Reduced Ransom! Read online

  “Grab the damn phone, now!” Mickey screamed through the door.

  Dell gently took the phone from Janice, fumbling for the disconnect button as he made his way toward the door. Mickey opened the door, as Dell exited the paper bag brushed against the door frame, turning sideways on Dell’s head and completely blocking his vision. He walked out of the room, feeling his way with his arms outstretched for the few final steps while Mickey slammed the door closed and checked Janice through the peephole.

  “Hey, by the way, I’m lactose intolerant,” she screamed at the door waving the note about dinner. “Morons,” she mumbled under her breath.

  “What the hell was all that?” Mickey yelled and batted the paper bag off Dell’s head. “Are you nuts? Did I not say it was to be a very short conversation? And you’re in there afraid to interrupt her. I’m surprised she didn’t hand you the phone, so you could talk to Huey. From now on we stick to business. Next thing you know, you’ll have her calling the cops and inviting them over for dinner. And let’s get something better than this,” he kicked at the paper bag on the floor. “Get a damn stocking cap and cut some holes in it.”

  “What color should it be?”

  “Color? I don’t care about the color, Dell. Just get an old one. Cut two eye holes in it and use that. Okay, I gotta go get us some dinner, Chinese since pizza is apparently out”

  “You want me to ask her if she likes Chinese?”

  “I couldn’t care less what she likes,” Mickey said peering back through the peephole. “She’ll eat what we serve, lactose intolerant or not. Give me that phone, the sooner we get rid of this damn thing the better,” he said.

  * * *

  “Ashley,” Huey Evans said leaving a phone message at Janice’s house, once he’d looked up the number. “This is your Grandfather, the one that talks to you. You, or that mother of yours, give me a call as soon as you get this, no matter what time. First one to call me gets twenty bucks,” he said, then hung up and drummed his fingers on the desk. This was just too stupid to be the real deal.

  Chapter 9

  Huey attempted to speak to his granddaughter as he drove home from work. “Ashley, turn down that damn racket in the background, I can’t hear myself think. Put your mother on the line.”

  “I don’t know where she is,” Ashley yelled over the music. “She was supposed to be at Luther’s two hours ago working the dinner shift until ten tonight, but I don’t know if she’s really there. She didn’t bother to come home and make me dinner, and there’s absolutely nothing good to eat here.”

  The noise thumping in the background was beginning to drive him crazy and he yelled into the phone. “Ashley, turn that down. I can’t hear what the hell you’re saying. Is her car there?”

  “Mom’s?”

  “For God’s sake, Ashley. Turn that dreadful music off so we can talk. Thank you,” he said in response to the sudden background quiet. “Finally, you’re gonna blow out what little brains you have, listening to that stuff. Now, is you mother’s car there? Has she been home?”

  “I already told you. She hasn’t been home, there’s nothing good to eat and I don’t know where she is. So there.”

  “I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes, but don’t hold me up. I got a lot to do tonight." He hung up, wondering, could this really be on the level? God, the woman was over thirty and still a pain in the butt.

  * * *

  They drove in silence, her grandfather preoccupied, maybe more than a little uncomfortable in her presence. Ashley thinking there wouldn’t be anything to do at his house and she was going to miss out on whatever fun might happen tonight.

  “Did she mention anything about where she might go, a doctors appointment or anything?” Huey asked.

  “I already told you, she didn’t say anything. Besides, she’s so worked up about her stupid old job, she doesn’t give a shit about me." She glanced sideways to see if he’d react to her swearing.

  “So, far as you know, she’s at work. Any guys hanging around lately?”

  “Guys? You mean men? With mom? Oh, gross,” Ashley said, and shuddered.

  Huey couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there was something about the kid that made him want to hit her. Right here in the car. Perhaps it was the sense he really shouldn’t, that made the idea seem so appealing.

  “Come on, Ashley” Huey said, waiting for his granddaughter to catch up to him at the back door. “Now, I got just one rule. It’s my only rule. Don’t touch a goddamned thing.”

  “Whatever,” Ashley said and slipped on her head phones.

  Huey called Luther’s restaurant and learned that Janice had been fired effective immediately for not showing up. He still wasn’t sure this might not be another Janice stunt, stick him with her kid for a night while she was out on the town. Right now, all he wanted was a cold beer and a shower before he went out for the night.

  “Look kid,” he said, forty minutes later. “Here’s twenty bucks, get yourself a pizza, okay? I got a meeting I need to get to. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Twenty bucks?” she said, looking at the two ten dollar bills he handed her. “I’ll be lucky if they put cheese on it for twenty bucks. It’s more like thirty, especially if I want something to drink with it.”

  He peeled a twenty off the stack of bills. “Save me some,” he said and walked out the door.

  Chapter 10

  Ashley watched Huey back out of the driveway, then waited at the window for a few more minutes, just to be sure, before she began to explore.

  His house was certainly nicer than home. No junk piled on every available flat surface, the kitchen counters clear, no ripped furniture, no broken springs in the couch, the walls were even clean.

  She searched through his bedroom drawers, but found nothing of interest. She looked under his bed and only came up with empty suitcases. She pawed through his office, finding nothing much but stacks of papers and boring pictures of Huey with rows of dead ducks, dead deer and some old car. She found a five dollar bill in a desk drawer which she figured he would never miss and then . . . there, way in the back, a gun.

  She carefully pulled it out of the drawer, set it on the desk, and looked at it from a number of different angles. She held it in her hand, surprised at the weight of the thing and the coldness of the steel against her fingers. She held it out directly in front of her, aiming. It was heavy and kept sinking toward the floor. She steadied it with both hands, extended her arms, fighting to keep the pistol level.

  She struck different poses in front of the full length mirror downstairs. “Freeze, gorgeous,” she yelled at her reflection. She stuck the pistol in her waistband, but it was so heavy it fell onto the floor. She put it back in her waistband, rested a hand on the grip, and struck different poses, angling her hips. She imagined walking into a bank and getting a hundred dollars. Or, into a designer store and just taking all their really cool tops. Maybe she’d get a gun tattooed on her back.

  Of course, a lot of kids had probably held a gun, but how many could say they had actually pulled the trigger? Looking out the window, she figured it was dark enough.

  She stood in the driveway, her back to the street and in her mind, completely hidden. The shades were pulled in the house next door. The garage was in front of her and all anyone would see from the street was a fifteen-year-old girl standing in the driveway.

  Still, she would have to be fast about it. Wouldn’t it be cool to wear the bullet she shot around her neck, like, well, forever? Beautiful and dangerous. Get a bullet tattooed on her back, maybe that could be her new name, Bullet. Everyone would know her name. Even her stupid teachers would be afraid of her.

  She quickly brought the pistol up with both hands, aimed at the double garage door no more than five feet in front of her, turned her head to the side, closed her eyes, and began to squeeze the trigger. She squeezed the trigger, hard, and just as she was thinking ‘this sucks’ . . . BOOM!

  She stood still for a very long mo
ment before coming back to life. Thinking, Oh. My. God. Thrilled with the rush of excitement. She had seen enough movies to know she should walk slowly and quietly back into the house, not rush, and not hold the pistol out in front of her for everyone to see. She knew all that, but she ran anyway, banging the gun a couple of times against the door as she hurried to get back inside.

  Once inside she wondered who she should call first? Well, of course, Tara. She returned the gun to the desk drawer. Then decided to get the bullet before she called everyone and got the word out, Ashley “Bullet” McGregor was in town.

  The garage door was one of those wooden things, wide enough for two cars. Ashley’s aim had put the round perfectly at eye height, and just a yard or two to the right of center. This was so cool, she thought, seeing the hole, knowing her bullet was right there. She was more than a little disappointed to find out she could put her finger through the hole, but then, how cool was that?

  Yeah, ‘Bullet’ put her finger in the hole. She imagined long, red, manicured nails, one of her fingers wearing a bright gold ring sliding into the bullet hole. She had big boobs, a little top and all these really cool boys were watching her. She had great designer jeans on, expensive heels. Real heels, not the old lady kind her mother or teachers wore, but real, sexy heels.

  She walked around to the side door, wondering how ‘Bullet’ was ever going to find the bullet. Hoping it would be rolling around on the floor, shiny, maybe gold or silver.

  “Wow, cool!” she said out loud, stepping into the darkened garage as an automatic light immediately flashed on and there directly in front of her sat the shiniest, reddest, ’56 Chevy she had ever seen. It was also the only one she had ever seen and she had no idea it was a ’56 let alone a Chevy. It was just this really cool car and she forgot all about the bullet for half a minute as she stood in awe, gawking.

  “Cool” she said out loud and that was just about the time she saw the windshield, with the hole in it and the cracks radiating out from the hole in all directions, a spider web pattern. ‘Bullet’s’ bullet hole.

  To say she panicked would be an understatement. She would have run home, hidden there, if only she’d known the way, but she hadn’t a clue which direction to go.

  Chapter 11

  Twelve years ago, Huey had told his wife at the time, this was about two years before she divorced him, that he got the ’56 Chevy in honor of her.

  “But I don’t particularly like cars, and I can’t drive a stick shift,” she’d said.

  “Yeah, I know that, but red’s your favorite color and that’s what counts.”

  “Ahh, you’re so sweet,” she said, thinking he wasn’t and taking an instant dislike to the car.

  Truth be told, he’d paid cash for the thing in an effort to show off to a girlfriend. She dumped him a few weeks later when she learned he was already married. But in the process, Huey learned the car was a great chick magnet, if you liked women who drank too much. Huey liked them just drunk enough so they couldn’t testify and thus began his love affair with the car. The same car that was now sitting in his garage with the shattered windshield.

  Whatever personality traits Ashley’s long gone father may have brought to the gene table fifteen years ago, they had been trumped by Huey’s genetic cards. She quickly concocted a scheme and with the help of a gallon of gasoline from Huey’s lawn mower, she set the garage ablaze. Then ran in the house, jumped into bed at possibly the earliest hour in the last five years.

  Huey knew nothing about any of this until he pulled into his driveway some nine hours later, and was greeted by the smoldering ruins of his garage and the charred remains of his ’56 Chevy babe magnet.

  “Ashley, Ashley, damn it, wake up. What the hell happened out there to the garage?”

  “What? What?” Ashley said sleepily, having practiced what to say. “Grandfather? Oh, Grandfather, I’m so glad you’re here. I was so frightened, there was a fire and—”

  “I can see there was a goddamned fire. What the hell happened?”

  “The fire department came and put it out, they left a card and information. You’re supposed to call in the morning. I left it all on the kitchen counter, so you’d see it. No one was hurt,” she added unable to resist getting a dig in, then switched gears. “Did your meeting go okay?”

  A message, Huey figured, ignoring her question. These kidnappers sent a message. They knew he wasn’t home. They were probably watching him all night, he thought and began a mental rundown of the few faces he remembered from the bar. These guys aren’t kidding. He’d been playing them for fools, but if they would do this, they weren’t fooling around.

  Chapter 12

  It was a little after eleven the following morning, when Huey drove Ashley home.

  “You sure your school doesn’t start until noon?”

  “Yeah, gee, I already told you, some in-service work shop bullshit,” she said giving her best effort at educational double speak. “Why don’t you ever believe me?”

  She was barely out of his car when he growled, “Okay, I’ll be in touch. Tell your mother to call me when you hear from her, kid,” he said, and drove off, leaving ‘Bullet’ standing at the curb.

  “Whatever.” ‘Bullet’ had the day off.

  * * *

  “Huey,” Marty called from behind the cash register as Huey entered the liquor store. “This came through the mail slot sometime after close last night." He waved an envelope with ‘Huey Evans’ typed on the front in large block letters. Huey took the envelope without saying a word and hurried into his office just behind the gin and vodka shelf. Even before he opened it he had a pretty good idea what he was going to find.

  He opened the envelope and read the brief instructions.

  ‘Get one hundred thousand in twenties, non-sequential numbers and await further instructions.’

  Who in the hell were these guys? And, how did they know he had over a hundred grand on hand? How did they know the one thing that would grab his attention faster than anything else was to go after his ’56 Chevy? Who were these guys that they knew nothing frightened him more than fire? Not a knife, not a gun, not a bomb, not threats, or physical violence, but fire scared the living daylights out of him.

  He knew one thing, he was going to pay these guys, take his lumps and hope to God they left him alone. He really didn’t care about his stepdaughter, Janice. But the car, the fire, that made it very personal and suggested strongly that he would be next if he didn’t play ball, now. A hundred grand, if it got these animals out of his life, a hundred grand was chump change.

  Chapter 13

  That damn Dell, thought Mickey, pulling the blaze orange stocking cap over his head. “Damn thing smells like a tackle box, the eye holes don’t line up, God. " It hadn’t dawned on him that he was wearing the same clothes as when he first enticed Janice McGregor into his car, only now he was balancing a plate of scrambled eggs, sausage and toast with a napkin and silverware stuffed into his shirt pocket.

  He watched her through the peephole for a few moments before knocking softly on the door. “Excuse me, ma’am, I’ve got some breakfast for you.”

  She remained still, lying in bed, her left leg clear up to her soft white thigh was exposed, she appeared to be sound asleep.

  He quietly opened the door, set the plate and silverware inside the room, closed the door, and began to tiptoe up the stairs.

  “What, no jelly? And I could use some coffee,” she suddenly called

  Chapter 14

  All Huey had done since he read the note was sit at his desk drumming his fingers, trying to find a way out of this mess. He always arrived at the same conclusion, just pay these guys and hope they left him alone. He occasionally got out of his chair, opened his safe to check the hundred grand, making sure it somehow hadn’t disappeared in the past ten minutes, then return to his desk, drum his fingers and wait for the phone call.

  When the phone finally did ring he stared at it for a few moments before picking up. “Yeah?�
�

  It was one word, but from the tone, Mickey immediately knew it was Huey Evans and for a moment he felt like the frightened little boy from years ago.

  “Huey Evans?” Mickey asked in a voice that sounded a lot like a cartoon character.

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you read our instructions?”

  Again with the voice Huey thought, like this is some kind of funny joke to these animals. “Yeah.”

  “Do you have . . .” Mickey had to pause and inhale more helium from the balloon.

  Huey waited, straining his ears, wondering what in the hell was going on.

  “Do you have the money as instructed?”

  “Yeah,” Huey said, beginning to wonder a little more.

  “Excellent, we’ll be contacting you in forty-five minutes." With that Mickey hung up the phone, wiped the payphone receiver with a towel and drove across town with a back seat full of helium filled balloons.

  Huey, stared at the receiver still in his hands. These bastards are so slick, he thought, it’s all a funny game to them, animals, absolute animals.

  Thirty minutes later Mickey called, this time from a payphone in the next county. He was more than a little bit nervous and although he hadn’t had a cigarette in sixteen years and four months, he had one going now.

  “Yeah,” Huey answered almost immediately.

  “Are you ready to begin?” Mickey said.

  Huey thought, again with the voice. “Yeah, let’s get this over with.”

  “Place the money in a box, drive to the corner of County Road B and Dale Street. There’s a payphone, we’ll call you,” Mickey said, then hung up, not waiting for a reply.