His Touch

by Melinda Minx

  I walk into the Gyro place, and I see Stav slicing thick slabs of meat off the kebab.

  He turns to look over his shoulder at me, expecting a customer, then he does a double take.

  “Hunt?” he says. “Fuck, man!”

  I force a smile.

  “You look like shittttt, bro!”

  I point to his grease-stained apron. “So do you.”

  He laughs. “Well, I run a Greek fast food joint, I’m supposed to look like shit! You’re like a fucking billionaire or some shit? King Midas, yeah? If I had the money you do, I wouldn’t look like shit. That’s for damn sure. You here to eat a gyro man, what the fuck? I’d never eat gyros ever again if I had the cash you do.”

  I lean over the counter. “I know you said you’re out of the game, but what if I told you I had a job that pays a million in cash?”

  His eyes gleam, and I know I’ve already got him.

  “I’d say…” he says, nearly drooling, “that if you make it five million, you’ve got a deal.”

  I laugh. I lowballed him because I knew he’d pull something like that. It’s not that I wouldn’t pay anything to get Elise back, but getting that much cash on short notice will eat up a lot of my time. And I’m out of time.

  “If you can get Tiger back in--for two million or less, don’t fucking tell him I’m giving you five--then you got a deal.”

  “Hu?”

  “Tiger.”

  “Yeah, Hu.”

  “Fucking Tiger, man! How many times I gotta’ say it?”

  “Hu! His name is Hu, it’s Chinese for Tiger. He just goes by Hu now, man. Now that he’s legit.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Yeah, get fucking Hu for two million then.”

  “You got me!” He reaches his hand out to shake on it.

  “Don’t you want to know what we’re doing before you shake on it?”

  “Nah,” Stav says. “Just get the money ready and I’ll do whatever you fucking want me to. As long as we ain’t killing babies or something.”

  “And you’ll get Tiger to do it, too, yeah?”

  “Hu.”

  “Tell him,” I say, “that for two mil, I get to call him Tiger again. That ‘Hu’ shit is too confusing.”

  “Alright, man,” Stav says, grinning.

  I call Dash up.

  “Some fucking nerve,” Dash hisses into the phone. “Just you wait, man, revenge is a dish best served slightly cooled down. That means I’m not going to hit you right away, but I’m going to hit you soon enough…”

  “Shut the fuck up,” I say dismissively. “I know exactly what you’ve got going.”

  “Yeah?” he asks.

  “Yeah. And you’re fucked, Dash. I’m going to get Gideon to slit your throat.”

  He laughs. “You gonna’ triple cross my double cross? You can’t buy out fucking Gideon Fleischmann!”

  “You sure like to say his name,” I say. “I’ve got you implicating him on tape twice now. I’m recording this call, just like I recorded our last conversation.”

  Dead silence from his end.

  “Before you panic and do something idiotic,” I say, “I have a dead man’s switch that will send this recording to Gideon if I don’t stop it.”

  “What? Like, you got something wired to your heartbeat?”

  “No,” I say. “This isn’t some fucking movie, man, if I don’t manually go on my phone and stop it from sending every two hours, it will automatically send to Gideon, and you’ll be fucked.”

  His voice gets nervous. “Fuck, man! You...you want her back, yeah?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then when you get her back, you don’t got any use for me, and you feed me to Gideon’s dogs.”

  “I got a guy making you a new identity,” I say.

  “So you admit it! You’re going to rat me out no matter what?”

  “When I rescue Elise,” I say, “Gideon will know there’s a leak. He’ll look for the weakest link--the dumbest and most fucking unreliable part of his plan--which I have to assume is you.”

  “Shit--”

  “Look, Dash, you’ve overstayed your welcome in New York anyway. My guy is real good, he gets you into all the electronic databases and shit. A new SSN, everything. I’ll give you the new I.D. before you tell us where she is, and as soon as I have her safe, I’ll let you run.”

  “I dunno’, man, this seems all too slick. I think I need to like, think it over--”

  “If you hang up the phone on me without agreeing, I will send this shit to Gideon straight away.”

  I hear him making nervous sounds and breathing heavy, then he finally says, “Alright, where do I meet you?”

  “Go outside,” I say. “And there’s gonna’ be a Chinese guy in a leather jacket waiting for you. His name is Tiger. Do exactly what he says.”

  “Who the fuck? A Chinese guy?”

  “Yeah,” I say, grinning. “Hu.”

  14

  Elise

  The sound of a big metal door slamming shut jolts me awake. I’m hoisted over someone’s back. Is it Hunter? No. Fear overtakes me as I struggle to remember anything. Then Dash’s face fills my mind, and I scream.

  I pull my legs back and slam my toes into whoever is carrying me. He grunts, and I crash to the ground.

  The ground is hard and cold, and the drop knocks the wind out of me.

  “Bitch!” the familiar voice says. It’s Dash.

  I hear three other men laughing.

  I look up and see that I’m in some kind of warehouse. It looks abandoned, or just really shitty, I can’t tell which.

  The three guys are sitting on cheap stools at a cheap foldout table. Two are playing cards and another is messing with his phone.

  “You guys aren’t gonna’ help me with this?” Dash asks.

  “You hear that Rudy?” the one with long hair says. “He got beat up by a little girl, now he needs our help!”

  They all cackle, all except Dash.

  I leap to my feet and run for the door.

  “Ey! Ey! Rudy!”

  Rudy, the biggest of the three, leaps off his chair and runs for me.

  “You need my help with the little girl?” I hear Dash asking sarcastically.

  I grab the handle and pull it down, but then I feel Rudy’s meaty hands grabbing hold of me and peeling me off the door.

  “You wanna’ get tied up?” Rudy asks, “or you wanna’ go sit in the corner and think about what’cha done?”

  I squirm against him, but when I realize there’s a chance I might not get tied up, I stop fighting.

  “Good girl,” Rudy says.

  “Don’t tie me up,” I say, “and I’ll sit still.”

  If they tie me up, the chances of getting away reduce to close to zero, but if they leave me unrestrained, I can take advantage of any opening.

  “You guys aren’t even gonna’ tie her up?” Dash asks. “You can see she’s a runner.”

  “Ey!” one of the three barks at Dash. “You do your job, we do ours, got it?”

  “I’m just saying,” Dash says, “Fleischmann won’t be happy if—“

  Rudy springs to his feet again and shoves Dash into the wall. “Watch your fucking tongue! You don’t say his name—“

  Fleischmann. Gideon Fleischmann. It doesn’t surprise me, not really. So he’s going to use me against…Hunter? No, Hunter has already been taken care of in Gideon’s eyes. This is about Mom. He fired Hunter so he could control Mom, and he’s going to use me to control her.

  Shit.

  That means Hunter probably doesn’t even know I’ve been kidnapped. I know just enough about his background to hold out hope that he’ll somehow find a way to rescue me, but if he doesn’t even know I’m being held, how can he save me?”

  “You ain’t told anyone else his name?” one of the three shouts over. “Ask him that, Rudy.”

  Rudy pulls Dash off the wall and shoves him back into it. “You ain’t told anyone else—“

  “I heard him!” Dash whine
s. “No, I never said his name to anyone else. I fucking promise!”

  “’Cause we don’t need that fucking Thorn guy coming to look for his fuck meat.”

  “What the hell did you just call me?” I hiss, jumping out of my chair.

  “Get back in the corner,” Rudy says, jabbing a finger at me. “Or I swear to God I’ll tie ya’ up! I don’t want to have to smell ya’ pissing yourself, but if you make me tie you up, that’s what you’re in for, little girl!”

  I sit back down, swallowing my anger.

  “Hunt doesn’t know shit,” Dash says, holding up his hands. “Just let go.”

  “Alright,” Rudy says, backing away from Dash. “Cause this plan’s airtight, so long as there ain’t no leaks.”

  “No leaks,” Dash says, grinning.

  I suddenly remember just before Hunter left. I saw the spark go off in his head, and he told me he knew how Gideon Fleischmann found out about me. Could it have been Dash? If anyone is a leaky ship, it’s that spineless asshole. So maybe Hunter does know about Gideon, and maybe he can find out that I’ve been kidnapped.

  “She heard the name,” one of the guys playing cards says.

  “Quiet!” Rudy says. “Don’t scare her.”

  I force a laugh. “Yeah, as if being kidnapped off the street and then locked in a warehouse with you guys hasn’t already scared me.”

  “If you was really scared,” Rudy says, “you’d shut the fuck up. If your ma does what we tell her, you’ll be free to go, alright?”

  “Alright,” I say, nodding.

  Bullshit. I have to get out of here.

  15

  Hunter

  The van pulls up, and I open the back doors and jump in. I’ve shed my suit for jeans and a hoodie over a t-shirt.

  Dash and Tiger are both sitting in the back of the van.

  Dash glares at me.

  Tiger nods his head. “Hey, man.”

  “Hey.”

  Tiger used to have a crazy mohawk back when we ran together, but now he’s just bald. His eyes are still crazy, though.

  “You really gonna’ pay me three million, man?” Tiger says. “I’m fucking poor. I’d do it for one million, but Stav says you’re fucking rich!”

  Stav laughs nervously from the driver’s seat.

  “Fucking shit, Stav,” I say.

  “Yeah, Tiger, it might take me a bit longer to get the extra money, but I got you.”

  “I’m just Hu now,” he says. “It’s, like, my real name. No one calls me Tiger now.”

  I roll my eyes. “Alright, Stav, I’ll never send you to negotiate for me again.”

  Stav laughs. “I’m retiring after this, I don’t gotta’ worry about future jobs.”

  “You better make this the best job you’ve ever done,” I say, eyeing Tiger, and then raising my voice for Stav. “This woman we’re rescuing is...she’s the one, you guys got it?”

  Dash rolls his eyes. “Some fucking jailbait he picked up at a club, and she’s the one. Also his fucking stepdaughter.”

  “Damn, man,” Tiger says. “That’s kind of fucked. I like it.”

  “It’s a fake marriage,” I say. “It’s complicated, alright? Now give me a gun.”

  Tiger reaches into a big duffel bag. “You want like, a revolver? Glock?”

  “Glock,” I say.

  “Cool,” Tiger says. “I’ll use the revolver.”

  He hands me the black pistol. I squeeze the grip. The molded polymer fits into my hand like a fucking glove. One I haven’t worn in over a decade.

  “This shit is pretty cool,” Tiger says, spinning the chamber of his chrome revolver. “I just been fishing on some asshole’s boat. He don’t pay very well, but I can sleep on the boat. Now I’m gonna’ be fucking rich, and I got a cool gun. It’s my lucky day.”

  “You could have had a cool gun on the fishing boat,” Stav says.

  “Nah,” Tiger says. “You don’t need a gun to catch fish. Now I need the gun…” He points the gun at Dash, “to shoot assholes.”

  Dash jumps off the seat and out of the way. Tiger laughs.

  I try to control my breathing. These guys used to be the fucking best and most trustworthy people in my crew. Now one runs a kebab shop and the other lives on a rusty fishing boat. I’m putting Elise’s life partially in their hands.

  Dash starts thumbing through all the documents Stav gave him. “This shit looks pretty legit. Why’d you have to make my name ‘Dick,’ though?”

  Stav laughs. “It felt like it suited you.”

  “It’s a shit name,” Dash says.

  “Sorry, dude,” Tiger says. “I think Dash is maybe the worst name I ever heard. It’s a really terrible name. And my name is Hu. You know how confusing that gets? Still better than fucking ‘Dash.’”

  “How far out are we?” I ask Stav.

  “Uh,” he says. “Like two miles.”

  “Stop a mile out,” I say.

  “You’re paranoid,” Dash says. “Gideon only has one guy watching her.”

  “So you say,” Tiger says.

  “Gideon isn’t the fucking kingpin,” Dash says. “He doesn’t have like thirty guys on his payroll. You think he’d have bothered to use me if he did?”

  I scoff. “That’s a good point, but we aren’t taking any chances. Tiger--Hu--and I are going to head to the warehouse on foot. Stav, you stay in the van with Dash. Keep a gun pointed between his eyes the whole time we are gone.”

  “My pleasure,” Stav says.

  “You’re gonna’ let me go, though,” Dash says.

  “You know how much fucking money this fake I.D. shit costs?” Stav asks, pointing the gun at Dash. “You think we’d bother expending resources like this if we was just gonna’ off you? Look at that fucking hologram on your passport! That shit is so legit! If I were just making some bullshit to make you feel better, there wouldn’t be no fucking eagle hologram.”

  Dash sighs. “I’m betting my life on a fucking eagle hologram.”

  “Don’t do stupid, scummy shit, Dash,” I say, cocking my gun. “And you won’t end up in the back of a van with a gun to your head. I should kill you, for putting my woman in danger...but I won’t, because I want her back more than I want you dead.”

  The van comes to a stop.

  “Alright,” Stav says. “We’re a few blocks away.”

  I pull out the blueprints for the warehouse--we found them online in a public database--and hold them out to Dash.

  “Where is she again?” I say.

  “Fuck, man,” he says, pointing to the black sharpie mark. “There, for the fifth time.”

  “You better not lie to us, Dick,” Tiger says, getting right up in Dash’s face and making crazy eyes.

  “I’m not lying!” Dash says.

  “If we don’t make it out alive,” I say, facing Stav, “I want you to kill Dash.”

  “What about my money?” Stav asks.

  I hand him a slip of paper. “It’s hidden here.”

  “Cool,” Stav says. “I’ll kill this dude if you die then.”

  “Yo,” Dash says. “Like, uh, I just remembered something. Maybe there’s more than one guy guarding her.”

  “You fucking liar!” Tiger says, pushing the gun into Dash’s neck.

  “How many guys?” I ask.

  “Uh, maybe three?”

  “Maybe?” I ask incredulously.

  “I forgot!” Dash says. “There was just the one guy when I first got there, okay? But then the one guy, he ordered a pizza, and this guy wasn’t very big, like all lithe and shit, and he orders three pizzas just before I left.”

  I roll my eyes. “You’re basing all your intel on how much pizza you think a man can eat?”

  “Three pizzas for one guy?” Dash says. “Come on, man, that’s at least two guys, right?”

  Stav turns back toward us. “I gotta’ agree with Dick on this one. I sold pizzas at my restaurant, and you don’t ever see one guy eating three pizzas, but ain’t no three guys gonna’
share just two pizzas neither. Three is about right.”

  “What toppings?” Tiger asks. “He order any toppings?”

  I’m ready to shoot all three of these guys myself at this point. Elise’s life is on the line and they’re discussing pizza toppings.

  “Like sausage and pepperoni on one, all veggies on another--artichokes, mushrooms, and olives--and plain cheese with extra sauce for the third.”

  I grind my teeth and get up in Dash’s face. “You assure me there is only one guy, and right before we are ready to roll out, you suddenly remember the exact fucking toppings on every fucking pizza? Your memory is pretty fucking selective.”

  Dash shrugs. “Alright, maybe I was hoping you and Tiger here would get shot up, and that Stav wouldn’t give enough of a shit to do anything to me. I changed my mind...I want a fresh start!”

  Dash grabs the blueprints and draws an ‘X’ on one of the walls. “This wall is all rotted out and shit. I remember seeing a bunch of sun rays and stuff going through it. Some boards with rusty nails patching it up, but probably one of you can sneak in there.”

  “Why were you over here?” I ask, pointing to the hole in the wall. “Elise is way over here, so what reason did you have to wander around the fucking warehouse?”

  “I had to piss,” Dash says. “So I pissed right over here.”

  He points to the corner right next to the wall.

  “Dick?” Tiger says to Stav, “Maybe you should name this guy ‘Dog!’ He’s pissing all over the house.”

  “Like you’d have just held it in?” Dash says. “Who gives a fuck, man, this is your entrance, alright? You sneak in there all quiet, then one of you can go up the ladder over here, get the high ground. The other one can sneak around the side here--”

  “Yeah,” I say, cutting him off. “It’s good. We can check to see if there’s really a hole here, and if there is, we can use it.”

  Tiger and I climb out of the back of the van with our guns holstered in our jackets.

  “Both wearing matching leather,” Dash says, rolling his eyes. “You guys look like some really gay mafia.”