I wince at the phrase “we’re gonna have to take care of him, too”. I'm pretty sure they’re not talking about providing exceptional customer service by setting us up in a beach cabana and bringing us fruity drinks all day, while a masseuse massages our feet, or even moving us to a bigger room in the hotel. I have a feeling this is the sinister version of “taking care of” someone.
I hear Roger panting way before his beet red face comes fully into view. “Geez, Amy, are you going deaf?”
I can see him out of the corner of my eye, but I don’t think he realizes the whole gun to my chest situation quite yet. Perhaps he thinks I’m chatting in a dark alley with these guys because I’m looking to find out where the nearest Hobby Lobby is.
“Who are these guys?” Roger finally asks when he can see the pained and panicked look on my face. And then, his eyes focus on the gun. “What the hell is going on here, fellas?” He glances back and forth between the gun, my face, and my two captors.
Quite honestly, I’d like to know what the hell is going on here also, but of course, Mario and Jerry do not fill us in. Instead, they begin to “take care of us”.
Mario has his own gun, which he quickly shoves into Roger’s rib cage. Or at least where his rib cage should be. He’s got a heck of a lot more padding than I do, yet he yelps, “Ouch! What's the big idea?”
I squeeze my eyes shut, half expecting the gun to explode just then and leave my husband’s innards all over the alley.
When I only hear more of Roger’s protests, I attempt to send him more mental messages. Mainly “shut the fuck up before you get us killed!” I swear he actually replies mentally with “well if you weren’t a busybody, neither of us would be in this situation right now!”
My eyes pop open, but of course Roger has not been communicating with us telepathically. Instead he is arguing with our captors. “I’m on vacation you know! This is not how guests expect to be treated when they stay in a resort!” He is poking at Mario’s waiter attire, which is emblazoned with the hotel’s name and insignia.
“Then you should stick to the resort and not go poking your nose where it doesn’t belong,” Jerry retorts, while Mario digs the gun deeper into Roger’s side, as if he has the right to hold a gun to the chest of any guest who doesn’t stay where they belong.
“I was just looking for my wife!” Roger sputters. “She’s the one who was in this alley!’
Oh, sure honey, thanks. Throw me under the bus. I’m so glad we’re getting a divorce after this vacation. If we’re not dead, of course.
“She claims she was looking for you,” Jerry tells Roger with an eyebrow cocked. “I don’t know what game the two of you are playing, but I’ve taken down narcs a lot smarter than the two of you.”
They’ve taken down narcs? Crap, we are so dead.
“Narcs?” Roger’s voice squeaks. “Narcs? What the hell are you talking about? We’re not narcs!”
Jerry digs his gun so deep into my chest that I actually let out a gasp. “Really. Most suburban housewives don’t wander down dark alleys with recording devices in their pockets, closely followed by their husbands.” He doesn’t relax his grip on me to work the air quotes—they’re just implied.
“Well, you’ve never met my wife,” Roger mumbles. “She’s got a nose for trouble.”
I scowl at him just as Jerry says, “If she’s even your wife.”
“He’s my husband! I swear!” I shout. “Do you think that’s something I’d say if it wasn’t true?”
Roger recoils like I’ve slapped him. “Gee, thanks, Amy.”
I shrug indifferently. He has no idea that I’ve caught him with Victoria and now is not the time to bring it up.
Roger ignores the shrug and continues to argue. “I’ll show you my license! We’re married! We’re on vacation! We live in New Jersey for God’s sakes!” Roger throws in his own plea, as if being from Jersey makes us innocent.
Mario glances at Jerry as Roger digs into his pocket for his wallet. “We’ve seen husband and wife teams before,” Mario says with a knowing look. “That means nothing.”
“Don’t move a muscle,” Jerry growls, and Mario grabs Roger’s arm out of his pocket, twisting him like a pretzel.
“Ouch!” Roger yelps, dropping the wallet. It bounces by his feet and lands neatly up against the dumpster.
I expect one of the thugs to grab the wallet, to at least check for cash, but they ignore it and push us farther down the alleyway. “Let’s go you two,” Jerry mumbles.
“We can’t go anywhere,” I tell him. “Our kids...we have four kids.”
“That's right!” Roger pipes up. “We would love to join you fellas, but we’re late for dinner with the kids.”
“Too friggin’ bad,” Jerry grumbles, shoving me forward. I stumble on an uneven piece of pavement—Roger’s hand shoots out to grab my arm and prevent me from falling.
“Are you okay?” he asks, concern in his eyes as he caresses my skin. Well, I assume it’s concern. After all, we are in a bit of a pickle right now. I’m almost touched, but then I remember that I am furious with him.
Where was your concern when you were giggling with your girlfriend a few minutes ago, Roger? Hmmm? If you were so concerned about me then, we wouldn’t be here right now.
“I’m fine, Roger,” I mutter, shaking off his grasp. Roger is hurt—I can see it in his eyes, and I feel oddly triumphant.
It’s rapidly getting darker, the sun completely set now, but the moon has not risen yet. The sky and atmosphere have a surreal appearance to them, a purplish haze and a charged feeling to the sky, not unlike the air before a summer storm. I shudder as we step out of the alley and right up to a deserted dock that runs behind the resort. I can hear the waves slapping against the pylons and what appears to be a row boat tied up to the dock. There is also a large door at the back of the resort, like one that a truck could be backed up to. Maybe this is where they get their seafood deliveries.
“Get in,” Jerry shoves me roughly toward the edge of the dock, poking the gun into my right shoulder blade.
“Huh?” I turn to stare at him. “Get in where?” I scan the dock for a car. Or a golf cart. Or scooter.
“Get in the boat,” Jerry says through gritted teeth.
“The boat?” I squeak.
“Yeah, the boat,” Jerry says slowly, like I’m a dim-witted moron.
“I can’t get in the boat,” I tell him in a panicked voice. “I get seasick. I’ll throw up all over the place.”
“It’s true.” Roger vouches for me. “On our honeymoon, she threw up on the gondola ride in The Venetian.” He rolls his eyes. “That’s in Las Vegas,” he adds, in case one of our friendly captors actually care. Like they’re going to start comparing travel notes with him.
“Lean over the side then,” Jerry grumbles unsympathetically, practically shoving me off the dock. “Don’t puke in the boat.’
I whimper, falling on my knees from his push. The dock is rough, and I feel a splinter pierce my hand as I fall. It’s the same hand I caught in the door earlier. I had nearly forgotten about that but now I am reminded as my hand begins to throb again. But I don’t cry out or complain. This is no joke.
I squeeze my eyes shut tightly, wishing I could be like Dorothy and click my heels three times to find myself at home again. Screw vacation. I never want to go on another vacation as long as I live. Which won’t be long if we don’t get out of this mess. I start bargaining with the man upstairs. I won’t even ask for a girls’ weekend away. Heck, I swear I won’t even ask to go to the bathroom in private ever again if you can get me out of this mess in one piece. And Roger...I guess. Even though, it’s technically his fault.
I clamor to my feet and step onto the rocking boat. It sways underneath my feet and I feel myself losing my balance. I grip the starboard side of the boat with both hands to steady myself, a shooting pain radiating through my hand. Or maybe it’s the port side. I guess it would be the port side because we’re docking from it, right?
Or do rowboats even have port and starboard sides? Roger would know. He’s always watching documentaries on boats. Once when he was drunk he even told me he thinks he was Captain Smith of the Titanic in a former life.
“Now just wait a minute fellas,” I can hear Roger saying. “I think you have the wrong people. We’re on vacation. From New Jersey? You must be looking for someone else. I’m a principal, you see. And my wife is just a housewife…”
He trails off with the words, “just a housewife”, and I can feel my blood boiling. Just a housewife, Roger? Is that all I am to you? I see. That must be why you had to go looking for a girl half your age, who’s more than just a housewife.
“Well, she’s definitely not just a housewife,” Roger is explaining as Jerry pushes me down on the seat. “She keeps the house running. I don’t know what I would do without her.” Roger’s voice holds a nostalgic quality, and I can’t help but turn my head in his direction. Maybe you should have thought of that before you decided to trade me in for a newer model, I think bitterly.
“Yeah,” Mario agrees with him. “My wife is the reason our household runs like a well-oiled machine.”
Even in the dark, I can see Roger bobbing his head up and down in that annoying manner of his. “Oh yes. And even with all that she has on her plate, Amy is a mommy blogger, too. Did you ever read her blog? It’s quite funny.” I can actually hear Roger swelling up with pride. I am momentarily taken aback by his rare display of appreciation for me, until my senses take over.
Read her blog? Roger, we are not having tea with the duke and duchess right now! We are being dragged onto a rowboat by two thugs we met in an alley for God’s sakes!
“My wife doesn’t blog, but I bet she reads your wife’s blog. She’s always reading mommy blogs and reading them out loud to me. They’re funny, but it’s a little annoying sometimes,” Mario is saying. “What’s it called?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Jerry sputters. “Can we move the coffee klatch to the boat please, ladies?”
“Uh, yeah,” Mario stammers and prods my husband forward. Roger quickly loses his balance and stumbles, falling face first into the water, emitting a high-pitched scream that would put both of my daughters to shame.
“Jesus Christ!” Jerry spits as Roger quickly bobs to the surface. He slaps Mario in the back of the head. “Can’t you do anything right?” He glances around nervously. “You better hope to God nobody heard that.”
“Sorry,” Mario says sheepishly, holding out his hand to help a soaked Roger back into the boat.
I also glance around, but unlike Jerry, I am hoping someone heard my husband’s girlie scream and subsequent splash. Although most people would think it was just a bunch of kids playing around and not think it was anything sinister. This is, after all, a vacation place. Not where you would imagine something like this happening.
My drowned rat of a husband climbs back into the boat, gasping. “I think I saw my life flash before my eyes!”
I roll my eyes as Jerry scoffs, “You ain’t seen nothing yet, buddy.”
His words send a shiver up my spine as our captors row the dinky little boat away from the dock and into the blackened night.
~Seventeen~
You would think because my brain registered the danger of the situation, my body, specifically my stomach, would have been slightly cooperative and understanding of the situation. But no. Instead, it launched an all-out revolt on me in the middle of the ocean (or bay or whatever body of water we were floating in). My nails gripped the wood—getting splinters underneath the beds—as I hurled over the side of the boat in a very unladylike fashion. The sea was nearly silent, other than the waves lapping on the sides of the boat and my wretched heaving. Once I started throwing up, Jerry and Mario just stared at me, with Mario rowing the boat single-handedly. Unapologetically, I managed to splatter both my captors with vomit—Jerry’s left arm as he held me firmly (you know, in case I wanted to jump over the side and swim the five miles back to the resort), and Mario’s shoes as I sat back in my seat a little too quickly after a bout of puking. I apparently still had just a little bit left in my stomach. Oops. They both scowled darkly at me like that was what sealed our fate. Excuse me for breathing. Well, I’m not really sorry. I warned them. Roger warned them, too.
“Are you quite done with that?” Jerry sneers as I sit back down on the floor of the boat for the tenth time. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Slimy saliva is still attached to my lip. “I think so.” I manage to spray spit everywhere. The spittle hits Jerry directly in the eye.
He frowns at me, but doesn’t wipe his eye. I guess he is used to a lot worse in his line of work. What is his line of work? Hitman? What are they actually up to?
“You need to stop making so much damn noise. We’re going to be docking shortly, and we don’t need everyone in a ten mile radius to know we’re arriving."
His words spark hope in my mind. If there are people where we are going, maybe some well-timed screams can alert them to the fact we are in need of help? And by help, I mean...send a swat team.
The boat slams into the dock without fanfare. It’s like the dock rose out of the sea. I glance around to get a glimpse of land, but it’s still incredibly dark and hard to see anything.
“Where are we?” Roger asks. He yawns and I want to punch him in the mouth. How the hell can you yawn when someone is shoving a gun into your rib cage?
“Nowhere that you need to concern yourself with,” Jerry replies snottily, yanking me to my feet. “Watch your step,” he says as he climbs out of the boat onto the dock, still holding my arm. Probably not out of concern for my welfare, but because he doesn’t want to have to deal with any more of my injuries or illnesses.
Shakily, I step over the side of the boat onto a rickety dock. The planks appear to be rotted and several are missing. Carefully, our party of four traverses the precarious terrain and our feet hit the beach. At least, I think it’s the beach. I feel the sand slide into my flip flops. Squinting, I try to make out landmarks, but there’s nothing but pitch blackness surrounding us. I can barely see the outline of palm trees as Jerry and Mario blindly lead us down a path, pushing foliage out of the way as we walk. A high-pitched animal-like screech breaks up the sound of crickets chirping in the darkened cracks and crevices around us. It stops us dead in our tracks, and I shudder, finding myself moving in closer to Jerry.
“Where are we going?” Roger asks, this time he seems concerned. Gee, way to get with the program, honey.
“I told you. No concern of yours,” Jerry retorts in his gruff voice and we start walking again. We seem to be walking slowly to avoid roots and tree branches that litter our path. I don’t feel sand underneath my feet anymore—the terrain seems more like packed earth.
“I think I have a right to know,” Roger argues. “We need to get back to the kids. And I’ve already told you that you have us confused with someone else. My wife snoops, but she’s harmless.”
Harmless? I kick him in the back of his calf so he can see how “harmless” I am.
“Ouch! Amy, cut it out,” Roger whimpers. Then he tries to plead with Jerry again. “You can just take us back to the resort. We won’t tell anybody anything.”
“Even if that were true, it’s a little too late for that,” Jerry replies.
“What does that mean?” Roger asks with confusion.
“Even if we did have you confused with someone else, and you are just a harmless couple on vacation from New Jersey, you’ve seen us and we can’t have that. You’re gonna have to disappear.” Mario shrugs as he explains.
“Huh?” Roger turns his head to stare at Mario. “I still don’t understand what that means.”
Exasperated, I shout, “It means they’re planning to kill us, Roger!” Geez, for a guy who is supposed to be so smart and watches so much TV, he is incredibly dense some times.
“Kill us? But what? Why?” Now Roger is recoiling from Mario, who reaches out to pull Roger closer so he can’t escape
into the darkened jungle. Or whatever is out there. Honestly, now I’m not sure which is worse; Jerry and Mario and their plans for us, or whatever is out there.
Mario opens his mouth to speak, but I cut him off before he can get the chance. “Because basically we’ve seen them, can identify them, and lead the police to capturing them. Whatever their nefarious business may be, of course, because since we are actually not narcs, we can’t be certain that they’re doing something illegal. But since they’ve taken us on this lovely night time cruise, we can only assume that they are up to no good, so therefore they must dispose of us.” I smile sweetly at the two men, who I can now see due to the fact that my eyes have finally adjusted to night vision. It takes a lot longer than it used to nowadays...side effect of getting old, I guess. Oh, but good news! Jerry and Mario will see to it that I don’t need to worry about the disadvantages to getting old any longer.
“Yeah, that about covers it,” Mario says, almost guiltily. I have a feeling he isn’t the brains behind this operation and Jerry is just using him to do the heavy lifting. I wonder how Jerry managed to recruit him—he seems like he might actually have a shred of decency underneath that gruff exterior.
“Okay, can we stop with all the theorizating?” Jerry asks as I see a small hut come into view. Theorizating? What the heck does that mean? Did he mean theorizing? Geez, scratch that about him being the brains.
I don’t have time to ask what he means because the door of the hut swings wide open, and I see a very tall, dark-skinned man who is completely naked. Okay, he does have some sort of covering over his private area that resembles a fig leaf. The covering...not his private area. In his hand, he is holding a spear. A very pointy spear. He looks like a photograph right off the glossy pages of National Geographic.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Roger swears.
“What took you so long?” he calls out. Only...he doesn’t. The voice seems to be coming from the man in the doorway, but not only does the voice not match what I was expecting, his lips don’t even move.
Amy Maxwell's 6th Sense Page 15