Number 8 (30 page)

“Um.” This doesn't look familiar at all. My mind has gone blank like a map written with invisible ink. The
electric feeling is ebbing away and I'm standing in a small pool of fear.

“Someone's coming!” hisses Asim and we start to run. I have no idea where we're heading but the instinct to just move, anywhere, pushes us down the corridor. We're pounding along when I hear the
ping!
of the slot machines and suddenly I remember this big room full of machines and Mom's description of the bar around the corner. There was something about the bar she used to laugh at, something really false like a stage set.

“What is that smell?” asks Asim.

I stop a second and sniff. It's sweet, making my saliva glands work. Banana, maybe, or no, there's something beachy about it, gritty. A tingly feeling starts at the back of my nose and I see sand and palm trees.

“Coconut!” and the map in my head appears as if it's been dipped in lemon juice. I pull Asim along and we race toward the bar. I try not to slow down as we pass the palm leaves billowing in the air conditioning, but I catch a glimpse of someone sitting on a stool and a woman behind the bar. The woman's eyes meet mine for just a heartbeat and I see they're blue and horrified and widening with surprise.

“Hey!” she yells, but we're gone, around the corner and hurtling toward the elevators.

“Who was that? Did you know her?”

“Yes, but we can't stop now.” The electric energy is flooding back and I have such a certainty in my guts that we only have minutes left. You can't stop to chat or explain when there's no time and only
you
can save your girlfriend.

I press the button on the wall twenty times. Come
on
! I tell it, bashing my fist against the steel. Girlfriend. That's what she is. That's what I'd like her to be. For the first time
I let myself put that word with Esmerelda Marx. Suddenly I can no longer live with the idea of my girlfriend being trapped in a cellar even for another minute.

“I hate elevators,” says Asim. “I always try to avoid them. Are there any stairs?”

Just then the doors open and I grab Asim and pull him inside.

I stand staring at the row of numbers as the doors shut.

“Press something!” shouts Asim wildly.

“I don't know, I can't remember!”

“Just press anything. We're not going to Tony's office alone, are we? We have to find a phone first.”

I'm staring at B1, B2 … Something oddly familiar. That's it! “Bananas in Pajamas,” I shout. “The second one!”

Asim stares at me. “Now I'm really worried. You've lost it completely.”

I press B2 and in two times four we're there.

We creep up the red carpet. Asim is whispering in my ear, his feet dragging. “Can't go in there by ourselves … this is crazy … we'll be kidnapped, too…” but I'm not listening to him. Every cell in my body is alert, concentrating. We are so near, I can feel it. Behind one of these doors, there is my girlfriend, Esmerelda.

And then I see it. The plaque on the third door. TONY SERENO. I stop, and put my finger to my lips. Asim draws in his breath.

The door is open just a little way. Maybe ten inches. We freeze against the wall. I creep forward like a spider, slow, si-lent. I can feel Asim tugging at my shirt, trying to pull me back. I shrug him off and put an eye in the narrow doorway.

There's the room, just as my mother described. I can see
a table and a large Persian rug and at the back of the room a couple of chairs. Empty. Opening the door just a fraction, I peer at every corner of the room to make one hundred percent sure no one is there.

“Now!” I hiss at Asim. I go straight to the rug. “We've got to look under here for the opening to the cellar. Ez will be in there—I'm certain of it. You pick up that end.”

But Asim is just standing in the middle of the room, gaping. He keeps making a clicking sound in his throat, as if he's starting to say something but can't get it out. But it's all right because when I pick up the corner closest to the table, I see a panel of wood with grain running in a different direction. I pull back the rug further and see it's a door in the floor and there, almost under Asim's feet is the lock set deep into the wood like a plug.

“This is it,” I whisper to Asim.

He nods, still speechless. His mouth hangs open like one of those clowns you see at fairs.

“It's okay,” I say. “We'll be quick now. But I'm going to have to yell. Go and close the door, lock it if you can.”

Like a robot he goes to the door and does as he's told.

I put my mouth right near the floor and shout, “ESMERELDA!”

I wait, cupping my ear to the boards. Nothing. I yell again, shouting my name, too. “CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

Asim is kneeling down now, too. “They're not
there
. Oh, what will we do? Maybe they've gone. Maybe they were never here.”

The confidence in my gut is beginning to melt away. I could dissolve into a puddle on this floor. I study the dial on the lock of the trapdoor—it looks like the lock on a safe, with numbers etched into the steel all around the face
of it. We'll have to find the right combination of numbers. Oh, God, I didn't think of that. I didn't think of any of this. I don't know how I could have been so stupid. I look at Asim's white face. And now it's not just me in this mess, I've got my best friend in it, too.

I start to twist the dial. A last spurt of hope makes me think maybe, like the door, it won't be locked, maybe it will just spring open. Under my fingers it twists all around, clockwise and anticlockwise, but nothing happens. It's locked all right.

“It must work like a safe,” I say, “you know, it'll only respond to a certain pattern of numbers.”

I yell again, my voice cracking on the last syllable. The loudness scares me to death.

“Jackson, quick, did you hear something?” Asim has his ear to the floor. “Listen.”

There's a thumping right under our knees. Then a familiar angry voice comes through the floorboards. “Jackson, you nerd, is that you?”

Asim and I whoop like at a soccer finale, falling over and hugging each other.

“Badman, you maggot!” I shout. “Have you got Esmerelda there?”

“Yeah, but she's hurt. Broken her arm. Get us out of here!”

“Where's Tony?”

“What? We've only got a minute, less. That Tony guy and Rocky, they said they'd be just five minutes. They must have already been twenty. We're gonna be cooked unless you hurry.”

“Okay, okay. But this door is locked. We need to know the combination.”

“You're the math genius, you figure it out!”

We're all silent a minute. Odd or even, prime, composite, rational, squared? How do you choose? Where do you begin? Favorite number patterns must be one of the most personal things on the planet. Wouldn't the combination of your safe express your personality? For instance, if I had to pick a combination, I'd choose even numbers ascending by four. Or maybe you'd choose your birth date. But none of us knows what preferences Tony has, except for kidnapping, extortion, and drug dealing.

“Jackson?” I nearly fall over again. It's Esmerelda!

“Are you okay?” I screech at the floor. “Oh, it's so good to hear your voice!” But now I can't think at all.

“Jackson,” she calls, “Rocky told us that Tony's favorite game is blackjack.”

“What has this got to do with it?” Asim says. “Mine is Scrabble. So what? Look, they will be back any minute. We should go and get help.”

“The object of the game is to be the first to twenty-one,” I tell him.

But Asim has gotten up and is prowling around the room. I hear him stop at the desk and scrape back a chair.

“You're really distracting me—” I turn around and see him give a little jump of delight. He's looking at the phone on the desk.

“Thank God, call 911.”

He nods, his eyes dancing.

I try to go back to thinking about twenty-one. That is a real clue. Such an ugly number, twenty-one. The optimism of two followed by the disappointment of one. I shake my head. I'm going nowhere. Just crazy. The sweat is dripping off my forehead. I twist the dial to twenty-one. Nothing.

Think
, Jackson.

A low moan makes me turn around.

Asim's face is grey as ash. “The phone is dead.” His voice has no emotion in it. It's as lifeless as his face.

“Okay, let's work with what we've got. Twenty-one is not a prime number, that must give us some clue. What are the multiples of twenty-one?”

“Twenty-one and one, three and seven—” Asim stops suddenly and comes over. He kneels down on the floor, his knees cracking in the silence. “777, does that remind you of anything?”

“Yes! Rocky's license plate.”

I wipe the sweat off my forehead. My hands are slippery and they're shaking so much I couldn't even hold a pencil.

“Do you want me to do it?” Asim asks gently.

I nod and we change places. He wipes his hands on his shirt and settles his knees directly behind the dial.

“Hurry!” comes a yell through the floorboards.

“Take your time,” I tell Asim.

Carefully, he positions his fingers so he has a good grip. He turns it to seven. He waits a beat then turns it again. Another beat and he turns to seven for the last time. We wait. I close my eyes and open them. I can't bear it. Can't bear the waiting.

Nothing happens.

“Okay, we'd better get out of here and see if we can get help,” I say. I start to get up. My knees crack in the silence. I feel like an old man.

“There must be something else,” says Asim. “If there is seven, there must be a three and a one. They are the factors of twenty-one.”

“Try it.”

He takes a deep breath and stretches his fingers. He places them carefully around the dial.

“Jesus, just do it!”

One, two, three. There is a loud click and in one amazing moment the lock snaps open and Badman's ugly head bobs up.

“Glory be to God!” shouts Asim and falls on Badman's neck.

I can't stop grinning. I could damn well kiss him, too, he looks so good.

“Get off, you crazies, and let me up!” As he steps up onto the floor I can see he can't help the smile on his face either. It's like a giant crack in a rock.

“Never thought I'd be happy to see you nerds,” he says, and cuffs me so hard on the shoulder I stagger. “Where's the cops?”

“Well,” Asim begins but I'm busy lowering myself down the stairs.

“Hi, Jackson,” says Esmerelda, “I knew you'd come to save me.” There are tears on her face and she's in her pajamas. Her black hair is all mussed around her cheeks, sticking to her tears. My throat is choked and I'm not thinking anymore.

“I love you,” I tell her, and bend to kiss her.

“Quick, get her out of there!” Badman's face appears at the top. “What are you doing? There's no time for that!”

“You're always in the way, aren't you?” I say. But he's right. I don't know what came over me.

“Can you walk?” I ask her.

“Yes, just help me up.
Aagh
,” she winces, “not that arm. It's killing me.”

Her eyes fill with tears from the pain. I wish I could take
the pain from her and have it myself. I have such a flood of wanting to protect her forever, so that she never has to feel this hurt again.

“Come on!” comes the shout from above.

Gently I put my hand under her other arm and lift. She stands, tottering a little, then climbs slowly up the steps.

“Ez!” cries Asim and throws his arms around her.

“Careful!” She holds her hurt arm at the elbow, at a small distance from her body.

We all look at her arm. It's twisted around so that the inside is facing out. An acid bile shoots into my throat.

“Who did that to you?” I ask. I want to break something, smash something to smithereens.

“Who do you think?” says Badman.

“They threw us down the stairs,” says Ez. “Where are the cops?”

I wish people would stop asking that. Seeing Esmerelda like this, I can't quite believe I came here without them. A weight of guilt falls like a boulder into my stomach.

Then the scrape of a key in a lock makes us freeze.

The door opens and a tall man in a suit walks in. Another built like a gorilla comes in behind him. They stop dead, staring at us from the other side of the table.

“Well, well, well, what have we here?” says the tall man, looking from one to the other of us. “I could have sworn we left just two children here, isn't that right, Rocky? And now there are four. They must have multiplied while we were gone, how very peculiar.”

“Like bacteria, eh, boss? Their cells divide real quick and next thing you know, you've got a full-blown army on your hands—”

“Oh, go and sit on
yours
why don't you, you useless
gorilla.” The tall man's voice drops its smooth tone and he goes over to the desk and picks up a whiskey bottle.

“Tony Sereno,” I say. I'm surprised to hear my voice. I thought I was just thinking his name to myself.

“Jackson Ford, I presume,” says Tony. “At last.”

We stand and look at each other. I try to balance my weight equally on my two legs. A gym teacher told me once you can feel your center of gravity running in a straight line if you do that. I need something now to center me, or I could float off like a particle of dust into the air. My heart is racing so fast I can hardly breathe. Let alone think what to do.

“Have you come to rescue your little friends? Well, you're a bit late. You were my first choice, I'll have you know, but Rocky here made a small error. So now we'll just have to reconsider the situation.” Tony's voice is light, as if he's considering buying apples or pears.