“It’s just that…” I stopped and heaved a huge sob that made my shoulders shake.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Garcia said, uncomfortably, patting my shoulder. “Hey! Do you want a soda or something?”
“Yessir,” I sniffled, looking up at him with what I hoped were grateful yet watery eyes.
“All right. Just hold on one second.” Garcia left the room and I almost felt guilty. He was an all-right guy.
But that didn’t stop me from using his telephone to break the window.
With one swing of the ancient desk phone, the window exploded into giant, glass shards that rained down around me, tinkling off the metal bars on the outside of it. The crash was deafening—and would bring anyone within earshot running down the hall.
Knowing I only had a moment to act, I ripped off my shirt and hurled it out the broken window. It landed where could easily be seen from inside. Then I snatched Mom’s scarab off Garcia’s desk. For the final part of my plan, I wedged myself into the small space between the huge copy machine and the wall. There was hardly room for a cat, let alone me, but I kept letting out my breath and scrunching my way down even further. Somehow I got myself squeezed in there. If I could just get them to leave the station to look for me, I’d be able to sneak out in another direction all together.
A few seconds later, Garcia barged in. When he saw the window, he dropped the can of soda and it rolled under the desk. “Jeff!” he shouted through the bars of the window. Then he said a curse word, then, “How the heck did he…?” followed by another curse word. I was beginning to feel lightheaded from lack of air.
Garcia rushed out the door, shouting, “Renner! Renner!”
“Yep?” came a female voice from down the hall.
“Jeff bolted.”
“He what?”
And that’s when Garcia, Renner, and the person at the front desk—the only officers on duty—should have left the station.
But they didn’t.
My vision was going dark around the edges from not breathing when Garcia, Renner, and a third officer came back into the office.
“He couldn’t have fit. It’s impossible—” Renner was saying. Just then I fell out from behind the copier.
“What the heck is going on here, Jeff?” Garcia exclaimed, seeing me shirtless on the floor. In two seconds, I was pinned to the ground with my face pressed against the white tile. And then I was handcuffed.
Really. Spartacus Ryan Zander, the kid who’d never been in any kind of trouble (apart from inadvertently exposing himself to his whole hometown) was officially a criminal. Might as well put my face up there next to Lloyd’s and call it a day.
“Well, there goes the case against the two ladies!” Renner exclaimed. “No one will believe this witness now.”
“Look, Jeff,” Garcia said, hefting me to my feet and holding me by my cuffed hands. I hung there ashamed, like a cat held up by the nape of its neck. “I don’t know what that was all about, but you’ve just drastically changed the nature of this investigation.”
Renner snagged my suitcase from the recycling bin where I’d tried to hide it under the shredded papers. She followed Garcia and me down the hallway. The other officer peeled off to return to the front desk while the three of us continued down the hall, passing a whole row of closed doors and a restroom. We arrived at a room with a little plastic plaque that read Prisoner Processing. Renner opened the door for us.
And inside?
It was Blue and White.
I felt like I’d eaten a bucket of ice cream, all cold and urpy.
The two women were sitting on a bench and were—get this—shackled together at the ankles. A metal contraption connected them at their feet, and each had a hand handcuffed to the end of the bench. They seemed completely helpless, sitting there murmuring to each other like they were discussing quilt patterns.
I shivered as Garcia pulled me into the room.
“Hello, ladies!” said Garcia.
“It’s Randy!” White hissed to Blue, leaning down and fiddling with her restraint, trying to get herself free.
Free to strangle me, no doubt.
“Impossible,” said Blue, shaking her head at me.
“Jeff here is going to keep you ladies company while we handle some business. Then we’ll figure out what we’re going to do with the three of you.”
Garcia sat me down on a bench across from Blue and White. He removed my handcuffs and handed me a shirt from my backpack to put on. He then zip-tied my wrist to the arm of the bench. At least I wasn’t handcuffed anymore.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—” I started to plead but Garcia held up his hand.
“You’re starting down a dangerous path, kid,” he said before dropping his hand to my shoulder. “And if I were to let you go now, you’d stay on it. You’ll thank me someday.”
I was getting ready to cry. Real tears this time, not the act. But I held it back. Not now. Not in front of these crazy old women.
And with that, Garcia and Renner left, shutting the heavy door behind them. I heard them say goodbye to the officer at the front desk, and then their voices trailed off. This was bad. I noticed my bag and suitcase beside the door, just out of reach. Renner must have set them there.
I brought my free hand up and felt the scab on my cheek where Blue had slapped me with her ring during the car ride. I looked up to see Blue and White staring at me intensely. I flinched, waiting for their wrath.
“You have to get us out of here,” White whispered.
She looked desperate and caught me off guard. They didn’t want to kill me?
“I can’t go back to prison. I just can’t,” said White.
“Can’t,” Blue commiserated, her eyes huge and watery and cartoonish behind her glasses. They both held their spindly, cuffed hands out to me, as though I had the key, as though I were there to save them or something. I caught a whiff of that vanilla-tree scent still lingering on them.
“Wait. Wait. I really can’t help—” I stammered, but White interrupted me.
“You don’t know what they do to old women like us in prison, Brandon. Poor Clementine would be shivved at Bingo by nightfall.”
“Shanked,” Blue corrected her.
“I—I don’t have the key,” I said. “And I’m basically cuffed, too!”
Not to mention the door that was undoubtedly locked.
White looked at Blue and then nodded her head. Then, to my complete disgust, Blue took out her top dentures and held them out for me.
“What are those for?” I asked, leaning back.
“Use them for your zip-tie,” said White. “One of the pointy teeth has a serrated edge for stuff like this.” She turned to Blue and said quietly, “You took the cyanide pill out of them, didn’t you?” Blue nodded.
“What? No!” I was so grossed out at the thought that I had to close my eyes. When I opened them, White had taken them from Blue and was drying them on her sweater.
“Look, see, now they’re nice and clean.”
“Sparkling,” Blue encouraged.
I looked from the teeth in White’s hand to the plastic tie attaching my wrist to the chair. It was only part of a solution. Even if I got out of the restraint, I’d still be locked in. But I had to try, didn’t I? If I had even the smallest chance, I had to try. Anyway, I was already in so much trouble, what did one more thing matter?
“Let me…just let me try for a second before I use the…the teeth, okay?” Blue smirked and leaned back, watching me with a toothless, amused look as I stretched and pulled and picked at the plastic tie. It did nothing but make my wrist raw.
I didn’t have much time.
“Gimme the teeth,” I sighed. White smiled and handed them over.
I won’t go into detail about the teeth. Let’s just say I gagged and leave it a
t that. But I sawed at the plastic with the sharp incisor and, in a few minutes, I was able to snap the zip-tie off.
“Genius!” I said, rubbing my wrist. I handed the teeth back to Blue.
“Yep,” she said, popping them back in without wiping them off or anything. Ugh.
“Right,” said White. “Now us.”
My stomach sank. I’d already forgotten that part of the deal.
“Still don’t have the keys,” I said.
“Start yelling. When the Capo comes in, you knock her out,” White said, eyes shining.
“Capo?” I asked.
“Copper,” Blue said.
“When she comes in, you grab her gun,” White continued. “Or, wait, you can use the leg of this bench, here.” White began kicking at the wooden bench leg with her one free foot.
“Stop!” I said, putting my hand out and on her bony shoulder. “Shh! You want her to hear us? Besides, I can’t do that. I’m not hitting any cops.”
“What? We scratch your back and you don’t scratch ours?” White’s eyes flashed at me with a hint of the fire I’d seen earlier that day. “You want hush money or something?” I took a step back, shaking my head.
“I will not club a police officer,” I said. “I’m grateful you helped me get free, but—”
“You a coward?”
“Yellow,” muttered Blue. “Chicken.” She said it in that fake quiet way people say things when they’re acting like they don’t want you to hear, but really they do.
“You heard her,” said White, her face hardening. “You don’t have the cojones to spring a goomba?”
“A what?” I asked, incredulous.
“Wingman! Esé! Comrade!” Blue supplied.
Apparently Blue could now say more than one word at a time.
“You don’t care about your friends, is what you’re telling us,” said White.
“No, it’s just that—” I had to figure out how to get out of there, not waste time talking to them. And they were being so loud.
Wait. What had they said about attracting the officer with noise?
“Ah, so you are a coward.” White sat back with a triumphant smirk. It was like something Will would say.
My face went hot—she knew she’d hit a nerve.
“Milquetoast. Pantywaist,” taunted Blue.
“Pantywaist?” I repeated and Blue nodded, sneering.
“You couldn’t take the heat,” White said, that slight, creepy smile on her face. “So you went belly up and turned snitch.”
That’s when it hit me. I knew how to get out of there—without clubbing anyone.
“You know what?” I said, leaning forward. “I am a snitch. I’m the bad guy.”
“You!”
I didn’t expect White to be so fast—her free hand shot out at me like an eel, her grip strong and cold on my throat, her thumb pressing into my Adam’s apple.
“The heavy!” roared Blue. “The black hat!”
“Get…off…me,” I choked, knocking her hand away. I backed away as they wrestled with their handcuffs. They were going crazy, despite being cuffed to the bench.
“I knew it! I knew it!” White sputtered.
“I told them everything,” I bellowed back. Then I sat back down and arranged my arm like I was still zip-tied to the bench.
“Defector! Snitch!” bellowed Blue. “Stoolie!”
“You old bags are going to be in the clink a long time,” I said smugly.
At this, they went berserk, jerking at the bench so hard the wood started to splinter. They yelled curse words at the top of their lungs, including some I’d never heard before.
“So help me, Brian, I will use your skull to hold my yarn balls!” White screamed.
Yep; she actually said that.
“Hey! What’s going on?” It was the front desk officer, opening the door. “Keep it down in here!” She went straight over to Blue and White, not even throwing a glance my way.
Before the door could close, I sprang to my feet, grabbed my bags, and dashed into the hallway. The door slammed shut behind me, interrupting the officer’s startled shout.
I could hear her fumbling with her keys, but I didn’t hesitate. I shot down the hall toward the exit.
“You’re gonna pay for this, Brian!” I heard White crowing. “Mark my words!”
Maybe she was right. Maybe I would pay for it someday.
But not today.
Chapter Ten
0utside, the rain was still coming down in sheets. I crouched behind a squad car and gulped air like someone who’d nearly drowned. I felt like hugging the ground. I guess spending time in the slammer can do that to you.
I was about to just run off across the scrubby desert when I saw it: My out.
It was the big white Lincoln. A tow truck was dragging Blue and White’s smashed-up car out of the parking lot.
That should have been the last car I’d ever want to see, let alone get back into, but there it was. And this time, rather than looking like a giant white hearse, it was like some junkyard beacon of hope.
The tow truck came to a full stop at the parking lot exit, right in front of me. The driver was looking the other way.
I glanced back at the police station. No one had come out yet.
It was now or never.
I tore across the wet blacktop like the fugitive I was, and watched the driver as I opened the back door. No reaction. A fog of vanilla scent poured out of the car. Taking a last breath of clean, freedom-tinged air, I threw myself inside.
We bumped down the road. Luckily I wasn’t going too far—at the first empty intersection, I bailed out and ran, bags clutched to my chest, hunched low, like I was getting out of a helicopter. I dove into a ditch beside the road, and the driver went on as if nothing had happened.
I did it. I really did it. I escaped from jail.
I lay there in the wet ditch, dizzy, laughing, snorting, kicking my feet, and generally looking like a crazy person. And when I saw the yellow vanilla air freshener snagged on my suitcase handle, I laughed even harder. I laughed until I could barely breathe. I couldn’t tell what was rain and what were tears.
I’d finally done something spectacular, something reckless, and I’d come away with only cuts, bruises, and sore muscles.
Okay, so the injuries were adding up, but the point was that I’d made it out alive. I’d succeeded at something.
I walked a ways from the road, paralleling it. I had my eyes peeled for cops, but none came. And, while I’m not the kind of person to believe in signs and stuff like that, suddenly the sun came out. A few minutes later, it was like it had never rained at all; the ground soaked up most of the water and the air was dry and warm.
But things weren’t all sunshine and jail-breaks. I had to be honest with myself: I was perhaps a fugitive and still far from Albuquerque—and on top of that, I was beyond exhausted.
It was one in the afternoon and the show was at eight.
I needed to call Eli.
“He was what?”
Hearing Eli’s squeaky voice of disbelief was almost enough payment for nearly being killed by Lloyd. Almost.
“A killer,” I repeated. I was at a rundown convenience store, talking on the last working pay phone in the country. “They call him ‘The Cue.’”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. I have to look this up.”
While Eli’s fingers clacked away at his laptop, I read him a few other items from Lloyd’s wanted poster. “Wanted for burglary, theft, assault, and murder. Armed and dangerous.”
“Oh, man,” said Eli. I knew he’d pulled up Lloyd’s photo online. “And he even had the—”
“Yep, the tattoo on his right arm.”
“Dude, I’m so sorry. Why did you even ride with him? Look at hi
m! He’s a monster!”
I closed my eyes and told myself to be patient with Eli.
“Luckily, I’m still alive,” I said. “And Hailey, the girl trucker? Much better choice.”
“Right! The Geology Fighting Championships.”
“But she dropped me off in the wrong place.”
“What? She was supposed to take you all the way there.”
“You’ll never believe it. She dropped me off and—” I was about to tell him everything, about Blue and White and the police station, but then I shook my head. “Never mind. It’s a long story. Let’s just say I’m somewhere in the middle of nowhere between Santa Fe and Albuquerque.”
“Got any details?”
I looked around and saw two faded street signs.
“Looks like I’m on the corner of Foster and Acoma.”
“Acoma? Oh, okay, I found you. You’re near Algodones.”
“Where’s that?”
“You’ve got like thirty miles to go, but you can’t walk that.”
“You’re telling me,” I said, looking at the brown landscape. “I’m in an actual desert. I saw an honest-to-god cactus.”
“Call me back in five, okay? I’ll get you something.” With that, Eli hung up.
I went inside the store and the guy behind the counter openly stared at me.
Okay, I thought. I bought a giant bottle of water and three hash brown wedges from the hot case. The counter dude just stood there, watching as I gulped the water and devoured the hash browns with ketchup.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone eat those,” he said.
“They’re not bad,” I mumbled around the last, greasy bite.
“No, I mean, I don’t think anyone’s ever put new ones in there since I started.”
“Ha-ha, very funny.”
“I think your cheek is bleeding.”
In the restroom mirror, I saw he was right—I was bleeding. But that was just one of my problems.
Blue had slapped me with her ring, and the scab had cracked. But what’s more, I was a mess of mud and cuts. I’d bruised my chin. Ripped my shirt. Torn a hole in the knee of my jeans.
And Will’s shoes—they were done for.
Spartacus Ryan Zander and the Secrets of the Incredible Page 11