The Incident (Chase Barnes Series Book 1) (31 page)

              A voice began to echo through the open storage unit.  No, check that, a scream.  At first, I couldn’t make out what the voice was saying but then it became clearer and more profound the softer and more faded the voice became.  It was saying, “Source, man, I’m hit.” 

EIGHTY FIVE

Source. 

              Just like the name written on the slip of paper I found in Jake’s box.  Could this be?  Could I really be lucky enough to find the son of a bitch that supplied my son the drugs that indirectly led to his death?  My luck never worked in such favor.

              I stood rock steady, ready for a chance to ‘buss a cap,’ as they say, in the other goon hiding in the unit.  I wasn’t completely confident that it was suddenly one on one because, unless I shot the one not named Source in his shooting hand, there was still a chance I was outnumbered and could be ambushed.   I wanted to try another tactic.  My conscience was trying to ask me what it would be like to see all that blood again but I was able to tell it to shut the fuck up and leave me alone.  Now wasn’t the time.

              “Hey, pal.  Either you come out or I come in.  Either way, one of us is going down and I got a safe bet it ain’t gonna be me,” I shouted.

              I heard a laugh, then: “Yeah, you think so, muttafucka,” he shouted back. 

              “That’s what I’m telling you.  You got two choices.  One is you drop your gun and kick it out into the hallway.  The other is you continue to stand there ready to shoot me and I’ll put a bullet right through your fucking teeth.”

              For what seemed like an eternity, neither of us made a move.  Suddenly, I said, “We can treat this like Burger King and have it your way or we can do it my way and you die.  And since I don’t feel much like being hospitable, there’s a good chance this is gonna go down my way.  Either way it doesn’t look like this is going to end too well for you.”  I couldn’t believe the amount of confidence and adrenaline that was pulsating throughout my entire body and through the words out of my mouth. 

              All I heard was another thuggish giggle.  “You a funny muttafucka, ain’t ya?”

              “No comedy show here, buddy,” I replied.  “But I’ll give you one more choice just because I’m feeling extra nice today.  The first two options are still on the table or you can tell me where Esteban is and we’ll pretend like nothing happened and we walk out of here like we’re on a class trip,” I lied.  There was a beat of silence, after the echoes of our shouts evaporated.  Then I could hear the one I hit struggling to breath and gurgling for air.  It was then that my knees got weak and I felt as if my entire body was going to collapse right then and there.  Those sounds reminded me so much of Jake and the last breaths I’d ever hear him take.  The image of holding his head upright hoping there was some miniscule chance that he’d return to me.  Fortunately, I was leaning my body weight into the cement column between the two units and I wouldn’t let myself collapse.

              Before I could give him a chance to answer, I swung my left hand over the side of the unit and fired two shots.  One pinged and panged off of something metal and the other must’ve caught some flesh because I heard an agonizing scream after I retracted my body.  I figured he was just injured and potentially could fire retaliation shots if I exposed myself.  So, I waited.

              “All right, man.  You got it.  You got it.”  And suddenly, two guns were sliding their way into the hallway, resting between Jerry Finch’s lifeless lower extremities.  I went in, still locked and stocked with my gun pointing at the man lying on the ground, blood gushing from a gunshot wound to the right thigh.  I pulled over one of the metal folding chairs and took a seat still holding my gun steadily targeted on the bodies in front of me.

              Somehow, Fitzgerald crawled into the front of my brain once again and I remained firm on my stance not to call him.  However, I did consider how he would react once he found out how the recent string of events turned out.  A flash of lightning lasted longer than the thought.  Would he somehow hold me responsible for Jerry Finch’s death?  At this point I didn’t care.  Finch made a stupid move and paid the price for it.  That one was on him.

              I approached Source with a level of aggression and frustration I’d never felt before in my life.  Punching his teeth in and forcing him to choke to death on them crossed my mind.  Shooting his left eye out, leaving the right so he could watch me dismember his extremities limb by limb also crossed my mind.  I even pondered using his own severed limbs to beat him senseless.  Nope.  I wanted him to live.  Source wasn’t going to get the satisfaction of getting off that easily.  I wanted to him to give me information.  All I could think was his name written on that slip of paper stashed away in my son’s private possessions in the basement.  Pacing around his writhing body, I couldn’t take my eyes off the blood pouring out of the gunshot wound to Source’s inner leg.  Suddenly, flashes of Jake reentered my brain.  The way Source was lying on his back was nearly identical to the formation Jake’s body took when I shot him that night.  I wanted to look back at Source and watch him bleed to death but I couldn’t.  Closing my eyes didn’t make Jake’s thoughts dissipate.

All I could feel was the sudden onset of another panic attack.  The flushed skin.  The sweaty palms.  The shortness of breath.  The straw that broke the camel’s back was getting up from my seat and running into the corner of the storage unit to throw up. 

EIGHTY SIX

While Chase Barnes was upstairs being a panic- stricken, vomiting pansy, Barry Klein was outside gathering up Esteban and the other boys.  He was marching them out to the same black van that transported Esteban after the first night he disappeared.  Klein was growing so impatient that he was beginning to think irrationally.  This was a negative trait of his that had hindered him throughout his entire life and was even pointed out by his superiors and subordinates at work.  He’d been documented by his superiors on a couple of occasions for excessively punishing a staff member for improper conduct.  This didn’t surprise me at all.

              Esteban was still bounded by the wrists, this time in front.  His rage had ebbed and flowed during the duration of this entire ordeal.  With malnutrition and excessive fatigue well underway, Esteban had been experiencing blurred vision and severe headaches for longer than he could remember.  Klein stood the boys shoulder to shoulder, backs against the sliding door to the black van.  All of the boys had their hands bounded in front of them with thick plastic zip ties.  Esteban eyed the other boys, all appearing to be just as fatigued and mentally drained as he felt.  Suddenly, Esteban’s impulsivity began to pique for the first time in about a week.  He began scanning his surroundings, attempting to plan an escape route.  He actually wanted to run.

              Klein strolled around the front end of the van and entered the driver’s side to start up the engine.  He slapped the wheel a few times as the engine coughed and sputtered.  Esteban’s window of opportunity began to grow by the second once he heard the van’s engine stall out.  In front of Esteban was a vacant parking lot but thought it was too wide open, which would give his captor a clear shot at taking him out.  To Esteban’s right was a six- foot high fence running the entire length of the parking lot, separating the storage facility from private property adjacent to it.  If Esteban had all of his wits about him and enough strength he would be able to hop the fence in a single leap.  Not to mention the hindrance of his wrists being bound in front of him.  The van blocked Esteban’s view behind him so he decided his best escape route was to his left, which led out to the front of the storage facility and out into the streets of Paterson.  Streets he cruised with his friends on a nightly basis.  Streets he knew like the back of his hand. 

              He heard Klein still fiddling with the keys, still trying to kick start the engine.  The other boys on both sides of him were sluggishly leaning their bodies against the van, trying to conserve as much energy as they could.  God only knew what was in store for them next.  Frankly, Esteban didn’t give a shit about the other boys.  He was out for himself.  He didn’t want to stick around and find out.  Without a further flash of hesitation, Esteban took off with his hands still bound in front of him with a thick white police- like zip tie. 

EIGHTY SEVEN

Aside from nearly being hit by three cars while crossing Prince Street, Esteban darted into the confines of an apartment building.  He didn’t know where to go from there.  His mind raced too quickly for any type of rational thought.  Knowing well enough the amount of strange looks and bombardments of questioning he would receive, Esteban had to be careful where he chose to go because of his zip- tied wrists.  He tried his best to conceal them but his short t- shirt was unable to hide them.  And it was virtually impossible to conceal his wretched scent and disheveled appearance.

              Home wasn’t an option because he was afraid of the reaction he’d get from his mother.  Afraid that his mother would choose to keep him restrained in those zip ties.  Fear that his mother would take advantage of the restraints and his vulnerability and beat him senseless for sneaking out in the first place.  Somehow this whole experience would turn out to be his fault, which was partially true but Esteban’s choice to be a drug runner never intended to pan out quite like this.  In due time, Esteban would begin to feel his imprisonment under Klein’s orders were a walk in the park compared to the punishment he would receive at home.  He just knew from previous experiences.  What little extended family he had in this country lived just far enough to reach by foot so that option was out. 

              Passing several eateries and delis that he frequented, Esteban’s lightheadedness was working its way down through the rest of his bloodstream.  But there was no stopping now.  He didn’t know whether or not Klein knew he was gone but more importantly he didn’t care.  There were no screeching tires in the distance.  There were no loudmouth screams shouting for his return.  As far as he knew, Esteban was in the clear. 

              He had to reduce his jogging to a slow walk before he passed out and was found lying in the middle of the sidewalk like some of the homeless folks he’d seen in his neighborhood.  Come to think of it, Esteban thought, he was starting to smell like them too.  This was the first sense of freedom Esteban had felt in a near lifetime and wasn’t about to let a severe bout of fatigue knock him down now.  Adrenaline was beginning to flow freely now and rejuvenate his body and he wished he had a skateboard.  He could cover nearly three times the distance between Klein and himself if he had his wheels. 

              Esteban found a narrow alley between a dry cleaners and a Chinese food restaurant to safely hide and rest.  What’s the irony of that?  Esteban, who’d been in the same clothes for the last week that could use a freshening up and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a solid meal.  Now, here he stood, in a deserted alley.  One side was a place he could possibly snag a new outfit and on the other side he could ask for one of his favorite things to eat- sweet and sour pork and pork fried rice.  The smells made the lining of his stomach begin to bubble and rumble so hard it hurt to breathe.  He’d frequented this Chinese restaurant plenty of times but was unsure if the employees would recognize him if he were to walk in.  He wanted to give it a go but looked down at his wrists again, which sparked a search of the alley to find something to cut the zip ties and break free. 

              The alley stretched back nearly as long as the entire city block and was very dark even in the midday sun.  Esteban found a few items he considered sharp enough but were either too thick to fit between his scrawny arms or weren’t as sharp as he thought.  Finally, Esteban found the edge of an exposed rain gutter that jutted off the edge of the building.  At first, he had difficulty gaining enough momentum to carve through the sturdy thick plastic.  Once Esteban adjusted his footwork he could see the transparent plastic handcuffs begin to whiten where he was driving the jagged metal rain gutter through the miniscule opening between his wrists.  The rain gutter caught flesh a few times, leaving scrapes and skin abrasions, but Esteban didn’t care.  He’d purposely done worse things to himself.