Curds and Whey Box Set

by G M Eppers

We waited for a few minutes, listening to the wind rush past our ears and the crunch of the guards’ boots in the spotty snow. The second guard said nothing and kept pointing the gun mostly at me with an occasional arc toward Gary to judge my reaction I suppose. I kept still.

  Finally, the first guard came out of the shack. He took out some keys and used one to open the wire gate in the fencing that surrounded the compound. It was chain link, about eight feet high, with curls of razor wire on top. Inside the gate was another shack with two more guards facing the opposite direction. One was just closing the door to the shack, having talked to the guards on the other side. He nodded to Gary. “Andy’s in the circular. He’s waiting for you.” That last sentence was said with a menacing smile, almost as if this guard had a personal vendetta against Gary and was enjoying his predicament.

  “Thank you,” said Gary politely and escorted me down the path toward the compound.

  Centrally located was a large, white, square, two-story building with a flat roof. Several smaller buildings, also white and nondescript, were arranged around it. There was a double door on the ground floor into the two story building, but I saw no doors or windows in the others. They seemed to be accessed by enclosed bridges stretching to the second story of each one. As we approached, Gary was looking up at the roof. “Damn,” he said. His eyes began to scan the sky all around us.

  “What?”

  “Their copter is gone.”

  “They have a helicopter?”

  He kept looking, and paused as he listened for evidence that it might be near. “A Hiller UH. The one Andy hired me to buy for him at a police auction last year. Hell,” he said. “Run!” He began running, not letting go of my arm and I had no choice but to try to keep up. My legs were shorter, plus my hands were behind my back. I stumbled a little, but managed not to fall. As we got closer to the main building, I could see that around each of the outer buildings was a wide trench which was filled with giant rolls of razor wire. Beyond that, I didn’t have time for sight-seeing. Holding my arm tightly, Gary pulled me up the path to the double doors, threw one open and pushed me inside, finally letting go of my arm, following me in quickly. Closing the door behind him, he leaned against the wall, panting.

  “What was that about?”

  “I’m pretty sure Andy sent the copter out looking for me. Probably a sharpshooter on board with orders to shoot on sight.”

  “Inside the compound? Gary, why didn’t the guards at the gate shoot you then?” It would be really bad if his paranoia chose now to go out of control, I thought.

  Getting his breathing under control, he stared at me. “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right, either. Getting shot from the Hiller, that would feel right.” He straightened, calmer now that we were inside, and took me by the arm again.

  The building was comfortably warm, making me notice how cold the metal was around my wrists. He stopped and unzipped his parka, then, thoughtfully, unzipped mine as well. Temperate air wrapped itself around me. “Thanks,” I said.

  “I know you don’t trust me,” he said in a low voice as he worked the zippers. “I haven’t given you any reason to, really. But trust me on this. It’s only getting harder from here.”

  I waited until his face was up, until he was looking at me. There was sadness in his eyes, and a weariness that really bothered me. How long had he been trying to get out of the Herd organization? “Bring it on, Gary. Let’s do this.”

  The building had opened into a small breezeway and another set of double doors was on the opposite wall. These pushed open and we entered a large open room that had to be what the guard had called the circular. The wall curved around the perimeter. Where the corners would be in a normal square room there were single wooden doors. Two more identical doors were at direct left and right of the center. In the middle of the room on a platform elevated several inches, was an elaborate chair plated in gold leaf and inlaid with precious gems. In front of the chair, on individual pedestals in a semi-circle, were five large tablets held in place at a viewing angle. In the chair sat Andrew Herd, who stood as we entered. He was about 5 foot 6 or 7, but stocky in build, reminding me mostly of the little people included in Lego kits. He was smartly dressed in a dark blue vested suit and black shoes that shined like mirrors. He wore a large ring on the index finger of each hand and a close-cropped beard that looked as rough as coarse sandpaper. The rings were polished gold, with a skull pattern made of tiny diamonds. “Gary, my man,” he said. “You had me worried. Now, where is my raccoon?”

  “This broad opened the carrier before I could stop her. The raccoon ran into the woods. She’s from one of those conservation groups.”

  Andy stepped off the platform and came toward us, casually walking around to look at me from all sides. After finishing a circuit, he stuck his face into Gary’s. “What are those on her wrists?” He asked, speaking very clearly as if he thought perhaps Gary had difficulty with the language.

  Gary laughed. “That’s the best part. Got her trussed up in her own cuffs!”

  “Hannibal!” Andy called out. “Hercules! Check her out!”

  Two men with rifles slung over their shoulders ripped me from Gary’s grip and pulled me away. I had time to hear Andy add angrily to Gary, “You know what kind of people have cuffs, Gary? I swear if they find a wire or weapons on her your family will have to ID your body by dental records, if I let your jaw survive in one piece. Got me?”

  Mercifully, what happened next happened very quickly. Hercules and Hannibal, both a foot taller than me, carried me bodily through a door on the left. Inside was a small, oblong table and nothing else. One of them pulled my open parka as far down as the cuffs would allow, then ripped open my black hoodie and gray fleece sweatshirt, both of which tore like tissue paper. I’ve tried ripping fleece since then and have never been able to do it, but this brute did. The bra, lucky for them, had a front clasp and he opened that as well, pulling everything back onto my arms. While he was doing that, the other guy was pulling down my pants until I was naked, with clothing pooled around my ankles and hanging behind my back. Naked, but still with all my clothes on. The first guy then grabbed my jaw, forcing me to open my mouth. I complied easily, knowing they weren’t going to find anything. There was no reason to resist. At some point, they had pulled on latex gloves, but I don’t remember seeing them do it. The guy at my mouth shoved a latex covered finger inside and so far down my throat that I started to gag. The second guy pushed me forward against the table, bending my top half down. I gasped as, once again, my ribs were assaulted by the edge. Someone a couple inches taller would have got it in the soft abdomen, but not me. While I was face down to the table, the second guy felt everything, flipping up clothing as needed, stuck a fat finger inside the edge of each shoe, then probed other orifices. They took no pleasure in this. It was a procedure obviously often repeated, now done by rote mostly without any thought.

  When they’d finished probing, they each restored the clothing they had removed. As the top guy refastened my bra, he noticed the scarlet line of my scar over my lower ribcage. “Scar?”

  “Broken ribs. Punctured lung. It’s nothing.”

  He couldn’t fix the hoodie or the sweatshirt, but he closed them up as best he could and zipped up the parka. In almost no time, I was presentable again and they deposited me in front of Andy. “She’s clean,” said the guy who had pulled down my pants. “Broken ribs, though. We didn’t break them. She came that way.”

  Andy noted the information with a raised eyebrow, then patted Gary on the cheek. “Good boy, Gary. Now, regale me about this gift you’ve granted me.”

  Gary shrugged. “It’s the best I could do under the circumstances. She’s pretty enough, you think?”

  Andy grudgingly agreed. “Pretty ain’t important.” He nodded almost imperceptibly toward one of the guards, who didn’t seem to move at all, but a moment later more armed guards began streaming into the room, slowly, silently, spreading out along the curved wall, the guns, for no
w, pointed at the ceiling. Rifles, though I was too far away to identify the make or model.

  Wanting to make sure Eyedeneaux knew the situation, I said, “So we’re surrounded. You need 20 armed guards to keep us in line, Mr. Herd?”

  He ignored me. I don’t think he noticed women much at all, at least not until he needed them specifically. He paced back and forth in front of us while the guards I could see watched him closely. Andy gestured with his hands quite a bit, and I couldn’t be sure which motion might be a signal. It made me tense.

  Andy stopped suddenly in front of Gary, who stood at attention. “Tell me, Gary, my friend. How’s your brother, doing? You two are usually joined at the hip.” Oh, how I wished the twins were here. Andy would have missed his lower lip. “How is little Rossy the Retard?” Okay, he would probably miss his upper lip, too.

  Gary swallowed his first response, then replied quietly, “I’ve asked you not to call him that.”

  “And I asked you. For a goddamned! RACCOON!” Andy shouted into Gary’s face in utter fury. A little spittle flew from the side of his mouth and landed on the floor in a little bubbly puddle.

  “What do you need a raccoon for, anyway?” Gary asked, unable to stop himself. “Don’t you have enough pets?” He tilted his head pointedly at the perimeter guards.

  The next thing I knew Gary was down, sitting on his right hip, his right hand braced against the floor. A round, vaguely skull-shaped bruise was erupting on his cheek, along his jawline. His eyes squeezed shut against the pain for a moment before he pushed himself back to his feet.

  Christ, Gary, I thought. What they hell are you doing?

  Chapter Four

  My biggest fear right then was that Andy would suspect Gary of betraying him. If Gary kept antagonizing him, I worried that Herd would signal the guards and they would haul Gary into that little room with the table, and they would find his wire. If that happened, neither of us would leave this room alive. Or most likely even in one piece. And there was no way the FBI agents would get here in time to prevent it. I knew they wouldn’t even lift off from Lake of the Woods until they heard something confirming the Herds had done something illegal. Even after we managed to get that, it would be several more minutes before the calvary, as it were, would arrive. A lot can happen in just a few minutes.

  Andy faced Gary once again, giving his injured jaw a gentle, friendly pat, making Gary wince. “I didn’t want to do that. Why you making me mad at you, Gary? Answer my question. Where is Ross?”

  “With friends,” Gary answered. “I didn’t know what you’d do when you found out we lost the raccoon. I was afraid you’d hurt him. You can hit me. You can kick me. I can take it. But I couldn’t take that.” He meant it. Gary really meant it.

  Andy was pacing again. As he passed me, his eyes moved up and down, but he had yet to address me. Seemed to me that the rule of not speaking until you were spoken to would apply here, so I just stood there, wriggling uncomfortably in the handcuffs. “How did you get across the lake? Wasn’t my chopper, obviously. No boat. Can’t drive over the ice yet. Too far to walk. See, this is one of the reasons I came out here, you know. I can control who comes and goes. Or, I thought I could.” He stopped walking, narrowing his eyes, facing Gary once more. He didn’t say anything else, just waited for Gary to supply an answer.

  “I hitched a ride. Got lucky. Some guy was out for a pleasure ride in a Cessna and we flagged him down. He took us across for ten bucks.” Gary stopped talking, waiting to see if Andy was going to buy this story or not.

  Andy looked at him suspiciously. “Yellow? Red stripe with a star on the end?” Gary and I both nodded. “Stan Vandicott. He’s been trying to sell that bucket of bolts for months. You’re lucky you made it across in one piece. So, he didn’t ask why you wanted to cross the lake, or why your companion here was in handcuffs?”

  “Nope,” said Gary, pursing his lips. “Just wanted the ten bucks.”

  “And how is this bimbo supposed to be as good as a raccoon exactly?”

  Gary inhaled so quickly I thought he was going to implode. He was bracing himself for another blow because the only answer to this that he had was, “I don’t know. Maybe if you told me what you wanted the raccoon for, I could work something out. That raccoon was hard to get, you know,” he said. “She bit Ross. I just want to know why she’s so darn important to you. Her name doesn’t even start with an R.”

  Okay, he had a right to be curious about that, but nothing Andy said about the raccoon was going to be helpful. The FBI didn’t give a damn about the raccoon. We needed to get the conversation onto other things. Of course, we couldn’t just say “hey, Andy, what have you been doing lately that might be illegal?” For one thing, Roxy would say such a question would be considered entrapment. And there was no way Andy would answer a direct question like that, even though he didn’t believe there was a recording device in the room.

  “But it starts with a C,” said Andy, as if that made everything clear as a bell. “You got the crackers, didn’t you?” If Eyedeneaux was right about the TV and DISH being used for surveillance, Andy knew darn well that Gary had gotten the crackers. And, I argued inside my head, the FBI doesn’t really care about the crackers, either. CURDS might be able to do something with the information if the topic went far enough, like explaining how he’d made Uber out of crab Rangoon, but essentially we were wasting time.

  “Of course, I did. All 300 boxes of them. How much do you think one raccoon needs to eat?”

  Andy began to pace again. He made about three laps then stopped in front of Gary. This time he didn’t ask a question, and this time Gary landed on his left hip. I had to take a step to avoid having him bump into my leg. If it weren’t for the guards around the perimeter, I probably could have walked out at any time. Andy seemed totally focused on Clara and Gary. I suppose he had that luxury with all the guards keeping an eye on both of us. Gary got up immediately. “What? What did you do that for, Andy?

  “Should I be checking you out?” Andy said, his face so close to Gary’s they were touching noses. “I’m not really comfortable here. I saw you scramble from the cabin. The first words out of your mouth should have been why that was. Don’t make me ask, or I’ll put more rings on.”

  Gary’s lips curled together. He knew he’d messed up. “It’s like I said, Andy. I had to hijack their bus. Now, that wasn’t easy. The driver, man, he was tough. I had to shoot at him to make him drive, then when we got to the lake he fought me. Yeah, they got the upper hand for a while, but when their friends came I took this chick hostage and got away. They’d already let Clara loose by then, too. She had cuffs in her back pocket and I used those. I . . . I don’t think they’re cop cuffs. I think they’re sex cuffs. I bet she’s kinky.” I shot him an unforgiving look, but it was as good an explanation for the cuffs as any.

  “The raccoon was eating the crackers?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All you had to do is make a trail of the crackers back to the carrier. I guarantee you that she would have come back to get them.”

  “Over what she could scavenge in the woods? I’m not too sure.”

  Andy hit Gary with another right cross. Gary didn’t fall this time. He only stumbled a little, but his hand shot up to his jaw. After that, he did all his talking with his jaw clenched shut. The bruise on his jawline was now an open wound and a trickle of blood ran down toward his neck. It smeared where his hand touched. Andy repeated, “I guarantee you that she would have come back to get them. Those were going to be Clara’s Crispy Craboon Crackers, for the Cleverest Cracker Connoisseur. I’m telling you the ad campaign wrote itself.”

  Andy had basically admitted that the crackers were Uber. I wanted to find out how he had managed it, but it would have endangered my cover. I was sure the team would be able to figure it out. But there was a chance I wasn’t going to see the team again. I thought of what it was like to die in the middle of things, not having all the answers. No matter what took you out, I can’t im
agine anything worse than dying and not knowing why. While I was debating how to discreetly ask about the Uber and trying to figure out how to bring in illegal activity that might interest the FBI, the conversation went on without me.

  “Couldn’t you name it that without the raccoon?” Gary asked. He no longer stared Andy in the eye in defiance, but lowered his gaze in uncertain submission.

  “That raccoon is famous. It’s called an endorsement deal,” Andy smirked. “Only I don’t pay anyone. Now, that’s a deal, don’t you think?”

  “Sure, Andy. Sure.”

  “But I don’t have a raccoon, do I?”

  Come on, Gary, I was thinking to myself. Change the freaking topic.

  “You…You could have someone catch any old raccoon, now, Andy. They’re all over the place up here, aren’t they? With the news out that Clara is missing, who’s to say your raccoon isn’t Clara?”

  “Then it could be Counterfeit Clara’s Crispy Craboons,” I thought, then suddenly realized I had said it out loud.

  Andy’s head swiveled to me as if he were a very strict elementary school teacher and I had talked out of turn. I thought he was going to slug me, too. “Counterfeit has a negative connotation,” he said. “Bad advertising.” And back to Gary. “And why, exactly, do you think bringing this woman here is as good as a raccoon? I thought you were smart, Gary. I was going to make you a distributor. I set you up at the cabin and gave you enough boxes of crackers to get started. You lost the raccoon, maybe YOU should have caught me another one.”

  “You want me to get you another raccoon, Andy? I can do that. Ow.” He kept a hand at his jawline as if he was holding it together. “You hurt me bad, Andy.”

  “Maybe we’ll do that. I have no use for her. Except the usual,” he added, checking me out again with a new idea in mind. I didn’t like the look he was giving me.

  That was bad news. I might have preferred that he disposed of me. I could feel it. And I could use it. “I know who you are,” I blurted out suddenly. “You’re Alliterative Andy!” I had just moments to prove myself useful. He could just as easily have me escorted out of the building.