Plunge

by Mark Rogers

  I hung up. Cutting the call short was going to piss her off, but I was out of answers.

  As soon as I was off the phone the conch shell roar came back.

  And then the ringing again, this time on the hotel room phone. I picked up knowing who it would probably be.

  Sally’s barely in control voice asked, “What is going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I know when you’re lying to me. Put Dylan on the fucking phone.”

  “Sally…”

  “Now, goddammit.”

  “I’ll call you.”

  As I was hanging up I heard a slight hiss from the hotel room door. Then it burst open, with two Dominicans hurtling right toward me.

  I jumped up. “Hey!”

  That’s as far as I got. They crushed me against a corner and one of them slipped a black hood over my head. In a fair fight against one of them, I wouldn’t have lasted a minute. With two thugs pounding their fists into me it was no fight at all — just me covering up best I could.

  I’d absorbed a dozen blows when they finally stepped back. I could taste blood in my mouth. Slumping to my knees, I held onto my belly, feeling like something was broken inside. I’d only had a quick glimpse of them before the black hood was jammed over my eyes. Dominican thugs. That’s about all I could describe. The kind of thugs that were everywhere in the Dominican Republic. Muscular with a little extra fat. Clean shaven. Eyes that gave away nothing.

  “We know you talked to your wife,” said one of the thugs, in a voice hesitant with English. “You fucked up good, culero.”

  I played my ace card, hoping they were done beating me. “You know who my wife’s father is? He’s a fucking U.S. senator.”

  An open-handed slap landed hard on the side of my head.

  “He’s a puta — like you,” said the thug.

  I breathed hard under the hood. Enraged. Scared.

  “You’re to go home,” said the thug. “Tell reception you’ve found your son. That everything is fine. In two days you will get a call. If you tell the Feds, your son will die and his body will disappear.”

  “You have my son?”

  “Don’t be stupid. Don’t come after us.”

  I listened to the door open and swing shut. I ripped the hood from my head. It took all my strength to stand and lurch toward the door.

  My hand froze on the doorknob.

  What if I opened the door and they were standing there? After they were done with me, what would they do to Dylan?

  I stood there, my hand on the doorknob. Waiting.

  Doing nothing.

  Chapter 7

  The shuttle bus drove up and down the rows of cars in Newark Airport’s long-term parking lot. Seated in the back row of the bus allowed me a minimum of movement. Every time I shifted even slightly I felt a seismic shift of pain in my torso.

  The driver shouted out, “Row A-Eighteen.”

  “My stop,” I said, the cut in my mouth making my voice thick.

  This was one of those times I was glad I packed light. Somehow, I managed to get my suitcase and Dylan’s off the bus and onto the gravel of the lot. My Miata was only steps away, parked under the glow of a sodium lamp.

  When I was out on the highway, I tapped Sally’s number on my phone and said, “I’m on Route Three… We’ll talk when I get there.”

  As I drove, I remembered a day last winter, when Dylan and I were stuck in the Miami airport facing a long travel delay. We’d just spent a week in Costa Rica, hiking through the rainforest, wandering the markets of San José, and sleeping in the shadow of the still active Arenal Volcano. The night before flying out, we’d watched a third-rate film in our hotel room, a thriller that featured a long sequence of a detective trailing a suspect through the streets of New York.

  With three hours to kill, Dylan had said, “Dad. You be the detective and trail me through the airport.”

  My initial response was, “No way.”

  Dylan kept asking until it was easier for me to give in.

  My son set off up the concourse, past the shops and restaurants, while I shadowed from behind, playing detective. Staying concealed was impossible and Dylan had no problem picking me out of the crowd.

  Finally, he said, “Dad. You really stink at this.”

  His jab jolted my competitive spirit. “Yeah? Get going. This time I won’t go easy on you.”

  I held back, tracking him from as far back as possible while still keeping him in sight. Hiding behind people, using book displays as cover, ducking into shops. Minutes ticked by. Once or twice I saw Dylan stop and turn around, waiting for me to show. It was hard to tell at a distance but there seemed to be a bewildered expression on his face.

  Then it happened. I hung too far back and lost him altogether when the concourse branched off in two directions. There was that all too familiar moment — a combination of dread and panic — thinking I’d fucked up again. The rational side of my mind told me not to worry, while the fearful side imagined the worst. I chose blindly and set off at a trot. People stared at me, probably thinking I was rushing to catch a flight. I was looking so far ahead down the concourse I almost ran past Dylan, who was standing still, looking relieved to see me.

  Dylan said, with an air of finality, “I’ve had enough of this game, Dad.”

  “You know,” I said. “You’re quite the criminal.”

  Now, with my son taken from me, I wondered how I could have been so careless. Not only last night but many times in the past. What was wrong with me?

  A half hour later I was taking the Pompton Lakes exit off Route 23. Then I was pulling into the drive of my former home. Before I was even out of my car, there was Sally in the open doorway.

  “Where is he?” asked Sally. She sounded barely in control.

  I didn’t answer. I wasn’t going to have this conversation outside.

  Sally didn’t move to let me in. “What have you done with him?”

  I brushed by her and got it out in a rush. “Dylan’s been kidnapped.”

  That was it. She slumped in a heap by the door, sobbing, “Oh, god… Oh, god.”

  I waited for her in the living room. It wasn’t long before she came in and sat on the couch.

  “We can’t go to anybody,” I said. “Not yet.”

  “What makes you the expert?”

  “If we back them into a corner they might panic. Right now, Dylan is with them. He’s probably scared. We have to do everything we can to get him back.”

  Sally took a tissue from her purse. She wiped her nose and looked at me with red eyes. “You’re such an asshole.”

  Ever since Dylan’s disappearance, this same thought had been playing in my mind like a Möbius strip.

  “Yeah,” I said. “You’re right.”

  “How did this happen?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Sally shook her head, disgusted. “You and your press junkets.”

  “Listen. It could have happened anytime, anywhere.”

  “I can never get the truth out of you.”

  “Hey,” I said. “I’m not going there.”

  Sally was quiet for a moment, collecting herself, then asked, “Was he alone? Did you leave him alone?”

  “Get a grip.”

  Sally got up off the couch, stepped closer to me. “Did you leave him alone?”

  “Stop it.”

  “Did you leave him alone!”

  Something snapped in me, the barrier that kept my ugly side hidden away. “Yeah. I was fuckin’ this hot bitch from Brazil and I left Dylan alone.”

  The slap caught me unawares, almost knocking me off balance. The echo of the slap seemed to ring against the walls — although that could have been a hallucination, an aftereffect from my earlier beating.

  I shook my head to clear it and said, “You get one free hit. Then I hit the fuck back.”

  Still seething, my ex-wife turned and retreated down the hallway. I heard the door to her bedroom slam shut.

 
That was my cue to leave.

  Outside, behind the wheel of my Miata, I hesitated turning the key in the ignition. I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know who these people were, who had Dylan. What their motives were, what their demands would be. I was afraid. And if I was afraid, my ex-wife would be in an agony of terror.

  Taking a deep breath, I locked the car and headed back to the house.

  I walked down the hallway and leaned against the closed bedroom door, and said, “I haven’t left…”

  The couch was just big enough. I took one of Sally’s winter coats from the hall closet and used it as a blanket. Staring into the darkness, enveloped in faint traces of my ex-wife’s perfume, pushing away crippling thoughts of what Dylan might be enduring, I willed myself into sleep.

  The phone sat on the dining room table in front of me. Sally had tried to make breakfast for both of us but neither of us could eat. Black coffee I could handle. Cigarettes would be good but I didn’t smoke. I tried not to think of taking a shot of bourbon. It wouldn’t help and might set me down the wrong road. So, it was black coffee and staring at my phone, waiting for it to ring.

  Sally wouldn’t even sit at the same table as me. Instead she leaned against the dining room archway. Talking about Dylan would have been too painful, so she seized upon another topic.

  “So, who was she?” asked Sally. “This hot Brazilian? I hope she was worth it. Abandoning our son.”

  “It’s called sex.” I picked up my coffee cup but didn’t drink. “You ought to try it some time.”

  “That sounds like a good idea. We can swap. I’ll try sex and you can try parenthood.”

  My cell phone buzzed. I took the call and tapped on speaker.

  The now familiar distorted voice said, “You’ve wasted our time.”

  “Let me talk to my son.”

  “No.”

  “I need to know he’s okay.”

  “If you do everything we say we will return your son unharmed.”

  I looked over at Sally — she was hanging on every word.

  I said, “There was blood on his shirt.”

  “Stop!” cried the distorted voice.

  I shut up and waited.

  The distorted voice sounded strange, as though it was willing itself to sound robotic. “If you want to see your son alive you will do everything we say. You will be on the two o’clock flight to Santo Domingo out of Newark. You will be carrying a 75-thousand-dollar cashier’s check. When you arrive in Santo Domingo you will stand outside arrivals on the sidewalk. You will receive a call telling you where to go. That’s all you need to know at this time.”

  “If we do this, you’ll hand over our son?”

  The line went dead.

  “Hello?… Hello?”

  Call ended. I tried calling back but it didn’t go through.

  I looked up at Sally. “They’re probably using a burner.”

  Sally’s eyes went wide. “A burner? What do you mean a burner?”

  “No, no, no.” I instantly regretted my choice of words. “A burner is a cheap trac phone they use once and toss.”

  I looked at the time. 7:45 a.m. And they wanted us on the afternoon flight with a cashier’s check in hand.

  I put my phone in my pocket. “We’re gonna have to move fast. No way can I raise seventy-five K in one day. I have twenty at the most.”

  “That’s not what you told my lawyer.”

  “Be glad I have it. What can you raise?”

  “Almost six thousand.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Why are they giving us only a few hours? Do they think we’re rich or something?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Mr. Caribbean,” said Sally. “You probably put on quite a show with your corporate credit card.”

  I took another deep breath.

  “You’re gonna hate this,” I said, “but it’s the only way.”

  Chapter 8

  The conservative shine on the apple always hit me as I stepped through the door of Sally’s parental home. The Republican décor. The American Beauty roses in a vase in the foyer. The framed photo of Senator Daniels, standing with the president du jour; in this photo it was Trump, truly off-putting in orange makeup and white raccoon eyes. Every room in the house had crown molding, even the bathrooms. No dust, no clutter anywhere. The attention to detail and lack of any human touch reminded me of a suite at the Ritz-Carlton, when you first check-in and everything is ‘perfect’.

  We were lucky her parents were home when we called. On the phone, there had been a little yelp of pleasure from Sally’s mother when she realised we were coming over together. The divorce had been harder on her than it had been on Sally and me.

  It was Senator Daniels who opened the door, with a hearty, “Come in.”

  He backed up to let me by. I gave him a nod. “Hello, Senator.” Long ago he’d told me to call him ‘Bob’ but I persisted with ‘Senator’. I think it made both of us feel important.

  “Oh, Sally,” said Mom. “It’s such good news.”

  We settled in and got comfortable in the living room. There was a plate of cookies on the table and four tiny Perrier. Sally and I sat side-by-side on the couch. I looked down at her thigh inches from mine. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d sat so close. Sally’s parents were leaning forward in their chairs, looking anxious to hear what we had to say.

  “So, where’s Dylan?” asked the Senator.

  Sally’s Mom gave her husband a disapproving look. “You don’t bring a child to something like this.”

  I nodded in agreement, a reaction I planned on doing a lot during this visit.

  “We thought we’d seek your counsel before we brought Dylan into it,” said Sally.

  The Senator and his wife exchanged approving glances at being so highly esteemed.

  “So,” said Mom, “when did you decide to get back together?”

  “I never believed in this divorce thing for a minute,” said the Senator. “You didn’t put in the hours, days, and years to throw it away just like that.”

  “Well,” I said, “it’s not a done deal.”

  “We still have issues,” added Sally.

  “Issues?” said the Senator, with a grin. “Your mother and I had more issues than Time magazine. Remember when Ross Systems down-sized me in 1990? Talk about issues.”

  Mom gave us a conciliatory frown. “Will it cost much to reverse the divorce decree?”

  I said, “That’s the least of our problems.”

  “Really?” said Sally. “That’s not the way I see it.” Her comment threw me off track. She was losing herself in this charade.

  “You’re right,” I said, making a move to get her back on point. “We have lots of problems to solve.”

  Mom attempted to brighten things. “Why don’t all three of you come over for dinner tonight?”

  The Senator clapped his hands together. “I’ll fire up the barbecue.”

  “If I had parents like you, I’d be going to them,” I said. “Unfortunately, both of mine have passed. You’re our lifeline. But I think I have to pass the ball to Sally.”

  “You’re like a son to us,” said the Senator. “You know that.”

  I looked at the floor. “You make me feel like family.”

  How much self-hate can a person take on board before they burst into spontaneous combustion? The way things had been going the last 24 hours I was on the path to find out.

  Sally stood, as though she wanted to bolt. But I knew different. I knew she’d do her best to seal the deal.

  “It was always money,” said Sally. “There was never enough. I guess Turner would feel guilty and then he’d get angry. It got so we’d be fighting about which bill to pay. When we weren’t fighting it seemed all we talked about was our debts.”

  “You should have come to me,” said the Senator.

  “I wanted to. But…” Sally paused, looked at me. “He was too proud.”

  “A man needs prid
e,” said the Senator.

  I managed a mumbled, “Thank you, sir.”

  “You’re both hard workers,” said the Senator. “It shouldn’t be like this.”

  “No, it shouldn’t,” echoed Mom. “Hard work should be rewarded.”

  “Well, I guess standing here like this, we’re both swallowing our pride,” said Sally. “We want the marriage to work. It doesn’t have a chance if we go back to the same patterns. The phone calls at night hounding us for payments, afraid to even open the mailbox.”

  The Senator leaned forward and laid a hand on Sally’s knee. “How much do you need to make a solid go of it?

  “A lot,” said Sally.

  “How much, honey?”

  “Seventy-five thousand dollars.”

  The Senator blinked twice but didn’t say anything. He could take a punch.

  “We’d pay you back,” said Sally. “Every penny.”

  The Senator fastened his eyes on the far wall, as though it was a blackboard and he was doing his sums. Then he stood. “Give me a minute.”

  We watched him leave the room. When he was gone, in the awkward silence left behind, Sally’s Mom said, “I miss Dylan. I hope you come back tonight for that barbecue.”

  “Maybe in a few days,” said Sally. “Okay, Mom?”

  The Senator returned with a binder, one of those checkbooks with three checks to a page. He settled into a chair and carefully filled out a check.

  Done, he held the check out to Sally and gave her a small smile. “I always told you I’d pick you up if you fell.”

  Back on the road, Sally and I were both silent, until we hit our first red light. Sally turned to me and said, “Once this is over, I’m telling them the fucking truth. Every bit of it.”

  “Your call,” I said. “They’re your parents.”

  The Senator’s bank was only a mile or so from their home. I stood a dozen feet away as Sally negotiated with the teller, transforming the Senator’s check into a 75K cashier’s check.

  When Sally was done, I said, “Let’s go. We’re cutting it close. Give me the check. I’ve got to hustle to catch the afternoon flight.”

  Instead of handing me the check, Sally walked toward the door.