The Incident (Chase Barnes Series Book 1) (34 page)

              “Who is it?” the female voice demanded through the intercom.

              “Uh, um, is Jamal there? Esteban stammered.

              “Depends on who it is.”

              “My name is Esteban.  I’m looking for Jamal.”  Esteban could hear that someone was holding down the intercom button from inside Jamal’s apartment and voices echoing in the background.  The female voice was talking to a male but Esteban couldn’t make out what was being said.  Without another word the buzzer sounded and Esteban pulled the front door open to enter the building. 

              Esteban climbed the stairs to Jamal’s floor and when he got to the apartment door he saw it was already open about five inches.  He knocked anyway but as he did the force of his knock caused the door swung open completely.  Jamal instantly appeared in front of the entry way, startling Esteban nearly out of his shoes.

              “Well, well, well,” Jamal began.  He was shirtless exposing several shoulder and upper chest tattoos and was sporting a loose fitting pair of gray sweatpants that hung around his thighs.  “Fuck you been and the fuck you doin’ here?” he added.

              Esteban had difficulty reading Jamal’s expression and an even harder time meeting Jamal’s eyes to speak.  He was still standing out in the hallway.  Esteban wasn’t sure if he should feel scared, embarrassed, proud, or none of the above.  He never had a good understanding of how to feel the appropriate emotions at the right time.  His recent experiences certainly didn’t help his cause.

              “I got nowhere else to go.  I just ran away and I’m afraid they’re looking for me,” Esteban said.  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually admitted to being afraid.  In school, there was always the façade or charade that Esteban would perform to discourage others from thinking he was weak or vulnerable.  The streets were starting to prove to be a different story.

              “Well, you look like shit.  Get the fuck in here, little man.”  Esteban stepped inside the apartment and instantly put his back to the adjacent wall.  He couldn’t help but stare at the frayed shoelaces dangling off his feet and the ripped, tattered, and stained clothing Esteban had on.  And the dried blood and scrapes in and around his wrists, mouth and face.  The bruises around his eyes and upper cheeks were a purplish- yellow color.

              “I’m sorry,” Esteban managed to get out through suppressed sobs. 

              “Come sit down.  I ain’t gonna kill ya.”  Jamal said, pulling Esteban by the arm.  “I know what’s been going on.”

              Esteban worked up enough energy and courage to walk into the living room and sit on the couch.  The soft cushioning underneath him felt as if he were lying on a cloud of bunnies.  Jamal sat on the coffee table across from him with his arms folded, expecting Esteban to unfold the entire story.  Before he got into the kidnapping, the physical, emotional, and psychological torture and his opportunity to escape Esteban worked up enough courage to ask for something to eat. 

              Jamal gave him a bottle of soda, a bag of Doritos and two leftover slices of plain pizza.  Esteban devoured the entire offering in record time then unraveled the whole ordeal.  The green Explorer which Jamal already knew about.  The chains and the baseball field.  The repeated guns to his head.  The physical abuse.  The storage units.  The heat lamps.    And finally, the escape.  Esteban hesitated then told Jamal that Klein was looking for information on him.

              While Jamal listened, the female that answered Esteban’s buzzing walked into the room wearing a knee- length t- shirt and Esteban assumed nothing else.  She eyed him up but Esteban had a difficult time reading her expression.  Jamal didn’t bother to introduce her and she didn’t offer up any cordials.  The girl sat on the opposite end of the couch with her legs curled under her.  She had shoulder length jet- black hair, brown eyes, pouty lips and mocha- toned skin.  The way she was sitting caused the collar of her shirt to drop off her shoulder revealing a small tattoo of a heart with something written in script through the middle on her upper chest.  Esteban couldn’t make out what it said. 

              “So, what am I supposed to do now?” Esteban asked.

              “Don’t know about this being your best move to come here.  That motherfucker is really lookin’ for me.  You shoulda told him to come see me,” Jamal replied, more so to himself than to Esteban.

              Esteban looked at the floor, releasing whatever confidence he rediscovered telling Jamal his story.  Then he said, “I didn’t know where else to go.  I know these guys are looking for me, bro.”

              “Why don’t you go home?” the girl asked.

              Even Jamal looked at her like she was crazy.  “Yeah, then what?  These fools track him back to his house.  You know what they do then?  They fuck shit up over there,” Jamal said.  “You can hang here for a little bit.  But I’m not gonna be you’re babysitter.  You feel me?”

              Relief filled Esteban’s face and the girl let out a gasp when she saw his body inflate.  Esteban couldn’t tell if she was laughing at him under her breath or that was just how she breathed.  Jamal got up from the coffee table, lit up a joint, and left to the back of the apartment.  He returned in a few minutes still empty handed but when Jamal bent down in front of Esteban to rub out a dropped ash on the carpet, Esteban saw a gun hanging out of the back of his pants.  Jamal dipped into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. 

              “Let me just make one phone call,” he said.

NINETY FOUR

Klein kept laughing when I cocked my gun and firmly aimed it at his forehead.  I could hear sirens approaching in the distance.  A passerby must have alerted the authorities.  I was still sitting on Klein’s stomach not caring for how much pain he might be in.  He was still spitting up blood every few breaths.  I finally stood up, still straddling his bleeding torso.

              “Where’s Esteban?” I asked for the third time.  His response was the same as the first two, despite how close I came to shooting him in the upper lip.  Since I knew Klein was too injured to go anywhere I wasn’t too worried about turning my back on him.  I checked his pockets for weapons anyway.  I felt a cell phone but figured it was irrelevant.  My gun was at a safe distance in my left hand just in case.  But as I checked the inner confines of the van I missed Klein going into his hip pocket for his phone. 

There was nothing in the back of the van since the dead guy rolled out somewhere back on the highway.  However, streaks of blood were throughout.  The other shooter Klein had with him was dead in the front passenger seat.  He was bleeding from several areas of his forehead and face.  That and the fact that he was slowly being swallowed up by the flames engulfing the front end of the van.  Help him?  He was dead already so what did I care? 

I turned back to Klein only to see him fiddling with his cell phone.  He looked to be typing in a phone number or manipulating the screen to select an app.  The fact that I was watching didn’t seem to faze him in the least. 

              “I don’t know,” I heard Klein say from his spot on the ground.  I walked back over to him.  “The van wouldn’t start and the little bastard must’ve run off.”  He tried to sit up but leaning up on his left elbow was the best he could do. 

              “Did you send more of your goons after him when you saw he was gone?”

              Klein laughed again.  “Ah, what the fuck do I care?  He was worth shit to me anyway.  I let the little bastard take off.”  He slumped back onto the ground, too weak to prop himself up on his elbow.  I stood over him again with my gun raised to his chest.

             
Go ahead, do it!  Don’t you see how good it feels to shoot someone?  Just like riding a bike.  Now pull the fucking trigger already!

              My conscience was scolding me so aggressively that my knees collapsed a bit beneath me.  My arm was steady enough to keep Klein’s chest in my crosshairs. 

              “You are one sick son of a bitch” I said.  “Is that why you became a principal?  To scoop up kids like Esteban to be your fucking lackeys?”

              “Esteban never worked for me but I did know what he was about.  I’ve built myself quite the empire over the last ten, fifteen years and once I found out Jamal was trying to push his petty shit into my areas I figured Esteban would give me some inside information on how to get rid of him,” Klein said.

              “The kid’s just twelve years old.  Innocent kid getting caught up in your shit games.  Manipulating weak and vulnerable minds,” I said.  The smoke from the burning van was beginning to make my eyes water.  The heat from the flames made my back sweat.  Klein tapped some more on his phone and suddenly let it drop on to his chest only to slide off into the grass.  The screen was facing me and I could see a timer rapidly ticking away.  Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen…

              What the hell was that for?  What was going to happen when that timer hit zero?  Klein propped his head up off the ground and caught me looking at the phone.  “Oh, that?  I’m sure you’re wondering what that’s for, right.  Am I right?”  He coughed up blood, spit, then continued.  “When that device hits the zeroes that little bunker you so conveniently discovered in my house goes kablooey.”

              I was stunned.  “What do you mean?  You’re going to blow up your own house?”  I considered how he’d figured it out it was me inside his house but that was not an important question at the moment. 

              “Yes, sir,” Klein said and coughed some more.  His voice was weakening and I could hear his chest wheezing now.  “I’ve always had it ready to go.  Just in case.  Most people line the walls of their basements with insulation; I lined mine with C4.  The entire basement is lined with it.”

              This guy really was one sick fuck.  I thought about lunging for the phone and attempt to stop the timer but I figured it wouldn’t do any good.  He must have the phone rigged somehow, I thought.  At the same time, I wanted his house preserved for when the cops get in there to gather up what I saw.  I didn’t want his entire arsenal of illegal drugs and guns to disintegrate.  I didn’t want Klein to get off that easy.

              Suddenly, a clan of police cars pulled up around my Santa Fe.  Of course, they were all caddy- cornered, blocking the right lane of traffic.  Didn’t they know that that was one of my pet peeves?  Fitzgerald exited one of the unmarked cars and made a bee line straight for me.  His facial expression told me that he wasn’t too thrilled with the situation and the scene that had unfolded and was somehow going to blame me for it.  I was still standing over Klein’s crumpled body with my gun raised.

              “What the hell’s going on, Barnes?” Fitzgerald yelled. 

              I put my gun back in my jeans and stepped away from Klein while a couple uniformed cops I didn’t recognize forced Klein to his feet.  An EMT assisted getting him to the ambulance.  Fire trucks and a slew of firefighters ran through the process of dousing the flames of the van.  I was too focused on the timer casually ticking away on Klein’s phone.

             
Nine… Eight… Seven…

              Fitzgerald beckoned me again like a master disciplining a disobedient dog.  He used his left hand to wipe sweat off his upper lip and forehead.  “How the hell did you get wrapped up in this?”  He used his right hand to pan the scene.  Traffic began to congest as drivers became intrigued with the scene on the side of the road.  I showed and explained the phone to Fitzgerald and he instantly entered panic mode.  He began tapping the screen frantically but apparently once the detonator was triggered there was no override button or any way to pause the timer. 

              The bomb was going to blow the house and the rest of the block, if not the entire town, to bits and there was nothing any of us could do about it.  We were at least forty- five minutes to an hour from Klein’s house.

             
Four… Three… Two…

              Klein was perched up on his right elbow, casually glancing in our direction.  I saw an ugly smirk on his face.

             
One…

             
That must’ve been it.  There was nothing anyone could do about.  Somewhere in the distance a massive explosion just rocked the quiet block of Ringwood.  I was convinced I could feel the vibrations of the explosion in my brain.

              As we walked back to my car, I unfolded the entire story.  Fitzgerald was always good at listening to reports, despite how outlandish and ridiculous they may have been.  I told him about Jerry Finch.  I told him about Klein’s use for each of the two storage units he purchased.  And I told him how we ended up in a high- speed car chase and the fiery crash.

              “So, where’s the kid?” Fitzgerald asked when I was done.

              “Klein doesn’t know.  He said Esteban took off when he was loading them in the van.  None of the kids were in the van.  Klein said they were put in another car when the van wouldn’t start,” I said.