The Incident (Chase Barnes Series Book 1)

by John Montesano

  I approached Source with a level of aggression and frustration I’d never felt before in my life. Punching his teeth in and forcing him to choke to death on them crossed my mind. Shooting his left eye out, leaving the right so he could watch me dismember his extremities limb by limb also crossed my mind. I even pondered using his own severed limbs to beat him senseless. Nope. I wanted him to live. Source wasn’t going to get the satisfaction of getting off that easily. I wanted to him to give me information. All I could think was his name written on that slip of paper stashed away in my son’s private possessions in the basement. Pacing around his writhing body, I couldn’t take my eyes off the blood pouring out of the gunshot wound to Source’s inner leg. Suddenly, flashes of Jake reentered my brain. The way Source was lying on his back was nearly identical to the formation Jake’s body took when I shot him that night. I wanted to look back at Source and watch him bleed to death but I couldn’t. Closing my eyes didn’t make Jake’s thoughts dissipate.

  All I could feel was the sudden onset of another panic attack. The flushed skin. The sweaty palms. The shortness of breath. The straw that broke the camel’s back was getting up from my seat and running into the corner of the storage unit to throw up.

  EIGHTY SIX

  While Chase Barnes was upstairs being a panic- stricken, vomiting pansy, Barry Klein was outside gathering up Esteban and the other boys. He was marching them out to the same black van that transported Esteban after the first night he disappeared. Klein was growing so impatient that he was beginning to think irrationally. This was a negative trait of his that had hindered him throughout his entire life and was even pointed out by his superiors and subordinates at work. He’d been documented by his superiors on a couple of occasions for excessively punishing a staff member for improper conduct. This didn’t surprise me at all.

  Esteban was still bounded by the wrists, this time in front. His rage had ebbed and flowed during the duration of this entire ordeal. With malnutrition and excessive fatigue well underway, Esteban had been experiencing blurred vision and severe headaches for longer than he could remember. Klein stood the boys shoulder to shoulder, backs against the sliding door to the black van. All of the boys had their hands bounded in front of them with thick plastic zip ties. Esteban eyed the other boys, all appearing to be just as fatigued and mentally drained as he felt. Suddenly, Esteban’s impulsivity began to pique for the first time in about a week. He began scanning his surroundings, attempting to plan an escape route. He actually wanted to run.

  Klein strolled around the front end of the van and entered the driver’s side to start up the engine. He slapped the wheel a few times as the engine coughed and sputtered. Esteban’s window of opportunity began to grow by the second once he heard the van’s engine stall out. In front of Esteban was a vacant parking lot but thought it was too wide open, which would give his captor a clear shot at taking him out. To Esteban’s right was a six- foot high fence running the entire length of the parking lot, separating the storage facility from private property adjacent to it. If Esteban had all of his wits about him and enough strength he would be able to hop the fence in a single leap. Not to mention the hindrance of his wrists being bound in front of him. The van blocked Esteban’s view behind him so he decided his best escape route was to his left, which led out to the front of the storage facility and out into the streets of Paterson. Streets he cruised with his friends on a nightly basis. Streets he knew like the back of his hand.

  He heard Klein still fiddling with the keys, still trying to kick start the engine. The other boys on both sides of him were sluggishly leaning their bodies against the van, trying to conserve as much energy as they could. God only knew what was in store for them next. Frankly, Esteban didn’t give a shit about the other boys. He was out for himself. He didn’t want to stick around and find out. Without a further flash of hesitation, Esteban took off with his hands still bound in front of him with a thick white police- like zip tie.

  EIGHTY SEVEN

  Aside from nearly being hit by three cars while crossing Prince Street, Esteban darted into the confines of an apartment building. He didn’t know where to go from there. His mind raced too quickly for any type of rational thought. Knowing well enough the amount of strange looks and bombardments of questioning he would receive, Esteban had to be careful where he chose to go because of his zip- tied wrists. He tried his best to conceal them but his short t- shirt was unable to hide them. And it was virtually impossible to conceal his wretched scent and disheveled appearance.

  Home wasn’t an option because he was afraid of the reaction he’d get from his mother. Afraid that his mother would choose to keep him restrained in those zip ties. Fear that his mother would take advantage of the restraints and his vulnerability and beat him senseless for sneaking out in the first place. Somehow this whole experience would turn out to be his fault, which was partially true but Esteban’s choice to be a drug runner never intended to pan out quite like this. In due time, Esteban would begin to feel his imprisonment under Klein’s orders were a walk in the park compared to the punishment he would receive at home. He just knew from previous experiences. What little extended family he had in this country lived just far enough to reach by foot so that option was out.

  Passing several eateries and delis that he frequented, Esteban’s lightheadedness was working its way down through the rest of his bloodstream. But there was no stopping now. He didn’t know whether or not Klein knew he was gone but more importantly he didn’t care. There were no screeching tires in the distance. There were no loudmouth screams shouting for his return. As far as he knew, Esteban was in the clear.

  He had to reduce his jogging to a slow walk before he passed out and was found lying in the middle of the sidewalk like some of the homeless folks he’d seen in his neighborhood. Come to think of it, Esteban thought, he was starting to smell like them too. This was the first sense of freedom Esteban had felt in a near lifetime and wasn’t about to let a severe bout of fatigue knock him down now. Adrenaline was beginning to flow freely now and rejuvenate his body and he wished he had a skateboard. He could cover nearly three times the distance between Klein and himself if he had his wheels.

  Esteban found a narrow alley between a dry cleaners and a Chinese food restaurant to safely hide and rest. What’s the irony of that? Esteban, who’d been in the same clothes for the last week that could use a freshening up and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a solid meal. Now, here he stood, in a deserted alley. One side was a place he could possibly snag a new outfit and on the other side he could ask for one of his favorite things to eat- sweet and sour pork and pork fried rice. The smells made the lining of his stomach begin to bubble and rumble so hard it hurt to breathe. He’d frequented this Chinese restaurant plenty of times but was unsure if the employees would recognize him if he were to walk in. He wanted to give it a go but looked down at his wrists again, which sparked a search of the alley to find something to cut the zip ties and break free.

  The alley stretched back nearly as long as the entire city block and was very dark even in the midday sun. Esteban found a few items he considered sharp enough but were either too thick to fit between his scrawny arms or weren’t as sharp as he thought. Finally, Esteban found the edge of an exposed rain gutter that jutted off the edge of the building. At first, he had difficulty gaining enough momentum to carve through the sturdy thick plastic. Once Esteban adjusted his footwork he could see the transparent plastic handcuffs begin to whiten where he was driving the jagged metal rain gutter through the miniscule opening between his wrists. The rain gutter caught flesh a few times, leaving scrapes and skin abrasions, but Esteban didn’t care. He’d purposely done worse things to himself.

  Snap! And just like that Esteban was free! He didn’t rub his wrists like they do in the movies. He didn’t even look at them or wipe up the blood dripping from his scrapes. Being free from captivity seemed to simultaneously clear up Esteban’s train of thought and just like that, he knew wh
ere he should go.

  EIGHTY EIGHT

  I must’ve been immune to the vibrations because, during the entire shootout, I missed four calls. One was from Lindsey, checking up on my day. If she only knew, I thought. Two were from Fitzgerald, wondering when I was going to stop by like I had told him earlier because he had a meeting to get to shortly. Sorry, pal, but I’ve been a little busy, I thought next. The fourth message was a bit surprising. It was from Dr. Sharper, asking how I was doing and if I’d given any more consideration to continuing our sessions despite the fact that the Paterson Police Department would no longer foot the bill. Yeah, right, I thought in reply to Shaper’s inquiries.

  I had no idea why I thought that was the appropriate time to check my messages. Was it out of habit or was it out of desperation for a fragment of time in which normalcy was restored? The entire time I had my phone pressed to my ear I had my gun pressed on the two thugs I just tagged with bullets.

  It took me a few minutes to regroup and gather my wits about me. Throwing up in the corner of a storage unit wasn’t a concern for me. And neither was the wretched smell quickly filling the confined space. My primary focus was on the one called Source. Instincts told me to put another bullet through his head and put him out of his misery but I wanted to find his connection to Klein. Then, eventually find his connection to my son. My attention turned to him and my eyes were filled with so much fury that I felt as if I could ask him to watch as I ate the flesh surrounding the wound to his leg.

  “Where’s Klein?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” was all Source could say through sighs of agony. “Ain’t you gonna call me a fucking ambulance?”

  I pretended like I didn’t hear his question. “See, I think you do know because I know you work for him and I know you’re the scumbag motherfucker that likes to kidnap young kids,” I said.

  “Just following orders,” Source said. He said it so nonchalantly that I assumed the phrase was probably his moniker.

  “Orders from who? Klein?”

  The second he seemed to hesitate and not answer my question, I applied the pressure. Not the proverbial kind that people feel when trying to meet a deadline. I mean the literal kind that people feel when someone else steps on their hemorrhaging gunshot wound. I lifted my weight up on one foot on top of Source’s thigh and watched him scream so loud I could hear the metal door to the storage unit shake. I repeated my question and stepped down.

  “Yessssss, yessssss. Ah, fuck, man. Who the fuck are you? What the fuck’s wrong with you?” Source screamed again. He was trying to push my foot off his leg but the positioning of his upper body added to the applied weight of my body was too much for him to budge.

  “So where is Klein now?” I demanded.

  “I told you. I don’t fucking know. He always tells me and Trigger to chill out here until he gives us the next shit to do,” he said. I assumed Trigger was the other goon lying dead in the opposite corner from where I threw up. Kinda ironic. A guy named Trigger loses a gun battle to an amateur like me. Maybe he got his name from being a good paintball player.

  I could tell we were getting nowhere with this line of questioning and Source was probably telling me all he truly knew so I started to walk out, planning to leave Source right where he was to bleed to death.

  Just as I stepped out into the corridor, I instinctively turned back. After I took both of their cell phones so he couldn’t call an ambulance for help or Klein to warn him that I was hot on his trail, I said, “And you want to know who I am?” I stared straight into Source’s face and he was doing the same to mine. We locked eyes and I said, “I’m the father of the kid you made me kill.”

  Then I shot him in the face.

  EIGHTY NINE

  It must not have been a kill shot because I thought I heard Source scream after me as soon as I left. I didn’t stick around to find out. Frankly, I didn’t give a shit what happened to him. Source could lie there for the next month and develop gangrene for all I cared. Or he could die in the next hour. Either way, I didn’t give a shit. I knew I had to get outside to the other storage unit that Klein paid ten grand in dirty money to Jerry Finch to rent. Working on a hunch, I felt Klein should be still out there after following him here and seeing his car parked around the back. I remember Finch saying that it was a leftover from the pre- renovation that was out towards the back. I vaguely remembered seeing a shed of some sort in the described area but didn’t know for sure if it was the same one. Exiting out a side door, I still wasn’t sure where to go. When I had done my recon mission, getting the lay of the land on the outside, I must’ve missed this mysterious unit that Jerry Finch was referring to.

  Looking in both directions, I missed it during my first scan. Ready to make my way back into the building to cut down the hallway to the other side, the unit got stuck in my vision. It was neatly tucked away in the far corner of the parking lot. Strewn about around the perimeter were a variety of landscaping equipment: lawnmowers, weed whackers, gas cans, rakes, and bags of topsoil and grass seed. I remembered what Finch had told me about Klein specifically requesting the abandoned unit that was being used to house maintenance equipment. Now I knew why. It had a heavy covering of treetops hovering above the shed and with the strewn about equipment customers of the facility would never give it a second look.

  Someone must’ve been having car trouble because I could hear a hefty engine spitting and sputtering from somewhere in the parking lot. Knowing nothing about cars, I couldn’t even begin to guess as to what might be the problem. Therefore, I couldn’t offer anyone assistance other than my cell phone to call a roadside service company. My gun was still in my hand, which I had not realized, and thought I better put it away so I didn’t scare away actual paying patrons. I’m sure the dozen or so shots fired just a few minutes ago was enough to put the place out of business. My gun was now tucked back into my waistband. I couldn’t tell if it was the panic attack still lingering or if I was actually coming down with something because my stomach was still hosting its own roller derby. My brain still felt a little cloudy but my excessive sweating had begun to subside. The cool air felt good on my exposed skin.

  Suddenly, letting my feet guide me as if they knew where to take me and the rest of my body was to follow, I spotted Klein’s sports car. Still where he left it, which meant he was still creepily lurking somewhere on the premises. The struggling car I heard magically kick started and came rumbling across the partially vacant parking lot. Headed right in my direction. It was a black van. Looked like a van from the mid- nineties and living on borrowed time. The van was about two hundred feet from me and the driver’s image was gradually becoming clearer. I could see the slicked back hair. The more the van accelerated, the more life was breathed into it. Hair color, body size, and facial features became more visible.

  The man’s image reminded me of someone but I couldn’t place it because the closer the van moved out of the shadows and into the sunlight, the reflection off the windshield faded the clarity. The guy had a beard that matched the salt and pepper ice rink he called a hairstyle.

  In a flash, the van zipped by me and peeled out of the parking lot and out into traffic. I was able to catch a better glimpse of the driver as he flew past me, snagging a quick look through the driver’s side window.

  The driver was Klein himself.

  NINETY

  There was a decision I had to make. Do I bolt to my car and race after Klein or do I check out what’s in store for me behind door number two? The equipment shed. If door number two was anything like door number one, I wanted no part of it. My legs felt rubbery but the blood was beginning to flow through all of my extremities. I got to my car in what felt like ten seconds but was probably thirty. By no means am I, or was I ever, a track runner. Gasping for air, I pulled my gun out from behind me while hopping into the front seat of my Santa Fe. The engine came to life and I screeched out of my parking space and followed the route Klein took in his van.

  Out on Prince Stree
t, I had no idea which way Klein had gone. Left or right. Instincts usually told me to head to the left but when I looked both ways for oncoming traffic I saw a clouded trial of exhaust fogging up the intersection to my right. I disregarded traffic coming forth and cut off a trio of cars, all of which wailed on their horns at the jackass that just cut in front of them. Some were nice enough to show me a finger or two. I waved my cursory apology and took off after Klein.

  The van was still out of my sights but, luckily, the trail of smoke was still prevalent, giving me a ghost’s trail to follow. The horsepower of my Santa Fe was much more efficient than that of Klein’s van so I was able to get him in my sights after a few hundred yards of pursuit. Prince Street eventually merged into Spring, which came to an end at Green Street. Klein turned on to Green Street. Off Green Street, Klein could have chosen to go right towards Jackson Street or left to Railroad. He went left to Railroad and hung a quick right onto 21st Avenue. Klein was heading out to Route 80.

  Now where the hell was he going? Back home or to another location? Did he have Esteban and the other boys in the back of the van? I assumed so. One thing I was certain of was this was the van that was undoubtedly involved in the kidnapping of Esteban when this whole thing started. The license plate number was etched inside my mind. I thought about keeping a safe distance but what the hell did I care, Klein had no idea I was behind him. This wasn’t a recon mission. This was a pursuit to save lives. Even if I was made I didn’t care. I wanted Klein to see me hot on his trail.

  Then I had a thought. Did I make a wrong decision in choosing to go after Klein in the van and not attack the storage unit? Did Klein spot me in the middle of the parking lot and use the van as a decoy, assuming I’d tail after him?