Fool's Ride (The Jenkins Cycle Book 2) (11 page)

U
ntil I finished my business
, I needed to keep Cliff’s car at the house. Fred’s minivan was stuck in the warehouse district, and I still needed it. I also needed to finish my shift, to stave off suspicion if Cliff was reported missing. So I called a cab to take me back to the security trailer.

Forty minutes later, I paid my fare and waved goodbye to my laconic cabbie. He didn’t wave back. Sam would have waved and followed up with an offer to take me home when I was ready. I wondered how ol’ Sam was doing and if he realized who was in his cab that day. Was he following the media sensation and telling his friends and family how he’d driven evil Ernest Prescott to his own movie?

I sighed. Of all the dumb things I’d done, losing my temper with Cliff stood out as one of the big ones. He liked to hit people, so what? Maybe that’s as far as it went. Maybe it went farther, but how would I know? He didn’t hurt kids, he wasn’t a killer, he just seemed like a hothead. Working with the best knowledge I had, purely on facts, nothing he’d done warranted me killing or crippling him with irreversible brain damage. But chaining him up like that … I’d go so far as a possible
maybe
on that one, because who doesn’t need a good scare to straighten them out once in a while?

If this had happened even two rides back, I wouldn’t have been so concerned. But that terrible smokestack of death—with the dying over and over
a thousand and one times
—that was solid confirmation the Great Whomever was real and not some figment of my imagination. He could punish and he could reward, and I needed to be careful.

After the night’s exertions, I didn’t feel like reading anything. A check of the monitors showed the graffiti artists were gone, and I felt a little bit sad about that. I was also wiped out.

I closed my eyes and leaned back in my chair. Then, in a while, I wasn’t so sad anymore.

“
F
red
, man, wake up,” a voice said after no time at all.

It was bright out, which didn’t make sense at first. There was a guy standing over me—my relief.

“Hold on,” I said, and scrawled
Nothing to report
on the first line, then double quotes down the next seven lines.

“Can you get any lazier?” he said, shaking his head.

“If I felt like it,” I said, and left.

Like every other night, I was still tired by the time I got to the house. The Mercedes remained parked in the driveway. I’d left Cliff’s keys on the counter in the kitchen and they were still there. I almost went down to check on him, but I had a big day ahead and needed my rest.

Around noon, I woke up with a headache and a stiff neck. After a shower and clean clothes I felt a little better, but could have really used some aspirin. Sadly, none of the cabinets had any medicine. Maybe Fred liked pain? Come to think of it, I didn’t know much about the guy except he liked to kidnap people. Sort of scary, thinking of it that way, considering my own behavior last night with Cliff.

I put off eating long enough to go down and check on my prisoner.

He was sitting with his back against the post, staring at me.

“How’s your head?” I said.

“It hurts, that’s how.”

“My head hurts too,” I said. “I need to go out and get some stuff. You want anything?”

“You could come a little closer.”

“Other than that?”

Cliff turned away and shook his head. Then he seemed to deflate. “Some toothpaste? Water?”

I nodded, and turned to go.

“And some TP,” he added. “You sick son of a bitch.”

“Will do,” I said.

The more time I spent with him, the more I realized he wasn’t evil, he just wasn’t that smart. He thought with his emotions. Me too I supposed, and if that made him dumb what did it make me?

Thirty minutes later, I came back with a bunch of stuff from a nearby drugstore: pain killers, toilet paper, toothpaste, a soft-bristled toothbrush, and a case of bottled water.

“Now, Cliff,” I said. “This is your big day. If everything goes as planned, you’ll be out within twenty-four hours.”

“I want out
now!
”

“You brought this on yourself,” I said. “Don’t forget it. Now just hang tight and a little later the cops will be here to let you go. I’ll even leave you the key, for when they arrive.”

Way on the other side of the room, which was empty except for the things I’d brought down, I placed the key on the floor against the wall.

“How am I supposed to reach it?”

“You’re not,” I said.

Then, pursued by cries and threats, I left him there, shut the door, and went upstairs to write the note:

Dear Mortal Authorities,

In my basement, you will find one of your race called “Clifftonite.” He is a terrible person, much given to profanity and hitting women and old men. It was my intent to destroy him, but I changed my mind for mysterious reasons known only to me. Perhaps I am simply lazy.

In the garage, resting in the freezer, is a woman named “Sally.” She overdosed when I spiked her drink during a kidnapping attempt. You should assume there were more women before her.

All hail Ernest Prescott!

I signed the note
Fred
, added his address as an extra precaution, folded it up, and stuffed it in my pocket.

I was about to leave when the phone rang.

I answered it. “Hello?”

“Fred? It’s me, Larry from work. You seen Cliff around?”

“Nope,” I said, and became seized with the certainty that the fight and kidnapping had been recorded on video.

“His girlfriend dropped by looking for him—says he was coming out here to see you.”

“Is that right?” I said. “Well, you know Cliff…”

Whatever that means.

Larry laughed and said, “I know what you mean. I’ll tell her something. Sorry to bug you.”

“No problem,” I said and hung up.

Cliff had a girlfriend who cared enough to go looking for him. Maybe he was a jerk with guys and a pussycat at home.

By the time I left the house, it was just after one o’clock in the afternoon. I was tempted to take the Mercedes, but no way could I do that now.

I still had two hours to kill before I could make my next move, so I went to a fast food place. I couldn’t be sure when Fred’s credit card would give out on me, and I didn’t have any more cash, so I needed a place that could accept or deny me at point of sale.

Though nothing fancy, the food was great. Especially the milkshake.

At two thirty, I closed the book I’d brought with me, got in the minivan, and drove two miles to Brad Ratcliff’s neighborhood. Using the address I’d gleaned from his magazine subscriptions, I found the house easily—a corner townhouse in a low-income section of New Haven. I recognized his big truck right away.

I parked a few cars back and waited.

Maybe a minute later, the door opened and Brad came out wearing his guard’s uniform. He didn’t lean back in and yell something to anyone, and he didn’t stoop down and give an attack dog a big snuggly head rub. Both very good signs.

After he left, I got out, walked up the sidewalk to his house, and pressed the doorbell. I didn’t hear it ring, so I knocked loudly while glancing around to see if anyone was watching. I gave it another twenty seconds, then leaned down low and slammed the door with my shoulder. When it didn’t budge, I leaned back even more, putting all Fred’s ponderous girth into it, and this time it not only flew open, the middle of the door caved in, too, almost folding. I hadn’t busted through the frame so much as the deadbolt had slipped out of the latch.

The laws of motion, however, are nothing to be trifled with—I crashed inside and sprawled forward, painfully. The floor I was lying on was a section of purple tiling, veined like marble, separating the entryway from wall-to-wall purple carpeting. Tacky, sure, but it was someone’s home, and way more than I had.

I got my knees under me and staggered to my feet, breathing heavily for my efforts. Then, after a quick look outside, I shut the door as best I could, pushing it in the middle so it flattened out like it wasn’t made of hollow cardboard.

Leaning back against the door, I surveyed the room: yellow walls in a small living room, and a low wall separating it from the kitchen. There was a set of stairs on the right, going up. Farther along the wall, under the stairs, was a door that probably led to the basement. Leather couches in the living room, modern art prints on the walls, and bicycles near the front casement windows.

Bicycles
…

One for a man, the other for a woman.

“Hello?” I called out, hoping nobody answered. Then louder: “
Hello?
”

Nobody answered.

I took the stairs and headed up to where I figured the bedrooms were. At the top were three doors: one on the left, one on the right, and one straight ahead opened wide to an empty bathroom.

I almost shouted
hello
again, but something stopped me. Cautiously, I reached for the door on the right and turned the knob, pulling back a little so it’d make less noise. I cracked it open and saw a woman, about twenty-five years old. She was sitting at a computer with a big monitor playing a video game.

“Someone cover me,” she said in a serious tone, startling me clear out of my skin. But she wasn’t talking to me. She had on a hands-free headset.

I’d played the same game on another ride several years ago. Very fun, very addictive. I hoped to play it again one day.

Judging from all the movement on the screen and the rigid way she was sitting, she appeared to be in an epic battle for all Mankind. Hoping she’d be occupied for the next few minutes, I quietly shut the door.

The other room, a bedroom with nightstands bracketing a king-sized bed, was unoccupied. I went to the closest end table and opened the top drawer. Just as I’d hoped, Brad owned a handgun. My only reason for being there.

It had been a leap of faith Brad would have one at all. But what manly hunter-guy with a big tough truck didn’t also like handguns? My biggest worry was he’d only have rifles and long shotguns. They’d do in a pinch, but I couldn’t hide them under my shirt no matter how big Fred was.

Resting beside the gun was an extra magazine, nine millimeter. Quickly, I grabbed it and the gun and left the room, being careful not to bump anything. With luck, the woman wouldn’t know they’d been robbed until she went out later and saw the messed-up front door. By then I’d be long gone.

After closing the bedroom door behind me, I hurried down the stairs, slipped the gun in my waistband, and left.

I
now had a gun
. This should have made me feel better, but now I had something else to worry about: I was having chest pains.

They’d started after I fell through the door. At the time, I’d shrugged them off, lumping them in with the general pain of crashing to the ground in Fred’s large body. I’d been pushing the old guy pretty hard, and I was feeling jittery again, like at the mall after those pastries.

“Then why’d you drink that milkshake?” I said.

I didn’t care for my tone, so I chose not to answer that. Also, traffic was tight due to roadwork ahead and I needed to pay attention.

My plan for dealing with Gerald was simple: knock on his door and gun him down. The direct approach. Then I’d wait for the cops to show up before shooting myself. I needed them to be there when it happened to ensure they got the note. I couldn’t risk some opportunist rifling through Fred’s pockets and robbing his corpse. An unlikely possibility, sure, but I was responsible for Cliff until he was free again.

When I got to Gerald’s house, it was just after four in the afternoon.

“Dammit,” I said.

I’d arrived too late—he was backing down his drive. Probably off to hunt for more kids at malls and supermarkets.

I followed him closely at first, then pulled back. My desperation was going to get me noticed. If I lost him today, something told me I’d never get another chance.

The new plan was almost as simple as the old plan: wait until he parked at the supermarket or mall or playground, or wherever he was heading, then pull up and shoot him in the head. Preferably not at a playground. Bad for anyone to see something like that, let alone kids, but I’d do it rather than let him go free.

Ten minutes later, Gerald got on I-91 heading north. I doubted he had run out of places to lurk with that awful backpack and unloved teddy. Briefly, I considered ramming him off the road, or pulling up to him and shooting him through the passenger window—plan C, if you will. But with my luck, I’d bump into him, spin out, then veer off an overpass into a bus loaded with nuns and supermodels.

In the middle of my car chase, we hit several miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic that lasted an hour due to a bad accident. When it cleared, we kept going. Twenty minutes later I became curious. Intrigued, even. Why was a guy like Gerald Ross taking road trips? Some new job? Family that still talked to him? A kid of his own, of all things?

After a while, I noticed my fuel gauge dipping down near a quarter full. Also, I needed to use the bathroom. If I thought I might lose him, I’d take a chance and try shooting him anyway.

Eventually, the decision was made for me when Gerald exited east to a place called North Bradford. This was a particularly country area with big houses, open land, rich vegetation, and good old-fashioned distance separating people from their neighbors.

The farther we drove, the more secluded it became.

At this point in the tail, I’d pulled back even more. If he turned, I’d speed up to keep pace with him, but he kept going straight. About ten minutes later, he put on his blinkers and pulled down a long driveway bisecting a wide field of bright green grass. Way out in the middle of it, a large white house blazed in the day’s last light, a shock of white sail on a painted sea.

I pulled off the road and watched Gerald drive up to the house. There were eight other cars parked there. He got out. The lights on his car flashed once when he locked it, then he approached the house. Up the stairs onto a porch, now, where he pulled open the storm door and knocked.

I slipped out of the minivan for a clearer look.

The inner door opened and Gerald shook someone’s hand. The contrast of white on shadow hid whoever was there. A snatch of conversation carried across the field, but the words escaped me. Shouting between the two of them, then Gerald threw up his hands and headed back to his car. Just as he reached for the door a man with white hair came out, waving for him to stop. Gerald turned around. The white-haired man approached him and the two began talking again.

Something in the house caught my eye. In the doorway, standing in silhouette yet somehow discernible, was a small girl with dark hair. Though she was too far away for Fred’s seventy-year-old eyes to tell, I somehow knew she was watching me.

My gaze was pulled away by Gerald and the man walking together back to the house. Whatever they’d disagreed about must have been resolved. When I looked back to the door, the girl was gone.

The two men went inside and the door shut behind them.

I stood there leaning against the minivan, watching the house and worrying about the girl. I waited five minutes, twisting in indecision, growing more worried. No one else came out of the house, and there were no new arrivals.

I sat behind the wheel, inserted the key, and then took it back out. If I drove up and they heard me, they’d be ready and I’d be just one person.

I got out, walked to the entrance, and turned up the long driveway. I made sure to keep close to the fence, trusting the lengthening shadows to hide me. With every step, whatever semblance the house had to a sailing ship evaporated. Now it seemed more like a toadstool—looming and sickly and poisoning the world.

Fred’s heart thudded heavily in his chest, and I took deeper breaths.

“Just a little more,” I said.

As I struggled ahead, the air grew heavier, weighing me down even more than all the excess flab I was carrying. My steps felt too short for the distance I had to travel, and the house seemed impossibly far away now.

Halfway to the house, I felt a brief moment of panic when I thought I’d left the gun in the minivan. I took five steps to go back before realizing it was clutched in my hand all along. I lifted it up and stared at it, just to be sure … of something … before lowering it and turning around again.

I tried to continue … and then realized I was sitting in the middle of the gravel drive, less than thirty feet from the house. But I’d dropped the gun … I needed the gun. Where was it? Breathing was difficult, like being squished under an enormous invisible bubble pressing me from all sides.

My chest tightened painfully and I saw little sparks of light, like fireflies. More colorful, less cheerful. The door of the toadstool opened again, and the little girl from before was standing there looking at me. I could see her clearly now, so beautiful, her face a mask of concern mixed with resolve—too much of either for a girl so young.

While I lay like a cow pie in the middle of the road, the pressure on my chest began to lighten. I dragged in several ragged lungfuls of air, and with each draw my oxygen-starved brain recovered. Soon my vision cleared and the burning in my chest cooled to a distant smoldering.

My hand hurt. Looking at it, I found I was squeezing the gun in a white-knuckled grip.

When I searched for the girl, she was gone. But the door was open.

The way was clear.