Reduced Ransom!

by Mike Faricy

  He stood there, breathing heavily in some kind of laundry room, just barely able to make out a furnace and water heater in a dark corner. He listened for any sound resembling life on the floor above, waited a minute or two then gathered up his drop cloth and made his way upstairs.

  Once upstairs, he quickly checked around for the most likely spot to grab her. He was thinking about that, weighing his options in the kitchen when the decision was made for him. Bunny suddenly stepped out of the garage, key in hand, and walked toward the back door. Had he paid attention, he would have noticed her stagger, but he was consumed with the idea of hiding. He quickly stepped into the small bathroom, just off the rear hall next to the back door.

  She snapped the lock open and he froze, afraid to even breathe, remaining as still as a statue. Sweat rolled down his back, soaked through his paint splattered t-shirt, and darkened the brim of his baseball cap.

  Bunny Kelley brushed her hair back and steadied herself in the entryway. She left her set of keys in the lock and slammed the door behind her. What she needed right now was a little afternoon drink, just to help her nap.

  Mickey remained in the tiny bathroom. His drop cloth was somewhere in the hallway and he feared she might see it when he heard her stumble and fall.

  “What the hell,” she mumbled on her way down, her voice slurred. She let out a grunt as she hit the floor and remained there.

  The moment wasn’t lost on Mickey and he leapt out of the bathroom and quickly rolled her up in the drop cloth.

  Bunny made some sort of gagging sound and attempted to kick her legs a bit, but that was the extent of her resistance.

  Mickey rolled her over in the drop cloth a few times. She was tightly secured and other than some silly sound and a few halfhearted kicks, she offered no resistance. He tossed her over his shoulder, just like he had planned and carried her out the back door to his car parked in the alley. She made a grunt when he dumped her on the floor of his back seat, but other than that she was quiet for the entire drive out to Dell’s.

  He drove right into the tuck under garage, grabbed the drop cloth and Bunny’s ankles, threw her over his shoulder and bounced her, more gently than not, onto the bed.

  Chapter 67

  Dell had applied a blue theme to the room. The floor was a garish, unforgettable, navy blue peel and stick tile he had found on sale. The walls, done in what could only be described as a Blessed Virgin blue, reminded Mickey of grade school classrooms while spending his formative years standing in the hall.

  He kept an eye pressed to the peephole and watched as Bunny’s feet and ankles slowly began to move. She gradually unwrapped, unrolled and finally pulled herself from inside the large canvas drop cloth.

  She must have fallen asleep wrapped up in that thing, he thought. She pulled the last of the drop cloth over her head, looked around bleary eyed, and then threw up on herself. She made no attempt to move, run to the bathroom, pull her hair out of the way, or clean herself off. She sat on the bed casting a bleary eye slowly around the room before throwing up a second time.

  If Dell was unhappy to arrive home and learn he was in violation of a number of federal and state laws again, he was even less thrilled wearing the Lassie mask he donned when delivering dinner and a clean robe to Bunny.

  “What’s with the dog thing, Mick? You couldn’t you find something else? I don’t want to wear it.”

  “Well, if you’re that unhappy, we could return to the paper bag. But oh, wait, you didn’t like that either, now did you?”

  Dell’s reaction was nothing compared to the tantrum Bunny Kelley threw. Dell walked into the room, wearing the Lassie mask, carrying a clean robe and some hot pizza. The small room was stuffy, pungent and Dell actually recoiled, pausing by the doorway for a moment to fill his lungs and hold his breath. The blue walls and floors did nothing to help.

  Bunny suddenly bolted upright on the bed. “Where the hell am I?” she asked, wiping the back of her hand across her lips, oblivious to his Lassie mask. “Aren’t we supposed to have the intervention first? That’s the way he’s always done it before. Jesus, and he says I’ve got the problem.”

  She half laughed and said, “You ought to see him lap up his drinks on any given day. But I know damn well you’re not going do anything about him, now, are you? No,” she hissed, bounding off the bed, bloodshot eyes boring in on Dell.

  “You won’t touch him. He’s got all of you locked up in his pocket anyway. Doesn’t he? Well, doesn’t he?”

  She moved toward Dell, a large, smelly cat stalking her prey. Her killer instinct detected Dell’s fear as he began to back up in the direction of the door. He was afraid if he took his eyes off her she might attack, rip his throat out or go for the crotch.

  “You’re afraid of him, aren’t you?” she hissed, and poked a finger at Dell.

  Dell tossed the robe in her direction, dropped the pizza box on the floor along with the note Mickey had written and hurriedly fled the room.

  “Hey, wait a minute. I know you, dog boy. You’re Lassie, aren’t you? When are you going to confront me? Tell me a couple of drinks are too much for me to handle. Call me a drunk, again. You tell Jack Kelley he can screw himself, you hear me?” Dell jumped outside the room slamming the door behind him. “He can screw himself,” Bunny screamed at the door as she kicked it. “Screw himself.”

  “Mick, we got an absolute wacko on our hands,” Dell said, and pulled off the mask. “You grabbed a certifiable lunatic. Did you see that? She was thinking of attacking me. Tell me again, who the hell is she?”

  “Screw yourself, Jack. I wish we never met,” she screamed, and kicked the door again.

  Mickey stood wide eyed, a stunned, shocked look on his face, suggesting he had completely lost whatever semblance of a plan he had. “I’ve been watching her for a week. I had no idea, man, now what?”

  “Mick, who would pay money to get that back in their life?”

  That was exactly Mickey’s fear.

  Chapter 68

  The kitchen table was littered with a half dozen beer cans and various pages from the newspaper’s sports section. It had been a very quiet thirty-five minutes of stewing and picking over half nibbled, luke-warm pizza before Mickey finally broke the silence.

  “Another beer?” he asked getting up and pulling a can from the almost empty twelve pack sitting on the counter. “Okay, we can’t just take her back. I mean, we can, but why? Let’s at least try. Send him the damn note, I’m gonna write it tonight, slip it under his front door, call him about four in the morning, catch him off guard. We’ll get this nailed down. Dell, I promise.”

  He tore a handful of cheese and sausage off a piece of pizza and stuffed it into his mouth. “Umm-mmm, this is why we set the amount at a hundred grand, it’s do-able for these jerks. He’ll pay,” Mickey nodded, sounding like he was trying to convince himself. “I know how this guy operates, he’ll pay up.”

  “Know how he operates? Mick, how he operates is he got you sent to jail for sixteen months and charged you for the privilege. If you know how he operates and you wanted to get back at the guy, you should have left that Bunny woman at his house. Why deny the guy the pleasure of putting up with that dreadful creature every day?”

  It was just a little after four in the morning when Mickey called Jack Kelley’s home from a payphone downtown. The phone was just outside a darkened filling station. The street was completely deserted at this hour. He wasn’t too worried about disguising the sound of his voice, although he planned to use a French sort of accent, just in case. He sat in his car, in the dark and dialed the number for the third time, then waited as his call rolled over to voice mail.

  Bunny’s voice, sweet, but business like, repeated for the third time, “We’re unavailable but please,” Blah, blah, blah. It was hard to equate this professional sounding, businesslike woman with the lunatic in the blue room at Dell’s.

  The house had been completely dark over an hour ago when Mickey tiptoed up to the front door a
nd dropped his note down the mail slot. The plan had been to just wake old Jack Kelley up with the call, tell him to get his ass downstairs and read the damn note, then wait for further instructions. But now what?

  “How’d it go?” Dell asked standing at the stove and scrambling eggs for breakfast as Mickey dragged himself up the stairs to the kitchen. The room had that morning smell of coffee, frying bacon and toast.

  “I never talked to the jerk on the phone,” he said, shaking his head as he stepped into the kitchen. “What are you doing up?”

  “Mick, come on, this is going from bad to worse. We got—”

  “Shhhh.” Mickey, had his finger to his lips. “Don’t let her hear you.”

  “Mick. We got a certifiable nut case down there and we can’t even get ahold of her old man to let him know we got her. Jesus, if I were him I’d be out celebrating. Did you ever consider we may have done this guy a favor? I thought you were supposed to be the guy who had this all figured out.”

  Mickey ignored him. “Maybe he’s got the phone off the hook or he wears hearing aids or something. Look, take it easy, I’ll try the house in a few hours again. If that doesn’t work, then I’ll call his office. Relax, I’ve got this all under control.”

  Mickey’s call to the Kelley house, three hours later got the same result, rolling right into Bunny’s up beat little message. “Damn it,” he said, hanging up as soon as he heard her cheery voice. His call to Jack Kelley’s office was even worse, the number was no longer in service. When he called directory assistance for a new listing, the closest they could come was the Kelley Plumbing and Heating Company.

  “What do you mean, where is he?” Bunny screamed at the door after kicking it and crumpling the note Mickey had just slipped into the room. “You idiot, he lives in Florida. Didn’t he tell you that when he had you pick me up and bring me to this godforsaken dump? This is the worst treatment facility I’ve ever been in. And, by the way, the food here stinks. You want me to recover, you can start by cooking something edible instead of the garbage you’ve . . .”

  Mickey trudged wearily back upstairs into the kitchen to write her another note. She didn’t stop screaming and he could still hear the noise. Fortunately, he was far enough away and unable to discern specific words. He was losing patience, not at all sure what to do next, except move her clothes, the slacks, sweater and her underwear from the washer to the dryer. He had to gain control of this whole situation before they had a real disaster on their hands.

  His new note was simple, ‘Trade you a nice big manhattan for a phone number to call your husband.’ He wrapped the note around a pen, tip toed back to her room, quickly opened the door, tossed in the note with the pen and closed the door, not unlike throwing a steak to a lion.

  “My God,” she moaned. “This is without a doubt the strangest rehab facility I’ve ever been in. Here’s his cell phone number, he’s at his condo down in Naples. That’s Naples, Florida. Go easy on the Vermouth, very little ice and no damn cherry. Here,” she said, shoving the note under the door. “Hey, the pen won’t fit. Did you hear me? I gave you his number, now you keep your half of the bargain. Hello? Hello, is anyone there?”

  Chapter 69

  Mickey didn’t want to take the time to drive across town to a payphone, but he knew this was exactly the way guys screwed up. Not following the plan just because a little heat was on. Not only did he drive across town, he drove at the posted speed limit, determined not to attract any attention.

  Jack Kelley answered on the third ring, “Hello.” A jovial inflection, not quite a shout, more of a, ‘this is your lucky day,’ kind of greeting, nothing like the lawyer Mickey remembered.

  “Hello?”

  “Kelley, we’ve got your wife, Bunny. She won’t be harmed, as long as you do as you’re told. We’ll return her once you’ve followed our instructions and complied.”

  “Return her?” snorted Jack Kelley. “Is this some kind of joke? How’d you get this number anyway? I think you’ve made a mistake here, and if this isn’t a wrong number, you’ve made an even bigger mistake. A very big mistake.”

  It was the way Kelley said it, the inflection in his voice. Mickey wondered why the guy couldn’t have pushed that hard in the courtroom where he was supposed to defend him instead of rolling over and playing lap dog to that hanging judge.

  “Oh, Jack, did I happen to mention she told us.”

  “Told you what?” snorted Kelley, sounding full of bluster, but Mickey sensed he was suddenly annoyed and still on the line.

  “You think you’ve had problems up till now? You know exactly what I mean. And if it gets out, you’ll never see the light of day, not in your lifetime.”

  “That drunken old bitty doesn’t know what she’s talking about, and I don’t know what you’re talking about. But you had better understand one thing, I don’t respond to anonymous phone calls or threats, so you had better just rethink whatever—”

  “Let me tell you what you had better do, Jack. You had better get your ass, back up here and pick up our instructions from your mail box. I expect you back in town by tomorrow evening.” Mickey said and hung up the phone. He stared at the receiver for a long time wondering what was next. Thinking again there was something not quite right about Kelley’s response. Then wondering what it was Bunny knew, that had gotten a rise out of him.

  Mickey clung desperately to the hope that he had Kelley. But, it was beginning to feel more and more like a wild hope, a desperate shot. He didn’t notice the sun was shining, didn’t hear the bird singing outside as he pulled Bunny’s clothes out of the dryer. His mood was grim. He was preoccupied, there was just something there that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  He delivered the clothes along with another manhattan, cautiously peeking through the door first. She lay curled up across the bed, in a semi-fetal position arms between her legs. She didn’t seem asleep, more just lethargic than anything else, laying there, staring at the wall.

  He quickly opened the door, set the drink just inside and hurriedly tossed her clean clothes in the general direction of her bed. He closed the door before she had the chance to roll over, let alone attack.

  She slowly looked up from the bed, glanced at the clothes on the floor then spotted the manhattan. She jumped off the bed, grabbed the glass, sniffed the contents for a half second before draining a good third, then carefully held the glass as she picked up her clothes.

  “Is this some kind of a joke?” she said, looking at the wrinkled slacks, still warm from the dryer. “Jesus, you’ve ruined these. And look at this,” she shouted and held up her shrunken sweater, now barely large enough for a small infant. “What sort of a nut house is this? You can’t even do the damned laundry right. Get me out of here!” she screamed and threw the clothes at the door. “You tell, Jack, he had better get me out of here, and fast, because I have had it.”

  Chapter 70

  Jack Kelley sat in a chair in the living room of his Naples condo. It had all been too good to be true. He’d known from the moment he told Bunny, that he would regret sharing his secret with her. Just had to show off, he thought, just had to try and impress her. He knew he would have to do a number of things, the first of which was to get back up to Minnesota, so he could find out who was behind this and deal with them. Then, he planned to deal with poor Bunny. Sorry, but it was long overdue. He reached for the phone.

  The following afternoon Jack Kelley reread the note, as he stood in the foyer of Bunny’s house. Was this for real? He traveled all the way from Florida for this? Maybe he was overreacting, this was so stupid, it had to be a joke or something Bunny cooked up herself. Then again, maybe whoever phoned him yesterday was so shrewd that they knew exactly what they were doing. Well, anyway, shrewd enough to think they knew, which to his way of thinking made them really stupid if they thought they could screw with him.

  “Everything’s clear, Mr. Kelley. There’s a broken basement window, I’ve got someone coming in to repair it shortly.” The m
an speaking nodded toward a large individual climbing the stairs to the second floor. “Carl will be stationed upstairs, I’ll be answering the door and the phone. I’d also like to have people in the front and back, just to play it safe. Mr. Kelley?”

  Kelley reread the note a final time. “What? I’m sorry, Pauly, I was just thinking. What was it?”

  There’s something about large men who still go by the name Pauly that makes you not want to ask too many questions about their line of work. This Pauly, in black slacks, golf shirt and sport coat with a 9mm Glock tucked into his waistband gave you that feeling.

  “I said I’d like to put some people in front and back, just to play it safe, in case someone comes around again.” Guys like Pauly always had people.

  “Mmm-mmm, no, no one outside. I don’t think this requires that sort of attention just now. Let’s see how things develop, and I’ll answer the phone.”

  With that Kelley climbed the staircase up to the den so he could think. He poured himself a bourbon before sitting behind his desk and looking at the note again.

  One hundred grand? Had they dropped a zero? No, the hundred grand had to be their way of telling him they knew far more than they were letting on. Yeah, a hundred grand, it wasn’t a coincidence, they were sending him a message, plain and simple. Somehow, she had talked, and they were going to hang him out to dry. He knew it wouldn’t stop with whatever sum they ultimately demanded.

  He sat there sipping and rereading, wondering what he should do, weighing the odds, knowing he had already made his decision. Made it months ago in fact, he just hadn’t acted on it until now. Once he reviewed the thought clearly, it wasn’t a leap to make the phone call. He just picked up the phone and calmly dialed.

  “You got a problem?” was how the phone was answered.