The door closes behind me with a thud and it’s just me in the room.
I pull out my cell and punch Vic’s number. No reception. Fucking great. Well this is just way too cool, Jack. What the fuck are you going to do now? Die, probably. Yes, that’s what’s going to happen. They’re going to walk in here in a second with machine guns and spread your guts all over that wall.
I hide by the door. If they come in I’m tackling them and fucking running like hell. My heart’s in a frenzy to get out of my ribcage.
And then I hear this hissing, like they’ve slipped a rather large and invisible snake into the room with me. Maybe it’s coming from the drain. No. There’s two small holes at the base of the wall... blurry holes, and...
and it’s gas I...
...yeah...
...well fuckin’...
#
I wake up because someone is beating my skull apart from the inside of my head. There’s a voice, two voices, and the sound of the door opening and closing, footsteps on the cement. My eyes open, gray light, slivers, and the headache is insane. And there he is. Surprise surprise.
“Sunset.”
“Hey man,” Sunset says. He pushes himself off of the wall.
Standing by the door is the sexy Indian girl, long hair and all, dressed in blue jeans and a black shirt. Her breasts are perfect.
I’m stripped down to just my boxers. Not good. Not good at all. And my hands are tied behind my back. Oh this just keeps getting better.
“So here we are again,” Sunset says. He frowns and rubs his chin. “This is Samantha Charger. Do you know what she does, Jack?”
“Coitus badly.”
She marches over swiftly and slaps my head so hard I can feel her handprint burning.
“Jacky, Jacky, Jacky,” Sunset says. He’s got the part of the villain down perfectly too. Strutting around all confident and grins. I’m going to tear his fucking head off.
“What are you smiling at?” Sunset asks.
There’s a wooden table in front of me with my cell, wallet, car keys, a pack of chewing gum, and a pack of cigarettes that I want.
“Just thinking how I’m going to enjoy tearing your fucking head off.”
Sunset laughs.
The door opens and in walks the man named Shark. He marches right up to me without hesitation and kicks me in the groin.
I keel over. Cold fingers, liquid and bursting, shoot up from my stomach and grapple every organ. I want to puke. My brain spins on an axis.
“Raven,” Sunset says. He grabs my hair and lifts my head up. “I want Raven.”
I shake my head.
Sunset sighs, lets my head go, and walks back to the center of the room. He signals for Shark to move in.
Shark takes out an electric hand held tazer. He presses a button and blue-white bolts of electricity dance between the two metal teeth. He grins and shoves it against my shoulder.
My entire body spasms.
He removes the tazer and steps back.
“Raven,” Samantha says. Her voice is angelic.
“Wha-” I want to puke so bad. “What are you... what are you talking about?”
She walks over and leans down. Her hair smells like honey. “Jack. We just want the whereabouts of Raven. Where is he? You tell us and we’ll let you go. Cool?”
“Fuck you.”
“Jack.” Sunset licks his lips and looks around the room. Then he walks over, pulls up a chair, and sits down directly in front of me. He smiles like we’re old friends. “Jack. Listen, you’re in a bit of a predicament here and there’s nothing I can do to help you. The ball’s in your court. Let me help you get out of here in one piece, okay? See that door over there?”
Yes.
“Just outside that door is freedom. Seattle. A life to be lived anew. Your future is out there, Jack. You, in a white shirt with a red tie, Dockers on, loafers, standing in front of a class of kids, teaching. It’s three-thirty and you’re off of work. You go and hop in your Subaru, tired, but safe. Your girlfriend is also a teacher and you go out to dinner and discuss your students, laugh over a glass of wine, grade papers together. Doesn’t that sound preferable to...” he nods around the room, his attention resting on the tattooed freak.
“What is Raven?”
“Don’t play stupid. You’re a lot smarter than that. You know who Raven is. I want to know his real identity, where he is.”
“I’d tell you if I knew. Honestly.” I start laughing, more from fear than anything. “So is that tattooed guy going to do a number on me now?”
Shark nods.
“Yes,” Sunset agrees softly, “that’s how Shark puts food on the table.”
Shark wheels over the small, metallic cart.
I wriggle my fingers, shake my wrists. Nothing.
Shark pulls out a bucket from the bottom of the cart. The bucket is full of water.
“Now,” Sunset says, “I’m given instructions on how to commence with your termination. All we want is the real name of Raven, and his whereabouts. You tell me these two trifle things, Jack, and you’re free to go.”
“What’s all this about?”
“Jack. I said, don’t ask questions. You don’t want to know. You have no clue as to what’s going on. All you know is what you’re told by your boss, Raven. Now tell me who he is so we can get our own people to go and blow his fucking head off.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wish I did.”
Sunset nods. He grimaces. He doesn’t like the position he’s in or he doesn’t like the answers I’m giving him. At any rate he sighs, walks back, and lifts a stereo up, then plugs in his i-pod.
“Okay, Jack. It was good knowing you,” he says. He presses a button and nods to Shark.
Bobby McFerrin’s Don’t Worry-Be Happy comes on. This is how crappy songs get crappier.
Shark grabs me by the shoulders, lifts me up, and slams me down on the cement floor, hard. It jolts me, jams my eyeballs in their sockets, crams my spine down. He then shoves a cotton sack over my head and ties it around my neck. His hands are thick, coarse, and strong. He smells like burial dirt.
Water pours. Cold. Thick gushing water pulled from the Puget Sound, smelling like dead fish and brine. Tasting like salt and kelp. I can’t breathe. Head’s submerged in ocean. Lungs terrified. Legs trauma-shake. No breath. No air. Everything squeezes with alarm. My lungs are terrified. My legs suffer-shake-hands-wrench and wrench. Scared heart panic beat. Help. help help I’m drowning in a cement room.
And then the water’s done and the bag comes off and I can see and I’m choking and coughing and my legs are shaking and-
In every life we have some trouble, when you worry you make it double
“Raven,” Sunset says.
I cough and cough. Spasm.
Don’t worry be happy now
Shark walks up and punches me in the stomach. He lifts my head up and shoves the tazer under my chin.
Don’t worry be happy
I wake up seconds later, or hours later, or days or the next year later but whenever it is Sunset’s in my face.
“RAVEN!” he shouts. There’s panic in his voice. He needs this information.
“Fuckyou!”
Ain’t got no place to lay your head somebody came and took your bed
Shark punches me in the eye, then again in the cheek.
The sack-cloth falls over my head, cinches at the neck, and then water is slowly dumped over me. My body’s spasming, threshing against the chair and rope. I want to puke I want to gasp but I’m under water drowning drowning drowning. Then the cloth is off and I’m coughing, head bent forward, feeling like death.
Shark walks in front of me with stout confidence. His muscles glisten with sweat and power. His shadow must weigh a ton.
Sunset leans down and puts a large black and white photo in front of me. It’s me and Victoria standing outside of the Fremont Starbuck’
s. She looks good.
Shark’s behind me. His strong hands yank my fingers up, on my left hand, and single out the index. His fingers are vice-grips clamping mine. Then I feel something large and sharp wedge between my finger and the fingernail. Sweat pops out from my forehead. The pain is explosive, splattering and dripping in all colors crimson and solar. He shoves the metal object up, through my finger, and pries the nail right off in one motion. My hand is a mess of throbbing, fried nerves with the pulsing warmth of gushing blood. I won’t scream though. I won’t give them the satisfaction.
“Who is this?” Sunset asks, tapping the photo against my forehead. “Hey, look up!”
“Tha’s...tha’s...”can’t catch my breath. “Diane Sawyer.”
“For the longest time we thought she was your sweetheart,” Samantha Charger says. “But then I noticed the way you two postured yourselves in each photo. It’s business. Who is she, Jackson?”
Shark grabs my finger and shoves another metal shard beneath my nail. This time he takes his time, jiggling it slowly, gradually lifting the nail off from the cuticle and I can feel tender flesh shred as blood vessels rip. This time I do scream. My head is going to explode from pain. My forehead is tight with ruptured sweat.
“Does she know who Raven is?” I don’t know who says this.
“What’s her name?” What’s her name. What’s her name.
“Bo-” can’t think. Don’t give up her name. Don’t tell these bastards. “Bobby McF-”
The cloth sack is on but this time it’s fists that pummel me. Then the sack comes off and the lights of the death-room hurt.
Don’t worry be happy
“Take a couple of his fingers off. His trigger fingers.”
Shark walks up behind me. His fingers clamp on my wrists and something slides through the leather binds. He yanks my left hand around and slaps it on the table.
I stand up, turn around, and swing.
My fist pops Shark’s nose in half. Blood splashes and he staggers back. I spin around and let my fist fly.
Sunset blocks it, twists my arm as though all is going as expected. He’s smiling.
I spin around and shove my elbow into his stomach. He gasps. I pop my head back and slam it into his chin. He grunts. I turn, grab his throat and yank him to the ground.
Samantha goes for a gun, raises it. I duck, grab her wrist, and shove the barrel of the gun into her stomach. Pull the trigger. A dart shoots out and she falls, unconscious.
Shark turns and draws out his knife. Blood and tears stream his brown face.
I dive towards him. Adrenaline is tearing through my body in heats of fire. I raise my fist and hammer it down, draw it up and swing it down, again and again. I grab his knife and shove it through his chin, upwards, right into his skull.
In your life you’ll have some trouble. When you worry you make it double.
These guys can’t be alone. And then I remember the camera.
It’s up there jutting out from the cement ceiling, calmly watching the violence unfurl.
I scramble for the table, grab my cell, wallet, and car keys, then head for the door, shove it open, and fall into a dimly lit hallway. Sunset’s shouting in the room, shouting my name, shouting the name of others. A lot of others.
I run. My knuckles are swarming with heat. Fingers are molten pain, dripping blood. There’s a door at the end of the hall and I shove through it. A stairwell. Climbing up and up, spiraling. I run.
Shit I should never have started smoking.
Feet clanking up the metal stairs. Two flights of stairs, then three, a doorway right up ahead. A red door. I hear the bottom door fling open, feet clambering up the stairs behind me, men shouting, the raw sounds of gun’s ratcheting shells into chambers.
I shove my way through the door and I’m on the main floor, in some sort of... this looks like a break-room for the employees.
An Indian woman (very pretty, sexily dressed in blue) nearly spills her coffee as I barge through. I leap over the sofa and bang the shit out of my shin on the table, spilling Oprah magazines, aware that my drenched boxers are nearly falling off.
Cochran’s standing by the microwave, waiting for something to finish cooking. He looks up, recognizes me, and his eyes pop open.
“Thanks a lot ya fuck!” I shout at him and bolt for the door just as the Indians giving chase stumble into the room. I hear Cochran shout not to fire and the girl shrieks.
Into the hallway. Familiar looking Indians in skirts and suits with manila folders and skinny laptops, all giving me the same, what are you doing in our hallway, look. I’m getting the fuck out of here, that’s what I’m doing.
Shoulder my way through a door and now into the main banking floor.
This can’t be happening. I hear shouting behind me, a carnival chaos of voices. Cochran’s voice, loud, shouting; Stop him! He’s robbing the bank!
What?
Now people at their desks are rising, standing, watching as I run by.
Leaping over the counter. Darcy’s head bolts up.
“Don’t forget about the party!” I shout at her. I land, twist my ankle and the two fat security guards look slapped awake. They glance at each other as I run towards them. They have that; Oh shit now what, look. One of them goes for his gun.
I hit him in the gut. It’s like elbowing a spoiled pumpkin. He goes down. The other one I deck with an uppercut. Pain explodes from my knuckles to my wrist. I was never good at punching. Never.
Out the revolving doors, nearly catch my wrist in the glass, and into the clean, fresh air. Sirens in the distance.
Running down the bank steps, business suit guys skip out of my way, now trying to dodge traffic. There’s my car, right there, a block and a half away, why did I park so fucking far away.
The revolving doors spin and I hear more shouting.
Freeze! Someone shouts, one of the fat security guys. Jesus Christ how long have you been wanting to utter that word you fuck? He looks absolutely pleased and scared at the same time.
I make it across the street. What a scene I’m causing. And then...
And then my car blows up.
One second it’s sitting there, looking like a sleek, metallic shark ready to speed me to safety, and then it’s slowly rising in the air, pushed up from some bright orange flower. Wheels fly off silhouetted, blurred. Glass fragments like crystal puzzle pieces tossed from a window, scattering, shining. The fender bends and cartwheels. Rhonda reaches about three feet off the ground and then absolutely comes apart. Time speeds up and smoke shatters everything. The nearby Starbuck’s window ripples and obliterates. Pedestrians scurry and scatter like grapes. A man shouts. Cars screech and brake and horns blare.
I’m standing watching this, not believing it. I think I’m going to shit. I mean, really. And then the security guys start shooting.
“This is what I get,” I whisper. And I start running. Where? ANYWHERE MOTHERFUCKER JUST RUN!
Down the street, off Broadway, down to East Terrace. Sirens are getting closer.
I duck into an alley and run, then trip over something and stumble, bang my arm on a trash dumpster, and roll.
“Whadafug?” someone says. It’s a homeless man that I’ve tripped on. He’s sitting up, looking habitually dazed. He sees me and flips me off.
I wish I had a gun.
Fuck. Hard to catch my breath. Sweat’s dripping. The alley smells like urine and crotch.
They’re in a silver Mercedes coup that tears around the corner, screeches, and the metallic looking windows glide down, gun barrels drop, gunfire pats the brick walls around me with orange hands. The fucking Indians giving chase?
I run.
Homeless man runs.
We’re a dynamic duo, the homeless guy and I, both of us looking at each other, wondering what in the hell is going on. And he’s beating me down the alley.
Bullets flake the asphalt and kick trash cans.
“The jig is up!” Homeless Guy shouts.
Sirens in the distance. The police.
The Mercedes spins around. I see two people in the front and one in the back. None of them are Sunset.
I run straight for the Mercedes, climb up the hood, over the windshield, and grab the metal ladder of a fire-escape. Hoist myself up as they take off.
I climb. Hand over hand. Knuckles bleeding, a scrape on my wrist, my knee booming with pain. Sweat’s pouring off of me.
I kick in a window and dive in. Glass falls around me, and the room is a mental collapse of order. Ruined sofas shoved in the corner, a stiff sleeping bag on the floor, busted lamps, a paperback book.
I look out the window.
The Mercedes is gone.
There’s nothing to do but wait, so I count to ten, then to fifty and listen. Peer out the window to the alley down below. Nothing. Even the homeless man is gone.
Down the stairs, slowly, each stair is neon noise shouting out my presence. Then I’m out, into the clean air. A rain has started to fall. The cops will be looking for me, they know what to identify. Tall guy with soaking wet hair and wearing nothing but boxers and black expensive shoes. I need to find clothes.
I see the Mercedes driving slowly down Alder.
“Hey!” I whisper, seeing Homeless Guy walking back to his alley.
He stops, startled, and looks at me.
“Yes, you, Homeless Guy, come here.”
He walks over because there’s nothing else to do. I mean, really, what else is he going to do? He’s a homeless guy in Seattle. Options are rarely presented to him.
“Okay,” I tell him, “here’s what we have to do. I need your clothes. Listen, don’t make that face, I know. I’m not liking this anymore than you are. Here’s fifty bucks and you can keep the shoes.”
“Whadafug?” he says.
I remove my shoes and hand them over. Six hundred dollar Gucci leather’s. Oh Homeless Guy thou art lucky today. What does he give me? I don’t even want to know.
And his shoes don’t fit. He’s a size ten. Fuck! Going in socks then. This is just not my fucking day.
Ten minutes later I’m wearing his shit. Literally. His garb reeks. I find a parking garage and hide behind an Acura and a large truck. Sirens are everywhere.
FEROCITY Chapter Four through Eight Page 6