might even say life and death information. And if you did, you wouldn’t be exaggerating.”
“But I don’t…”
Agent Roy held up a hand. “You help us and we help you. Tell us what we need to know and we’ll have you re-united with your little girl within the next 24 hours.”
“With Ruby? You’ve got Ruby?”
“Safe and sound,” Roy said.
I looked back at him and for a brief moment a feeling of elation and relief greater than I’d ever felt before welled up in me. These men had Ruby, and for the price of answering a few questions, I could be with my little girl within, what had the man said, 24 hours?
After three years of searching, after being so close to giving up hope. Right at that moment I would have told them just about anything.
But then Agent Roy made a crucial mistake. He allowed himself a subtle victory smirk. The corner of his mouth curled ever so slightly into the ghost of a smile, and I just knew that he was lying.
I decided to play it out anyway. “Shoot,” I said, “whatever I know I’ll tell you.”
“Good man,” Roy said and allowed himself a fully-fledged smile this time. The other agent had still said nothing and sat staring at me from behind his dark glasses. I wondered if this was some variation on good cop / bad cop, maybe happy cop / catatonic cop.
“Where is the trigger?” Roy managed to ask, before Tucci cut in.
“Uno momento, fellers,” Tucci said, and then rubbed thumb and forefinger together in the time honored hand sign for money.
Without looking at him, Stu slid the briefcase across the table.
“What the fuck is this?” Tucci demanded.
“The finders fee,” Roy said, as though speaking to an imbecile, “One million dollars.”
“And what am I going to do with a million dollars?” Tucci wanted to know. “You may as well give me the pink slip for every car on every lot in Oklahoma, but oh, wait a minute I already own all of that.”
“Correction,” Roy said. “The Pendragon Corporation owns Oklahoma, and everything else west of here. You are an employee…”
“I’m an independent contractor,” Tucci pouted.
“An independent contractor granted certain concessions in exchange for results. Results I might add that have fallen well short of expectations.”
“What am I supposed to do with the goo goo juice you send me? I may as well be doping these Zs with Dr. Pepper.”
“Well, perhaps if you’d actually being applying the medications we’ve been shipping to you, rather than trading them to Virgil Pratt in exchange for…”
Just then the door opened and a man stepped into the room, a small, slight man in jeans, a white shirt and cowboy boots. He wore a Stetson that matched his shirt and a six-shooter in a tied down holster like a gunfighter of old. Contradicting that image were the large, yellow tinted eyeglasses he wore.
“Now you boys wouldn’t be talking out of school about me would ya?”
“Virgil,” Tucci said getting to his feet, “I though I told you to stay behind the glass?”
“Shut the fuck up Stan,” Virgil said, “you been fucking this thing up wholesale from the get go. We’ll guess what boys, there’s a new sheriff in town. Name’s Virgil Pratt. But then, you already knew that.”
“Listen Pratt…” Roy started.
“I’m done listening, now I’m talkin’. You two boys are in a contest right now. One of you is gonna walk a
way scott-free and the others gonna be Zombie food, so pay attention cause I ain’t too fond of repeating myself.”
“That’s it,” Roy said getting up, “We’re outa here.”
“Looks like we got ourselves a winner,” Pratt said, and drew his gun faster than I’d seen it done in any western movie.
Roy threw up his hands and Pratt called out “VJ!” and a man stepped into the room holding a shotgun. Pratt nodded to the man and he reversed the gun and used the butt to club Roy in the jaw. Roy slumped to the floor and VJ stood aside as another two men hustled in and dragged the agent away.
Virgil Pratt now turned towards Stu, who hadn’t spoken nor moved during the entire exchange. “Congratulations, Silent Sam, you get to be our messenger boy.
“You go back out west to California and you tell your boss that the Dead Men own Oklahoma now. You tell him we’re spreading our wings into New Mexico, Arizona, north to Colorado, Utah and Nevada.
“You tell him we got your boy here and one way or another we’ll extract the information you all are so anxious to get from him. I figure its worth something or you wouldn’t be so desperate to find it. And if you come after us we’ll use it against you.
“Tell your boss he leaves us be, he can hang onto his little magic kingdom in California. Hell, there’s so much land out here for the taking. No need us fighting among ourselves now, is there? You got that silent boy?
Agent Stu nodded.
As an afterthought, Pratt said, “Hell, you can speak, can’t ya?”
“Yes,” Stu said simply.
eighteen
After Stu had been sent on his way I was hustled downstairs and pushed into one of the waiting Hummers. I shared the backseat with Agent Roy, who was still out, and one of Tucci’s men. Cobb was driving and Farley was in the passenger seat.
I saw Tucci cross the sidewalk and get into the other Hummer and we set off in convoy, with Pratt to the fore driving an Oklahoma Highway Patrol Cruiser, its lights flashing. Completing the lineup were some twenty bikers, taking up the forward and rear positions.
We drove back down route 421, I presumed towards the ranch. About 5 miles in we passed the yellow school bus I’d seen a few days before. It still had its motorcycle escort, but this time it wasn’t empty.
Pratt gave them a whoop with the siren and the bikers gave him a raised fist salute. As we overtook the bus I saw a boy of about fifteen, looking out of the window. Our eyes seemed to meet and he held my gaze with a look of utter desperation that filled me with both sadness and impotent rage. Then we sped past and he was gone.
We passed the cedar grove Pete had told us about and soon after made a right turn, drove on blacktop for a mile and then the road became dirt. Pete’s directions had been good.
Next to me Roy started to moan as he came to. There was blood trickling from his mouth and his jaw looked to be set at an odd angle. Somehow I had the idea that those would be the least of his problems quite soon.
We topped a rise and I had my first glimpse of the ranch. Pete had been right, it was a prison.
The building was red brick and, based on the architecture it looked like it must have been built at least a hundred years ago, although I’m no expert on such things.
It was designed in the shape of a five-pointed star, or of a stick-man with his arms held horizontal to his body and his legs apart. A double chain-link fence, at least 15 feet high surrounded the buildings. When this had been a prison those would likely have been electrified, but even now, with the lethal razor wire topping them, they were impregnable barriers.
At each corner of the fence stood a guard tower, with what looked like machine guns mounted in them.
The front vehicles had reached the gate and it was unlocked and pushed open by a few bikers. To the right I could see four gas tanker trucks, parked well away from the main building.
The police cruiser and the Hummers pulled into parking bays, while the bus veered left and stopped maybe twenty yards away. The bikers too went in that direction, forming a loose circle around the vehicle.
Agent Roy had regained consciousness and nursed his battered jaw. We were hustled from the vehicle and up a stairway to the main entrance, a huge studded oak door.
Halfway up the steps I heard the hiss of the bus’ hydraulic doors opening and the bikers started jeering and cursing. I looked round in time to see the first sorry passengers being dragged from the bus, a couple of girls in their mid-teens and an older woman who was screaming and trying to cling to them.
Cobb’s rifle barrel jostled me forward and then I heard a shot and then more screams. When I looked this time, the older woman was down, and a pool of blood was spreading out from her head.
“Pick that up!” I heard Pratt shout from the head of the stairs, “And the next time you damage my stock, it’ll be your ass.”
We were pushed through into a wide, gloomy hall and from there we were marched down one of the arms of the building, which a sign identified as C Block. The floor was litter strewn and there was paint peeling from the walls and puddles of water pooling on the floor. There was the stench of sewage and long forgotten damp.
All of the cells seemed empty, but we were marched towards the center of the block and there, agent Roy was pushed into a cell and me into the next one.
The place sounded like an asylum. There were screams and crazy laughter and whoops and curses. Outside I could hear the familiar sound of Harley engines being revved and the low, industrial rumble of diesel powered generators. There was also the intermittent sound of metal striking metal.
In between it all, a familiar voice spoke to me from the cell next door. “Figured you were halfway to California by now,” Babs said.
“Babs, Jesus, I thought you were…”
“Dead?” Babs laughed, “Hell, no. Not yet, anyhow.”
“What happened?”
“Long story,” he said. “You?”
“Just as long. So what’s the deal? What’s going on here?”
“Hard to tell. Mostly, they’re getting stoned on that blue shit, like we took off Pete. They brought in a busload of folks yesterday. Had the barbeque pits glowing last night, you do the math.”
“You’re shitting me, right?”
“No, for all I know, they could have been grilling a side of beef, but come chow time, my advice is, don’t eat the meat.”
“And the girl you been looking for?”
“If she’s here I ain’t seen her, and I pray she ain’t here.”
“I’m sorry, Babs.”
“Yeah well, it was a long shot. I told her mama so. Girl goes missing these days, you’re lucky if she turns up dead, rather than zombiefied. Oh, did I mention the Zombie Zoo?”
“The what?”
“Main attraction in this chuckle house. They got themselves a whole bunch of Zs locked up in the east wing.”
“What they hell for?”
“Who knows? You ain’t exactly dealing with rational people here”
“Hey,” Roy cut in, “Hey Collins, who the hell you talking to?” His voice sounded slurred.
“Who’s that?” Babs asked.
“Corporation agent.”
Babs exhaled sharply, “Our friend Pratt is fucking with some big hitters,” he said.
“You got that straight,” Roy agreed.
From the yard the sound of banging continued and I got up on the cot and looked out of the small window. There was a lot of activity out there. Holes were being dug and I saw that two tall fence posts had already been erected and a third was now being driven into the ground. Nearby there were rolls of what looked like chain link fencing and razor wire.
“What’s happening?” Babs asked.
“Looks like they’re putting up some kind of compound in the yard.”
Just then someone started banging against the bars, and shouting, “Chris Collins, paging Mister Chris Collins.”
Two bikers appeared in front of my cell, the first of them was a small bull headed man w
ith bulging arms covered in tattoos, and a squint. The other was easily six two, overweight and with skin the color of curdled milk. He had long red hair, pulled into a ponytail on either side of his head. He looked like he was wearing eye make-up.
The red-haired man smiled, revealing a mouthful of rotted teeth. “Warder wants to see you,” he said and then laughed. “Now when I open the cell door you don’t try no shit or I set my pitbull on you, ya hear.” He indicated the smaller man who held me in his cross-eyed gaze, with his teeth showing and what sounded like a growl vibrating in his throat.
The red head shoved the nightstick he was carrying under his arm and worked the lock and then slid the cell door open.
I stepped out into the corridor and for a brief moment I considered making a run for it. Neither of the men was carrying a gun and I was sure I could easily outpace them.
But where was I going to go? I was handcuffed for one thing and even if I could get off the cellblock and into the yard I’d still have the fence and the guards to contend with.
So I did what I was told and allowed them to lead me back up to the entrance hall and then up a flight of stairs to the second floor.
nineteen
We entered an open plan area that was spacious and luxuriously furnished and somewhat resembled the lobby of an upmarket hotel, with chandeliers and couches and thick velvet drapes. This had probably been the living area of the ‘rich weirdo’ Pete had spoken about.
There was a bar at one end and a bank of pinball machines along the wall by the windows, through which I could see the main gate and the fields beyond.
I was led through this foyer to the warder’s office. The red headed biker knocked and pushed the door open without waiting for a reply.
“Boss…” he started.
“Wait outside,” Pratt said. “Not you Collins, you come on in.” I was pushed into the office and the door was closed behind me.
The office looked like it had been maintained in its original state. The walls were oak paneled and decorated with certificates and framed photographs. There were shelves populated with dusty old books, a gun cabinet and a huge wall mounted key rack with what looked like hundreds of keys.
