I was just making a right-hand turn onto Mimosa Parkway when Bunny erupted without warning. She lunged into the back seat shrieking like Bruce Lee on a Red Bull high and in the process, caused me to swerve into the oncoming lane. I screamed at the sight of headlights coming toward us. The car barely missed us.
“Give it to me, give it to me, give it to me!” Bunny hollered while tackling Shashi. I think she had her hands around her throat. It was hard to tell since I was trying to get the car back onto the right side of the road without getting us all killed. Cars honked all around.
I wasn’t sure Bunny’s tactic was a smart one. “Bunny! Are you trying to get us all killed?”
Shashi was yelling and pulling at Bunny’s hair. “Stop it! What are you doing?”
“Where is it?” Bunny’s voice had climbed several octaves.
I turned my head briefly to glimpse her rooting around in Shashi’s sweatshirt pocket.
“Where is it?” Bunny yelled again.
“What?” Shashi screamed back.
“The gun, dammit! Give it to me.”
Shashi pulled her right hand out of her pocket and held both up in the air. “I don’t have one.”
“You kidnapped us without a gun? What kind of criminal are you?” I looked at the clock on my dash. We had exactly five minutes before they started in on Peggy and Roz and we were only about twenty seconds from the WinslowBuilding.
Making a hard right turn, I screeched into the empty parking lot of the Rustic Woods Golf Course, threw the gear shift into park, and turned around to face Shashi. “Behind that seat is the gun used on Michelle Alexander,” I said. “You’ve got one minute to tell us everything or I use it on you. Start talking.”
Chapter seventeen
I highly doubt that my threat scared Shashi, but she talked anyway. It turned out she did have a gun, but it was in her backpack and it wasn’t loaded. Guns scared her, she said. Go figure. At my request, Bunny settled down and climbed back into the front seat.
In fifty-nine seconds, Shashi hit the highlights. Krystle (KiKi) followed her to Rustic Woods five years ago, much to Shashi’s dismay. Shashi had a nice, private set-up; she’d made friends, she’d left her old life behind, and she felt secure that she’d never be caught. She figured if she could be successful wheedling her way into that school crossing job without raising any red flags, she was in the clear. She got a little worried when she found out that my husband was an FBI agent, but her real problem was Krystle, who was a class A bitch, control freak, and paranoid lunatic. Krystle suspected that Michelle was on to her after a recent yearbook committee meeting held at Krystle’s house. Krystle had stupidly mentioned dating someone at college and that someone had also, coincidentally, dated Michelle after Krystle killed a cop and went on the lam. Krystle was afraid that Michelle had confided her suspicions to Bunny, since they were so close. Certain that Michelle was going to rat her out she disappeared from the scene, but masterminded a plot to have Waldo drug Bunny, stir up some crazy moments, plant the idea in her head that Michelle was talking about her behind her back, then frame Bunny for Michelle’s murder, only Krystle didn’t make sure that Michelle was dead and no one was biting on the Bunny story. Krystle and Waldo didn’t even include Shashi in the details of their grand scheme until after the botched murder attempt. At that point, they decided she was needed for their next ploy.
See, this is what I mean about my life – most mothers use their vans to chauffeur kids from baseball games to pizza birthday parties. Me, I’m stuck in a dark and vacant parking lot with a religiously and ethnically confused, fire-arm phobic fugitive explaining her distrust of a fellow desperado. Where’s the justice?
While I would have loved to hear what Krystle’s next ploy was or why Waldo was involved, the sands were running thin in the hourglass and if we didn’t move, Roz and Peggy were going to the big Mothers Day sale in the sky.
I was about to throw the van into reverse and peel out, when something hit us from behind. Despite the dark of night, the vehicle that had rear-ended me shone in my rearview mirror like a lovely beacon – Frankie’s yellow Volkswagen van. He was out and running to my aid. When I powered down the window, I saw he had a gun in his hand.
“You okay, Barb?” he sputtered, out of breath.
“That’s not an easy question to answer, but you can put the gun down.”
“Did I read your code right? You need help?”
“You mean it worked?”
My cell phone rang. Bunny picked it up and looked. “This says it’s Peggy.”
I looked at my watch. “Oh man, time is running out.” I turned to Shashi. “They’re serious about this, aren’t they?”
She nodded. “I told you – she’s determined.”
I answered the phone. The voice on the other end wasn’t happy. “Put her on.”
“Who?”
“Shashi, you idiot!”
I handed the phone to Shashi and whispered in Frankie’s ear. “Get in – this is your chance to make amends.”
He whispered back. “Let me move my van. Don’t need a ticket for improper parking.” While did his thing, Shashi closed my phone. “She says three minutes or they’re both dead.”
“You know, if you’d told me back at Fiorenza’s that you didn’t have a gun, it would have saved us all a lot of pain. We could have called the FBI and had this handled.”
“Don’t worry. That’s part of their plan.”
Her comment caught my attention but Frankie had returned and was jumping in the back seat next to her. We didn’t have time to waste. I pulled into reverse then peeled forward onto Mimosa Parkway. Twenty seconds and we’d be in the parking lot of the WinslowBuilding. That was twenty seconds to devise a plan of attack.
“Frankie,” I said, “Meet Shashi Kapoor, aka Marilyn Schmutz, bank robber and one of FBI’s most wanted. Shashi, meet Frankie – ex Mafia thug. You two have several things in common – neither of you likes killing and you’ve both been wanted by the law.”
“Nice to meetcha,” Frankie said.
“Likewise,” answered Shashi.
Ten seconds.
“Shashi, do you want your freedom?”
“Who wouldn’t?”
“Work with me to save Roz and Peggy, and I’ll do everything in my power to see the FBI grants you amnesty. I have an in, you know. It worked for Frankie – right?”
Frankie nodded. “I’m walkin’ the high road now. Feels good.”
“Everything in your power isn’t exactly a guarantee,” she responded glumly.
I made a fast left turn into the large, well-lit lot of the WinslowBuilding, and screeched in behind an overgrown azalea bush to give us some cover while I finished explaining my plan.
“Frankie, is that gun loaded?”
He nodded.
“Can I take it with me?”
“Sure. You know how to fire one of deze tings?”
“Not yet. Show me in a minute. Bunny, hand me that paper with KiKi’s picture on it.”
She did. “Shashi – we’re going to play this out as if you brought us in exactly as planned and we came along only because you had a loaded gun pointed at us. Get that gun out of your backpack now. Will they know it’s not loaded?”
She shook her head.
“Good. Play it mean. We’ll act scared. Can you act scared, Bunny?”
“I am scared.”
“Good.”
“And I really have to pee. Bad.”
“Hold it.”
I handed the paper and my cell phone to Frankie. Call the FBI as soon as we’re walking. Tell them one of their Most Wanted, KiKi Urbanowski, has Agent Howard Marr’s wife and three others held hostage in the WinslowBuilding and that Marilyn Schmutz is assisting in KiKi’s capture.
“Got it. Let me have your keys too.”
“Why?”
“I got more ammo in my van. I’ll get it just in case.”
“Frankie – I don’t want you to get in any trouble. The FBI can h
andle it.”
“Just in case. You know how it is – things can happen you don’t expect.”
He was right. I handed him the keys. “Okay, show me how to use this gun, but make it quick. I think we have less than a minute left.”
We piled out of the car and Shashi pulled her handgun from the backpack while Frankie gave me the low down on packing heat.
“This is my Beretta – it’s a nine millimeter. It’s got some punch. Hopefully you won’t have to use it tonight either, but you gotta know how, just in case.” He pushed a button on the side and something slid from the handle of the gun. “This here’s the magazine.” He held it in front of my face for a better look. “I already filled it wit cartridges. Fifteen of ‘em. It goes in like dis.” He snapped it back up into the butt of the gun and I heard it click in. “You load the first one like dis,” he pulled back the top of the gun called the slide – I knew this from my research – then let go and it snapped back into place. “You’re ready to take your first shot now, so don’t put your finger on the trigger unless you mean business. It’s a semi-auto so you won’t have to reload if you have to take a second shot, but there’s a safety, so when you pull on that trigger, it won’t be easy. Just know when you gotta take the shot, then follow through, you got that?”
I nodded, hoping he was right about not having to use it. I tried to convince myself that things would be under control long before I’d have to pull that gun out.
“Stick it in the back of your pants.”
“Like in the movies?”
“Yeah. Just like that.”
I did what he said. “It won’t go off accidentally will it? My rear end is one of my better features.”
He smiled. “You always got those funny things to say. Naw. Well, not unless you reach into the back of your pants, and somehow witout realizing it, slip your finger into da trigger and pull. In which case, I’d say you wasn’t so smart.”
It was my turn to smile. “You can make a funny too, huh?”
“I’ll stick to cookin’ and leave da stand-up to someone else.” He patted me on the shoulders. “Good luck.”
My watch said 9:10 p.m. when we started walking toward the entrance of the WinslowBuilding. Shashi followed closely behind Bunny and me. My legs wobbled nervously. Bunny looked as white as Al Pacino’s cocaine-covered coffee table in Scarface.
The building stood taller than any in the area and was typical for modern business architecture – sleek and ninety percent smoke gray glass. For lack of anything better to do other than wish I had packed a spare pair of underwear, I counted the floors – fourteen stories. I didn’t realize it was that tall. Even though it was unoccupied, all floors were dimly illuminated. Twenty-four hour safety lighting I assumed. Except for the fourteenth floor which was lit up brightly.
It occurred to me once we reached the door that we hadn’t considered other possibilities. Frankie would call the FBI once we were in the building, but what if Krystle’s plan didn’t involve the building at all? What if they were planning to drive up and hijack us to another location? We never got to hear Shashi’s description of their plan. Hopefully Frankie would be able to follow and lead our saviors in the right direction. I was about to try one of the two large glass doors at the entrance of the WinslowBuilding when it opened just slightly, pushed from the inside. My heart started to pound the way it does on a roller coaster just before you take that long plunge down the first fall. You think surely you’re going to die and wonder what the hell you were thinking getting on the ride to begin with. I grabbed onto Bunny for support.
Just before the door opened wide enough for me to see inside, Colt appeared from around the corner of the building.
“Hi ya, Curly! Whatcha up to?”
Chapter eighteen
Not long after his “Whatcha up to?” Colt was grabbed by the collar and jerked into the building. At the same time, my arm was yanked tight behind my back. So tight that another millimeter of movement and it would have snapped. Shashi was playing this thing real. My arm truly hurt. Bunny yelped. I was hoping she hadn’t peed her pants.
“Move inside,” Shashi said in a low, hoarse voice that didn’t exactly resonate with her sweet Southern drawl. Suddenly I wondered if she was a double agent, playing both sides. Had she turned on me? Was her gun really loaded after all? And why the heck was Colt here? My mind was spinning out of control. Of course, who can really think when her arm is about to break and her dearest friend has a gun to his throat?
That’s right. Krystle Jennings, in all of her yearbook sabotaging glory, stood just feet before me in the large three story foyer of the WinslowBuilding holding a scary-big gun to Colt’s jugular. To our right was an unmanned security desk. To our left a statue likeness of Bartholomew Winslow, founder of Rustic Woods, towered high on a concrete pedestal. Straight ahead stood a large wall with glass covered-directories and doors on either side of them. A set of three elevators decorated the far left hand wall. No Roz. No Peggy. Had we been set up?
Krystle was a large woman and taller than Colt, so it was no surprise that she overwhelmed him easily. It was well known that she worked with weights at the gym, often bench pressing more than half the male members. She had very manly facial features as well which all of the make up in the world couldn’t really seem to overcome. Her obviously dyed, straight blonde hair was cut blunt just above her shoulders and the square angles of the bangs just didn’t fit the roundness of her face. She resembled Ernest Borgnine in a wig. Let’s put it this way – she was in desperate need of a makeover on the Today Show.
“Who the hell is he?” Shashi hissed. She pushed Bunny and me farther into the building and locked the door behind her. I didn’t know if it was Colt’s unexpected appearance or that she’d always been playing me like a gullible guitar. Either way, it felt like the game had changed since we stepped into the building, and I feared I was on the winning team. Like Frankie said, things happen you don’t expect.
“Don’t blame them,” Colt said calmly, even with a gun pressed to his throat. “I didn’t know about any of this, swear. I was just following her around, because she tends to get in trouble more often than not.” He smiled. “Case in point.”
Krystle gripped her gun tighter with those big man hands of hers. “We didn’t get an answer. Who are you?”
“Just a friend,” he answered. “Obviously, a very stupid friend. You can let me go now if you’d like.”
“Thanks for the support,” I said.
Shashi pointed the gun at me. “Down on the ground.” I played along and Bunny followed. We sat on the cold marble floor while I wondered whether Shashi was still on our side or not. She hadn’t taken my gun from me, which was a good sign. But then again, taking it from me would let Krystle know that we hadn’t come directly to this kidnapping extravaganza.
Krystle grunted. “Get over here and check this guy out.” Shashi didn’t seem happy over being grunted at or ordered around, but she took three steps toward Colt and felt around his middle, then down each leg.
“You’re awfully forward on a first date, aren’t you?” Colt. Always cool as a frozen cucumber.
Shashi stepped back and didn’t smile. “He’s clean.”
“I showered before I came. I always do before a good party.”
“I don’t like you,” KiKi said. “You’re not funny.” She pointed her big gun at his foot and pulled the trigger. The deafening explosion from the shot echoed in the cavernous space. I jumped and screamed. Colt shouted then moaned. Blood spurted onto Shashi’s jeans. I felt sick.
“What are you doing?” Shashi was livid. “This was supposed to be no casualties, remember? Threaten but don’t injure.”
“That was your idea, not mine.”
“Krystle,” I pleaded. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t hurt him again.”
“Shut up,” snapped Krystle. She poised her gun at Colt’s head this time, while he’d fallen to his knees, his face contorted in pain. “Or I’ll put the next
bullet here.”
“This is not what I signed up for.” Shashi dropped her arm and the gun down to her side. Like two cowboys in a spaghetti western she and Krystle stood motionless, exchanging killer glares. I cringed, fearing Krystle would pop Shashi next and end any hope of us making it out alive.
Meanwhile, Bunny was hyperventilating and – from the sounds she was making – possibly giving birth. She had cowered behind me as we sat splayed on the cold floor tiles. “Bunny,” I whispered. “Think of your kids. Don’t lose it now.”
“It’s just that . . . I don’t think I can hold it, Barb.”
This was my chance to determine Shashi’s allegiance. I raised my hand. “Krystle – or KiKi is it? Um, Bunny has to use the facilities, if you know what I mean. Either that, or we’ll need a ‘SLIPPERY WHEN WET’ sign over here.”
Krystle shoved Colt forward and pointed to one of the two doors on the wall straight ahead. “You, move that way.” Colt moaned with every limp/crawl he took. She looked at Shashi. “Take Bunny to the bathroom then bring her to the conference room. Barb, you come with us or I’ll shoot Jerry Seinfeld’s other foot.”
I raised my hand again. “I have to go too.”
She pointed the gun at Colt’s good foot. “How bad?”
“I can hold it.”
Krystle had pointed Colt toward the door to the right of the directories and I followed obediently. I briefly considered tackling her, but that would have been like Pee Wee Herman trying to take down Lou Ferrigno.
When we reached our destination, she shoved Colt again. “Open the door.”
Colt moved painfully toward the knob. “Just wondering – are you into S&M? You seem the type.”
“Are you okay?” I whispered to him.
“I’ll be fine. I did like that foot though. We’d grown close over the years.”
Krystle wasn’t in a laughing mood. “You’re a regular Bill Cosby, aren’t you?”
“Besides the skin, hair and eye color and the fact that I’ve never touched a cigar – sure. We’re practically twins.” His hand turned the knob, but he lost balance and fell into the door. His body weight pushed it open and revealed the answer to the question that had been gnawing at me – where were Peggy and Roz?
Citizen Insane: A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery Page 13
