Emily Kimelman - Sydney Rye 03 - Insatiable (22 page)

Her eyes were bright and she pointed the gun at the bodies again. “They forced me to do this. They gave me no choice.”

“That’s right, dear,” Blane said. He intercepted her before she stood directly over me. “Now let’s get everything done that we need to. I’m sure the police will be here soon.” Ana took her eyes off me and turned to look at him. She nodded. “When this is over, everything is going to be just perfect,” he told her.

“I think it already is,” she said.

The smell of blood was heavy in the room and I was sucking the taste of adhesive with every breath. Blane kissed Ana Maria lightly on the forehead and then moved back to the bar. He dumped the clip out of his gun and emptied the chamber before coming back to me. He forced the gun into my hand, curling my finger around the trigger. I sort of tried to resist but what with the not breathing really, the being all bound up and the general confusion, he got my fingerprint on the trigger with little difficulty.

“You think you’re some kind of a hero, don’t you?” Ana Maria asked me. Blane turned to look at her and I thought I saw a flash of fear cross his face. “You think you can be some kind of avenging angel or something. You’ll build your little army and help the less fortunate.”

I looked up at her and filled my eyes with ice. She smiled. “You do think you’re a hero.” She leaned in very close to me. Her cheek almost touched mine as she whispered into my ear, “We don’t need another hero.” Sweat trickled down from my hair and slid around my eye. Her breath was even and calm. It was clear to me that Ana Maria was not a victim. She wasn’t caught up in some older man’s scheme. She was a sociopath. And I was her inspiration.

The tape ripping off my face made me shout in pain and shock. I took some big breaths, the skin around my mouth tingling. She pulled out a knife, it glinted in the overhead light. I squeezed myself back into the chair and raised my bound arms. She laughed.

“I’m not going to cut you. I’m letting you go.” I darted my eyes to catch a glimpse of Blane. He was putting the bullets back in the gun. Ana Maria crouched in front of me and gnawed at the tape around my ankles with the knife. Once she’d cut through it she peeled it off my pants and laid it on a nearby table.

She stood up, took aim at the safe in the wall and opened fire. I threw my hands over my head and curled into a ball. I heard the ping of bullet against metal and just hoped it wouldn’t ricochet into my head. The firing stopped and I peeked out from behind my hands. Ana Maria was smiling down at me. “Here,” she said, and threw me the gun. It was headed right for my face. I blocked it with my wrist. It hit that little bone on the pinky side.

“Ow, fuck,” I said. The gun landed at the side of my chair.

“Pick it up,” Ana Maria said.

“You pick it up, you dumb cunt,” I said.

Her lips quivered. “Pick it up.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Sydney, be reasonable,” Blane interrupted.

I looked over at him. “Are you as bat shit crazy as her? Did you catch it while you were fucking her or is it something your mom gave you?” His face turned red and I smiled. “Why don’t you pick it up, bitch boy? That will make your little tyrant here happy.”

“We’re going to let you go.”

“Let me go? Let me go? Really? You’re going to let me go.” I stood up and Blue came to my side. I took off his muzzle. Blane raised his gun.

“If you shoot me, won’t there be questions as to why I’m bound? Why there was duct tape residue all over my wrists and ankles? Why my mouth is red and raw? These are the kinds of questions cops ask. Especially when a fucking senator has been killed.”

Blane kept his gun trained on me. “Look,” Ana said. “How about I cut the tape off your wrists and you just leave through that window?” A siren wailed in the distance and we all stopped to listen.

“I guess we’re running out of time here,” I said. I looked from one of them to the other. Ana Maria’s expression was blank, but Blane’s eyebrows were forming a nice little furrow above his nose. The fact was I needed to get out of there for all our sakes. I was, after all, already a criminal on the run. It wouldn’t take them long to figure out who I really was. I glanced down at my bound hands.
 

Ana Maria held up the knife. “Let me cut you out of that.” I held my wrists toward her and she sliced right down the center. I unwrapped myself and let the used tape fall to the carpeting. The sirens were getting closer. I backed toward the open window. Ana Maria smiled and Blane kept his gun focused on me.

I climbed onto the ledge and looked out into the darkness. The jump was only about three feet into some bushes. Blue went first and landed on the lawn. Beyond him was the empty street with the wail of the police getting closer. I followed him into the darkness.

SPEAKING OF HEROS

I landed in the bushes. They were a dark, hard edged leaf that scratched at my bare arms. I heard a bullet fly through the air over my head. I stayed low as I pushed my way out onto the lawn. Blue was lying down, his face pressed into the dew soaked grass. I belly crawled over to him. The thwap of the gun stopped.

The street was empty except for several dark cars. The dew covered them too. In the street light the cars looked like they’d been bedazzled. The moisture was soaking through my shirt and pants. I stood up and so did Blue. I started toward the street figuring that at least I could get into a neighbor’s yard and from there onto another street. The other houses on the block were dark. I looked back at the mansion I’d just jumped out of. It was ablaze in electric comfort.

The sirens were very close now. My body was taught. It felt like a spring ready to bounce. “Hello,” a voice whispered into the night. I froze. I could feel my wet clothes sticking to my skin. A light came on in a house at the head of the street.

“Joy?” I looked down at Blue. He was focused on a nearby parked car. I strained my eyes and saw that the driver’s window was down. I looked past it and saw the tell-tale red, white and blue lights bouncing off buildings. A window in the house directly in front of me filled with light.

The sirens were so loud that I didn’t hear the sound of my feet hitting the pavement as I raced across the street. I yanked open the back door of the car and jumped in. Blue followed. The driver did not wait for directions. The car pulled out into the street and sped away. I looked out the back window. Ana Maria was standing in the window watching me drive away.

“Are you alright?” the driver asked me as we merged into city traffic. A buggy cab in front of us blew its horn. I could see the silhouette of the cabdriver’s fist pumping in the air.

“Who are you?” I asked, sitting up for the first time since getting in the car. The woman turned to face me.

“It is me, Izel,” she said.

I leaned forward and recognized her face. “You look better in person,” I said.

She laughed. “You are referring to my picture on the web.” I nodded and leaned back into the seat. My clothing was wet and it stuck to my skin in that obnoxious way that wet clothes do. “I am a different woman since that picture. You have given me new purpose. New life.”

I closed my eyes and didn’t respond. What could I say to that?

“You are a hero,” Izel said.

I laughed. “No honey, you’re the hero. You just seriously saved my life.” I could see her beaming in the rear view. “What were you doing there?”

“I have been watching the house like you told me. When I could not reach you I figured I just keep doing what you say and you would contact me again. And now you have.”

“Have you heard from Easy or anyone?”

She shook her head. Izel had shoulder length dark hair. It was the kind of thick, straight stuff that I dreamed about when I was kid. Growing up blonde left a soft spot in me for luscious, long, dark locks.

“Where do you want to go?” she asked.

“Somewhere safe. You know of anywhere like that?”

“How about my house?”

“Sounds lovely.”

Izel’s neighborhood was a twenty minute drive on quiet streets. The buildings were about five or six stories. Their large windows and detailed facades told of a better time. Now, half the windows were boarded and the gargoyles were missing their wings. Izel parked on a wide street and turned the car off. “Here we are,” she said. Izel turned in the seat and smiled at me. “May I pet him?” she asked.

“Sure,” I smiled. Izel’s eyes grew wide as she reached her hand out. Blue stretched to sniff her fingers. Then he shot out his tongue and licked her wrist. She giggled and pulled her hand back.

“I bet you guys will be good friends soon,” I said. Climbing out of the car I reached toward the sky and stretched. My body felt bruised and tired. I needed to shower, sleep and then I would think. Then I would figure out what just happened and what came next.

Izel lead me up crumbling steps, past a door from behind which a baby screamed. The smell of clean laundry mixed with the scent of onions cooking. Izel opened a large door. She flipped a switch and a shaded lamp lit the room. The place had high ceilings, huge windows and a fireplace. Izel hurried around tidying up the living room, moving magazines into piles, putting pillows in the corners of the couch. It was a cozy place. It reminded me a little of my apartment in New York. The furniture was mostly found, but instead of looking used it appeared loved.

“It’s wonderful,” I said.

Izel beamed. “You want some food or something?” she asked.

“Yes. And something to sleep in.” Izel left the room. I sat down on the couch feeling the weight of my limbs. Izel came back with a pair of sweat pants and a T-shirt three sizes too large. I took off my damp clothing and pulled on her dry ones. She brought me a pillow and a blanket. I laid down on the couch and put the blanket right up to my chin. Blue climbed onto my feet and tucked his face under his back leg.

Izel went to work in the small kitchen that covered the back wall of the living room. The sound of chopping and the clinking of bowls felt like a lullaby. I closed my eyes and listened to the crackle of chicken frying. Izel hummed a song I didn’t know. The melody continued into my dreams.

Izel’s voice drifted across an open field. I was standing in the center of it, the perimeter lined with palm trees. I heard a scream and turned around in circles but all I saw was the empty field. Then my mother was right in front of me. She was crying and the tears were carving tracks in her thick makeup. I turned away from her and looked down at my feet. I was suddenly sinking into the ground. I struggled, trying to pull my feet out and flailing my arms but it didn’t do any good. I tasted dirt in my mouth and I breathed it in my nostrils. Izel’s sweet humming was drowned out by the mud filling my ears.

SOMETIMES ALL YOU NEED IS A GOOD “TO DO” LIST

The blue light of dawn flowing through Izel’s windows woke me. I didn’t know they were Izel’s windows at first. In fact, I was pretty sure they were mine. That I was in New York and my windows were just really big. But after a couple of blinks, turning onto my side and a yawn, I figured out where I was.

Blue was awake, too. He sat at the foot of the couch and whined at me. “Hungry?” I asked. “Me too.” I sat up and rested for a minute with my elbows on my knees and my forehead in my hands. I looked down at my feet and thought that I needed a pedicure. Then I thought about what a stupid thought that was in a situation like this. I stood up and stepped right into the coffee table, smashing my shin so hard that I actually had to sit down, hold it, and squeeze my eyes shut. “Shit,” I said in a pained whisper. Blue whined at me.

“All right, all right, I’m going.” I rolled back into a sitting position and this time was careful to avoid the coffee table on my way toward the kitchen. The pale light coming through the windows made the place look like it was filled with mist. On the counter was a note. Izel’s handwriting was small and tight. Each letter carefully drawn. I looked down at Blue who groaned impatiently. “It says here you already had your dinner, young man.”

He stretched his front paws foreword, stuck his tail in the air and whao-whaoed at me. “It says there is chicken in the fridge for me, and she gave you yours.” Blue sat and wagged his tail. “I’m not falling for it.”

I opened the small fridge. It was clean, not like my old one with its sticky stains where juice spilled and was never cleaned. I pulled out a plate covered in tinfoil. It said in the note that I could put it in the oven at such a temperature for such and such an amount of time but I just took the cold plate back to the couch.

Under the tinfoil was a chicken breast, yellow rice and beans. I had to go back to the kitchen for a fork and when I looked back at the couch, Blue was sniffing awfully close to my food. “Hey,” I hissed. He skulked away. The food was amazing. I love cold chicken and this was some of the best I’d ever had. I piled beans and rice onto my fork and took bites way too large for me. I swallowed and got that weird pain in my throat when you’ve taken in too much.

I breathed for a minute and the feeling passed. “What I need,” I said to Blue, “is to make a list.” He was lying on the floor looking at my food. “I need to figure out what I need to do.” I took another heaping bite of chicken and went back to Izel’s note. Next to it was the pen she’d used to write it.

I went back to the couch taking the note and pen with me. The paper was blank on the opposite side and I wrote at the top of it: Things To Do. I took a bite of chicken and sat back looking at it. A fine beginning. Then I wrote a 1 and put a circle around it. A bite of rice brought me to the conclusion that the most important thing was to find out what happened to Easy and Dan in that alley, were they OK? Did they need my help? I wrote down: Locate friends.