“Oh, well I was kind of hoping to talk to him.”
“Haven’t you said enough?”
“You don’t understand. I’m pretty sure we know what happened to Shari’s gun.”
“You’re pretty sure, huh? Does that mean you think I took it?”
“I never said that.”
“Do you have any idea how hurt Sam is? Do you even care? You know, I thought you and Shari were the exception to the rule; that money hadn’t changed the two of you and that you were different. Boy… was I ever wrong. You’re just a couple of snobs. Is Shari here with you? I want to finish our business and get the hell out of here. She still owes me some money.”
“Look Chona, Shari knows she flew off the handle and she’s sorry for what she did. We know that Sam didn’t take anything from us and we were hoping to try and make things right. Shari has been under a lot of pressure and she just lost it. I know that isn’t an excuse for the way she acted, but it is the truth.”
“So, she doesn’t care that she made a grown man cry?”
“Tom,” said Shari from over his shoulder, “would you mind waiting for me, downstairs? I can defend myself, thank you.”
Tom turned around and saw Shari standing in the bedroom. She wore a fifty below zero expression and her hands were clenched into fists. Tom walked to her and held up his hands. “Calm down, honey,” he said, “let’s not turn this into an argument.”
“It’s kind of late for that,” she said, pointing to the door.
Chona stepped from out of the bathroom and she stood in the doorway. “Shari,” she said, “do not start with me. I’ve had a bad day.”
Tom walked out into the hallway and Shari slammed the door behind him. The screaming started before he had reached the bottom of the stairs.
Their cell was no bigger than a small bedroom, with a high ceiling and horseshoe pit for a floor. The walls were fieldstone and mortar and they were covered in wet slime. Marie had devised a way to make a torch out of strips of clothing, tying them tightly to the end of her crowbar and setting them aflame. Half naked and half crazy, the women pondered their predicament. The rats seemed to be gone, at least for the time being, but a new pestilence had reared its ugly head. Sand fleas, thousands of them, had become almost as numerous as the grains of sand they stood in. From the waist down, the women were covered in bright red rashes. They itched and scratched, but nothing seemed to help. “This is all your fault,” growled Marie. “Why do I ever listen to you?”
“My fault?” asked Doris, indignantly. “You were the one who said we should go inside because the power was out. I’m no brain scientist, but that sure was a stupid idea.”
“Brain surgeon,” corrected Marie. “And who are you calling stupid? You’ve made a ton of stupid mistakes in your life.”
Doris scratched an angry welt on the inside of her thigh. “Yeah, well what about that time when you stole Bonnie Miller’s car. We could have gone to prison for that.”
“Why do you always bring that up? That was thirty years ago, Doris. What about you? What about the time you spent Tommy’s confirmation money at the casino? What about the time you put laxatives in Vince’s whiskey bottle? Oh, those were some proud moments.”
“Knock it off. You should talk. Do you think I’ve forgotten about the time when you passed out in church, drunk off your ass? How old were you, Marie, sixteen?”
“What about Clark and Joe Klepsky? Should we talk about what you did with them?”
“Shut up, Marie, I’m warning you.”
“Shut up? Doris, I haven’t even warmed up, yet. You want to relive the past? Go ahead and bring it on.”
Doris shook her head and sighed. “We sure had some great times, didn’t we?”
“The best,” agreed Marie. “Where did the years go?”
Doris laughed as she continued scratching. But soon her laughing turned into sobs and snot bubbled out of her nose. “I can’t take it,” she groaned. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
Marie nodded and handed Doris the failing torch. She then tore another strip from the bottom of her own shrinking sweatshirt. “They’ll find us,” she said. “We just have to stay strong, Doris. You have to stop that crying.”
“I know, I know. I just itch all over the place. These damn fleas are chewing the hell out of me.”
Marie finished tying the strip of cotton fabric to the end of the torch and she burned the tip of her fingers. “Ouch,” she cried, “that hurt!” She then stuck her fingers in her mouth and gave Doris an appraising look. “You sure got fat,” she said. “I’ve always had big bones, but you used to be so skinny. Jesus, what the hell happened to you?”
“At least I used to be skinny, which is more than you can say. And when are you going to see a doctor about that awful goiter on your neck?”
Marie took the torch and held it behind Doris. “Yeah, well I hate to break it to ya, sister, but you’ve got something going on with your back. I don’t know what it is, but it looks like a lump of moldy oatmeal.”
Doris reached around with her fingers and began probing her back. “Where is it?”
“You’ll never be able to reach it. The blotch is right in middle of your shoulder blades. Ew, that thing is gross.”
Doris stretched her arms as far as she could, but she couldn’t find the spot in question. Finally, she gave up and returned to her scratching. “I’m sure its skin cancer,” she said, shaking her head. “That stuff runs in the family.”
“Yeah, that’s probably what it is. Say, do you remember that friend of Vince’s, Bobby, or Brian?”
“Billy Vanellie?”
“That’s the guy. Whatever happened to him? He was so good-lookin’.”
“He got run over by a truck, back before Vince passed away.”
“That’s too bad, he was really hot.”
Doris nodded. “He had a thing for me. I could tell.”
Marie laughed. “You thought every guy had a thing for you. Why, you were the most conceited person in high school.”
“I was the prettiest girl in our class.”
“Maybe you used to be pretty, but now you’re a fat old hag, just like me.”
Normally, comments like these would have offended Doris, but they were in a real pickle here and chatter of any kind was far better than silence. She was hungry and thirsty and her thighs were on fire. “When we get out of here, I’m going to change that,” she said. “I’m going to go on a diet and start working out.”
Marie was staring up at the ceiling and didn’t seem to hear what had been said. “Damn, if we only had a sledgehammer, I’d bust our way out of here.”
“I’m going to ask Tommy to pick me up some Richard Simmons videos.”
“Hey, maybe they hid a lever down here? Think about it, Doris. Know what I mean, like the one that opens the bookcase? I’ll bet they did.”
“Walking is good, too. Ned Setterholm lost a hundred pounds and all he did was walk.”
Marie was already waving the torch in front of the near wall, probing the fieldstone with her free hand. “Will you shut up and listen to me? There has to be an emergency exit down here. Look around for a lever or a chain.”
Doris scratched her knees and nodded her head. “I was just thinking the same thing, something like the lever that opens the bookcase,” she walked over and joined Marie at the wall and she began feeling up the fieldstone wall. They searched high and low, methodically making their way around their stone prison cell. Marie would stop from time to time, when she would tear off another strip of clothing and tie it to the end of the torch. They were down to their bras and their slacks were now shorts. The women were almost back to where they had started when Doris shook her head. “I told you this was a stupid idea,” she said.
Marie was down on her knees and was almost ready to give up, when the stone she pushed on slid back into the wall. “Stupid idea, huh?” she asked, excitedly. “Look what I found.”
Doris crouched down next to Marie and her
eyes grew large. She tried jamming her hand into the hole and Marie pushed it aside. Marie’s arm disappeared up to the elbow and there was a clunking sound. A second later, the trapdoor ceiling released and it swung down, barely missing the tops of their heads. The big trapdoor crashed into the stone wall with a heavy thud, filling the small space in a cloud of dust and blowing out the torch. Marie began digging in her pockets to search for the lighter, but when the dust cleared, pale light filtered in from above them. “I knew we’d find it,” said Doris.
Marie sighed and sized up their situation. The trapdoor was open and that was a good thing, but they would still have to climb a good eight feet to reach freedom. She reached up with her arms and tried to jump. Her fingers scratched at the hardwood floor, nowhere near the top edge. Doris gave it her best shot, but she also fell far short of the mark. When Doris tried again, Marie put her hand on her shoulder. “Stop it,” she said, “do you want to break a hip? We’re going to need something to stand on.”
“You’re not standing on my back,” said Doris. “I’d rather break a hip than break my back.”
“What if we piled up the sand?”
“That’ll never work. We’d just sink.”
Marie leaned down and picked up the crowbar. She looked from it to the open square above them and back to the crowbar. “We could use this as a hook. Give me your bra.”
“Are you crazy? I’m not giving you my bra.”
Marie, who was already shirtless, dropped the crowbar and began unfastening her own bra. Doris covered her eyes as Marie unleashed her sagging breasts. “Don’t you see what I mean? If we tie our bras together, we can toss the crowbar up and fish for something to stand on. Now, take your damn bra off!”
Doris felt something run across her feet and she quickly did as she had been told. She watched as Marie tied the ends of the sturdy support bras together, crossing her arms over her chest. “Be careful with that,” she said, “that’s a brand new bra.”
Marie turned and glared at Doris, but she said nothing. Holding one end of Doris’ bra, she made her first toss. The crowbar went up and fell straight down, barely missing Doris as it fell. “Sorry about that,” she said. “You should probably step back.”
Doris took a couple steps back. “I don’t remember seeing anything up there,” she said, “do you?”
“We couldn’t see a damn thing up there,” replied Doris. She then tossed the crowbar a second time, and it sailed up and out of the hole, landing with a clunk on the floor above them.
“Did you catch anything?”
“How the hell should I know?” asked Marie, giving her end of the bra strap a little tug. There was a thumping sound. “Did you hear that? I think I almost had something.”
Doris nodded her head and grinned. She had heard that and she had been about to say the same thing. They were going to escape their cell, she was sure of it. She watched as Marie tried four more tosses, but each time she came up empty. “You’re going to need some more rope,” she said. She then took off what was left of her nylon slacks and she handed them to Marie.
Marie knotted the Capri-length slacks to the end of the bra strap. She then tested the knot and she sunk the end of the crowbar into the sand. Marie then removed her own ragged slacks. She then tied the legs together and she gave Doris a hard look. “Not a word of this to anyone,” she grunted.
Doris shook her head and then she began to laugh. Marie stared at her as if she had lost her mind, but then she smiled. Soon, both of them were laughing like a pair hyenas, dirty, flea-bitten, and nearly naked, they laughed for nearly a full minute. “Oh, this is so ugly,” said Doris. “I just know that I’m going to have nightmares about this.”
Marie shook her head and picked up the crowbar. She then gave it a great heave and it flew out of the hole and crashed onto something. She gave the leg of her slacks a pull and something heavy scraped above them. “I caught something!” she cried.
Doris, wary of what Marie might have hooked, stepped back to the far wall. She watched as Marie strained at their homespun rope, something heavy scraping on the floor above them. “What do you think it is?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but whatever it is, it sure is heavy. Maybe it’s a bench!”
“Or maybe it’s a ladder,” said Doris.
“Sure,” growled Marie, “everyone keeps a ladder in their entryway.”
“You never know,” Doris said, watching as a large shadow appeared at the top of the hole. She was about to warn Marie when the shadow fell upon her. Doris heard a squeak of a scream and then a heavy thud. Doris covered her mouth. Whatever Marie had hooked had fallen directly on top of her. “Marie?” she cried. “Marie? Talk to me, Marie! Marie!”
But there was no sound from Marie. Doris was now terrified and she crept over to check on her friend. In the pale light, Doris shoved what appeared to be a steel chest, off of Marie. She dropped to her knees and blindly began searching for a pulse. During this search, Doris touched parts of Marie that made her skin crawl. She was cool to the touch and either out cold or dead, Doris prayed that it wasn’t the latter.
Chapter 14
Tom walked outside and waited on the front porch. He could still hear the fight as it raged up in his mother’s bedroom, but he could no longer hear what was being said and he was glad for that. Both Shari and Chona were strong women and neither seemed willing to pull their verbal punches. Things heated up in a hurry and Tom hoped they wouldn’t come to blows, or start hair pulling or eye gouging. He sat down on the steps and watched as his mother’s neighbor, Alice Kindersley, walked out of her house and over to the fence. She was a retired schoolteacher with thick glasses. She waved to him. “Hi Tommy,” she said.
“Hello Mrs. Kindersley,” he replied. Alice was dressed in her housecoat and slippers and she held a freshly lit cigarette. She stood at the fence and smiled, listening to the argument with her big ears. Tom stood up and walked across the new lawn to the fence.
“Sounds like there’s a helluva fight going on,” said the old woman. “What’s it about?”
Tom sighed. “They’re just having a disagreement.”
Mrs. Kindersley gave Tom a patronizing smile. “Wasn’t that your new wife who walked in there? She sounds like she’s really blowing a gasket.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing. What do you think of Mom’s new house?”
The old widow shook her head and wrinkled her nose. “What the hell does your mom need all of that room for? I sure wouldn’t want to pay the heat bill. Don’t you people watch the news? In case you didn’t hear about it, we’re in a recession.”
“We’ll be fine,” said Tom, not knowing if that were true or not. “And I happen to love the new house. You do know that having it there only increases the value of your own house, right?”
“Like I care; when I go, my kids are going to be at each other’s throats over this place. What I should do is leave it to the church. That’d serve them right. They want to put me in a home.”
Tom nodded his head. He knew both of Mrs. Kindersley’s children, who were both nearly the same age as his own mother. There had been whispers of putting her into a home, but that had been all. That whispering had been going on for years. “Sure is a nice day, huh?”
“It’s too damn hot, if you ask me.”
Tom looked away, only to see another neighbor, Mrs. Cruikshank, walking towards them from across the street. She walked over to stand by Mrs. Kindersley. “What’s all the bickering about,” she said, motioning up at Tom’s mother’s bedroom window.
“It’s nothing,” said Tom. “They’re just having a disagreement, that’s all.”
“Sounds like it’s a great big one,” said Mrs. Cruikshank.
Tom left the two widows gossiping at the fence. He walked down to the street and climbed behind the wheel of the Mercedes. He watched the old women as they pointed to the house and melodramatically waved their hands in the air. Mrs. Kindersley said something and both women started to laugh. A moment l
ater, Shari charged out of the house and she strode down to the vehicle. She climbed in and slammed the door. “I hate that woman,” she hissed. “Do you know what she did? She charged us another ten thousand dollars. Can you believe it? I had to write her a check.”
Tom started up the SUV and he pulled away from the curb. “She told us yesterday that they were over budget.”
“I know she did, but ten thousand dollars over budget? That’s ridiculous. I told her that I was going to contact my lawyer.”
Tom sighed and shook his head. “What about Sam?”
“What about him? She wasn’t listening to you. Do you really think she was listening to me? Drop me off at my car, it’s around the corner. I’m going home. I want you to go over every inch of that house. If something isn’t right, I want it fixed. I mean it.”
“Okay, okay, just calm down,” said Tom, pulling behind Shari’s red BMW 760. He shifted into park and was just about to say something when Shari practically leapt from the vehicle.
“I don’t want to talk,” she said. “I need to cool down.”
Tom watched as Shari hopped into her car and sped off down the street. He put his head into his hands when the Mercedes low fuel alarm began to chime. He looked at the gauge and saw the needle had fallen below empty. “Oh shit,” he grumbled. Tom knew he had to find a gas station. He drove down to Lowry Avenue and took a right. He then continued down Lowry, crossing the river into North Minneapolis. He reasoned to himself that he had a better chance of finding fuel in that part of town. The old neighborhood had fallen on hard times and most people avoided that part of town. Tom had never had any trouble over there, so he thought he should be safe.
The streets were nearly empty, but the sidewalks were full of people. To Tom, they all looked like gang members, even though he wouldn’t have known one if he met one. One thing was certain: they all seemed to take a keen interest in the black Mercedes. Quickly, Tom put on his tough-guy face. He drove deeper into the bad part of town. He knew of a convenience store with gas pumps that he thought was just ahead. Ten long blocks later, Tom spotted the store. He let his breath out as he rolled up next to the pumps. The Mercedes began to cough and sputter. Before he could shift into park, the engine died. Tom flipped open the lever for the fuel door and he stepped out onto the pavement.
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