by N R Brooks
Laurel Road was on the north end of Venice, so my guess was they were on my part of town doing some business and purchased fuel for the car on their way back home. It made sense anyway. I would find out shortly if my plan resulted in success.
When I got to my house, I didn’t bother going inside. I already had my keys in my pocket, so I jumped in my car and started making my way north to where Laurel Road was.
Upon arriving at the intersection I wanted, I turned right and begun my detective work, scouting each house to see if a red Grand Prix was parked in the front. Luckily there were only a few blocks of houses on both sides of the road before it turned into mostly open fields and then subdivisions which I knew they wouldn’t be living in. None of the houses I passed had the car I was looking for, so I quickly made a U-turn and crossed the highway I arrived from and began searching yet again. I was able to find his car parked in what could be described as probably the easiest address to remember. Not by the house number but by the fact that they lived right on the corner of where Laurel Road ends and becomes a ninety-degree turn going south almost along the shoreline of the bay.
I now knew where the men lived. If I could catch them while they were out, I might be able to sneak in the house and snatch some evidence that could be used closer to September of next year. I had a plan of action now. Everything was shaping up nicely. All I had to do now was wait and complete my mission piece by piece. I was beginning to feel an emotion that I was not quite accustomed to: confidence.
Chapter 20
As we had planned during my visit in September in Manhattan, Keiko took a week off work for the first full week of November and came down to stay with me in Florida. It was perfect as it wasn’t quite cold yet in New York, but the temperature was beginning to slowly drop. In Florida, the only seasons we had were Spring and Summer.
Her plane came in that Saturday morning, and I honestly couldn’t tell who was more excited. I might have to give this one to her since she sprinted down the concourse to leap into my arms. If she wasn’t so tiny, I might have done the same to her.
That entire day was just for us. We spent most of the time roaming around the city, visiting various places and even taking a walk along the beach—typical boyfriend/girlfriend stuff. When we returned that night to the house, I introduced her to Ziad. This was somewhat awkward considering what he would later do—or might do—in less than a year from now. He was courteous to her but quickly went into his room with the door shut. I took this as a sign that he did not approve of the rather skimpy attire Keiko was wearing. I once read that he was much more up-front with Aysel in similar situations.
It felt great to finally have her sleeping next to me again. For the first few weeks after she left the first time, I had a hard time getting a good night’s rest as I kept rolling over, expecting her to be there, only to be disappointed.
Sunday was the day I would introduce her to Jeni and David. By now, Keiko had accepted Jeni as my friend. After all, she was my boss. The four of us convened at the store that Jeni and I worked at. They arrived in an old mud crusted open top Jeep. I grew nervous as my car would definitely not hold up well in a mud-slicked road. I made sure to clarify our plans and our destination with David before we ventured out.
“Hey, so we aren’t planning on roving through a bunch of mud pits and bogs are we? In case you haven’t noticed, my car is not exactly an off-road vehicle.” I said to David.
“No, I already did that yesterday if you can’t tell.” He commented, smacking the side of his Jeep causing large clumps of dried mud to fall to the pavement.
“Okay, just making sure. Where exactly are we going anyways?”
“Just outside of town. Don’t worry, it’s a smooth dirt road. Your car will hold up just fine.”
“Alright, I trust you.” I beckoned Keiko over to me. “Jeni, David, this is my one and only, my heart and soul, Keiko. Keiko, this is Jeni and her brother David.”
She reached out and shook both of their hands. “Nice to meet you both. He’s told me a lot about you, Jeni. He had me worried for a bit. Now that I see you, I feel that worry was justified.”
“Oh come on now. He is almost like a brother to me at this point. Besides, with the way he talks about you, I don’t think there is anybody or anything in this world that could peel him off of you.” Jeni said with a smirk.
“I will confirm that.” I butted in just as an added reassurance.
“There better not be! Remember what I did to that guy on New Years?” She raised her eyebrows and looked directly at me.
“Oh trust me, that image is burned into my mind for eternity. I still get aches in my groin thinking about it.”
Jeni stood up in the Jeep with her eyes wide with piqued interest. “Oh, you never told me anything about that. Tell me, tell me!”
“Haha, well there isn’t really much to tell. Some guy thought he wanted to have his way with her, whether she liked it or not, and she was having none of it. I had previously warned this guy, mind you.” I thought of the little story I told him that night at the pizzeria. “Anyways, this little lady managed to take her beautiful little leg and obliterated this guys balls. Not once, but twice.”
“Ohhh man!” David was doing a little dance as if someone had also jammed a knee in his crotch.
“Yeah. I got to witness it all, front row. The whole time this happened, I was lying on the ground completely useless.” I concluded.
“Oh whatever, if you hadn’t been there it would have been completely different. Don’t sell yourself short.” Keiko interjected.
“Well, whatever the case may be, I was one proud guy. You won’t see me trying to piss her off.”
“Damn girl! Way to go!” Jeni held out her hand to get a high-five from Keiko.
I had a feeling the two of them would hit it off. They couldn’t be more opposite personality wise, but Jeni’s extroverted attitude more than made up for it. Hell, it worked on me.
“Enough talking about busted balls, mine are starting to hurt. Are we ready to go tranq some critters?” David said as he jumped in the driver’s seat of his Jeep.
“Lead the way, my friend.”
Keiko and I got in my car, and we followed David’s jeep east along Tamiami Trail until we were just outside of the city limits. In the south, you really didn’t have to drive far until you were out in the boonies. Back home in Idaho, you could do the same thing and end up in the desert, but to reach a wooded area like where we were at now, you would have to drive for an hour or two into the mountains.
We got on to a dirt road, one that was as smooth riding as David promised, and found a little area with a bench made from cut logs and a barrel for garbage. I assumed this was a spot many people come to shoot guns and other things.
“Here we are. Now, I brought my pistol, and I also brought an air rifle that you can use for larger game.” David pulled both guns out of the back of his jeep as well as a small pack that contained the darts and the sedatives.
“So are we really going to waste all of this stuff today just shooting random shit?” I asked him.
“Oh god no, I am just letting you try it out once or twice. Remember, I can get in a lot of shit if the city finds out about this.”
Jeni and Keiko were standing near each other chattering away before they spoke up to David and I. “I’ve shot it before. David has let me shoot small critters lots of times.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to waste any of your stuff either. I’m just fine watching.” Keiko said to us.
“Well, looks like it is just you, my friend,” David said, placing his hand on my shoulder.
“That is fine by me. Probably a relief for you too. Fewer darts being used.”
“Eh, I ain’t worried about it. Just as long as nobody blabs about it.”
I made the gesture of zipping my lips shut.
“Anyways, so this little vial here is called Ketamine. It’s powerful shit. Usually, we use this to knock out larger animals like horses, ponies, or
even large dogs. This stuff will even knock a human out although if you use too much it can kill you. People OD on this stuff at parties all the time.” David said with the vial rolling in his hand.
“Really? I’ve heard the name, but I’m not real familiar with the stuff.”
“Basically if you are using the metric scale, you want about two milligrams per kilogram of whatever it is you are shooting at. That should be enough to knock them out and make them feel real good. No harm, just peaceful sleep and maybe a few little colorful hallucinations.”
I was mentally jotting down what he was telling me. I was going to need it if I planned on using one of these in the future.
“Let me load up a dart for you.” David opened up the case and set it down on the log bench.
He removed the darts and syringes and began loading up two darts. I imagined this was all we planned on shooting. That was fine by me; I didn’t want him getting in any trouble for this.
I watched closely as he loaded the darts with the small amounts of Ketamine. I didn’t know yet what we were shooting, but the amount of Ketamine was low. From what I could tell he was only loading 1/2cc into the syringe. I decided to quiz him just for fun—but also for mental notes.
“So just out of curiosity, how much of that stuff would it take to knock a person out?” I asked him.
“Like, just make them loopy or to completely knock them out?”
“Both.”
“Well I’ve never tested it but I would guess about 2cc would make someone pretty trippy. Maybe 3 would knock them out, possibly OD. Why?” He looked at me with one eyebrow cocked upwards.
“Oh just curious. First time seeing the stuff. Makes you think of silly questions.” I said. Keiko was looking at me funny as well.
“Yeah, I know the feeling.” He turned around and finished loading the darts. “Okay, these bad boys are loaded up. This little red fluffy thing goes on the end to create drag so the dart doesn’t hit so hard. A perfect shot probably won’t be felt, or it might feel like a little tap. That is the ideal shot anyways on big animals. Small critters, it doesn’t matter too much. They usually go out pretty quickly. Like I said, this stuff is powerful.”
“Sounds good. What are we going to be shooting?” I asked as he closed the case and put it back in his Jeep.
“Whatever we find. Badgers, raccoons, small critters.” He grabbed the pistol and gave me the rifle. “You load the dart up this way, and you’re good to go.”
David loaded the dart into the pistol, and the four of us began walking along the dirt road looking for any small animals we could give a nice drug trip to.
We managed to walk a mile up the road without seeing anything other than various species of birds. We didn’t want to go too far since the area we were at was only a medium sized patch of woods surrounded by highways on all sides. We turned back to return to the vehicles and made it about half-way back when Jeni spotted something moving in a patch of bushes.
“Over there! I saw something crawling around.” She pointed to our left.
“Okay, you take the shot if you see it,” David whispered to me.
I looked around until I finally saw the animal. I could see just its head poking through the bush. It was a small black animal with fluffy fur all over. I pointed the rifle at it and tried to aim for the meatiest part of its body so I didn’t tear up its insides. As I found where I thought would be the best part to shoot it, the animal walked out from behind the bush and exposed the rest of its body. Before I registered what kind of animal it was, I pulled the trigger.
“No, wait! Don’t—” David said right as I pulled the trigger.
“Oh man, that is a goddamn skunk!” Jeni said and began laughing.
“Shit. That dart is going to reek like hell now.”
“Damn, sorry man. I didn’t realize it until I had already pulled the trigger.” I said apologetically.
“Eh, it’s alright. I do this for a living. Definitely isn’t my first skunk job.”
The skunk was flopped over in less than a minute. It wasn’t dramatic like the movies always show. Nobody is going to instantly keel over unconscious. I wasn’t sure if the skunk sprayed or not. I didn’t see his tail fly up but I figured we would know in a minute when David went to retrieve the reusable dart.
“Goddamn man. You just had to shoot a skunk.” David yelled with his shirt over his nose and mouth. That pretty much confirmed that the skunk did spray before passing out.
Jeni and Keiko were just laughing away at David’s misfortune. I would have joined in with them, but I was afraid if I pissed David off he would make me walk out there to retrieve the dart. It was nice seeing the girls laughing though. Both of them were gorgeous.
“Fuck. I better not smell like skunk ass for the rest of the day.” He said when he made it back to us with the dart in his hand.
“Sorry man. I swear I didn’t do it on purpose.” I said trying not to laugh at him.
“No worries man. The gun is nice though, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I like it. Thanks for taking us out here. Keiko seems to be having fun with Jeni.”
“Yeah, you are a lucky man.” He said as we started our trek back to the vehicles.
It felt good to hear him say that to me. If anything, it was a small boost to my ego to have someone else recognize her the way I did. In my younger years, I probably would have put up my guard and tried to protect her from any guys who even looked her way. I was over that. I think I had finally matured.
David never ended up shooting the pistol. He probably just kept the dart for when he needed it on his job. The rest of the day we ended up just hanging out around town. The four of us made a tight little group. Just like in Manhattan, I had my little group of friends, and that is the way I liked it. I just tried not to think about the day I would have to leave. I was getting incredibly tired of saying goodbye to the people I cared about.
Like always, the week with Keiko went by much faster than I would have liked. I got my private pilot certification a bit later than Ziad did. Obviously, my reason for getting it was much less important than his. I finished my training hours and received my certification during the time he was in Germany visiting Aysel. When he got back, he finally bought himself his own car, an older model red Mitsubishi Eclipse.
One day during the week—a day Keiko was wearing more conservative clothing—Ziad invited us to go to Shorty’s again for drinks. I was not keen on the idea of Keiko meeting the man that was/could be her murderer, so I asked Ziad if he was meeting Atta and Marwan there. Luckily, he said no and just wanted to get some drinks with us. That turned out to be an enjoyable trip with just Keiko, Ziad, and myself.
The following Saturday, the day before she was to depart for Manhattan again, I took her for a special trip in a private airplane we rented. I finally got to show her the fruits of my schooling.
We took off from the Venice Municipal airport where my flight training took place. We purchased enough fuel to fly around the southern tip of Florida to see the Everglades and the Keys. We could have flown much longer, but fuel isn’t cheap, at least not for the quantities an airplane requires.
We skirted the coastline and saw what a city like Cape Coral looks like from high altitudes. With the number of canals and waterways the city has, it would have been more appropriate to have named that city Venice instead. It was quite a fascinating view.
We flew around the Keys and up just outside of Miami to stay out of the normal airport traffic. I was really enjoying myself now that I could legally fly and actually knew what I was doing. I was quite proud of myself. Keiko was really enjoying herself too. That is until she mentioned something to me.
“Hey, Stan?” She murmured to me through the mic on her headset.
“What’s up, babe?”
“I…I have to tell you something.”
The way she said it meant that it wasn’t something good. I immediately got a sinking feeling in the pit of my gut.
“Okay. What is
it?” I almost didn’t want to ask.
“I had that dream again.” She said, looking down at her feet.
I was relieved. I thought it was going to be much worse. “I’m sorry. What happened this time?”
“Stan, it was the exact same dream.”
“Like word for word?” I asked.
“Well, I still can’t remember what was said, but literally everything happened exactly like it did the first time. I haven’t been able to get that dream out of my head, so I still remembered it vividly. But last night, I had it again. It scares me. It feels so real, I feel like I really am running for my life.”
“Babe, it’s okay. It is just a dream. You are probably just remembering the original dream…in your dream…I guess. I don’t really know how else to explain it.” I was trying to focus on flying, but it was becoming difficult.
“Yeah. Maybe…”
“Look, let’s talk about it when we get back to the house. Let’s enjoy the plane ride, okay? I have been looking forward to taking you up here with me for a while now.” I offered so I could focus on flying.
“Okay. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ruin your day.” She put her hand on my thigh.
“Babe, you will have to try much harder than that to ruin my day when you are around.”
She smiled at me and took in the sights once more as we flew along the eastern coastline and around back to the Venice airport to land. This was easily the most stressful part of flying for someone who hasn’t been doing it for long. Luckily I paid attention during training and always received high scores on my landings. My instructor would have been proud of the smooth landing I did this time.
When we finally arrived at the house, Ziad was gone, so it was just Keiko and I. We continued our conversation that had begun during the flight earlier.
“Stan?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think something is going to happen to me?” She asked me while her head was laying on my shoulder.