Quick Study

by Maggie Barbieri

  “You figured it out, didn’t you?” Joey asked, his right hand in the pocket of his leather jacket and pointing at me. The jacket, I thought, that was bought on the hard labor of green-card-needing illegal immigrants. I thought about Hernan and the plastic pasta spoon that he had stuck in my back to get me to be quiet but decided that I couldn’t take a chance that Joey was holding the same utensil. Hernan wasn’t an ex-con with some kind of grudge, but Joey was.

  I shook my head, probably more vigorously than I intended. “No. I don’t know anything.”

  Joey smiled. “Oh, you do. I know you do. I saw it on your face back there,” he said, gesturing toward the church hall. “After grace. And then I heard it in your voice when you were coming up the stairs. And that Crawford you were talking about—he’s your boyfriend, right?”

  Oh, that again. “Sure,” I said. I didn’t want to get into the whole “what do you call the man you date when you’re approaching middle-age?” thing again, so I just agreed with him.

  “And he’s a cop, right?”

  I nodded slowly. That probably wasn’t the best news to an out-on-parole ex-con like Joey.

  He exhaled loudly. “I knew you’d figure it out.”

  I didn’t know if I had figured it out, but I think I was getting hotter by the expression on Joey’s face. I looked at him closely. I couldn’t see any kind of weapon, but his right hand in his pocket, coupled with the pointy protrusion through the leather, made me reluctant to try anything or make any sudden moves. “Frankie, why don’t you start for home?” I asked. “Catch that bus on Route 9.”

  “I can’t let him do that,” Joey said. Tiny nodded vigorously.

  “He doesn’t know anything, Joey.” I shifted from one foot to the other. “Let him go home.”

  Frankie started to drift away from the car just as Joey advanced on him. Tiny grabbed me from behind and linked his arms through mine, rendering me useless except for my legs, which I used to kick backward at him. He finally threw me to the ground, landing on top of me, his almost three hundred pounds nearly smothering me.

  I heard sneakers on pavement and assumed Frankie had taken off with Joey close behind him. I knew the kid could run; his speedy progress up and down the basketball court was often lauded in the local paper. I prayed that he’d had a good head start. My face was pressed against the pavement and I couldn’t make out what was happening, but a few minutes later, I saw the soles of Joey’s shoes. I didn’t see Frankie’s sneakers so I suspected that Joey had lost the foot race.

  “Kid can run,” he said, obviously a little awed by Frankie’s speed.

  “And he’s running straight to the police station, Joey, so you have about three minutes to let me go.”

  Tiny hoisted me to my feet and I stood face-to-face with a man to whom I had given the benefit of the doubt. I now realized how stupid that had been.

  Joey looked at me. “If that’s the case, then I guess we’d better get going,” he said evenly.

  Although my instinct was to burst out crying I knew that wouldn’t get me anywhere, so I decided to try to remain calm. “To where?”

  “I have to think,” he said. “I’m not sure.”

  “You know what, Joey?” I asked as I continued to struggle against Tiny’s grip, “I don’t know what you think I know, but if you let me go now, nobody gets hurt and you don’t go back to jail.” I was starting to get tired of fighting so I took a break from kicking Tiny. “But if you continue with this ridiculousness, you’re going to be in big trouble.” I figured this line of reasoning was worth articulating even if I knew that I didn’t have a shot in hell of getting away from him with merely a sound argument in my arsenal.

  Joey nodded almost imperceptibly at Tiny. “Give me your keys,” Joey said.

  I thought about it for a split second and then handed them over when Tiny released his grip, not sure what choice I had. Joey popped the trunk and motioned toward it with a shake of his head. “Get in.”

  I looked at him like he was crazy. “What?”

  “Get in,” he said softly, with just the slightest trace of menace. All of a sudden, the situation became all too real, and I realized that I wasn’t getting out of this with any type of argument and that I couldn’t count on Joey’s good will toward me. Having a boyfriend who was a cop wasn’t going to count in my favor either. This was a guy who had done hard time. And soft spot for me or not, he had done and seen things that I could only imagine.

  I went over to the car and stood there, Tiny pushing me toward the open trunk. I implored Joey one last time. “End this now, Joey, and it’s done. Over. I won’t say a word,” I lied. First chance I got, I was calling the police, his parole officer, and every other person in law enforcement I knew. I was even going to call Goldenberg and Abreu, and I hated them. “You’ve made a mistake but it doesn’t have to get any worse.” He continued to stare at me, his thick Brillo pad of hair blowing in the breeze and creating a soft cascade around a face that had been hardened by years of mistakes. He held his hand out to me and I saw that he wanted my purse. I saw his other hand in his jacket pocket pointed at my chest and handed it over.

  I stood for a few more seconds, thinking that there must be a way out of this that I hadn’t considered. But when I saw that I wasn’t getting anywhere, and Tiny pushed me a little harder than he had the first time, I folded myself inside, trying not to cry. The trunk closed with a loud, ominous thunk. I lay in the darkness, hearing their muffled voices outside, surrounded by plastic grocery bags that I had meant to recycle and never had, an old pair of sneakers, and a twenty-five-pound bag of dog food that had never made it into the house. Boy, did that smell bad.

  I started a running monologue in my head, more to keep myself from panicking than anything else: When I get out of this I’m getting a car that doesn’t have a trunk. No good has come from my having a trunk in the last year. I’m getting a sports car. Room for me and Trixie and nobody else. I’ll put my groceries on the front seat. Maybe I won’t even buy groceries. I’ll get them delivered. Some places do that now, right? Maybe I’ll even get a motorcycle so nobody can be found dead in the trunk of my car, I can’t be kidnapped and put in the trunk of my car, and I never have to smell barbecue-flavored kibble for as long as I live. And I’m telling the judge that I’m done with community service. Nobody should have to fulfill the rest of their community service hours when they’ve been kidnapped by the people they’re trying to help. It’s just not fair. And I’m going to tell Crawford that I promise never to snoop around again or get involved in one of his cases because I love him so much that all I need is him. And Trixie. And I can be nice to his girls. And learn how to cook. . . .

  A sob caught in my throat as I flashed on his face.

  The car sagged a bit as Tiny and Joey got in, or so I surmised after one of them started the car and backed out of the spot. I tried to focus on the number and types of turns we took after leaving the parking lot; after a few moments, it was clear to me where we were heading. I continued my novena to whomever would listen that Max had run like the wind straight to the police station or that she had called Crawford.

  Because heading to the river in a stolen car with two ex-cons couldn’t be good.

  Thirty

  I had been in the car far longer than I had ever thought I would last without losing my mind when I had imagined this situation in my head previously. Because who hasn’t imagined the horror of being locked in the trunk of a car? I had, but I have a tendency to let my mind wander to bad places. It was more comfortable than I would have thought and would have been even more comfortable if I hadn’t been lying on top of a ripped-open bag of Trixie’s dog food, its tiny pellets boring into my back, even through my sweatshirt. I was surrounded by the stench of dog food. If I got out of this alive, I promised myself, I would never eat another piece of barbecued beef for as long as I lived. Or make Trixie eat this food.

  No wonder she was having such difficulty when it came to digestion. Glad we solved that
mystery.

  I thought about my present situation as I lay in the car, which Joey and Tiny had stopped and vacated at least half an hour before. So, was this the plan? Kidnap me and leave me in deserted area to die in the trunk? I hoped I was in one of those areas where kids went to drink beer; from what I gathered from reading the local paper, the more deserted the area, the more kids were apt to congregate. But judging from the lack of noise outside, there was not a soul around.

  My hands were free so I rolled onto my left side and pushed with my feet at the panel that separated the trunk from the backseat. But I was wedged in so tight because I’m built like a gazelle—OK, that’s a lie, I’m more of a cross between a giraffe and a pot-bellied pig—and because of the largest package of dog food that a Costco card could buy—that I couldn’t get any kind of momentum from thrusting and kicking. I succeeded in rocking the car back and forth so that if some kids did venture down to wherever I was with a six-pack of beer and a pocketful of pot, they would see a violently rocking, uninhabited car in what I presumed was a deserted parking lot. Maybe it would be enough to scare them straight.

  I rolled over and tried, in the dark, to find the gizmo that locked the trunk. The pitch black was obviously a deterrent, so I rolled around as much as I could, laying my hands on whatever was in the trunk that could be used to either free me or hurt my kidnappers, whom I preferred not to think of by name. We were done. They were dead to me. I had served my last meal to both Tiny and Joey. I found a softball (no idea where that had come from or how it ended up in my trunk), which I stuffed under my shirt, thinking that if I had perfect aim—and I had no idea if I did—I could nail one of them in the head and run. I found a length of rope that I had used to tie the Christmas tree to the top of the car and stuffed it into one of my pants pockets. I didn’t think I had the stomach to strangle anybody. I can’t even pull the gizzards out of a Perdue oven-stuffer roaster without gagging. But if it came down to me or them, I was hoping I could choke the life out of someone.

  My left foot was resting on something and I nudged it closer. When my hands rested on the ribbed handle of flashlight, I let out a sob of joy, which I quickly stifled when I heard muffled voices coming from outside.

  I stuffed the flashlight, about a foot in length, into the front of my pants.

  The voices got closer and I took inventory of the weapons I had amassed: the softball under my shirt, the rope in my pocket, and the flashlight down the front of my pants. I focused on Richard Dean Anderson, fellow Canadian and the actor who had played MacGyver on television when I was a kid: with a paper clip, piece of tape, and a can of baked beans, he could avert any crisis. I prayed in the names of all things good and Richard Dean Anderson that I could do the same. I hoped that the sweatshirt I had on would conceal everything well enough to allow me to smuggle them out of the car. I also hoped that I wouldn’t have to choke anyone to death.

  And that Joey and Tiny didn’t open the trunk and put a bullet in my head before I got a chance to do anything, a thought I quickly pushed out of my still-intact brain.

  The trunk flew open and I blinked from being in the pitch black. I saw that directly behind Joey’s and Tiny’s heads was a bright streetlight that flickered on and off. I picked my head up and poked it above the edge of the trunk. We were in a parking lot, alone, just as I’d thought. Behind the two men was the river. Right again. In the distance, I could see a large gazebo, long deserted, and a bunch of benches and dormant barbecue grills dotting the landscape around the water.

  The softball was boring into my midsection but I resisted the urge to grimace. “Where are we?” I asked. The place looked vaguely familiar, but my brain was trying to take in the next actions of my kidnappers rather than figure out when I had been there last. The light over our heads flickered out for a few seconds.

  “Never mind that,” Tiny said, roughly grabbing my arm and lifting me in one fell swoop from the trunk. I stumbled out of the trunk, grabbing my stomach with one hand to hold the softball in place. The light flickered back on. As soon as I was out of the trunk and on my feet, though, I lost my grasp on the softball and it rolled out of my pants and fell to the ground away from me.

  Tiny—bless his less than stellar intellect—reacted as one normally would if he weren’t charged with overpowering someone smaller and weaker: he bent down to get the ball. I pulled the flashlight out of my pants and, with all of my might, smashed him over the head, nearly vomiting when I heard the sickening sound it made when it connected with his skull.

  Joey stood still and looked at Tiny, motionless on the ground, stunned by what I had done.

  I started running, tears now coursing down my cheeks, the reality of the situation coupled with my violent act making me scared and hysterical. Joey started running behind me, angrily calling my name. “I’ll shoot you, Alison! Stop running!”

  I figured that if he had a gun, he would have already shot me, so I sped up and ran the length of the parking lot, noticing that there was a path designed for joggers and bikers adjacent to the river. And beyond that, the lights of a waterfront condominium complex. How ironic, I thought, in my overwrought state. A waterfront condominium complex had gotten me into this mess, and a waterfront condominium complex might just be my way out. I ran as fast as my untoned, out-of-shape legs would take me, Joey’s footfalls bearing down on me. I was banking on the fact that he had something besides a gun in his pocket and I prayed that I wasn’t wrong, but I couldn’t let him get close enough to find out. So I ran like my life depended on it. Which it did, whether it was a pasta spoon, a cheese grater, or a Glock.

  Every muscle in my body was screaming in pain and I didn’t have an ounce of air left in my lungs when I reached the top of the hill and the end of the running path. To the right was the condo complex and, hopefully, the security checkpoint that many Westchester complexes had. I ran toward the little nautically themed hut that sat in the middle of a circular drive.

  A laconic young man sat on a cushy desk chair in the hut, casually examining a bank of cameras, but more concerned with some television program to which his private television was tuned. I banged on the window, scaring him out of his fugue state and nearly knocking him off his chair.

  “Help! Please help me!” I screamed. The hut wasn’t big enough for two, but I pulled on the locked door, hoping I could get inside and fold myself up small enough to fit. He looked at me and shrank back into his chair. “Please! I need help!” I looked around frantically and didn’t see Joey but knew that didn’t mean he wasn’t there somewhere. “Please call 911!”

  He finally snapped to and stood, opening the window. “Are you here to see someone?” He didn’t look any older than Frankie and it occurred to me that at least now I knew where teenagers got their pot. The stench coming from inside the booth almost calmed me down. And made me want a brownie. Right away.

  “No! I’m being chased! Please call 911!” I said, banging on the glass to make sure he stayed focused.

  “Whoa . . . dude . . . I mean, lady . . . calm down.” He sat back down in the chair and consulted his chart of residents, the tail of his uniform shirt hanging down over the back of the chair. “Now, who are you going to see?”

  I leaned in and grabbed the front of his shirt and brought his face as close to mine as I could. “I’m . . . not. . . seeing . . . anyone. Please . . . call. . . 911.” I spoke as slowly as I possibly could to make sure that he understood the message. Under normal circumstances, the look of horror on his face would have made me laugh, but in this instance it just brought me back to consciousness. I let go of his shirt and pulled my head out of the hut. I turned and saw my car idling at the top of the hill, the lights off, Joey at the steering wheel. I leaned in again. “Call 911. Now.”

  He raised a shaking hand and turned the volume down on the show he was watching just as some B-list actress completed a full split in a flamenco skirt; the show seemed to be some kind of dancing competition. If I had been stoned, I would have been mesmerized, too, b
ut as I was running for my life, I only gave it a quick glance. He punched the numbers into the phone and handed it to me, not sure of what to say.

  “My name is Alison Bergeron and I’m being followed by a man. I am . . .” I said, pausing, because it occurred to me that I didn’t know where I was. I looked at the kid. “Where am I?”

  He looked back at me, his shaggy hair covering his eyes. “Um . . . Croton?”

  “Not what town! What’s the name of the complex?” I screamed, my hysteria peaking. I resisted the urge to hit him over the head with the phone and settled for kicking the side of the hut a few times to make sure I had his attention.

  “Hudson Pointe.”

  I didn’t ask if “point” ended with an e. I’ve come to learn that they all do. “I’m at the Hudson Pointe condominium complex at the guard booth. I’m being followed by a man in 2006 navy blue Volvo sedan.” I took a deep breath before giving the dispatcher my license plate number. I looked back up the hill and saw that Joey was gone. “The man driving it was here a minute ago but now he’s gone. And I didn’t see which way he went,” I said, anticipating the dispatcher’s next question. The dispatcher assured me that someone would be arriving at Hudson Pointe within minutes.

  It must have been a slow night in Croton because three police cars followed by an ambulance and a fire truck, showed up within seconds. Mr. Stoned Security Guy reached down and shoved something into his sock as I was approached by one of the local cops.

  I tried to tell him that there was probably another man in the adjacent park with a head wound. I had a feeling that Joey hadn’t taken the time to revive Tiny and put him in the car, opting instead to save himself. . . . But maybe I was wrong and there was honor among thieves. By then I was gasping for breath. I tried to remain calm, focusing on the cop’s neat, blond brush cut, my breath going in and out of my lungs at a rapid clip. When the brush cut turned red and my knees started getting weak, I thought to myself that bringing an ambulance along had been a very good idea.