by B. V. Larson
Ingles waved his words away. “No, no. I’m destroying the net because I hate it. I pinned it on you, however, because I hate you. Some people decide to go out by taking a gun to work. This is simply my way. I think if a man is going to make his mark on this world, he might as well make an impressive one. Don’t you agree?”
“So, why do you hate the net?”
Ingles frowned and steepled his fingers. “You remember that old joke about a million monkeys and a million typewriters eventually reproducing the works of Shakespeare?”
Ray nodded. He eyed the clock and wondered if Ingles was stalling. Could this all be bullshit to waste time? Justin wasn’t getting saved with all this. He had to either call the cops in, or get something useful out of Ingles. He checked the gun again, and it was loaded. The little button showed red, meaning the safety was off.
“That’s what the net is, Ray. Don’t you see? It is our new Tower of Babel. It’s destroying the works of real value by burying them in a billion videos of cats on toilets and nude women doing mirror-shots. If there is another Shakespeare out there today, no one will ever know it. That’s why I hate the net.”
“Okay, I get it, you are an elitist dick,” Ray said, “but I’m done listening. You are going to lead me to my kid. Now.”
“Look Ray,” began Ingles in the slightly patronizing voice that he reserved for students who complained about their poor grades. He put down his tea cup. “Let’s put our cards on the table. Or rather, I will, because you don’t have any.”
Ray breathed deeply, trying to clear the rage from his mind. Ingles simply wouldn’t give up on bantering. Ray believed that if he had simply shot him, the man would still be admonishing him even now.
With a smooth motion, Ray aimed the gun at the TV set and fired. It imploded nicely. Shards of glass and plastic shot out in a flash of sparks. A few of them sprayed far enough to leave glittering chips on the coffee table.
“I always wanted to do that,” Ray said, “and now I know that this thing works.” He leveled the gun on Ingles’ chest again. “Talk,” he repeated.
Ingles didn’t look up, but Ray could tell he was rattled. It felt great to do something the bastard hadn’t calculated an hour ago.
“You are trying to convince me that you will kill me if I don’t help you,” said Ingles. His tone was no longer patronizing, it had shifted into his reasoning, philosophizing mode. “But what if I can’t help you? What if I don’t care about dying? How will that help Justin? Another murder on the list?” he shook his head and took a sip. “No, another murder makes no sense.”
“You’re logic is flawed, Ingles,” said Ray, enjoying the raised eyebrows this evoked, “I didn’t say I would kill you. There are six more bullets in this gun. They will serve to cause a great deal of pain.”
A look of concern crossed Ingles’ features. Ray grinned upon seeing it. Ingles stirred his tea. “Perhaps we could come to some kind of arrangement, then,” he said.
“Yes, certainly. I’d like to know which foot you use the most, Ingles. The right, I believe? I will be kind then, and begin with your left. Please be so good as to place your left foot on the coffee table.”
Ingles made no move to obey. He frowned and seemed to be thinking.
“Here,” said Ray, pulling one of Ingles’ ties from the back of an armchair. He tossed it to Ingles, who finally looked up at him. “You will want that to tie off your ankle. I don’t want you bleeding to death on me. I need you lucid and alive.”
Ingles picked up the tie. He dusted some of the glittering chips of glass from the table. “You are proving to be a poor houseguest, Vance.”
Ray laughed. “You have no idea.”
Ingles cocked his head. Ray had the strange feeling that his soul was being examined. Ray realized right then Ingles was a genius, but it didn’t matter. Ray had the gun, and Ray had nothing left to lose.
“You’ve changed,” said Ingles at last. “I suppose I should have foreseen that.”
“Correct on both counts.”
“I’ll strike a bargain with you, Ray. I don’t know exactly where your son is at the moment, but I can get that information.”
Ray gripped and regripped the pistol. He felt a new tickle of sweat under his arms. “You’re saying that he is definitely alive?”
Ingles looked him in the eye. He inclined his head in a faint nod. Ray couldn’t tell whether or not he was lying.
“You’ve already killed Brenda, so why not Justin?”
“Saying, for an absurd moment, that I was a murderer, what would stop any man from committing more such crimes?” he asked rhetorically. “Bodies. Human bodies are incredibly hard to rid oneself of, Ray. People have buried them, dropped them into rivers, they’ve slathered them in concrete and even fed them into wood-chippers. But they are often unsuccessful in hiding them. Oh, for a few years, perhaps, but not forever. I’m a meticulous man and such loose details would be intolerable.”
“What about Brenda then?”
Ingles snorted. “You killed Brenda, Ray. And every court and cop in the land knows it by now. Why, you’re brandishing the murder weapon even now! If you hadn’t shot out my set, I could have shown you your own unsmiling, murderer’s face on CNN.”
“How exactly would do you propose to free my son then?”
“I will anonymously e-mail his location to you later today. That will give me time for other... priorities.”
“How can I trust you?”
“You can’t. You can only trust logic, which as you know, I will follow implicitly. It is a trade, Vance. You will take the fall for the virus and Brenda. There’s nothing you can do about that now, anyway. In turn for this service, I will arrange to release your son unharmed.”
“Why would you keep your part of the bargain?”
“As I said, Vance: Bodies. I have no interest in becoming a murderer in the eyes of the state. There is no reason for me to kill your son. Therefore, I won’t do it.”
“So I’m supposed to just give myself up, is that it?”
“Exactly. If you had been caught and put up on charges earlier, your son would have been freed by now.”
Ray and Ingles eyed one another for some time. Finally, Ray shook his head. “If it was anyone else, I might do it,” he said, “but I simply don’t trust you.”
Ingles pursed his lips. He nodded. Moving slowly, he took a last sip from his cup before placing it back on its coaster. Then he removed his left shoe and sock, and placed his bare foot on the coffee table.
“Let’s get on with it, then,” Ingles said, tying his tie around his lower calf.
“You have no better offer?”
“No. As I said, I don’t have the information you request as yet. If you are hell-bent on adding to your list of crimes, I had best cooperate.”
“You think that I’m bluffing, don’t you?”
“I sincerely hope so, but in any case, I have no other options.”
Ray stepped forward and aimed the pistol at his bare foot. He noted that Ingles’ big toe was actually shorter than the next one in line. Some part of his mind wondered vaguely if that particular genetic trait was recessive or dominant.
He moved even closer and sat down on the loveseat opposite Ingles. He placed the muzzle of the pistol within inches of Ingles’ foot. He glanced up and noted that Ingles watched the muzzle too, with the fascination of a petshop rat watching an approaching snake.
Then there was a sound behind him. Before Ray could turn around, someone pushed something cold under his jawbone on the right side of his neck.
“Hold it right there, cowboy,” said a stinking cloud of breath. “I’ve got a hangover, so don’t go and make this my first Murder One.”
Ray froze. “I’ll shoot him,” he said flatly.
“Go ‘head,” chuckled Spurlock. “But you’ll have to take a number, cause old Santa-Frigger here is about to answer to me, too.”
Ray blinked and breathed quickly, his mind freezing over. What should he do?<
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“Blow a few toes off, if you’re in the mood!” urged Spurlock, ramming the pistol harder into Ray’s throat. “I won’t stop you. But don’t kill him, ‘cause he knows things that both of us want to learn.”
Ray glanced up at Ingles. He still seemed fascinated by the muzzle pressed against his flesh. Ray considered it. This was his chance to hurt this man who had caused him such grief. Quite possibly, he would never get another chance.
The pink bulbs of flesh rested against the muzzle. They seemed so soft against the black metal.
“I’ve already done it, Ray,” said Ingles quietly. “I’ve already sent the e-mail message. However, now that Mr. Spurlock has joined us, I doubt that it will matter.”
Spurlock jostled Ray as he moved to gain a better hold on him. The pistol under his neck slid down to his larynx. The 9mm went off in Ray’s hand. A wet, red spray hit Ingles’ pants.
“Ha!” shouted Spurlock. He grabbed Ray’s hair in a hard fist. “Now drop it, boy! You had your fun!”
Ray watched Ingles crumple into a ball on the couch. He dropped the gun.
Spurlock twisted his head around by his hair. Standing behind the couch, he leered down at him. “You got balls! I’ll say that for you, Vance!” he laughed. “You blew two of this fucker’s toes clean off!”
Then he brought his pistol down on Ray’s head. Methodically, he pistol-whipped him. Ray lost consciousness as the third blow faded into the fourth.
As he passed into oblivion, he realized that today was Justin’s birthday. How odd, he thought hazily, that he remembered only now.
. . . 27 Hours and Counting . . .
Justin celebrated his birthday alone. He did it by pretending the buried van was a submarine and the white pipe was his periscope. For a short time, the game kept his mind off of his predicament. All too soon, however, he found he was unable to ignore the dark, dank prison he was trapped in. He sighed and looked around his tiny world. He thought that he really should be doing something for himself, instead of waiting for others to do it for him; his mother always told him that. But what to do?
He thought about the trip they had taken to the primitive campsites around Donner Pass last summer. There had been no toilets there, either. His father had set up a small shovel with a roll of toilet paper slipped down over the handle. The idea was to go off into the trees and dig a hole when you had to go. Deciding that was a good idea, he set up one corner of the van with a pile of loose, sandy earth. That would serve him for a catbox, of sorts. The idea made him giggle in the darkness. His food he placed in an empty box at the opposite corner of the van, far from his sand pile. He didn’t eat all his food at once, either, although he was ravenously hungry. Instead, he ate only half of the remaining cheetos and drank six swallows of water.
It was hot up above, he could feel it in the fresh air that came down the pipe, but it stayed cool down in the darkness. He thought about it, and decided that all in all, he liked being down in the van more than being on the highway with Spurlock. At first, he had been scared of the dark, but then his eyes had adjusted to the gloom. Now the circle of light at the bottom of the pipe seemed like a glaring beacon from another world. At times, he felt he was suffocating. To relieve the feeling, he laid down under the bottom of the long pipe and breathed in the infrequent puffs of air from the surface. Occasionally, the earth that entombed him shifted, sending a cascade of pebbles and sand skittering down the skin of the van and sifting into his hair. He had already become accustomed to that, too.
The only thing that worried him now was his lack of food and water. Instinctively, his young mind knew he needed a supply of both. But how to get them?
He raised hunger-sunken eyes to the pipe in the ceiling. Everything he needed was out there, somewhere. Freedom, his mother and father, all the food and soda he wanted, it was all above him.
He picked up the coffee can, dumping its load of stale cigarette butts onto his cat box pile. He looked up the pipe again, listening for any sign of the van man. He heard nothing.
All he had to do, he knew, was dig.
#
Sarah arrived at Ingles’ place with her heart fluttering in her chest. She stopped in the driveway, climbed out of the car and headed for the back porch. Everyone always went in through the back door, as the house was situated so that the driveway and garage met there. She raised her knuckles to rap on the screen door, but hesitated. She walked inside instead. Calling Robert’s name, then Ray’s, she walked from room to room, terrified of what she might find. In the living room, on that couch with the duck pattern she had always hated, she found splattered blood.
She sucked in her breath and headed back out the way she had come. Agents Vasquez and Johansen met her on the porch.
#
“How in the hell did he find you?” asked Spurlock. He glanced back into the bed of Ingles’ silver Ford Ranger. There Vance was sprawled, head lolling and thumping loosely when the Ranger bounced over a pothole.
“He’s a gifted man,” said Ingles.
“Huh,” grunted Spurlock, “he’s gonna be the only man in the state gifted with a headache bigger than mine tomorrow. If he sees another tomorrow, that is.”
“He will,” said Ingles firmly.
Spurlock glanced at him. He had already taken a strong dislike to the cocky bastard, and he had only just met him in person. He was even worse in person than on the phone. Spurlock had always disliked foppish, over-educated types that figured they were the only ones in the world with any brains. He figured he could probably shark his weight in pants off these snooty university-types, given the chance.
“Just give him to me, with transportation, and I know people who will take care of the rest,” he repeated. He knew people who specialized on making people disappear in L.A. They would have preferred the boy, but that was a done deal now.
Ingles made no response.
“What are you planning?” Spurlock asked again. As he asked, he reached into his front jeans pocket and touched his little metal squirt gun. He wondered if he would ever do anything more than beat peoples’ heads in with it.
“You’ll see,” said Ingles in that maddening tone of his. “There, it’s right up ahead.”
They were barreling along through the almond orchards. Off to the left of the dirt track (Spurlock hardly considered it a road) was a canal. The canal had sun-bleached concrete walls and a slimy trickle of water at the bottom. Spurlock looked ahead, and spotted a small building of concrete blocks. It sat near the canal and had thick rusted pipes that spread out from it like tree roots.
“It’s a pump house,” explained Ingles, seeing his blank look.
“I know what the friggin’ thing is.”
Ingles shrugged.
“I saved your ass back there, you know,” Spurlock told him. “Or rather, the rest of your toes.”
“I believe I’ve already expressed my gratitude in that regard.”
“Gee, fucking thanks a fucking lot,” snapped Spurlock. “I want that locker number, not a pat on the head, man.”
“As I said,” Ingles replied evenly, “we’ll discuss that when we’ve solved the current crisis.”
“He’s not my problem.”
“Oh no, you are quite incorrect there, my friend. He is your biggest problem. And mine.”
“Crazy fucker,” muttered Spurlock. Even he wasn’t sure whether he meant Ingles or Vance. Quite possibly, he thought to himself, he meant both of them.
Ingles squealed the Ranger’s brakes to a bumpy stop. He got out and limped to the pump house door. Somehow, he had quickly stopped the bleeding and even managed to get a shoe over his bloody bandaged foot. Spurlock watched him work on the rusty padlock. As soon as his back was turned, Spurlock automatically checked the ignition. The keys were gone.
As if in answer to Spurlock’s silent observation, Ingles waved the jingling keys over his shoulder at him. “Need them for the lock,” he said.
“Crazy psychic bastard,” muttered Spurlock. He hate
d when Ingles did shit like that, predicting your thoughts and actions. It was a good trick, but it got old fast. It made you want to surprise him somehow.
Ingles disappeared inside the pump house. Spurlock had worked in such places, and knew that inside were exposed heavy voltage lines. They ran these pumps on 440 volts AC, which was a lot of power. They could fry a man right down to his boot-stumps in a few minutes. He hoped Ingles, for all his brains, would make a mistake in there. While he waited, he climbed out of the truck and eyed Vance. Bruised, but alive. Murder One had, as yet, been avoided. But then, the day was young.
Soon Ingles came out with three huge rolls of silvery duct tape.
“What’s that—” began Spurlock, then he got it. “Ah, I see you are a man of learning. We’re gonna gift-wrap him! My buds in L.A. will like that. The Arabs do this all the time in Israel, you know.”
Ingles gave him a questioning glance, as if surprised that Spurlock knew there were people called Arabs and such a place as Israel. Spurlock ignored the look.
Quickly, they set to work taping up Vance. Soon, he looked like a silver mummy.
. . . 26 Hours and Counting . . .
“And what are you doing here, Sarah?” asked Agent Vasquez. Sarah looked at her with red-rimmed eyes. Tears ran down her face.
“One of them must be dead,” she said. She pointed in to the living room at the blood-splattered couch.
Vasquez pushed past her and examined the couch. Johansen stood near her, watching.
“It’s fresh. Tacky, but not dry yet. It’s not my field, but this can’t be more than an hour old.”
“Any sign of the cause?” asked Johansen. He stood watchfully near Sarah. He made it look innocent, but Vasquez could tell by the tension in his shoulders that he was keeping a tight eye on her. Vasquez smiled to herself as she continued to examine the couch. He was always the watchdog.
“Yes,” she said. “There appears to be a hole in the cushion. It goes right through into the wall behind the couch. It’s got to be a bullet hole.”