Indigo Man

by M. J. Carlson

  “Reasonable? Reasonable is getting into the trunk of a car while you drive away from the scene of the crime?”

  Sara closed her eyes, thinned her lips in frustration, and rolled the tension out of her neck. She continued to speak in quiet, controlled tones. “Zach, they’re searching for two people. Two men, granted, but every cop for fifty miles knows your face by now. If one happens to see you accidentally because the light hits you just right, we’re done.”

  “What about the mirrored sunglasses?”

  She shook the idea off. “Too risky. There are thousands of cameras in a city this size, and any one of them can accidentally pick you up. Then, it’s only a matter of a few minutes until the facial-recognition software puts a name on your face. If Stiles and Brown spin this right, there’ll be vigilante groups scouring the countryside for you with torches and shotguns by sunset. Please.”

  “What if they see you?”

  “I’ll take off my jacket and holster and wear my glasses.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’ll make a big difference,” he snorted.

  She laid a hand on his chest. “My face won’t register on the F-R software. They’re looking for you.”

  “Wait a second.”

  Sara watched without comment as he turned away, and walked the length of the car and back. She stepped in. “Zach. Trust me.” Two cars went past on their way to the exit. The approaching sirens grew louder.

  “How long?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  He hesitated.

  “Tick tock.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  Sara touched the button to release the latch and the lid popped open. They stared into the tiny space, to each other, and into the open trunk once more.

  Zach said, “I don’t think I can fit in there.”

  “Where’s the trunk?” Sara stood, hands fisted on her hips. “The rental guy said there was a trunk.”

  “Technically, it is,” Zach offered.

  “That’s not big enough to put a person in,” she said, still staring at the open trunk. “Not nearly.”

  Zach braced a hand on the trunk lid. “Well, maybe next time you should specify, ‘a trunk big enough to hold a body,’ or maybe you should’ve asked about the New Jersey Special,”

  “Well, fuck me,” she said in exasperation.

  He shrugged, still staring into the diminutive space. “It’s worth a try,” he said.

  She spun on him, eyes wide. He realized what she’d thought he meant. “No,” he sputtered. “I meant in the trunk.” Her head cocked to the side. “No,” he tried again, heat rushing to his cheeks. “I meant me. In the trunk. I think it’s worth a try. Alone. I mean.”

  They stared at each other for a long moment, until Zach shot her a grin. She rolled her eyes and cracked a smile.

  He shot a quick glance at the opening, then to Sara, back to the trunk, and settled on her again. He raised an eyebrow. “On the other hand…” he trailed off.

  She grunted.

  He considered the hard composite trunk floor against his already-aching ribs. This was going to hurt. Clutching his side and grunting, he lifted a leg and climbed in, folding his wiry, six-foot frame into the cramped trunk. “No fancy driving, no running into things, and no grabbing air.” He made an up-and-down motion with his outstretched hand.

  “I promise.”

  “Hey,” he said. “Do me a huge favor, and find a place nearby and let me out, just for a minute. Someplace out of the way, and private—no cameras, but close to a busy intersection. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah. I know just the place, if they haven’t torn it down.”

  Zach stuck a hand up as Sara closed the trunk lid. He threw her a grin through the narrow space. “Promise you won’t forget me?”

  “Lie still and try not to make any noise.”

  “Okay, but that doesn’t sound like much fun.”

  She brushed his hand away from the lid. “I’ll see you in a few minutes,” she said, on a smile, and closed the trunk.

  CHAPTER 20

  Zach lay quietly in the trunk as Sara wheeled the rental car down the ramps toward the parking garage’s exit. The surrounding air was still, and he caught the faint scent of rubber from the spare tire under him. At the first turn, he realized direction made all the difference. He’d positioned his head on the driver’s side. Now, each right turn shoved his head against the thinly carpeted rear wheel well with the expected uncomfortable, unpleasant, painful, mind-numbing results.

  “This was a really bad idea,” he grunted, as she whipped around another right turn, ramming Zach’s head into the wheel well again.

  Her muffled voice made it through the rear seat, “How are you doing back there?”

  “I’m okay, but this has turned out to be even less fun than I thought.” His voice echoed in the trunk, the sound muffled. His chest bounced on the thinly carpeted deck and his head thumped against the wheel well again as they bounced over a speed bump. “Ouch.”

  Her laugh sparkled through the seat to him. “Don’t be such a wimp.”

  “Wanna trade?”

  “Quiet, we’re coming to the exit.”

  They pulled into the queue and moved ahead, barely slowing. Zach held his breath when he heard a middle-aged woman’s greeting, muffled by the carpet surrounding him. He listened intently as Sara handed the cashier the ticket.

  “Do you know what happened?” The woman’s excited voice made it into the trunk.

  Yeah, Zach thought, I know what happened. A crazy man with C-4 just blew up the bridge back to my life.

  “Someone said something about a gas line,” Sara answered.

  The woman’s voice said, “You go ahead. They’re evacuating the hotel and parking garage.”

  Sara pulled out of the garage. The car dropped a few inches, sending Zach bouncing against the trunk deck. Stars flashed in his vision and he bit his tongue. “Ow,” he mumbled past his throbbing tongue as she made a sharp right onto the street.

  After a few minutes that seemed to Zach like hours in the increasingly warm and stuffy trunk, they slowed, turned, and bounced up onto something. The movement rocked Zach side to side in the cramped space. A crunching noise came through the car’s composite body. They pulled to a gentle stop, and the car’s auto-system pinged into standby. The driver’s door opened. Sara climbed out, closing the door behind her. She stepped around to the rear of the car on what he now recognized as gravel. The trunk lid opened, spilling cool, fresh air and light into the space.

  “Hello,” she said, her face a deadpan, as her eyes darted right and left, checking out their surroundings.

  He tried to smile at her while maintaining pressure on his stinging tongue with his lips. A slurred, “That was fun,” worked its way out.

  “What happened to you?”

  “Somebody drove off a cliff or something,” he said, scowling up at her. “And I bit my tongue. Any other questions?”

  She looked down at him, and cleared her throat in an effort not to laugh. “You want some help out, or are you good where you are?”

  Zach levered himself out of the trunk. “Thanks, I’ve got it. You have the tape?” he asked. They were on a gravel lot behind an old, three-story brick building. Boards covered the windows on the first floor, and many of the window frames on the floors above were empty of glass—and not a camera in sight. “How did you find a parking space behind a deserted building?”

  “Tampa’s an old city. She held out the roll of dust tape they’d used on the junker’s window last night. “Besides, I grew up not far from here.” She flicked a glance toward the downtown high-rises a dozen blocks away. “In an area called Hyde Park, not far from Old Tampa Bay.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to have my shades and hat up there, would you?”

  “Yeah. What’re you planning?” she asked, as she stepped to the open driver’s window and pulled his things off the dash. She handed them to Zach.

  He slipped them on, tucked the
tops of his ears under the hatband as Sara had instructed, and checked his reflection in the driver’s side window. “Giving us something we desperately need,” he said. “Time and distance.” He took the roll she offered and slipped his iLink’s earpiece into his ear. He pulled the wrist unit off, opened it, and replaced the SIM card. Then he spoke the code to establish a connection. “Emergency. 9-1-1. Connect.”

  A moment later, the call connected and a young, female voice answered. “Hello, Tampa Police and Safety Department. If you would be more comfortable speaking to a recording, please press star or say ‘automated’ now.”

  “Hello, is this the police? Hey, you better send somebody over to The Curry Shack, a gas main just blew up and there’s people hurt.” He started across the gravel lot toward the street in front of the building.

  “Are you reporting an explosion, sir?” the voice asked.

  “You betcha, lady,” Zach answered. “It’s at The Curry Shack, downtown. You get that, or should I spell it for you?” While he spoke, he pulled about a foot of tape loose. Using his teeth, he ripped it loose. He doubled it over several times, sticky side out, until it became a two-sided pad, approximately the same size as his iLink wrist unit. Pinching the pad between his thumb and index finger, he started around the building and out of the parking lot, toward the nearest intersection. As he walked, he tore another strip of tape off the roll.

  “Can I please have your name, sir?”

  “Yes, ma’am. It’s Zachary Marshall, with two l’s,” Zach said, slipping the tape roll onto his wrist.

  “Please hold,” the voice on the other end of the connection said. It was replaced by an instrumental version of an oldie tune Zach didn’t recognize. It might have been The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, he couldn’t be sure.

  “Yeah, right,” he said.

  A moment later, a mechanical voice said, “You have reached the emergency number for the Tampa Police and Safety Department. In a few moments, you will be asked a series of questions to identify yourself and the nature of your emergency. If this is not an emergency, please disconnect and link to the non-emergency number. Otherwise, please hold. Your call is very important to us. Wait time is currently less than ten minutes.” The music returned.

  “Perfect.” He pulled the earpiece from his ear, stuck it and his wrist unit onto the pad of tape he’d formed and covered it with the second piece. “A ten-minute wait to report an emergency.” Zach crossed the street behind a lone, large delivery truck stopped at the light. Careful to avoid being seen in the drivers-side rear view mirror, he pushed the tape onto the inside surface of the steel frame that served as a step into the cargo area. Then, he quickly wrapped the second piece of tape around the frame a couple of times to keep the link firmly attached.

  Satisfied, he finished crossing the street, reversed direction, and returned to the parking lot where Sara waited. She took his hand in hers and they watched. After a couple of minutes, the light turned green, and the truck pulled away from the intersection, with Zach’s link attached to the rear frame.

  Zach’s eyes met Sara’s as a puff of air ruffled her white collar. He caught vanilla on the breeze and knew he would remember this moment forever.

  Zach swallowed. “How long you figure it’ll take them to track it down?” he asked, as the truck turned a corner, and rolled out of sight.

  “Hopefully not until we’re well away from here,” Sara said. She released his hand, stepped around to the rear of the car, and popped the trunk lid open.

  “Aw, come on,” he said, and kicked at the gravel. “Again?”

  Sara nodded. “We have to get you out of the city, and this is the safest way.”

  “Unless someone rear-ends the car,” he said, pouting. “Then it won’t be such a good idea.”

  She indicated the trunk with a tilt of her head. “Come on, be a good boy, and when we’re outside of town, mommy will buy you an ice cream.”

  Zach cast a sidelong glance at her. “You think to entice me into the trunk of your car with ice cream? My mother warned me about ladies like you.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I could show you what my mother used to do to me when I was feeling petulant.”

  He smiled at her. “I’ve met your mother, and now I am scared.”

  She crossed her arms and cocked her head at Zach. “How about it’ll hurt less if you go ahead and get in on your own. Is that better for you?”

  Zach threw a leg over the rear of the Ford. “Oh yeah, much.” Once again, he lay on the deck inside the trunk. “I’m starting to feel like a trunk troll or something.”

  She nudged him further into the space. “Trolls live under bridges, not in car trunks. You’re thinking of gremlins.”

  “How d’you think a gremlin becomes a troll? They get kicked out of their car trunk and have to take up residence under a bridge.” He grumbled. “You know, that could be next. I don’t actually have a house any more. A bridge is looking better and better all the time.”

  “Where can we get a sleeve of crystal drives for cheap?”

  “Where America shops,” Zach responded.

  “Next stop.” She laid her hand on his head and gently pushed it down before she lowered and latched the trunk lid. Then, she crawled into the passenger compartment and cracked the rear seat open a few inches. He still couldn’t see anything, but the added space allowed air circulation and gave him just enough room to transfer his weight from his shoulder onto his back. He bit back on a groan as she settled into the driver’s seat and turned the climate control to its coldest setting. “Here we go.”

  Zach bounced along in the trunk, his head and chest taking turns banging on the deck under him. Before Sara came up with this insanity, he had no idea city streets were as full as they seemed to be, of potholes, bumps, and what he was convinced were cobblestones. She answered each “ouch” from him with a “sorry” or “oops,” until he finally asked, “Could you at least try to miss one, once in a while?”

  “No,” she responded, laughing. “What would be the fun in that?”

  “Hey,” he said, from where he lay. “I was wondering something.”

  “What’s that?” She looked at him in the rear-view mirror.

  “I’ve been wanting to ask you when we had a minute. Do you have any plans? For when this is over, I mean.”

  She hesitated. “We should have this conversation another time.”

  “You mean bouncing around flat on my back with a cracked rib in the trunk of a rental car isn’t the right time? Who would have thought there would ever be a better time?”

  “Zach…”

  “No,” he said. “I understand.” He turned his head to stare at the inside of the hatch in the stuffy darkness. The silence between them settled onto his chest as he lay in the trunk and Sara drove. Road noise vibrated into his bones until Sara braked the car to a stop.

  “We’re here.” She hesitated.

  “I can’t go into the store with you. There’s too much of a chance someone would recognize me in there.

  “I know,” she said. “And there’s, like, fifteen cameras on the building and in the parking lot. We can’t risk it.” She blew out a breath. “But you can’t stay out here and sit next to the car, either. You’ll draw attention like flies to poop. Someone will recognize you.”

  “Great analogy,” he said from the trunk. “I’d better stay where I am.”

  She shifted in her seat. “You can’t stay in the trunk of the car. It’s eighty outside. You’ll die in there.” She huffed out a sigh. “I can leave the engine running with the main air conditioner on.”

  “No. That’ll draw as much attention to the car as my sitting next to it. Just go and come back. I’ll be okay.” He pushed the seat open far enough to see her face. There was genuine concern there as she considered the logic of his response.

  “I don’t like this.”

  He waved a hand to dismiss her. “The accessory air conditioner runs off the solar panels on the roof and hood. It’ll
keep the car from getting too hot. That’s what it’s supposed to do.”

  She stared into the rear-view mirror. “Okay, you win this one. I’m going to park in a shady spot, then run into the store and get the drives, envelopes for them, and a marker. Anything else we need?”

  He paused, considering for a second. “Aspirin or Tylenol? All this bouncing around has given me a hell of a headache and my side hurts like crazy.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Those padded cardboard mailing envelopes for the crystal drives, if they’re cheap.”

  “Okay. Stay put. I’ll be back as quick as I can,” she said as she opened the door and climbed out into the growing afternoon heat.

  Zach pulled the rear seat almost closed, so no one casually glancing into the car could see him. He lay with his eyes closed in the quiet car, listening to the distant parking lot noises. As much as possible, he slowed his breathing, working to ignore the oppressive heaviness of the air. Around him, other cars moved in the distance. Buggies occasionally chattered across the asphalt, sometimes accompanied by sounds from children, and once, a car rolled slowly past the rear of the Ford. He held his breath, hoping it wasn’t a police car, alerted to the make of their getaway vehicle.

  Heat filled the car like water dripping into a sink. The rising temperature and stillness ate into him, despite the vehicle being parked under one of the few skimpy trees in the lot. The flaw in Zach’s plan became obvious after the first few minutes. There wasn’t enough air circulation between the passenger compartment and trunk. As he waited, sweat beaded on his brow and trickled down his temples, where it collected in his ears in the quiet, dark heat of the trunk. Sweat stuck his shirt to his skin as the temperature climbed from stifling toward unbearable.

  He was on the verge of pushing the rear seat down, rolling into the passenger compartment, and taking his chances stepping into the fresh air, when the trunk unlocked. It opened to reveal Sara’s face, cool air filling the trunk. He squinted his dark-adjusted eyes against the intensity of the bright blue sky above. She handed him a bottle of cold water a small bottle of aspirin. He took them from her, twisted the caps off, and popped three or four aspirin into his mouth. He washed them down with half the water. “Thank you. It was starting to get a little warm in here.”