Old Poison (15 page)

Terrified of dogs, I backed up several
steps, slipped my hand into my windbreaker pocket, and wrapped it
snugly around my stun gun. It was the only weapon I had with me.
The Walther was in the trunk of my rental car. The LAPD and the LA
County Sheriff refuse to give anyone a permit to carry a concealed
weapon; so, law-abiding citizen that I am, I tend not to carry a
gun unless I feel I may be in a life-threatening situation. The
funny thing about life-threatening situations is they can happen
when you don’t expect them.

A short man in a dark-colored turtleneck
sweater followed the dog to the gate and asked in a heavy Spanish
accent, “What do you want?”

“Good evening. I am sorry to disturb you so
late, but I am Clara Shimmerhorn, and I am trying to settle an
insurance claim on that speedboat over there.”

He looked briefly toward the boat and
replied, “But we made no insurance claim.”

“Ah, no, you see the claim was made by my
client, the people who were in the other boat.”

“What other boat?”

“The one that was hit by that boat.”

In his anxiety, he slipped into Spanish. His
first sentence made my jaw drop, and I sucked in a gulp of air as
realization hit me. He’d said, “I did not hit no boat.” He
definitely used the verb form for first person-singular, and he
said the word “I.” Instead of pronouncing it as
yo,
he
pronounced it
jo
. As he continued in Spanish, telling me he
hit only a submerged grocery cart in the river, his accent left no
doubt. He was
Venezolano
!

I saw his face change from annoyed and
defensive to suspicious, and felt myself tense as I realized my own
stupidity. With my poor visual memory, I might not have been able
to describe this guy to a police artist, but now, as he stared at
me over the gate, there was no doubt in my mind. The last time I
saw this man he was hunched over the wheel of that speed-boat. I
had assumed that as soon as these fellows had finished their task,
they’d been shipped out. Perhaps they hadn’t finished the task.
They had missed Evelyn. Questions raced through my mind. Why had
they been kept with the boat? Were they living here as night
watchmen? Had someone anticipated my searching for the boat? Were
they just waiting here to see who showed up? They? Where was the
other one?

At the same moment I asked myself that
question, I heard a sound behind me. I turned just in time to see
his arm descend toward my head. My motion redirected his aim, and
the blow fell on the top front of my head instead of the back. The
zap connected with my skull, my teeth jarred together, instant pain
filled my head, and blood ran down my face. As I fell to the
ground, I could hear the two of them yelling at each other, but my
brain was too scrambled to even try to understand what they were
saying. I was struggling to regain my feet and defend myself when I
was hit on both shoulders and knocked backward. The next thing I
knew, the bull mastiff had his jaws around my throat. I lay there
as this growling terror tightened his hold. The Venezolano who had
piloted the boat was at my ear, yelling commands to the dog and to
me. To the dog he spoke in Spanish. To me he said, “Hold still or
he will rip out your throat.”

I knew and understood what he said, but fear
and panic filled me, and my arm was already moving. I pulled the
stun gun from my pocket and jammed it into the dog’s gut and
squeezed the trigger. He whimpered and growled at the same time,
making an unearthly sound, but he didn’t let go. He would carry out
his charge if it killed him. I felt his jaws tighten, teeth
puncturing my neck, and I brought my other arm up and grabbed his
lower jaw. My hand was inside his mouth when he finally got enough
juice from the stun gun that his whole body jerked convulsively and
went limp. I shoved him off me and tried to get up, but a number
nine boot connected with my stomach. I vomited a watery bile that
ran down the pavement and under my head. As evidence of my mental
condition, the last thing I remember thinking was a totally
discrepant concern: Would that vomit running in my ear give me an
ear infection?

* * * * *

I must have been awake earlier, because I
knew before I touched my head that there would be a bandage on it.
I also knew I was lying on a canvas cot and was covered with a
rough woolen blanket. Running my hand around the cold metal pipe
legs of the cot, I felt laces attached to canvas and confirmed
memory there too. To learn anything else would require opening my
eyes. My head throbbed and I had a vague memory of pain and nausea
when I had tried to sit up before. It was tempting to just go back
to sleep.

Despite my desire to escape into dreamland,
somebody on my internal board of directors was figuratively shaking
me awake. It was the Intrepid Investigator part of me asking
questions like, “Why did they zap me on the head and then bandage
and care for me?” The Coward in me said, “I don’t want to know, I
just want to sleep and forget it. Maybe when I wake up again it
will be all gone.”

Then someone on my committee threw in the
clincher. “If you don’t wake up now, they might see to it you never
get another opportunity.” On that thought I opened my eyes.

Lying on my left side, I could see light
from an adjoining room shining through all the cracks around the
door. In the corner to the right of the door was a washbasin. To
see what was to the left, I would have to move my head, and I
wasn’t quite ready to do that. A vague murmur came from the next
room, but not loud enough for me to make out what was said.

The voices triggered another memory. They
had been arguing over me. The one who had zapped me wanted to kill
me. The other one wouldn’t let him and kept repeating in Spanish,
“
We have instructions.”

Suddenly I heard a new voice, louder,
definitely English speaking, and I could even make out some of his
words. Someone or something would arrive about noon. Who? What? I
had to hear more. Slowly and carefully I raised myself to a sitting
position and waited for the dizziness and nausea to subside. The
throbbing headache increased.

Ambient light from outside entered through
the window on the wall opposite from the door, lighting that side
of the room. Carefully, I stood and walked to the window.
Suspicions confirmed. I was in an upstairs room of the building
that was inside the boatyard. I tried the window and couldn’t budge
it, but in my condition I didn’t feel up to much effort. Even if I
got it open, I didn’t see any way to get down from the second
floor. At the moment the pain in my head took precedence over
everything, even conversation from the next room.

At the end of the room I could see a door
partly open. If memory served, the dark interior beyond would be
the bathroom. I started for it, but partway there I had to pause
and hold onto the wall while the room spun. When the spinning
slowed, I walked carefully to the bathroom, felt for the light
switch, silently shut the door and flipped on the light. Shouldn’t
have done that. The small wattage bulb over the sink seemed like a
sunburst in my eyes. I flipped it off and waited a moment. Then
with my eyes shut, I turned it on again. Opening my eyes a tiny
slit, I pulled the cabinet door open, found the bottle of Excedrin,
and poured three pills into my hand. As I reached for the glass on
the sink, another of those isolated memories flashed in my aching
brain. The old pipes in this bathroom had made a terrible noise
before. I didn’t want my captors to know I was awake, so I tossed
the pills into my mouth and began chewing. The noise of my teeth
cracking and crunching the pills rumbled through my head and
sounded loud enough to be heard in the next room.

I turned off the light, opened the door, and
stood there a moment waiting for my eyes to readjust to the
semi-darkness. Then, as quietly as possible, I made my way to the
door that led to the next room. Lying on the floor, I peeked
through the half-inch gap under the door. I could see the legs of
wooden chairs and the scarred and scratched bottom of an old
pedestal table. Two men were seated and one standing. The
English-speaking man was giving instructions to the two
Venezolanos, and I caught a few words here and there. “. . . water
will . . . to be laced. The food and refuge . . . the other one are
fine. Better get two of batteries . . .” Then he raised his voice
and I heard all of the next sentence. “Don’t look at me like that,
Morro. We want her to arrive healthy and in one piece.”

I liked the sound of part of that. It seemed
to be at least a temporary reprieve. But where was I to “arrive”
and what would happen then? I just wished I could have caught more
of the first part.

“But it’s only about a hundred miles to the
plant, why . . . ”

“She’s not going to the plant. . . . her . .
. south.”

“Why?”

“That’s not for you to worry about. Do your
job and . . . with pay. I’ve got to go. Call me if you have any
problems.”

He was leaving, and I had to try to get a
look at him. I stood up and tried the door handle. It wasn’t
locked. I opened the door just a crack, but the damn thing
screeched like the opening of
The Inner Sanctum
. All speech
stopped. Then the guy who spoke English started cursing. Too late
now to try to be secretive. I opened the door and got a good look
at him. Using my own little observation technique, I put the
picture I saw into words: about six foot, sandy brown hair, jowly
face, brown eyes, heavy body with a slight paunch, grey slacks,
white shirt, no tie, collar open, brown shoes, and
expensive-looking gold watch. Most interesting of all was the
bright yellow cap with an iridescent blue butterfly logo and the
corporate name, Blue Morpho Petroleum. It also helped that I had
seen him before. This guy sat next to the Texan who had spoken up
at Nate’s conference. I would bet my Danny Kaye video collection
that this guy was Harriman Woods, the Morpho PR guy that had been
hanging around Nate.

Seeing me looking at him, he whirled and
headed for the door. “Put her out and keep her that way until you
get her loaded. Don’t fuck this one up.”

The two Venezulanos were already moving in
my direction, and I was in no shape to offer much resistance. In
short order I found myself on the cot being forced to swallow some
vile-tasting liquid. The taste triggered another memory flash. Oh,
yeah, I remembered this stuff. They had given me some after they
bandaged my head. I turned on my side and felt very smug because I
had managed to keep some of their knockout juice in my cheek. I
remember letting it run out onto the canvas beneath my head, but
that was the last thing I remembered.

* * * * *

The headache was much better, and I didn’t
want to do anything to disturb that, so instead of trying to sit
up, I had been quietly noting changes in my surroundings. My
conclusion was that I must be in a different room. There was no
longer light from under the door. The bed I was on had a wood frame
with a foam mattress. On the wall where there should be a window, I
could see only some tiny holes. I knew it was daytime because
sunlight streamed in though the holes in shafts filled with dancing
dust motes. Even so, it was much darker than the other room.

There was a loud noise. Sounded like a
diesel truck but was too close for that. Sounded like it was right
inside the house. Smelled like a diesel too. What the hell were
they running?

Sitting up on the edge of the bed, I could
make out the outline of a night stand and lamp. I felt all around
the lamp base until I found a switch. As I turned the round
rheostat switch, the light grew, and I could see that my lamp was
actually a battery-powered camping lantern.

I was in some sort of small rectangular
storeroom. There was a bed, a box that served as a night stand, and
a porta-potty. All the walls were lined with boxes. On one end the
boxes went to the ceiling, looked like they were stacked several
rows deep, and had some sort of cargo net over them. All the rest
of the walls had boxes stacked about five feet high. Where was the
door? A momentary panic gripped me, but I pushed the claustrophobic
thoughts aside.

I focused on the bottle of water and the
Excedrin sitting beside the lamp, hard evidence that someone cared
about my comfort. It wouldn’t be the guy who wanted to kill me. I
remembered the words of the fellow giving orders. “
They want her
to arrive healthy and in one piece
.” But arrive where and
how?

A chill went down my spine as I had a
terrible suspicion of
how.
Picking up the lantern, I walked
to the end of the room for a closer inspection of the line running
vertically down the center. “Oh God, please no.” That line was
where the doors met, doors at the end of a cargo container.
“Shit!”

I set the lamp down and began moving the two
rows of boxes stacked in front of the doors. Noticing that they
were filled with bottled water and canned food, I hoped they hadn’t
put all this here for my use. There was enough for a journey to
Mars. Boxes out of the way, I examined the doors. With mounting
panic I found there was no handle, no catch, no release of any
kind. Whatever opening mechanism the damn thing had was on the
outside. Resorting to frantic and irrational force, I threw myself
at the doors, jarring my whole body and starting my head hurting
all over again. No amount of shoving and pushing budged them.

Retrieving the lantern, I sat back down on
the bed, then almost at once stood up again. Trying not to panic, I
began checking the boxes, making a mental inventory. The box that
served as a night stand was filled with extra batteries for the
lantern. The boxes along the wall held sanitary bags for the
porta-potty, toilet paper, plastic silverware, a can opener, paper
plates, and dozens of boxes of water and food. Quite a picnic
basket. Did they use this container for smuggling people in and out
on a regular basis, or was this all for me? How long did they
intend to keep me in here?