by James Hunt
“Jesus. What happened to you?” Walter asked, shocked.
“Boat explosion,” Phillip said. “And something tells me that you might have had a little hand in it.”
“The fuck you talking about?” Walter snapped. His baggy T-shirt and blue jeans were covered in stains and cigarette ash. Gray facial hair sprouted from his jowls and chin, and he looked like he hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in ages.
“You see, Joe was your friend,” Phillip said. “And he tried to kill me. He said it was revenge for Dustin.” Phillip stopped and leaned closer toward Walter. “Now who on earth gave him that idea?”
Walter stared back, balling his fist and breathing heavily. For a moment, nothing was said between the brothers. Then Phillip pulled a pistol with a silencer from his jacket and pointed it at Walter. “I think it was for you.”
Nervous, Walter swallowed and decided to let his brother have it, all of his anger and resentment. “Emily left me because of you. She took the boys. She took everything. Mom and Pops died because of you. Gary died, hell, Dustin died—they all died because of you!”
“Where’s the money, Walter?” Phillip asked, disregarding his rant and keeping a steady aim.
“You’ve destroyed everything we worked so hard to build!” Walter shouted. “And you don’t deserve one cent of that money!”
“Last chance to talk,” Phillip added. “I’m guessin’ they buried it not far from the ol’ acorn tree in their backyard. And I’m guessin’ that you’ve been too drunk to get it.”
“Get out of my house,” Walter said, seething. He swung his thick arm toward the front door, pointing. “You stink of evil, and you look like something that’s crawled from hell!”
Phillip fired four shots at Walter in quick succession, sending him to the floor. Walter gagged, flat on his back with his bloated chest rapidly shifting up and down, with four holes gushing blood. Phillip stood directly over his dying brother and pointed the gun at his face. “It is under the acorn tree, isn’t it?” Phillip asked.
Walter gasped for life, and Phillip saw in his pale face not just fear of death but fear that Phillip had guessed right. It was all the confirmation he needed. He fired one quick and fatal shot in the face, and slipped out of the house as quickly as he had barged in.
Jake, the youngest Anderson brother, was playing his acoustic guitar by the fire pit in front of his mobile home when he saw the headlights. Not expecting a visitor, he set down his guitar and walked to the front to see a 1973 two-door El Camino, brown with wood paneling, idling in his driveway. The headlights shut off, and a man got out and walked toward Jake, struggling to carry a giant duffel bag over his shoulder, clearly visible in the fire pit’s light.
“Who’s there?” he asked in a demanding tone. A stranger driving up at night without warning made him uneasy.
The man continued his leisurely pace up the driveway, coming closer to Jake, with his face concealed by darkness.
“It’s your brother,” the man said.
Jake squinted his eyes. “Walter?”
The man stopped within a few feet of Jake, pulled the bag off his shoulder and tossed it at Jake’s feet, kicking up a cloud of dust. “No. It’s me, Phillip. And I’ve got your half of everything right there.”
Jake stared at the bag and then brushed back his shaggy, blond hair. He looked up at his brother in extreme bewilderment. “Phillip? Well, hell. I thought you was—”
“Walter set it up,” Phillip said. “He tried to have me killed, but I survived.” He took a step closer, removing his black fedora and exposed the burnt flesh that was once his face. Jake gasped and couldn’t help but avert his eyes. Phillip told him, “He was holding out on you, Jake. He was holding out on all of us.”
Jake shook his head, too stunned to put together the words. “I don’t… I just don’t get it. Where’s Walter?”
“He’s dead,” Phillip said. “That makes it just you and me. And I have another duffel bag with your name on it if you can do one thing for me.”
Jake eyed Phillip with suspicion. He and Phillip had always gotten along, but he also knew his older brother to be ruthless, cunning, and seriously deranged. In a way he felt sorry for Phillip. In other ways, he feared him.
“What happened to your face?” Jake asked.
“Well, surely you heard about the boat explosion, right?”
“Yeah. You, Joe, and like four other people,” Jake answered.
“Yep. Except, not me. I’m back now, and I have a mission for you.”
Eager to get the money and get as far away from his brother as possible, Jake asked him what the mission entailed.
“You still know people, right?” Phillip asked.
Jake nodded, understanding what his brother meant by “people.”
“Good. All my people are dead,” Phillip said.
He then reached into his jacket and pulled out a woman’s photo and displayed it for Jake. He squinted and studied it closely, seeing a pretty woman with black hair tied in a bun and a police officer’s uniform. He knew the face well. It was Sergeant Miriam Castillo, the cop who went after Phillip. He always said that she had framed him, and that the case against him was a witch hunt, but Jake knew enough to believe that at least half of the charges against Phillip were true.
“I need you to find her,” Phillip said. “She’s disappeared from the area completely.”
Jake took a step back, placing his hands in his pockets with a sigh.
Phillip lashed out with anger at his brother’s hesitance. “I can’t move freely like I used to anymore. Look at me!” He then calmed himself and placed a hand on Jake’s shoulder, stroking the soft flannel material. “She shouldn’t be hard to find. And once you do, the money is yours, and I’ll be out of your life for good.”
Jake looked down, ashamed. “Well, I ain’t trying to say that…”
Phillip raised a finger, silencing him. “No. It’s for the best. I’m no good, and you know it. The whole family knew it. But I have to find this woman if it’s the last thing that I do.”
Jake bit his bottom lip and looked up at Phillip, nodding. “I’ll try my best.”
***
Miriam awoke to an empty room, expecting that Phillip would enter at any moment with her daughter on the phone. But it had been days since that agreement and she hadn’t seen him. He had been avoiding her.
As little as she had allowed herself to sleep each day, he had managed to slip in when she dozed off and leave bits of food and bottles of water for her. He was up to something. She didn’t trust him, but the anticipation of hearing her daughter’s voice kept her going each day. Somewhere, Ana was sitting around just as worried about her.
If the waiting game was some kind of new torture Anderson had devised, it was working. She rose from her bed and pulled at her chain again, noticing some dust falling from the plate where it was mounted where it had been mounted. She readied herself to scream for him, demanding the call with Ana, when she suddenly stopped. She tugged on the chain again and saw more dust. The plate, it seemed, was loosening.
She froze, hearing the door unlock. The LED light in the far corner of the room flickered as the door opened, revealing Phillip with a tray of food. The aroma of ham and mashed potatoes, an unexpected treat, had her stomach growling. He grabbed a stool with one hand and dragged it across the floor, setting the tray on top of it.
“Today is an important day,” he said, clapping his gloved hands together.
Miriam stared at him with only one thing on her mind.
“This is the day that everything happens,” he continued with a smile. “Here’s what’s going to happen: you get to talk to your daughter, I set the congressman’s daughter free, and then you and I leave this place for good.” He reached into his black robe and pulled out a pair of handcuffs, dangling them in front of her. “You’ll be trading your chains for this.”
Miriam’s eyes narrowed as she stared back at him enraged. Her intense scowl did not go unnoticed.
“Relax, Miriam. It’s just for the time being. I know what you think of me. But I’m confident that you’ll come around soon enough.”
“Why have you waited so long?” Miriam asked. “It’s been days since you told me I could speak to her.”
Phillip gestured, waving his hand defensively, brushing her complaint away. “While you’ve been lying around in here, I’ve been out there making things happen. There were a lot of arrangements to be made.”
“Like what?” She blew away a strand of long, stringy hair that had fallen in her face.
Phillip turned away, ignoring her, and headed toward the door.
“Like what?” she shouted.
“One moment,” Phillip said, opening the door. “Eat your food, and I’ll be back in one moment.”
The door creaked shut and locked as she looked down at the steaming ham and potatoes before her eyes. It almost looked like some kind of royal banquet. But what caught her eye wasn’t the food—it was the silver utensils on the side of the plate.
It was the first time he had given her actual silverware to eat with. There was a dinner knife and a fork. As much as every part of her wanted to eat, a troubling thought entered her mind. If they were supposed to leave soon, he would no doubt have tainted the food with some kind of sedative. It was the only thing that made sense to her.
She looked around the darkened room, grabbed the knife, and went over to the wall near her mattress, dragging her chain along. The four-inch plate that bolted the chain into the wall looked secure enough, but she wanted to give it a shot. She placed the knife flat against the wall and slipped it under the plate as far in as it would go and began to twist it. To her elation, the plate moved slightly. It was attached by four long screws, and with each movement of the knife, she could feel it coming loose.
The door unlocked again. Her head jerked to the side and she ran back to the tray shaking. Her best bet was to get rid of the tempting and potentially tainted food as fast as she could. She grabbed the plate, just as the door began to open, and flew to her knees in front of the mattress. She lifted it up at the bottom and dumped the entire plate underneath, dropping the mattress onto a moist mound of ham and potatoes.
She vaulted up and placed the plate back on the tray while Phillip approached proudly, with an electronic tablet in hand.
He stopped in his tracks noticing the empty plate. Miriam wiped her mouth, playing along. “My God. You really were hungry,” he said, eyes widened.
Miriam said nothing as his expression changed to one of near disappointment. “I was hoping you could have waited,” he said. “At least until you saw this.”
He swiped the screen and displayed a local news report already in progress. She watched the screen from a few feet away, chain dangling on her arm. A female news anchor was reporting from the field, while a news ticker scrolled across the bottom of the screen, reading “Kidnapper Demands Ransom.”
Phillip smiled and muted the sound. “Just wanted to give you a glimpse of what has been happening in the world since you’ve been in here.”
He unmuted the tablet as the news anchor continued.
“The kidnapper called Congressman Bynes’s office two days ago demanding one million dollars for the safe return of his daughter, Sarah. The man who made the call insisted that he is not a part of any cartel and is acting alone. However, he said that if his demands aren’t met in the next five hours, he will, and I quote, ‘eliminate the problem.’”
Phillip muted the video again, clearly pleased with himself. “Pretty cool, huh?” he said.
Miriam stared back at him with contempt. “My daughter…” was all she said.
He tossed the tablet on the ground where the screen shattered, cracking the screen. “Don’t you know what this means?” he asked. His arms were outstretched, almost as if he were pleading for her approval. “With what I’ve already got, we’ll have enough money to get the hell out of here and live royally for good. And I did it all for you!”
Miriam said nothing, much to Phillip’s displeasure. He swung around, pivoting on the heel of one boot, then stomping back toward the door. “Fine, I’ll get the phone for you, but five minutes is all you get!”
He slammed the door and locked it. Miriam picked up the knife and rushed back to the plate on the wall, jamming it from underneath.
There was some give, minuscule, but enough to keep her motivated. She scraped the knife against the wall, twisting it, pounding it with the heel of her hand as nervous sweat poured down her forehead, stinging her eyes. She could see the dust falling, and the screws pulling out a micro-mil at a time.
Her head whipped back and forth from the plate to the door, keeping watch. Like an alarm bell, she heard the door unlock again, causing her to run from the wall back to the food tray where she hid the dusty knife in her pocket. Phillip stomped back into the room, holding a flip phone in the air. He got within inches of her and tossed it past her onto the bed.
He then knocked the tray over, watching it crash onto the ground. He then sat down on the stool and watched Miriam as she scrambled for the phone. Her heart was beating hard against the wall of her chest.
Was he really keeping his word? She flipped the phone open and turned to him, half expecting some kind of trick.
He held one arm up, touching his wrist watch. “Three minutes,” starting now.
“I thought you said five.”
“Fine. Two minutes,” he said. “Keep complaining, and it will be one, or maybe none.”
She hated him more than anything at that moment, but had no choice but to start dialing as he set his timer.
Last Stand
Phillip Anderson traveled to Arizona with all the information he needed to find Miriam. His youngest and only surviving brother, Jake, had come through for him. The information hadn’t come cheap, and he hoped it was worth it.
Miriam had changed her last name to Sandoval, and moved across the country to the city of Chandler, Arizona, for reasons unclear to Phillip. She had joined the Chandler City Police Department as a detective. Phillip wasn’t surprised. He knew she couldn’t help it. Law enforcement was in her blood.
As he crossed the state line from New Mexico in his ‘73 El Camino, the arid climate was immediately noticeable, slightly more intense than his journey through El Paso. It made his skin even more dry and leathery.
He drove the speed limit and stayed as inconspicuous as possible, every part of his body covered with the exception of his face. Just the right clothing for the desert, but he had no choice. His boonie cap and sunglasses helped conceal the burns, but he was not invisible—though he felt as much during his two-day, two-thousand-mile journey.
It had been four months since they had last met. They were both survivors, Phillip believed, each bearing scars of his own. He thought about the prospect of facial reconstructive surgery but didn’t have the time to pursue it. In a way, his burns were a blessing. He could feel nothing on the outside—not a single physical sensation.
He had arranged for the purchase of a small ranch on a dusty patch of land located on the outskirts of town—Tumbleweed County as it was often referred to. The seclusion was perfect. The dilapidated ranch house had one main selling point—a downstairs 500-square-foot cellar.
When Phillip looked at the pictures of the place online, the last concern he had was storing wine. He had purchased the ranch cash, leaving just enough to get by for the next few months. A new plan to get more cash was also in the works.
Phillip needed a patsy. He did some research around town, frequenting the back alleys, talking to street dwellers, and offering cash for information. He had a tablet and a smart phone and searched public databases for known sex offenders in the area but decided against approaching them. Known sex offenders were too easy. They’d be the first suspects in any missing child investigation. He wanted someone without a record, and he found such a man in Edwin Silva.
While strolling the aisles of SeXstasy, Phillip first saw Edwi
n when he walked in nervously, approaching the counter. With sizeable girth, shaved head, thick glasses, and funny walk, he looked comical. And to Phillip, he was perfect.
Edwin asked the overweight clerk for movies with young girls. The clerk laughed, telling him that he was better off searching the Internet.
“Yeah, but what I’m looking for, you can’t be caught watching on the Internet,” Edwin replied.
The clerk raised a brow, picking up Edwin’s hint without any further explanation.
“Get out of my store,” he said, with a faint accent.
Edwin stood there, shocked.
“You hear, me? Get out! I seen you in here before. I got your name. Now get out of here before I put that name to a face and make some calls!”
Edwin backed away, stumbling. He ran into a rack of magazines behind him, nearly tripping. He regained his balance and walked quickly out of the store with his head down. Phillip looked on from the aisle as Edwin left, and the bell above the door jingled. He followed Edwin out while the clerk cursed to himself in Italian.
Phillip jogged to catch up as Edwin stood at the corner of the street waiting to cross. Edwin turned and looked unsettled at the sight of Phillip in his long, dark-green duster, black fedora, and sunglasses, and remembered seeing him in the store. Was he going to beat him up?
“Excuse me, sir,” Phillip said with a smile. “I couldn’t help but notice that scene back there.”
Edwin’s large, double-chinned face flushed, and he eyed Phillip suspiciously. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He looked ahead, desperate for the walk sign to flash.
Phillip placed a gloved hand on Edwin’s shoulder. “Of course you do, and I can help.”
The walk sign flashed, and Edwin crossed without looking back. Phillip chased after him.
“Look, I’m not a cop, if that’s what you’re thinking.”