Always a Kicker

by Jeff Zwagerman

  Jayne was in a panic. Her voice raised and her head went back and forth when she talked.

  “You don’t know him. No one gets into his place without his permission. If he finds out, Fats will be dead and if he connects you to Fats, you will be too.”

  “Let’s not sound the alarm just yet. Fats a pretty clever guy. If I had to have anyone in my corner I would choose him. Let’s hear what he has to say,” Zander said as they were turning into his drive.

  There was a pick-up parked in front of the cabin. It was off white and had a red stripe. It looked more like a car. Zander liked it but wondered why it was parked in front of his place.

  As it caught Jayne’s eye she shouted, “Oh my god. Zander, that’s Van’s Cameo.”

  Zander jumped out of the van and ran over to the window and peered in. He saw Fats sitting at the table drinking one of his beers. After waiting a few moments to see if anyone else was with him, he went back to the van.

  “Its just Fats. No sign of Rooster. Come on let’s go inside and see what he has to say.”

  Zander went to the door and pushed Jayne in ahead of him. Fats seemed startled for a moment and then stood up.

  “Hello, I’m Fats,” he said as he moved over to Jayne with his hand extended.

  Jayne took his hand but Zander noticed she was very pale. It looked like she was going to faint. He went over to the table and put a chair under her and eased her down.

  “Sit down before you fall down.”

  Fats looked at Zander. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you explain that pick-up outside for starters?”

  “Hey, ain’t it great? I’ve been looking for one of those all my life and here the asshole had one all to himself.”

  “So you just stole it?” Zander asked pulling a chair over to Jayne and sitting next to her.

  “Well, yeah. That and a few of his weird sex toys.”

  Jayne hung her head, “We’re dead.”

  “What are you planning to do with this stuff, Fats?” Zander asked without masking his impatience.

  “Leverage my man. That Cameo is one of a kind. We’ll hide it and use it as a ransom of some sort. The sex toys we can use the same way. We’ll tell him we’ll leak what is happening to the media if he doesn’t back off. He’s a businessman. He’ll understand a good business decision when he sees it.”

  Fats sat back down at the table and took a long pull at his beer.

  Jayne looked up and shook her head, “Are you insane?”

  Fats just looked at her.

  “You act like he’s just a normal human being and he’ll respond like a normal human being. Let me tell you from experience, he’s not. He enjoys hurting people and lately he graduated to killing them. If you think for a moment you can stop him with a feeble attempt at blackmail, you are as demented as he is.”

  Fats looked at Zander.

  “Is she unhinged?”

  “No. But I think you might be. What were you thinking?”

  “I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I guess I lost it when I saw the Cameo. So what do we do now?” Reality finally had hit Fats.

  “Maybe you should find a place to hide the truck and we’ll figure something out tomorrow,” Zander replied.

  “You two don’t understand. He has tracking devices on all the cars he owns. He knows exactly where the Cameo is right now,” she paused and thought for a moment, “Unless he actually went to Mexico, he couldn’t track anything from down there.”

  Jayne was feeling some hope for the first time since they walked into the cabin. The three reconvened around the table with beers and began to talk everything through.

  It was after 3:00 when they decided to call it a night. Fats would be ditching the truck in the school parking lot for the time being. He would have to walk for while but he said he didn’t mind.

  When Fats got up from the table, he turned to Jayne and asked:

  “Can I drop you somewhere?” he asked and smiled broadly. Then he walked right out the door.

  Jayne and Zander looked at each other and both laughed.

  “He’s quite the friend.”

  Zander thought for a moment and said, “Yeah he is.”

  “I don’t know if I’m up to trying to sleep much,” Jayne said.

  “We’ll do whatever you want,” Zander replied not wishing to push her to the bedroom.

  “Let’s just talk for a while. Maybe that will make me feel better.”

  “How about I make us some breakfast while we talk?” Zander asked.

  “Great idea. Everything goes better with eggs and bacon. But I’m going to help. We’ll do this together.”

  Zander liked the sound of together.

  *****

  Van was sitting in his Jeep across the road from Zander’s cabin. It was his usual place on the road of the closed waterpark. He had watched Zander’s comings and goings from the same spot for a long time.

  He had actually been watching since that skinny bastard had driven here with his Cameo. He had thought about disrupting this little assembly the moment the three were together. He didn’t like the odds however. There were too many things to go wrong when dealing with three people compared to merely two.

  He knew he would have no problem with Jayne. She feared him and that’s the way he wanted it. He knew this Zander wasn’t the violent type so he wouldn’t be much of a problem either. He did not know anything about the skinny bastard. He was somewhat wary. He didn’t know how he was able to pull off his little heist so easily. He had to be careful around him. It would be better to wait and deal with him later when he was alone.

  Van also wondered how Zander had pulled off the black box in his van without being discovered. It still registered as connected on his device. No matter, they would be telling him everything soon enough.

  Van looked at his watch when he saw his Cameo start up and move toward the road. It was 3:20. He watched as Fats drove onto the road and headed on to Frisco. He decided to wait for a bit before he went to the cabin.

  It was 3:40 when he decided to make his move. His heart was racing. He hadn’t felt this alive in some time. It was going to be a good night but he had to have everything wrapped up before sunrise.

  *****

  Fats had driven for a short time when he had an idea. Lake Dillon’s south shore was just ahead and there was an overlook just off his right hand side. He drove into the overlook. Not much to see in the middle of the night except some lights twinkling from the eastern side of the lake. He popped the hood and looked under with his flashlight. He didn’t have to look long to find the tracking device.

  Fats ripped it out and looked at it for a moment. Then he threw it as far as he could into the lake. The splash sounded good. He decided to go back and tell Zander and Jayne what he had done. Maybe he could find a better place to stash the Cameo if Zander agreed.

  *****

  Zander and Jayne were doing the breakfast dishes. Jayne was drying and Zander was washing. Both were making small talk like couples do when leading up to finishing the night together.

  Suddenly the door burst open and in walked Van quite slowly for effect. Zander and Jayne could only stare taken completely by surprise.

  Van smiled a big toothy grin.

  “Well isn’t this a cozy scene. Jayne, I had no idea you were so domestic.”

  Jayne dropped her eyes. Van took a step into the room and closed the door. Zander noticed he was carrying a large hiking stick. It was almost bigger than he was.

  “Well bless my heart. It’s Rooster. I thought you were dead,” Zander said sarcastically.

  “Little Sander Van Zee. It appears you’ve done some growing since last I’ve seen you. Too bad your brain stagnated.”

  “Do you have a reason for breaking into my place?”

  “Enough! Sit down both of you,” Van yelled.

  “I don’t think you’ll be telling me to do anything in my own home.”

  “So that�
�s what you call this pit? A home. I think not. But if you think I came with just this stick you are badly mistaken.” Van said and pulled out a pistol he had stuck in his waistband behind his back.

  Jayne had been quiet and looking down. Zander could see she was terrified. He supposed he should be as well but right now he was just pissed off.

  “Why don’t you just tell us what you want,” Zander said.

  “So now it’s “us”. Is that right, Jayne?”

  Jayne said nothing but did look up at Zander. Her eyes had a pleading look about them. Zander wasn’t sure what she wanted him to do but he thought maybe she wanted him to dial down the rhetoric.

  “I thought I told you both to sit down,” Van said and raised the gun.

  “Alright we’ll sit. We don’t want any trouble,” Zander said as he led Jayne to the table.

  “There you go with that “we” stuff again. Didn’t Jayne tell you she belonged to me?”

  “I’m not sure you can own people anymore. I think they call that slavery. From what I’ve seen of Sara Jane, I don’t think anyone owns her,” Zander said trying to sound relaxed.

  Van tucked the gun back into his belt.

  “I don’t much care what you think. You decided to stick your nose into things that didn’t concern you. That was a huge mistake on your part.”

  “You should know all about mistakes. Blowing up half of Hospers wasn’t your best move.”

  “On the contrary. It was exactly what I wanted to do. The only mistake was that I didn’t throw the Mustang into reverse and run you over to make sure you were dead. How disappointing it was to find out you were still alive and living this close to my operation.”

  “You mean Sara Jane? Is that all she is to you, your operation?”

  “She’s no longer Sara Jane. Haven’t you figured that out by now? She’s in this as deep as I am. Her hands are as dirty as mine. She stopped being your little Sara Jane many years ago.”

  “Everyone changes, Rooster. I’m not the same person either.”

  Van began to laugh long and hard.

  “You know, I never really liked that name Rooster.”

  He took two steps and knocked Zander on the side of the face with the thicker end of the hiking stick. It almost knocked Zander off the chair. He could feel blood oozing where the stick had broken skin. He was going to have a swollen lip as well.

  Zander took a few moments to collect his thoughts. He was seething inside but he could feel that was exactly what Rooster wanted so he wouldn’t show it.

  “So you don’t like Rooster. I suppose I could call you Maarten Van Vugt,” Zander held out the Vugt so there was no mistaking the old reference.

  Van took another swipe at Zander but this time Zander was ready and ducked just in time. He felt the rush of the air as the stick surged past.

  Jayne had enough. She stood up suddenly and moved toward Van.

  “Stop it. Van, it’s not what you think. We can talk this out.”

  Van didn’t miss a beat. He choked up on the stick and knocked Jayne right over the top of her head. Jayne wobbled for a bit and then collapsed just to the right of the door next to the umbrella stand.

  Zander started to get up and Van turned to him with the gun drawn.

  “I think you’d better sit down or we can end this right now.”

  Zander did as he was told. He started to think about the knife in his boot and how he wished the stun gun were in the other one. As the man said you don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. He might be screwed here.

  Rooster started pacing back and for the in front of Zander always keeping the pistol trained on him. His smile and wild eyes bothered Zander. Rooster was psychotic and losing it. He wondered how long he’d been this way or if he had always been this way. He was thinking that he might have run out of options when suddenly he heard some noise outside. Van heard it too and went and stood right of the door with one foot on Jayne’s limp body.

  “Hey you two. You’d better put on some clothes because I’m coming in,” Fats said and opened the door slowly and just stuck his head inside.

  Fats noticed something to the left and when he turned his head to see what it was, Van’s stick came down on the top of his head. Fats fell into the cabin face first. Zander thought he must have a very hard head because he was rubbing the top of it with his hand and trying to lift himself up with the other. The stick came down again and Fats cried out.

  “What the hell, man! What’s going on?” Fats mumbled close to unconsciousness.

  Van rolled him over with the stick and then dropped it and put the pistol under his nose.

  “You’re the skinny little shit who stole my Cameo,” Van hissed.

  “You weren’t using it anyway. Vehicles need to be driven or they seize up. Everyone knows that. I was just helping you out man,” Fats said through the fog the stick had created.

  Van shoved the pistol harder into his nose.

  “Hey, man, that hurts. Back it down a bit.”

  Then he noticed something about the gun.

  “That’s the gun those dudes used just outside of Paxton.”

  He kept looking directly at the gun. The gun was untraceable. The asshole could use it on all of them and never worry that anything would come back on him.

  “I thought you were going to toss that thing in Lake Dillon, Zander.”

  Zander couldn’t believe it.

  “Yeah, I meant too but I forgot about it.”

  Van laughed, “I found it under the seat of your van when I was installing the tracker.”

  “You know I found the box earlier. You aren’t as clever as you think,” Zander replied.

  “Fat bit of good that did you,” Van hissed again.

  Zander noticed that he was hissing quite a bit. That probably wasn’t a good sign.

  Van reached into his coat and pulled out two zip ties. He knocked Fats in the side of the head with the gun then pushed him down on the floor again and zipped his feet and then put the tie on his hands in front of him. He was in no shape to fight him.

  Van moved over to the table and sat across from Zander with his back to the front door.

  “Get us a couple of beers,” he said to Zander.

  Zander did as he was told and put the beers on the table.

  “No. You sit down and put your hands on the table toward me.”

  Van took out another zip tie and threw it toward Zander.

  “Put that on your wrists and pull it tight.”

  Zander did as he was told pulling the zip tight with his teeth. Van reached over and pulled the zip as tight as he could. It was hurting Zanders wrist and he winced.

  “A little too tight, is it? Well you won’t have to worry much about that for very long, “ Van said and gave a little self-satisfied snort.

  “So you are going to kill us. I got that from the start. What’s the hold up?” Zander asked now past feeling any fear.

  “Oh I’m not going to make this easy for any of you. After your friends come back from their little trip, I’m going to shoot skinny in the back of the head while you watch. Then when a little time passes, I’m going to shoot you the same way while Jayne, or I should say Sara Jane, watches.”

  Van was enjoying this thoroughly.

  “I suppose we’re all going to end up going down your little air shaft up above Blue River,” Zander said trying to find a chink in this guys armor.

  Van stared at him for a moment.

  “Talk all you want. You aren’t getting out of this alive,” he said just a little unsure for the first time.

  “Probably,” Zander said easily, “But now you’re wondering who I’ve been talking to about all this.”

  Zander could see alarm in his eyes for a second. Then he just relaxed and smiled that smile again. Zander was really getting tired of it.

  “I don’t think you’ve been saying anything to anybody. Your little girlfriend there would be in trouble if you did,” he said as he motioned toward Jayne lying on the floor.


  “You are one sick bastard. I know all about you. You like little girls and you pimp them out to the guys who pay the highest price. You could have had it all. Sara Jane went away with you and gave up everything. You tossed her aside like so much garbage.”

  Zander was on a roll and he was angry.

  Van smiled again. “She was used up. It was time to move on.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? You never let anybody move on.”

  “You certainly seem to know a lot about my affairs. If you know anything about me you know I’m a man not to be trifled with.”

  “I wonder if there’s a statute of limitations on desertion from the military? You must wonder if I’ve written all this stuff down somewhere just waiting to be found if anything happened to me?”

  Zander was getting under Van’s skin and he knew it.

  “Well, after you two are gone, I’ll have some time with Jayne to find out if that’s true. You would have shared everything with her. That’s the kind of idiot you really are,” Van said and smiled again.

  “She’ll never tell you anything,” Zander countered.

  “Of course she will. I have a lot of effective ways to make her talk before she joins you two.”

  Zander could only look at Van.

  “Oh you thought she wasn’t going to see the same fate? She has been deceitful and I cannot tolerate fraudulence in any form,” Van said smugly and then sat back on his chair.

  Zander hated arrogance. This guy was an egotist full of his own conceit. He looked at his beer bottle and had no desire to take a drink. He wanted to find a way out of this mess but it was too late. The only thing he could think about doing was to continue to bait the Rooster. The longer he kept him talking the longer he would be alive. Just as Zander was about to bring up about him being a fraud, he heard a sound.

  He had heard a sound like that before. He remembered one Halloween a bunch of guys stole pumpkins off the steps of the homes in Hospers and then lofting them like a shot put into the street. The sound of them hitting the concrete and splitting open was like a big “thwack”. He had done the same things with ripe watermelons one summer. It was an interesting sound. He wondered where it had come from.