Hide and Snake Murder

by Jessie Chandler

  Hunk and Tomás kept their guns trained on us as Donny cut the cord into pieces with a pocketknife. Then he proceeded to tie our arms behind our backs and deposited us in a row on the bench facing the door.

  As Donny slammed me onto the seat, Coop met my eyes. They were broadcasting a mix of panic and determination, searching for a way out as diligently as I was. If someone—anyone—should happen down the alley, I was more than ready to kick up a ruckus.

  Once we were lined up like slaughterhouse rats, Hunk and Donny settled on the bench facing us. They both kept the business ends of their weapons pointed our way.

  Tomás rolled the door shut, climbed into the driver’s seat, and fired up the engine. He slowly drove down the alley and made a turn. The only windows in the van were in the front, making it next to impossible to see where we were going.

  We made a couple lefts, and then a right. I tried to memorize the turns, but lost track after the fifth one. I’d make a sucky Girl Scout.

  For a long while, no one said anything. The sound of the tires humming on the asphalt road echoed through the interior. I periodically attempted to wriggle out of the rope to no avail. Donny knew his knots.

  Baz said, “I think I’m getting carsick.”

  Oh my god, please don’t let Baz barf.

  Hunk said, “I’ll shoot you if you throw up. So don’t throw up.”

  That shut Baz up.

  After what felt like an hour but was probably closer to less than half that time, Tomás slowed the van, made a couple more sharp turns, and rolled to a stop. By leaning slightly forward and concentrating on my peripheral vision, I could see through the front windshield without catching the attention of our captors, who seemed to have relaxed a bit. The headlights lit up a big garage door attached to a brick building. He reached up to the visor above his head and pressed a remote. A moment later, the door rolled slowly up. As it shuddered and creaked its way to the top, the interior was lit up by the van’s headlights. Directly in front of us was row upon row of stacked, rectangular boxes.

  Once the door opened enough for the van to squeeze through, Tomás pulled in and pushed the remote again. The door slowly descended behind us.

  Donny pulled up the lock on the door, slid it open, and he and Hunk scrambled out.

  “Your turn,” he ordered, waving the way with his gun.

  One by one, we emerged from the van and huddled together in the dim light cast by two fluorescent light units suspended high in the air.

  Rocky said, “I do not like it in here. I want to go home now. Thank you.”

  I suspected we all agreed with that sentiment.

  Eddy said calmly, “Rocky, we’ll get home soon, and when we do, we’re going to go to Hands On Toys and get you a new snake.”

  The expression on Rocky’s face turned instantly from fear of the unknown into unrestrained joy. “Oh, I do love to go to the Hands On Toy Company and Game Room. Thank you, Miss Eddy! Thank you!”

  Hunk poked Rocky in the back with his gun. “Shut up, you retard. Get moving.”

  Rocky’s face dropped and the look of fear was back loud and clear. I opened my mouth to let Hunk have it, but Eddy beat me to it.

  “Don’t you call him a retard, you big oaf,” she growled.

  Her comment was ignored as Hunk and Donny, on Tomás’s order, herded us into a small office lit with a single flickering florescent light. The eight-by-ten room held only two chairs, one desk, and a well-used green filing cabinet.

  Hunk said, “In,” and waved at us with his gun.

  “What do you mean, ‘in,’ like we’re just a bunch of cattle?” Eddy’s composure wasn’t holding up as well as I thought. “Hunk, where are your manners, young man? You can’t treat women of substance such as myself and my dear friend Agnes like this. Or the kids, either, for that matter. You’re scaring us all, you big bully!”

  She wound up and kicked the astonished giant square in the shin with the one of the pointy-toed cowboy boots she was wearing.

  A terrifying howl of pain echoed through the building. Hunk hopped around on one foot, his injured shin cupped in one hand, the gun waving dangerously in the other. Donny watched this turn of events in amazement, rooted to the floor outside the door.

  The sound of running feet approached the doorway, and Tomás stuck his head inside. “¡Mierda! What is going on in here?”

  Hunk leaned against a wall, a hand on his leg, and the gun in his other hand trained on Eddy. His eyes narrowed in a mix of anger and pain. “Please,” he begged, “let me shoot her. One bullet. That’s all I need. One little bullet.”

  Tomás said, “No, that’s not part of our orders. If you cannot follow orders, Hunk, you will be needing one of those caskets out there—which won’t be long enough, so I will have to break your legs to make you fit.”

  Tommy Tormenta indeed.

  “Caskets?” Baz said. “We’re in a casket factory?”

  “You’re gonna each get your own real soon,” Donny said in his amazingly falsetto voice. So that’s what the stacked rectangular boxes were. Excellent. Just where I’d always wanted to bite the figurative, and very possibly literal, bullet.

  “Donny,” Tomás said. “Cut the ropes off them. Roy will be here soon, and he doesn’t want them marked up.”

  Hunk limped out, glaring at Eddy, who glared right back.

  Donny quickly sliced the clothesline off our wrists, then exited and shut the door with a solid thunk.

  “Why’d they cut us loose?” Coop asked as he massaged his wrists.

  I shrugged. “Tomás said he didn’t want us ‘marked up.’ Maybe they don’t want to hurt us after all.”

  Yeah, right.

  There was some bumping and banging outside, and then someone snapped what sounded like a padlock shut.

  Eddy shook out her hands. “Once I thought I was going to expire in the ladies room. Now we’re in a building plumb full of dead people’s beds and we’re still alive. Let’s not be giving up any hope, you hear? When something like this happens on Law and Order, the cops find the good people, save them, and kick bad-guy behind.” She was silent a moment. “Well, most of the time.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “But that’s when the cops know they’re supposed to be finding the poor, imprisoned victims. The police don’t know to look for us.” I glanced at Rocky. “I guess they could be looking for you.”

  Rocky said, “There were 174 murders in New Orleans in the last calendar year. I am hungry, and I want to go home now.”

  SIX

  I SAID, “WHAT ARE we going to do? Baz, this mess is your entire fault. You are a one-hundred-percent selfish, brainless, pathetic fool.”

  “My fault? I’m not the one who—”

  “You’re the snake thief, dickhead,” Coop said.

  Eddy tapped Coop gently on the forehead. “Language, young man. But he’s right, Basil.” She settled into a chair with a sigh.

  Agnes said, “Nephew, why do you think all that money was sewn inside the snake?”

  He shrugged. “I dunno.”

  Coop levered himself backward onto the desktop and sat with his legs dangling over the side. “Well I don’t think the snake swallowed it, so it being in there wasn’t an accident.”

  Rocky perched next to Coop and mimicked Coop’s swinging legs. Baz stood looking dazed in the middle of the floor.

  The panic, fear, and anger I’d shoved aside since the goons had stormed the hotel room swirled up from my gut to my brain, filling my head with the roar of desperation. I tried to wrestle the welling insanity back into its cage and, with some effort, succeeded.

  I wandered over to the filing cabinet and tugged on the top drawer. It rolled open easily. Manila file folders full of invoices for companies that made coffins and various coffin parts were arranged in alphabetical order. I slid out one of the bills: coffin lids ordered from Mexico. The top of the purchase order had the name of the casket company, METAIRIE COFFIN AND CASKET, INC., emblazoned across the top of the page in blood red
. How appropriate. At least I’d know where I died if it came to that.

  I flipped through a few more files and noted most of the supplies came from Mexico. That figured. I gave up, flipped an empty garbage can upside down, and sat.

  Agnes asked, “Basil, where did you get the snake?”

  He shrugged. “I turned in all the paperwork, and the paperwork had the addresses. All I remember is that it was somewhere in Minnetonka.”

  “Well, that narrows it down,” Coop said with not a little sarcasm.

  We lapsed into an uneasy silence.

  Two hours later, the lock on the outside of the door rattled. We all watched the door swing open.

  Tomás walked in, followed by a six-foot-tall, barrel-chested man in a neat, gray pinstriped suit. He rocked back on the heels of his tasseled loafers and folded his arms across his chest. A thin moustache clung to his upper lip. He wore his iron-gray hair buzzed in a crew cut. A police shield hung from his black leather belt, and the straps of a shoulder holster peeked out of the lapels of his suit jacket.

  For a brief moment, I thought help had arrived. Until he opened his mouth. “So these are our troublemakers. Rounded up and ready for the slaughter.”

  Slaughter? Who said anything about slaughter? Jeez, even if they planned to off us, he could have used a less descriptive word.

  Tomás laughed darkly. “Indeed. It was a challenge coordinating things between here and Minnesota, but it all worked out in our favor.”

  Agnes shook her finger at the man standing next to Tomás. “You’re the nice police officer we talked to about Rocky, aren’t you?”

  The man grinned coldly. “Lieutenant Pomerantz, New Orleans PD, at your service.”

  Agnes glared at him. “You’re not nice. I’m going to tell your boss about you.”

  The sharp bark of a laugh was the lieutenant’s only response.

  His name was so familiar. Where had I heard it before? Then the memory crystallized. The New Orleans detective I spoke with from the parking lot of Perkins. He mentioned he’d talk to a Lieutenant Pomerantz about my report. And here was the bastard in the flesh.

  My tone was accusing. “You’re with Missing Persons.”

  He locked his eyes on mine. They were a sickly mesmerizing ice-cold gray. “Quick, aren’t you? I run the unit. And, oh my, it does come in handy when I need to make someone disappear. Terrible pity the skiff you Yanks were in overturned in alligator-infested bayou waters. Silly tourists. Such a shame. Maybe we can fish out a leg or an arm for a proper burial.”

  For a moment, all the air whooshed out of the room, and the only thing I heard was the buzzing from the fluorescent lights overhead. Coop said hoarsely, “What do we know that’s bad enough for you to kill us?”

  “If you could only connect the dots,” Pomerantz chuckled. “I’m sorry to say it’s late, and I have somewhere I need to be. Au revoir.” He spun around and swooped out of the room. Tomás trailed him, and the lock clicked shut again.

  “Holy shit,” I said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  Coop levered himself off the desk as he looked upward. “Yes, we do.”

  I followed his gaze. White tiles hung suspended about ten feet over our heads. The room had a drop ceiling, unlike the exposed beams and girders that made up the skeleton of the gymnasium-sized warehouse.

  Eddy stood. “Boost me up.”

  I’d settled back on my garbage can, and at Eddy’s words, bounced up like a super ball. “Don’t even think about it, Edwina Quartermaine.”

  Before I could argue further, the door opened. Hunk walked in, the gun in his hand. “Time for a little boat ride.”

  When none of us moved, he grabbed the person closest to him by the hair. The hair in his fist was attached to my head. I yowled. The back of my head crashed against his sternum. He wrapped a boulder-sized forearm around my neck and pressed the gun to my temple. “I said move!”

  “Hey!” Rocky shouted. “Don’t do that to my friend Shay O’Hanlon!” Before anyone could react, he rushed Hunk.

  Coop caught Rocky around the middle right before he crashed into us. The barrel of the pistol dug deep into my skin. I tried not to hyperventilate.

  “Easy, Rocky.” Coop grunted as he held the squirming man in a bear hug.

  “Let me go! Let me down, Nick Coop!”

  I could feel Hunk’s chest expand and contract rapidly against my back, his breath hot on my ear. “You keep that crazy munchkin away from me, or I’ll pop her now.”

  Coop hauled Rocky from the room, giving us the widest berth he could. Agnes, Baz, and Eddy followed him out.

  Hunk loosened his hold on my neck. He clamped a huge hand on my shoulder and hissed in my ear, “You try anything, and I’ll cap your ass so fast you won’t know what hit you.” Then he shoved me out of the office.

  The van was where they’d parked it, except now there was a long, flattish boat lashed to its top.

  Donny’s little-girl voice floated from the other side of the vehicle. “I’ve got it tied down, Hunk.”

  Tomás said, “Donny, come zip-tie their hands. Make them just tight enough so they can’t get out but not enough to cut the skin. I’ll see you two after you’ve taken care of this little problem.” He disappeared around the van.

  Donny wasted no time securing us once again. I cringed as he roughly yanked Agnes and Eddy’s arms back. I swear I’ve never felt as powerless as I did at that moment, watching Eddy being manhandled like that.

  Hunk gave me a shove and growled, “Get in.”

  We returned to our previous positions in the van, except this time Donny climbed into the driver’s seat while Hunk remained in back with the gun on us.

  Donny pressed the garage door remote. The pulleys creaked and groaned as the door rose. Hunk leaned against the van wall, keeping his gun pointed in our general vicinity.

  My shoulders pressed against the side of the van. I arched my back, trying to keep pressure off my wrists. Coop was on one side of me while Baz sat on the other. Eddy and Agnes were beyond him, with Rocky tucked between them.

  Hunk slouched down and stretched his long legs out, his weapon steady as a rock.

  We needed a Hail Mary maneuver ASAP or we were going to wind up as fish gumbo.

  SEVEN

  DONNY HAD TO BE the slowest driver on the face of the Earth. Or time was moving at less than a snail’s pace. I figured it had to be closing in on midnight by now.

  Hunk said, “Donny, come on, man. This is boring.”

  “I’m going as fast as I can. Settle down.”

  Hunk let out a pained sigh. He glared at us for a moment then pulled a cell phone from his pocket with his free hand and turned it on. Every so often, he rested the phone on his knee and surveyed his hostages. It looked like he was in the middle of a hot game of solitaire. I was surprised he felt comfortable enough to mess with it. Apparently, he didn’t think our threat level was high enough to be concerned about. Jerk.

  Each time he got caught up in the game, the business end of the gun in his beefy hand dropped ever so slightly. Then a bump in the road would jostle him back into awareness, and up the weapon would come. This process repeated itself a number of times.

  I closed my eyes as ideas churned through my brain. There had to be a way to use his preoccupation against him. If I slammed my foot down on one of Hunk’s knees in the stretched out position they were in, maybe it’d snap in half, or at the very least hyperextend. That would hurt like hell.

  The next time the muzzle tilted down, I nudged Coop. He slowly leaned toward me, and I whispered in his ear, “Tackle him.” Beyond that I had no idea what we were going to do, but we had to do something.

  Coop nodded almost imperceptibly and his body tensed. I bounced my knee against his thigh. One, two, and on the third whack, he exploded from his seat like a rocket from a bottle. With a roar, Coop slammed into Hunk, who grunted in surprise. I whooped and tried to balance without using my arms and stomped as hard as I could on Hunk’s knee. My foot
grazed the top and came harmlessly down beside his leg.

  The van careened from side to side as Donny twisted in the driver’s seat to see what was going on.

  Incoherent shouts echoed through the interior. I lost my balance and fell headfirst into Coop’s bony butt. My dead weight hit Hunk’s legs. Violently shooting stars filled my vision. There was a split-second resistance, and then one of Hunk’s knees gave out.

  An inhuman scream filled the space.

  My right elbow smashed into something hard. I added my own howl of pain to the din.

  Multiple muzzle-flashes of gunfire lit the dark interior of the van, and the noise was deafening. Coop still flailed against Hunk, trying to pin the man to the wall of the van. Not an easy task without arms.

  The van swerved and tipped precariously sideways. Then the world reversed in an instant. My head ricocheted off something, and pain exploded behind my eyes. This time I bypassed the stars altogether as blackness swallowed me whole.

  I slowly became aware of Eddy’s terrified face above me, barely discernible in the darkness. Suddenly I fell into a time warp and I was seven years old again, screaming in pain as Eddy dragged me from the twisted wreckage of my mother’s car. Blood from a gaping head wound streamed down her face and dripped on my cheek. I sucked in a huge breath and yelled, “MOM!” at the top of my lungs—and then someone was roughly shaking me.

  “Shay. SHAY! Calm down, girl. You’re all right. Everyone’s okay.” Eddy’s voice seeped into my awareness.

  I thrashed even as cognition returned. I wasn’t seven. I wasn’t in the wreckage of our broadsided tan Ford Falcon. My mom’s dead body wasn’t sprawled beside me and Eddy’s son, Neil, wasn’t lying mangled in the back seat.

  Hysteria retreated, and I gasped for air. I realized Eddy straddled me and felt her hands on my shoulders.