The Cage (6 page)

Roy crossed his fingers. “Let’s hope so.”

Jeff frowned. “She wouldn’t try to come here, would she?”

“Oh shit!” Scott stopped in mid-step and smacked his forehead with his palm. “I didn’t think about that. Fuck!”

Roy, Jared and Jeff stared at him. Scott’s eyes grew wider. He moved his hand from his forehead to his mouth.

“If she shows up here, she’ll see that my car is still in the parking lot. That means she’ll knock on the door. At the very least, she’ll peek through the glass—try to see if I’m in here. If that crazy fucker sees her…oh my God! I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to…if Amanda…”

He whirled around, crossed the floor in two quick strides, and gripped the chain links.

“Hey,” Scott hollered. “Hey, you out there! You’ve got to let us out of here. You can’t just hold us like this. You’ve got to—”

Jeff leapt to his feet and grabbed Scott by the shoulders, pulling him away from the fencing. Scott resisted, clutching the wire mesh with both hands. The chain links rattled and jingled. Scott was hyperventilating, and his breathing echoed throughout the warehouse.

“Chill out,” Jeff said. “Damn it, Scott, calm down. Don’t give the fucker the satisfaction of knowing that you’re scared.”

“Jesus Christ,” Scott sighed. “Jesus fucking Christ. Amanda, dude! Amanda…”

Jeff guided him to the center of the cage and gently forced him to sit down. Scott’s breathing was still rapid and loud.

“She’ll be okay,” Roy offered. “It’s not even eleven yet. It will be a long time before Amanda begins to worry.”

“Roy’s right,” Jeff said. “Let’s just stay calm and figure this shit out. No reason to give him a show over that security camera.”

“I don’t think he’s watching,” Jared said.

“Why?” Jeff asked. “You seemed convinced that he was earlier.”

“When he came in the last time, he didn’t mention anything about you guys going through the junk box. If he’d seen that, I would think he’d have been in here right away, or at least commented on it.”

“Maybe he saw that we didn’t find anything useful,” Jeff said.

“He seemed surprised when he saw Clint getting ready to piss,” Roy pointed out. “If he was watching us on the camera, you would think he’d have noticed how Clint was standing. He was holding his dick and practically hopping up and down on one foot.”

“The gunman’s probably been too busy with Carlos,” Jared suggested. “And with Clint, now. Too busy to watch the cameras.”

None of them replied. Jared’s words seemed to hang in the air. The ventilation system rattled to life again. They sat in silence, each man lost in his own thoughts until it kicked off once more. Finally, Jeff stirred.

“It’s awfully quiet out there. I haven’t heard Carlos or Clint or…anything.”

“They’re okay,” Roy said. “They have to be.”

Jeff nodded without much conviction. Jared covered his mouth with his hand, sneezed, and then wiped his palm on his pants. Scott stared straight ahead, arms wrapped around his knees as he rocked slowly back and forth.

“Clint’s been in worse situations than this,” Roy said, grinning. “Hell, we both have. Many times. You guys ever hear about the time we almost got arrested at American Appliance?”

“I don’t think so,” Jeff said.

“It was before any of you guys worked here, right after Bumble…Bill, opened the store. Clint and I used to be the ones who had to go around to all of the competitors’ stores once a week and price shop. These days, that’s Alan’s job.”

It was,
Jeff thought.
But I don’t think he’ll be doing it anymore.

“Anyway,” Roy continued, “me and Clint were in American Appliance one day. We were dressed down so that we wouldn’t stick out like salesmen. We had our little notebooks with us, so we could jot down model numbers and prices, and then come back here and make sure our store stock was marked down to beat their prices. Anyway, Clint used to like to fuck with the other salesmen. He’d tie them up for thirty or forty minutes, keep them busy pretending that he was shopping for a big screen or a home theatre system—run them through all their paces, and then of course walk out without buying anything. The theory was that real customers would get tired of waiting and come to our store instead.”

“Pretty slick,” Jeff said.

“It was. But that day, he picked the wrong salesman to mess with. Turned out, the guy knew who we were because he’d been price-shopping our store. He recognized us right away, but he toyed with Clint for a little bit. The guy kept telling Clint that he should buy it there, rather than at Big Bill’s Home Electronics, because all of the salesmen at Big Bill’s were crooks—especially a guy named Clint. He kept saying stuff like that. Clint got pissed off. The tips of his ears were red, he was so mad. And then the guy told him that he knew who Clint was, and to get the fuck out of the store. Well, that didn’t sit well with Clint.”

“What happened?” Scott asked.

“Clint took a swing at him. Knocked the guy backward into a fifty-two inch Panasonic projection screen. I dragged Clint out of there but not before their manager called the cops. Luckily, they didn’t press charges.”

Jeff and Scott laughed. Jared smiled. “Crazy bastards,” Scott said.

Pausing, Roy smiled. “Clint used to do things like that all the time. I can’t tell you how many strip clubs and bars I’ve pulled him out of before he could get in a fight. And now…”

His smile faded. His bottom lip trembled.

“And now he’s out there and I’m in here and there’s nothing I can do to help him…I can’t pull him out.”

“Hey,” Jeff said. “Don’t think about it that way, Roy. Like you said, he’s been in bad situations before. If anyone can talk their way out of a jam, it’s Clint. Besides, if the crazy dude had killed Carlos or Clint, we’d have heard the gunshots. We haven’t. It’s been quiet. Chances are good that they’re still alive. He said he needed the six of us.”

“Then what’s he doing with them?” Jared asked. “He’s been out there too long for this to be a robbery.”

“I don’t know,” Jeff replied. “Maybe he did have a partner. Maybe they pulled a box truck up to the front door or something, and he’s making them help him load up stuff—all the floor models and display units.”

“But if they were doing that, then we’d hear them.”

“Not necessarily,” Scott said. “We can’t hear shit when that ventilation system is running. Maybe most of the noise happened while it was on.”

“They’re not dead,” Roy insisted. “Jeff is right. They can’t be dead.”

“But how do you know for sure?” Jared asked.

“Because they just can’t. Now let’s just focus and try to stay positive, okay?”

Scott snickered. The others glanced at him.

“What’s so funny?” Roy asked.

“Sorry. I was just…it’s weird, the shit your mind turns to in a situation like this.”

“What were you thinking about?” Jeff asked.

“Fuck Around Quotient Zero. You guys remember that?”

They nodded, and Jeff laughed. On slow weekdays—days when the store averaged less than a dozen customers from open to close—the salesmen did things to occupy their time. One of their favorites had been an ongoing discussion of the greatest action movie ever made. They would be the ones to make it, just as soon as one of them hit the lottery or became independently wealthy. The movie would star actors both living and dead—Bruce Willis, John Wayne, Jason Statham, Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Keith David, Harvey Keitel, Lee Van Cleef, Mickey Rourke, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Fred Williamson, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Jack Nicholson, Lee Marvin, Kurt Russell, Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steve Buscemi, Michael Madsen, Tom Sizemore, Jackie Chan, Rutger Hauer, Thomas Jane, Christian Bale, Christopher Lambert, Charles Bronson, Ice-T, The Rock, Lee Majors, Ken Foree, William Shatner, Sean Connery, and Chuck Norris. The plot, such as it was, involved putting all of the actors together on the set and letting them shoot guns at each other for two and a half hours. There would be lots of explosions. And the title—the title was perfect.

Fuck Around Quotient Zero.

“We could use some of that right about now,” Jeff said.

“Yeah,” Scott agreed. “That’s what I was thinking, too. I god-damned guarantee you that Jason Statham would have been out of this cage by now.”

“Well,” Roy said softly, “you’re not Jason Statham and I’m damn sure not Clint Eastwood.”

“You’re old enough to be,” Scott teased.

“Fuck you.”

“I still think Hollywood ripped us off,” Jeff said. “The Expendables? That shit was our idea.”

The four of them sat down in a circle and waited. The air ducts banged and thrummed each time the ventilation kicked on. Occasionally, one of them would stretch or lean against the wire mesh, rattling it. But otherwise, the warehouse was silent. They sat like that for a long time before they became aware of a new sound—a different sound; one that they weren’t used to hearing. It was barely audible—so slight, in fact, that at first Jeff wondered privately if he was just hearing things. He was the first to call it to the others’ attention.

The noise was coming from the store—an electronic hiss. Not quite static, but close. It lacked the rhythmic, staccato roar of static, and there was a high-pitched whine beneath it, barely noticeable.

“What is it?” Scott whispered.

Roy shrugged. “The emergency broadcast system, maybe?”

Jeff tilted his head and listened. “No. I can hardly hear it, but it’s not that. This is something different.”

Jared stirred beside him, then slowly got to his feet and walked to the door of the cage. He stared out into the ware-house.

“It sounds like outer space,” he said after a moment.

Scott stood up. “What are you talking about?”

Jared turned to face them. “NASA has this thing on their website where you can listen to audio from one of their deep space probes. It sounds just like that.”

“Sounds more like tinnitus to me,” Roy said. “That’s what I thought it was, at first. I get ringing in my ears sometimes.”

“You never told us that,” Scott said.

“That’s because I didn’t want you guys making fun of me. Clint and I get enough old men jokes around here.”

“Could it be tinnitus?” Scott asked.

“Not unless you guys are suffering from it, too. You hear it too, right?”

“He’s turned on the televisions,” Jeff said, joining Jared alongside the chain link mesh. “That’s all it is. A signal of some kind.”

“I’m telling you,” Jared insisted, “it’s outer space. That’s the same sound the stars and the sun make.”

“Stars and suns are the same thing,” Jeff said. “And that’s stupid, Jared. How could he possibly have located a signal from outer space?”

“Maybe he’s on the NASA website. Maybe he got Carlos or Clint to patch it through one of the home theatre stations or the audio board.”

“Too bad he couldn’t patch through some Wu Tang Clan instead,” Scott joked.

Jeff noticed that Roy had an intense look of concentration on his face. The older man’s head was tilted slightly to one side. He frowned, listening. The lines and creases around his eyes and mouth and nose seemed to deepen.

“What’s up, Roy? What are you thinking?”