by Nick James
As promised, Cori was waiting outside the main entrance to the terminal. He gave the horn a couple of quick honks, pulled to the curb and then hopped out. “Your chariot awaits, “ he joked then opened the passenger door for her and slid her suitcase into the back seat.
“I am so very sorry I had to call you for a ride.”
“Don’t be silly, it’s my pleasure, glad I could help.”
“I just don’t know where Addison is, I wonder if she got the time wrong?”
Or she’s just coked up or passed out. “Actually this works fine, I get to hear all the reports first hand.”
“Well, let me tell you,” she said and then did.
Addison’s truck and a rusty blue Ford Taurus were parked in the driveway when Bobby pulled in. The front tire on the driver’s side of the pickup looked almost flat and the rear gate was down. What looked an awful lot like an orange road sign with black letters that said “Road Closed” was resting in the bed of the truck along with a large number of beer bottles. Someone had thrown up in the driveway about four feet from the driver’s side of the pickup.
“Oh dear,” Cori said and stared wide eyed.
“I’ll get your suitcase,” Bobby said then quickly climbed out so she wouldn’t see him smiling. By the time he’d pulled the suitcase out of the back seat Cori had let herself out of the car. The passenger door on the Mercedes remained open and she’d taken a half-dozen steps toward Addison’s pickup. Just now she was staring at the puddle in her driveway.
Bobby wanted to joke about it looking like some sort of rice dish, but he saved that thought. “You want me to get the garden hose? I could…”
“Don’t you dare,” Cori said then headed toward the front door picking up speed with every step. Bobby had to hurry to catch up.
Cori had her keys out halfway to the door. Not that she needed them, since someone had left the door wide open.
“Addison,” she screamed as she walked through the open doorway. “Addison Denton.” By the time Bobby brought her suitcase in the front door Cori was already halfway up the stairs screaming her daughters name. He watched her disappear down the upstairs hallway then heard more screaming and a loud shriek.
A male voice sounded from upstairs and Bobby was about to head up the stairs when two guys came running down. One of them tripped and slid down the last three or four steps, landing on the foyer floor where he gasped, “Fuck.” His friend gave a quick glance, smiled and ran out the door.
“I think you better take off, too if you know what’s good for you,” Bobby said as the shrieking grew louder upstairs. He caught sight of Addison in the hallway for just a half second before Cori grabbed her by the hair and dragged her back down the hallway. A moment later a door slammed and the screaming became muffled. Outside a throaty sounding car engine roared out of the driveway and down the street.
Bobby waited for a long few minutes as the voices continued to scream back and forth. He wasn’t sure if he should stay or leave when the screaming suddenly grew much louder. Addison hurried around the corner carrying a backpack and charged down the stairs. Cori was just a step behind red faced and looking apoplectic.
“I’m leaving bitch, you hear me. I am so fucking gone and I’m never, ever coming back,” Addison screamed.
Cori just kept yelling, “Get out, get out, get out.”
Addison, wearing bluejeans and a black bra, hurried past Bobby, changing her focus just long enough to yell, “Get the hell out of my way.” Then she stormed out the door, turned and screamed “There, happy now? I am so gone from this…”
Cori slammed the front door so hard Bobby felt the vibration rumble through the floor then she just stood there red faced and breathing heavily.
“Maybe I’ll just go and…”
“No, stay for a moment,” Cori said sounding amazingly back in control. “I’m sorry you were here to witness that, but it’s been brewing for a very long time. Thirty plus years as a matter of fact. Come on into the kitchen, god only knows I need something to drink, but right now I think it had better just be coffee.”
He followed her into the kitchen where she came to a dead stop just a couple of steps in from the door. Dirty plates and dishes littered the counters and the table. Drink glasses with cigarette butts, empty wine and liquor bottles, half eaten food and garbage were scattered all over the room. The refrigerator door was wide open. A pair of boxer shorts were on the floor next to three chairs that had been pushed together. What looked an awful lot like a couple of condom wrappers lay crumpled on the floor beneath one of the chairs.
“I’ll kill her,” Cori half screamed.
“You want a hand cleaning up?” Bobby asked.
“I think it would be best if you just left, I’ll deal with this.”
“Call me if you need help,” he said not offering an argument and quickly fleeing the scene.
His Mercedes was the only vehicle remaining in the driveway. Fortunately no one had hit it in their mad dash away from Cori. Someone, probably Addison, had driven through the puddle on the driveway leaving a tire tread through the rice and then a moist imprint every three or four feet heading out towards the street. Bobby considered hosing the area off, but then just as quickly decided against it.
Three blocks down Addison’s truck sat in the middle of the road with Addison, in bluejeans and her black bra attempting to change the tire.
As Bobby climbed out of his car the tire iron fell from her hands and she picked it up and started banging it against the hood of her pickup. He stood some distance back from her, waiting until this latest temper tantrum wore itself out. After placing seven or eight dents in the hood of her pickup she looked at him with tears running down her face and said, “There satisfied? Now what the hell do you want?”
“You need a hand changing that tire?”
“I can do it myself,” she said not sounding all that sure.
Bobby moved a little closer and glanced in the bed of the pickup, all that was in there was the orange sign and a number of beer bottles. “Do you have a spare? Or, for that matter a jack?”
”I don’t know,” she said seeming to calm down.
“You belong to triple A?”
“What’s that?”
“I think you’d better just call a service. They’ll most likely be able to inflate that tire, if you ran over a nail or something they can fix it. If you need to be towed they’ll be able to do that.”
“I don’t have any money. You saw what happened, the bitch just threw me out for no damn reason.”
He ignored her assessment and asked, “Do you have a credit card?”
“They’re maxed out and the bitch said she wasn’t going to pay the bill.”
“My God, you mean to tell me she expects you to fend for yourself, just like every other adult.”
For half a moment she looked like she might try to attack him with the tire iron. He reflexively touched the pocket of his coat where the pistol was. Fortunately, she turned and attached the tire iron to one of the lug nuts on the wheel then began turning it the wrong way, stomping on it with her foot and in effect tightening it even more.
He walked back to the Mercedes, climbed in and pulled away from the curb. He pulled up alongside her, while she continued to stomp the tire iron in the wrong direction. “You know, maybe if you had that sky-blue bow back in your hair you’d get what you wanted,” he said then drove off.
Chapter Sixty-Six
His cellphone rang toward the middle of the afternoon.
“Mr. Custer,” Camila said, sounding somewhat frantic. “I need a rent receipt from you.”
“Oh, sorry it completely slipped my mind. I’ll print one off and mail it to you, you should receive it…”
“Would it be possible for you to print it now and drop it off. The city inspector called and they are coming over sometime after four. I want to have that here in case they ask any questions. Neither one of us needs a problem with the city,” she added.
And I
certainly don’t need this headache he thought. “I’ll have it to you by four.”
“Thank you, but no later please, you can park in the back and come in that way. It will be easier,” she said and hung up.
Bobby put the first of the month date on the fake receipt and printed a copy off. He checked his emails, took a couple of minutes to fast forward through a portion of the recording of he and Emily, then watched his favorite part for all of three minutes. He piled the files from his desk on top of one another and carried them back to the file room.
“Oh, thanks man, you didn’t have to do that. You should have just called.”
“No worries, I’m heading out for a meeting anyway,” Bobby said then glanced at the clock on the wall, 3:40. “In fact, I better get moving.”
He went back to his office to retrieve his suit coat, stuffed the rent receipt in the inside pocket then stepped out of his office where he ran into Bennett Hinz.
“Oh, Custer, just the man I was looking for, can you spare a minute?”
“Actually, I was just heading out to a meeting, with Morris Montcreff,” he added hoping that would deflect any objections.
“Shouldn’t take more than a minute,” Bennett said and headed toward his office.
It actually took closer to ten minutes and in the end Bobby had learned absolutely nothing other than Bennett planned to empty out Noah Denton’s office and wanted Bobby to review the files and information in there before everything was packaged up and returned to the file room, trashed or shipped off to Denton’s home office.
“I want to make sure we’re looking at a clean slate around here by the time this Saunders lawsuit goes to trial,” Bennett said.
“So, then it is going to trial, they haven’t dropped the matter?”
“It appears not, at least at this stage. I can only hope they don’t find out we’ve waited this long to deal with Noah. In retrospect, a big mistake.”
“I’ll get on that task first thing tomorrow. But right now, I don’t want to keep Mr. Montcreff waiting.”
“Absolutely, by all means, full speed ahead,” Bennett said.
“In a meeting for the rest of the day,” Bobby said to Marci then waited an interminable length of time before he was able to step onto the elevator. He hit a traffic jam two blocks from his building, took the next turn once he made his way to the corner, went down two blocks where the street was blocked by a construction crane. He had to back up half a block, detour down an alley then head back the way he’d come because the street was one way. Over the course of ten minutes he’d just about made a complete circle.
He took a different route, and although the traffic was slow moving at least he seemed to be making progress, sort of. He hit just about every stoplight along the way, then waited for the light rail running down University Ave before he could cross. He took another shortcut and then had to wait while the recycling truck stopped at every second house and emptied the recycling bins. Once they pulled across the intersection he took a right then a quick left down the alley for three blocks until he parked in front of the new three stall garage at the rear of Camila’s.
The garage had three dormers on the roof, facing the alley, each one centered over a garage door. All three doors were up on the garage and Camila was in there talking with the big guy with the crewcut when Bobby pulled up.
The guy stepped in front of Camila and reached behind his back, presumably for a weapon, as the Mercedes slowed in front of the open door. Camila said something from behind him and he seemed to calm down.
Bobby carefully climbed out of the Mercedes, keeping his hands where they could be seen, smiled and said, “Really nice work,” indicating the garage.
“You’re late, Mr. Custer.”
“I’ve got that receipt right here,” he said then nodded toward Crewcut and said to Camila, “Tell him I’m going to take it out of the inside pocket of my coat.”
She said something in Spanish and he nodded. Bobby pulled the envelope out and walked to Camila just as a white pickup with green lettering pulled up, a city logo was on the side of the door. Two guys sat in the front seat, and they smiled and waved.
“Lucky for you, you made it just in time,” she said then uttered something else in Spanish and Crewcut headed for the doorway that led to the back yard.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Crewcut couldn’t have taken more than three steps when the driver climbed from behind the steering wheel and said something Bobby couldn’t hear. Three figures suddenly popped up in the rear of the truck holding weapons. The guy in the passenger seat and the driver suddenly held guns and the driver, holding a pistol on the hood of the truck shouted something in Spanish.
Crewcut immediately went down in a crouch and fired. The guy in the passenger seat dropped backwards and disappeared from sight. Shots rang out splintering wood and bouncing off shovels and tools mounted on the back wall. Crewcut’s right shoulder exploded in a bloody mist as he fired a couple more rounds. The middle shooter in the back of the truck screamed, spun around and fell onto the bed of the pickup.
They all seemed to train their sights on Crewcut just as Bobby suddenly sprang into action. He grabbed Camila by the arm and pulled her in front of him for protection then dragged her along as he ran for the backdoor. He sailed through a cloud of bloody mist as he jumped over Crewcut lying on the ground. Something whizzed past his ear and the door frame in front of him suddenly had a large bite taken out of it.
He was almost through the door when another round tore off part of the door frame, he yanked Camila closer to shield him and she gave a short groan that was quickly cut off. They stumbled through the open door just as someone in a black t-shirt with a pistol flew out of the house.
He aimed and for a half second all Bobby could see was the barrel of a cannon pointed directly at him. Camila shrieked a word or two and he raised his weapon, then pointed at the door to the house and motioned Bobby toward it.
Voices shouted from inside the garage as Bobby half carried Camila through the backdoor and into the house. He turned just in time to see the black t-shirt collapse and sort of bounce back and forth in midair as a number of rounds slammed into him.
He was about to leave Camila on the kitchen floor and run out the front door, when someone in the living room began firing out the door. A figure suddenly ran into the kitchen from the dining room shouting something and motioning toward the basement. He kicked the backdoor closed, pulled the basement door open and waved his weapon shouting, “Yes, yes, yes.”
Bobby hurried down the steps, dragging a wounded Camila behind him and into the room she’d called the dungeon the day he’d shot Drake. Camila groaned and pointed toward the circular bed. Bobby half pushed her and she collapsed onto the bed as he frantically looked for a place to hide.
“Oh, God,” she said, then groaned. There was a growing red stain on her left thigh and her chest was covered in blood from a shoulder wound. The upper third of her left ear was completely gone and blood ran down the side of her face. More shots suddenly erupted from upstairs.
Bobby looked up at one of the glass-block windows and saw the blurred image of two pair of legs run past. He could only hope it was the cops. A sudden blast from upstairs seemed to shake the entire house and suddenly he heard what sounded like footsteps overhead.
He heard another sound coming from under the bed, pulled the pistol from his coat pocket and pointed a shaking hand. “Come out of there now or I’ll shoot, I’m telling you I will, I really will. I’m counting to three. One. Two.”
A little voice suddenly started sobbing and he cautiously peered under the bed where a small figure was curled up in a fetal position, sobbing. More shots rang out from upstairs, followed by shouting. He reached under the bed, took hold and pulled the child out. Her eyes remained closed and she cried, “No, no, please.”
“It’s okay, Valentina, it’s okay. You’re going to be all right.”
“Mr. Bobby?” she said then opened an eye and h
ugged him. “Make them go away, make them go away.”
“Come on, we’ll hide and be safe,” he said just as more gunfire erupted upstairs.
He picked her up, hurried over to the little furnace room door and set her down. He was about to step inside and pull the child on top of him for protection when Camila groaned from the bed.
“Camila, please, please be quiet or they’ll find us.”
She groaned again and he crawled out from behind the furnace and hurried over to the bed. He took off his belt and wrapped it around her thigh, just above the wound. “You hold this tight, for four minutes then release it for one,” he said and turned to leave her on the bed.
“Please, please,” she groaned.
“Oh shit,” he said as two more shots rang out upstairs and someone shouted. He helped her hobble across the room and hide behind the furnace with Valentina.
She drew the child closer to her then nodded at Bobby. He closed the door, glanced quickly at the bed realizing he’d never fit underneath then hurried over to the steps. It sounded like someone was pleading or maybe praying upstairs in the kitchen. Suddenly, there was a loud scream and then a single gunshot. Bobby slipped behind the basement stairs just as he heard the door creak open.
“Coming to get you, bitch,” someone called from the top of the stairs then laughed and started down the steps.
THE END
Thank you for reading Corridor Man 3: The Dungeon, hope you enjoyed the read. If you’d like to leave a review please click on the link below, it really helps.
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Nick James
Corridor Man 4
Dead End
Published by Credit River Publishing 2016
