by Michael Priv
Right that instant I knew it was a ruse to divert my attention from something to my right. With the added strength of the welcome rush of adrenalin, I tucked my head to protect the throat and whirled to my right with a right leg block about knee-high and an arm block at about face level. Both blocks solidly connected. I saw them an instant later. Both of them. The lucky one closest to me absorbed both of my blocks. Fittingly, I called him “Lucky.” My right arm block connected with his face as a back fist. Combined velocity of his approach and my punch threw his head far to my right. As I was still turning into my block, I followed the turn with the left jab into his throat and continued the motion further by jamming my right shoulder into his chest, throwing him off his feet. I grabbed his hand with the gun as he was tumbling, pulling it out and extending it under my arm behind my back, in the direction where Smiley would now be attacking from, presumably.
With no time to look behind me, I simply squeezed the trigger. The gun went off way too loud in the gathering darkness of the city. I obviously missed, as a good kick in my left kidney exploded in my brain, sending shards of pain all through my body. The kick knocked me off my feet, but I still was tangled with Lucky, also on his way down. My breath caught. Smiley sure knew how to throw a good kick. Those legs had to be disabled as a priority. No time to assess the damage right that moment.
To finish with Lucky, still squeezing his hand with the gun in my right hand, I pinched his lower lip with my thumb and index finger and yanked it down hard. We both hit the ground, his blood splattering. He yelped and gargled. I now had his gun in my right hand, albeit the wrong way to. The barrel of the Glock was resting at the base of my thumb.
I rolled to avoid incoming kicks and to get a better grip on the gun. The attackers were both to my left, coming fast. I shot the further one, Smiley, in the leg and jumped to my feet in time to block a rapid succession of kicks from his yet unnamed partner, whom I christened “Noname.” He was fast. The gun, kicked out of my hand, clanked on the pavement. Noname was a high kicker. Girls must have liked it. A quick low kick to his shin made him stumble mid-stride. The next one into his other shin sent him down. I grabbed his right hand on the way down and twisted it hard as he fell, turning his entire body by his now fractured wrist. Noname yelled in pain. Smiley was back on line again, limping and cussing, his gun on the ready. A good solid punch on the face with the heel of my palm, accompanied by the satisfying sound of the breaking cartilage, and Smiley was out of my hair. I quickly found my gun and shot him in his other leg, just making sure he stayed down this time.
I earned myself an instant to assess the situation —the abduction attempt by three armed professionals plus the driver. With deep satisfaction, I noticed that the reasonable thought of giving in and simply complying with their orders felt completely foreign to me.
Why me? The fourth assailant, the driver, had thus far stayed in the car, understandably expecting his three compadres to fare much better against one skinny lab technician. A large black man, at first glance he seemed a bit older than his companions, kind of balding in the middle and curly on the sides, so I christened him “Larry,” obviously. He simply didn’t have the right hair to be called Moe or Curly. I knew it was time for Larry to make his entrance.
I slid under the car, pulling myself to the other side and made it out just as Larry, the driver, with a gun in his hand emerged from his car door. His hamstring was my target, and when he hit the ground with an anguished grunt, I jammed my fingers into his eyes and jumped to my feet, kicking the gun he dropped out of his reach. That’s that, I was done here, I thought.
All I was done with was pissing him off. Larry yelled in pain, flapping around, as expected, but recovered surprisingly fast. His counter-attack was swift and effective. In the gathering darkness I didn’t even see the knife. With a gasp I noticed it only when it was plunged about an inch into my thigh. The pain, dulled by the adrenalin rush, was still blinding. The thigh started turning wooden immediately. I yanked the knife out and jumped Larry, as he kicked my legs from under me and knocked the knife out of my hand. I found myself back on the ground, rolling with Larry. He managed to get a seemingly unshakable grip on my throat. With the full understanding that I needed to suck in some air soon, I willed myself to stay composed, warding off the panic.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Noname, scowling a bloodied smile, about to join Larry with a gun in his left hand on the ready. My attempts to break Larry’s grip on my throat proved ineffective, but groping around for any weapon I found Larry’s gun and shot him twice in the shoulder. With a tortured scream, Larry let go of my throat and rolled over. Obviously not a lefty, Noname immediately got off a shot that went wide. I rolled. His other shot grazed my side. I shot Noname in the knee from down low, sending him tumbling. I got up, struggling for a breath, and shot him in the same leg again. Pocketing the gun, breathing hard and limping, with adrenalin still roaring through my systems, I turned the corner to Polk and boarded a city bus, under the accompaniment of several police sirens, converging to the scene of the recent shooting.
I took a couple of deep breaths to calm down. The middle-aged black bus driver eyed me with understanding and said nothing, as I dropped some change, no idea how much but probably not enough, into his till. I thanked him. He just nodded toward the back of the bus.
In the relative safety of the bus I assessed the damages. My throat hurt, my back hurt, my side was grazed and bleeding but not a lot, and the cut on my thigh stung quite a bit. Everything else ached. Otherwise, I felt peachy.
Okay, so it had started. The proverbial shit hit the proverbial fan. No idea who these people were or their motives, but I was fairly certain that life as I knew it was over, at least for now. The assailants did not kill me. They could, if they wanted to. They had the opportunity. Killing me was obviously not their objective at the moment. They wanted something from me. Possibly I would have even given it to them, whatever it was they wanted, if I knew what it was. I had no clue about anything—except that their failed attempt to apprehend me and all the damage I inflicted could spell immediate danger to Linda, if they knew where she was. They would go for a softer target now to get to me.
My phone call to Linda only solicited he r cheerful, “Leave me a message.” Damn! I did. I asked Linda to leave her apartment immediately and meet me at the restaurant we went to for our second anniversary. Fat chance. I knew Linda and her independent streak a mile wide. “How high?” would not be the first or second thing on her mind, when confronted with the order to jump. In my message I said it was an emergency.
Jane did not answer her phone either.
Bill’s voice on the phone sounded strained; he seemed out of breath. “Yeah?” he yelled. “Norm?”
“Yes,” I yelled back. “What’s going on?” “ Cops or the Feds or some other dumb fucks motherfuckers are chasing me all over town, can you believe it?” I heard several shots and tires screeching. Didn’t sound good.
“I’ve been hit by the Feds, too, I think. Lose them and go check on Jane,” I shouted. “What do you think I’m doing?” Bill sounded pissed off now. “These morons shot my new car! Twice!” That explained his sour disposition. Two bullet holes in a brand-new Mercedes would ruin anybody’s day. I heard several more shots. “Okay, Norm, got to go.”
The line went dead. The fact of cops or Feds shooting up Bill’s car during a high-speed pursuit indicated one thing: they were not keen on arresting him. They wanted him dead. What kind of cops or Feds were these? Bill’s hands were full. Things were heating up fast. We still had no intel as to who we were up against and why.
Going home was a terrible idea, I knew that. But I had to make sure Yvette was okay, a sparrow I rescued as a baby a few years ago and raised to maturity. Yvette was a part of my family. We don’t leave our own behind. Affectionately, I recalled the tiny pink thing with a disproportionately large yellow mouth that I brought home one afternoon. She seemed to like chicken soup mixed with baby formula every hour or
two. I built a huge redwood cage for her, sixfoot high, undoubtedly the most elaborate sparrow cage in the known universe. Oh, the riches and splendor of that cage! Taj Mahal would have looked like a chicken coop by comparison. Yvette utterly ignored the cage and slept in a soup bowl in one of my kitchen cupboards, heroically defending it against any and all intruders, namely Linda and me. The cage was pushed into the corner of my bedroom now, serving as a gathering place for other things I didn’t need but was too lackadaisical to do anything about. My dear little Yvette was in danger. I had to get her out.
The bus driver silently agreed to pull over between stops just long enough for me to jump off. I decided against Uber to avoid a record trail and flagged down a taxi. The cab let me off a block away from my apartment. I walked the rest of the way, half expecting an ambush. My place was trashed. These people wanted something from me. They did not fool around. Stepping over the broken furniture, cutup sofa cushions and my linen closet’s contents on the floor, I went to the kitchen to check on Yvette.
The small, deformed brown corpse of my dear little friend was pinned to the kitchen wall with a black commando knife, together with a manila envelope which contained a burner phone. The aspiring dead men wanted to talk to me. Good, let’s discuss your funeral.
I pulled out the knife and held the small corpse in the palm of my hand, thinking about raising Yvette as a baby and all the fun we had through the years. Yvette was so trusting, would come to anybody. My breath caught in my aching throat.
T hank you for everything, Yvette.I considered the redwood cage, but decided to nestle Yvette inside her favorite soup bowl in the cupboard. Rest in peace,my little friend
Who were the people who’d done this? None of our guys—or even the Guards for that matter—were non-conformists. We would never even think of doing anything as psychotic as murdering a tiny, defenseless bird just to upset me. It simply wouldn’t occur to any of us. Definitely the work of a one-lifer, a human, a psychopath.
8 I felt fear. I knew how exposed and vulnerable the unprotected, tender appendages of my being were, namely Linda and mother. Yvette was already lost. Out of the way in Modesto, my mother was not as exposed as Linda, my sweet girl.
Navigating with some difficulty through the mess, I found my old backpack on the floor and stuffed a few necessities inside, like a first aid kit, a change of socks and underwear and my toiletries. I found my binoculars lying around and stuffed them in the backpack as well. Then, standing in the middle of my destroyed kitchen, next to the cupboard with the dead body of my dear Yvette, I dialed Linda.
“Hi, Picky! Are you all done yet?” Linda’s voice , so soothing and reassuring under these crazy circumstances, gently washed off the pain. I wished I were at her place, beside her, getting a hug. But then I could inadvertently lead my enemies to her. Could I have done that already? I had to warn her.
“Yes, hon, I’m all done. Hey, did you get my voicemail?”
“No, must’ve missed it. What’s that about? That you love me?” She laughed in a throaty manner that she thought was seductive. In a word, yes, it was.
“ I do love you. Listen, change in plans. I want you to get out of your apartment immediately. Drive to the place where we celebrated our anniversary, remember? Have the man there at the restaurant, you know who I’m talking about, call me right away. This is an emergency.”
Linda started asking something, but I cut her off. I did not want her to mention the name of our place. “Go now. No delays. Go fast!” “Yeah, but why...?” Suddenly, the receiver away from her, Linda yelled, “Stop right there! Who are you people? I’m calling the police! Norman!”
My stomach dropped. I felt it sloshing heavily somewhere in the vicinity of my ankles. An overwhelming sense of dread washed over me. My world stopped at the realization that Linda was about to be taken. Blood erupted in my head, threatening to blow my eardrums and pop out my eyes. To the very last shreds of my being, I wished I could be there to protect her, to kill every last motherfucker…
The dread-inducing sound of a struggle and the phone dropping to the ground was followed closely by Linda’s screaming and the sound of a fallen body.
Through blood pounding in my ears I discerned a male voice, “Secure the woman. Is that Norman? Give me the phone.” The guy knew my name—the aspiring dead men who killed my bird. He was not raking up brownie points with me right that moment, either. I’ll
kill you all .I felt enraged. I heard another voice, more muffled, further away. Then sounds of struggle and other voices in the background—some commands, some responses. Some intonations sounded like a phone or radio report at a distance.
“Hey, Norm an. We got your bitch.” The voice belonged to the probable group leader, the one who gave the command to secure the woman. Arrogant, white, sounded young.
“What do you want?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what we want, you pathetic little mouse. Give it to me and I’ll release her.”
“Give you what?” “You’re in way over your head. Don’t play games, Norman. Nobody will save you. We busted your terrorist cell and killed the other woman. What’s her name? The psych. She sang like a bird.”
“Speaking about birds, why did you, deranged psychos, kill my bird?”
“I’ll kill you, too, you just keep on playing your stupid games.” Jane was dead? She was planning to meet somebody. Something must’ve gone very wrong. And no, she didn’t sing. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
“L ike I said, I want it and I want it now,” the psycho continued. “I honestly don’t know what you want.”
“Stop playing games!”
“Okay, okay, I’ll get it to you.”
“You have it on you?”
“No, but I know where it is.” What the fuck arethey looking for? “Will take a couple hours to get it.” “You have one hour.”
The line went dead. I pushed the green call button.
“Wha-at?” Same voice on the line, irritated now. Quiet in the background. “Hey, psycho, what do I call you?”
“Call me sir, you moron. What do you want?”
“Okay, Siryoumoron, put Linda on the phone.”
“You talk to Linda when I say you talk to Linda. Hurry up! Fiftynine minutes.” Click. The line went dead again.
I pushed the green redial button.
“What?!” “You know where I am . You want it, come and get it.” I hung up. I looked at the street below, barely making out a line of cars parked there as usual. No vans, no Crown-Vics, nothing suspicious.
The cell phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID. Restricted number. Damn.
“I will kill you,” I assured the caller. “Who, you? Don’t think so. How long do you think you’ll last if we come and get you? Five seconds? Ten seconds? Stop pissing me off, Norman. Do you want your bitch dead? She is a terrorist, I can kill her right now.”
“Silence, one -lifer!” I barked. “Stop insulting my girlfriend! No deal. You will die within 24 hours. I will kill you last, so you witness the death of your team before you check out.” I disconnected.
After a long second the cell phone rang.
“Norman, it’s me! What’s going on?” This time it was Linda. She sounded terrified. “Hi, honey! How are you holding up there?”
“Okay, I guess. Are you all right?”
Ma’ girl! I could tell that at the other end of the line Linda was terrified and doing all she could to hold her composure, yet she was asking meif Iwas all right.
“I’m okay, hon. Don’t worry. I’ll be getting you out of there shortly.”
Linda interrupted, prodded by her captors, no doubt. “Just give them what they want, okay?”
“Yes, sweetie, I will. They will get everything that’s coming to them, don’t worry. Now listen to me carefully. Are you listening?” “But…” “Good. Listen. They will release you at the Moscone Center. Wait at the Howard Street exit. You will be picked up by the owner of the place where we had our s
econd anniversary, or by his men. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I do but what...?”
“I love you too, hon. We’ll be all right. Give me the guy back.” The grunt was back on the line. “What now?” The convict sounded more guarded now. Didn’t take to my attitude. Well, I didn’t like him either, but didn’t dwell on it, since I knew our relationship was not going to last.
“I want the girl out now, and I want a hundred grand in cash. Drop Linda off in front of Moscone Center on the Howard Street side, and no tail or you’ll never see the… thing. Got it?”
“I want the flash drive. I want it now. Give it to me and I will release the girl. Keep playing games and I will kill both of you.” A flashdrive."You still want it? Okay. What I want is a hundred grand for it. And release the girl first.” “Are you out of your mind? You’re ordering me now?” “Yes, I am. And no more shit from you, ape, I mean it.”
Silence. Did he believe me when I promised to kill him? Did he have a premonition of the impending doom? Probably not yet. Soon. I’ll find awayto kill you, motherfucker, I know I will.
He finally spoke, “The answer is no. You just killed your girlfriend.” No!! “Fine. Whatever,” I replied. “Say goodbye to the stick. I’m flushing it down the toilet as we speak.” I hung up with my hands trembling. What have I done?
The phone rang.
“I can’t make such decisions. I’ll check with my commanding officer.”
Commanding officer? Sounded like military. Why would the military be against us? “Check on what?”
“On the woman.”
“And the money. When I safely have both—the woman and the money—in that order, I will give you the flash drive.”