Ions Of Luck

by Markus Fredericks

  After rinsing out his blood-soaked mop in a bucket of water Aldo asked, “So, Jessica, do you know what your long term plan is? I’m sure you realize that eventually your husband is likely to be free again. Now that you have evidence of his infidelity with Babs, you probably could take most of his money by divorcing him.”

  “Maybe, but my husband’s list of friends includes several, sharp lawyers. They could probably find a way of manipulating the truth so that it looks like I was involved with the kidnapping scheme, and they could find a way to get me locked up in jail. In that case, my husband would really get the last laugh. Besides, the big money really isn’t that important to me. I was my happiest growing up as a middle-class girl in Lynnwood, Washington. Way back when, I was in love with my universe’s Danny, but he changed for the worse in so many different ways. While you were busy getting medical supplies for the transfusion, Danny was conscious for a while. I felt a strong connection to him right away. He seems identical to the Danny I married – before he was completely ruined by the spoils of easy money. So, to answer your question, yes – I have a plan, but I don’t know how realistic it is. What if – I’m sorry, but this may sound silly – what if we found a way to keep my husband detained somehow, away from the public eye, and what if the new Danny were to continue living as my husband, the successful writer?”

  “Oh, mama mia – that sounds absolutely insane,” said Aldo as he hesitated momentarily to mull over the absurd-sounding proposition…

  “Jessica, you need to consider all the ramifications. First, assuming we can detain your original husband in some realistic manner, you would constantly need to inform the new Danny about names of people who your husband used to hang out with, but would be total strangers to the Danny from another world. That would include his publishers, attorneys, business associates, and anybody else he has dealt with for the past twelve years. The most difficult litmus test for him would be to convince his newer, personal friends that he isn’t an impostor. That would be the most difficult part, but at least there is a simple aspect to the switcheroo as well.”

  “What’s your so-called, simple part?” asked a curious Jessica.

  “The easy part for our new Danny is to willfully play the role of being your loving husband, since he’s already been deeply in love with you since sixth grade.”

  Jessica closed her eyes momentarily and smiled. She couldn’t stop herself from blushing. Jessica just sat on her knees speechless, as she quietly leaned forward to wipe up the last speckle of dried blood off the floor.

  “Even though all the blood has been cleaned up don’t overlook one remaining detail,” said Aldo as he pointed at a small, round, bullet-hole in the wall at about knee level.

  “Let’s just cover that hole up by scooting over the dresser a bit to the left,” replied Jessica. “We can repair it later on. You know, even though the blood has been cleaned up, I still can smell a lingering odor of blood in the air. Let me spray a bunch of air freshener to mask over the smell.”

  Suddenly, they heard a phone ringing from inside the master bathroom. It was her husband’s cell phone. It was sitting right next to his missing wallet on a small, marble table not far from the lavatory.

  “The caller ID says it’s an incoming call from Amy’s Limousine Service,” said Jessica with a worried look on her face.

  “You need to answer it.”

  She picked up the cell phone and pushed a button on the screen, “Hello, this is Jessica Donaldson. How may I help you?”

  “We’re just following up on a limousine we sent to your house this morning at 8:00 AM. I need to know if the driver picked up your husband and took him to the airport.”

  “Yes – your driver showed up right on time, but my husband chose to cancel his trip. Does he still owe you a balance?”

  “No ma’am – he already prepaid for it by credit card. I’m just concerned since the driver hasn’t made it back to our headquarters, and he isn’t answering his phone.”

  “Well, he left several hours ago. It sounds like your driver may have a dead cell phone battery.”

  “You’re probably right about that. I’m sure he’ll show up sooner or later. I hope I didn’t cause you any inconvenience, Mrs. Donaldson.”

  “No – no problem at all.”

  “Well, you have a pleasant afternoon, and thank you for choosing Amy’s Limousine Service.”

  After ending the call she asked Aldo, “Did I handle that OK?”

  “Jessica, that was perfect, but I’m sure that will only buy us an extra day or two,” said Aldo as he scratched the top of his head while searching for a solution regarding the limo. “You know, that it’s going to be very difficult to dispose of a long, stretch limo. You live at the end of a long, dead end private road. The limo is even more conspicuous-looking now that one side is badly scuffed up. I don’t ever recall a limo being seen in less than immaculate condition. Even if we sneak it past your neighbor’s watchful eyes, where can we park it? Besides, the worst part of our dilemma with the limo might be the built in GPS system which would make it easy to find.”

  “Your logical thinking is making me extra worried,” said Jessica as fleeting thoughts of incarceration flashed through her mind.

  “Say, Jessica, you mentioned that a contractor had begun to excavate the ground for a swimming pool. Can you please show me the construction site?”

  She wasn’t quite sure what Aldo had in mind, but she led him downstairs and took him outside. They walked around to the back side of the six-car garage. She showed him the deep pit in the ground, and pointed to the building permit posted on a nearby wall. Aldo also saw a tall mound of dirt running next to the entire length of the swimming pool.

  “That’s it!” said an excited Aldo. “I can tell that pit is just about the perfect size to stuff the limo into. We can completely bury the limousine along with the dead driver. Eventually, we can replant a lawn over it, but for now, if we can just get the limo covered up by a foot or so of dirt I’m pretty sure the GPS system won’t work anymore. You don’t really need a swimming pool that badly, do you?”

  “Well, if I have to pick between having a swimming pool and going to jail, I think I’ll choose to live without the pool,” said Jessica sarcastically. “What a crazy idea you came up with, but I can’t think of anything better. Well, that would take care of the limo and the dead driver, but what about my husband who’s tied up in the back? You even said that we can’t possibly kill him, or else the nice Danny will die too.”

  Aldo racked his brain for some fresh ideas. He concluded that they might be able to relocate her husband to an isolated, distant place after the nice Danny recovers, but for now, they had no choice but to hide him somewhere in the house.

  “Jessica, there’s no way we can keep your husband in the garage for too much longer. Do you have a secure, relatively sound-proof room in your house which we could keep him locked away in?”

  “Aldo, deep in the basement we have a wine cellar. It has concrete walls with only one sturdy, solid wood door, and no windows. The cleaning maids never go down to the basement.”

  “I’m sure that’s the best we can do for now. I wish Danny was able to help us, but we’re going to have to manage by ourselves. First, we need to carry your husband down to the wine cellar, and then we’ll do our hocus pocus thing with the limo.”

  The underwear clad husband was still unconscious as Aldo pulled his limp body out of the limo. He hoisted him up on top of his shoulder, and asked Jessica to open doors and show him the way down to the wine cellar. Aldo accidentally banged his head against the wall as he carried him…

  “Sorry about that,” said Aldo without any real remorse.

  Jessica opened the door to the wine cellar which had row after row of wine racks filled with expensive bottles of wine. Aldo was tiring from carrying him over a long distance. He flung him down to the ground as he was out of breath.

  “It seems rather cold in here,” said Aldo. “Could you please wrap a bl
anket around him so he doesn’t die of hypothermia?”

  “I’ll be right back. After all his deceitfulness I don’t know why I would ever be nice to him at all, but as a friendly gesture, I’ll bring him a pillow as well.”

  After wrapping up the near-naked Danny in a thick blanket, they shut the outward swinging door and held the door shut by wedging a wooden chair underneath the door knob.

  “We need to check in on him every so often, but he should be safe here while we hide that big stretch limo.”

  Aldo and Jessica returned to the swimming pool pit to make a plan.

  “If we move a couple of these potted plants, I can drive the limo right up to the edge of the pit,” explained Aldo. “I can climb out, and put it in gear. It should roll by itself and crash into the pit. After that, we’ll have a strenuous hour or so of shoveling dirt from the mound to bury the limo. I’m sure we’ll have some left over dirt, but that can later be dumped over the bank down to the beach.”

  After Jessica pushed a button to open the main garage door, Aldo’s main concern was finding the limo’s key. He silently thought, “I hope the key isn’t inside the Samoan guy’s pants pocket, since corpses give me the willies,” but he was relieved to find the key still sitting in the ignition.

  Aldo started up the engine, and inched the huge limo out into the driveway. He made a hairpin turn and drove the vehicle over a section of grass before stopping right in front of the edge of the swimming pool pit. Jessica watched intently from the side as Aldo opened the door and hopped out. He reached over, and put the gear lever back into ‘drive’. The limo drove itself forward, and the front end nosedived into the pool, while making a big thud. However, the lengthy limo didn’t end up all the way in the pit the way Aldo had envisioned – instead the rear end of the long car poked up into the air with its rear wheels spinning in midair while only the front end was down at the bottom. The limo was stuck at an odd, steep angle.

  “Oh no,” said Jessica. “What can we do now?”

  “Come and help me try to push this beast forward,” replied Aldo, but the limo was way too big and heavy for them. They were unable to budge it even an inch.

  “I’m going to have to shove it in the pit with my Toyota. I have no other choice.”

  A minute later, Aldo drove his Toyota around to the swimming pool site, and carefully positioned it so as to barely touch the back end of the underside of the limo.

  “Jessica, stand back,” said Aldo as he put his Toyota into first gear and started to push. Clouds of dust formed as the Toyota’s wheels were spinning in the dirt, but the huge limo remained stuck. Next, Aldo backed up his Toyota about ten feet, and took a running start at the limo. With a loud crash, the Toyota rammed the limo just hard enough to push it forward, and it fell perfectly into the bottom of the swimming pool. However, the front portion of the Toyota’s hood was badly crushed and damaged. Aldo put his car into reverse, and backed up a few feet.

  At the moment the limo crashed into the pit, its horn got stuck ‘on’ and the loud sound of a blaring horn just continued mercilessly. Aldo had to climb into the pit, but he couldn’t pry open the hood.

  “Jessica, get me a crowbar or something I can use to pry open this hood with.”

  The limo horn continued to blare out loud as Jessica ran to the garage to find a tool. A minute later, she returned with a large, claw hammer. Aldo destroyed the limo hood when he frantically pried it open. Fortunately, he was able to disable the horn shortly thereafter.

  “Gee, thank God you were able to shut off that terrible horn,” said Jessica. “I hope that didn’t disturb the neighbors. That thing was loud enough to wake up the dead – no pun intended.”

  “That’s an odd choice of words,” replied Aldo, “but our work has only just begun. Next, we need a couple of shovels so we can bury this beast.”

  When the first scoop of dirt was thrown on top of the limo’s roof, Jessica burst into tears.

  “This feels like a funeral to me,” muttered a crying Jessica. “It’s like the limo driver is being laid to rest in his stretch limo casket. I guess he’ll be buried here forever in an unmarked grave.”

  “Jessica, you need to gather yourself together. I too feel terribly bad for the Samoan and his family, but I need you to shovel with me as fast as you can. We better hope this site will be the Samoan driver’s permanent resting place, or all three of us – including Danny – will be doing some hard time in the state penitentiary.”

  Hardly a word was spoken as Aldo and Jessica shoveled tons of dirt, non-stop, until the entire limo was covered by at least a foot thick layer of soil. Both of them were breathing heavily as beads of sweat dripped off their faces.

  “That’s probably good enough for now,” said an out-of-breath Aldo. “I doubt any GPS signal would be able to penetrate all that dirt. We can do more later on. Besides, I’m exhausted, and my back is hurting.”

  “Same here,” said Jessica, “but first you need to pull your Toyota back into the driveway. We need to smooth out any tire tracks and replace the potted plants how they were. After that, we can relax.”

  Shortly thereafter, Jessica and Aldo left the swimming pool site to head back inside to check up on both guys named ‘Danny’. Meanwhile, there was a slight groan coming from deep within the limo’s trunk. Unbeknownst to the others, the Samoan driver was still alive. Somehow, Aldo mistakenly believed that the driver was dead since he wasn’t breathing at the time Aldo held his hand in front of his mouth.

  The big Samoan woke up dazed and confused, but he perked up when he noticed that his hands and feet were tied with duct-tape. He had no idea where he was at first since it was pitch black, but he quickly figured out he was locked in the limo’s trunk when he felt the spare tire in the darkness. However, he had no idea the entire limo was buried, and he had at most 24 hours of oxygen left. In a panic, he began to call out over and over, “Help! – Let me out of here! – Help.” However, none of his cries could be heard.

  9

  Jessica and Aldo first checked in on ‘nice Danny’, and found him comfortably resting on her. She carried his blood-stained clothing downstairs to the laundry room and threw them into the washing machine.

  The laundry wasn’t far from the wine cellar door, and the rhythmic noise of the washing machine woke up her husband. He felt very angry when he noticed his hands and feet were strapped by duct-tape. He didn’t recall being taken to the wine cellar, but he knew they were attempting to keep him imprisoned in there. When he heard footsteps outside the door, he cleverly decided to lie down and pretend to be out cold. He hoped to learn valuable information by eavesdropping on their conversation if they thought he was unconscious…

  “My two-timing pig still seems to be out cold,” said Jessica with contempt. “I suppose we ought to set him up with a five-gallon plastic bucket as a makeshift toilet, and maybe even a roll of toilet paper so he doesn’t make a mess.”

  “Until we figure out what to do with him long term, we need to provide him food and water as well. It’s still very important to keep him alive,” said Aldo.

  “I guess we can get him a corkscrew. Lately, I’ve been able to tolerate his company only on those occasions when he’s had ample amounts of wine to drink.”

  “Well, I’m getting pretty hungry and thirsty myself,” said Aldo when he heard his tummy growling. “Is there something you could whip up for us in the kitchen?”

  “For sure – and we’ll bring this jerk some food and water as well. Aldo, could I ask you to please stay over here tonight? We have a downstairs bedroom which we never use. You could make sure my husband doesn’t cause any trouble tonight until we wait for the banks to open tomorrow.”

  “I’d be happy to help you in any possible way. After all, you’re saving my house from foreclosure and enabling me to keep my laboratory open, so I’m eternally grateful.”

  “Let’s wedge the chair under the door knob when we leave, but first I want to grab a nice bottle of wine.”

  A
s Jessica and Aldo were leaving the wine cellar, ‘husband Danny’ opened his eyes slightly so he could see who the unknown man was. He instantly recognized him as the limo driver who was scheduled to take him to the airport. Mr. Donaldson didn’t fully understand the situation, but he was quite sure that the man named ‘Aldo’ was only masquerading as a limo driver. He also knew they would be leaving the premises to go to a bank tomorrow, so he decided to make no efforts to escape until the coast was clear.

  “Oh, I swear bloody revenge on Jessica and whoever this Aldo character is,” thought ‘husband Danny’ to himself.

  While Jessica quickly made a large sandwich platter to serve both Danny(s), Aldo, and herself, the Samoan limo driver worked feverishly to free himself from his restraints within the pitch blackness of the limo trunk. He found a tire iron tucked beneath the spare tire, and he managed to break off the trunk’s latch. Although the main roof of the limo was only covered by a little over a foot of soil, the trunk’s lid sat a couple of feet lower and was covered by over three feet of soil. The Samoan was a big, strong guy, but he just wasn’t able to lift up that much weight even though he pushed upwards with all his might. When he noticed granules of dirt leaking into trunk from around the edges, he knew he must be buried underground. Exhausted and hyperventilating, he realized he might run out of oxygen if nobody came to rescue him soon, so he paused to see if he could figure out a different escape plan…

  Jessica showed Aldo the downstairs guest bedroom.

  “I’m exhausted, and we have a big day tomorrow,” said Aldo. “I’ll keep my door wide open so I can easily hear any commotion which might come from the wine cellar. Let me keep the gun with me tonight just as a precaution.”

  “Be my guest, Aldo. Tomorrow morning, you can return it to my desk for safe keeping while we go to the bank. I need to keep a watchful eye on the wounded Danny tonight. I still feel terribly sorry for shooting him, but it was lucky for him that my aim was off, or else he would have ended up becoming a transgender.”