by Jeff Strand
“Okay, point taken. So I think I have a plan to get the doll back,” he said. “It’s kind of crazy, but it might just work. What if we.?”
“No,” I said, thirty-six seconds later. “Are you sure?”
“No. We’re not using that plan.”
“But if we—”
“No. Kelley is our planner.”
“I would just like to point out, and I’m not trying to be disrespectful to her intelligence or anything, but it’s not like things have been all sunshiny since you asked Kelley for help.. .and yes, I see her eyes narrowing right now, and so I’d like to blame my comment on the venom. Kelley’s awesome. I’m done talking.” “He’s right, though,” said Kelley. “We need a better plan.”
I nodded. “But not that one.”
“Oh no, of course not. God, no. Not that one.”
“It would’ve worked,” said Adam.
“No, it wouldn’t have,” I said. “But we can do this. We’re smarter than a cabdriver. Maybe he’s more street-smart than we are, since he’s a cabdriver, but we’re more book-smart. We can come up with a plan!”
Glenn pulled the minivan in front of the junkyard. We still didn’t have a plan. Or at least a good one. We had several bad plans and several plans that would be good if we had the necessary equipment like a military tank.
Mildred dialed her phone and handed it to me. Zeke answered. “I see you. Get out of the soccer mom van. Alone. Tell them to drive away. I’m holding a hunting knife with an eight-inch blade up to the doll’s throat right now, so don’t try anything that makes me nervous. Understand?”
“I understand,” I told him, even though, quite honestly, a tiny little pin would’ve worked just as well as a hunting knife with an eight-inch blade.
“Good.”
I sighed and did my best to summon the necessary courage. “Wish me luck,” I said.
“Why the hell would I wish you luck?” asked Zeke.
“I wasn’t talking to you.” I hung up the phone and gave it back to Mildred. “After I get out, you’re supposed to drive away. He wasn’t specific, but I don’t think you have to drive all the way home or anything like that. Just park a couple of blocks away.”
Kelley stifled a sob and then leaned over and gave me a passionate kiss on the lips. It was as if for one moment all of our problems had disappeared and our souls were joined as one... although I also have to say that vampires are lying to you about kissing with blood on your lips being arousing. It’s really kind of gross. Don’t try it.
“Be careful,” said Adam. “We need you to come back in one piece.”
“Seriously?” I asked. “I could be headed to my death, and you think the last thing I want to hear is a joke like that?”
“What?” Adam looked genuinely confused, and then realization hit him. “Ooohhhh. No, I wasn’t trying to be funny. I honestly wasn’t even thinking about your missing toes and ear. That’s just what you say to people. My bad.”
“Look, I know I don’t have much time,” I said. “And I don’t want to make any big speeches because I’m pretty sure I’m not going to die. But I am going to put myself in a situation where the guy with my life in his hands could go into a murderous rage, so if it does come to that, I’m gonna miss you guys.”
Now Adam had tears in his eyes. “We’re gonna miss you too.”
“So, um, I don’t know how I’m going to behave if he really does decide to kill me. I’d like to think that I’ll be dignified about it, but I can’t promise that. What I’d like to ask is that if I do anything that you know I wouldn’t want to be part of my legacy.I don’t mean crying, that’s okay, but if I do anything that’s utterly embarrassing, just completely cowardly and pathetic, could you leave that part out when you tell people about this? I mean, you don’t have to say that I acted like Conan the Barbarian or anything like that. Just don’t share anything where my family would be glad I’m dead.”
“We’ve got you covered,” Adam promised.
Mildred pressed a button, and the electric rear door of the minivan slowly slid open with a loud whirring noise. I gave Kelley one last kiss and then got out of the vehicle. The electric door slowly slid closed again, and the minivan drove away, leaving me alone on the sidewalk, holding the suitcase.
It would be okay.
Certainly no harm could come to a teenage boy holding a suitcase in a high-crime area after dark.
I stood there for a moment, my heart racing, my stomach in knots, and my elbow twitching. And without a family of psychos to distract me, I had the opportunity to reflect upon how much my ear hurt.
It really hurt.
I could barely think straight. It’s not as if I had been making quality decisions before my ear exploded or even before my toes launched, but this was like trying to concentrate with a million stinging fire ants squirming around in my ear canal.
I kept standing there. It would definitely be anticlimactic if I bled to death before he showed up. The rest of this book would just be blank pages. I was feeling woozy, but I’d been feeling woozy most of the night, so I didn’t worry about it.
I continued to wait.
You didn’t see a lot of tumbleweeds in Florida, so none blew through the empty street, but it would have been appropriate.
Still waiting.
Still waiting.
Still waiting.
At least the excruciating pain was keeping me from getting bored.
Where was he? Was he waiting for me to bleed to death so he could just swoop in and grab the suitcase? What a tacky approach. I simply couldn’t respect that. And if I was going to bleed to death, it was going to be within the next two or three hours, not the next two or three minutes, so Zeke had a long wait ahead.
Still waiting.
Repeat last sentence.
And then, finally, a taxi came around the corner. I assumed it was Zeke, but until he got closer.Okay, yeah, it was Zeke. He pulled up right next to me and then shut off the engine.
He very slowly got out of the car, closed the door, folded his arms in front of his chest, and nodded at the suitcase.
“You got the money?”
“Every penny.”
“That better not be filled with pennies.”
“It’s not.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“A friend.”
“Which friend?”
“You wouldn’t know him.”
“Name him.”
“Bob.”
“Bob who?”
“Bob—” Don’t say Barker! Don’t say Barker! “—Anderson.” Bob Anderson was in a couple of my classes, and the chances of him giving me any money were the same as the chances that he’d give me a blood transfusion that drained him completely dry, but Zeke didn’t know any of my friends.
“What does Bob Anderson do for a living?”
“He’s sixteen. He works at Burger King.”
“Then where did he get ten thousand dollars?”
“His parents.”
“Why would his parents give him that much money to give to you?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask him for his cover story.”
“If his family is so rich, why is he working at Burger King?” “To build character.”
“What’s his name again?”
“Bob Anderson.”
“You said Bob Henderson before.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Hmmmm.”
“Are you trying to poke holes in my story? That’s fine. I understand that, but let’s get this done so we can all go home. I’m sure you have better things to do, and I’d kind of like to get to a hospital, so let’s quit wasting time and make this deal happen!” I was trying to sound like a tough guy. You’d have to get somebody else’s opinion on my level of success.
Zeke tilted his head. “Wow. I really did mess up your ear.” “Yep.”
“Or did you do it yourself? You scamming me? You cutting up your ear to make me think it’s voodoo?”
“Is this really the way you behave?” I asked. “I mean, is this the way you spend your nights, trying to drive people to the brink of madness? Am I on one of those hidden-camera shows? Are you trying to get millions of hits on YouTube? Seriously, dude, what’s your deal?”
He frowned. “I’m new to this.”
“Well, you suck at it.”
“Got any Red Bull?”
“No.”
“Okay. Set the suitcase down at your feet and then open it.”
I didn’t much want to do that.
Zeke smiled. “If you’ve got anything you want to confess before you open it, now’s the time to speak up.”
“The money’s there,” I said.
“Good. Then we’ll have no problems. If I see anything in there but cash, it’s all over for you. Set it down. Now!”
And then.. .I came up with a plan.
It was not a brilliant plan. You’re not going to think that I’m some sort of plan-making genius. But I realized that maybe, just maybe, I might make it out of this.
I quickly reviewed my plan for opportunities for disaster. There were lots of them. Still, I had to do something, and this was the best I could come up with. If I died, well, at least I died while making an effort not to die.
Zeke’s tone quickly changed from annoyingly suspicious to angry. “I said, put it down!”
I wiped a big smear of blood from my head onto my palm and showed it to him. “I’m bleeding out of my head because of you. You’re lucky I can even stand. Give me a break, okay?”
I leaned down, making a medium-sized show of the effort it took to crouch down. I set the suitcase on the cement and then began to wobble.
“Dizzy spell,” I said. “Hold on a second.”
“You don’t have a second. Open the suitcase.”
I coughed a few times, then wiped my forehead as if I were sweating and then said, “Oh God,” and collapsed.
“You faking it?” Zeke asked.
I didn’t answer.
“I know you’re faking. I’m not that stupid. If you’re faking, I’ll kill you.”
Because it had already been established that he was going to kill me if the suitcase didn’t have his cash, this threat did not encourage me to reveal my ruse.
“I can wake you up, no problem,” said Zeke. “You want me to twist this doll’s arm around a few times? That what you want?
How about just the wrist? How about a twist of the wrist and then I keep twisting until its entire arm looks like a Red Vine? You cool with that?”
I wasn’t cool with that at all, but I didn’t say anything. This was my only chance. (I told you it wasn’t a brilliant plan.)
Here’s the psychology I was hoping for: Zeke was not a bad guy at heart. He was no sweetheart. He wouldn’t be winning any Best Person Ever awards, but deep inside, he tried to be a decent human being. But he was struggling financially, and the opportunity presented to him by the voodoo doll along with his natural fury over the fact that we couldn’t pay our fare was too much for him to resist.
Yes, he was the kind of jerk who would make my ear explode. But that was from a distance. When he did that, he couldn’t see the results of his nonhumanitarian behavior. Could he really turn my arm into a mangled mess with me right there in front of him?
It suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t know the guy at all. Maybe he could turn my arm into a mangled mess with me right there in front of him. Maybe with a great big smile on his face. Maybe he’d buy some balloons afterward.
I remained motionless.
I heard the door to the cab open and then close again.
“I’ve got the doll in my hand,” Zeke informed me. Was that hesitation in his voice? Was he discovering the kindness in his heart?
“I’m going to twist it,” he reminded me.
I remained motionless.
“You’re not going to like it when I twist it.”
I suddenly felt as if I needed to hiccup. That was kind of weird, because I’d never felt as if I needed to hiccup before. I always just hiccupped. The body does odd things in moments of severe stress.
I resisted the urge to hiccup.
The other thing I hoped was that Zeke would decide that the injured teenager lying on the sidewalk did not pose a threat. I sure didn’t feel like a threat. If I were Zeke, and I saw me lying there looking the way I looked, I would’ve just strolled on over and grabbed the suitcase.
“I mean it,” said Zeke.
Oh yeah, he was totally hesitating. I had him exactly where I wanted him. I was the king of faking unconsciousness because of blood loss.
As I heard his footsteps, I silently summoned every ounce of strength I had. It wasn’t many ounces.
“You’re about to feel a lot of pain,” he told me.
And then I did.
But—j oy, joy, joy—it wasn’t because any body parts were going kablooey or detaching themselves. He was stepping on my hand. Hard. It hurt bad enough to make me wince and give away that I was faking, but not bad enough to keep me from grabbing the suitcase and bashing it into his knee.
He let out such a loud bellow that you would’ve thought half of the poor guy’s ear had exploded. I swung the suitcase back the other way, connecting with the same knee.
The doll dropped onto the sidewalk.
Zeke lunged his foot toward it, trying to squish it flat, but I bashed him with the suitcase again. The suitcase popped open, spilling crumpled up newspapers everywhere.
I hit him again, and Zeke fell.
I quickly got to my feet, raised the suitcase above my head with both hands, and then.well, you can’t beat somebody to death with a suitcase, even if it’s a scumbag blackmailer like Zeke. It’s just not right.
“Get out of here,” I told him.
Zeke got up and ran, limping badly. I wanted to throw the suitcase at him, knocking him down in a hilarious slapstick manner, but then he might pick up the suitcase, say, “Ha ha, now I’ve got the weapon!” and come back and beat me to death with it.
So I let him go.
He ran, slipped, fell, got back up, then ran some more. I picked up the voodoo doll, brushed some dirt off it, and let out a happy little cheer.
I had it back!
If I’d had full use of my feet, I swear I would’ve danced a jig right there. Instead, I settled for a quick, funky shuffle.
I looked over at the minivan and (very gently) waved the doll in the air. The minivan’s engine started back up. It pulled away from the curb and drove.. .away from me.
Hmmm. That was odd.
I wondered why they hadn’t come back to pick me up, and then I remembered, oh yeah, Kelley and Adam were trapped in a minivan with a pair of psycho killers.
CHAPTER 23
There are many difficult decisions in life.
For example, let’s say that you’re working in a coal mine, and it collapses. You and five other miners are trapped in a small pocket, and you have about one hour of air before you all suffocate. Rescuers will never reach you in an hour.
One other miner, Jimbo, was separated from everybody else in the collapse. He has plenty of air, enough air to last for weeks, even if he pants a lot.
There’s a small gap in your pile of rocks.
You have a hand grenade.
Do you throw the hand grenade through the gap, blowing up Jimbo but ensuring your own rescue? Six lives versus one. But can you kill an innocent man to save your own lives, especially knowing that Jimbo would almost certainly be rescued?
Actually, I guess that any gap big enough for a grenade would be big enough to let in air. And a grenade wouldn’t actually clear out fallen rocks; that’s really a job better suited for dynamite. I don’t think this is the way the hypothetical dilemma is supposed to go. I remember that when a friend posed it to me once, I was like, “Wow, that’s a really difficult decision!” but the way I’ve got it doesn’t make much sense.
Okay... so ...eating one of your fellow miners. A difficult d
ecision, right? You don’t want to do it too early, because if you get saved, you all look like a bunch of jerks, but if you wait too long, you could all die with perfectly good arm meat available.
I see that I have completely botched the point I was trying to make, but basically, what I’m trying to say is that life is filled with difficult decisions.
The decision to go after the minivan was not one of them.
Kelley and Adam needed my help. Yeah, I needed help too, but I was going to rescue them, no matter what.
I got in the taxi. He’d never shut off the meter, and we owed him over three hundred dollars at this point. Maybe when all of this was over, I’d write him a check.. .in blood! (Sorry, but that’s as badass as I get.)
I’d never driven a taxi before, but I assumed it was just like a regular car. I fastened my seat belt, floored the accelerator, and sped down the street in the direction the minivan had gone.
They weren’t gonna get away.
Not a chance.
When I looked back on this evening, I knew I was going to have a lot of regrets (see everything else that happened in this book), but one of them was not going to be that I’d let Whack-Job Mildred and Totally Bonkers Glenn get away with Kelley and Adam.
The camera flashed as I sped through a red light.
Ha! Ticket for Zeke!
The minivan was a few blocks ahead. Now that I’d found it, I had to solve the more difficult problem of how to stop it.
Did I need to stop it? What if I just followed it until it stopped on its own? They were probably headed back home to pick up Donna and Franklin.
But if they knew I was following, Mildred might crawl into the backseat of the minivan and kill Kelley and Adam.
If I tried to follow without being seen, I might lose them.
If Mildred killed them, it might not be a simple stab-stab- and-it’s-over death. Human sacrifices could linger.
I had to stop that minivan, no matter what.
The minivan had a lead, but it was built for fuel efficiency and passenger space, while the cab was built for speed. I rocketed down the street, not even thinking about my hideous injuries and the fact that I would probably spend the rest of my life with a nickname like One-Eared, Eight-Toed Tyler. The pain didn’t matter. Getting blood on Zeke’s seat was amusing but didn’t matter. Oxygen and sunlight didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except stopping that minivan! I wish we had the budget to put that sentence in 3-D, because I really can’t emphasize enough how nothing else mattered.
