Fire Point

by Sean Black

  The car with the camera turned round and took off. At the end of the street it hung a left. ‘You see any street signs?’ Lock said to Ty.

  Ty shook his head.

  ‘I saw one for Olive,’ said Li. ‘It’s downtown. I can go back and show you. The sign only shows up for like half a second.’

  Up ahead, Lock could see the tail lights of Marcus’s car as it kept moving. The engine of the camera car slid up a gear as it tried to stay in touch. The Honda that Marcus was driving began to drift out of its lane. Marcus over-corrected and the rear of the Honda began to fishtail before he got it back under control.

  Seconds later, the brake lights flashed red. The car skidded to a halt. The rear passenger door popped open and the girl bailed out, landing hard on the sidewalk. She got to her feet. Lock noticed that she was barefoot, having presumably shaken off her high heels in the back of the car. She took off running as the camera car pulled up directly behind the Honda.

  There was the sound of someone swearing under their breath as they exited the camera car. He was an Asian male of average height and build. Lock guessed this was Krank. He jogged toward the Honda as Marcus got out. Words were exchanged. Marcus was animated. He was rubbing at his eyes and pointing in the direction that the girl had taken off in.

  A few moments later a white van pulled up. There was a quick consult and everyone got back into their vehicles and took off.

  The next few minutes were of Krank’s car prowling the area. On the audio Lock could hear Krank, assuming that was who it was, cursing Marcus under his breath. It was becoming clear that this abduction had been a task handed down, though Lock wasn’t sure of the motivation behind it.

  The camera rounded a corner. The girl was walking away from a nightclub entrance. She was barefoot and limping slightly.

  Inside the camera car, Krank made a phone call. ‘She’s heading your way. Soon as she turns the corner, do it. Fast and rough as it takes. RV back at the usual place.’

  Lock clasped his hands together in a quiet thank-you. Krank had fucked up. He was about to lead them straight back to wherever his RV point was.

  Just then there was a muffled sound next to the camera and the image cut out. A few seconds later it was back. This time, though, it was a close-up of the girl from earlier. She was screaming in terror as a shadow fell over her.

  Lock turned to Li. ‘Where’s the rest of the footage? Where’s the drive back?’

  Li shrugged. ‘That was everything. He must have switched off the dash cam. Anyway, that’s enough for the police to arrest them. It’s all right there.’ He jabbed a finger at the screen.

  Ty reached in and clicked the mouse to pause the video. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘That’s enough. But we have to find them first.’

  Lock moved for the door. ‘Well, we may not know where Krank is, but I know where Marcus should be right about now.’

  ‘What about the rest of this video?’ asked Ty.

  Lock pushed through the door and out into the corridor, heading back to the car. He called over his shoulder, ‘We already know how it ends.’

  45

  The fingers of his left hand drumming out a frantic beat on his knee, Marcus Griffiths stared at the house from the back seat of Krank’s BMW. Up front, Gretchen rode shotgun. Krank killed the music that was playing and turned round. ‘You all set?’ he said to Marcus.

  Marcus didn’t look all set. Far from it. He looked like he was about to throw up. He would rather have stayed back at the house, playing a video game and drinking beer. Not even the ten milligrams of Xanax that Krank had palmed him earlier had done much to calm his nerves.

  ‘Hey!’ snapped Gretchen. ‘We need to know if you’re ready to do this.’

  Her face had clouded with anger. She scared him way more than anyone in the house did. He doubted that any of this would have happened if not for her. Krank had liked to preach about men’s rights but Gretchen had taken it to a whole other level. Marcus had never met anyone who hated a group of people as much as Gretchen seemed to hate women, although she almost always referred to them as ‘feminazis’ or with the C-word.

  ‘I’m ready,’ said Marcus.

  ‘Got the cell?’ Krank asked.

  Marcus patted his pocket. ‘Got it.’

  The phone was new. A week before, Krank had taken their cell phones from everyone who spent time at the house. They had each been given a replacement. On Marcus’s an app had been installed that meant that if he called any member of his family his old number would show on their caller display. His ‘new’ number was known only to Krank and the others. When Marcus had asked, Krank had called it a security measure. Cell phones could be used to trace people – not just where they were, but where they had been. Krank was worried about someone using their cell phone to find the house. The app threw out their old number but that number was connected to a physical cell phone that had been placed elsewhere by Gretchen.

  ‘We need to know what they know. And we need information on this security guy they hired,’ Krank told him.

  Marcus stared along the street. A couple jogged past. The guy was in his late forties, and the woman he was with looked half his age. Marcus felt a pang of jealousy. He choked it down and tried to focus on what Krank had said, but the Xanax had made his thoughts fuzzy. ‘I got it.’

  Marcus opened the car door and began to get out. Gretchen reached between the gap in the seats and grabbed the back of his shirt collar. He could have shaken her off but that would only have made her worse. ‘Any problems, you let us know. Understood?’ she said.

  They were worse than his own family, thought Marcus. Just as likely to nag him. Just as unable to trust him to do anything. He would be glad when this was all over. Krank had shown him the place they were headed to down in Uruguay. It looked incredible, like a paradise come to life.

  ‘I understand. Call you if there’s a problem.’

  Gretchen let go. Marcus got out. He closed the car door and walked toward the gates. He pressed the button and waited. A video camera caught him in its gaze. The gates began to open. He walked through.

  Krank watched Marcus as the gates closed behind him. He glanced at Gretchen. She had pulled a set of earphones from her pocket and had jammed them into her cell phone.

  The cell phones they had given out as replacements had a feature the others hadn’t been told about. They had pre-installed surveillance software that relayed every text, every email, every audio, chat or video conversation to a central server. They could also be remotely activated as live surveillance devices so that Krank and Gretchen could listen in on whatever was happening.

  Krank pulled up the remote server app on his phone and selected ‘MG’. He plugged in his earphones. He could hear the crunch of gravel followed by the sound of Marcus ringing the doorbell.

  ‘You think he’ll be able to do this?’ he asked Gretchen. ‘He seems kind of antsy.’

  Gretchen chewed thoughtfully on her bottom lip. Her hand slipped to the handle of the knife that dangled from her belt. ‘He’d better.’

  46

  Marcus stopped in the doorway of the living room. His mother hovered behind him. It seemed that him that she’d been standing behind him his whole life. Perhaps she thought she was ‘being there’ for him, but the way he saw it, she was smothering him. He had never been allowed to become his own person, to have his own thoughts or come to his own conclusions. At least, not until he had gone online and met Krank and the others.

  The three men – his father, his stepfather and his therapist – sat uncomfortably in a triangular arrangement. Apart from Stentz, who was no doubt being paid for his attendance, Marcus doubted any of them actually wanted to be there. They would have been browbeaten into it by his mother, nagged and worn down by her faux-concern until they finally agreed.

  Marcus glanced toward Stentz, who gave him that creepy fake smile of his. ‘Marcus, good to see you. Please, have a seat.’

  Whatever nerves M
arcus had experienced on the ride there had gone. He almost regretted accepting Krank’s offer of the Xanax to settle his nerves. He walked over to the fireplace. ‘Thanks, but I’ll stand.’

  ‘You may want to take that seat. We’ll be here for a while,’ said Teddy, trying to make it sound like some kind of a threat.

  For all his Texas-tough-guy act, thought Marcus, he was just like the others. Blue pill through and through. Too scared to stand up to Marcus’s mom. Rather than live life on his own terms, like Marcus had chosen to do, he drank too much and screwed around on the side.

  ‘Let him stand if he wants,’ said Peter.

  Marcus saw the dirty look that Teddy threw him. Out of all four of them, the only person that Marcus had any time for was his father. He was blue pill too, but he seemed at peace with it.

  ‘Can I get a drink?’ Marcus asked.

  ‘I’ll get you some water,’ his mom said.

  ‘A real drink,’ said Marcus. ‘Teddy, you look like you could use one. What’s it been? At least an hour since your last Scotch?’

  Teddy got to his feet. He took a couple of steps toward Marcus. Marcus stared at him. He might be scared of Gretchen and Krank, but not Teddy. Not after everything he’d seen. If only Teddy knew . . .

  ‘Teddy,’ said his mom. ‘Sit down, please.’

  Teddy did as he was told. Of course he did, thought Marcus. Totally conditioned to do what he was told and completely whipped.

  Tarian walked across and perched next to Teddy. ‘Marcus, we’re all here because we’re worried about you.’

  ‘So you didn’t get me here for dinner and to talk about my inheritance?’ Marcus said. Even though he’d known it was coming, he could feel rage building in him at the deception. He choked it down. He had to remember that he was there for a reason too. He needed to find out what they knew, but to do that he’d have to be patient.

  Stentz made a big show of placing his hands in his lap, palms up. ‘So how have you been, Marcus?’

  Marcus glared at him. Stentz’s fake concern made him want to retch. Krank said that therapists and shrinks were a symptom of the problem, not the solution. Men were designed to conquer and dominate the world, not to sit on a couch and cry about how unfair life was. Life was unfair. The world owed you nothing. Being told that had been a liberation for Marcus, one among many.

  ‘I’ve been enjoying life. How about you?’

  The phrase ‘enjoying life’ seemed to cause a ripple in the room. Teddy muttered something Marcus didn’t catch and Stentz pursed his lips so hard that they all but disappeared. From his sessions with Stentz, Marcus knew that a lip purse or a closing of the eyes was the therapist’s equivalent of one of Teddy’s drunken tirades.

  It was his father’s turn next. ‘That’s what we’d like to talk to you about, Marcus. ‘How you’ve been enjoying your life.’ He paused. ‘Listen, we realize that you perhaps haven’t had the easiest time of it, and that you’re a young man, and that young men like to cut loose once in a while.’

  Marcus folded his arms. ‘Why don’t you just ask me what you want to ask me? And while I’m here, perhaps you can explain why you have some guy sticking his nose into my life.’

  No one spoke. It took a few moments of silence before Marcus realized that all three men were waiting for Tarian to respond. To him it was yet more evidence of what they’d all become and what Marcus had vowed to avoid. Krank was right: the sickness in society, the collapse of what passed for civilization, came down to men surrendering power and decision-making to a gender that was driven by hormones and the reproductive cycle.

  Tarian cleared her throat. ‘Why don’t we all move through into the dining room, and we can start over? I’ll get you that glass of water, Marcus.’

  One by one, Stentz, Teddy and Marcus’s dad got to their feet. They began to walk out into the hallway and beyond that into the dining room. Marcus stood and watched them. Tarian said, ‘Marcus?’

  Marcus stared at his mom. He loved her. He couldn’t deny that. But Krank was right. She and others like her, they were the problem.

  47

  An elderly man in running shorts and a T-shirt shuffled toward the car at a snail’s pace. Krank grabbed a bottle of water from the center console and took a swig. Gretchen had one of the earbuds pressed into her right ear as she listened intently to the audio from inside.

  ‘What are they saying?’ Krank asked.

  ‘Just lots of touchy-feely bullshit about how much they all love him. It’s like some half-assed intervention,’ said Gretchen.

  ‘What about MG?’

  ‘He’s being too confrontational. He needs to ease it back a little or he’ll never get anything out of them.’

  Krank sighed. It was a bad time for Marcus to finally find his balls and start standing up to his family. ‘Maybe I should text him,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe we should ditch him entirely. He’s always been a drag,’ offered Gretchen.

  This had been a recurring theme with Gretchen. Krank didn’t blame her. As much time as Krank had spent with Marcus, he was fundamentally a beta male. He would never be alpha. Not in a million years. He was a follower, not a leader. But what Gretchen sometimes struggled with was that they needed followers. A cell full of leaders could never work. It would be pulled apart.

  ‘No argument from me,’ said Krank. ‘But it’s too late to lose him now. He knows everything.’

  Gretchen’s eyes narrowed as the early-evening jogger shuffled past. ‘It’s never too late.’

  48

  A shoal of red tail lights curved north along the 10 freeway from the Lincoln on-ramp in Santa Monica. Lock nudged the front of the Audi into the left-hand lane to escape the turn lane that would take them down onto the freeway. An SUV tried to cut off his escape. Ty lowered his window and leaned out, scowling at the SUV driver, who hit their brake, allowing the Audi the lane change.

  Traffic ahead of them on Lincoln Boulevard wasn’t much better. Nose to tail as far as Lock could see. The drive from the Marina to where they were now in Santa Monica had already taken twice the amount of time it should have. Traveling on the streets to the Griffiths home on Rockingham Avenue in Brentwood would typically be a ten-to-fifteen-minute journey. This was looking more like an hour regardless of the route.

  ‘Try them again,’ Lock told Ty.

  Ty jabbed a finger at the screen of his cell and put it on speaker. It rang out and went to voicemail. They had already left several messages to contact them immediately. All they could do was keep trying and hope that the traffic cleared.

  ‘LAPD?’ Ty asked. ‘They could get there faster than we could.’

  Lock shook his head. ‘I want to let the family have a heads-up. Better if Marcus walks in with an attorney to give himself up.’

  ‘So what do you think that shit we watched was about?’ Ty asked.

  Lock had been asking himself the exact same question. It looked like a gang initiation. Los Angeles street gangs often required a prospective member to commit a homicide before they were granted entry. Sometimes the target was someone they wanted rid of anyway. Many times it was almost entirely random, although race could play a part.

  This type of initiation served a number of purposes. It proved that the individual was capable of committing violent crime. It also ensured that the gang had something on that person.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Lock. ‘They don’t exactly look like gang-bangers.’

  ‘Rich white kids can do that shit too,’ Ty reminded him.

  ‘Yeah, but why?’ said Lock. ‘What’s in it for them? They don’t need money. From what Teddy said, that Krank kid and his crew could get girls. It doesn’t make sense.’

  Ty shrugged as they edged forward a few feet, the traffic showing no sign of clearing. ‘Does it have to make sense? Maybe they’re just, y’ know, getting off on it. I’ll tell you one thing for nothing, brother. Watching that video . . . that ain’t the first time.’

&
nbsp; Lock had had the same thought. No one all of a sudden decides out of nowhere to abduct a young woman. Crimes like that had a pattern to them. It reminded Lock of a serial rapist he and Ty had gone after in Mexico. But he had been a loner. Or, at least, that was how he’d started. This felt very different. This seemed like a bunch of people feeding off each other, seeing how far one could push the others to go. But to what end?

  Maybe Ty was right. Perhaps Lock was seeking a motive where there was none. Or none of the usual ones – money, sexual gratification.

  And what about all those books about mass shootings? Lock wondered. This type of crime – a lone abduction, even one committed by a group – seemed a long way from something like that. But was it?

  One of the few people who might be able to answer that question, and a whole lot more besides, was Marcus Griffiths. ‘Try their house again,’ Lock said, as all around them they were hemmed in by people rushing back home to normal lives.

  49

  They all sat at the long polished mahogany dining table. The Xanax must have made Marcus thirsty because he drained the glass of water his mother had brought him almost immediately. At first no one appeared eager to say anything. It was Teddy who broke the silence.

  ‘Marcus, you and I haven’t always gotten along. I take my share of responsibility for that.’

  As he spoke, Teddy kept sneaking glances at Marcus’s mom. Marcus guessed that this speech was really for her, a way of Teddy showing that he was ‘in touch with his feelings’ and all that other bullshit. Stentz had that far-away shit-eating grin on his face.

  Marcus was growing bored. He looked around the table at the four adults. He wondered how they got through the day while resisting the urge to put a gun in their mouth. They were so full of lies and hypocrisy. If his father had really cared about Marcus, then perhaps he’d have tried to serve as some kind of role model. Instead he seemed to be a walking, talking doormat. Teddy covered his weakness with whisky and cheap bravado. As for Stentz, he was what Krank liked to call ‘a shiver in search of a spine to run up’.