LITMIR.BIZ

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for later. I fingered the keys in my pocket.

      By the time dinner was over it was dark out. Shadow got his share of dinner, a teaspoon of people food in his bowl. There were two more failed attempts at the phone call, each followed by mutterings and cursing. There had been a plan and that plan wasn’t going smoothly right at the moment. I cleaned up the dishes and Shadow was ready for his evening run. I always went out with him in the evening to cool off and he went out every evening for a last patrol. He started the pacing and staring thing again. I ignored him until he tried it on Manny. After a while Manny got the idea and opened the back door. Shadow stood at the door and stared at me. “Come on sheep!” he seemed to be saying, “You know what you are supposed to be doing.” Well, I did. I knew I was supposed to be getting out of this house alive. I took Shadow out quickly and was waved back in again with the gun. Didn’t he ever put it down?

      I sure wished I had a real name to go with the face. I’d like to know who I was dealing with, even if the name didn’t mean much to me. Manny, short for Manuel? Dark skin. Scraggly gray hair. Looked like his hair used to be black. Mexican? He didn’t look particularly Mexican. He just looked tanned. And unkempt. He wore an old undershirt with a torn and worn flannel shirt over it. Baggy faded jeans that were too long for him bunched up over scuffed black shoes. He looked like he’d stolen his clothes from the Goodwill drop off box and then worn them for a week straight.

      As night settled in the stress level built up again. I could feel the tension rising. Manny was getting nervous. He poked me with the gun.

      “Let’s go,” he said, “I need to find some stuff.”

      We went out to the garage and he dug through the workbench until he came up with duct tape and a pocketknife.

      “Lace your fingers together.”

      He taped my fingers so they couldn’t move, then taped my wrists. We went back in the house and he shoved me to the floor. He brought my hands down to my knees and taped my hands and knees together and then my ankles. I wasn’t going anywhere. He made some more calls on the cell phone, finally getting through to somebody. I heard a one sided conversation.

      “Oscar, where the fuck are you? I’ve been trying to get through all day…. So, you did it?… shit… yeah, I got a car and I got a hostage. Cute one, too…. It’s quiet here.” Long pause. “You better get outa there…. We can use my hostage and your car. It’ll be faster if we have to run. You did manage to get the keys… What do you mean you’re pinned down?… Shit! I could make a run for it without you. And you know I will if I have to… Two days. You have two days. I’m not waiting any longer than that and I’m only saying that because I got it good here. I’m all set.”

      He hung up and almost threw the phone across the room. Instead he slugged the wall, sending sheetrock crumbling and knocking a picture off the wall. He threw the picture, missing my head by inches. He strode over, kicking me in the side and rolling me over so he could look me in the eyes. “Looks like you’re gonna be stuck with me for a long time. Things aren’t looking too good right now but things could change. Two days. Looks like you’ve got two days.” He cut off a strip of duct tape and put it over my mouth.

      As the hours wore on I was glad for my training. I’d slept in worse places than this. Carpet was nice and comfy compared to foxholes and tents in the desert. I’d slept standing, sitting, hanging in trees. Only my thoughts kept me from sleeping now. Two days. I had to escape tomorrow. That’s it. That’s the plan, only half formed in my mind, but I did have options left to me. I didn’t know if I was willing to go down fighting. I wanted this to end peacefully with this guy behind bars, but the likelihood of the police strolling by was slim to nil. My mind was racing through all the possible outcomes until I felt like a rat in a maze, and then the maze became a haze and I dozed.

Chapter 2

      Morning dawned, but it was overcast. I couldn’t see out a window but I could tell there was a blanket of clouds out there because the jets from the Air Force base were flying under the cloud cover. The room was dim. If I were free, I would rejoice in a cloudy day. I would use the break from the sunshine to do my outside work. Shadow and I would run the agility course and go to the park or hike in the mountains nearby. Today I knew I had a day of tense waiting. And watching. Maybe the watching would keep it from being boring. Maybe it wouldn’t be boring because I’d be fighting for my life. Watching came first; watching for a break, no matter how small. I’d built up some trust. Now I needed to make that trust work for me.

      Shadow was out of sorts. He was used to sleeping in his crate and he had been loose last night. Now he wanted to go out but I was still all taped up. Sorry boy!

      Manny didn’t wake up until close to eight o’clock. About 8:30 he cut the tape on my hands and legs and allowed me to do the morning routine minus a shower. I rushed through washing up, brushing teeth, brushing my hair. The bathroom had no windows, no way to escape.

      I started breakfast and I only had two eggs left, then I was short on bread so I got out a sticky pad and started a list, more out of habit than anything else. Eggs, bread, toothpaste… He never yelled at me for writing so I filled the front page with bogus grocery items and turned to the second page and wrote, “Help me get out of here. Call the police. Have them seal the neighborhood. Send someone at 6:00 p.m. ARMED. No uniforms, pretend to be a neighbor with a question.” Extra insurance. Boy Scout motto “Always be prepared.” I tore off the list and the note and silently slid them into my pocket. Occasionally I would take the list out and add to it. One time with the list out I turned and quickly separated the two sheets of paper stuffing them in different pockets. I made sure the list was in my left pocket and the note was in my right pocket, the pocket that would be handy if I had to answer the door. I kept cooking, giving up my two eggs but silently celebrating the fact that I had the note. I wasn’t hungry anyway. I was too tense to be hungry.

      Later in the morning the doorbell rang. I almost jumped out of my skin. I looked up. Manny gave a slight nod that I took as permission to answer. I knew the rule, just get rid of them. He stood behind me at the door out of sight. I opened it slightly, felt the gun against my side and looked out. I almost sank to my knees right then and there because at my door was a man with a badge. Not only that, he was the most handsome detective I ever saw, even on TV. I didn’t even think they grew them like that! He was dressed in jeans and a tweed sport coat but he would have made anything look good. His sandy hair was windblown and set off his blue eyes, serious at the moment, they held the promise of a quick smile. More importantly, I had to keep my head on straight here. Think Cass, think! I wasn’t thinking. I was only hoping. My heart was doing a hundred miles an hour and my hands were shaking and he hadn’t said a word yet. His eyes took me in and I think just my expression might have tipped him off that something was going on here.

      I tried to speak, but a lump formed in my throat.

      “I’m detective Rusty Michaels,” he said displaying his badge. His deep voice rumbled like soft thunder. He snapped his badge closed and dropped it in his shirt pocket. “I was wondering if you’ve seen this man.” He held up a piece of paper with Manny’s picture on it. Manuel Silva it said. Finally, I had a name.

      I leaned in closer to the door pretending to look at the paper closely, but I was really blocking Silva’s view of my pocket.

      “N-no”, I said shakily handing back the piece of paper, “I don’t know him and I haven’t seen him.”

      “I have a witness that says your Jeep was leaving the High Desert Bank when a man fitting Silva’s description jumped into your vehicle and took off in a big hurry. The plate number and description match your Jeep.”

      “Oh, um,” I stammered. Think, think! “That was my brother. I was there loading groceries at the store and John got hungry and said he was running over to McDonald’s. He went to McDonald’s, got a snack and I picked him up on my way out of the parking lot.” My hand slipped into my pocket and I silently stuck the note on the front of the door. Michaels glanced at the note and gently pulled it off the door. His expression

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