by John Etzil
Sammy was shrewd enough in his shady dealings to avoid convictions on most of the criminal charges that were brought against him, but that was a double-edged sword. It wouldn’t take much for the bosses to think that he’d stayed out of jail because he was a mole. A visit from the FBI was the last thing he needed, and dropping in on the art dealer unannounced was payback for his little FBI meet-and-greet. And while he was here, he’d help himself to some artwork. For his troubles and all.
He took a deep breath and sucked in plastic. He struggled to move his face around so that he could breathe, and was shocked to feel the plastic start to unravel around him. What? His captors hadn’t used duct tape to secure the plastic? Ha. What a bunch of fuckin’ amateurs!
He felt the vehicle decelerate, and the smooth pavement ended with a jolt. His whole body became airborne for a second before slamming down with thud. The bouncing of the vehicle picked up, and they slowed down to a near crawl. They must have gone off road, which meant they were getting close to the hole.
He mentally raced through some survival plans before settling on the one he thought offered him the best chance of success. He had always been good at spur-of-the-moment improvising, a trait he hoped would prove its value again in extending his life.
14
“Are you okay?” Mary Sue asked Harold. She cut through the electrical cord that bound his wrists and ankles to the chair.
“Yeah, I’m fine, just in shock.” He was shaking his head as if to wipe the slate of his memory clean. “Wow, that was close. Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?”
“Positive. Besides, we gave the sheriff our word.”
“I know, but he’s a freakin’ psycho.”
“He knows what he’s doing.”
“It’s fine until we get caught. Then we’ll get jail time for covering up a murder.”
She frowned. “You’re looking at it all wrong. We didn’t cover up anything. We just didn’t report an assault that occurred in my home. End of story.” She sliced through the last of his bonds. “There, all free. Now leave and never speak of this again.”
“But what about us?” Harold sniffled and looked like he was about to well up. “Can I still see you?” He reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder.
She slapped his arm away. “No, Harold, it’s over.” Her voice rose an octave.
“Why?”
“You don’t get it, do you?” She clenched her fists in anger, digging her nails into her palms. It was all she could do not to smack him in the face or kick him in the groin. She’d never in her life felt so little respect towards a living being as she felt now towards him. “That man was going to rape me and kill us both. You didn’t even put up a fight. You did nothing, Harold. You were going to let him! Get out and don’t ever contact me again.”
She held the front door open and Harold shuffled out, his body sagging in despair. She slammed the door behind him so hard that all the family portraits rattled against the wall. She sat down on the couch and buried her head in her hands and cried.
15
I pulled the big SUV out of Mary Sue’s driveway and up to my truck. I hopped out and reached into my glove compartment. I found the lead-shielded bag that was originally made for protecting camera film from X-ray machines at airports. That didn’t fly anymore. Nowadays you couldn’t even get a Chapstick through security without a sideways glance from the X-ray operator.
Anyway, the reason I had this bag was to keep the locations of my burner phones away from prying eyes. Even though the cell phones were off, I knew that they could still be tracked, so I always kept a fully charged phone in the lead-shielded bag. One never knew when they’d need a burner phone.
I opened the bag and tossed Sam’s phone inside, then sealed it up. There was no cell signal here, but as I got closer to Summit, I’d be picked up by a cell tower, so I figured better safe than sorry. As far as Verizon or AT&T were concerned, Sam had driven along on Route 10 into a dead spot and never returned. They didn’t know how right they would be.
I grabbed my cleanup kit, which was nothing more than a Ziploc bag that held paper towels and hand sanitizer, and stuffed it in my back pocket. I locked my truck, jumped into the SUV, and threw it in drive.
It took me twenty minutes to reach my property in Eminence, and another thirty minutes to make my way through the tractor trail that connected my driveway to the back corner of my land, where it butted up against the million-plus acres of state-owned forest.
There used to be a small one-room cabin at the end of the trail, built sometime in the 1800s, but that was long gone. All that was left was a partially collapsed stone foundation, overgrown with weeds and small shrubs, with a couple of taller trees in the center of it.
And a hand-dug well.
Hand-dug wells in this part of the country ran anywhere from thirty to seventy feet deep, depending on the underground water level. They were usually about forty inches around and were lined with rock to keep the walls from caving in. This particular well hadn’t been used in many decades and was covered with a two-inch-thick piece of flat stone. It would make a perfect burial place for Ostrich Boy. Once I filled it with dirt, he’d never be found.
I stopped the big SUV when I thought we were getting close to the well. I hadn’t been up here in a while, and that was during daylight hours. Everything up here in the country looked different at night. I got out and savored the dark silence. It was so quiet and peaceful, the only sound the clicking of the big engine as she cooled off.
I took out my iPhone flashlight and searched for the well. After a few minutes I found it, hidden by tall grass and a few short shrubs. I got back in the SUV and backed it up to the well, opened up the back, and pulled his fat ass out, letting him hit the ground with a nice satisfying thud. I grinned.
I bent down to slide the heavy rock from the opening. The thing must have weighed over a hundred pounds, and over the years it had sunk into the ground a half inch. It took some work digging my fingers underneath it, and it was covered by moss, so it was slippery and hard to grip. After a few tries and a half dozen curse words, I managed to slide it all the way to the side, opening up a three-foot-plus opening to his tomb.
I grabbed him by his feet, slid his fat ass over the snow to the well, and dropped him into it. Probably my imagination, but I could swear I saw him ball up before he disappeared into the darkness. It had been a long, exhausting day, and despite my stoic appearance, this exercise in body disposal was slightly stressful. Plus I had Debbie and Barry White waiting at home for me, and knowing that always increased my ADD tenfold.
A second later, I heard him splash down. My anger at him got the best of me and I picked up a few bigger rocks from nearby and tossed them down the well, imagining them smashing against his greasy head. That didn’t satisfy my thirst for revenge, so I took out my Glock, screwed on the Osprey, and fired a few shots down into the well as a parting gift. Between shots, I heard the empty shell casings bouncing off the rock lining of the well before splashing down. Good riddance, you bastard. I slid the heavy stone back in place and sealed his tomb. It felt good to be free of him.
I climbed back into the late Ostrich Boy’s SUV and headed back to the Lakeview House. It took me almost an hour, and when I arrived, I parked the SUV in the lot, same spot as I had seen it in earlier. I took a few minutes and wiped the interior down with the sanitizer-soaked paper towels to remove any evidence of my existence, and left the key fob in the visor. Then I tossed the towels in the fifty-gallon burn can everyone in upstate New York had in their backyard, tossed in a little extra hand sanitizer, and threw in a match.
I watched the beautiful blue and orange flames as they converted the last bit of evidence linking me to the SUV to black smoke and bits of ash that disappeared into the night sky. Environmentalists would go ape shit if they saw what I’d done.
I walked over to the trailer park down the road from the Lakeview House, and after sneaking up on a half dozen trailer homes, I found what I
was looking for. A bicycle. Okay, it was bright pink and had fluffy little pink things hanging from the handlebar ends, but I wasn’t in a position to be picky, so I hopped on it and pedaled away towards Mary Sue’s house to get my pickup.
There was hardly any traffic on Route 10 at three a.m., but every time I saw the occasional car headlights I had to veer off and hide on the side of the road behind some bushes until they passed. No way I could let anyone see me. Not on that bike, anyway. I’d have to move to escape the ridicule.
Those little breaks in pedaling were a godsend because they gave me a chance to stretch out my long legs. The bike was so small that my knees rubbed against the handlebar with each stroke of the pedals, and I cramped up pretty quickly. At least I wore off those fluffy pink things with the friction. Hiding on the side of the road had the added benefit of allowing me to catch my breath. Those hills on Route 10 were murder.
The first half of the ride wasn’t too bad, but when my body started to heat up from the workout, I started to sweat. It was near freezing, and by the time I reached the turnoff from Route 10 onto Mary’s Sue’s road, my clothes were soaked through with sweat. A breeze hit me, and I switched from overheating to freezing in about four seconds.
With each pedal stroke my frozen clothes chafed at the back of my knees, and I could feel the skin irritation forming through my impending frostbite. I didn’t know which was worse, the friction burns on the front of my knees from rubbing against the handlebars, or the frozen rash on the backs of them. This killing stuff certainly wasn’t for the faint of heart.
It took me almost two hours to bike from the trailer park to Mary Sue’s house, and by the time I tossed the bike into the bed of my Toyota, my teeth were chattering and my whole body was shaking from the cold.
I started my truck, turned the heat up as high as it would go, and headed back to the trailer park.
It only took me ten minutes, but by the time I returned my girly ride to its rightful owner, minus its little fluffy pink things, the sun was peeking over the mountains.
Twenty minutes later I pulled into my long driveway and up to my log cabin. I saw that Debbie’s car wasn’t there, and my heart sank.
16
Sammy decided he would play dead until the car stopped and then see what happened next. He remembered only one man from that wench waitress’s house, and he hadn’t heard any conversation in the SUV. Maybe he was lucky and there was only one prick he needed to take out.
His first order of business was to get his cable tie cuffs off without making any noise that would alert the driver. He’d learned a long time ago to be prepared to escape from all types of situations, especially handcuffs. Traditional, cable tie, and duct tape varieties being the most common.
For most situations, the little two-shot Derringer pistol inside his right boot would be enough to save his ass. He pressed his ankles together and felt the familiar bulge of the tiny weapon. His killer had missed it. His spirits picked up and he went to work on his handcuffs.
A few months ago he’d received the diamond-studded belt that he had on as a birthday gift from his wife, Sally. One of the first things he’d done was take a small eyeglass screwdriver and sharpen the tiny flat tip to make it razor sharp. He then cut an inch of the tip off and slid it into a hole he had drilled into the inside portion of his belt. The hole was located in the middle of his belt so that it would be against his lower back.
If he was ever going to need it, his hands would likely be restrained behind his back instead of in front of him, but just to be on the safe side, he’d sharpened a second eyeglass screwdriver, cut that tip off, and hid it in the front of his belt.
The two wire-thin one-inch pieces of metal were so small and so well hidden that his belt passed though airport security with no problem.
But he had a problem now. Retrieving it.
His belt was on so tight that he could hardly breathe, and unless he created some space between his belt and lower back, he’d never be able to slide his hands in and get his lock-picking tool out.
He turned to his side, timing his action to coincide with the bumps they hit as they went from well-maintained roads to ones that had plenty of potholes. No good. With his fat gut pushing against his belt, it was impossible for him to get his meaty hands in.
He tried lying on his back and raising his hips to free his hands. With the help of gravity pressing his fat into his spine, the belt was loose enough for him to slip his hands under it.
A few minutes later he’d located the screwdriver tip. He’d spent the rest of the trip finger-wrestling the tip from its sheath, and within seconds of removal, he shoved the flat tip portion down into the cable tie’s locking mechanism. The process was surgical and took some time, but he finally felt the cable tie loosen. Not enough to free his hands, but it was a good start.
The SUV slowed to a crawl, and stopped. He heard a door unlatch and recognized the door open chimes. Of all the insults, the bastard had stolen his car too. The door slammed closed. Shoot. This might be it. He worked at his cuffs with added incentive. He needed to free his hands before he was removed from his vehicle; otherwise he’d have no chance to retrieve the Derringer.
The door opened and shut again, and the SUV started up, maneuvered around, and came to a stop.
The door opened but didn’t close. He could feel the cold air invade the toasty cabin. His SUV hatch beeped its opening. He struggled with the lock pick, his fingers trembling. Come on, get these cuffs off. Somebody grabbed him by the feet and started to pull him out of the vehicle.
Oh. Shit. This was gonna hurt. He held his breath and gritted his teeth as he felt his body slide out and scrape on the rear edge of his vehicle as he was pulled cleared of it. Knees, hips, waist, elbows, chest, almost clear. THUNK.
The back of his head slammed against the SUV’s tow hitch so hard that he saw stars. Before the pain had time to register, his body hit the ground with a solid thud, the back of his neck taking most of the force. It took all of his willpower not to exhale with a scream.
He must have blacked out for a second, and when he came to, somebody had a grip on his ankles and was pulling him across the ground. He could hear the snow crunch underneath his weight as his plastic-covered body slid across it. He looked around but couldn’t see anything through the opaque plastic except an out-of-focus shadow in the moonlight. One person.
The movement stopped and his feet were tossed to the ground. His heart rate picked up and he started sweating inside the plastic. This was his last chance. He put all of his faith in a single captor turning his back on him. To go get a shovel, to dig a hole, take a leak, whatever. At some point soon, he would have his chance. His body weight was pinning his hands to the ground, making it difficult for him to work the lock pick. He was so close.
He heard the sound of rock sliding against rock. Like the opening of an old tomb in an Indiana Jones movie. What the?
He slowed his breathing, pushed all thoughts from his mind, and focused on the cable tie lock. He found the slot, worked the tip of the screwdriver in, and felt the cable tie loosen. He slid one hand out, then the other. Yes. Free! Now he just needed to reach into his boot and…
His feet were hoisted up, he was pulled across the snow, and before he could react, the ground dropped away from underneath him. No! He instinctively balled up inside the loosening plastic, covered his head with his hands, and held his breath.
He tumbled the whole way down, his elbows and knees bouncing and scraping against the rock wall that lined his descent. As soon as he hit the water, he realized what had happened. This wasn’t just a hole—he had been thrown into a well!
He hit knees first and continued tumbling as his momentum sank him towards the bottom. He fought his way free from the plastic. In the pitch-black darkness, and with all the turning he had done to get out of the plastic, he wasn’t sure which way was up. He reached out and felt the stone wall. He heard a loud splash coming from one direction. That had to be the surface. But what w
ere the splashes? Was it another body? The thought of sharing a hole with one of his goombahs freaked him out. He heard another splash. Shit. Not good.
He felt the bulk of a bowling-ball-sized rock brush against him as it made its way to the bottom of the well. He realized his killer was throwing rocks at him. What a piece of shit!
He reached out and grabbed at the wall and pulled himself lower in the water to protect himself. He heard what he thought were muffled gunshots echoing through the well, and he felt the vibration of the bullets as they burrowed into the water. His lungs were burning for air, but he didn’t dare surface. In between gunshots, he heard the faraway sound of tinkling metal. It was the shell casings ricocheting off the rock wall on their way down before plopping into the water.
He stayed under as long as his lungs could stand, surfaced just long enough to grab a fast breath, and went back down underwater as quick as possible.
On his way back down, his heart sunk as it dawned on him that there was no moonlight coming in at the top of the well. It was pitch black.
He was entombed.
He followed the stone wall back to the surface and took another deep breath. The well was pitch black and eerily quiet, the only sound besides his chattering teeth that of the occasional drip of water that echoed inside the rock-lined chamber.
Hot flashes and nausea threatened to render him helpless. This was like a bad dream that he couldn’t wake up from, and he had to fight to keep his claustrophobia from taking over. The water was cold but still warmer than the freezing outside air above ground. He lowered himself until his lips were just above the water and felt around in the dark for the diameter of the well to get a feel for its width. He estimated that the well was less than four feet wide.