by Mike Faricy
Maybe I’d been worried for no reason. All this time sweating it out and she had just been pulling a bad attitude. It figured. Lydell and I wasted the better part of the day worried about her and she’s been in that damn office, probably flirting with that jerk, Gaston.
“Dawn Miller,” a voice answered a moment later.
“I’m sorry, I was holding for Marsha Norling,” I said, wondering what the H.R. witch was doing on the line. My mind was racing through a variety of scenarios, none of them very promising.
“Miss Norling is no longer with us. May I ask what this is in regard to?” I could feel the ice coming across the line. I hung up the phone as the rest of the color drained out of my face.
“That doesn’t look like it went any too well,” Lydell said.
“It was that wench from their HR department. She said Marsha was no longer with them.”
“Like she took the day off and went home?”
“No, more like she didn’t work there anymore.”
“That doesn’t sound all that promising, man.”
I couldn’t disagree. I also couldn’t think of what to do next. We sort of tossed some ideas back and forth. One of the best was Lydell running to Fast Pizza for a couple of sandwiches. He wasn’t gone two minutes when my phone rang and it was Marsha’s number, thank God.
“It’s about time, damn it. I’ve been worried sick. You okay?” I answered.
“I don’t know, Sweetheart, you tell me,” a male voice I didn’t recognize said.
“Who’s this?”
“Just a charming guy who found this phone lying on the street. I’d like to return it to you. Maybe be out in front of your office in three minutes, sitting behind the wheel of that pimp-mobile with the flames on the roof you’ve been driving around town and we’ll pick you up.”
“Where’s Marsha?”
“Dude, pull your head out of your ass and listen up. Be outside your office in the next three minutes, sitting in that car. Got it?”
“I don’t think you…”
“That’s right, don’t think. Just get your sorry ass out there,” he shouted and hung up.
I phoned Lydell to get him back to the office. His phone rang at the far end of the table exactly where he’d left the damn thing. About all I had on hand for a weapon was a letter opener. I bounded down the stairs and out onto the sidewalk. I’d parked the Lincoln out on Randolph, virtually right in front of the door. I quickly ran through my options. I could be shot, stuffed in a trunk, the victim of a car bomb or maybe I could get to Marsha.
I sent a quick text to Lydell so he’d know what was up while I sat behind the wheel with the air conditioner on. I’d barely finished hitting send when a black SUV screeched to a stop along the curb behind me and two very large guys jumped out. I cautiously stepped out of the Lincoln.
“Leave that piece of shit running and get your ass back here,” a shaved-headed idiot said. He was wearing a white T-shirt with red letters spelling Budweiser across the chest. He stood and held open the rear door of the SUV while the other guy wearing a black T-shirt walked toward my car. He gave me a cheap shot with his elbow as he passed, then started to climb in behind the wheel of the Lincoln.
I half turned, ready to shout something.
“Don’t be stupid, just get over here,” Shaved Head said.
“Where’s Marsha? I need to know she’s all right,” I said as I climbed in the back.
“Shut up and get your dumb ass down on the damn floor, dipshit,” Shaved Head yelled, then grabbed me by my belt and yanked me onto the floor of the back seat.
As I wiggled between the seats, he jumped in and stomped his feet down on top of me. He slammed the door closed as we sped away from the curb. I looked up at him, pretty sure he was the same jerk who’d tried to kick and punch in my car window when I was attempting to get away from Pauley’s apartment the other day.
“What do you think you’re looking at, Shithead?” he said, then stomped his feet on me again.
“Uff.”
“Keep you hands where I can see ‘em. Nothing would please me more than to pop your dumb ass right here,” he growled, then pointed a small pistol at me. It looked an awful lot like the one I’d discovered taped beneath Pauley’s bathroom sink. Except now that it was pointed at me, the end of the barrel appeared to be about six inches wide.
“You seem to have a real talent for being a pain in the ass.” This from whoever was driving.
Shaved Head kept his feet on top of me and began to frisk me with his free hand, all the while pressing the pistol barrel against my forehead. I prayed we didn’t hit some pothole in the road.
“You carrying anything, you better tell me now. I don’t like surprises,” he growled.
“Nothing, I’m clean. I swear. Just a phone in my front pocket.”
He patted me down, reached beneath me and checked my belt line. He pulled the phone from my front pocket and tossed it onto the seat. I remained focused on the pistol barrel pressed against my forehead and prayed the road remained in good driving condition.
Chapter Forty-Eight
We hadn’t driven all that far before we made a couple of sharp right turns and stopped. I was aware of what sounded like an automatic door opening just before we pulled into a garage. Based on the rakes and snow shovels I saw hanging neatly on the wall, I guessed we were at a private home. There was that sort of garage smell, a combination of fertilizer, gasoline and grass clippings. Lying on the floor of the car with a pair of size fourteen boots on me, I could just catch the top of what looked like two side windows.
Shaved Head opened the door and climbed out, but not before giving me one final stomp and chuckling, “Come on, get your worthless ass out here. Haskell, so help me, you try one of your stupid moves and you’ll wish you’d never met me. I’ll be your worst nightmare. I promise.” With the gun pointed at me, he already was my worst nightmare, so I saw no point in disagreeing with him. Why argue with perfection?
The garage was one of the largest ones I’d ever been in, a spotless floor with a light grey finish, four car stalls and a work bench area with rows of tools hanging in an orderly fashion and arranged according to size. In the far stall, a car was covered with a fitted beige tarp. Whatever sort of vehicle it was, the thing was built close to the ground and looked sleek even with that tarp draped over it. I could just make out tires with chrome spoke rims and the hint of a highly polished burgundy body.
“Just keep moving, Asshole straight ahead through that door.” He pushed me toward a door in the corner of the garage that the driver was just opening. Now, I was sure these two were the same idiots I’d seen with Pauley Kopff the other day. I was just beginning to wonder where that idiot Pauley was. Unfortunately, I didn’t have to wait long to find out.
“Problems?” Pauley asked as we entered the house. He was sitting on an elegant kitchen stool, looking worse than usual and drinking something that resembled iced tea, but clearly wasn’t. There was a pistol lying on the granite kitchen counter within easy reach. A fifth of Jack Daniels and a cell phone sat off to the side.
Marsha was seated across from him. Her left eye was a dark purple and very swollen. A strip of duct tape was wrapped around her head covering her mouth. What looked like the remnants of a bloody nose stained her face. Her cream-colored blouse was torn at the shoulder and soiled, like she’d fallen and skidded for a few feet across the pavement. A number of large drops of dried blood had worked their way down the front of her blouse. She raised her head as I entered the room and her eyes grew wide. She’d obviously been crying and looked scared out of her wits.
“Marsha?”
“Shut the hell up, Fuckwad,” Pauley said then gave a nod as he reached for his drink. Something slammed into the back of my neck and everything went black. When I came to, my hands were wrapped with duct tape and I was lying in a corner on the floor. It looked like Pauley had a fresh drink and Marsha was nowhere to be seen.
“Anyone ever tell you you’r
e a major league pain in the ass, Haskell?” Pauley asked, then followed that up with a couple of hefty gulps from his glass.
My mind was foggy and I tried to clear my head. A bolt of pain shot up the back of my neck and pierced my skull the moment I moved.
“You seem to have a knack for making things very difficult for very important people. Should have quit while you were ahead, dumb shit.”
I was focused on taking deep breaths in an effort to keep my stomach down while my head continued to explode.
“Hey, you hear what I said, bright boy?” Pauley half shouted then kicked me hard on the side of my face. There was a hollow sound as my head bounced off a cabinet door. I desperately swallowed a couple of times in an attempt not to get sick. I failed and suddenly vomited across the tiled floor.
“What the…? Jesus Christ, watch what the hell you’re doing! Look at the mess you made, Haskell. Don’t expect me to clean that up, you piece of shit.”
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there. It could have been a few minutes or over an hour. I still wasn’t thinking clearly. I became vaguely aware of foot steps on the other side of the room and then another voice. I couldn’t seem to raise my head to see who it was. I just sat there, taking deep breaths, inhaling deeply in an attempt to calm my stomach, all the while wondering what in the hell I’d gotten myself into.
Chapter Forty-Nine
They had been arguing back and forth for some time and the voices had gradually become raised.
“Are you crazy? This has gotten completely out of hand. What in God’s name do you think you’re doing? I tell you to eliminate the problem and you think it’s a good idea to bring them here? You God damn idiot, you can’t keep them here. I don’t want anything to do with this. Do you understand? Now get out, damn it, and get him the hell out of here.”
It was a male voice, deep and booming from the far side of the kitchen counter that brought me around. A command voice. I attempted to lift my head and another wave of nausea washed over me for my trouble. Fortunately, my stomach was empty and nothing came up. Stars seemed to flash along the edge of my peripheral vision and the arguing back and forth was sending waves of pain up my neck before they exploded somewhere along the base of my skull.
“Stay cool, man, I told you I’ve got it under control. We’re going…”
“Under control? Look at you, for the love of God. You’re drunk again. You actually brought them into my home? What the hell were you thinking? You idiot. What if someone saw you?”
“No one saw us, I made sure. Take a chill pill, dude.”
I thought it sounded like Pauley who spoke, then slurped more of his drink. But I was still having trouble focusing and couldn’t be sure.
“What aspect of ‘I can’t be seen to have anything to do with this’ do you not seem to grasp? You seem positively incapable of following directions, of doing anything right. Do you realize that you have jeopardized everything, absolutely everything? Now for the last time, get out of my home before I summon the police myself, you stupid, brainless moron.”
“What the hell did you just say? What’d you call me?” I was pretty sure that was Pauley’s voice. As banged up as I was, I recognized his slurred words.
“Oh, please, spare me any of your self righteous indignation. You heard me. I said get out of here before I call the police. Your brain is so fried you’re completely incapable of rational thought. You’ve put everything I’ve worked for at risk with this latest idiotic stunt. You were given a simple task to accomplish, and yet, somehow, you’ve managed to screw it up. What the…? Don’t you dare point that thing at me! What exactly do you think you’re doing?”
“Don’t you tell…”
Boom.
It was quiet for half a second before something slammed onto the floor just a few feet from where I was and close enough to feel the vibration when it hit the floor. I opened my eyes, attempted to focus and watched as a dark puddle of blood began to flow toward me across the glazed floor tiles. I instinctively attempted to roll out of the way and suddenly I was staring into Pauley’s face.
He lay motionless on the floor, just the hint of a surprised look plastered across his face. His mouth was open ever so slightly, as if he was just about to make one more idiotic statement. There was a small hole in his forehead, maybe an inch above his right eye and a small amount of blood had pooled in his eye socket before it ran part way along the bridge of his nose. The pool of blood on the floor seemed to flow from beneath his chin and must have been from the exit wound. If Pauley ever actually had any brains, they’d just been blown out. He was dead before he hit the floor.
“Good Lord, what an absolute jackass,” a deep voice boomed. “Well, it would appear it’s just the two of us, Mr. Haskell. Pardon me for a moment. Don’t go anywhere.” I heard what sounded like the clang from a toilet seat being raised a moment later.
I strained at the tape around my wrists, which only succeeded in sending waves of pain jangling up my neck and exploding once again along the base of my skull. I heard a toilet flush and then footsteps entering the kitchen.
“I suppose we better get you out of here. Actually, know what? This is going to work to my advantage. I’m afraid Mr. Kopff had become the inevitable loose end. Unfortunately, now we’re going to have to aggressively address the problem of you and Miss Driscoll. Pity that, such a waste. I suspect I would have found her rather enjoyable.”
He suddenly appeared, stepping around the kitchen counter to tower over me as I lay on the floor. He looked lean and fit with snow white hair and a neatly trimmed beard surrounding his tanned face. Piercing blue eyes held my gaze and it was clear he wasn’t about to flinch. It had to be Gaston Driscoll.
“Here, let me help you to your feet. I wouldn’t want you to strain anything.” He half laughed then reached down to yank me up off the floor.
I waited until I was halfway up, thought I might have a chance at kneeing him in the groin and took a shot. I missed, but Gaston didn’t.
“So, attempting to play it rough, are we?” he said and then caught me with an upper cut to my chin that he must have learned on an Ivy League boxing team. My jaw slammed shut and my teeth clicked audibly as I sailed back against the kitchen counter. Before I knew what happened, he kicked my feet out from underneath me, sending me crashing back to the floor. I half landed on Pauley’s body and gasped as the wind was knocked out of me. I tried to inhale deeply, in an attempt to refill my lungs and at the same time, fight off the urge to erupt all over the place again.
“You want to play it tough, I’m more than willing to oblige,” Driscoll shouted, as he delivered a sharp kick to my ribs, just in case I wasn’t getting the message. “Now, get up on your feet. You try anything stupid like that again, and I promise you I won’t be so gentle.”
He clamped his hand in an iron grip around the back of my neck and squeezed hard, causing my stomach to threaten to retch once again as he hoisted me back on my feet. I couldn’t focus, my head felt like it was ready to explode and I had to fight to keep the contents of my stomach down.
“Just move out the door, Haskell, and please don’t attempt any foolish heroics. If you insist on doing something stupid, I’ll simply take your spine out,” he said, then shoved a pistol into my back. I attempted to focus and somehow made it out the door and back into his garage. Driscoll steered me around the side of the SUV by pressing the pistol against my back. He opened the rear door. “Get down in there,” he said, then shoved me into the vehicle.
I attempted to crawl onto the rear seat, but just as I brought my knees up to curl into a semi-fetal position, he pulled me down and onto the floor between the front and back seat. A moment later, something heavy was thrown on top of me. Guessing from the smell I thought it was a large bag containing fertilizer or weed killer or something. I couldn’t be sure, but whatever the contents were, they stung the raw areas on my face and arms. I had to close my eyes to keep them from burning.
A minute or two later, I heard the
car door slam and the engine fire up. The vehicle backed up quickly and almost immediately there was a loud snapping noise. “God damn it,” Driscoll shouted and screeched to a stop a moment later. He paused and mumbled something, then seemed to regain control before he accelerated and took a hard left. The bag of whatever was on top of me shifted slightly and I immediately felt a stinging sensation as more of the contents poured out of the sack and over me.
Chapter Fifty
We drove for a bit, not that I had any idea where, lying on the floor of the rear seat with a bag of some kind of toxic material draped over me. Eventually, we came to a stop. Driscoll seemed to just sit there with the engine running, until I heard him say, “I’m out back. No, I’ve got him with me. No, there’s been a change. That won’t work. Just help me bring him inside and I’ll explain.”
The door of the SUV opened a moment later. Someone grabbed my ankles and pulled hard. The bag resting on top of me split open as I was suddenly dragged upright. The contents spilled over me and inside of the car as I was forcibly yanked out the door. A cloud of chemical dust filled the air, causing me to choke and gag. I gasped for air and felt like I might be sick all over again.
“You idiot, what the hell did you do that for?” Shaved Head growled, then punched me hard on the side of my face, bouncing my head off the door frame. “Jesus!” He coughed, stepping out of the cloud of toxic dust as I fell onto the ground.
I choked and closed my eyes from the burning chemical particles. Too late. I exploded into a coughing jag, my eyes watered and I couldn’t see. A pair of heavy hands grabbed me by the shirt and belt and hauled me up, pushed me forward a few feet then threw me down on the ground.
“Bring him inside before someone spots him,” Driscoll boomed from somewhere. I caught a glimpse of him just as he headed up some steps and onto a large back porch.
Heavy hands yanked me effortlessly off the ground then threw me forcefully up a couple of steps. I stumbled in through a rear door into some sort of junk room. “Just cool it in here,” Shaved Head said and pushed me down on a wooden floor.
