“Ten nineteen,” I whispered, creeping along the row of lockers. The locker numbers were too small to read in the dark. Maybe there was a light switch here someplace?
As I fumbled for a switch, a sound from the brining room made me jump. Muffin growled. The door to the lunchroom creaked. I whirled around, heart in throat, watching in terror as it slowly opened. Someone stood in the doorway watching me, a dark shape silhouetted against the murky shadows. Judging by the size, it was a man. He flicked on a flashlight and stabbed the light in my eyes.
“Gotcha!”
Escape tip #27:
If you can’t use your head,
use your feet.
Muffin shot forward and attacked, snarling canine curses. The man yelped in pain; hopped on one leg, lost his grip on the flashlight.
“Get him off me!”
Blood resumed pumping through my heart chambers. “Labeck?
“Mazie?”
“What’re you doing here?”
“Rescuing you, what’s it look like?”
I hurried over and peeled Muffin off him. Reluctantly allowing himself to be restrained, Muffin continued to growl deep in his throat, warning Labeck that if he put a single foot wrong, his intestines were going to be Muffin’s bedtime snack.
Labeck stooped for the flashlight, shone it on me, gave a visible start. “What happened to your hair?”
“Kim Jong Zippoed it.”
Labeck’s look of bewilderment seemed genuine, but being drugged, buried alive, and kidnapped by giant sausages had made me paranoid. I backed up, keeping an arm’s length between me and Labeck. “Bear’s guys. The Janitors. They were going to burn me up.”
“Jesus, Mazie.”
“But then the brewery sort of caught on fire.”
“The old Brenner brewery? You can see the fire all over the city. You started it?”
I was tired of being blamed for things I hadn’t done. “I just told you,” I snapped. “It was the Janitors. And stop shining that thing in my face.”
He aimed the beam down. We stared at each other, our faces skull-like in the backsplashed light.
“We can hash this out later,” Labeck finally said. “Let’s get the locker first.”
“You know about the locker?”
He started moving along the rows of lockers, shining the flashlight at the numbers.
“The station sent me to the stadium to film the sports idiot doing player interviews. When I came out, the parking lot was empty—except for my car. The car you stole—”
“Borrowed.”
“Oh, excuse me. Big difference. Anyway, these two kids were standing next to it, arguing—”
“Eddie and Rico?”
“Yeah. They weren’t too happy when I showed up demanding to know what the hell they were doing with my car. The kid with the weird hair jumped me, said he’d kill me if I didn’t tell them what I did with you. But we got it all straightened out, once I had them both down on the ground with my knees in their kidneys—”
“God, Labeck—you didn’t hurt them, did you?”
He snorted. “Mazie, that Arguello kid isn’t exactly a cream puff. Anyway, they told me how you suddenly disappeared while they were in the can. They figured those guys you called Janitors must have taken you. The only thing we had to go on was the pickle factory. I figured I’d rush over here and play superhero. I told the sports prettyboy to drive the truck back to the station, then I took off in my car. Great plan, except for the part where the car runs out of gas two blocks later.”
“Uhh . . . I guess that was sort of my fault.”
“It took me an hour to walk to a service station and come back with a can of gas. Then I headed onto the freeway and got locked in the world’s worst traffic jam. Total gridlock. I-Forty-three was closed down because of blowing smoke. They said on the radio that traffic’s backed up to the Illinois border. It took me two hours to get to an off-ramp.”
He aimed the flashlight at a locker. “I think this is it.”
We both gazed at locker number 1019. It was an ordinary-looking locker. Gray metal, about the size of a file drawer, with a built-in keyhole lock.
“It’ll be empty,” I said gloomily. “It’s been four years.”
“Don’t be too sure.” Labeck yanked on the door, which didn’t budge. “I’ve seen calendars in this place dating from 1978. Where’s the key?”
“Kim Jong and General Custer took it.”
He heaved a deep sigh. “I’m not even going to ask. Move aside.”
He reared back, raised his right leg, kicked the locker in.
“Jeez—why don’t you just destroy the whole place?”
He yanked open the stove-in door and dragged out the locker’s contents. A denim jumpsuit that smelled like fermenting pickles. A pair of beat-up sneakers. A handful of coins. A crumpled time card. Labeck shone the flashlight on the card. “Luis Ruiz,” he said softly.
Labeck handed me the coins. This was it? Disappointment washed over me, leaving me feeling sick. Two quarters and a dime? That’s what I’d been risking my life for?
Labeck turned the jumpsuit’s pockets inside out, but found nothing.
I peered into the locker and spotted something stuffed into the back. Groping for it, I retrieved a battered Spiderman backpack. Labeck hovered as I unzipped it, fingers shaking with excitement. Inside was a plastic 7-Eleven bag, knotted at the top, probably containing the moldy remnants of a lunch Luis had never gotten to eat.
“We’ll look at it later,” Labeck said. “Let’s go.”
Labeck hauled the locker loot while I carried Muffin. Moving cautiously, we left the building and crossed the parking lot to his car. The passenger-side window of the Volks was smashed.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I punched it out.”
“I think you have anger issues.”
“I have don’t-want-to-stand-around-waiting-for-a-locksmith issues. I smashed the window so I could get in the car.” He tossed Luis Ruiz’s stuff into the backseat, then turned to me. “You do have my car keys, right?”
I folded my arms and gazed off toward the canal.
“Never mind. I suppose Wild Bill Hickock took them. Here, hold this.” He thrust the flashlight at me.
I slapped it back at him. “Want me to tell you where you can shove that?”
Labeck stared at me, bewildered.
“Hold this! Move aside! I’m here to rescue you! I’m sick and tired of you giving me orders.” I was hissing like an angry cobra.
Labeck looked around nervously. “Mazie, quiet down—”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” I knew he was right; I knew I ought to be quiet, but suddenly everything I’d endured over the last twenty-four hours bubbled up and I was so furious I wanted to run around like Muffin, biting and snarling. “I was doing just fine until you arrived and started bossing me around!”
“Mazie, there’s a guard not fifty feet away—”
“How do I know you’re not one of them? You might be planning to bump me off now that you’ve got the locker contents.”
Labeck matched my scowl with one of his own. Then he took a deep breath and muttered, “I have no plans to bump you off, Mazie Maguire—you’ll just have to trust me on that. Now will you please shine the light on the dashboard so I can start the damn car—notice the please—a request, not an order.”
That was as close to an apology as I was likely to get, I figured. Snatching up the flashlight, I shone it into the car’s interior. Labeck, who was built way too big for a small car, grunted with the effort as he squeezed into the space beneath the dashboard and began jabbing wires.
Something sparked. Labeck cursed, sucked on a finger, and the engine started.
“Where’d you learn to hot-wire a car?” I asked.
“From the president of your fan club.” He uncurled himself from beneath the dash, backed out of the car, and worked his cramped shoulders.
“From Eddie? Where is he?” Using Luis
’s backpack like a whisk broom, I swiped broken glass off the passenger seat. “If the Janitors go after him and Rico—”
“Mazie, relax. Get in. Please get in. Those two will be okay. I told them they ought to hide out until things cool down. They’re going to stay with one of Woody Woodpecker’s relatives for a couple days.”
I hoped Eddie and Rico had enough sense to keep a low profile, but neither of them had exhibited much common sense so far, so my expectations weren’t very high.
“Where are we going?” I asked as Labeck got behind the wheel.
“Back to my place.” He shot me a look. “Or is that being too bossy?”
I shrugged, secretly grateful Labeck was willing to take me in again, but not in a mood just now to express my gratitude. We pulled out of the factory parking lot, Muffin in my lap, Luis’s pack in the backseat, and Labeck driving at exactly the speed limit, not wanting to risk being stopped by a cop. He kept to side streets, probably because the freeway was still a mess. He looked over at me. “You okay?”
“Peachy-keen.”
“Your hand is bleeding.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. It’s just where they tried to chop off my fingers.”
“Christ, Mazie.”
I smiled to myself in the dark. Labeck cared. I was pretty sure he was on my side.
“Tell me what happened. Start at the beginning.”
I did. I was too tired to care whether I could trust Labeck 100 percent. I was willing to shoot for 90 percent. He was a careful driver, but a couple of times, as I described the events of the past thirty-six hours, he almost ran into parked cars.
“Brenner?” His voice rose. “Brenner as in United States Senator Brenner?”
“He said I was nothing but a big disposal problem.”
“That son of a bitch. I’m going to kill him.”
I knew Labeck was indulging in a bit of testosterone-fueled chest-pounding, but I appreciated the sentiment nonetheless. A guy going off to slay giants on my behalf—if I hadn’t been so exhausted, it might have been kind of sexy.
The sky to the north was a smoldering rose, the fire reflecting off the plumes of smoke rising high into the night sky. It was spectacular, but looking at it made me feel sick. That could have been my ashes floating upward in those clouds of smoke. By the time I’d brought Labeck up-to-date on everything—being rescued by Claudette and Bobby Ray, escaping from the hospital, meeting up with Rico and Eddie, being kidnapped by Racing Sausages—we were nearly back at Five Points.
“What did you do to this guy?” Labeck asked, sounding dazed.
“To Bear? I don’t know. But it has something to do with the Instamatic snapshot. You were right about Brenner, Ben—I never should have trusted him.”
A silence, then: “So you’re calling me Ben now?”
“I’m calling you the name that was on your shirt. It is your name?”
I could see his face, illuminated by the glow of a stop and go light. He was smiling.
“More or less.”
More or less. Well, wasn’t he the man of mystery?
Escape tip #28:
Boys will be boys—
except when they’re girls.
We cruised slowly past the Oriental Theater, where patrons were lining up for the midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Almost everyone was in costume, mostly in Frank-N-Furter getups, with a few Riff Raffs and Little Nells in the mix. Labeck suddenly cut over to the curb. He stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled. A towering figure in the movie line looked over toward the car. Then the person—male, female?—clopped over on six-inch platforms.
“Boney!” the creature warbled in a bass voice that at least answered the gender question. He was wearing a frizzy auburn wig so wide it wouldn’t have fit through most doorways. Eyeliner had been applied by the quart, lipstick scrolled on far beyond lines where lips ever existed. In heels and wig, he was in LeBron James territory.
“Looking sharp tonight,” Labeck said.
“I try.” He batted his long fake lashes. Stooping, he peered in through the broken passenger window, eyeing me curiously.
“Doing ‘The Time Warp’ tonight?” Labeck inquired.
Coquettishly, the guy fluffed out his French maid’s skirt. It was black satin over a net crinoline that stuck out at right angles and barely covered his crotch. Frilly garter belts held up fishnet stockings. His torso was crammed into a low-cut maid’s uniform top that exposed a werewolflike mat of chest hair. He did a curbside bump and grind and sang in a robust falsetto.
“With a bit of a mind flip, you’re into a time slip . . .”
Labeck clapped.
The guy curtsied. “You ought to come down and catch the show tonight, Boney—you and cutie pie here.” He stuck a large hand clad in a lacework glove through the window. We shook, his grip surprisingly gentle. “I’m Magenta.”
“Oh, right. The Patty Quinn character. From Rocky Horror.”
The mascara-studded eyes widened. “You know Rocky?”
I nodded. During our single-girl days, Gloria and I had spent a lot of Friday midnights at the Oriental, singing along to “Sweet Transvestite” and “Eddie’s Teddy.” Wa-a-y before the Glee Johnny-come-latelies had co-opted Rocky.
“What happened to your hair, sweetie?” Magenta asked. “It looks like someone styled it with a blowtorch.”
Close.
“Anything weird going on in the ’hood?” Labeck asked.
“Narcs, thugs, suburbanites? No, baby, everything’s cool.” Magenta’s eyes cut to me again, and I had a sinking feeling that lights were going on behind the inch-long feathery fringes. “I got your back, Boney babes.”
“Come up after the show, okay?”
Magenta pursed his lips and blew a kiss. “Love to, darling.”
“I think he recognized me,” I said when we’d pulled away.
“He won’t tell.” Labeck turned into the narrow alleyway behind his building, which was built up against the Oriental’s back wall. “I keep his secrets, he keeps mine.”
Boney babes?
Labeck parked the Volks between two dumpsters. Unless you were looking very hard, you’d never see it there. Expecting Jong and Custer to burst out with switchblades and flaming Zippos any second, I grabbed Muffin, dashed from the car to Labeck’s building, and rocketed up the stairs. Labeck clumped up behind me, holding the locker loot. He retrieved a key from the top of the doorframe.
“Handy for burglars,” I commented.
He raised an eyebrow, managing to wordlessly convey the fact that he’d trusted me with his apartment key, a key now in the possession of two very nasty professional killers or possibly incinerated along with the brewery.
I set Muffin down once we were inside. He’d gotten over his Labeck issues and was warming up to him. Labeck’s approval rating rose further when he opened his refrigerator and scrounged Muffin a leftover hamburger patty. I hoped there was something in there for me, too. The ballpark brat felt like years ago.
Labeck took my arm and dragged me toward his bathroom. “First we play doctor.”
I sat on the toilet while he sat on the bathtub rim. Knee to knee, all cozy-wozy. I tried to ignore the sexual frisson set up by the body contact. Labeck had large, competent hands and didn’t seem at all bothered by blood. He gently washed the wound, took a tube of antiseptic salve out of his medicine cabinet, uncapped it, and looked at me.
“You’re not going to be a baby about the antiseptic this time, are you?” he asked, a grin lurking close to the surface. He began spreading the strong-smelling salve gingerly over my palm. I didn’t want to look at the cut, so I gazed at Labeck instead. His head was bent, exposing the back of his neck. There was something endearingly little boy about his nape, with its small stray curls; it made him seem vulnerable. I could understand the appeal of vampirism. How would it feel to gently press my lips against his nape, just there . . .
He looked up at that moment. Our eyes caught and locked, his holding a
question. There was definitely chemistry here; I could feel our ions bonding.
No! Nein, non, nyet, ixnay, not bonding! No hanky-panky!
“This cut is really deep,” he said, turning his attention back to my hand. “It ought to be stitched.”
“Forget it. That’s my Girdle of Venus.”
“I would have put your Girdle of Venus a bit lower, but then, I didn’t go to med school.”
“I learned the parts of the hand in a book on palmistry I read when I was a kid. I was planning to make money telling fortunes.”
“Just a wild guess, but I’d bet you didn’t make a lot of money.”
“As it so happens, I was a very good palm reader.” Taking his left hand in mine, I peered at it. “Hmm.”
“Hmm what?”
“You had something with mustard for lunch.” I turned his hand over. Wide calloused palm, long fingers, non-hairy knuckles. No ring. Heart line that swooped upward toward the Jupiter finger, indicating a passionate nature. Stay the heck away from that one.
“What else?” he prompted.
“You will live a long life and have fifteen children.”
“Not what I wanted to hear. Is there anything in there about who’s going to win the Stanley Cup this year?”
“Yes, but the palmist doesn’t work for free.” I shoved his hand back.
He pressed a wad of gauze over the gash in my palm, then used almost a whole box of Band-Aids to tape the gauze down. “That’s the best I can do for now,” he said. “Take two aspirin and stay away from bad guys.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
“No problem.” He lightly touched the singed ends of my hair and ran his hand down my neck to my collarbone, caressing it with his thumb. I forgot to breathe. If this was what his hands could do with my collarbone, what could they do to my—
Stop it! I was not going to make a fool out of myself over the first male who wasn’t slicing, dicing, or fricasseeing me. I stood up quickly, which was a mistake, because I suddenly felt dizzy.
Labeck steadied me. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Sorry to go all girly-girl.”
“Nothing wrong with girly-girl. I like girly-girl.” He kept his hands on me. In the bathroom’s narrow space, I was pressed against him, and couldn’t help noticing that the front of his jeans, the part that contained his Tower of Eros, seemed to be undergoing some seismic activity. I looked up, because I didn’t want to be caught looking down, and found myself staring at Labeck’s mouth. Why hadn’t I noticed before what full lips he had? They were a little chapped, the lips of a guy who was outdoors a lot, but they looked as though they would be very . . . nice . . . to . . .
The Escape Diaries: Life and Love on the Lam Page 22