[2010] No Cry for Help

by Grant McKenzie

  Wallace slowly turned the truck around and reversed into an out-of-the-way spot under a neglected huddle of trees on the edge of the grass.

  He stayed parked for awhile with his back to the view. His palms were sweating and the back of his neck itched with the need to turn around, to locate the guard, to get some answers—

  He fought the impulse and stuck with his plan, sitting in silence to make sure his presence didn’t warrant any undue attention. If a nosey patrol car came by, he would need to move fast.

  Fortunately, there didn’t appear to be anyone working inside the warehouse or patrolling its grounds. On the far side, where gravel turned to tarmac and the lot butted onto 2nd Street, cars came and went at a large Pac Can Duty Free, but everyone there was too focused on a last chance for discount liquor to even glance in his direction.

  Before today, Wallace’s biggest crime had been disobeying company policy and refusing to pick up certain unstable passengers with a track record for violence. The courts may have ruled those individuals still had a right to ride the bus, but when a fellow driver could no longer do her job because of the severe beating she received over a 25-cent shortage in fare, Wallace — and most of the other drivers — believed the judges could go fuck themselves.

  Alicia had worried about him. About the increasing violence that made driving a city bus more dangerous than most people realized. He had always tried to assure her that he could handle himself.

  And he had.

  But how were they to know that danger would arrive through a different door? A door that neither of them even knew existed.

  Wallace rubbed his face. He didn’t want to think anymore. He needed to act.

  After sliding out of the cab, Wallace quickly moved his supplies into the open-air cargo area and lowered the tailgate. Next, he unfurled the canvas tarp and draped it over the truck bed, anchoring it on each side to a series of welded hooks. He left the rear flap hanging loose. When he was done, he took one last look around, lifted the flap and crawled underneath.

  The truck bed became a hunter’s blind, cold and damp but perfectly disguised by its normalcy.

  If he’d had more cash, Wallace would have bought a sleeping bag and waterproof mat. With the RCMP looking for him, and his illegal status on this side of the border, his credit card was useless. But, then again, with comfort came sleep. And he couldn’t afford to close his eyes — even for a second.

  Lying on his stomach and using his elbows for support, Wallace lifted the skirt of the tarp and focused powerful binoculars on the rear entrance to the border headquarters situated less than eight hundred feet to the north.

  On the far side, out of his line of sight behind the building, border guards questioned their share of the 250,000 people who wanted to enter the United States from Canada every day. If they suspected anyone of trying to smuggle contraband across the border, or they just wanted to be jerks, they sent them to the search and seizure stalls on Wallace’s side of the building.

  Wallace was assuming the guards took turns at each station to avoid boredom and that sooner or later his blond guard would appear on one of the search crews. Not that it mattered. Even if his guard stayed on the far side of the building, Wallace had chosen this spot because it offered a clear view of the staff parking lot. That meant he should easily spot him heading home at the end of his shift.

  Wallace watched the guards working for awhile before grabbing a sandwich and energy drink from the grocery bag. The sandwich disappeared so fast, he became worried he hadn’t taken the time to remove all of the packaging and had simply inhaled the Styrofoam liner along with whatever the processed meat was supposed to be. He contemplated eating a granola bar, too, but a sudden sharp pang of guilt stopped him.

  He thought about his sons and wondered if they were being fed. At home, they were constantly eating and yet still complaining about being hungry, and they weren’t even teenagers yet. Alicia kept saying they would soon have to start going to all-you-can-eat buffets each evening to let the boys graze before they ate them out of house and home.

  Wallace didn’t know where they put it all. Both boys were lean like . . . well, Wallace patted his stomach, like their father used to be.

  When he complained to Crow about the pounds he had put on in the time he was off work, Crow had laughed and told him the extra weight suited him.

  Wallace questioned what he meant by that and Crow said, “You’re settling down, becoming comfortable in your own skin. Even when you were bitching about the physiotherapy you had to do on your leg, your outlook was changing. Day by day, I watched you become happier than I’ve ever seen you. Frankly, I was a little jealous.”

  Wallace stared straight ahead, lost in thought as though a movie was being projected on the flapping canvas. He wiped a stray tear from his eye.

  He had been happy. At the time of the crash, he had been sure he was going to die, but to survive that only to have something even more terrible brought down on his family. It just didn’t make sense.

  Why would someone take his family? There’d been no ransom or demands of any kind. In fact, it was the opposite. Someone went to a lot of trouble to get him completely out of the picture.

  “And why not just kill me?” Wallace whispered aloud. “If the bastards want nothing from me, why didn’t they kill me?”

  There was only one person who knew that answer.

  Wallace drained his energy drink, feeling the caffeine and sugar buzz filter through his brain, and returned his attention to the binoculars.

  He focused on the busy guards and devastated bystanders whose vehicles had drawn the short straw. He knew the blond guard would relish being part of the wrecking crew, to wield the immense power of the Patriot Act like a sledgehammer wrapped in the Stars and Stripes. He scanned each guard’s face, desperately trying to find him.

  And then he did.

  Blond. Smug. Muscles bulging as he wrestled the middle seat out of a minivan while a young olive-skinned couple and their three children looked on in terror and confusion.

  “If this fucker doesn’t talk,” Wallace told himself. “I hate to think what I’m going to do.”

  He heard another voice from deep within his brain say. “Don’t worry. He’ll talk.”

  And before he could question it, the voice told him why.

  “Because you’re not a nice man,” it said. “Not anymore.”

  CHAPTER 26

  JoeJoe threw open his door and rushed out of the truck. His lean frame was electrified with anger and his hands automatically curled into tight fists.

  He wished he had thought to pack a gun. Make the fuckin’ idiot really crap his pants.

  The jerk had almost killed them and now he was—

  Grinning?

  JoeJoe’s step faltered under the intensity of the man’s unapologetic stare — coffee-brown orbs within an elliptical pool of startling white.

  He moved with alarming speed and purpose, every muscle seeming to know its place, its connection to the others. His face reflected stone-cold sobriety with a hint of glee rather than the expected fear or remorse.

  “Dude, are you fuckin’ crazy?”

  The man’s right hand slid across his belt and suddenly there was a flash of curved silver.

  JoeJoe unfurled his hands to protect himself, but the black man rushed in so close, so quickly—

  JoeJoe fell to his knees, warm blood gushing from between his fingers as he clutched at his torn throat.

  CROW RELEASED his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and stepped out of the truck.

  His legs felt wobbly as he walked around the rear of the vehicle and saw—

  The black driver, his right hand dripping with blood, was staring down at JoeJoe, watching him die.

  Crow gasped. “Jesus.”

  The black man cocked his head.

  “Where’s Wallace?”

  “Jesus,” said Crow again.

  And then Crow did the only thing he could think of. He turned and
ran.

  MR. BLACK cursed and launched himself in pursuit, but he had been standing too close to JoeJoe’s draining corpse and his left foot slipped in the expanding puddle of blood.

  Even as he tumbled to the tarmac, Mr. Black did a quick calculation of Crow’s speed. He rolled and regained his footing, making the move look fluid, before deciding he was better off giving chase in the Lincoln.

  Without another glance at the corpse slumped in the middle of the road, Mr. Black leapt into his vehicle and screeched the tires as Crow turned a corner and headed down a back alley.

  WITHIN SECONDS, the Lincoln entered the mouth of the alley, chewing up any advantage that Crow’s head start had given him. The alley had been a poor choice. It was high-fenced, filled with locked gates, chained animal-proof garbage containers and gave Crow nowhere to hide.

  At the time, however, it had offered the only thing that mattered — it took Crow’s pursuer away from Delilah and the girls.

  Crow fumbled with his cellphone as he ran. He glanced over his shoulder. The Lincoln bore down. Its huge front grill was the size of a bar piano and projected an unspoken promise of major pain and irreparable damage to whatever it struck.

  He stabbed at the tiny plastic keys of his phone with his thumb. Number one on the speed dial.

  His lungs burned as the cellphone rang and he was panting like an overheated dog. The real agony, however, was in his stomach. It had twisted into a knot and was trying to exit his body via his anus.

  He glanced from side to side as he ran. The alley was too narrow. The fences too high.

  He was going to be crushed.

  He thought of his youth. Indian Days at the rodeo. The insane clowns distracting the angry bulls so they didn’t crush the fallen braves.

  He reached back his hand, felt it skim hot metal. One chance. He kicked up his heels and leapt skyward at the first kiss of steel.

  A voice answered the phone.

  Delilah.

  But it was too late.

  MR. BLACK cursed and slammed on his brakes as Crow was carried over top of the Lincoln’s grill. He rolled the full length of the hood and flattened briefly on the windshield before being squirted over and onto the roof.

  When the Lincoln finally screeched to a halt, Mr. Black tore out of his seat and ran back down the alley. He needn’t have hurried. Crow was lying face first in the gravel and dirt. His leap to safety, anything but.

  Mr. Black immediately rolled Crow onto his back. His face was bloody, clothes ripped and torn to expose raw patches of skin. His proud nose was bent at an awkward angle and his eyes were closed.

  Mr. Black checked the man’s pulse and breathed a sigh of relief. His heartbeat held strong and steady.

  Eliminating the young native had been an unnecessary indulgence, but it would have been a major mistake to lose the only other person who knew Wallace’s location.

  He unlocked the rear hatch of the Lincoln and, with some sweat and effort, dumped Crow inside.

  The rear third of the vehicle had been equipped for transporting private security guard dogs and as such was separated from the rest of the interior by a reinforced cage of powder-black steel bars.

  Mr. Black never liked dogs. Not even as a child. He found the domestic breeds too neurotic as though bred by insecure sadists to continually pine for human interaction and approval. The trained breeds were no better. They always killed too quickly, seeming to take more pleasure in ripping out someone’s guts than listening to them beg.

  He had respect for their handlers, though. He enjoyed that gleam of madness behind their eyes. They reminded him of the explosives specialists he worked with in the sand. They were crazy fuckers, too.

  The owner of this vehicle had been no different. The dogs hadn’t turned on him until the third slice, when he held his liver in his hands and his voice took on a whiny pitch. The dogs hadn’t liked that pitch.

  Mr. Black closed the rear hatch and climbed back behind the wheel.

  Now he just needed a quiet place to talk. Somewhere he wouldn’t be disturbed until he had all the answers he needed.

  CHAPTER 27

  Wallace dropped his bottle of water and refocused the binoculars. The blond guard was leaving the stalls and walking quickly toward the main building.

  Wallace had earlier watched him answer his cellphone. Instead of lifting it to his ear, the guard had read its tiny screen.

  Wallace only hoped it wasn’t a text message request to work overtime.

  Holding his breath, Wallace waited in silence, his binoculars focused on the rear entrance to the customs office. After a few minutes, the guard reappeared. He was still in uniform, but had swapped his navy blue and white-lettered U.S. Customs and Border Protection jacket for a plain civilian number in black leather.

  “This is it,” Wallace said, needing to hear a reassuring voice, even if it was his own.

  Forcing himself to remain calm, Wallace kept the binoculars trained on the guard, watching as he made his way through the staff parking lot. Wallace didn’t move a muscle until he knew the make and model of the guard’s vehicle — then he exploded into action.

  Grabbing the binoculars and shotgun, he quickly scrambled out from under the tarp, slammed the tailgate closed to trap the fabric, and climbed behind the wheel.

  Dust and gravel flew from the rear tires as Wallace floored the accelerator, sending the truck flying across the empty parking lot, past the busy duty free, and onto 2nd Street. From there, his GPS showed it was a straight path to the D Street underpass.

  It took less than two minutes to reach the onramp that connected with the freeway, but for those agonizing seconds Wallace was completely blind.

  If the guard had turned into Blaine, Wallace would have missed him, but if he stuck to the interstate, heading south toward Bellingham, his bright orange Camaro muscle car with twin gunmetal gray sport stripes running down its hood and flank should be easy to spot.

  Wallace took the onramp for the freeway and accelerated again.

  HE NEEDN’T have panicked. The Camaro appeared in front of him within moments and Wallace quickly snapped up the binoculars to confirm the blond guard was driving.

  Satisfied, Wallace eased off the gas and followed at a comfortable distance. There were enough vehicles on the road to avoid suspicion and the car’s unique color made it easy to keep in sight.

  As his tension eased, a chill shivered through his body. His skin was cold to the touch and his clothes were damp from lying in the back of the truck. He turned on the heater, absorbing its soothing warmth.

  The simple act made him think again of his sons. He hoped they were somewhere warm and dry. Alicia, especially, hated the cold. Last winter she had even tried to convince him to join her at sweat yoga — a program where bendy folks exercised in a steam room. It wasn’t for him, but Alicia loved it, despite what it did to her hair.

  He smiled to himself. He loved her hair, especially in the mornings when it resembled a tumbleweed of copper wire and there was nothing she could do to tame it.

  After twenty minutes, the Camaro left the interstate at Exit 539. Wallace grew silent and felt his stomach twist into a knot of eels as he glanced over his left shoulder toward the Bellis Fair Mall — the last place he had seen his family.

  He tried to remember the last words he said to Alicia. The last expression on everyone’s face. They were happy. The boys had pocket money burning holes in their jeans, Alicia had visions of sale signs dancing in her head, and Wallace could already smell the sugary overdose of fresh cinnamon buns being removed from the oven.

  It had felt so normal. So right.

  And then. Just like that. It wasn’t.

  The Camaro headed west and as Wallace followed, the busy mall fell behind. Wallace stared into his rearview mirror, his focus straining as he was suddenly overwhelmed by the irrational feeling that he should turn around and search again.

  What if it had all been a mistake? What if Alicia and the boys were waiting inside, eating
junk food and wondering where the heck he had run off to?

  He shook away the feeling and focused on the task ahead. Driving in front of him was the only person who knew where his family could be found. And no matter how hard he wished it wasn’t so, he had to accept that.

  CHAPTER 28

  Crow opened his eyes and groaned. His body oozed pain as if it was one giant, tender bruise. His nose and the left side of his face was on fire, the skin torn and bloody and peppered with chunks of gravel from his forcible faceplant in the alley. He tried to move his arms, but they were pinned rigidly behind him.

  He moved his head and surveyed his surroundings. He was in a home garage. Tied to a wooden chair. Tight, unforgiving rope around his ankles, wrists, lap and chest. A bare 60-watt bulb burned above his head.

  The garage was dry-walled and showed signs of recent wear and tear, but apart from an old oil stain on the poured concrete floor it was empty. A collection of DIY wooden shelves anchored to the far wall were bare, no clutter, just cobwebs and dust.

  The sound of running water came from behind. It made him want to pee.

  The water stopped.

  A whistle, previously hidden beneath the water noise. Soft, melodic. Frightening.

  The shuffle of feet.

  The whistling stopped.

  The silence became even more frightening.

  “Do you know why our president banned water boarding as a means of interrogation?” asked an unfamiliar voice.

  Crow’s puffy eyes grew wide and he instinctively struggled against his bonds. Useless. Whoever tied them knew what he was doing.

  “You can talk.” The unseen voice was calm, unthreatening. “We’re just chatting.”

  Crow wanted to speak, to ask what the hell was going on and why this son-of-a-bitch had killed JoeJoe. But he feared that if he started, he might never be able to shut up again.