Wrecked

by Joe Ide

  Dodson looked at Grace and shook his head. “Girl, you ain’t nothin’ but trouble, are you?”

  Grace nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. I am.”

  The industrial zone in El Segundo was a bleak, grimy area just north of Long Beach. Scattered over a wide expanse of acreage were an oil refinery left over from a dystopian movie, numerous storage tanks, sludge pools, disused railcars, warehouses, and dirt parking lots. WSSI’s training facility was a sprawling cement building with the forlorn look of a distribution center for discount carpets. No lights, no cars. Walczak’s team hadn’t arrived yet. Isaiah parked the Audi behind a berm. They got out and he went into the trunk.

  “What are we doing?” Grace said.

  “Isaiah’s got a war chest in there,” Dodson said. “He can’t get busted because he buys everything on Amazon.”

  Over the years, Isaiah had been in situations where he needed something but didn’t have it at hand. A tool, a surveillance device, a weapon. He started carrying them in the trunk of his car but they became such a jumble he couldn’t find what he needed when he needed it. His solution: he removed the floor panel and spare tire for more room and organized his things in plastic boxes. They were labeled HAND TOOLS. DRILL/CIRC SAW. SOLDER/WELDER. PRY TOOLS. LOCK TOOLS. RESTRAINTS. WEAPONS.

  “Why ain’t we calling the police?” Dodson said.

  “No,” Grace said quickly. “We can’t.”

  “Why? We tell ’em two people got kidnapped and they’ll come out here and arrest everybody.” He waited for Grace to answer. “What’s the problem?”

  “There’s a murder warrant out for my mom.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?” Dodson replied like it was as common as catching a cold. Isaiah was rummaging around in the trunk. He found a device that was so complicated it took a second for Dodson to realize what it was. “A slingshot?” he said. Its maker called it “the most powerful wrist catapult in the world.” It was made from stainless steel and had a brace to keep your wrist straight. The Y was more like goalposts, two steel brackets holding high-tension springs that accelerated the speed of the four lengths of rubber tubing and rocketed a ball bearing fast enough to knock the head off a rabbit.

  “Yeah, it’s a slingshot,” Isaiah said.

  “What’s wrong with you, Isaiah? You can’t carry a pistol like everybody else?” Isaiah found the collapsible baton and put it in the back of his pants.

  “What about me?” Grace said.

  Isaiah rummaged in the trunk again. “Damn. I thought I had the pepperball gun.”

  “I used that the last time,” Dodson said.

  “This is all I have,” Isaiah said sheepishly.

  It was a modified caulking gun. In place of the tube of caulk, there was a spray can of butane. The plastic nozzle had been replaced with a short metal straw. A barbecue lighter was attached to the underside of the gun, its tubular nozzle shaped so its spark would light the butane as it came out of the straw. There were other homemade widgets and adaptors that gave the whole thing a built-in-the-garage-by-a-lonely-teenager look.

  “What is it?” Grace said.

  “It’s a flamethrower. The one from Amazon was too big to fit in the trunk.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  He was embarrassed. “It was kind of an experiment. I, uh, made it myself.”

  “No shit?” Dodson said. “I thought it was for the military.”

  “It’s got two triggers,” Isaiah explained. “This one lights the barbecue lighter. This second one releases the butane and creates the flame. It’s got a range of about ten feet or so.”

  Grace said, “You’re kidding, right?”

  Isaiah kept rummaging and found a toy still in its bubble wrap. The label said THE SNOOPER. It was tubular, as big around as a penny whistle and about a foot long. It was made of pink plastic. The ends were curved and short, like a length of plumbing pipe with nothing attached.

  “I feel ready,” Grace said. “Don’t you?”

  “Them mothafuckas are strappin’,” Dodson said, “and we gonna go in there with a slingshot and a caulking gun?” Isaiah was silent and frowning. “This is how he gets when he’s making shit up on the fly,” Dodson said.

  “I know.” Grace nodded.

  Isaiah got some other things out of the trunk and put them in a shopping bag. “We need a distraction,” he said. The three of them hurried over to the facility, Isaiah trailing, talking on his phone in urgent whispers. They arrived at the back door. Isaiah got the twenty-volt HSS drill with the cobalt bit out of the bag and gave it to Dodson. “You know what to do,” he said, and Dodson went to work, drilling out the lock. The whine seemed loud enough to alert everybody in the city.

  “Who were you talking to?” Grace said.

  “When you finish, don’t open the door,” Isaiah said.

  “Why not?” Dodson said.

  “The alarm will go off. We have to wait for them to disarm it.”

  “Isaiah?” Grace said. A van was coming up the road. The headlights would be on them in a minute. The drill’s whine seemed to get louder, the beams edging toward them. Heart rates went up, everyone breathing faster. “Hurry, muthafucka,” Dodson said to the drill. The lock finally came out and they hastily took a position behind a line of dumpsters with a view of the front entrance. Isaiah gave Grace a set of wire cutters.

  “What are these for?”

  “Cutting zip ties.” The vehicles arrived. The crew dragged Sarah and her friend out of the van. They were tied up, bedraggled and terrified.

  “Mom,” Grace said. She grabbed Isaiah’s arm. “We have to do something.”

  “No. We have to wait.” And then he told her why.

  Walczak was where they’d left him, lying on his back in the chair, his torso tightly bound with duct tape, his legs above him in an L. He didn’t panic. He didn’t know specifically what he’d do, but he was confident he could figure something out. Hell, he’d taken classes on exactly this kind of situation. The first issue was mobility. If you could move, you could create an opportunity, find resources. He couldn’t budge his arms or the upper half of his body, but his legs were free. He spread them wide and put his feet on the floor, the seat between his knees, his eyes on the ceiling. He pushed off, the back of the chair scraping and sliding over the hardwood floor. He’d moved maybe a yard and stopped. If he couldn’t see where he was going there was no reason to expend the energy. He thought about what was around him. He could kick at the desk and hope the landline would fall to the floor. No, that wouldn’t work. The desk was a solid piece of rosewood that weighed a ton and even if the handset fell there was no way to dial it. He visualized every item in the room, but there was nothing he could use to communicate with the outside world or cut the tape. Nevertheless, the tape was the only point of attack.

  Or was it?

  There was the chair itself. It was sturdy but spindly. An antique he’d bought at an auction. The top of the chair was rounded, two side posts and two fluted columns in the center where you rested your back. Without the use of his hands, there was only one force strong enough to break it. Gravity. Walczak planted his feet again and pushed himself across the study and down the hallway. It was hard work. He was sweating and breathing hard by the time he reached the edge of the staircase. This was going to hurt, he thought. He’d be sliding down the stairs on his back, headfirst, and his shoulders were wider than the chair. He couldn’t see the stairs, but he didn’t have to. There were twenty-one of them, a landing at the dogleg left, continuing on and ending in the foyer and the Italian marble floor, nothing to stop him but the wall underneath the Edwardian gilt mirror that took two workmen to hang.

  “Here goes nothing,” he said. He pushed off. It was worse than he’d thought. He was going really fast, like a goddamn snow sled, jolting over each step, his head and shoulders taking a beating as the chair banged into the solid oak banister again and again, skewing sideways as it hit the landing, smashing into the wall, flipping over, and t
umbling the rest of the way down before he finally crashed onto the floor, stopping two inches from the wall.

  “Ohhh shit,” he moaned. The dog had chewed holes in him but this was pain on top of pain on top of pain. He could tell he was badly hurt, structurally hurt, so much blood he couldn’t tell where it was coming from. He was still bound to the chair. His head and knees were on the floor now, his body in an inverted V, the chair legs pointed up at a forty-five-degree angle. The next part was a bitch too.

  He spread his knees, raised his torso, and pulled his feet underneath him one at a time. And then, with a tremendous burst of energy, he stood up. Now he was bent over, wearing the chair on his back. He looked in the mirror. His head and face were bloodied, teeth were missing, he was bleeding from his scalp, bruises emerging on his face. One shoulder was lower than the other. Two of the chair’s legs had been knocked off but that was no help. On the bright side, a side post was cracked but hadn’t broken completely. Mission unaccomplished. He was still bound to the fucking chair. His hands were free, but they were down by his hips and useless. He couldn’t even open a drawer. “FUUUUCCCKK!” he screamed. He caught his breath, steadied himself, then walked like a hunchback into the den. There was a landline on an end table. He sidled up alongside it, used his teeth, and pulled it by the cord until it dropped over the edge, the handset clattering to the floor. Then it occurred to him. He didn’t know any of the crew’s numbers by heart. They were in his phone, which Isaiah had taken with him. “FUUUUCCCKK!” he screamed again. He rested, trying to think through the pain and desperation. He couldn’t stay like this. Patty and Noah would be home in the morning. There was only one alternative. Walczak closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he went back into the foyer and started climbing the stairs.

  Chapter Sixteen

  This Is for All of Us

  Jimenez parked the van in front of the training facility, wondering why he’d let things get this far. He could have walked away long before this but it seemed natural, like no big deal. He was human shit and this is what human shit does. He knew why Hawkins was always pissed off and smoked most of the marijuana before he made the oil for his mother and he knew Richter was haunted by the old lady he’d nearly suffocated in his car and he knew why Owens drank and why she wanted him and he knew his wife had kicked him out because he’d beaten her one too many times and that his kids hated him and that he’d never get a good night’s sleep again for as long as he lived. He knew he hated Walczak and as soon as this was over he’d kill that motherfucker if Hawkins didn’t get him first. He also knew that he hated himself and if he ever got out of this mess he’d give his share of the money to his family and then he’d do what he’d wanted to do all along. Hang himself like the Iraqi man they’d strung up and buried outside the prison walls.

  The crew brought Arthur and Sarah into the break room. There were tables and chairs, cupboards, vending machines, and a fridge. They sat the prisoners on the floor with their backs against the wall. Hawkins set the medical bags on the counter and opened them. A glow seemed to emanate like when Samuel L. Jackson peered into the briefcase in Pulp Fiction.

  “Looka here, looka here,” Hawkins said. He dumped the bundles of cash out into a satisfying pile. “Check it out, Owens. You could go to rehab in Malibu, play shuffleboard with the celebrities.”

  “Fuck you,” she said, “and I want my share now.”

  “Later,” Jimenez said. “We don’t have time.”

  “And I said now.” She had her hand on her gun. She was dangerous. Hell hath no fury.

  “The fuck you think you’re doing?” Hawkins said, his hand on his own gun.

  “Wait,” Richter said. “Before we shoot each other like idiots, calm down, will you? Don’t be stupid.” Everyone relaxed but only a little. “Listen to me, okay? Let’s say we get the pictures and all the copies. You guys get the million, right?”

  “Oh, I get you,” Owens said. “You want a cut, don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t. It’s small change.”

  “Maybe it is to you. But us peons think it’s a lot of damn money.”

  “Hear me out, will you?” Richter said. “Suppose we don’t give the pictures to Walczak and we keep them.” The crew looked at each other.

  “We’d have Walczak by the nut sack,” Hawkins said with a wide grin.

  “How? We’re in the pictures too,” Owens said.

  “You ever hear of Photoshop?” Jimenez said. “We could hit Walczak up for a lot more than a million.” They were all grinning now.

  “Let’s take that prick for everything he has,” Richter said. Arthur groaned. His face was screwed up in pain, he was breathing in gasps, his head swiveling around like a baby’s.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Hawkins said. “We hardly touched him.”

  “That Taser,” Sarah said. “He’s having a heart attack!”

  “One bullshit thing after another,” Jimenez said.

  “Help him! Do you want him to die?”

  Richter looked at Jimenez. “If he dies we have no way to corroborate what Sarah tells us.”

  “There’s aspirin in my bag. Please!” Sarah pleaded.

  “Get it for him,” Jimenez said. Richter found the aspirin, Owens got him a coffee mug of water. Richter knelt down, put the aspirin in Arthur’s mouth, and gave him a drink, most of the water dribbling down his chin. But Arthur’s breathing got more ragged and strained, his face scrunched up in agony.

  “If he stops breathing you’ll have to do CPR!” Sarah shouted. “Cut him loose! What’s wrong with you?” Jimenez reluctantly nodded again. Richter got out a folding knife and cut the zip tie off Arthur’s wrists.

  “I’m not doing mouth-to-mouth, asshole,” Richter said, “so you better come through.” Richter rose to his feet, turned away, and screamed, “OH FUCKING SHIT!” Arthur had a goddamn knife in his hand and was trying to get up. Jimenez ran over, kicked the knife away, and kicked Arthur until he rolled over.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” Sarah screamed.

  “Where the hell did that knife come from?” Jimenez said. He looked at Owens. “You were supposed to pat him down.”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t think he’d do anything. He owns a bookstore for fuck’s sake.”

  “You are the stupidest bitch who ever lived,” Hawkins said.

  Jimenez zip-tied Arthur’s wrists behind his back and left him there next to Sarah. Richter had his pant leg pulled up. He had an open slash across his calf, his sock already soaked with blood. “Hey, I’m bleeding over here! Do you think you could give me a hand?”

  “It ain’t nothin’ but a flesh wound,” Owens said.

  “Of course it’s a flesh wound! I got slashed with a goddamn knife!”

  “There’s an infirmary,” Jimenez said. “Down the hall, second left and it’s on your right. Put a tourniquet on it. They’ve got all kinds of first aid stuff.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Richter said as he hobbled out of the room. “Assholes.”

  Jimenez listened to the retreating footsteps. “We on the same wavelength?”

  “Uh-huh,” Hawkins said with a smile.

  “What?” Owens said.

  “Who needs him?”

  When Walczak’s crew had gone into the front of the building, Isaiah, Grace, and Dodson entered through the back. It was dark and smelled of disinfectant, cafeteria food, and cordite. Isaiah’s injuries still hurt but he was loaded with Vicodin and the adrenaline smoothed over the pain.

  They crept down a long hall. There were lots of offices and interconnected rooms and other hallways branching off. Signs with arrows directed you to the cafeteria, gym, lounge, library, gun range, admin, and so on. Isaiah made mental notes about the layout. An escape plan seemed like a good idea. He reasoned that the crew wouldn’t take Sarah and her friend deep into the building. They’d go into the first available room that was relatively small. One, because they’d want their captives in a contained space, and two, they’d be eager to see the money. The
odds, then, were that they were toward the front of the building.

  They heard footsteps and someone muttering. Hurriedly, they darted into one of the dark rooms. Porkpie went by, limping badly. “Fucking assholes,” he said.

  A lucky break, Isaiah thought, and they needed one. That left three bad guys to deal with instead of four. The group continued on, making a couple of turns and reaching the main hallway. They kept moving until they saw an open door, light and voices coming from it.

  “She’s in there,” Grace said.

  Jimenez said, “Okay, it’s showtime.” He hauled Sarah up and sat her in a chair. “You tell us what we want to know or we’ll go to work on you right now.” He thought a moment. He didn’t want to incapacitate her. “Wait, I have a better idea. We’ll work on Arthur. Cut his ear off and you can watch.”

  “Yeah,” Owens said excitedly, “like Reservoir Dogs.”

  “No! You wouldn’t!”

  Hawkins picked up Arthur’s knife, knelt beside him, grabbed his ear, and twisted it. “They come off surprisingly easy. I’d say it’ll take a minute tops, depending upon how much he moves around.”

  “Don’t! Please don’t!” Sarah said.

  “Then you better start talkin’,” Owens said. “He ain’t foolin’ around.”

  Hawkins ran the blade along the base of Arthur’s ear. Arthur cried out, blood running down his neck.

  “Stop! Stop!” Sarah screamed. “I’ll tell you everything! I’ll tell you everything!”

  Grace heard the screaming. She started forward. “That’s her, that’s Mom.” Isaiah held her back.

  “We have to wait,” Isaiah said.

  “Where the fuck is he?” Dodson said.

  “Now you’re being smart, Sarah,” Jimenez said. They cut her loose and he gave her a small notebook and a pen. “Let’s start with where the copies are, and you should know, my bullshit detector is never wrong. Fuck around and we’ll cut both his ears off and yours too.”