by Katy Munger
Covert surveillance has its drawbacks. Oh, the things people do when they don't know they're being watched. As I found a hiding position near the back deck, concealed by a tangle of bushes and vines, the man reached down and started scratching his balls. I mean, he was really digging in there. God knows what he was excavating, or what mysteries he had discovered in his crotch, but he followed this up by casually grabbing a few fat sausages from a plate on a table nearby and tossing them onto the grill. I made a mental note not to accept a dinner invitation from him anytime soon.
Behind him, the sliding patio door had been left open and I could see into a living room with wood paneled walls and boxy-looking furniture. Country knick-knacks lined wall shelves and filled the tabletops. It looked like a Cracker Barrel had exploded inside the house. Egads. Was this what New Jersey thought equaled North Carolina chic? Who had the last laugh now, Yankee dogs?
The man at the grill suddenly turned toward the patio door and pointed a long metal fork at someone inside, shouting, "If you don't shut up, I swear to god, I'm going to come in there and stuff my undershorts down your throat. I’m tired of listening to your yammering, you pint-sized pain in the ass."
"You touch me," an indignant voice piped up from inside the house, "and I'll bite the shit out of you like I did last time."
My heart soared as the big man looked down at his sausages and glowered. Because I had done it. I had found her. The voice sounded like Roxy in the throes of PMS, but I knew it had to be Candy. Kidnapping had apparently turned her into her ill-tempered sister. And who could blame her?
"You son of a bitch!" the high-pitched voice screamed out into the night. "When my father finds out what you did, he's going to kick your ass. He’ll kick your ass and then he'll shove your own head up it. Got it? When he finds you, you’re a dead man. You’re a dead man waddling. He’ll cut off that Vienna sausage of yours and throw it on your precious grill and serve it to you for breakfast. Just you wait, you big fat Jersey meathead.”
Good lord. I might need to perform an exorcism after I rescued Candy. It appeared that she had learned a trick or two hanging off a pole next to Roxy for all those years. Worse, her words had infuriated the big guy. He waved his fork in the air then pointed it toward her again. "I'm starting to lose patience with you," he warned her. "Don't think I'm going to be Mr. Nice Guy forever."
Too late, I heard the crunch of dried leaves behind me. I whirled around just as I was encircled by what felt like an anaconda. Damnit. Why had I even tried? I had been caught. I smelled cigars and stale beer, but was held so tightly I could not get a look at his face.
"Don't move," a deep voice warned. The man spoke quietly into my ear but I found his whispering more malevolent than any shouted warning. I froze as ordered. "I'm going to reach down and find out if you're carrying,” he whispered. “If you move, I'll shoot you. Got it?"
I said nothing. My mouth had gotten me into trouble before and I was too angry at having been caught to respond.
He found my gun and tossed it into the underbrush. Dammit. Do you know how hard it is to get an unregistered handgun these days? I’d driven all the way to D.C. to get this one. That pissed me off even more.
“If you don’t let me go right now, I’m going to scream bloody murder," I warned him.
"Go ahead. There's no one around."
"Sure about that? There's a woman next door with a couple of kids," I said. "I saw a landline on the hallway table."
"Her?" He laughed. "That's Carmine Lopresti’s sister, Stella. Trust me when I say she's used to hearing people scream. And I’m not talking about those brats of hers.”
I tried butting him in the groin with a knee, but he lifted me off the ground as easily as if I were a scarecrow. My foot bounced off his beefy shins without making a dent. As casually as if he had been dragging in a sling full of firewood, he pulled me into the backyard and up the side steps of the back deck, then threw me toward the sliding glass doors. "Get inside and sit next to the pain-in-the-ass already there," he ordered me. He looked up at the man who had been grilling sausages. “Nice work, Si. Were you going to wait until she crawled up your ass before you noticed her?”
Si looked confused. “Who the hell is she?” he asked.
"Get in there and tie her up," the second man ordered him in reply. "And don’t turn your back on her. This one's a lot bigger than the first one. Don't let her body type fool you. Beneath all that fat, she's got some muscle. I think she's a pro of some sort."
Fat? Moi? And a pro of some sort? Well, that certainly left the door open to any number of interpretations. Worse, I could tell Si had the same idea. He sized me up like he was trying to decide which ribeye he wanted for dinner.
"You're making a huge mistake," I told them angrily, aware I sounded like a B movie gun moll. Si pushed me inside anyway and shoved me toward a dining room area. Candy Tinajero sat against the wall, her feet bound with rope and her hands tied behind her back. She’d had a gag on but had managed to loosen it so that it hung around her neck like a bandana.
Candy looked at me with astonishment that immediately turned into exasperation. "Great. So much for being rescued. Fat lot of good you’ve done me."
"You're welcome," I said curtly. "I'm really glad I put my life on the line to find you."
"I don't need rescuing from these bozos," she said angrily. "You're all a bunch of fat, ugly idiots!" she screamed at them through the open door. Jesus, she had some volume on her. Her lungs definitely went up to eleven.
They’d had her for what, five days now? If they’d had to listen to that mouth for five straight days, no wonder they were on edge. If she did not calm down, they were going to kill us both just to get a few moment’s peace.
"Put a cork in it," I whispered to her as Si bound my hands behind my back. I did not even try to kick when he tied my legs together. I knew when I was outmanned.
"Who are these guys?" she asked me once we were alone. "I don't recognize any of them. How did they even know who I was?"
"I don't think they did." I kept my voice low. Si had returned to the deck and his precious sausages, but the second bozo was lounging in the doorway glaring at us, his hand resting on his hip near his gun.
I lowered my voice even more. "I think they came to the club to shake down my friend Rats. But when they saw you were there, I think they decided to go for it and make a little extra on the side by taking you. After seeing all those posters featuring you and Roxy hanging in front of the club, they figured you might be somebody and could be worth some money."
"I am somebody," she hissed back indignantly. "And we've got plenty of money to pay them. Why isn't anyone coming for me?"
"Because no one knows where you are," I said. "They think bikers did it and they’re too busy running down every leather jacket-wearing jackass in the state. And they’re asking for a lot of money, by the way. As in every penny you and your sister have. You told them how much you had, didn't you? And you told them which hotel to leave the ransom note at, didn’t you? Why would you do that?"
"Because I thought they might keep me alive if they knew how much they could get for me," she shot back. “I saw Mr. Templeton lying dead in the hall. I knew they’d done it. So excuse me for wanting to live.” Her voice cracked and I realized that five days of captivity must have been terrifying for her. But when I saw the way she glaring at me, I had to amend my thoughts: if not terrifying for her, then certainly for the men who’d been holding her.
"I don't think the cops know what's really going on," I explained to her. “There were a couple bullshit calls from the kidnappers and the cops traced one of them, but I think the calls are a diversion of some sort. If a real ransom call was made, I’m not aware of it. I’m the only one who knows you’re here.”
She sat back, looking stricken. Without makeup on, she looked a lot younger than she had in the club. Young and small and vulnerable.
“I thought my dad would come for me,” she said, sounding close to tears.
>
“Your dad’s not Superman,” I told her. “Plus there’s two of them and only one of him.”
“Three,” she said.
“What?”
“There’s three of them. These two aren’t the brains of the operation.”
“Well, that much is obvious.”
"These two are the minions," she added. “The guy calling the shots isn't here right now. He went into town for something. He said for mustard but I didn’t believe him. I was hoping he’d gone to pick up my ransom."
“Mustard?" I asked.
"You've no idea how seriously these men take their meals. They've been feeding me crap like packaged honey buns with expiration dates in the next century but they've been stuffing themselves. One guy took two days just to cook a pot of spaghetti. He put every kind of meat in there except maybe squirrel and kept calling it ‘gravy.’ And this is their second dinner tonight. They’re pigs in every way.”
"I guess when you weigh 300 pounds each, it takes a lot of calories to keep going. How long have you been here?"
"They brought me here right after they took me." Her face fell. "They grabbed me from behind in the dressing room and dragged me through the hallway, right over the body of Mr. Templeton. I saw blood, so I know they shot him, but I never heard any of the shots. I was listening to some music in the dressing room and I guess it was too loud.”
“They used silencers to kill Rats,” I explained.
“I think they killed Rodney, too. He came running down the hall and tried to save me, so they hit him in the head and then they started kicking and punching him. It was awful. They would have shot him, too, but our stagehand, Mr. Lopez, walked by outside, right past a window, and it spooked them. Two of them grabbed Rodney, he was bleeding bad, and threw him into the backseat of their car. Then they made me sit in the back with his body. I think they would have grabbed Mr. Templeton’s body and thrown him in, too, but they were afraid Mr. Lopez would see them, so they just took off. They made me sit on the floor and pointed a gun at me until we were out in the country. I kept really quiet at first, because I’d hidden my cell phone in my bra and didn’t want them to find it. I was so quiet, they kind of forgot about me and stopped holding a gun on me. I think they figured I was too small to be a problem. But then they started talking about getting rid of Rodney’s body and I knew I was in trouble. When they decided to push Rodney out onto a back road somewhere, I figured it was my only chance. So I put my cell phone in his pants, hoping someone would find him. Hoping someone would send help."
"I know," I told her. "And Rodney is still alive. I got your phone from him. That's how I ended up here. I saw your text to Robert Jr. and figured it out."
"I don't want anyone to hurt Robbie," she said. “But I had to push the first name I found on my phone. It was scary. They were watching me really closely and I was lucky they didn’t see I had it tucked in my bra."
"Robbie is fine. No one even knows you texted him," I assured her. But even as I said it, my hopes fell. Because it was true. The only person who really knew what was going on was Bobby—and he’d been headed to bed after I made him swear to keep my plans for the night a secret. It would be hours before he surfaced. But I was not going to tell Candy that. "Are you okay” I asked her instead. “How are they treating you?"
The real question lay between us, woman-to-woman. There was no need to spell it out.
"They haven't touched me. One of them tried to get me the first day, I don’t know what for but I can guess, so every time he got near me I tried to bite him. And I kept it up. I've got two of them so far." She grinned at me and I noticed her teeth. They were small, white, and even. Except for her incisors. They gleamed like miniature ivory daggers. It was like having a cannibal size you up, that grin of hers. "My goal is to get all three," she said proudly.
"My goal is to get out of here."
"So what's your plan?" Candy asked, rather nastily, I thought. I wasn’t the only one tied up like a rib roast and parked against a wall.
"I don't have a plan," I admitted. "Isn't that obvious?" I struggled against the ropes binding me but it was useless. Those men knew what they were doing. The knots they had used were seriously complicated and would have done a Greek fisherman proud. What were they? Former boy scouts gone bad? I was not going to get free easily. And probably not at all.
"They have a reason to keep me alive,” Candy said, sounding more hopeful than convincing. "They’re probably only keeping you alive until the third guy gets back and tells them what to do. These two could not wipe their butts without someone explaining why and how and then showing them to where to find their asses.”
"That reminds me," I said. "Turn down the sausages if they offer you any."
“Does anyone know you’re here?” she asked me.
“Sort of. The guy I work with will probably figure it out eventually, but who knows how long that will take? And I’ve never been a fan of depending on the kindness of strangers to rescue me.”
Something I’d said made Candy stop and think. "I've got an idea," she whispered after a moment of silence.
"Whatever it is, don't do it," I warned her. "There's never been a plan that worked out when it starts off with two people being tied hand and foot and one of them saying they have a plan.”
"I'm sick of this," she hissed back. "And that sausage comment you made gave me an idea."
"I'm not going to like this, am I?"
"Just follow my lead. When I get out on the side porch, I'm going to knock a bunch of stuff over. Look for the knife. There has to be a knife out there. Look for the knife and cut us free."
"What?” I whispered back. Oh, man. She was an amateur. She had no idea what people could do if they got mad or that you only had one chance to make your move, so you had to time it carefully. I tried to warn her. “What are you talking about—"
Before I could finish the question, Candy called out to the man at the patio door, “You better not be burning my dinner. I smell burning meat. I'm sick and tired of the dog food you’re feeding me."
"For the love of god, shut up," the man yelled back. "Do you ever just shut up? I'm seriously starting to wonder if this is worth it."
"One million bucks," the guy named Si called out from the deck. "Trust me, it's going to be worth it."
"Shut up," the second man said to the first. “You better not be burning my sausage." He left his post, disappearing onto the back deck to check on his food.
That was when Candy launched herself. All that dancing had paid off in muscles like a genetically-engineered Russian gymnast. She did some kind of half roll to get in front of the couch, piston-kicked a chair out of her way, and then curled up and rolled herself like a human bowling ball toward the patio door. Did she seriously expect me to follow her? I could barely bend enough to tie my shoelaces. I started to call after her to stop, but knew it was useless. She was on her way and she'd need whatever backup I could give. I tried to turn myself into a human roly-poly bug, but I was neither small nor limber, and I didn’t swing from the rafters and ride ponies in my undies every night. I ended up hitting my head on the edge of the couch, then rolled into a chair and stopped in front of the patio doors just as I heard shouting from the back deck.
"Look out!" one of the men yelled. I heard a crash, followed by cursing, and still more crashes.
"You dumb bitch," one of the men shouted. "The back deck is wood. You’re going to burn the whole house down."
“Burn it all down!” I yelled helpfully, painfully aware that, at that point, I was irrelevant.
"Get the hose," the second men shouted. "Don't let it reach the…"
It was too late. I saw a snake of liquid fire crawling toward me across the deck. Candy had managed to get to the lighter fluid. The dancing flames rose and I knew that if the fire reached the patio door curtains, I would, quite literally, be toast. Oh god. Had she even planned ahead? What were we supposed to do? Roll down the mountain to the safety of Lake Lure? What next?
What was next was inglorious defeat. The second man came racing back into the house with Candy slung over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. He threw her on the couch and stood over her, glowering. "You burn this house down and there will be hell to pay,” he told Candy. “This is my boss’s house. You know what he's going to do to you if he finds out what you did?"
"You know what my father's going to do to you if he finds out what you did?" she screamed back at him.
I groaned. "Maybe now would be a good time to be quiet?" I suggested.
"Shut up!" the two of them shouted at me in unison.
The smoke and flames were growing exponentially on the back deck. Shocked, I rolled back to my place against the wall, praying that Si could take his hands out of his pants long enough to find the garden hose. But Candy Tinajero was in prime fighting mode and I figured I only had two options: pray she calmed down and hope to god that someone got the fire on the back deck under control.
The flames had grown higher and shadows danced in strangely undulating black shadows behind the patio door, inches from the curtains. I heard crashing in the yard and cursing as Si struggled to get the garden hose out.
"This doesn't look very good," I warned them in a voice that sounded strangely like a school teacher’s.
Candy was trying to kick Beefcake #2 in the balls. She had managed to pull both of her feet up to her chest, though they were still bound by rope, and was rhythmically kicking at his crotch. She was like a freaking piston on some early steam engine, powering a locomotive across the Western plains. Behind them, I saw the flames flare up, as if the fire had a mind of its own. What the hell had she kicked over when she slammed into the grill? It was hard to know what was going on, beyond the fact that the fire was inching closer and closer to the living room and, with it, black smoke that would fry my lungs within moments.
"It might be a good idea to get out of here," I shouted at them. "If I could just point out the way to…"
The flames reached something on the back deck that blew with a burst of smoke. Tongues of fire licked the patio door frame then found the curtains. They went up like tissue paper as the flames climbed higher, scorching everything in its path.