The Kaleidoscope (22 page)

“Get back in your vehicle now!” He punctuated the order with a swift movement to the bolt action, hoping they heard the warning. “I mean it!”

There were scuffling noises outside, and he swung the nose toward the porch, sighting through the window into the yard trying to judge where they were headed. There were at least two men, maybe three. Backed up to the wall, he froze, listening for any movement, in front or behind the house. A creepy calm fell like a mantle. Even the birdsong had quieted.

“Put down the gun!” The front door burst open, and a pistol pointed at Walter. In the same moment, cold steel dug into his left temple.

“Down! Now!” The barrel jabbed him, and Walter removed his finger from the trigger, slid the butt off his shoulder and held it up in the air, his other hand high. The shotgun was snatched from his grasp.

“Sit!” He started for the couch, but he was jerked back onto a kitchen chair, his hands were forced behind him, his wrists caught together. Plastic zip ties dug into his skin, and he had no choice but to allow his ankles to be attached to the chair legs.

“Now. Maybe you will be a better host.” The guy who had been supervising from the front door holstered his 9 mm and strode over. Walter tried to get a better look at him, but the one behind him clocked him with the butt of his gun.

“Ow! What do you want from me? I don’t have nothing you need.”

“You thought you could get away, didn’t you?” The guy wearing cheap shoes, his shiny suit too small, was the spokesperson.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Another blow.

“Ow!” A trickle of blood worked its way down Walter’s cheek. “Look around. I don’t have any money, no drugs neither.”

Cheap suit mumbled something, and Walter was left in the fine company of the sidekick, who took an opportunity to do just that while his boss ransacked first the living room, which didn’t take long since it consisted of the shabby couch and an equally worn easy chair. He went into the room where Walter slept, and he could hear the cot being overturned. He came back, holding the box Walter kept under the bed.

He dropped it onto the coffee table and jimmied the lid off to flip through the few papers, tossing aside the expired passport, and everything else inside. He picked up the polaroid. “Hey, who’s the girl? This your family?” He turned it over. “Pretty old. Kid must be what, about thirty now?” He showed the picture to his partner. “Got us some leverage now.”

Pistol out again, he tucked the barrel under Walter’s chin, forcing him to look up. “Where is it?” He jammed upward until a nerve in Walter’s neck stung like a bee.

“Where is what?”

“Don’t play dumb. Where’s the chip?”

“I-I gave it to the authorities. It’s being taken care of.”

“You don’t get it, do you? We’re the authorities now.” He waved the picture. “We don’t get the chip, your family will be ours.”

“You wouldn’t know where to find them. Or even if they’re still alive.”

“Oh, we have ways of finding them. We have friends in high places, don’t we?” His foul breath hung between them. The pistol barrel forced him to face forward.

“Please. I just came up here to get away. I want to die in peace.”

“Oh, you’re gonna die, but I’m not sure how peaceful it’s going to be unless we get what we’re after.”

“Maybe he can download what was on it,” the minion behind Walter suggested. “You know, from that cloud thingy.”

“Yeah. You must have put it in the sky or cloud or whatever it’s called for backup.”

From their stumbling use of the terms, Walter knew these were hired guns, and they needed him alive, so he hatched a plan that might buy him time. “We’re not exactly in the middle of a metropolis.”

The guy tasked with standing over him had a bad habit of biting his nails. “Huh?” He spit out a bite of cuticle.

“Does it look like I have Wi-Fi?” He’d set up a satellite connection, but these fools wouldn’t understand how that worked. “If you want to give me a ride into town, I could possibly find a hotsp—”

“Could we do that?”

Bossman beckoned the Spitter over to the window, and there followed harsh whispering. “We don’t…town…permission…” was all he heard. Then things began to go south.

“Maybe we should teach him a lesson, boss.” Nail-biter muttered, then spat. “I’ll get the spare can of gas. This place should go up in no time.”

“My partner here has a point. I guess we have no other choice but to let him play with his matches. He does love a good bonfire.”

“Wait!” Walter growled. “If you kill me, you’ll never get what you want.”

“Keep talking.” His unibrow worked up into an inverted V.

“If you don’t feel comfortable taking me into town, come back in two days. I can get what you want by then.”

“Nah, let’s kill him now, boss. He’s bluffing.”

“Shoot him in the foot, and he won’t be able to run.”

“He’ll bleed to death.”

The boss rolled his head, and a vertebra popped. “How exactly are you going to get us what we want?”

“I can go into town, use the Wi-Fi at the market. I will download what you need.” Walter watched their reactions. “Please, just give me the time. You’ve made your point.” He focused on the photograph. “I understand you could hurt my family if I don’t deliver.”

Bossman’s smirk convinced Walter his plea had worked. “We’ll give you until Friday.” They headed for the door, but he launched a final warning as they exited. “But if you squeal, or you’re not here when we get back, we’ll hunt these two down.” He slashed across his throat with the tip of the gun. “Get it?” The door swung open, slamming against the wall.

“Hey! Aren’t you going to untie me?”

The SUV started up. Resigned, Walter wrung his hands, struggling for a way to undo the plastic ties. Pulling and yanking wasn’t budging them, he needed something sharp. Something low enough to rub against. The door hinges were metal, but not sharp enough. There was an old bottle cap opener screwed into the cabinet near the sink. He scooted, clumping and scraping heavily, the chair an unwilling dance partner in their zip-tied waltz.

He would have to position his wrists so he could swipe them high enough to make contact with the opener. The metal was dulled by years of wear, but enough of an edge remained if he could tip the chair forward enough to reach a jagged strip across the front. He wobbled too far and caught himself before face planting. No good. Bracing against the cabinet with the back of the chair, he pushed up, knocking back to steady himself, his knees complaining against the straining stance. His left hand finally grazed against the metal, and he twisted, wedging the plastic inside the metal. Still unsure if the opener could even do the job, he pulled and sawed, hoping that the sheer force would somehow work his hands free. The thin plastic dug into his skin, and he held his breath against the pain in his joints as he had to stay in the awkward position long enough to fight plastic against metal.

Then he heard voices outside. Hikers! “Hey, come inside, I need your help!” But then he smelled gasoline. The idiots had returned, and were setting the cabin on fire!

Fighting panic, he pulled and pushed against the metal, but the tie had trapped him. He was an animal caught in a trap. Soon he would start gnawing on his own body parts to be free.

Smoke seeped into the kitchen, and Walter’s heart pumped, his lungs filling with the smell of his own cremation. Through the gauzy curtain pulled across the cracked window panes, the SUV disappeared across the compound, leaving him to his death.

“This is not how I’m going to die!” he shouted, and yanked until the ties almost sliced his skin, but something gave, and the plastic snapped. He clattered down onto the floor, the chair on top of him, a knee breaking his fall but twisting underneath him.

Under the mantle of haze, he gasped in lungsful of clearer air, and then held his breath, righting himself long enough to reach for a sharp knife left in the sink. His ankles free, he stumbled to the door and into the yard to train a hose into a drum they’d set on fire to make their point.

Walter hobbled inside and opened the windows to clear the air. He went to a small closet, removed towels, and found a musty set of old sheets. He shook out a flat one, and bit into the hem, tearing long strips. Dousing a towel with horse liniment he’d found under the kitchen sink, he wrapped his swollen knee. He righted the table and picked up the box, returning his few items to it, and set it near enough to reach in case he fell asleep. Grabbing a hunk of jerky and a mason jar of tepid water, he collapsed onto the couch, the shotgun across his chest.

A glaring new hole had opened overhead in the last storm, and outside noises carried in on the breeze. When his knee could take his weight again, he would climb up and nail some plywood over the hole. At least for now it let in fresh air, as the tang left from the flames burned his throat, his eyes still watering from the sting, and he wondered how long it would take them to return.

****

The next morning, Walter rewrapped the knee. The swelling wasn’t too much worse, so he made a plan. In the yard, he stopped to see if a roll of chicken wire around his vegetable seedlings was discouraging critters from helping themselves. A few new buds showed, and he salivated, thinking about the taste of vine-ripened tomatoes, slightly sweet, robust, and firm. If he made it back alive.

In the shed, he slid the canvas cover off the LeBaron. His initial plan was to go over the car inch by inch, restoring it. Now that he’d found Morrie the Midget and his hideaway had been discovered, he needed the car to start. Today. After the goonsquad visit, he knew his time was up.

He opened the hood. The engine was still in good shape. He’d bought a gallon of gas from the tow truck driver, and he poured a small amount into the car. The smell of gasoline would forever remind him of his near-death experience.

A quick check of the tires. They were balding and brittle from age and exposure to the elements. A couple badly needed air, but they weren’t on the rims yet. He slid in, and held his breath as he turned the key. Would the battery kick over the starter?

The motor ground over and over with no results until he finally shut off the key. He checked each chrome knob to ensure nothing was on to hog the whisper of a charge left. Again, he turned the key, and prayed. The grinding continued until he switched it off again and pounded the steering wheel, pleading into the universe.

“Please,” Walter prayed, watching a startled crow fly from the rafters, “I need a miracle.”

Chapter Seventeen

“The evidence seems to point to your dad, all right.” Stan sat across from Harold in the coffee shop.

Harold tried to couch his reaction in aloof disinterest.

“But when he disappeared without a trace, the trail went cold. Either someone helped him hide, or he was very good at disappearing.” Stan plunged ahead, the details of his research bubbling over in his enthusiasm.

“He was always good at that. Disappearing, I mean.”

Stan opened a briefcase and removed the case file, now thicker, more smudged and worn. “There’s something about this whole deal I just can’t put my finger on that doesn’t add up. Your dad had no criminal record, was never violent that I can tell. He didn’t have so much as a parking ticket.”

Stan’s eagerness to finally be involved in a case again was working in Harold’s favor. Stan didn’t even notice Harold dribble coffee down his shirt when he pounded on a file in his exuberance.

“Why all of a sudden would he commit such a horrendous act and on his own family? He’d been going to AA. He left the scene essentially on foot. The car he was driving was pristine except for a bashed fender.”

Harold dabbed at the stain.

“He was so far removed from the system, no one could find any real evidence of who he even worked for,” Stan continued. “The only thing I can guess is, he was working in the black and someone was protecting him until their cover was blown. You wouldn’t happen to know what he was up to, would you, Harold?”

Harold snatched napkins from the metal container. “I was just a kid, I—”

“It would help to know where he worked, but IRS records have huge gaping holes.” Clucking his tongue, Stan flipped another page over. “Actually, that gives me an idea. We could have him on tax evasion as well, get the boys in Justice to help out.”

The blue and gray alternating striped shirt was ruined. “I was so young.” Helpless to offer anything useful, Harold searched vague memories.

Usually, people spoke of his father in the past tense. His grandmother would only discourage talk of him, taking the opportunity to express her disapproval of her son-in-law. Harold had yearned for a role model like his classmate’s parents. Firefighters and bankers, cooks and car salesmen. Their jobs were admirable, something children could understand on career days. Be proud of.

“Do you recall the day you were interviewed?” Stan’s question jolted Harold from his reverie.

“Sort of.” A sketchy memory of sitting in a white room with plastic furniture and a box of toy cars formed.

“It’s difficult to question a child who survives something as horrific as this.” Stan’s academic observation gave Harold permission to pass on commenting.

That was the day he learned people would leave him alone if he cried hard enough, and then he learned how to shut down completely.
Closing himself off had become the only way to cope with what had happened that horrendous day.

Stan leaned forward. “I have some notes from the child specialist who interviewed you.” His eyes moved back and forth across the page, and he tilted his head back so he could see the fine print through his glasses.

The coffee shop was emptying out, and Harold knew he should get back to work. He wanted to get back to work. He didn’t want to have this conversation. Yet he didn’t budge. He had to stay. He had to know.

Stan got up for a refill at the counter, and Harold returned in memory to the playroom. It was oddly sparse. The talkative woman brought out puppets, but the game turned ugly when she wanted him to relive the crash. “Here, Harry,” she’d coaxed. “Can you show me what happened?” She thrust two Matchbox cars at him. He’d taken them, and then thrown them against the wall. She tried again and he burst into a tantrum, and would only calm down when his grandma was called in to hold him while the tears flowed. He stopped when something sharp pinched his arm and he became groggy, and fell asleep.