Bait: A Novel (2 page)

THREE DAYS AGO.

W
hat alarmed Nash was how much no-name-brand shit he was putting into his grocery basket these days. There was a time, and not too long ago, when he would have insisted on some brand names among his purchases. Some things you just didn’t crap out on: ketchup, mustard, mayo, mac ’n’ cheese, margarine maybe. Now all he looked for was the cheapest alternative, willing to undercut any provision he once enjoyed with its poorer, dumber cousin. Nash picked up a bottle of ketchup.

“Heinz,” he said, looking at the label. “There are no other kinds.”

But there were other kinds, for less than half the price too. Their names were suspect—he’d never even remotely heard of them. Some had writing on the labels in languages Nash had never seen.

Some Middle Eastern or Indonesian crap or something,
he thought as he dropped one in the basket.

These shopping trips were where Nash felt most pathetic. Budget stretched so thin it was floss compared to the kind of money he’d dropped once upon a time. His eyes moistened as the full realization of his situation sank in once again. He looked at the discount peanut butter brands, gritty and oily, reserved for the poor.

“Rock bottom,” he mumbled.

So unbelievably
broke
all the time, that was what he was. When he was lucky enough to get some money it couldn’t stay in his wallet for more than a few hours before he pissed it away or blew it up his arm. The more he thought about it the shittier he felt. Shame coated the bottom of his belly in lead and cramped the smooth muscle around his heart. Nine out of ten addicts never recover. Nash never liked those odds.

The aisles weren’t busy. He strolled, taking advantage of the supermarket’s air-conditioning, a luxury he no longer enjoyed in his apartment due to his need for some fast cash. It was nice to get out of the hot Miami sun. Midday was a real bitch, even for your well-tanned types. Nash checked his watch, only to find it missing as well. A moment of confusion before the penny dropped. He’d sold that too, to his superintendent, for a measly ten bucks.

Nash grabbed a jar of kosher dills and found himself inspecting his fingers instead of the pickles. They looked worn and leathery, flesh so dull it barely passed for pink. One of his thumbnails was a purplish black. Knuckles were scabbed too. Nash pressed on the discolored nail with the tip of his index. Throbs of pain drummed his nerve endings.

Did I shut that in a door or something?
he thought, trying hard to remember.
Did I deck someone?

No recollection. He replaced the jar on the shelf and that was when he caught the man looking. At the end of the aisle, standing in front of the shelves of canned soup, some dude was thoroughly checking him out. Nash scowled. The man turned his face away, void of expression.

“Not your type, fag,” Nash muttered, making a U-turn.

He found himself in the frozen food section, overly eyeing the tanned legs and cutoff shorts of a college coed to reaffirm his heterosexuality. She was tight and sweet, midriff bared and topped with a couple of candy apple tits in a tube top. Despite the sex appeal, she still had an air of innocence about her, as if she’d only accommodated a cock or two in her young life. That was the kind of girl Nash liked most, the almost-virgins, the ones you still had to show the ropes, toss around the bedroom a bit. He waited impatiently for his dick to chub in his pants. The erection never came.

Pick up some Viagra with my next order,
he thought.
Try Pablo, he might have some kicking around.

The girl felt Nash’s eyes on her and slipped away, leaving him staring at a stack of pizzas through a glass freezer door. He only had twenty bucks to spend on food for the week. His basket contained mostly instant noodles and canned soup. There were some oranges and carrots in there too: an oddity among the other goods, but a new necessity for Nash. A few weeks ago his pal Roon complained to a clinic nurse that his teeth felt like they were rotating in his gums. Turned out he’d come down with a case of scurvy due to the fact that he hadn’t eaten a fresh fruit or vegetable in months. Nash couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten anything nutritious either.

He wandered the frosted windows, perusing the microwave dinners and desserts. Most weren’t affordable, so Nash returned to the aisle of cheap shit where his admirer had been earlier, only to find him gone. He breathed a sigh of relief, dumped three cans of tuna into his basket, and headed for the checkout. As he joined the express line he made plans to swing a discount on his next score by offering one of his old acoustic guitars as collateral. That was when he noticed his admirer, still in the supermarket and still interested.

The guy stood in another line a few checkouts over, watching intently and holding a carton of milk. They made eye contact for three long seconds as Nash took in his details this time: crew cut, clean shaven, unfriendly manner, not an ounce of fat on the guy. There was a militant sense about him that Nash couldn’t ignore.

Narc,
Nash thought.
Fuck.

Nash was carrying. Not much, but enough on top of his existing record to get him put away in the realm of years, not months. The lady ahead of him paid for her groceries and left. Nash was being rung through. The double door exit was less than twenty yards to his right. He thought about making a run for it.

Not the front. They’ll have that covered.

Nash put his basket down on the conveyer belt and rolled his eyes.

“Jeez, I forgot milk,” he said to the checkout girl. “I’ll just grab it quick. It’s at the back, right?”

The checkout girl said nothing, only fluttered purple eyelids and chewed gum.

“Just gimme one sec.”

He moved quickly, past the line, down the aisle to the rear of the supermarket. A sign reading
Employees Only
on a metal door with a honeycombed porthole caught his attention. He breached it without a second thought, hearing a stock boy yell out after him for his violation. Nash was through the loading bay and out an emergency exit in seconds.

Don’t stop for one second,
he thought.
Don’t even dare.

Nash scrambled up the alleyway, dodging skids and jumping boxes, throwing glances over his shoulder the whole way. A panic he had not known before this day enveloped him.

NOW.

N
ash scrambled to his feet in a panic, kicking sand out from underneath him. The bodies of two men and a woman lay motionless before his eyes. One man was black, the other white, the woman Hispanic if Nash wasn’t mistaken. He assumed they were dead, but soon saw their stomachs rise and fall with breath.

“They’re alive,” the squatted figure behind him said. “Don’t know what good it’s gonna do us, though.”

The voice seemed dry and distant, the sound of a message crackling through a megaphone from a city block away. Nash ignored it and took the time to inspect his strange new environment. Wherever he was, he hadn’t the slightest idea how he’d come to be there or why.

“. . . the hell is going on?” he asked aloud, wiping sweat and sand from his face.

The figure said nothing. Nash racked his brain. It relinquished little. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had been on a beach. The capacity to recall things easily was gone. One of his lifestyle’s many side effects was the deletion of brain cells and Nash had been subtracting for some time now. Every memory lacked depth and detail.

“Where . . . ?”

The shock of his surroundings, the confusion, it was almost too much. He felt light-headed, the muscles in his face going soft, a bubble of watery vomit catching in his throat. Hands clasped behind his head, fingers pulling hair, Nash hissed with pain as he fought to stay focused.

“What . . . what are we doing here?”

Nash threw his head back and breathed deep to try to offset the panic pushing inside his chest. The sun was hot and high in the sky, suggesting noon. The figure began to rock on its haunches, drawing Nash’s attention. Its movements were compulsive, unhinged, suggestive of a mental patient or victim in shock. Nash feared both.

“Who are you?” he asked, taking a step back.

The figure snorted and spat. It flew like a bullet, making a dent in the sand. Nash took it as a warning shot, but cared little. He challenged with his own gob, planting it between them.

“You got a name?”

He considered tagging
bitch
onto his question, but decided against it. Puffing chests felt premature, and judging by the situation so far, he thought it unwise to make enemies. It was becoming clear that the squatting figure was a woman, albeit an ugly one. The high voice implied a chick, but the fearlessness in the tone made Nash unsure. He looked closer and saw the curve of breast under her dirty Harley-Davidson T-shirt. She examined a clump of tangled hair hanging in her face and didn’t reply. Nash raised his voice.

“Hey, I’m talking to you.”

Phlegm rattled in the woman’s throat and she spat with more menace, this time in Nash’s direction, the gob missing him by a foot.

“Name’s Nunya,” the woman said.

“Nunya?”

Nash knew he’d stepped in it as soon as the word left his lips. He rolled his eyes before she replied. He’d used this one himself countless times.

“Yeah, Nunya fucking business.”

Nash laughed. He didn’t know why. The woman turned and regarded him with a scowl. Nash stopped laughing at the sight of her. Calling her ugly was a mistake. She might have been a looker if she bothered to clean herself up. Disheveled, reddish-brown hair hung in near dreadlocks alongside her dirty face. She looked battle scarred, war weary; ripe for early retirement. Nash’s tongue perused a few gaps in his teeth, reminding him that he was no spring chicken either.

“Well, pleased to meet you, Nunya,” he said with a smirk. “I’m Nash.”

She let out a haughty breath at the introduction and turned away. She was in no mood for pleasantries, evidenced by her third spit in as many minutes.

“Ah, Christ, man,” she said. “I’m not having you call me that for the rest of whatever. My name’s Ginger. Don’t forget it. I ain’t telling you again.”

Nash was sure he could remember. “Ginger. Okay, got it. Is that a nickname or something?”

Ginger leaned back and stretched out on the sand, already tired of his questions. Behind her, Nash noticed a set of footprints trailing off into the brush. There was at least one more person around.

What have we gotten ourselves into?
he thought.

He looked back at the three unconscious bodies. They all looked like inner-city trash: worn clothes and bad complexions. Nothing respectable about any of them and no question they were all from the same bracket of society. The one found around the rim of Miami’s asshole.

I wonder who the worst of this bunch is. . . .

The worst what, Nash wasn’t even sure. Ginger scratched her arm savagely. The action cued Nash to do the same. The itching was just beginning.

“Don’t suppose you got a clue about any of this?” Nash asked.

Ginger sat back up, flinging dreadlocks out of her face, thin frame rigid with attitude. She simply stared at him. Nash’s annoyance grew at her lack of an answer.

“What the fuck is happening here?”

Ginger shrugged nonchalantly. The smile she gave was surprisingly sweet and might have fooled others, but Nash caught wind of the bullshit behind it. He recognized her type, little liar playing mind games. Nash had banged broads like her throughout his music career: aspiring actresses and singers with habits to feed, wading into the party scene, hoping to suck or fuck for a foot in the door before fading away or burning out.

“Maybe we’re sweepstakes winners,” she said finally.

Nash sighed. “You got no idea, do you?”

He gave her his most unimpressed look, but she didn’t notice. She couldn’t have been less interested in him or his opinion of her. Instead, she turned to face the ocean, closing her eyes to the breeze that came off the water and brushed her cheeks.

“Honestly, I don’t have a clue, cowboy . . . unless this is some messed-up reality TV show, or
Candid Camera
on crack.”

The thought suddenly seemed plausible in lieu of any other explanation. Nash scanned the bushes and trees, searching for a hidden camera lens among the leaves or a boom mic among the branches.

“Of course, I’m gonna beat the living shit out of the host when they unveil themselves,” Ginger continued. “We’ll see how much TV personality they have after I ram a whole camera crew up their ass.”

Her volume was enough to awaken the black man. He stirred and grunted, fingers raking the sand. His skin was the color of coal, a graying goatee prominent on his tired face. Muscular arms and shoulders implied a well-kept physique, but his unbuttoned shirt revealed a bloated belly. The man awakened slowly, painfully. He rolled over and rose with his back to them, shaking sand from his salt-and-pepper dreadlocks. Nash figured the guy was well past forty.

“Wakey, wakey,” Nash said. “Rise and shine.”

The man spun at the sound of his voice. His posture became defensive, beady brown eyes darting between Nash and Ginger, hands balling into fists and rising to strike.

“It’s alright, man,” Nash assured him, his own hands held out in a calming gesture. “Take it easy now. We’re just as confused as you are.”

The man’s wary eyes stayed on them while he patted down the pockets of his cargo shorts. Nash realized that he hadn’t checked his own pockets and copied. Everything that should have been there was missing. Ginger smirked at both of them.

“You won’t find anything,” she cawed. “I already searched the lot of you.”

The man shot her a cold look. “So your hands found their way into my pants already, huh?”

She waved a middle finger. “Get bent.”

The man returned the gesture, backing up until he was satisfied with the distance. A look of worry flashed across his face, gone as quickly as it had come, but Nash took note. The man needed something, a fact, an answer, a truth he could use as a starting point, but he looked too proud, too resilient to ask anyone for a favor. Nash knew exactly how he felt. He offered to get the ball rolling.

“Name’s Nash. What’s yours?”

The man didn’t answer. Instead he checked around, head movements twitchy with something akin to a nervous tic as he gathered all he could from his surroundings. When he wasn’t satisfied he turned back with knitted eyebrows and head cocked in question.

“Hell if I know, pal,” Nash replied.

The man nodded as if he fully understood. Nash got the impression that this cat woke up in random places on a regular basis. He swung a pointed finger over to Ginger by way of introduction.

“That’s Ginger. We just met.”

“What about the others over there?” the man asked, thumbing to the last two unconscious bodies. “Who they?”

“No idea. They’ve been out cold since we woke up. I’ve never seen them before in my life.”

The man analyzed the other man lying facedown in the sand, obviously the youngest among them, just a kid, really, probably not even legal drinking age. The Hispanic woman looked a few years older.

“Your name?” Nash asked again.

The man let out a rumbling cough to clear his throat and composed himself a little. When he spoke his voice took on new depth and grit.

“Felix is the name. Looks like we got us one more?”

He jabbed his goatee toward the trail of footprints leading away from them. Ginger said nothing. Nash shrugged.

“I guess so, but I haven’t seen anyone else. I woke up not long before you did.”

Nash paused, expecting Ginger to add something to the conversation. She seemed about as interested in talking as getting off her ass. Nash shrugged again.

“Wish I could tell you more.”

He walked down to the water’s edge and let the small waves rush around the soles of his worn sneakers, sinking his heels back into the sand as they retreated. An awkward silence descended.

“Are we on an island?” Felix finally asked.

“Don’t know.”

Nash scanned the beach and vegetation and realized they likely inhabited very little landmass. He felt stupid. He hadn’t even thought to ask important questions. Felix wasn’t impressed.

“How’d we get here?”

“Don’t know.”

“Well, what do you know?”

Nash chewed his bottom lip and said nothing. Felix waited impatiently, his agitation growing. He finally turned his back and shook his head.

“Fucking crackers,” he said. “All y’all never know shit about shit.”

“Oh, fuck you, Sambo,” Nash spat. “I’m sure you know less than I do.”

Felix glared at him. “Call me that again, motherfucker. I dare you.”

Nash drew in breath as Felix’s fists clenched and readied. Ginger’s squeal of laughter ended everything before it began.

“Oh, yeah, we’re gonna get along just fine.”