Stirred (29 page)

Sixteen Months Ago

H
e tackles the house first, stripping it down to bare walls and floor.

It takes him two days to install the chains—drilling deep anchors into the masonry to hold the leg irons, manacles, and neck collars.

Fifteen Months Ago

“How may I help you?”

“When I make a withdrawal, I can request any denomination, even coins, correct?”

“Yes.”

“I need fifty thousand dollars in pennies.”

“Excuse me, did you say fifty thousand dollars?”

“Yes. That comes out to five million pennies.” He smirks. “I’m guessing you don’t have that many in your cash drawer.”

“No, we don’t even have that many in the vault. But we can get them for you. It just may take a bit of time.”

“No problem. I have plenty of time.”

“Might I ask what they’re for?”

Another smile. “I’m going to prove that money can’t buy happiness.”

Fourteen Months Ago

He stands at the opening to the warehouse all day, watching the trucks back in.

Load after load after load of sand, and the growl of the dozers spreading it around.

He can’t remember the last time he’s been this energized.

Finally, after all these years…

Creating again.

One Year Ago

The weather comes two days early.

Ten Mole Fan 18” DMX wind machines.

Six thousand apiece.

When the crew has completed the install, he walks through the warehouse with the remote console, pushing buttons, imagining all the fun to come.

Eight Months Ago

Luther watches Jack Daniels from the tree outside her house. He also notices someone else watching her.

That won’t do at all.

Jack is his, and his alone.

Six Months Ago

The bill for the monitors, the remote cameras and batteries, and all the cables, comes to a hair over two hundred thousand dollars.

“You opening up a television studio?” Luther is asked as he hands over the credit card.

“Something like that.”

Three Months Ago

When the driver for “The Septic Specialist” climbs back into his rig, Luther is sitting in the passenger seat, smiling and holding a subcompact .40 Glock.

“How full of shit is the tank?” he asks.

The driver’s eyes narrow with confusion. “Um, about three-quarters.”

“Buckle your seatbelt and drive where I tell you.”

Two Months Ago

Luther stares into the cage, locking eyes with the enormous beast.

“You sure about this, buddy?” the man selling it says. “He’s a vicious son of a bitch. Not a good pet at all. Plus he eats a whole lot of meat.”

Luther nods slowly. “Meat won’t be a problem.”

One Month Ago

It’s late in the night.

Two, maybe three
A.M.

It has rained all day, and it’s still raining—he can hear the patter of it on the roof far above his head.

In a distant corner of the warehouse, under a portion of failed roofing, water drips into a growing puddle on the concrete floor.

He cut the generators for the night, and so he walks in total darkness, guided only by a flashlight.

Down he goes—several flights of metal stairs that echo in the dark—into the basement.

When he reaches the cell, he fishes the keys out of his pocket and unlocks the deadbolt.

Pushes open the door, lets the beam of his flashlight play across the walls, finally landing upon the wretch of a human being that sits huddled in the far corner, chained to the wall by an iron neck collar that looks like something from the dark ages.

The man looks up as the light strikes his face.

Haggard. Emaciated. Toothless.

His beard a foot and a half long.

Luther has been force-feeding him for the last month, the man apparently intent on dying after seven years in captivity.

But he’s not about to let that happen.

He still requires Andrew Z. Thomas to wear a helmet, although in truth, he probably no longer contains the strength or wherewithal to bash his head against the concrete wall.

Luther sits down across from him.

“I never hear you typing anymore.” He touches the old typewriter he brought down years ago as a sick joke. In the beginning, Andy had written every day. A pile of five thousand single-spaced pages still stands against the wall, and he figures it could probably fetch a small fortune on eBay.

The first several hundred pages are actually decent, but soon after, the strain of captivity having taken its toll, the writing had disintegrated into madness.

Incoherent sentences.

Then incoherent words.

And finally just a single word, typed over and over for five reams of paper…

lutherlutherlutherlutherlutherlutherlutherlutherlutherluther…

“I’m nearly finished,” Luther says. “But I need you to hang on a little while longer. You’re the centerpiece after all. If you do that, I promise you, I’ll give you what you want.”

The chain clinks against the wall as Andy looks up.

“What’s that?” Andy says.

The words come out at barely a whisper, but Luther stares nonetheless, stunned.

These are the first words Andy has spoken in more than a year. He assumed the man’s mind was gone.

“I’ll set you free,” Luther says, rising to his feet.

March 14, Nineteen Days Ago
Fifteen Minutes Prior to the Bus Incident

H
e pulled the Prevost motor coach into the oasis in Indianapolis at four in the afternoon, following a ten-hour haul out of Philadelphia. He was carrying forty-two passengers on a bus tour called “Sea to Shining Sea.” Russell couldn’t understand anyone wasting a vacation on this, or even worse, wasting their hard-earned money. It was essentially a northerly-oriented coast-to-coast trek through the Midwest, Dakotas, and Montana, eventually concluding in Seattle. This was day one of his twenty-fourth “Sea to Shining Sea” tour, and already he couldn’t wait for it to be over.

The passengers slowly unloaded from the bus, drifting herd like toward the oasis, which contained a giant convenience store, restrooms with full showers, and several fast-food chains.

He’d given them thirty minutes to be back on the bus—they had reservations at an Embassy Suites in Chicago, and he had a reservation for dinner and getting loaded with an old friend at the Hopleaf, his favorite beer bar.

While the bus’s bottomless gas tank filled, Russ grabbed the empty, 24-oz. wide-mouthed Coke bottle and walked into the store.

He’d been holding it back all day, knowing this oasis was coming, and it was most certainly worth the wait.

This place had the best restroom in the world, boasting stall walls that dropped all the way to the floor for maximum privacy, and the option (for a five-dollar credit card charge) to purchase twenty minutes in an “executive stall” outfitted with high-grade toilet paper, guaranteed cleanliness, a bidet, and a first-rate magazine selection.

Russ bought an “executive stall pass” and headed back toward the restrooms.

They’d be in Chicago in three hours, and he needed a night of letting his hair down, because tomorrow was going to suck major ass.

On the itinerary…

The Willis Tower at nine-thirty
A.M.

Lunch in the Signature Room on the ninety-fifth floor of the Hancock Center.

And then an afternoon drive down to St. Louis, where the first item on day three’s agenda was the Gateway Arch.

In his experience, all people wanted to do was have their fat asses hauled to the top of shit.

Russ entered the restroom and made his way down to executive stall number eight.

Punched in the code, stepped inside.

Clean as a whistle, and it smelled like lavender and roses.

He installed himself on his throne, set a magazine in his lap, and pulled the small, velvet bag out of the inner pocket of his vest.

From the velvet bag, he fished out a Ziploc baggie containing a quarter lid of pot, stems and leaves from rolling past joints, and papers.

Driving forty-two people across the country was a stressful proposition.

He tried to always make sure he was good and baked for the last few hundred miles of every driving day, and since he’d been with the bus company now going on twelve years, he had their drug testing schedule pegged down to a science—they tested him twice a year, always before the big Alaska tour. And he wasn’t such an addict that he couldn’t abstain for a month to turn up a clean UA.

He rolled a tight little number and fired it up right there in the stall.

Took one deep, penetrating hit that nearly cut the J in half, and then twisted it out against the wall.

He held the smoke until his lungs screamed, and then opened the empty, wide-mouthed Coke bottle he kept for just such an occasion and blew the smoke inside, capping it before any escaped.

Leaned back on the toilet.

Shut his eyes.

Let it come like a heavy, warm blanket—

A knock on the stall door ripped him out of his bliss.

“Occupied,” he said, coughing.

“Yeah, I know. I was just wondering…um, you think I could have a little toke?”

Shit.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Look, we’re alone in here, all right?”

“I told you, I don’t know—”

“Will you cut the shit, please? I can smell it a mile away. I could turn you in, you know. But all I want is a little puff.”

Russ sighed. “Hang on.”

He stood and removed the stupid chauffeur’s hat and vest his employer required him to wear
at all times
behind the wheel
, which not only bore his name but also the Charter Bus USA insignia.

These, he hid behind the toilet.

“You letting me in, or what?” the man said through the door.

Russ turned the lock, pulled it open.

The man who stood before him was tall and pale with a cascade of long, black hair that hung to his shoulders.

“Get in here,” Russ whispered, “before someone sees you.”

It was a roomy stall, with plenty of floor space for both of them to stand without crowding each other.

Russ took the lighter and the half-smoked J out of his pocket, figuring the best course of action was to expedite the proceedings, just let this guy get his toke and get the hell on his way, out of his life. Count himself lucky that an employee of the oasis, or worse, a cop, hadn’t caught him.

“So how many passengers you carrying?” the man asked.

Russ had been on the verge of striking a flame, but this stopped him cold.

He stared into the man’s coal-black eyes. “Excuse me?”

“Your bus out there…how many people are on the trip?”

How the hell did this guy know he was driving the motor coach? Had he seen him pull up to the pump? Then followed him in here?

“Forty-two,” he said, opting to play it cool, hide the agitation. “Now when I light this, you’ve got to take a quick, deep hit, and that’s it. I don’t want to smoke this place up. And be warned…this is good shit. I don’t know what your supply is like but this—”

“Forty-two…that’s perfect. Now your company monitors your progress in real time with a GPS tracker, correct?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your bus. The employer tracks where you go. To make sure you’re keeping to your schedule and predetermined route. Am I right in this assumption?”

These questions were beginning to harsh Russ’s mellow.

“Yeah, why?”

“Because I’m going to have to disable it. Do you know where the GPS unit is?”

Russ felt a sudden coldness spreading through him. It was good pot, he’d taken a big hit, and there was a chance he was just stoned already, had missed the playful, joking tone in the stranger’s voice.

But this seemed unlikely. The higher probability was that this man standing in his stall was completely off his rocker.

“That’s a good one,” Russ said, forcing a smile, trying to just push through the moment, get back to saner ground. “So you ready to hit this?”

The man with long, black hair turned his back to Russ.

He heard the door to the stall lock back into place.