Trapped with a Way Out

by Jeffery Martinez

  "You're gonna go check out that place, right?" A heavy arm draped across the back of a chair as Jake tilted his head back to look at the teenager that was currently tying his black laces at the couch he slept on. Vincent nodded, making a loop with nimble white fingers.

  "Yeah, right now. It's a little bit more expensive than my last place-" He shrugged his shoulder and leaned his head to the side to move his hair out of his view. "-but it's a lot bigger. It's supposed to have it's own bathroom with a shower and stuff."

  Jake turned back to his breakfast, taking a bite while his eyes scanned a magazine featuring new models of cars and reports on the rising or falling prices of specific car parts. One hand reached out to grab an open can of Pepsi. The giant spoke after swallowing. "It's an actual place right? It should have a bathroom. The last place you had, Jesus…that was not the usual. The shower is gonna be a good investment for you. If you're clean and presentable, someone's more likely to consider picking you for a job. But expect the water bill to go up."

  "Yeah. Figured as much."

  "Good." Jake took another sip of Pepsi, looking around the can to see what he was reading as Vincent passed him to go to the door. "How likely do you think it is for you to get this place? I don't mind letting you stay here for another week or so."

  Vincent stopped to look back at Jake, appreciating the offer, but he was shaking his head. "No, I'm good. I think I'll get this place and then I'll be out of your hair. You need your space."

  Jake said nothing, consuming his breakfast with his eyes on his magazine while Vincent shut the door behind himself and left the giant to read in silence.

  The room was a large rectangular box with three doors. One door leading outside, one door leading into the bathroom, and one door that opened up to reveal the interior of a closet where there was evidence that the teen, if he was able to live in the tiny apartment that was more of a bedroom walled off from the rest of another apartment, would have a few eight-legged neighbors for company. It was dusty, it was grimy, there was dark stains on the carpet and there were similar stains on the walls, both of which could questionably have been blood, and from outside the sounds of the city echoed off of bricks that walled an alley.

  But, in Vincent's view, the room was sparkling with corny fairy dust. So, a step above being the possible location of a past homicide, the apartment looked like the possible location where Tinkerbelle had been brutally murdered.

  The bathroom…at least had running water that might be used to scrub away some of the fungi forest that was growing in the shower…the crusty, black fungi forest…burnt fungi maybe…

  Back by the doorway Vincent was surveying the room for a moment. Without a doubt, he turned to the dull-eyed landlady with a sharp nod of acceptance, to which he earned a raised eyebrow and then a shrug. The landlady was a broad, rather stout woman with a floral print dress and a large bust that distracted attention from her expressionless face, but she didn't say much and that was enough to please Vincent. He could tell she didn't like him, but he wasn't sure if he would ever come to like her either. But he could see that they might be able to tolerate one another in a satisfactory way.

  "Do you have a number I can call?"

  "Yeah. If you have a pen I can write it down."

  The woman walked off down a dark, cramped hall and around a corner, Vincent following her part of the way. She returned quickly and handed him a pen and a notepad where he scrawled Jake's number below his last name. "My friend might pick up, his name's Jake." Vincent added a skinny arrow from the phone number to Jake's name when he wrote it down. "You can leave a message with him if I'm not there and he'll pass it along to me so I can call you. Is there any special time you want me to call at….or like a-"

  "If I tell you to move in, then I want you to call me back within forty-eight hours, or I'm going to give the room to somebody else. I don't have patience for waiting around. If you want the room, then you had better call me back and not make me wait. You got that?"

  Seeing the face that belonged to a woman in her mid forties or early fifties, the teen blinked once before handing her the pad and pen with a few nods. Her eyes were assessing him, he saw, unable to break eye-contact as his thoughts raced to figure out what she might want him to do, how he should behave in order to gain her acceptance. He needed the room. He wanted only honesty with her. She looked into the red eyes, in no way communicating as to whether or not she had seen his thoughts, and then left him behind when she went back to the room, taking out a bronze key to lock it. Vincent said good-bye after asking if there was anything else she needed, and left shortly there after.

  Out on the street again with busy traffic, yells, and honking horns adding to the fumes that polluted the air, the teen strolled down a couple of blocks, his head down with his hood up, thinking and watching his feet as he relied on peripheral vision to guide him. He ducked into a liquor store, making use of the nearest door, to ask for the time before leaving to stalk the sidewalk. He had finished sooner than he had expected to. It wasn't even 9:30 a.m. yet and the overcast sky made it seem earlier. He had ten dollars in his pocket, left over from skipping a breakfast he told Jake he would pick up on the way and from the precaution he had taken in bringing the money in case the landlady wanted a deposit on the room, if she gave it to him right off the bat.

  Ten whole dollars, and nothing he needed to do.

  The teen's shoes stopped on the concrete and he stood still as the flow of other pedestrians broke around him as if he were a stone in a river. Glancing to the side, from beneath the black hood two red eyes moved over the traffic, landing on a certain green car with a list of prices on the passenger door. He approached the parked car, bending low to check the back seat. When he discovered it was empty, with his hands in his pockets, Vincent moved to the driver's door and looked in.

  The cab driver was sipping at a cup of McCafe coffee with a newspaper on the steering wheel. With a start, he looked at his window, freezing when Vincent's ghostly pale face greeted him, shadowed by the hood. Vincent tapped on the glass again to snap the man out of his daze so that he would lower the window.

  "How far will five dollars get me?"

  Suspicious and frowning, with one hand on his coffee that was currently steaming from his cup holder and having folded and placed his newspaper on the front passenger seat, the cabdriver stared at Vincent with cold eyes. "I'm on my break."

  Vincent paused and then took out his money, flashing it at the man before crumpling it up in his hand, making it impossible to tell the worth of the bill. "I've got money and I'd like to go somewhere. When does your break end? I can wait."

  Damn punk. Aggravation in a growling voice snapped back that his break would be over in ten minutes, and then the window rolled up, cutting off the conversation. Vincent stepped back after a moment, wandered to the front of the cab with the driver's eyes following him doggedly over the horizon of a newspaper, and then the teen sat down on the curb in front of the car's wheel to wait out the ten minutes and insure that the cab would not suddenly drive away when he wasn't looking.

  Shaking out his newspaper violently to open it wider, the cab driver grumbled to himself crossly, stubbornly focusing his attention on the newsprint and the ink letters on its surface.

  The walk to Rodriguez's house from where the cab dropped Vincent off after handing him a five in exchange for teen's ten, was about an hour long, on the sidewalk or on the dirt along the side of the road. But Vincent didn't mind the walk. He enjoyed the time by himself, but he still felt a slight thrill when he saw the gate that would open to the Rodriguez family's driveway that cut through the trees speckling their property.

  Vincent approached the gate, his gaze running over a pillar of arranged stones where a button and a speaker were present.

  That would blow his surprise visit. Since he had come all this way, he could at least get a good laugh out of it. If he snuck up on Rodriguez when the jock wasn't looking…maybe walking right into his room and waiting to se
e if he'd notice…. The idea spread a grin across Vincent's face, growing broader with excitement and anticipation when he followed the fence that bordered their property, aiming for the hole he could slip under. Finding it and entering through it, Vincent took his time walking towards the house, wondering which door he should try first as he brushed dirt from his clothes. His goal was to scare Rodriguez. All he had to do was find the Chief or Female Rodriguez, if the Chief wasn't home, and then they'd let him in…or he could just unlock a door or go through an open window if he could get the screen off.

  Passing the pool, the teen made a bee-line for the glass door that separated him from Richard's office. That sheet of glass was all that was keeping the delinquent outside when he wanted to be inside. But Vincent wasn't familiar with these types of doors. No paper clip or wire could be used if he didn't know what to do with them in this situation, though he had one of both in his pocket, making sure to stock up when he could in the absence of having a spare key for Jake's place.

  Alright, no success with the office door. Red eyes traveled over the side of the house, searching for an open window. He went closer to the glass sliding door again and pulled at it before cupping his hands around his eyes to peer into the office. It was empty, as he had assumed. All that noise with the door would have gotten the Chief's attention if she had been there. She was most likely at work.

  Okay, next. What's next? No windows on this side of the house are open, now to try…the next side. Vincent proceeded to circle the house, at one point passing a partially uncovered window that showed a room the teen had never seen before. It was a bedroom, though Vincent couldn't tell the size, but he saw a bed with a red and maroon comforter on it along with an assortment of clothes. Guess the Chief didn't finish putting them away yet. Without an available entrance, Vincent continued on until, finally, he came upon an open window with a flimsy screen a wire easily coaxed from it's frame without damaging it, which was then tossed through the window towards a carpeted area. The Christmas tree was sitting in Vincent's view when he climbed through the window, taking care not to leave foot prints on the side of the house or inside when he landed on the tile floor, the same tiles that snaked back into the kitchen but cut off before the Christmas tree to begin a faint grayish-blue carpet lawn.

  Success. The screen was replaced, and all was good with the world. Soon he would be up the stairs and he'd get to enjoy scaring the fat ass he had come to visit. Yup, Vincent smiled keeping his footsteps muted when he went to the door and started down the hallway, passing first the white room where the piano was kept, the dining room, the door to Grandpa King's guest room, and so on, checking his environment to make sure he didn't pass one of the Rodriguez siblings or the jock he was looking for (he only hoped Rodriguez was in his room, it was the best place to scare him) while taking a moment to feel bad for what had happened on Christmas and the fact that the old man would have left a long time ago. With a depressing sigh, Vincent lengthened his strides and added a spring to his step, shaking his head to dislodge the cold feeling in his chest.

  Now I'm going to go see Rodriguez and it's going to be fun and when I go home, Jake's going to tell me that the landlady called and then I'll have my own place to live again and everything's gonna be good. Today- Vincent took in a deep breath, filling his lungs - is gonna be a good day.

  Just at this time, Vincent went around a corner into the kitchen and walked into a stiff back, his forehead rolling forward to hit the other body. Not expecting this, Vincent stepped back, rubbing at his face with a frown while his eyes glanced over the back, noting the blonde hair and height. He opened his mouth to say 'Fat Ass', as a last effort to get a surprised response from the jock, but as the back turned around, Vincent noticed the light skin and a deeply carved scar that continued as the neck turned to face the pale boy. The body had started to the side as it turned, and a pair of green eyes were wide when they stared at Vincent while Vincent stared back at them.

  There was a moment of stunned silence in which Vincent blinked and stared, lips parting as he stared and blinked, wholly bewildered by what he saw.

  This wasn't Rodriguez. He wasn't Rodriguez. This man was not Rodriguez. And for a second, Vincent felt anger before he felt surprise again, along with a generous injection of pain, when four large knuckles were driven into his right cheek faster than his brain could follow.

  Stunned, and now with his mind reeling from the blow, the teen's thought process shut down. Staggering with round, owlish eyes, Vincent stumbled backwards and tripped over himself when he dodged another punch, becoming sprawled with his back and head smacking the tiles, a dizzy spell descending upon all of the other chaos that distorted his world.

  The sole of a tennis-shoe rose up, ready to crash down on the teen when Vincent mustered enough awareness in order to roll to the side and shuffle backwards awkwardly until he hit the base of a counter and slid his back up over the ascending wood drawers in order to get to his feet.

  Still unable to think, only able to dodge, Vincent ducked to the right when a fist appeared before his face again and then bolted instinctively down the hall his eyes found, running into a wall and using it to propel himself in a new direction while a hand grabbed at his jacket without getting a good grip so that the teen was able to get away. Vincent ran past doors without looking back, following the tiles as if they were the yellow brick road bringing him to a magical escape route, until they brought him to the living room with the Christmas tree, but more importantly, a good view of the front door. Vincent sprinted to the door and his feet attempted to stop on the mat in front of it but his momentum pushed the mat forward, throwing the boy into the door. In too much of a hurry to step back so that he could see what his hands were doing, fingers fumbled with the door knob, turning it back and forth but having the knob stop each time, as if it couldn't turn full circle. Trying to force it to turn, Vincent kept fought with the doorknob, all the while expecting to get tackled from behind at any moment.

  All movement froze when an unmistakable metal shape pressed into the black hair, causing Vincent's body to stiffen while complying with any pressure the gun supplied, moving his face against the door but leaving his paralyzed hands on the doorknob. Seconds lengthened with the quickened pace of a beating heart. Unfocused red eyes gazed at the door, blinking and not seeing it, picturing the gun that was buried in his hair. A foreign hand clasped the cold pale hands and pried them from the door, dropping one in order to grab Vincent's left arm and arrest it painfully against his back, so immobilizing, or at least taking control of the teen so that he could be guided from the door by the gun and the hand that held him. Vincent was forced onto the tiles, part of his body laying across the somewhat dirty mat used to clean shoes before they were allowed to walk through the house.

  Swallowing with the cold floor taking any heat it could from his left cheek while his right cheek, which was throbbing, was turned to the air, Vincent gazed at the bottom of the door that should have been his escape, finally coming to a realization that forced Vincent to shut his eyes and bite his lips with shame for his stupidity. The door had been locked. You can't freaken open a locked door. God, am I a dumbass. Shit-

  Vincent winced when a knee dug into his arm, crushing it into his back while flattening the rest of Vincent into the floor. The foreign hand released him and moved into a pocket the teen couldn't see. All the while, neither party spoke.

  Without being able to see what was happening, Vincent could still hear the clicking of a phone being dialed, pulling out a groan from pale lips and closing the red eyes again when Vincent attempted to bury his face in the tiles and melt into the floor.

  "Why do you got to call the police? Why do you have to get cops involved? I hate cops. I hate the friggen cops…" Vincent muttered and cursed to himself as the clicking continued, but after a while he frowned and his brow furrowed, time making his heart slow a little and his clear some murkiness from his mind. Who was this guy? I'm not doing anything wrong. And 911 is not a million nu
mbers long. Vincent discreetly peeled his cheek from the tiles and gradually turned his head towards the man who was kneeling with one knee keeping Vincent immobile, one hand keeping the gun Vincent could still not see against his hair, while the other hand that Vincent was now focusing on was being used to slowly, with a thumb on a right hand, type away at a Blackberry.

  The teen's eyes squinted with confusion, forgetting other things for a moment. "You can text the police?"

  This got the blonde man's attention and he paused to stab an intimidating, icy glare into Vincent's face, obviously disapproving of the fact that Vincent had turned it to look at him. But the man didn't say anything and soon he pushed another button and his previously busy hand stilled. With a white square reflecting in the green irises that stared at the cell phone intently, the man ignored the teen that tried to wiggle away, only grinding his knee into Vincent so that the boy hissed and stopped moving.

  His face hid in the tiles again, cursing at his luck and the situation he was in. Vincent ground his teeth his teeth, snarling now. "You're nuts! Okay? Who the hell are you? AND get the fuck off of me! FUCKING BASTARD!"

  The gun dug into Vincent's skull hard enough that the teen became obedient and was convinced that his head was now bleeding, but he still whispered dark curses into the floor.

  Richard was walking towards a door that would bring her to an interrogation room where detectives were already questioning a suspect. Her hand hovered above the doorknob when a sudden buzzing vibration called her eyes to her belt where her cell-phone was clipped and fastened securely. With a cross frown and a knitted brow that further displayed her annoyance, the woman drew her hand back and took out the phone in order to quickly check the text message to make sure it wasn't anything important. If it was her children, they would have to wait…and she would be tempted to scold them later that night, but it so happened that they were not the ones responsible. The sender was labeled: