by Marcus Sakey
"Shit," Anna said from behind him. "Does he have a fire extinguisher?"
Tom threw open the cupboard beneath the sink. The air was clearer down here, and revealed cleansers, a couple of half-empty liquor bottles, but nothing useful. He stood. There was a mug on the counter beside a jar of Sanka. He could fill it with water…wait. Better. The dishwashing hose. Tom stepped to the sink, spun the water on, then reached for the gun.
"No!" She had to shout over the alarm. "Grease fire."
Grease fire, grease fire, grease fire. Right. Water would just spatter it, send flying blobs of burning oil in all directions. What the hell did you use for a grease fire?
Anna was answering the question for him, pushing past to open the doors of upper cabinets. Canned soup, pasta, a box of Girl Scout cookies. Teas and coffee. Spices with the price tag still on. A ten-pound sack of flour, blue letters on white paper, the top rolled down and rubber banded. She pulled it from the shelf, knocking glass bottles to clatter on the counter. The flames had spread to a second burner. She snapped off the band and opened the sack, then leaned closer to the fire and dumped it, thrusting the bag like she was flinging water from a bucket. An avalanche of powder poured out over the stove, the wall, the counter. The flames sizzled as the flour hit, and then with a whoomp were buried beneath mounds of white. Particles rose in the heat, spinning and dancing like dust motes.
Tom felt his breath whistle out, realized he’d been holding it. The world seemed suddenly strange, that post-panic moment when things returned to normal. For a moment they just stared at each other, then Tom said, "Good thinking."
"What?" Shouting.
Tom spotted the alarm mounted above the entry to the kitchen. He stretched to spin it off the wall, then yanked the battery. The shriek died without a whimper. He turned back to her. "I said, good thinking." He looked at her and broke into a smile. "Casper."
She stood with the empty bag in her hand, her face and hair coated white. For a moment, she looked puzzled, then saw her arms dusted with flour and began to laugh.
He laughed too, and waving his arms to clear the smoke, stepped over to the stove, preparing himself for the damage. Aligning expectations: the fire had been constrained to the stove, thank god. It would be totaled, the microwave above it as well. The back wall would need fresh drywall, and the whole kitchen would need a coat of paint. He expected all of those things.
What he didn’t expect was to see, amid mounds of flour piled like snowdrifts, five neatly banded bundles of hundred-dollar bills.
THE AMATEURS
Do you get what you deserve--
or what you take?
Alex is failing as a father. Ian keeps dangerous secrets. Jenn is pining for adventure; Mitch is pining for Jenn. Four friends just scraping by, finding comfort in each other and the hope that things will get better. But as their twenties fade in the rearview mirror, none of them are turning out to be who—or where—they hoped.
In a time when CEOs steal millions while their employees watch savings dwindle, these four are tired of the honest approach. They've decided to stop waiting and start taking.
But a supposedly victimless crime has become a bloody nightmare. People have been killed. Ruthless men pursue them. Tensions they thought long-extinguished are flaring. As their world unravels, each will have to choose between their life and the lives of others.
And for four people pushed to the ragged edge, the only thing more dangerous than the men chasing them might be their best friends.
"Introduces one of the scariest villains in recent memory...quickly becomes a nightmare,
leaving readers gasping with fright and pleasure at Sakey's genius."
Chicago Tribune
"A stylish writer who excels at creating characters so real that
they walk right off the page and into your life."
Associated Press
"A brilliant writer...He gets inside the heads of people and shows how one word or turn
can lead away from the safe and narrow and into a full blown nightmare."
The Huffington Post
Excerpt from The Amateurs, Copyright 2009, Dutton
Available as an e-book or wherever books are sold
Later, Jenn Lacie would spend a lot of time trying to pinpoint the exact moment.
There was a time before, she was sure of that. When she was free and young and, on a good day, maybe even breezy. Looking back was like looking at the cover of a travel brochure for a tropical getaway, some island destination featuring a smiling girl in a sundress and a straw hat standing calf-deep in azure water. The kind of place she used to peddle but had never been.
And of course, there was the time after.
So it stood to reason that there had to be a moment when the one became the other. When blue skies bruised, the water turned cold, and the undertow took her.
Had it been when they first met Johnny Love, that night in the bar?
Maybe. Though it felt more like when she'd opened the door at four a.m., bleary in a white T-shirt and faded cotton bottoms. She'd known it was Alex before she looked through the peephole. But the tiny glass lens hadn't let her see his eyes, the mad energy in them. If she hadn't opened the door, would everything be different?
Sometimes, feeling harder on herself, she decided, no, the moment came after the four of them did things that could never be taken back. Not just when they decided; not even when she felt the pistol, the oily heaviness of it making something below her belly squirm, a strange but not entirely uncomfortable feeling. Like any birth, maybe her new life had come through blood and pain. Only it hadn't been an infant's cry that marked the moment. It had been a crack so loud it made her ears hum, a wet, spattering cough, and the man shuddering and staring as his eyes zeroed out.
But late at night, the sheets a sweaty tangle, mind turning relentless carnival loops, she wondered if all of that was nonsense. Maybe there hadn't been a moment. Maybe that was just a lie she told herself to get through the day, the way some took Xanax and some drank scotch and some watched hour after numbing hour of sitcoms.
Maybe the problem hadn't come from outside. Hadn't been a single decision, a place where they could have gone left instead of right.
Maybe the road the four of them walked never had any forks to begin with.
Here's an exclusive taste of The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes, coming June 2011...
He was naked and cold, stiff with it, his veins ice and frost. Muscles carved hard, skin rippled with goosebumps, tendons drawn tight, body scraped and shivering. Something rolled over his legs, velvet soft and shocking. He gasped and pulled seawater into his lungs, the salt scouring his throat. Gagging, he pushed forward, scrabbling at dark stones. The ocean tugged, but he fought the last ragged feet crawling like a child.
As the wave receded it drew pebbles rattling across each other like bones, like dice, like static. A seagull shrieked its loneliness.
His lungs burned, and he leaned on his elbows and retched, face down, liquid pouring in ropes from open mouth, salt water and stomach acid. A lot, and then less, and finally he could spit the last drops, suck in quick shallow lungfuls of air that smelled of rotting fish.
In. Cough it out. In. Out. There. There.
His hands weren't his. Paler than milk and trembling with a panicky violence. He couldn't make them stop. He couldn't remember ever being so cold.
What was he doing here?
Like waking from sleepwalking, he couldn't remember. It didn't matter. The cold was filling him, killing him, and if he wanted to live he had to move.
He rolled onto his side. An apocalyptic beach, water frothing beneath a shivering sky, wind a steady howl over the shoals, whipping the sawgrass to strain its roots. Not another person as far as he could see.
Had to move. His muscles screamed. He staggered upright and tried a tentative step. His thoughts were signals banged down frozen wires; after an eon his legs responded. His feet were bloody.
One step. Another. The wi
nd a lash against his dripping skin. The beach sloped hard upward. Each step brought muscles a little more under his control. The motion warming them, oh god, warming them to razors and nails and blood gone acid. He concentrated on breathing, each inhale a marker. Make it to the next one. Five more. Don't quit until twenty. Goddamn you, breathe.
The boulders the ocean had broken to pebbles gave way to those it hadn't yet, broad stones with moss marking the leeward side spaced with pools of dark water where spiny things waited. He stumbled from one rock to the next until he reached the top.
As lonely and blasted a stretch of earth as any he'd seen. Black rocks and foaming sea and sky marked only by the passage of birds. Only. Wait.
He blinked, tried to focus. Two thin dirt tracks led to a splotch of color, a boxy shape, a car. A car!
Legs cramping. Breath shallow. He couldn't force his lungs to take. To draw enough. Air. The shivering easing. Bad sign. His feet tangled and he fell. Inches from his eyes, pale grass spotted and marked by the appetite of insects. The ground wasn't so bad. Almost soft. Easy now. Easy to go.
No.
Crawl. Elbows scraping. Knees. Forearms going blue. Blueberries, blue water, blue eyes.
He reached the trunk, pulled himself up, the metal burning cold. Slouched his way to the door and bent stiff fingers around the handle.
Please.
The door opened. He maneuvered around it and fell into the smell of leather. His legs wouldn't move. It took both arms to pull them in, one at a time. Gripping the burnished handle, he yanked the door shut. The wind's laughter died.
Instead of a key there was a push-button start. He slapped at it, missed, slapped again. The engine roared to life.
The man turned the heat all the way up and collapsed against the seat.
#
A soft time. Warm air making his body ache and tingle and finally ease. For awhile the man stared at the ceiling, head lolled back. Content to watch the drifting spots in his eyes. Tiny floating things that he could only see when he didn't try to look at them. He didn't think about where he was, or why, or who the car belonged to and when they might return, or whether they would be happy to find a naked man dripping on the leather seats.
Just cowered like an animal in his den, the doors locked and heat blasting.
After a long time—how long he had no idea—he felt himself coming back. Surfacing like he was waking from a nap. Words and questions swirling like leaves from an October tree, tossed and swirling and never touching the ground.
Gasoline. That was one. Gasoline. What did…
Oh. He straightened, rubbed at his eyes. His muscles weak and languid. The fuel gauge read almost empty. He shut off the ignition.
So. Where was he?
The car was gorgeous. A BMW, according to the logo in the steering wheel, with gauges like an airplane cockpit. The seats were leather, the trim brushed aluminum, and the dash had a computer display. But the thing was a mess. Socks and a pair of Nikes rested on the floorboards on his side; the passenger seat was buried in maps and takeout bags and soda cups and empty blister packs of ephedrine and gas station receipts and a worn U.S. road atlas and a fifth of Jack Daniels with an inch left in it.
Hello.
He opened the whiskey, swallowed half the remainder in a gulp. It burned all the way down in the best possible way.
Now that it wasn't killing him, the world outside the glass had a kind of desolate beauty. Lonely, though. Other than the narrow two-track the car was parked on, there was no sign of people in either direction. And while he hadn't been fully conscious the whole time, he hadn't seen anyone since he'd climbed in the car.
So then…
How had he gotten here?
Where the fuck was here and what was he doing in it?
Easy. Don't panic. You're safe. Just think about what happened. How you ended up here. You…you…
Nothing.
He closed his eyes, jammed them shut. Opened them again.
Nothing had changed. Had he been drinking? Drugged? Maybe. So retrace your steps. You were…
You were…
It was like that terrible moment he sometimes had waking up in a strange environment, in the dark of a friend's living room, or in a hotel, that period where his brain hadn't yet come online and everything was automatic, just panic and readiness and fear, the tension of waiting for certainty to click, for normalcy to fall like a warm blanket. That moment always passed. It passed, and he remembered where he we was and what he was doing there.
Right?
He set the whiskey down, gripped the steering wheel with both hands. Focus.
Focus!
Outside, the wind whistled. The trees looked like they'd been on fire, dark black trunks spreading to broad limbs marked by a handful of stubborn orange and yellow leaves, the last embers.
Okay. Easy. Something must have happened. An after-effect of hypothermia, some kind of shock. Don't try to force it. Tease it. Coax it out. Like the floaters in your eyes, you can't drag this front and center. Come at it sideways.
Your brain seems to work. Use it. Where are you?
A rocky beach. Cold. He could taste the salt on his lips, knew this was an ocean. Which one?
The question was crazy, but he focused on answering it. Let one thing lead to the next. The dashboard clock read 7:42. The sun was only a brighter shade of gray above the waves, but it was higher than before. Which made it morning, which made that east, which made this the Atlantic. Assuming he was still in the United States. Yes. The road atlas.
Okay. The Atlantic. And cold and rocky and sparsely inhabited. Maine, maybe?
Why not. Roll with that. "This is Maine." His voice cracked. He coughed, then continued. "I'm in a BMW. It's morning."
Nothing.
A bank envelope was curled in the cup holder. Inside was a stack of twenties, several hundred dollars. Under the envelope there was something silver that turned out to be a stainless steel Rolex Daytona. Nice watch. Very nice watch.
What else. He leaned over to open the glove box. There was an owner's manual, a key ring with a BMW clicker, three pens, a pack of Altoids, a sealed box of No-Doz, and a large black gun.
He stared. An owner's manual, a key ring with a BMW clicker, three pens, a pack of Altoids, a sealed box of No-Doz, and a large black gun. A semiautomatic, he noticed, then wondered how he could know that and not remember where he had been before he woke up on the beach. Or worse, even his own—
Stop. Don't go there. If you don't face it, maybe it's not true.
The trunk.
He stepped out. The wind whipped his naked body, and his skin tightened into goosebumps. His balls tried to retract into his belly. He stepped gingerly to the back of the car on bloody toes.
Would there be a body in there? Handcuffed and shot in the head, maybe, or rolled in a carpet, hair and boots spilling out.
No: it held only jumper cables and a plastic shopping bag with a red bulls-eye on it. He opened the bag. A pair of designer jeans, a white undershirt with pits stained yellow, crumpled boxer-briefs, wadded-up socks. Someone's laundry.
He looked around again. In for a penny.
He shook out the underwear, stepped into it. The jeans were soft and worn, expensive looking. Too fancy for Target, and dirty to boot. Maybe the Target purchases had been a change of clothes. He wriggled into the shirt then slammed the trunk. Climbed back in the car, the air inside wonderful, stiflingly warm. The sour smell of feet rose as he wriggled into the sneakers.
Then he sat and stared out the window.
How had he known that red bulls-eye was the Target logo? How had he known the watch was a Rolex? Or that Jack Daniels was whiskey, and that he liked whiskey?
How was it that he knew the BMW key fob had an RFID chip that activated the push button start, knew Maine was in the northeast, could identify the symptoms of hypothermia, could glance at a stack of twenties and know it was several hundred dollars, he could do all of that, but he couldn't remember his ow
n goddamn—
He reached for the owner's manual in the glovebox, careful not to touch the gun. The book was bound in black leather. Inside the front cover was a registration card and proof of insurance. Both in the name of Daniel Hayes, resident of 6723 Wandermere Road, Malibu, California.
Huh.
He climbed out of the car, walked to the back. California plates.
Who wandered away from a ninety-thousand dollar car and left the key in the glovebox? Where would they go in the middle of nowhere?
And the clothes. The shoes fit. The jeans felt familiar.
Calling yourself Daniel Hayes is a start. Try it on, just like the jeans.
Daniel got back in the car, put on his watch, then cranked the ignition and pulled away.
#
The two-track led to a dirt road. The dirt road led to a paved one only slightly less bumpy. Eventually that intersected two lanes of faded blacktop with a sign marking it US-1, north to Machias, south to Ellsworth.
He pulled to the shoulder and sat watching. A weather-beaten pickup passed heading south. A minute later came a northbound Civic.
"Life goes on," he said, and laughed a little hysterically. Had he always talked to himself?
Maybe. Maybe you chew bottle caps. Sodomize midgets. Kill people for a secret government—
He pulled onto the highway heading south.