by Rizer, Bibi
“Charlie Zhang?” a gruff woman’s voice asks. “Are you the one who called in the grow operation in Ballard?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“Do you think the disappearance of your vehicle has anything to do with that?”
God.
Oh, my God.
I start running. To where, I don’t know. Because, for fuck’s sake, Walgreen’s is about two blocks from that grow house. Two blocks where that tattooed dealer clocked me, Gloria and my truck not two hours ago.
“Mister Zhang?”
“Do something!” I yell. People smoking outside a pub stare at me. “My girl is in the truck. You have to find her!”
The woman on the phone becomes marginally more interested. “Kidnapping certainly bumps the priority up. I’m going to send the LoJack signal to cruisers in the area. Try not to worry, Mister Zhang. We’ll find her. Can we reach you at this number?”
“Yeah.”
I hang up. My head is spinning, like I might faint. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. All that combat training , that course in the psychology of enemy combatants, the hours spent getting my electrical license add up to nothing against the good old fashioned stupidity of letting yourself be seen by a dirt bag. I lurch sideways and lean on a wall, taking deep breaths before I realize I’m leaning on a bank machine.
“Yo, dude,” someone says. “You getting cash out or what?”
I whip out my wallet and bank card. Then I take out as much cash as I can from both my bank account and my two credit cards. Running into the street, I wave down a taxi and pay the two drunk guys in the back a hundred dollars each to let me have it. The taxi driver looks at me uncertainly.
“I will pay you any amount to get me to I-5 northbound,” I say.
Like a good taxi driver, he doesn’t ask questions, and in seconds we’re heading towards the freeway.
Chapter Seven – Gloria
Bone Hand turns off the freeway just north of the outlet mall. Minutes later, we’re winding along a dark road, blobs of shadow that might be houses blurring past us.
“What’s your name?” Bone Hand says. The first noise he’s made in nearly an hour.
I glance at the clock on the dash. 11:15. Looks like I’ll be ringing in the New Year with a gun pointed at my head. If I live that long.
“Name?”
My mouth is so dry I can barely peel my tongue from my teeth. “Gloria,” I finally manage.
“Gloria what?”
Briefly I consider making something up, but the only things that come into my head are names that obviously don’t fit like Kurosawa and Gandhi, as if my favorite film-maker and a famous pacifist can help me now.
“Falcon,” I say, making a point of pronouncing it the proper Latino way, “Fal-CONE,” even though four generations from my great-grandfather, most of us just go with “falcon,” like the bird.
“Falcone? Mexican?”
“My great-grandfather was Cuban.”
Humanize yourself. Make them connect to you. This was more advice from self-defense. I’m sure somewhere in those college classes that I probably spent the majority of texting my friends, was also a lesson about not sitting in a parked car with the door unlocked and the window open. But I guess that didn’t sink in.
Human connection. I can do that.
“Why? Are you Mexican?”
“You think just because I’m a drug dealer, I must be Mexican? That’s racist.”
So far so good. I’ll just shut the fuck up. It seems safer.
“I’m Jewish,” Bone Hand says, after a moment. “I’m a Jewish queer and a drug dealer. How’s that for messing with your preconceived notions?”
The car bumps over a pothole as we turn onto a narrow road. I never had any preconceived notions about Jews, or queers or drug dealers. Now I’m worried I’m going to be terrified of all three, which is awkward because my boss satisfies two of those criteria. And my landlord too, come to think of it, because I’m pretty sure he and his boyfriend sell their excess Vicodin on the side.
Bone Hand taps his pistol on the steering wheel as he drives. Idly, rhythmically, as though he has a song playing in his head. I work up the courage to take a good look at him. Maybe if I get through this night, I’ll need to describe him to a sketch artist. I’m about five minutes into thinking of descriptive words for his eyes (sunken), nose (crooked), and lips (ringed with smoker’s wrinkles) before I remember I’m actually a trained artist and could easily render a good likeness of him in any number of media, including Manga-style cartoons. Heck, I could illustrate a whole graphic novel of this guy. Now that I’ve taken a good look at him, I’m not likely to ever forget.
He’s not very tall, but heavy-set with dark hair and eyebrows. His clean-shaven face is marred only by what looks like a burn scar on his chin. The tattoos I can see, apart from the bones on his hands, include a skull on his neck and a spider behind his right ear. He’s wearing a bullet pendant on a leather strap around his neck. If he has hair, it’s concealed under a black knitted hat.
In short, he really looks like a criminal. For some reason that makes me think of Charlie’s painfully pretty face, his tall lean body, tousled black hair and cheeky smile. A tear drips down my cheek that I don’t dare wipe away. Fuck the New Year’s gods to hell. I hate them so fucking much right now, I could murder anyone who so much as waves a sparkler in my face.
My chest muscles squeeze on my heart, as I realize Bone Hand is pulling the car into a dark driveway. We bump over gravel for a few seconds before coming to a stop in front of a large, creepy-looking farm house.
He pulls the key out of the ignition and pockets it as he gets out of the truck. “Well?” He bends back into the door to look at me.
I don’t move, staring forward and hugging my arms over my chest to keep from falling apart.
“Come on, sweetheart; don’t make me get all thuggy with you.”
And that’s it. I can’t take it anymore. I start to cry, curling over and sobbing into my chest. I don’t even know how long it goes on before I hear the passenger side door open. A few seconds later, I feel his hand on my shoulder and flinch away.
Bone Hand sighs. “Listen, I’m a deviant. But I’m not that kind of deviant. I just need to go deal with a few things in here, and I can’t leave you right now. But I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you. Okay?”
As I turn and look at him, I’m sure the incredulity on my face must be glowing like a neon sign reading, Are You Fucking Kidding Me? “Anything bad?” I gulp back a sob. “You kidnapped me and stole my boyfriend’s truck.”
Bone Hand smiles slowly, revealing one canine tooth jutting out at an odd angle. Another detail filed away for my sketch. “Your boyfriend? I thought you didn’t know him.”
I curl up into a ball with my face pressed onto my knees. Bone Hand grabs my arm and pulls me out before I have time to stand, sending me crashing into the gravel driveway. Pain lances through both knees as I land. When he hauls me to my feet, I see I’ve torn holes in my stockings. Bastard. These are my favorites.
After unlocking about six bolts on the front door, Bone Hand shoves me into a very dark and dusty hallway, bolting the door behind us. As my eyes struggle to adjust to the dark, his hand slams onto my chest again. He presses me against a wall.
“Are you a cop?”
I shake my head.
“Detective? DEA?”
“No! I’m a graphic designer.”
He releases the pressure on my chest. In the shadows, I can just barely see him step to the side and shuffle a few things around on a nearby table. There’s a flash of light and Bone Hand turns back to me, holding a candle in an old-fashioned candle holder, haloed in golden light like some demented Jack-Be-Nimble. He waves the pistol in his other hand. “Walk.”
In the low light, I take careful steps along the long hallway, trying to note details for any police report I may or may not get to make. The house is derelict, I think. Debris is piled up in corners, wallpaper torn, light
fittings missing their light bulbs. We pass three warped and peeling doors before Bone Hand instructs me to open the fourth.
I smell that skunky scent of fresh weed again and see the dim blue glow of grow lights leaking under the door as I turn the knob.
God. I’m going to die tonight.
The door leads to a set of stairs. Going down.
Chapter Eight – Charlie
As long as I keep peeling off twenties, the taxi driver keeps driving.
“Rather be driving a frantic boyfriend after his runaway girl than ferrying frat boys from strip club to brothel,” he says.
Gross. I peel off another twenty and ask him to be quiet as I dial Levi. He doesn’t even bother with hello.
“They just turned off the five onto 531 about ten minutes ago.”
“Levi! Why didn’t you call me earlier?”
“The LoJack site went down, and then I tried to call you but you must have been in a dead spot. It went straight to voicemail. I left a message.”
Next time I see Levi, I’m going to punch him in the head. “I haven’t activated voicemail! I only just got the phone an hour ago!”
“Okay. Okay. They seem to have stopped.” He gives me an address in the middle of nowhere that I relay to the driver. “The police are probably already on their way. You should just wait, Charlie. It’s not safe.”
I hang up on him again. Outside the cab, the giant Seattle Outlets sign flies by.
A few minutes later, the cab exits the freeway onto a winding, narrow highway, then again onto an even narrower, windier road. Finally he pulls up at a dark driveway leading off into thick trees. The crooked and rusty mailbox seems to be riddled with bullet holes.
“End of the road. That’ll be $275.80, thanks.”
“You’re not taking me up to the house or whatever?”
“That’s not my girl up there. And I’m not crazy. This is Methville, kid. No thanks.”
Even though I’ve already given him at least two hundred I count out another handful of bills and pass it over the seat before climbing out. “Can you at least wait?”
The driver just laughs and floors it, leaving me literally in his dust. I can’t really say that I blame him.
In contrast to the buzzing New Year’s Eve hoopla I left in Seattle, the night around here is ominously quiet. Since it’s winter, there aren’t even any crickets to add atmosphere. And it’s dark. Though it’s mercifully a clear night, the moon has set, and looking up through the canopy of trees, I can see a million twinkling stars above me. Normally I love to look at stars, but now they just piss me off.
I turn and run up the driveway. It seems to go on forever. Just as I start to think I’ve somehow fallen into some world-bending, time-stretching wormhole, a dark house appears through the trees. To anyone else, it would look abandoned, but as I approach I can hear the telltale sixty-hertz hum of electricity pouring in. No lights. Windows blacked out. It’s another grow house.
And there’s my truck, parked outside the front door.
I slow to a walk, tiptoeing as quietly as I can across the loose gravel. The passenger door of my truck is hanging open, but there’s no sign of Gloria or anyone else. I reach into the back of the truck, feeling around on the floor until I find a promisingly heavy wrench. I tuck it through one of my belt loops. Feeling around some more, I find my tool kit. I click it open, muffling the noise with my sleeve, and feel around for some clippers, linemen gloves, a pen light and a small spool of wire. Tucking everything into my pockets, I head around back.
I try to keep to the overgrown dead grass that tangles around and up the side of the house. Now that I’m close, I can smell the ripe, weedy reek emanating from the basement windows. I bend to take a closer look and can detect a faint outline of bright light around the edges of the black lining. This looks like a bigger grow operation than the place in Ballard.
My heart is pounding. Levi is probably right. I should wait for the police, but who knows when they’ll get here? I can’t take the chance that Gloria is…I don’t even want to think about it. What kind of person would just drive off with a woman in the truck?
In the back of my mind, there’s a horrible sliver of doubt. Maybe Gloria knew that guy. Maybe it was all arranged beforehand. I know, intellectually, this is illogical. It was just coincidence we even met. Just coincidence we went to that Ballard call. And how could she have arranged it that I’d go to Walgreen’s and leave her in the car with the keys? It doesn’t make sense.
Jesus. I knew I had trust issues with women, but this is ridiculous.
But of course, I don’t know anything about her. Maybe it was just a coincidence she went to that Ballard call with me. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t know that guy. I didn’t ask her if she used drugs. Maybe he was her dealer. Maybe she owed him money. Maybe when I left her in the truck, she saw it as an opportunity to pay off some debts and be rid of some skinny electrical nerd she accidently picked up at the same time. So she might not even be here. He might have dropped her off at home and called it even. She might have even wanted to call me to tell me she was okay and thanks for a fun night, but how would she get in touch? I left my phone in the car and she doesn’t know my last name.
And maybe she doesn’t care.
I stand there in the dark brooding about this. I know my paranoia and doubt are just a delayed aftershock of that horrible woman taking my cat to Toronto with that fucking football player while I was in the Gulf, risking my ass for her freedom. I pretended I didn’t care when I came back and told no one how low I sank, brooding over things I could never go back and change. How I spent nights looking through the pets for adoption section on Craigslist, like some crazy old cat lady.
My brain does one of those rapid-fire free association things that goes a little like this: crazy cat lady, crazy lady on the street, crazy bag lady, bag, giant bag, giant purse, Gloria’s giant purse. And then something I saw five minutes ago, but didn’t process properly because I was looking for something to use as a weapon, finally clicks into place.
Gloria’s purse was on the back seat of the truck. She’s here. And if she was here voluntarily, wouldn’t she take her purse with her? Women take those things everywhere, even into the bathroom.
In the starlight, I can just make out a square blob on the side of the house where the main’s power comes in. That’s my target. I pull out the pen light, turn it on and pop it into my mouth, pointing it at the junction box. Then I get to work.
Chapter Nine – Gloria
Bone Hand piles marijuana into Ziploc bags, not bothering to weigh anything, just kind of shoveling everything in, zipping it up and moving to the next one. Then he starts snipping plants. It’s so warm and humid in here from the grow lights and the fans and the irrigation that he’s dripping sweat into the baggies. I make a mental note to never smoke weed again because who knows if it would be one of these batches that he’s sweated all over? Everyone has their reasons for quitting drugs finally, I guess. That’s mine. I hate to think of how much dealer sweat I’ve already smoked in my life. It’s not like the stuff is produced in sanitary conditions. I’m going to stick to wine from now on.
I’m sweating too and wishing Bone Hand had let me take off my coat before duct-taping me by the wrists to a table leg. I’ve been quiet since we got down here, but now I’m starting to feel more courageous. These could be my last minutes on earth. Do I really want to spend them sitting on floor under a table, trembling in fear? I’ve got some shit I need to say before I go, and since he’s the only person here, I guess he’s just going to have to suck it up.
I take a deep breath, preparing to give this degenerate a piece of my mind.
There’s a low thump and all the lights go out. The fans whir to a stop, the sudden absence of their high-pitched buzz a strange relief that I would probably enjoy more if I wasn’t about to scream.
Dark. Dark. I hate the dark. And this is the second time tonight I’ve been reminded how much.
“What the
fuck?” Bone Hand asks. “Musta’ blown a fuse. Wait here.”
There’s a shuffle, a crash as something falls off the table and Bone Hand swears, then the creak of a door opening and closing. Then nothing.
Nothing but dark.
God. God. God.
It’s so dark I feel like my eyes have been poked out. Somehow my head spins even though there’s nothing for it to spin against. I’m in the vacuum of space where no one can hear you scream, tumbling out past the moon into those black voids between the stars where only silence lives.
“Hail Mary, full of grace…” The words come out involuntarily, as though they are an inextricable part of the panic that engulfs me. I don’t even know how I remember them from Sundays with my grandparents so long ago. When I finish it in English, it emerges again from somewhere even deeper inside me, this time in Spanish. “Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracia…”
There’s a noise. And Bone Hand’s voice. “Who’s there?”
Then there’s another noise, like a grunt and a thump followed by a slow tinkle of a collection of fragile somethings falling to the floor. A weird metallic clanging noise. Then three distinct footsteps crunching over whatever broke.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
Just in the next room.
This is how the New Year’s gods laugh at me. With crunching footsteps. With glass things tinkling to the floor. With my own strangled breaths choking me from the inside.
With a strained whisper.
“Gloria?”
It takes three tries to get his name out. “Charlie!”
A patch of the dark moves, and he surrounds me in his arms, his hands tracing my shape like a sculptor working clay. His lips find mine as his hands slide up my arms to the duct tape holding me to the table.
“Jesus, I’ll cut it.” He feels around carefully. “Don’t move. I dropped my fucking flashlight back there. Just a second.”
“It’s so dark. I can’t see.”