Edge of the Pit

by Bill Thesken

  When you have cash money to spend and invest, the world is your cherry, and you’d best do well by cherry picking carefully. Sure there was a gun or two in the beginning, when things were panning out, people wouldn’t cooperate, got in the way, and so those people disappeared here and there, now and then, it was all just part of the business, and it was always about the big picture, about rising from the dirt and grime and into the heavenly heights of respectability, and now he was legit, with the chief of police, the head of the biggest news outlet in the city, and the owner of the largest personal security company waiting for him in the outer office.

  Waiting for him to call them all in.

  The phone on the desk lit up and C-Dub reached for it. “Yes.”

  The voice on the other end was brief. “Production is going smooth, we have half a million CD’s printed, and on their way to the outlets. Electronic download versions are ready to launch tomorrow morning, right on schedule.”

  “There’s a been a problem. I think we need to postpone the release.”

  There was silence on the other end and he could hear a panicked gasp for breath, as though he was choking on a piece of gristle. “Why, what’s wrong?”

  “I can’t give you all the details. I just think it might be a good idea to delay the release date by a couple of days.”

  “C-Dub we’ve been pushing this as fast as possible to make the deadline. Orders have been filled, people have been paid. Every DJ in the country has it on their playlist for tomorrow morning. There’s a lot of money, and a lot of our reputation on the line. We’ve shipped the product, and it’s out there right now in the real world, and you know what that means. Bootleg copies are sure to hit the internet any minute. Someone somewhere has got their hands on it and is copying the album as we speak and printing it up in Asia, trying to get the jump on us. You postpone the release now and we’ll be toast.”

  “I hadn’t thought about that.”

  “Unless Gale died or something we need to stay on track and release this album tomorrow as planned. She didn’t die did she?” His voice trailed off.

  “No, she didn’t die, as far as I know anyways. But I can’t keep track of her every minute of the day. I have other things besides singers and albums to worry about.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “I might as well tell you now, since word is going to get out real soon. Gale’s been kidnapped.”

  “Son of a bitch, what the hell happened?”

  “I don’t know yet, not everything anyways, just bits and pieces. She was headed to one of my clubs last night for a little pre-release party, no big deal, just show up, sing a few songs, meet a few fans and let off some steam. Everything was under the radar. No press release, no fanfare, just a little unwind time before she hit the talk shows in New York. On the way to the club someone whacked her security team and took her. We’ve been keeping it secret, waiting for the kidnappers demands.”

  “Nothing yet?”

  “Nothing, that’s why I thought it might be best to hold off on the release.”

  “Can’t be done C-Dub. It’s too late. It’s too damn late. What the hell is wrong with this world?”

  “Right now it’s pretty messed up. Alright, go ahead and keep the presses going, we’ll ride it out the best we can. I’ll let you know as soon as we get any word.”

  C-Dub and put the phone back in the cradle and took another puff of the cigar. This album release was a microcosm of the world in general. No matter what disaster hit, the world kept spinning, life kept going on and on, and nothing could stop it.

  The record was just one more piece of a giant puzzle fitting into place. His record company was launching Gale Nighting’s new album, the one she’d been recording for the past few months and it was finally ready for release. It had taken too long, been too drawn out, too expensive and he had to put some heat on the production team to get it finished. They listened. Timing being the most important aspect of the entertainment industry, many would question the prudence of releasing it now that Nightingale was kidnapped, but there was nothing that could be done about it. The wheels of the bus were turning, and you either rode on top of it, or got run over by it.

  “Alright Winston,” he said as he put out the cigar in a gold tray. “Tell them I’ll see them now.”

  He stood and greeted the men as they walked into the office, and motioned for them to sit opposite him, while the butler closed the giant doors and left the room. All three were in a somber mood, and their faces were hardened with remorse at recent events. There was Cole Garner, head honcho at network news, Blaine Thomas, Chief of Police for the city of Los Angeles, and Mason Takegawa, CEO and owner of the personal security agency in charge of protecting Nightingale when she was kidnapped.

  The man sitting on the big chair tapped his fingers together, waiting for his guests to settle in their chairs.

  The police chief spoke first.

  “They want gold. We just got the call about an hour ago. They want ten gold bars, ten good delivery gold bars with four nines.”

  “That’s a little steep don’t you think? For a girl who’s not yet a bonafide superstar?”

  “What the hell is a good delivery bar?” asked Cole. “And what the hell does four nines mean?”

  “It’s the type of gold that used in International bank transfers,” said C-Dub. “A good delivery bar weighs four hundred ounces, and the four nines means they want it nearly pure.”

  “What about it,” asked the Chief. “Can you get it together?”

  “Gold is an amazing thing isn’t it?” said C-Dub. “Untraceable currency, you can melt it down and do anything with it, buy anything. Buy anything except for love or so they say, and I’m not so sure about that. Empires are won and lost in the pursuit of it, entire generations destroyed for a piece of shiny metal from out of the dirt. It won’t be easy to gather up that much pure gold, but I’ll get it.”

  He got out a calculator and punched in some numbers. “A standard good delivery gold bar is four hundred ounces or twenty five pounds. They want ten bars, that’s four thousand ounces and with today’s gold price of thirteen hundred an ounce it comes to five point two million. Two hundred and fifty pounds. It’ll fit in a small suitcase. When do they want it?”

  “Tomorrow,” said the Chief.

  C-Dub threw the calculator on the table. “What, are they crazy?”

  “Obviously. They kidnapped your girlfriend in the middle of the street in your city. I’d say they’re insane.”

  “They think you’ll pay it, mostly to keep it out of the news.”

  “How do we know they’re the ones who really pulled it off?”

  “They gave us a couple of key details of the kidnapping, plus they left a card in the limo that was carrying Nightingale. The card had a code with numbers and letters so we’d know they were the kidnappers. I’ve never heard of something like this C-Dub, these guys are pretty thorough.”

  “Have there been any leaks yet Cole?”

  “You told us to keep it under wraps, and so we have. There’s nothing in the papers or on-line, not a trace. My guys are under strict orders. You know how this thing works though, someone will leak it soon enough, for a bit of cash.”

  “They’ll never get away with it.” He looked directly at the next chair, the head of the agency in charge of the protection. “What about your guy, the one they found in the building?”

  Mason took a deep breath. “He got away.”

  “What the hell do you mean he got away?”

  “He escaped. About twenty minutes ago. I had my number one team on it, they had him secured. We had him in a hospital, he was injured, they cleaned him up, drugged him up and were about to interrogate him when he escaped.”

  “What does he know?”

  “Like I said, he escaped before they had a chance to interrogate him.”

  “I’m not asking them what he knows, I’m asking you.”

  Mason swallowed hard, his throat suddenly
dry. He loosened the tie and unbuttoned the top button of his starched white shirt. “He was our perimeter guy, we found him a block away from the scene a couple of hours after the incident. I don’t think he knows anything, he was probably too far away to see much.”

  “ We’ve got an all-points bulletin out for him,” said the chief. “I’ve got a thousand eyes looking for him all over this city.”

  “Find him Blaine. In the meantime what about the ransom? I don’t have that kind of cash sitting around. I’ll have to move some investments, cash in some loans.”

  “They said they’d call tomorrow with more instructions, they said they only want to talk with me,” said the Chief. “Said they’d call me direct.”

  “That’s fine. What’s your contingency plan? In case the money doesn’t work.”

  The chief was slow in response, he unfolded his hands and placed them on the table. “The money hardly ever works, in situations like this. I have to call in the FBI C-Dub, it’s protocol for these cases. I know you don’t want them to get involved, but…”

  “Do what you gotta do,” he replied. “Just get her back alive and in one piece. Alright gentlemen, let’s all get on the same page. Blaine, call the FBI and get them in on the case. Cole, fire up the media, create a storm out of this story, let’s put some heat on these guys who took Gale, maybe we can flush ‘em out. Mason, work with the chief on finding this perimeter guy of yours, what’s his name?”

  “Badger. Badger Thompson.”

  “Badger, you mean like an animal?”

  “He’s part Indian, his Dad was a quarter Comanche. It’s sort of a tradition with some of these people, naming their kids after tough animals. He was in Iraq with the U.S. Army, did pretty good over there, showed that he could handle himself, so we picked him up when he got out. He was one of the best we had.”

  “Was one of the best you had,” said C-Dub. I think maybe he had something to do with this whole thing, don’t you? Why else would he run. My advice is to get a hold of that guy and maybe you’ll be able to find Gale.”

  “I’m not so sure. It doesn’t make sense. If he was part of the kidnapping, he would have gotten away from the scene with the kidnappers. But he was unconscious with injuries that were completely consistent with crashing his motorcycle into a building.”

  “There’s something else,” Mason continued. “We knew he had a car in the city, we got an inside tip so we sent a team to its location and when they got there the entire parking garage was blowing up.”

  “That was your guy?” asked the police chief. “He’s a walking disaster area. I got a text about an hour ago. Fifty cars burned to a crisp and an entire city block evacuated. All I gotta say is you better find him before we do.”

  Mason looked hard at the police chief. “If we find him first you’ll never even hear about it.”

  “One more important item,” said C-Dub. “Unfortunately, my record company is set to release Gale’s new album tomorrow morning and there’s nothing we can do to delay it. I know it’s poor timing but I’ve been advised that if we don’t release it as scheduled, someone else will.”

  Cole scrunched his face. “What do you mean someone else will?”

  “Bootleggers,” said C-Dub. “The album’s been shipped around the world. It’s either us or them and I’d rather have it be us.”

  “It’s gonna look bad,” said Cole. “Our newspaper reporting that she’s been kidnapped while you’re releasing a new album. It’s gonna look like a scam.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” said the Chief. “We’ll have a news conference. We’ll set it up official, have it in a good location, make sure all the news outlets are there. We’ll present the facts, get it all out in the open. We’re going to have to do it anyways so we might as well do it now and get it over with.” He turned to Cole. “Make sure you get a couple of your guys in there, and make sure they’re right up front to ask the right questions. I don’t want this thing to get out of control, I hate news conferences. Damned reporters.”

  5.

  Before I realized that I was sleeping and dreaming, I was walking through the desert, the sun setting on the horizon, a cool breeze on my face, tumbleweeds rolling by and I held out my hand and touched one as it went by.

  My bare feet kicked up dust as I walked and when I looked behind me the scene looked dim and dark with roiling gray clouds, swirling over the distant mountains, lightning flickering.

  A storm was gathering, but it was still far away. There was an arroyo up ahead, a small canyon with water, cool clear liquid, I could hear it gently bubbling over the round rocks, soothing and soft flowing life giving water.

  I was thirsty, my throat dry and parched and I started down the gently rolling side of the arroyo towards the water at the bottom. It was beautiful and I smiled, it flowed from one end of the horizon to the other and seemed to have no end. I would drink from it and soothe my thirst.

  My hand glanced against a rock as I climbed down the suddenly steep cliff and as I looked down at my hands I realized that I was dreaming, in that split second when you are straddling the fence between reality and dream I was in both worlds at the same time and wasn’t sure which one I would wish to stay in, and then I heard the bacon in the pan, smelled the coffee, the thick aroma wafting in my nose and I opened my eyes.

  I was laying on the couch in the living room of a friend, that much I hoped. A dull gray light filled the windows, it was dawn, that much I guessed.

  And then the pain in my ribs reminded me in a heartbeat what transpired the night before, and I scanned the room with wide open eyes, I was on the run, that much I knew.

  She was in the kitchen, her dark hair tied in a ponytail, dressed in a nurses uniform, a light blue one, the one she was wearing last night was white, that much I remembered. She was turning the bacon, flipping the eggs, the toaster made a mechanical popping sound and when she reached for it she looked over at me and smiled when she saw me looking at her.

  “You forgot to drink your coffee last night, so I made a fresh pot.”

  I sat up and rubbed my eyes and tried to smile back. Was this a dream? No. Was I sure? I blinked and rubbed my eyes again and yawned and stretched, and then winced as my ribs separated. No, this wasn’t a dream. “Did I sleep?”

  “Like a log that snores. Are you hungry?”

  My growling stomach answered that question and she laughed at the sound.

  “What time is it?”

  “Six AM. I have to go to work. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want. There’s food in the fridge, a TV, and I even have a computer with internet if you want.”

  Six AM. I’d slept all night. She brought a plate with bacon, eggs, and toast and set it on the coffee table in front of me, then went back into the kitchen for the coffee.

  “Cream or sugar?” she asked.

  “Black,” I said as I looked down at the plate of food and had to hold myself back from devouring it in one bite. “Are you eating?” I asked and waited for her reply.

  She smiled as she set the steaming cup of coffee next to the plate. Her hair smelled like fresh strawberries, the same scent from the night before when I first saw her in the hospital, and I thought that must be one hell of a shampoo. Maybe it wasn’t even the shampoo, maybe it was just her. She sat down in chair on the other side of the room and watched me. She was just sitting there smiling and I was a little puzzled, maybe she hadn’t heard me the first time, so I asked her again. “Are you going to eat?”

  She just giggled and shook her head. “In a minute, you go ahead.”

  I certainly didn’t need to be asked twice and slowly took some small bites, a little toast, some bacon, a little egg. I narrowed my eyes as she continued to watch me, maybe the food was poisoned... I looked at the food, then back at her.

  She laughed as she realized what I was thinking, and walked over and picked up a piece of toast from the plate, laid a piece of bacon on it and dipped it in the egg and started eating.

  “No, it
’s not poisoned,” she said.

  “So what gives?”

  “I was just amazed, that’s all. Here you are, someone I just met a few hours ago, waiting for me before you started eating.”

  “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”

  “Yes. It is. I just haven’t been exposed to such good manners for a long time. My ex-husband the pig-dog used to grunt when I made food for him. Grunt and eat, so I was a little shocked when you asked me if I would be joining you.” She went back into the kitchen and made another plate and came back and set it on the coffee table and started eating with me.

  “How old are you?” I asked. Her cheeks turned crimson red at the question but she answered.

  “Twenty five. Why?”

  “I don’t know, you just seem too young to have been married and divorced. Way too young if you ask me.”

  “It happens to the best of people sometimes…”

  “How old was the other girl, the one he ran off with?”

  She took a deep breath. “Eighteen.”

  I nodded. It was hard for her, I could see it in her eyes. “Sorry to be so blunt, but you gotta forget about that guy and move on. I know, I just met you and all, but you gotta wipe that memory out of your mind and never go back. That guy was a jerk. Was, past tense.”

  She smiled and asked me. “How old are you?”

  My turn for the hot seat. “Twenty eight.” I tried to get a bite of toast before she asked another question but was too late.

  “Don’t you think you’re a little young to be telling a girl you just met what she should, or shouldn’t think?” She arched her eyebrows with a flash of defiant anger, then giggled again and I laughed with her in relief.

  “Whew,” I sighed. “I thought you were really going to let me have it.”

  “I was, but thought better of it. Good manners and all.”

  “Thanks for letting me borrow your couch, I really appreciate it,” I said and then mopped the rest of the food from the plate. I waited for her to finish her meal, and grabbed her plate before she could say a word. “I’ll do the dishes.” She protested and tried to wrestle the plate from my hand but quickly realized it was a losing proposition, and said she would finish getting ready for work.