by R.M. Haig
September 14th, 2016. 12:00PM
Waycroft, Indiana
The drive to Waycroft, where Safe & Secure Self Storage held unit 33-L reserved for one Russell Parker, took closer to forty-five minutes than it did the half-hour that Jake was expecting. There was heavier than usual traffic, which didn't make much sense for the late morning of a Wednesday, but it existed nonetheless. The unit wasn't going anywhere, at least there was that much to be thankful for. It would be there when he eventually arrived.
Spotting the large spinning sign that read Storage in a less than savory looking part of town, he turned the Malibu into the small driveway that was surrounded by broken pieces of concrete curb just beside it. Apparently, the entrance and exit combination wasn't quite wide enough to accept the thousands of U-Hauls and tractor trailers that made regular visits to this seedy operation. As he drove the perimeter of the buildings, he wondered what dark secrets lie within the enclosed boxes behind rusted roll-up doors secured with heavy chains and padlocks.
Perhaps the contents consisted only of the well used and likely worthless household goods of lower middle-class families that were down on their luck. Or instead, perhaps each of the hundreds of bays were filled to the brim with illegal weapons or illicit street drugs freshly produced or smuggled into town in bulk. If luck was with him, perhaps number 33-L was filled up with a vehicle or vehicles that were paramount in his case to free Chucky from his bondage. Perhaps the ten-by-twenty unit contained a Dodge Ram Van and a Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham that Rusty Parker was paying eighty-four dollars a month to keep concealed from the eyes of the law.
He drove along the road which the map showed as a massive square around the entire property until he reached a sign that read J-M and turned right into the narrow alley between a long strips of units. As he passed the J's and the K's, Jake realized that he was moving particularly deep into this shady oasis of vice. Surrounded by brick buildings on either side along the narrow concrete path he drove, he started to feel a bit claustrophobic in understanding that there was no turning around to be done. His only escape from this compound was to drive straight through to the other side, and anyone or anything that might approach him from that direction would effectively seal him in. Hoping that such a someone or something would never come, he pressed on until he reached the L block.
Thinking about other details of the case, he almost drove right by unit thirty-three when it came along. Coming to a stop right in front of it, he scanned the door that would keep him out and spotted a much fresher, cleaner looking chain on it than those that were on many of the other units. Where most of the locks and trammels around him were weather-worn and rusted, the Masterlock and heavy steel links that sealed the latch of the unit that brought him to this place seemed to be brand new. That roused his suspicions, of course, and it led him to put the Malibu in park and step out of the car.
Looking around once outside of the relative safety of his passenger compartment, he scanned for anyone approaching him from either side. There were none, of course, nor was there any sign of a camera system in operation throughout the storage park. Feeling pleased at that given what he intended to do and insecure about it because of what it might mean if he were attacked all at once, he took the few steps towards the garage door that were necessary, given the narrow nature of the roadway he had been traveling.
Taking the shining heavy chain of unit 33-L in his hands, he realized that it was, indeed, practically new. What was more, it was particularly thick and serious. Whomever purchased it and set it in place didn't intend for it to be easily cut. The padlock that linked it in a loop around the latch that kept the door down was equally heavy-duty. Rusty or an accomplice who took care of this unit was very concerned about its security. Tugging at it and yanking it around futilely, Jake realized there was no way in hell he was going to get the unit unlocked without the aid of a pretty serious pair of bolt cutters or an acetylene torch.
Feeling like an ass for not thinking ahead and bringing some form of tool, he dropped the bundle of steel from his hands with malice. Examining the door for any area of weakness he might exploit by peeking or kicking in, he found no area of the barrier that he could exploit in any way. Pissed, he punched the door and found that doing so only served to hurt his hand again, which was still sore from smashing the man's face at the race track. The aluminum door didn't mind his hammer-fist in the least, and that only made him more angry. The building itself was clearly divided in two, so there was another unit that backed up to Rusty's from the other side. He could most likely gather nothing about 33-L by checking out the backside, but he was going to give it a shot anyway. Perhaps he could break into that unit more easily, then find a hole in the wall between the two spaces and get some idea what was kept inside Rusty's unit.
With that in mind, he looked up at the roof of the building and noted a bent ventilation pipe rising up towards the sky before faltering and leaning sharply to his left. That would be visible from the other side, and it would help him find the exact locker that adjoined this one. Committing the image to memory, he climbed back into the Malibu and drove forward, the only direction he could drive, until he finally came to the road that ran around the perimeter of the place. He hung a left and set out looking for the next drive, which wasn't far away at all.
Taking another left at the narrow stretch of pavement, Jake cruised by the Q units at a relatively slow rate of speed. This was in part due to the deteriorating condition of the concrete that made up what was practically an alley between even and odd units, and in part to his searching for the leaning ventilation pipe. He slowed further when he got to P, knowing that these units should back up to the L units on the other side. Looking up to the roof, he found his pipe swaying in the breeze just above unit thirty two. To his delight, there was no lock or chain at all on this particular unit. Apparently, Safe & Secure Self Storage had a vacancy to fill, and it was just the one he needed to be empty.
Capitalizing on this break, Jake jumped out of the car and threw the garage door open loudly and roughly. Empty space greeted him, of course, in the shape of a twenty foot long and ten foot wide area with corrugated steel or aluminum sides. The concrete pad wasn't entirely intact and there was a puddle inside from the last rain, perhaps part of the reason that this particular unit was empty, but that didn't stop Jake from marching over all of the collapsed potholes on his way back to the dark recesses of the space. Firing up the flashlight on his phone again, he was eventually greeted by a brick wall at the rear of the place that seemed quite solid and intact.
"Shit!" He cursed the facility, surprised that such a low-rent joint actually spent the money to separate the front units from the rear with brick instead of more corrugated metal or a similar inexpensive and fragile material.
Checking every inch of the wall, every crevice that he could see in the mortar, he realized that the place was essentially hermetically sealed off from unit 33-L on the other side. Unfortunately, he hadn't thought to bring a sledgehammer any more than he had a set of bolt cutters, so he wouldn't be getting a look at the contents of Rusty's storage unit on this particular afternoon.
Already making plans to return with one or both implements in the near future, Jake walked clear of the space and pulled down the door with even more spite than he had opened it with. Collapsing back into his car, he shifted to drive and sped a bit faster than he had gone earlier towards the perimeter road that would take him away from this place. Over two hours he'd wasted on coming out to this infernal place, and that was enough to have him fuming.
Thinking only of his frustration, he reached the perimeter road and prepared to turn left toward the exit. Looking both ways with caution, he saw a familiar vehicle positioned just beyond the bisecting road that lead to the J-M units. It was a large car, definitely of some older vintage, was dark blue in color and had blacked out windows all around. This was the vehicle that had been watching him from down Oakwood when he was holed up in Chucky
's trailer for the night not so long ago. This was a vehicle he'd felt was following him today, and the driver likely expected that he was still down that J-M aisle. He was presumably waiting for him to come back down from that direction, at which point he could assume a more clandestine position and continue his surveillance. This was the vehicle that had been following him since the very moment he got back to Burlwood in the first place, and he'd finally busted him! The fool probably never imagined he would check out the unit behind 33-L, and he was paying for his ignorance with his revelation.
When the driver spotted his Malibu, he immediately roared off in reverse with his tires screaming and his engine whining at the top of its exhaust all the way. It was too late, though, Jake had seen him and would be turning the tables from this moment on. Stomping the gas pedal himself and cutting the left with a bit of a fishtail, he was in hot pursuit as the former chase vehicle weaved side to side in trying to control its direction as it sped in reverse.
Studying the lines of the hood, looking for any ornamentation, Jake wondered if this was a Brougham that had been staking him out. The color was certainly the same as the vehicle Evander Hughes had traded away for a fix, and who would be more interested in any progress being made on the case than The Butcher Of Burlwood himself? He wondered if the driver, hidden from sight by the blackness of the window tint, was The Butcher himself. Perhaps the former partner of Rusty Parker, or perhaps a stand-alone act never suspected by the police in the investigations of the past. Perhaps this was the man who killed Billy Marsh, live and in the flesh, and trying to stick close to the tail of the man who sought to bring him down.
There was no indication of the vehicles make or model on the front, nor was he able to spot any on the passenger side when the car made a very professional ninety-degree turn in reverse, spinning to face the open road when they approached the exit of the facility. The mysterious driver stomped the gas again after shifting very efficiently into drive, and he tore out onto Route 14 in an easterly direction. Jake looked for traffic before following, something this guy had clearly not bothered to do, and was still reasonably close to his target when he made the turn to follow him.
Whatever the vehicle was, it was fast and powerful. Initially, it pulled away from the Malibu as Jake put all four cylinders of his engine to work with his foot to the floor. If it was the Brougham, it was an Oldsmobile V8 with a hundred-and-forty horses that made it go, that much he'd learned through research. Unfortunately for whomever was at the wheel, though, the Malibu could put that to shame on the top-end, so he kept his pedal to the firewall.
He caught up in short order and was on the back end of the vehicle, seeing for the first time that it was actually a Buick that he trailing. Pulling very, very tight to its rear, he saw that this was an old LeSabre, not a Cadillac Brougham at all. Upon catching up to it, he had to let off the gas the slightest bit to keep from striking it. It swayed from lane to lane recklessly, perhaps hoping he would drop out of the chase the way police do sometimes when continuing poses too great a danger to the public at large. That would not be the case in this pursuit, however, as there was virtually no traffic and Jake didn't really give a fuck about anything beyond finding out who this asshole was.
When the Buick would assume the left lane, Jake would cross to the right in an attempt to overtake it. Apparently not interested in letting that happen, the driver would swerve to the right to block his path. Of course, Jake would immediately try to pull up on the left side, and the driver would swerve back to stop the much newer, tighter vehicle from getting up alongside of it.
Tired of this game, Jake pulled further left and crossed the double yellow lines into the territory that any oncoming traffic would travel in. To his surprise, the LeSabre did the same with no regard as they approached a blind curve around which a whole field of cars may've been coming right at them. Hoping not to find out the hard way, Jake veered back to the right and into lanes they were clear to travel in without the risk of a head-on collision. The back and forth continued for several miles, both vehicles traveling at better than eighty down a road on which the limit was posted as thirty-five. The LeSabre was spitting clouds of black exhaust, the old engine not accustomed to being pushed as hard as it was as they barely held to the road in turns and did their dance of switching lanes when the path was straight and clear.
Jake put just about everything his car had in an attempt to fluidly shift to the right lane and pass one last time only to have the Buick somehow find more power and hop in front of him again, leading him to change tactics and try something a little different. Mashing the pedal again, he let the engine open up and closed on the blue vehicle until his front end struck it fairly hard on its rear. When he let off the gas to see how the car would respond, he watched as it seemed the driver had to struggle to straighten the vehicle back out. That particular collision had tried to spin it clockwise, recovering from which seemed to be a bit of feat for the villain at the wheel as it nearly continued its rotation until it met a guardrail along the right side.
Satisfied that the driver had now lost his nerve with the move and would allow a passing on the left, Jake jumped over to the inside lane and tried to pull alongside it again. To his surprise, the vehicle mirrored his movement and came over to the left to block him again. Undeterred, Jake put a little more on the gas and rammed the rear end of the LeSabre hard enough for the collision to be considered a traffic accident in most circles. This tried to turn the Buick counterclockwise and into traffic, which was now coming, but the driver somehow managed an incredible recovery and straightened out yet again. Whoever this guy was, he knew how to drive.
Not giving him a chance to play the blocking game again, Jake immediately moved over to the right as the car was still swaying in recovery and held the gas until he was right next to the phantom that he had felt trailing him for so many days. Staring into the window tint, Jake tried to make out any silhouette inside the vehicle that he could recognize. It was of little use, because the black of the tint was so deep that nothing inside the car was visible at all.
This configuration was apparently unacceptable to the driver of the Buick, as it suddenly swerved to the right and side-swiped the Malibu at high speed. This action cost Jake his driver's side mirror and almost caused him to lose control altogether, as the greater weight of the older vehicle shoving him towards the guardrail very nearly caused him to eat it. He didn't, though, and was now so pissed at the driver's insolence that he wound up and swerved left, smashing into the Buick with a metallic crunch. This smash-up damaged both vehicles, and it meant that Jake would surely have to face the five-hundred dollar deductible of his car insurance if he didn't make it to double indemnity in adequate time. The LeSabre's control was remarkably unaffected by the impact, even though its passenger side mirror was torn clean off and sent bouncing down the roadway. The heavy American steel barely registered the collision, with the driver making only a slight adjustment to compensate.
Looking forward for the first time in several seconds, Jake saw that the two of them were speeding towards a red light at the intersection of Route 14 and Hacker road. There was sparse traffic passing through perpendicular to them, and to disobey the light would be a hell of gamble that seemed a little rich for Jake's blood at the moment. Looking back to the blue LeSabre, he wondered if the driver had the balls to make a go at it. As they approached the light, still speeding along, the Buick pulled hard to the left as though it were preparing for what would be an apocalyptic collision for the Malibu. The first hip-check had been less than half as intense as this one would be, and it had almost put Jake directly into the rail. If the driver was allowed to smash into him from the distance he was at while traveling at the speed they were traveling, the results would've been -- well, not pretty.
For a moment, he was ready for it. Perhaps this was how double indemnity was to play out; perhaps he was to meet his death in a car chase with someone who sought to do
him ill. Maybe he was meant to be sandwiched to the steel of the rail blowing by him on the right, or perhaps he was pre-destined to be T-boned by a vehicle cruising down Hacker road as they blew the light and sped through the intersection. Perhaps he was meant to go in a blaze of glory as his car exploded on impact under the weight of what amounted to a tank as compared to his Malibu.
Ready to see it through, determined to take it to the end, he took a deep breath and gripped tight to the wheel. At the moment he was committed to it, the moment he decided he would lay it all on the pass line, he caught a glimpse of the passengers in one of the cars traveling Hacker. Completely unaware of this potentially deadly game of chicken unfolding just a few hundred yards from them was a woman at the wheel, and a less than one year old child in a carseat riding along behind her.
That he couldn't do...
That he wouldn't do...
No, this was the end of the chase.
Letting out the breath he held in reserve, he moved his foot to the brake and pressed it hard. As he slowed, his anti-lock brakes kicking in, the Buick swerved violently to the right. Had he been there, cruising next to it, his vehicle would've been fully and completely entangled in the guardrail just before the intersection.
Somehow, as though it were guided by the gods, the LeSabre pulled away from the rail and sped through the intersection without colliding with any innocents. There was the honking of horns, and several people were required to brake in the same way that Jake had, but it did make it through. Once beyond the far side, it disappeared down the road and would not be found again on this day. The driver, whoever it was, had no desire to be identified on this afternoon, and that desire drove him to take an incredible risk. Based on that level of determination, this person was desperate to avoid being made.
Jake had a chance to figure out who it was, to figure out what they were after, but he'd let it go by the boards. He'd also had a chance to dirty his conscience, to soil his name further than it was soiled already by causing injury to someone who had nothing to do with any of this, and he'd forced that one to go by the boards.
That was a small victory... but it was a victory he could live with. His day would come, and he would figure out who was hiding behind those blacked out windows... he would just have to be patient.
FORTY-FIVE
