by Amy Law
Thirteen. No more than half way to the door. After a moment, she heard a voice murmur, distant and echoing. It spoke in four or five short bursts. She would be able to remember the sound. Play it back later. She might even be able to decipher some of what he said.
Then it was quiet again, and he started walking back. He got to the metal steps outside, mounted them. Opened the door. Crossed the floor. Pulled up the blindfold. There was Daddy. In front of her face, on the iPhone screen.
His face wracked in pain as he saw her. Then the biker pulled the blindfold back over her eyes. Tiffany heard and felt the floor and the couch move as he left again, then the shudder as he shut the door behind him.
She’d had a glimpse now, and it was definitely a trailer. Not a very new one, and one with brown card taped over the window. There was a small kitchen area to her right and a narrow corridor off to her left.
What else could she remember? Not much. She had an uneasy feeling that there was something, something important and right in front of her that she was somehow not seeing.
Now she listened for the sound outside. The biker had walked back across the concrete, seventeen steps this time, not thirteen. So he probably wasn’t going to a place or a thing. It wasn’t a desk, a table or a window, he was just getting distance.
Getting distance from her, was what she hoped. From her so that she didn’t learn anything or hear his voice. So that she wouldn’t have information to give when they let her go. Which would again mean that they did mean to let her go.
Tiffany knew she couldn’t rely on that. But she also knew that, whatever it took, she had to stay positive. They could just be a really smart and professional group of kidnappers. Keeping her from any knowledge of them just because that was the smart way to do it. But it was still a real reason for hope.
She knew that she had to stop herself second-guessing. It made her confused and afraid, and she didn’t know anything about kidnapping. Nothing more than everybody who watches movies or sees TV shows. It was all just speculation.
Daddy on the phone, though. That must have been the first ransom call. And they used her phone. Smart. But they used it here. The phone records would have the location for the call.
Either not so smart, or she would surely be moved almost immediately. Something troubled her, something about her phone, but in her confusion she couldn’t bring it to the front of her mind.
Chapter 3
She remembered the footsteps across the concrete. The footsteps of the biker who closed the door to the warehouse or whatever it was, she guessed he was the driver, and those of the blond biker just now.
Drummer Tiffany, the steady heartbeat, the pulse of her band, The Noise of Art. The school magazine editor called her a clock-steady beat machine. She had the rhythms of two of the bikers’ walks and she would be able to replicate them perfectly.
Since Tiffany was a very small girl, lying in the dark in her room, she’d been able to identify every person she knew or met just by hearing them walk.
The way Daddy rolled up the stairs, Momma’s little tap-dance around the kitchen. Uncles, aunts, cousins and all of Daddy’s old buddies from the Marines—she could identify their feet on the gravel outside, usually inside three steps.
Everybody except for Daddy thought that it was spooky, or that she was using some kind of a trick. Even Daddy was mystified, and he wasn’t a man to enjoy a mystery.
So, by the age of five, Tiffany learned that people, adults mainly, could react badly if you told them something they couldn’t understand or they had trouble believing. Even Daddy. Particularly if it was something you could do that they couldn’t.
So she no longer mentioned this side-effect of her whisker-keen musical ear, and she allowed everyone to forget.
The lead biker, or the one she assumed was the leader, took her back out of the trailer. As Tiffany walked unsteadily down the steps she moved her head around to try and see out the bottom of the blindfold. To keep her balance as much as anything.
She saw gray metal steps, dirty gray concrete with red dust and not much else. Then a flash of turquoise. Her Mini was here.
She was bundled back into the back of the van and shoved back onto the same bench. They left the blindfold on, but the biker in the back had the same scent as the one on the way, so she figured it was the same guy. She was going to have to give them names.
The first one seemed to be the leader, and he had reminded her of a biker in a TV show, so she’d name him, what was that guy called? Jackson. Jax. She’d call him ‘Jax.’
The guy riding in back with her, she instinctively thought of calling him ‘Ax.’ The driver? She had almost nothing to go on, but he was driving, so, ‘Max,’ like Mad Max. Jax, Ax and Max.
From the sounds outside, they were lurching back into some kind of civilization. After some stop-start city driving, they parked up in a street that sounded urban, and Tiffany was hustled up some steps into a building, up a narrow stairway that creaked like it was wooden, along a hallway that also sounded narrow, up more stairs and along some more hallway.
She waited while a door was unlocked, then she was shoved through into a room, walked across wood floor then a carpet or a rug and through a door to another room. Then she was deposited on a bed. The door to the room was closed and she seemed to be alone.
She heard the boots outside, some scraping of furniture, then voices. Tiffany thought she could make out Jax, and two others, but she couldn’t be sure. She’d heard him say less than a dozen words. Listening hard, she couldn’t make out any of what was said, only quiet murmurs.
A cellphone beeped a couple of times. A generic ringtone. Then a chair scraped as the beep stopped. Boots as the biker stood up to take the call. Another chair scraped, more movement and the other two voices.
The one on the phone, the one she thought was Jax, said, “Uh-huh,” and ‘Yup,” then some talk, but still she couldn’t catch any of what was said. At the same time, there was the clatter of crockery, a refrigerator door, more movement.
The door opened, someone came in. Crossed the room, set something down to Tiffany’s left. Then she felt the weight of someone crawling onto the bed. The one on the phone, he was still on the phone. That was the one she thought was Jax. So the one on the bed wasn’t.
The scent seemed like the one she’d called ‘Ax.’
Tiffany braced herself. She’d thought about what might happen. Again, from her expertise watching movies and TV shows, if everything went according to plan, there would be at least a day before the ransom could be met.
Even if there wasn’t a second shake-down, she was going to be a captive for twenty-four hours minimum. Maybe thirty-six. After that was where things usually started not going to plan. What went wrong, usually, was somebody’s nerves gave out and they fucked up.
Then everybody died.
In this scenario, in her real-life predicament, she didn’t care all that much what happened to everybody. Only the hostage. But her prospects were probably best if nobody fucked up.
With all the calm she could muster, Tiffany tried to be relaxed, as relaxed as she could be, when the figure on the bed reached over her to the blindfold.
When he pulled the blindfold down till it hung around her neck, Tiffany did her best to look him calmly in the eye. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she wasn’t looking at anyone’s eyes, so she tried to calmly look Ax in the shades.
It was unnerving, but the fact that she’d won her private game of guess-the-biker gave her strength. She wanted to look around the room, learn about her surroundings, but she figured that holding eye contact, or as near as she could get, was more important now.
Ax put his finger up to his bandana, where his mouth was. She understood. He was going to take off the damn tape. He didn’t want her to start screaming and yelling. She nodded.
He showed her a knife. A very big knife. He held the jagged, gleaming curve of the serrated blade against her small, soft throat. Then he put his finger to his
mouth again. Shook his head, slowly.
Tiffany shook her head. Slowly. He put the knife away. With his hand, he indicated a table by the bed. On the table was a slice of pizza on a plate, and an open bottle of beer.
Ax got up off the bed, walked over to a door at the left of the room. He opened it. There was a small bathroom with a sink, a shower and a WC. He closed the door, turned a key, and dropped the key in his pocket.
Then he walked to the other door, mimed knocking, twice. Okay, she thought, if I need to use the bathroom I knock. Twice. She nodded. He came back to the bed. Climbed on beside her. Her breath was thick and heavy, but she tried not to let it show.
Her body was tingling with that thing the scientist had said was, ‘self preservation.’ Fight-or-flight response. A lot of good either of those impulses were to her now but, the theory was, it heightened your senses. She hoped he couldn’t tell. His nostrils flared. He could tell.
He took out the knife again. Put a hand around the back of her head. Yanked her forward. With a snap, he cut the cord that held her wrists. He pulled her back up and took hold of the tape that covered her mouth.
Once more he put his finger to his mouth and shook his head. She shook her head in agreement.
He yanked the heavy tape off in a rapid, rasping tug. It felt like he tore off the bottom of her face. She didn’t make a sound. He patted her cheek twice with his fingers. Like Daddy had when she was little.
As he pulled his fingers away, they stuck to the adhesive left on her skin. He rubbed his fingers together. As Tiffany rubbed her sore wrists and saw the red marks around them, he got off the bed and opened the bathroom door. He held out his arm, inviting her to go clean up.
Tiffany scrubbed her face with water, leaving the hard, pink soap just for her hands. Getting the sticky goo off took forever, but she wasn’t going anywhere so Tiffany took her time. She figured that making Ax wait for her was no bad thing, either. Although she doubted that he had too many other engagements for the afternoon.
That was something. Tiffany wondered how her sense of time was now. She thought about how long they’d traveled in the van. The first time she figured about twenty minutes, the second time about the same. They were in the warehouse or whatever it was for, what, half an hour? And they’d been here, wherever ‘here’ was, for maybe twenty minutes.
Was that all? Really? Had she been in the mall just an hour and a half ago? She signaled to Ax, pointing to her wrist. He thought about it for a moment. He shrugged with his hands out, palms up, Why? What do you care?
She spoke quietly, but was pleased to hear confidence in her voice, “I need to stay sane. I need fixed points.” He cocked his head. She said, so, please, just tell me the time. Please?”
He looked at his watch. Then he held up three fingers. “Three,” Tiffany said, and he held up one finger, turned his hand around with five fingers out. “Three fifteen?” He nodded once.
Tiffany relaxed a little as she smiled and said, “Thank you.”
He made a bow with his head. She had the impression he was smiling. That’s good, she told herself. I’ve got a connection between us. The well-known story was where the captive falls for the captors. ‘Stockholm Syndrome,’ wasn’t it?
Still, maybe she could make it work in reverse. Not very likely, but she remembered something else Daddy said from way back. “Always start with a plan. Even a lousy plan. Even the most absurd, no-hope plan in the history of plans. Observe what happens, then revise and adapt your plan to the changing circumstances.”
Tiffany would try.
The biker gestured again to the pizza and beer on the table. Tiff thought that a good sign. She paused for a moment, then looked up at him as she said, “Thank you.”
She wanted to give him a kiss on the cheek, but a kiss on the bandana didn’t seem like much of an idea, so she stretched up and briefly touched her cheek on his shoulder, then she stood back with her hands clasped together.
Tiffany thought that he seemed awkward as he left the room, but she couldn’t be sure. She knew that she had to keep her spirits up, but she thought she also needed to guard herself against false or irrational optimism.
She needed to stay real about her situation.
Chapter 4
Tiffany took stock. Now she had the chance to view the room. It was painted off-white, a long way off white and not very recently. She was captive in a tiny room with a boarded up window, three bikers outside.
On the bed was a clean comforter, new by the look of it. Cheap, but new. Was that coincidence or more careful planning? She heard the clocktower in the distance strike five. That was something. At least she had a way to tell the time.
She had seen that there was a window in the bathroom, but it had been nailed shut. Anyway, they didn’t plan to let her use the bathroom without one of them watching.
Was that so she didn’t get out of the window, or in case she broke the mirror on the bathroom cabinet to make a weapon? Maybe they just wanted to have their jollies watching her on the john.
She thought about all the time and money she had spent on her kick-boxing classes. Of dragging her sister Jesska along to a few sessions. Jesska hated it, of course. She couldn’t stand anything with rules or discipline, apart from her percussion.
Tiff remembered Master Lam trying to teach Jesska how to hold a fist, how to stand and to turn the forearm to deliver weight and strengthen the arm for a blow. Jess said, “You’d never get time for any of this in a real fight. You’d be down before you got your stance.”
Master Lam said, “Street fighters engage much closer than a martial artist, and you can use that against them. They will usually come in fast with their arms high, aiming for your head and neck.
“The speed that they rush at you adds to the force of your blow. As your opponent rushes in for an attack, a well timed kick to the jaw or even better the forehead, or a punch on a vital target will usually stop them long enough for you to escape.”
Jess saw straight away that would take a lot of learning and practice. She said, “That’s not going to win the fight.”
“You don’t win a street fight on points. You win by avoiding it or escaping.”
Tiffany hoped she didn’t have to fight in here. It was a small room. Her practiced reach wouldn’t be very much help.
This was going to be some sort of a ransom deal. Daddy wouldn’t take that well. He was a man who reacted badly to being threatened. Tiffany learned at an early age, that wasn’t the way to get the best out of Daddy.
She had no appetite for the pizza, but figured she ought to eat. As she chewed the cold, rubbery cheese and dough, listening to the murmur of talk in the next room, she considered her situation from every angle she could find.
Tiffany saw very few options for herself. It was hot in the room. All the options she could see boiled down to a single choice. All she could see in her favor was the fact that she was a girl. She was a girl and they were men.
If she could, she would make or take any opportunity to get intimacy. With any of them. With all of them, if she could. Use it to get information, and to divide them. Divide and conquer.
It didn’t seem like much of a plan, but for all she racked her brain, she couldn’t think of another. The only alternative she could see was to be passive and take whatever came. She couldn’t see that as being a good prospect. It meant putting her trust in luck and her luck didn’t look so great right now.
What would Daddy do? Well, fucking the bikers wouldn’t make the list of options, that was for sure. He would talk. There was no situation Daddy couldn’t talk his way through but then Daddy was a senior and a very experienced lawyer. Talking was how he got his business done, and he was a master at it.
Tiffany didn’t think she had a breath of her daddy’s powers of persuasion. He would gather the parts of a story together and spin and order them, present them to you in such a way that you’d feel smart because you got the conclusion before he told it to you.
It could
be some time before you realized he had led you by the nose and walked you along so you arrived at his conclusion. He’d be able to do it with the bikers.
He would start by seeing it their way. He’d show how he understood their situation better than they did themselves. Point out some wrinkles that they hadn’t thought of, and then let them come around to seeing their options in a fresh light.
Whatever they’d thought they were going to do, whatever their plan was, they’d see that it was hopeless.
He’d have them figure out how the police would be drawing the net around them. What their best chances were. In no time he’d have them see that their situation was hopeless and that only his help could rescue them.