by Tom Pitts
Linda watched the two in front bicker, the echo from the gunshot still ringing in her ears. The painful throbbing from her bruises displaced now by cold adrenaline. Fear gripped her. She felt the man on her left, her fellow hostage, shaking. He sobbed uncontrollably. On her right was the boy. He sat still and quiet, but, with her peripheral vision, she saw him staring at her, watching the fear work its way through her system.
“What did you do? What did you do? What did you do?” the girl in the front seat repeated.
“Fuck him,” Jason said. “He was an asshole. He was going to get us all killed.”
His words were bloodless and crass, but Linda heard the quake in his voice, the fear, the confusion.
“Killed? Are you kidding?” Juliet said. “As soon as they find his body we’re done for. They’re going to see you steal this car on the security camera. They’ll know what to look for.”
Without taking his eyes off Linda, Russell spoke up. “Where are we going?”
“Shut up, Russell,” Juliet said, then she leaned in and hissed at Jason, “What are we going to do with this guy? You can’t kill him. That’s what they want. Murder in a carjacking means the death penalty.”
To Juliet, to Russell, to himself, he said, “I don’t know. I don’t know.” His hands gripped the steering wheel, kneading it, milking it.
Linda tried to make out where they were, but it was blackness outside. She couldn’t tell if they were heading to the same spot they’d just left, or somewhere else entirely. Lights were in the distance. A small town or a housing development. A man on either side of her, both the doors locked. If she had to, if they slowed down enough, it’d be the boy she’d take out. She began to breathe deep, drawing in energy, sucking in courage.
“Kick him the fuck out,” Juliet was saying. “Just drop him out here, give him a kick to the head so it’ll take him a while to find his way. We just need to buy time to get closer. We can get another car, can’t we?”
Jason looked in the rearview at the sniveling man. “What’s your name?”
The man didn’t answer. He was too frightened to pay attention, his sobs turning to uncontrollable shakes.
“You. With the glasses. What’s your name?”
“Derrick,” the man croaked.
“Derrick what?”
“Derrick Whittier.” His mouth so parched with fear, the words barely escaped.
Juliet sang the name out with a sneer, the same way she had Russell’s. “Derr-rick. Are you a lucky man today, Derrick? Or are you fucked?”
Tears rolled out from under Derrick’s glasses and down into his beard.
“He’s gone and shot someone,” Calper was saying into his cell. They whisked along Interstate 80 west, but not as fast as they’d come. Gary guessed it was because the man driving had no real idea where they were heading. He tried to eavesdrop on Calper’s conversation, but when a cop rolled up behind them, Calper dropped the phone into his lap and hit speaker.
“What do you mean, shot someone? Who?”
“The big kid. The one they called Bomber. You know, I sent you that photo.”
“And?”
“And what? He’s dead. They left him in a car at a gas station along the 80.”
“Have the police been notified?”
“Not while I was there, but it’s only a matter of minutes I’m sure.”
“That’s not good, Calper. We cannot have him incarcerated. You understand that, don’t you? We cannot.”
“There’s not a lot I can do about it now. I’m mean, the fucker’s a stone killer.” Calper felt Gary tense up at the statement and regretted saying it as soon as the words left his mouth. “You knew this. There’s no way the police aren’t going to be on his ass in a hot second.”
“What about the woman? Not Juliet, the woman he kidnapped?”
“I’m sitting here with her husband. I got you on speaker.”
The voice in the phone distorted with anger. “Well get me off speaker. I always assume we are speaking privately.”
“I can’t. The police are behind me and I can’t afford to get slowed down by gettin’ pulled over. Sorry. Say what you got to say.”
Whatever the voice wanted to say was drowned out by a howl of sirens from a row of Solano County Sheriff’s cars on the other side of the freeway.
“Are you getting pulled over?”
Calper checked the rearview and the cop behind him had switched lanes toward the right, getting ready to exit the freeway and join the parade of red-and-blue lights undoubtedly heading for the gas station they’d just left.
“No. It doesn’t look like it.”
“You’ve got to find him. First. Before the police. Call me when you do.”
Ashton Taber set the receiver back on its cradle before leaning forward in his chair. Dwarfed by the huge mahogany desk in front of him, he rested his elbows on the polished wood and cupped his head with his hands.
Stephan DeWildt sat in an overstuffed leather chair across from the desk, one usually reserved for visitors or underlings trying to curry favor. The leather squeaked as he shifted. He gave a constricted show of emotion, knitting his brow a few seconds before saying, “Well? Does he know where he is or not?”
Taber lifted his head from his hands. “No. He doesn’t. And that’s not all. Jason has killed someone.”
DeWildt let out a slow growl, an angry purr that told the lawyer he was disturbed, but not surprised.
“Who?”
“One of his. A running partner,” the lawyer said. “But he’s crossed the line. He’s going to get caught, it’s only a matter of time now—maybe hours. And if that happens, it’s going to be a lot tougher to get to him.”
“What choices do we have?”
Taber turned down the corners of his mouth and shrugged.
DeWildt’s chair squeaked again as he rose. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Until then, let Dennings do what he’s paid for.”
“There’s one other thing. He’s got a hostage, a woman who lives across the street from your sister’s place.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. She got mixed up in it somehow.”
“Hopefully Dennings does his job well. It’d be a shame to have that kind of collateral damage.”
The lawyer nodded.
“We wait, Ashton. That’s all we can do. We wait for the situation to change.”
Taber watched DeWildt walk out of the room. He knew the old man better than that. He didn’t wait for situations to change. He forced change. That’s what he did. That’s what made him who he was.
Chapter Seventeen
Hurling through the blackness into deeper black. Occasionally a farmhouse would fly by the window, illuminated by a single arc light, but their numbers diminished and soon there lay only cornfields on either side of them. Jason and Juliet argued in front, but Linda was too frightened by the car careening all over the road to pay attention to what was being said. She knew they didn’t want to kill the man whose car they jacked, she knew they wanted to get to San Francisco. The car swerved every time Jason turned his head to yell at Juliet and Linda was starting to think they’d all die right there on the road.
Jason slammed on the brakes, decelerating to just under twenty miles an hour. They hooked a sharp left into a cornfield. Breaking stalks thundered as they smacked the undercarriage and he pushed the CR-V back up to thirty-five. No way to tell how far since they’d entered the field, or if they were about to exit, or hit a tree or a fence. Linda squeezed her hands together and shut her eyes.
They stopped.
“Jesus, Jason,” Juliet said. “What the fuck?”
“You wanna dump him? We’ll dump him.”
He jumped out, slammed his door, and yanked the back door open. He tried to pull Derrick from the back but hadn’t realized his seatbelt was attached. Derrick flopped sideways, hangi
ng from the car like a spilled grocery bag.
“You motherfucker,” Jason yelled. “Get the fuck out of there.”
Derrick had fallen too far and his upper body was entirely upside down. He didn’t have the strength or momentum to swing up and unclip his belt. It remained pinched around his legs in the back seat.
Linda slipped her left hand along her thigh and pushed the buckle’s button with her thumb. Derrick Whittier tumbled to the dirt outside the car. She wanted to say sorry, it was instinct, but she sat quiet and watched Jason grab Derrick by the shoulders and pull the man to his feet.
Soon as he was upright, Jason wrapped an arm around Derrick’s head and forced him back over, pulling his bent body between corn stalks, marching him past row after row. As they disappeared quickly into the black, Linda saw the grip of the .45 sticking out the back of Jason’s pants, pushed up against the small of his back.
“Keep the lights on,” he called to Juliet. “I’m coming right back.”
Juliet, Russell, and Linda waited. Both Juliet’s and the driver’s side windows were down, but no sound reverberated back from the field. Cool air carried the dry musty smell of the cornstalks back through though the window.
“Juliet? Do you have a smoke?” Russell’s voice was shaky and small.
“Goddamn it, Russell. They sell these things in stores you know. You don’t always have to be begging for ’em or picking ’em up off the ground.” She sounded annoyed, but opened her black purse anyway and held a cigarette over the headrest for Russell to take.
He grabbed it without a thank you and stuck it in his mouth. As soon as the smoke bloomed from his mouth, Linda coughed and pulled away from him just a little. Russell looked at her, blank-faced, and blew the next drag through his nostrils, two streams of grey smoke pushed down into the middle of the car.
Linda tried to look apologetic for letting the smoke bother her, so she winced a little as she cleared her throat. She pulled back from Russell another inch or two. Another inch or two toward the door. Under her thigh, she felt the residual body heat where Derrick Whittier had been sitting. In front, Juliet ignored them both as she dug deeper into her purse. Linda was almost there.
When Russell turned his attention back to his own window, she made her move. She yanked on the door handle, watched the lock pop up, and shouldered the door. Her equilibrium swam from the blows to her head and the ground quaked and tilted beneath her, but the feeling of her feet touching the earth felt like a victory. The two in the car barked behind her, but she was already running, hearing the blood pound in her ears.
With no direction and no light, she pushed through the corn rows. Her bare feet slapped the dirt and she lost balance once or twice, recovering by grabbing the stalks before she fell. The cries of Juliet and Russell seemed distant now. But if she could still hear them, she wasn’t safe. She pushed on, heat rising in her chest with each step, a rhythm forming as she pushed apart stalks and stepped to the next row.
A soft glow appeared to her left. Bright enough she now saw the tops of the corn poking up toward the night sky. It wasn’t dawn—it was an artificial light, a farmhouse or a business. Sanctuary. A place to hide. A place so bright they’d be afraid to follow her into the light. Safety.
Something hit her in the face. It collided across the bridge of her nose and knocked her off her feet. At first she thought she’d smacked into a heavy cornstalk, and she blinked at the dark to see what had stopped her.
A tall silhouette stood between the cornstalks, the hopeful light now barely edging its frame. Jason’s voice growled low and cruel. “Where the fuck you think you’re going?”
“Where are we going?” Gary asked. He hadn’t spoken for a few miles and he felt hope being pulled away from him.
“San Francisco.”
“Why?” The doubt in Gary’s voice clear.
“I have a lead.”
“A lead? What’s that mean? You knew that kid’s name.”
Calper kept his eyes on the freeway. “What kid?”
“The kid in the car. The dead kid. You knew his name. You know this Jason person, his friends. What aren’t you telling me? Who are these people?”
“That was no kid. Bomber—or Barry, that was his real name—was a habitual criminal, a degenerate drug user, and a fucking lowlife. He’s already done time, short bits for beating up little old ladies, armed robbery, plenty of drug offenses. You should see his arrest record. He was a scumbag, plain and simple.”
“But you knew him. You know all about him.” Gary took a breath and asked the question he knew he should have asked long ago. “Why are you here?”
“I was brought in to try to get a handle on Jason, reel him in so his family could get him into rehab. But all that changed when he met you. Now I’m just trying to get your wife home safe. Keep his mistakes from making things any worse. That’s it. You two got sucked into this mess for no reason. I want to make it right.”
Gary knew it was bullshit. Knew there was more to it than Calper would ever tell him. Cornered between hope and fear, he’d placed his life—Linda’s life—in the hands of a stranger, and now the man across the seat from him seemed more alien than ever. Like a used car salesman, a carney. Gary felt foolish and trapped.
“I think I should call that deputy, the one who was at my house.”
“Don’t. Not yet.”
Gary’s cell vibrated in his pocket. A Sacramento area code, but no name.
He heard the timid sound of his own voice come back to him through the receiving speaker. “Hello?”
“Gary Carson? This is Detective Wyatt with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department. Do you have a minute?” The voice was not unlike the deputies and officers he’d already spoken to. Commanding, officious, and demanding while maintaining a polite veneer.
“Yes.”
“Where are you, Mr. Carson? I understand you’re not at home right now.”
“I’m…” Gary hesitated. He looked over at Dennings, who was glancing quickly between the road and Gary. “Do you have any news?”
Wyatt cleared his throat. “Not exactly. The individuals you suspected of abducting your wife have been spotted, but as far as we can tell, Mrs. Carson was not with them.”
Gary waited for the man to keep speaking, but the phone was silent. “Where were they spotted?”
“We think they carjacked a vehicle in Dixon. We’ve looked closely at the surveillance tape and it doesn’t look like Linda—do I have that right? She goes by Linda?”
“Yes,” Gary said, his voice sounding smaller than ever.
“We can’t tell for sure who is in the car. Is it possible for you to come down and view the tapes with us?”
“Come down? Now? Where?”
Calper shook his head and made a cutting motion across his neck with his finger.
“To the main station downtown. If you like, I could have a car pick you up. Where are you?”
“I’m not at home.”
There was a pause on the other end.
“We’ve already established that, Mr. Carson.” After another few seconds of silence, Wyatt said, “We need to make sure there’s nothing we’ve missed. If there’s something you know you haven’t told us…”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No, Mr. Carson. That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
During the gaps in the conversation, Wyatt tried to soak in the background noise, get a bead on where Gary was.
Gary felt him searching, reaching in his quiet. Seconds beat by.
Finally, Wyatt said, “Gary, where are you?” And without waiting for a response, he added, “If you’re trying to find her on your own…if you know something about her whereabouts that you’re not telling us, I assure you, we’d all be better off working together. Now, please Mr. Carson, where are you right now?”
Gary said, “I’m going to find my wife.” And h
ung up.
Stephan DeWildt said, “He’s going to Ronnell’s. In San Francisco.”
Ashton Taber was still sitting at the mahogany desk, a cold cup of coffee leaving a ring on the yellow legal pad in front of him. “Who? Jason? Did he tell you that?” Taber thinking back on the tirade Jason had thrown and if there was any mention of cousin Ronnell’s in San Francisco.
“No. He didn’t have to. It’s the only place that makes sense. I know my son He’s weak. His whole life he’s always leaned on family for help. He can’t survive if he’s not on the teat. He acts like he’s trying to break free, but he’s the worst kind of sycophant.”
Taber let Stephan speak, let him roll with his anger. It wasn’t often the old man opened up and he didn’t want to stem the tide. Sometimes it seemed like DeWildt’s rants were the only bonding time the two enjoyed.
“It wasn’t just the drugs either. I know what you’re thinking, but it was his mother. She taught him these things. This was her gift to him, her legacy. Weakness, dependence. He will always slide down the path of least resistance, and right now that’s Ronnell. They’re two sides of the same coin. Soft-willed, weak-minded, drug-addled. You could see it in them when they were boys. Yes, Ronnell has quite a few years on Jason, but immaturity doesn’t wait, it’ll infect who it wishes. These two fed each other’s weaknesses when they were young and they’re still doing it today.” Stephan got up from the chair and stood behind it, resting his hands on the chair’s back. “I don’t need to tell you what I’d bet that they’re going to Ronnell’s. I know it. That’s where they’re going. He’s scared and running, and that’s where he running to.”
“I’m sure he knows lots of people, you know, people like him. He’s been living out on the streets for years now.”
DeWildt instinctively patted his breast pocket for a cigarette pack, but found none. “Yes, but who does he know that’d be willing to broker a deal with us?”
“Deal? Is that what he’s got the woman for? He thinks he can exchange a hostage? He’s insane.”
“I don’t know why he’s still got the woman. If he’s still got her. He’s scared, Ashton, he’s half out of his mind on drugs. He’s on the run. He’s got no idea what to do. He’s grasping at straws. He’s running on instinct, and I know where that instinct is going to send him.” DeWildt reached into the side pockets of his blazer, still nothing. “Do you have any cigarettes?”