Ensnared

by I N Foggarty

  Matt Taylor stopped in his tracks and tried to take it all in. Graffiti covered the boarded-up windows of buildings that looked like they should have been demolished decades ago. Broken glass lay on the sidewalk beneath at least two of the street lamps. Across the road, an old junkyard with uneven pieces of corrugated iron tacked onto rotten wooden posts acting as a fence. In a corner a group of three old men huddled around a lit rusted out metal drum; one of them had a junk-filled shopping trolley beside him.

  His companion turned to him. “S’not too late to go home, Matty.”

  “No,” he breathed firmly, taking one last look at the departing bus. Though he did not like the look of the neighbourhood he had no choice. He had to find Anna.

  “Suit yourself,” Walker replied. He led Matt away from the bus stop and into the decaying rat's nest.

  While they walked, Matt caught sight of a tall blonde haired woman in a tight leather skirt and bolero jacket, leading a short man with wavy auburn hair towards a crumbling apartment building. When they reached the door the woman caught sight of Matt and blew him a kiss. He did a double take. The makeup looked impeccable. As they vanished from sight, his mind questioned whether her companion knew all he would be in for.

  “Candy won’t like it if she hears you’ve been ogling.” Matt turned to face Walker, ready to fire a reply but the other man hadn’t bothered to turn around. Did he have eyes in the back of his head? “There.”

  Matt had to stop abruptly to avoid careening into the back of the hobo. He followed the finger Walker had pointed to a freestanding building of four stories that looked little better, save for less graffiti, than the others around it. From its size and styling, it looked like an old warehouse, though what its original purpose had been he could only guess.

  Before they could get any closer Walker held out an arm to halt his progress. “Ok, Matty, first some ground rules.”

  When the man turned to look at him a sour expression formed on Matt’s face. Last night’s ground rules had left him handcuffed to a chair with an over-exuberant stripper in his lap. “What now?”

  Walker returned the look with a stern one of his own that brought memories of how he had dealt with Mr Yates to the forefront of Matt’s mind. “You’re a kid who has no idea what he’s doing and the men in there probably prefer bullets to questions. Now I ain’t getting any lead put into my ass tonight because you screw up. So you’re gonna do exactly what I tell you when I tell you. Capiche?”

  Wait what did he mean by men that probably preferred bullets to questions? “Walker, I thought you said you knew this guy.”

  The hobo sighed and gave him a disappointed look. “First lesson, Matty. In this business when someone says that someone else is an ‘old friend’ it usually means that they’ve never met the bugger.”

  Matt’s face fell and realisation set in. After what he had witnessed last night he had somehow been foolish enough to trust the man when he said they would be able to reason with these people. While his mind raced to catch up a sinking feeling washed over him.

  “There’ll be another bus in ‘bout thirty if you wanna go home, Matty.”

  The hobo’s grunted words penetrated the silence and forced Matt to make a decision. He had allowed himself to be led here on a lie but that did not change the fact that Anna was in trouble and potentially inside the foreboding building in front of him. He had to go on, for Anna.

  Staring into Walker’s dull eyes he fixed the man with a stony expression Mark would have been proud of. “I’m not going home.”

  “Good. Now let’s go save your damsel.”

  Matt nodded and followed Walker down the street. Approaching the building, the man pulled him off the sidewalk and down into a dark narrow alley with an eight-foot-high wall at its end. “Lesson two, Matty boy. The best way to get in is not the front door. They’re usually heavily guarded and unless you have a guaranteed cover story all you’re going to do is tell the whole damn place you’re looking to break in.”

  It sounded to Matt that Walker talked from experience. “How about the back door?”

  “A better choice than the front, but the obvious one. Anyone that’s been around the block will have guards on their back door too.” By the manner in which he spoke Walker was only short a projector and some slides from turning this into a college course; breaking and entering 101.

  “So how do we tell if there are guards on the back door?”

  “Good question, Matty. We don’t. Which brings us to lesson three. Unless you know the person you’re dealing with always assume he or she knows their bread and butter.”

  The idea of learning the lessons of this trade was enough to make Matt slightly nervous. Yet at the same time, came a feeling of daring excitement that reminded him when Janine had taught him how to shoot, pick a basic lock and hotwire a car. Still, he would happily settle for Anna being home safe and never needing to think about either skill set ever again. However, until such a time, he would have to set aside any misgivings and endure the ‘slideshow’. “So how do we get in?”

  The man grinned and pointed over his shoulder at a wooden door that in the darkness almost blended into the dirt covered wall. Attached to the frame on either side were three planks of wood one of which looked to be held together by a few rotting splinters. “Bet you another bottle of bourbon half the people in there don’t know this door even exists.”

  Matt watched Walker fish about inside his jacket and procure a thin and stumpy metal rod. “Is that a crowbar?” he hissed.

  “Never leave home without it,” the man said offhandedly as he slipped the hooked end in between the wall and the first board and expertly prised it loose. “You telling me you don’t have one hidden inside the leg of your trousers?”

  He chose not to respond. One after another the three boards parted company with the frame. The crowbar then vanished and in its place, he held a small battered black leather case. “Lesson four. Always carry a set of lock picks and know how to use them.”

  Matt gave him a wry smile. “My sister taught me how to pick a lock.”

  Walker frowned at him in a manner that suggested he felt cheated. Holding out the leather case the man took a step away from the door and waved his hand towards it. Matt looked at him questioningly though took it anyway. If he had forgotten how to do this he would look a right idiot. Bending down he examined the lock; a traditional pin and tumbler. Unzipping the case he removed a torsion wrench and selected a pick. He’d have to do it one pin at a time as he could never master the rake technique. It took him a few moments, but eventually, the last pin slid into place and a final twist of the wrench opened the lock. He stood up, a look of triumph on his face.

  “Nicely done, Matty. That sister of yours isn’t just a nice piece of ass.”

  Walker relieved him of the tools and stowed them back inside his coat. Cautiously he beckoned Matt to follow and he pushed open the door. The first thing Matt noticed on stepping inside was the lack of light and people. Straining his eyes he scanned the room. When the door closed behind them, he noticed a thin strip of light at floor level in the opposite corner, another door. He slowly moved forwards at Walkers prompting. Something crunched underfoot but he could not see it in the darkness.

  “Glass,” Walker whispered from beside him.

  “How’d you know that?” The man pointed upwards and Matt could just make out the broken stub that had once been a light bulb hanging from a thin wire. Carefully he took an elongated step to where he guessed the glass pile would end. “Now what?”

  “Well, we could wander around and check every sodden room for your girl…” The man paused in anticipation of the expected…

  “Or?”

  “Or we look for the stairs. Preferably the ones that lead to the basement.”

  Matt gave Walker a puzzled look that he doubted the man could see in the dimness. “What’s so special about the basement? And how do you know if there even is one?”

  Though he could not clearly make
out Walker’s face he knew the man was grinning again and that the ‘lessons’ were about to resume “Lesson five, Matty boy. Old places like this usually have a basement of some variety.”

  “I still don’t see how that helps us?”

  “That’s lesson six,” Walker chucked in a low voice that would not escape the room. “If you’re going to lock someone up, the basement is the best place to do it. Horrible things can happen to people being held in basements.” Before Matt could even ask, Walker continued, “basements typically have no windows or doors to the outside world that a person can fit through. Hence if you’ve got a lot of the buggers and they escape they’re still trapped so long as you hold the stairs. Bottlenecked in effect.”

  Though it sounded far-fetched, like a lot of what the man said, it somehow made sense. Perhaps it was in the nature of Walker’s world to sound that way to someone not of it.

  “Do you think there’s more than just Anna here?” Matt asked, the thought only just occurring to him.

  “Might be. Last I heard picking up pretty little girls to sell to pimps was Los sin techo’s main business.”

  A shiver ran down Matt’s spine as he digested Walker's words. ‘Picking up girls to sell to pimps’. The idea of what they might soon find made him want to retch. Walker may not be certain but he knew one thing to be true. Anna would fight them tooth and nail if that’s what they had planned for her. He had to find her. When he turned to look he discovered that the hobo had moved to the door and had his ear pressed up against it.

  “Nothing,” he grunted with certainty when Matt joined him. “Now make sure you follow my lead. Watch your step, try not to make any unnecessary noise and if I tell you to do something do it without question.”

  Matt nodded. With caution, Walker opened the door and poked his head through the narrow gap between it and the frame. Matt watched the man slide into the room beyond and signal for him to follow. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and stepped forward.

  Dirty stone walls with cracked grey paint stretched out to either side with wooden doors dotted here and there, each bearing its own unique set of defects. Up above a series of flickering strip lights hung precariously on spindly metal chains.

  “Good looking place ain’t it,” Walker whispered, glancing in both directions before heading left.

  Given that he had seen the man’s living space Matt wasn’t at all sure whether or not that last comment had been a joke. He had no time to think about it though for Walker had already put a few meters between them. Taking care to keep his footsteps light Matt followed the man down the hallway to its end.

  Two hallways later and Matt had started to think the place abandoned until they suddenly heard voices and saw shadows. Without hesitation, Walker darted to the closest door, listened for a moment and hurried Matt inside. They hadn’t exactly needed fortune for the room to be empty. The hobo had been listening in at random doors every so often and none thus far had given any indication of occupation. Though he hadn’t bothered to ask why the reason had just become apparent. Walker had been ensuring they would have somewhere to hide should someone show up.

  Matt tried to control his breathing, the footsteps and chatter coming ever closer. He sighed realising his heart was hammering. How many more narrow escapes like that were they going to have?

  “Lesson seven,” Walker whispered. He pressed his head to the door to double check the men had gone. “Always know where you can hide. There won’t always be a human-sized locker or a cardboard box lying around.”

  Back in the now empty hallway, Matt followed the man once more and they continued onwards. Around the corner, they discovered their first occupied room but had no trouble edging past it without detection. Not long after they found what they were looking for.

  Walker grinned and they slowly descended the stairs to the basement. “Going down.”

  “It’s unguarded,” Matt said in slight surprise as they left the stairwell into the pitch black of the basement.

  In front of him, the man flicked a small flashlight into life. “Well spotted, Matty boy.”

  “I thought you said the stairs would be guarded if there were people down here.”

  “I mighta suggested it,” Walker admitted. He moved the light along the dark hallway. “However I didn’t say anything about the potential stupidity of the man in charge, or the laziness of his henchmen.” They set off down the hallway and Walker started opening rooms at random. “However in this instance, I’m beginning to think the basements not the place to look.”

  They looked anyway. Behind countless doors, they found nothing but darkness, broken furniture and wooden crates. Eventually, after about half an hour they made their way back to the stairwell.

  “Now where,” Matt sighed despondently. It would have been far too easy for Anna to have been down here he thought glumly.

  “Could be anywhere.” For the first time, Walker sounded unsure and it did not fill Matt with confidence. “Top floor would be my next bet… jumping out of a fourth-floor window tends not to turn out too well.” Something about the man’s tone suggested to Matt that he had first-hand experience of having tried.

  “This place is huge. We can’t search every room and not get caught.” There was a slight note of panic in his voice that he knew Walker would pick up on.

  “Keep the piss out yer panties, Matty. We’re going to plan B instead.”

  “What’s plan B?” he asked, giving his companion a questioning look. Had there even been a plan A?

  “We ask someone.”

  “What!” Matt quickly clamped his hands over his mouth when he realised how loudly he had said that. He took a breath before adding in a much lower voice, “I thought letting them know we were here was the last thing we wanted to do?”

  “Trust me, Matty. The bugger in question won’t know for long.” The resurgent grin told Matt it would be best not to argue.

  Cautiously the pair tiptoed their way back up the stairs and out into what now seemed like a well-lit ground floor. Walker paused for a moment and then started up the stairs that would take them to the first floor. Though unsure if upstairs would be a better choice than the ground floor Matt followed.

  Commencing their search, it quickly became apparent that this floor was defiantly not deserted. Two short hallways away from the stairwell they began to hear the thud, thud, thud of some loud and rather heavy music coming from somewhere else on the floor.

  “Do we follow the music?” Matt asked softly, though he doubted there was much need. The music would probably mask any sound they made.

  “Good Idea, Matty.” Walker’s tone brimmed with sarcasm. “Lesson eight. Music that loud in a place like this usually means a large drunken party. Now, what do you think happens if we wander into the midst of it?”

  On reflection, the idea sounded stupid and the outcome self-explanatory. “We get shot.”

  “Well, they’re not likely to buy us a drink. Drunken boneheads are even less talkative than sober ones.”

  “So what do you suggest?”

  “We find the toilet.”

  Yet again the logic to Walker’s suggestions eluded him. “I’m sure you have a good reason for that too.” The man gave him a look and without thinking, he added, “lesson Nine?”

  “Right again. Drunk men often need to use the little boy’s room. Perfect place to catch one of them alone.” The man took a step before he stopped in his tracks. “Only don’t apply the same logic to women. They like to go in gaggles.” He motioned to head off again only to turn back to face Matt. “In fact make that lesson ten.” He paused. “Actually… scratch that. If this place were run by women we’d have been caught by now.”

  Matt let out a snort of derision. “How many crime bosses do you know that are women?” he asked. If TV had taught him anything it was that woman were not allowed to be crime bosses.

  Walker gave him a hard look and then set off down the hallway. “Naivety is your fatal flaw, Matty boy.”

&n
bsp; Unsure of how to even begin to respond, Matt followed. Encountering no one the pair eventually found the toilet. The music was much louder in this part of the building and Matt could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. The probability of being discovered had surely just increased tenfold.

  “Now what?” asked Matt when Walker ushered him behind a pair of stacked crates of toilet roll on the opposite side of the hallway.

  “We wait… and hope some bugger doesn’t come through that door.” Walker pointed to the door behind them.

  That remark didn’t fill Matt with confidence. It did not take Dylan’s ability with math to know that with only two ways in and out of the hallway, excluding the bathroom, that there was an equal probability of the wrong door being opened first.

  He could only hope that having the music source on the right side would be enough to swing the odds in their favour. They waited.

  After only about ten minutes, the double doors at the far end of the hallway opened. Only when the heavy footsteps of a single man drew closer did Matt suddenly realise that Walker hadn’t bothered to tell him the plan. Frantically he looked at the man for some sort of direction. Walker grinned and before he knew what was happening the man shoved him out from behind the crates.

  “The fuck?” the heavy-footed man declared dumbly. Their eyes locked. He was tall, thick, with short black hair and dark eyes.

  Next second the man charged towards him and Matt did the first thing that came to mind, he bolted in the opposite direction. Heart hammering he ran towards the doors and prayed that the man either did not have or was not smart enough to draw a gun.

  “ARGH!” A large thud followed the thick man’s yell and Matt risked a glance over his shoulder. His pursuer lay sprawled out face first on the floor. Beside him Walker stood, one leg outstretched.