“Shut the hell up.”
So she did. She had to think. And, listen. She could practically hear Haasi in her head. As if that might get her out of this. She tried to sit up, scooting back on her rear end and using her bound hands to balance herself. The van rocketed along, swaying back and forth. Buckets and a shovel knocked into her.
The van was headed to the mainland. She could feel the familiar rhythm of the tires rolling over the surface of the bridge. She needed to keep her wits about her and figure a way out of this mess, and all the while, she wondered, Why? Why was he kidnapping her? She certainly didn’t have any access to money, so ransom seemed ridiculous. She could only think this escapade had something to do with Bob, and that bunch in Chicago and the land development. What else could it mean? If I ever get out of this, I’ll have one hell of a story to tell. And then again, that may be part of the problem. Too many stories.
Blanche closed her eyes. She forced herself to absorb it all, and remember. She needed details for the authorities to add to the latest sequence of events. Santa Maria had become a cesspool of murder, greed, drugs, and now kidnapping. Blanche couldn’t tell which made her more furious.
The man wore the same blinding-white t-shirt as before; his hair was a distinctive cut and style, faded neatly into a square on his neck. He’d worn it long last time she saw him. His head was plastered with hair gel that smelled vaguely of musk with a cheap woodsy touch. Why anyone would want to smell like that was beyond Blanche, but she was not going to question him about his choice of hair gel. She just had to remember that he put it on his head. And, more importantly, she had to figure out what was in that head. That would be difficult: His eyes were a dead brown.
“No tunes?” What is the matter with me?
“I’m not going to say it again.”
About thirty minutes later, the van stopped. Blanche strained to see out the window. They were parked at the foot of a crumbling old bridge that was now used as a dock for fishing. But there was no one fishing there. The place was deserted. The guy had parked in a remote area next to a stand of thick mangroves.
He got out and came around the side of the van. He slid the door open and untied the rope around her ankles. He lifted her out of the van and held her by the back of her shirt. She stood, her knees wobbling so much she could barely walk over the broken shell. It didn’t help that she’d lost a sandal in the fracas.
Her feet bounced gingerly over the surface of the lot. Now she was shoeless. She didn’t have to go far because it looked like the action was coming to her. Two men and a woman walked toward her across the parking area, out of the darkness, silhouetted against the palm trees and dawn sky.
She looked around at the thick growth edging the lot. The sound of waves lapped gently, an unlikely backdrop of calm against her wildly beating heart. There were plenty of places to hide, and then Blanche got a sick feeling. There were also plenty of places to bury people, dead or alive.
Thirty-One —
Oh, Save Us from Hairballs
“This won’t take long,” said the woman.
“What won’t take long?” Blanche was looking for an opening that she could wedge some conversation into, some delay, so she could figure out how to talk them out of whatever awful thing they were planning. She wanted desperately to get the hell out of there.
“Our little talk.” This time one of the men spoke. The driver had disappeared, but then she spotted him near the water. The red point of his cigarette glowed brighter when he dragged on it; his white t-shirt took shape in the dawn. An evil ghost. Blanche hadn’t smoked in years, and suddenly she wanted a cigarette.
“OK. What do you want to talk about? The weather? The price of beans? Campaign finance reform?” The questions were ridiculous, but she was almost giddy with anxiety.
“We want to talk about you,” he said.
“Me?” Barely a squeak. “What would you like to know?”
“For starters, why are you snooping around into that little situation that happened over near Sunny Sands?”
“I don’t know what you mean. Bob and Liza are my friends. I always go over there and hang out.”
Especially in hurricanes. Downloading emails about suspicious payoffs that probably led to murder.
“We think you do. And you’ve been writing for that newspaper, articles that we do not view as favorable to our project.”
“Oh, that. That’s nothing! Clint is an old friend. You know, he’s always trying to get me to write a few features, an editorial here and there…” She rambled. “I used to work there. Full time. But now I don’t.” She felt a pang of guilt for getting Clint involved in the mix. She vowed to keep her yapper shut. Bob had been killed. This all seemed too worrisome. These people knew way too much about her comings and goings, and that wasn’t good.
“This will stop,” the woman said. “The snooping. And that newspaper job and those articles you’ve been writing up. We do not like the tone of your writing.”
“You don’t like my tone? What tone would you like me to use when you people come down here and start tearing up the place? Do you want me to be… fluffy? Sweet as cotton candy?”
Why can’t I just shut the hell up?
But she couldn’t stop. It was like they’d tripped a wire. The tone of this meeting did not bode well.
“Whoa, you’re no cop. You’re nobody making a lot of noise,” said the taller man. They started to advance. For some stupid reason, Blanche started walking toward them. Then her feet turned to bricks. Or a brain cell kicked in. “We’re telling you to back off. You’re meddling where you shouldn’t be,” said the man, and then he stopped. “Then, maybe, it might be a good idea if you went back to that rag and started writing stories about the opportunity Breck… the development has to offer.”
“That doesn’t fit my style.”
He took another step toward her. “Don’t you have an old grandpappy? Who likes to go fishing early in the morning? It would be a shame if all he catches is a hole in his boat, say, nine miles out.”
“You wouldn’t dare. He has nothing to do with any of this.”
“Well, you don’t either, and now you’ve made it your business, and that’s a bad business. For you.”
Which, of course, gave Blanche all the more ammo. And determination. She reserved her energy for thought, which was pretty rattled at the moment. She bit her tongue.
The three of them talked softly. Were they deciding what to do with her? One of the men turned to Blanche. “You won’t see us anymore,” he said. They all folded their arms at once, like they’d rehearsed the scene. They were chillingly in tandem.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” They were going to kill her, she just knew it.
“There seems to be no easy way to shut you up,” the man said. “You’ve been around that place too long, too mixed up with all that preservation crap. Like I said, you are bad for business.”
A bubble of anger rose up again, and it grew. If they were going to kill her, there was nothing she could do. But these hairballs—yes, it was the Corporation of Hairballs—were not going to stand there and dismiss her dreams, and Gran’s and Cappy’s—and those of the whole island, not the least of whom, Bob…. The world was full of them—stinking, puking hairballs, and Blanche was pissed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m a news reporter. I’ve lived on that island all my life, and if you don’t like it, or you want to take issue with the fact that I’d like to keep things the way they are out there, then that’s too damn bad.”
She thought she heard someone chuckle, but Blanche failed to see what was funny. The bubble had burst. She was scared again.
“Get back in the van.” The smooth, cigarette-smoking driver was back.
He hurried her along. Here was this dance across the lot of crushed shell. He pulled her arm violently, hoisted her through the side door, and slammed it shut. At least her feet were untied. Free to go nowhere. But she considered this small adva
ntage. She could walk away. Or sit there and wait. She had no alternative but to do the latter. He was still out there with her other captors, and she couldn’t decipher what they were saying.
“Shhh.”
Someone is shushing me? Really?
Blanche couldn’t believe her ears. The talking outside the van had faded, but the sound inside was unmistakable. “They are going to take you down Palmetto on to the other side of the park where the mangrove is most thick.”
Haasi!
“What the hell,” she hissed. “What are you doing? How did you get in here?”
“Quiet. I will tell you later. When he parks the van down the road, and I believe he will, you and I will leave here.”
“How do you propose we do that? Just tell him to let us off at the next stop?”
“You and I will wait until it is the right moment. When I say ‘now’ it will be now. Do you hear me? We are going out the back.”
“Oh, great.” Haasi gave her a poke in the ribs and disappeared amid the rubble. The van was a long one, crammed with a mess of barrels and buckets. Blanche decided it was an easy hideout for Haasi, but she couldn’t figure how they were going to get out.
It was dawn, and Blanche could pick out more detail. The driver slid behind the wheel and the van roared to life. Blanche peered into the rear amid the junk, full nearly to the roof with buckets, a ladder, cans, tarps. A shovel. Blanche’s eyes adjusted to the dim light. Haasi must be back there, crouching, so small she probably fit into one of those buckets. Blanche noticed the door in the back of the van—the would-be escape route.
The driver put one arm over the back of the bench seat. A sleeve of creepy tattoos snaked up his arm. He leaned toward the side mirror, then the rear view. Blanche was now certain it was the guy who’d hung around the crime scene, and it ground into her brain that he had to be the perpetrator. The murderer. She would be another notch. Business as usual. He didn’t say a word, nor did he look at Blanche, but somehow she knew.
Then she jumped. Quick little fingers worked the ropes off her wrists. For someone who put so much stock in listening, she certainly was soundless. And invisible.
Blanche knew Haasi was there, somewhere, but it was more important that the driver didn’t see her, or hear her. Blanche positioned herself upright to screen the back of the van, or tried to. She swayed and bucked with each turn. It was an older noisy model with a bad set of shocks, and it was giving Blanche a realignment of her vertebrae. She turned to see Haasi flatten herself against the carpeting and clear a path to the back door.
Blanche checked the rearview mirror. The malevolent expression of two black eyes concentrated on the road ahead, seemingly unaware of the untying of ropes and rearranging of the contents of the van.
She peered in the darkness for Haasi, but she was gone. Gone where?
And where were they headed now?
Blanche decided right then and there to let go of the fear. It was draining her acuity, and she had to be sharp. Clear her mind. If she knew one thing in her short association with Haasi, it was that she moved swiftly, and most likely she had a good lay of the land. Blanche had no thought as to how this would end, but the mix of fatigue and sheer terror was getting to her, and she had to let it go. She and Haasi would get out of this. Together.
The van rumbled, then stopped. They were parked somewhere out in the boondocks of Bradenton.
“Show time,” said the driver.
“I do not think so.” It was a whisper, and it came from the back of the van.
Blanche froze.
Thirty-Two —
Sprint to a Finish
He climbed out of the van, and Blanche saw him fumble with his cigarettes, patting his back pockets. For a light? His bad habit gave Haasi and Blanche precious seconds. For once, smoking was a good thing.
“Now.”
The back door of the van flew open. Haasi’s command came with a surprising hold on Blanche’s wrist, and there was a clear field through the junk. Hands and ankles free, Blanche jumped out the back door behind Haasi, and they were gone. A sheer instinct for survival kicked in like a rocket.
Blanche found her legs as they raced away. Then they were in a tangle of mangrove. Safe. Clawing through the jungle?
They plunged deeper into the thick branches and waxy leaves and fought through the outgrowth. It caught them in a tight net, but they pushed out of it to the other side. The water was warm, almost pleasant at the swampy edge of the inlet. They stumbled through the limbs of the forest. Haasi ducked below the surface, and Blanche did the same. The world slid away, quiet and peaceful. She almost felt like staying there as the silky current carried them out of danger.
Maybe we’ve made it.
Blanche popped up and recognized where they were now—at a vast wasteland of scrub and growth south of Tampa Bay. She swam behind Haasi, around a bend, and onto a small outcropping of beach where they emerged and slipped on the rock-hard roots. Haasi danced over the mangroves like a hummingbird on the vine, guiding Blanche as they fled without looking back.
The roots were tightly woven, and the narrow limbs and dense leaves over the surface of the water were perfect cover for escape. Fish and other creatures that Blanche did not want to think about swam in and out of the tangle while she and Haasi wreaked havoc in the water world. If only these creatures knew what these large humans had created for themselves they’d be glad they were fish.
“Where are we going?”
Haasi put two fingers to her lips and shook her head, then signaled that they should swim. She led Blanche close to the shore where the water was shallow, and they glided off like otters along the bank.
The morning was overcast, but it was still early. Haasi kept her head down, barely above the water line, and she urged Blanche to do the same. They paddled through the grasses along the shore, hidden from all but the mullet and horseshoe crabs.
Blanche was exhausted, and grateful to Haasi for this crazy plan. They still had a long way to go, but she didn’t want to think about it. She glanced back several times, terrified she’d see the driver. With a knife or a gun? But the growth was so thick that she couldn’t see anything.
She didn’t know how long they swam, or in what direction. The inlet surrounded by mangrove began to open wider, and the water became clearer as they left the murky area near their escape.
“The bay,” Haasi said. One arm came up and pointed directly ahead. “Do you have your bearings?”
“Think so. We’re north of the island nearer Tampa, aren’t we? But I’ve never seen it from here.” Blanche was out of breath, but she pushed ahead. Haasi must have read her mind. They paddled toward shelter of a small beach at the opening to the bay. Haasi splashed over to the narrow spit of land, and Blanche followed.
They collapsed against a wall of sand packed solid from the water digging into the shore. The cove formed a shell of protection. Blanche had never been so relieved, and thirsty. She pushed thoughts of the awful morning from her mind and turned her face to the day’s first rays of sun. “Do you think we’re safe?” She was wet, but warmth filled her bones. She wanted to hug Haasi, and she did. Haasi smiled.
“For now. But they are still out there. We will have to deal with them.”
Blanche leaned back and closed her eyes. The humidity matched the temperature, so she would just stay wet and be glad they were both still alive.
“We will make it back to the island, and then you will have to hide,” said Haasi.
“I can’t just disappear. Cappy will be frantic, and those damn hairballs are still out there. I have to report this.”
“Hairballs? What is this?”
“These are people—unsavory types with nothing more than eyes and hair. And no brains.”
“Hmmm. I see. That is interesting. It seems there are many hairballs involved here.”
Haasi scooted over to a large patch of tall grass and sat cross-legged. She motioned to Blanche to join her so they were out of plain view on the b
each.
“First of all, Haasi, how did you ever get involved in this and, of all things, manage to hide in that van?”
“I told you. I listen. And I see. And I am with you. I am concerned for your safety.” Haasi dusted the sand off her hands and looked around. “We can talk about all of these things at another time. We should move on.”
But Blanche didn’t move. “OK, but you were on the lookout at Cappy’s. At five in the morning?”
“I planned to see you early. Your friend, the fine old fisherman, went out, and then I see this white van drive around. It stops in the dark. I want to warn you but it is too late. It all happens so fast. This man comes out of the van and is soon scraping at your door. It looks like he is trying to get in, and he should not be doing this. Then I see that he is dragging you along. You put up resistance, and that gives me time. I decide to move, to hide. To help you.” She stopped then. Blanche leaned forward, hopeful she would tell her more. But Haasi straightened up. “It is simply a matter of common sense.”
“You hid in the van?”
“Yes. It was easy. I am small, and the buckets big. And the van is extra big. I knew he would put you in there. Either that, or kill you in the house. I was ready.”
Blanched shuddered to think what that meant, but she wouldn’t have been surprised if Haasi was capable of producing a grenade or saber, or at least a sharp kitchen knife. She was inventive, and prescient to the point that Blanche was in awe of what she had accomplished in a couple of hours.
Haasi stared at the water, sadness etched around her eyes. “I wish I were faster, so that he does not remove you as he did. I am sorry, Blanche.”
“Oh, Haasi. How could you know? How could anyone know?”
“That is the problem. We should know what these, as you say, hairballs are planning.”
“How did we get out of the van?”
“Cloth. I put a cloth in the backdoor latch. I closed the door but not so tightly. I did this because I was certain he would lock the doors when he got in, and he did. You remember the click?”
Saving Tuna Street Page 16