Anticipation

 

The bus depot is quiet. An hour to kill before departure. No more calls to make, the bag has my best gun in it, the one with the laser sight. There is another gun, the small one, in my coat here. The letter is in my back pocket and I have the ten crisp new one hundred dollar bills from the retainer in my wallet now, nine folded and hidden and one handy, mixed in with my own money. I have my ticket and I am well fed. I am to meet "Mike" tomorrow at the Detroit bus station, the one in Royal Oak, and he will give me a key to a locker there, and final instructions. Same old same old. This one feels different, not sure how.

An hour to kill. Thoughts of that new girl. What is her name? Anticipation. Anticipation about the new assignment. Another job where I only know what they think I need to know, nothing else. Get in, do it, get out. Man alone. No problems. Just another shadow easing out into the darkness and blending, invisible. I hate this. Watching all the other shadows, knowing that one of them will finish me, the last one is the only one that I need to worry about. I know you like more of a plan, but sometimes it's just time to roll, and let things unfold. Ready for the discovery of new surprises, new opportunities.

An hour to kill. Buses come and go. I hope my bus is not late. Suddenly it's here. Easy seat, nobody else gets on. Nod to the guy in the full length black leather jacket watching me, he looks away. Always somebody bored on the bus, watching is the only thing to do at that hour. Driver counts the heads. Then we go. 

Now it's time to dream. There is my new girl Anticipation, all warm and soft, glowing.

She is seeking my hidden spots with her hands, roaming deeper, unbuttoning, pulling zippers. We are on a small boat, below deck. There is no sign of land, just her and I. How long have we been sailing? Nothing matters, it's the ocean and our passion. Rising and falling, we are mixing together like breezes and ocean spray. Rising and falling, slowly then faster and faster and faster yet, building to a climax. She makes those little yelping noises. The boat groans. The sea eases slowly after the climax. Miles melt away. Dawn is here.

The bus pulls off the highway and into Detroit, the station is a few blocks ahead. I wonder what this Mike guy looks like. Let me take one more look at the letter. I find my wallet, my driver's license says Studebaker Hawk. I love that name, got it from a song. Wait, what is this? The money is gone. All of it. So is my bag and my coat. So is the letter. The wallet has been emptied except for the fake drivers license and my luggage is gone. Why did they leave the drivers license? It's all gone, even my coat. It's all gotta be on the bus. How long was I sleeping? My shirt is still wet, so is my seat. Where did we stop last? Toledo. 

Holy Toledo. Bad joke. Not a time for chuckles. Or maybe it's the best time for chuckles.

It's a two way street and I sure do not know everything. Time for some big decisions. A new plan. Take a look around. Tell me what you see. Tell me what to do next. I have no idea. Lost.

Something is very wrong. Mike is here but he is wearing my coat. He is laughing at me. 

He is showing me my gun in his hand. He motions toward a waiting van. Somebody is behind me. They put a hood over my head. Now it's all black.

We ride for hours. Out of the city, onto the highway. Then onto a smaller road. Lots of stops and starts. Must be small towns. We have lunch and are waiting for something, a phone call. More driving, more small towns. Hours go by.

Somebody tells the driver to slow down, but there is only sickening laughter. We go faster and faster yet. Somebody is shouting and swearing. The van turns sharply, then starts to fishtail back and forth, now everyone is shouting. Then the van tips over and rolls.

I wake up and it's quiet. I pull the hood off. It's night. How long have I been there? There are three other people in the van, two are obviously dead, nobody can bend like that. Mike was driving. He is dead with his eyes open and my coat is ruined. Not sure about the third guy. Seems to be moaning softly. I am getting out of here, I seem to be okay probably because they had me on the floor behind the front seats. The third one looks familiar. I think he was on the bus, must have been watching me. 

Dirty blond hair and a full length black leather coat.

The van is sort of sideways in a marsh, the road is up above. I am soaking wet and it's cold. Muddy. Time to walk into the night, get some miles between me and trouble.

Here is a small town. Springport. I find a laundromat and there is a woman in there who is bored. I seem to be entertaining. I explain part of my story, kidnapped, broke, and a stranger in a strange land. She allows me to put my muddy clothing in with her next load. There is a lost-and-found box of clothing that nobody has claimed over the years, so at least I can change into something while my clothes get cleaned. Nice lady, lots of fun. The clothing in the lost-and-found box is all goofy, I am wearing a red pajama top with Spongebob patterns and white corduroy pants that are too big. There is nobody else around and it's three in the morning. She makes me laugh and I make her laugh. She does not believe me about the van, so we never talk about it again. Warm clean clothes on a chilly morning. Things just might be getting better.

She has to go to work, she is a waitress at a restaurant in a place called Albion. So what the heck is an Albion? She drives me there and now I am walking on Superior Street. There is a movie theater. It's about five in the morning, the restaurant opens at six. More waiting. Nobody is stirring yet. I have the whole town to myself.

I am looking at a movie poster and suddenly I know what to do.

Back to the parking lot where the waitresses' car is. Takes a minute or less to get it started without the key. Back to the crash site. It's still dark. I park just a ways up the road and walk back. The van is still there, like a dead animal. Dirty blond hair/black coat is gone. I check the other two wet bodies. Mike’s dead body is stiff now and stuck on the steering wheel, but I get him out and check him more thoroughly. There is some money in his sock. Too dark to count it, pocket the money and move on. Now to check the other guy.

I hear the car start up and drive away. What am I going to do, run after it shouting? Back to work. At least I have some money now. What else?

The day is starting, it's getting light now, but I am not finished. I find the bag but my good gun, the one with the laser sight, is gone. I need to get this wrapped up and slip away before anyone else shows up. Who drives by here? A couple folks on their way to work, I do not think they can see me here. Keep going through the wreckage. Check the other body. Broken neck. Nothing, nothing and nothing. A little more money. Another cell phone, this one looks like it works but it's wet. Time to go. Grab everything I can, and vamoose.

Looks like the police are here, as I creep into the swamp I see flashlights play on the wrecked van. I also see the red and blue lights on the cop car roof. My luck is good if I can get out of here without them seeing me, at least I have some money and whatever is left in my bag. Also the wet cell phone. The battery is ruined, the little lights flickered and went out.

Reviewing the situation.

Mike either did what he was told to do by either the big boss man or someone else, or he decided to go into business for himself.

My resources now consist of the money I took back from Dead Mike, and my bag, minus the pistol with the laser site. The coat is ruined.

I do not have the letter.

The man with dirty blond hair/black leather coat is not with the other two dead guys. He may have stolen my stolen car. He may be seriously injured. He may be looking for me. He may be long gone. He may be right behind me.

The police have the van, they have two dead bodies that have been stripped and searched after the accident, and they have probably have a report from the waitress of a stolen car that they have no reason to associate with the van. Maybe it's good that the car is not nearby just now. Thank you masked man.

If Mike was working for the competition, then Mr. Crimson would want to know about it. If Mike was assigned by the big boss man to eliminate me, then going back to the big boss man would not be such a good idea. (Here I am! Come try again!) Unless I could make it pay I should stay invisible for now, or take some kind of revenge, or maybe flip around and work for the competition myself. I know stuff about the big boss man that they might want to know. I do not know enough to start my own company. Yet.

If Mike was freelancing or had been employed by the competition, I would be best off going right back to Mr. Crimson and continuing from there. I just don’t know.

I would like to stay hidden and get some answers before deciding on what to do next. Whichever pays the most, that is the only rule. That, and staying alive another day. And staying out of the hoosegow.

I wish I had taken the time to read the letter, I had not even opened it. I don't even know if it's got any answers. Someone thought it was important enough to take it from me. Holy Toledo.

There is that cell phone. There may be something I can do with it. How about a new battery? Probably any gas station will have a replacement battery, well, any modern gas station. That means going back to Albion, the closest place I know of.

Right there in the gas station, pop in the new battery, press REDIAL. “Raymond? I thought you said you lost that phone? Where the hell are you? Is Hawk dead? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!!?” Say nothing. That is not Mr. Crimson’s voice. Jot down the number. The area code is 314. The cell phone crackles. There is a wisp of smoke coming from the lifeless cell phone. Shake it, it sputters and is dark and silent. That is the end of that. Phone booth in the gas station has an old phone book with an area code map in the front. Area code 314 is St Louis. Is it a fake number? That would be the professional way to do things. Are these guys that clever? Of course they are. Did they push a button and cause the cell phone to fizzle and die? Seems expensive. So is prison.

It's a nice morning, might as well walk around Albion.

In the back of the police car is the man with dirty blond hair, wearing his black leather coat. That is him, the guy on the bus and the guy at the van wreck site. No doubt about it. The man locked eyes with mine and he kept his face blank. He knew who I was. I knew who he was. He was the one in the police car and I was the one watching him from the outside, ready to walk away. But there is more to it than that. He is the guy on the bus that robbed me. He knows stuff that I want to know.

The waitresses car was smashed up in front, the tow truck was almost ready to take it away. I would guess that she had phoned in the theft of her car and that the small town cops spotted him right away. All the cops know all of the waitresses in these small towns and they know her car and they all know somebody stole her car. They gave him chase and he failed to navigate the small town backstreets. Squeal Crunch. Another out-of-towner for the slammer.

I wonder what he is going to tell them, he could be smart enough to make trouble for me.

He just looks at me as he sits in the back of the police car, burning a hole in my head. I know where he is and where he will be for at least the next few hours. He may be busy there for years to come, or he may walk before it gets dark. I must be ready either way. This is the moment when I have the upper hand.

How can I find out the answers to the big questions, who is the guy they have? Why did Mike turn on me? Is Mr. Crimson himself against me or not? I could ask somebody directly or I could stay hidden and try to figure it out for myself. That would probably be better than asking around and sticking my neck out asking for a swift slice. Besides, there may be new opportunities now that the cards have tumbled. It's a tricky situation, things happen quickly.

Maybe this is a good time to just walk away and never look back, start something new.

#

Need answers? Talk to a reporter. There is a local newspaper in Albion, but it's rather sleepy. The Albion Recorder. There is a news intern from the college who does the local beat. Not bad looking either. 

She likes pizza. We are at a place called Charlies. I hate pizza and I hate bars, but I need to know things and the intern reporter Sharlyn has the answers, or it's her job to go get answers. I can’t go to the police station to find out what happened to the van or the dead guys or the real story about the guy they nabbed.

She likes older guys. Thank God she does not smoke cigarettes. Without connecting the stolen car to the van, I suggest to Sharlyn that she ask some questions at the police station.

She takes the bait. For the most part she is ahead of me, but I put some new ideas into her head. It's a small town and the news intern already knows the cops here, they call them Safety Officers and they do not live here, they just drive here to work. Hard times at city hall.

Two dead John Does in the van, no priors. The van is registered to Raymond Kochinski of Ypsilanti Michigan. Ray told the police that he had no idea it was missing from his storage garage until they called. No idea who took it or when. There is no storage lot for the police, so it's going back to him as soon as they have finished with it.

Sharlyn is going to the court hearing to find out the story of the mystery boy in custody.

Mystery boy turns out to be Iggy Sales, also of Ypsilanti. Unknown occupation but he was last convicted of robbery and spent his time in the Jackson prison. Small time bad boy. Only been out of the slammer for a couple weeks. Round and round they go, in and out.

He is released until the hearing, his family posted bail. He is gone, never to be seen again.

I go to Ypsilanti to see what I can find out about Ray, the cops (and Sharlyn) have no real reason to connect him to Iggy except for Ypsilanti, but who knows, maybe more will turn up there.

I am traveling in a rented car, I find Ray’s address. I am parked nearby just watching. It gets dark, I wait a bit longer and then decide to take a closer look. I leave the car and walk around the block, paying close attention to Ray’s building. The garage is not locked, I am looking around.

The red dot appeared right in the center of my chest, I dropped to the floor and the wall behind me took three bullets in rapid succession. I roll and get behind a parked car, lying flat and looking across the floor for feet or whatever I can see in the shadows. I see the red dot bounce all around the wall above me and then across. They do not know for sure where I am now, I can tell by how the red bouncing bead is searching. I try the old trick, throwing a pebble and the gunshots hit right where the pebble fell. No noise please. If I wait too long there will be backup, if I just run I probably will see more of that red dot. That is probably my red dot.

There is a door behind me, it's open. The shooter is in front of me somewhere in the dark. How quietly can I clear out? Maybe I should try to take out the shooter, maybe get my gun back. If there was more than one guy out there they would be talking to each other and there is no other sound just now. In the movies those guys use hand signals. No other sound here except the sound of me listening and the sound of the shooter searching. The silence of the red dot bouncing around on the walls and every surface.

That is when I heard the dog. I like dogs. I keep a couple doggie treats in my pocket just to make friends. I leave a couple treats behind and toss another pebble across the garage and use the sound of the gunshots to mask my skedaddle. As I leave I hear the dog find the treat. Keeps him busy for enough time to get me out of there.

Rather than go right back to the car, which is not parked far enough away, I decide to stick around and see what turns up. I climb up into a kids treehouse across the street and lie flat. The dog follows me out but refuses to leave the property. Good training, at least it's good for me now. I am watching for hours. There are flashlights in the garage but no light comes on. I cannot tell how many people there are. The dog is watching for me, he knows I am here but he is trained not to bark, just to look mean. He is good at his job. Like a good neighborhood dog.

I can wait here all night, I can leave before it gets light, I can stay up here through the rest of the next day and watch and get some answers, or I can think of something else.

Anticipation. The boat. The sea. Rocking in the boat. There is a nice breeze and the tree house rocks just enough to make this a pleasant place to be right now. 

If I climb down right now, the dog will bark at me. If I wait until it gets light I might be either seen by the folks in the house here, or discovered by the kids who built this tree house. It does not look like they spend much time up here, and the view of the house is rather limited, so I will just wait here and watch, see what the Raymond Kochinski household contains.

Somebody brings the dog in at about noon. At one I am back in my car, not finished watching. I might as well come back later and see what I can find. Maybe Sharlyn has something new.

Iggy Sales never made it back to his hearing, no surprise there, so he is out there somewhere, probably with my gun, and that was probably him last night shooting at me in the garage. I think I will see what I can find out in St Louis, and let Ray’s house cool down.

In this job small things, patterns, can be trouble. Some trouble is just imaginary, some is deadly. There also can be too many clues, so it's a balance between staying alert and keeping the pace forward. On the drive down I kept thinking I was being followed, but then they would exit. The small signs add up to more than the sum of the parts, and that is my biggest problem. Just because someone is trying to kill me does not mean that they are any good at it. Of course, they only have to be good once. It's better to be careful and always watching and live to play another day than to make any preventable mistakes.

The reverse listing of the telephone number in St Louis leads to an apartment building downtown, near the river. It's an old city, the roads are crowded and the bridges are all rusty and look like they are going to crumble away. When I check with the apartment manager, there is a new tenant there now who is just moving in today, no forwarding address for the previous one, who moved out sometime last week without giving notice, just one morning they were gone and they left a mess. Not the kind of mess where you just drop and run, but the kind of mess where you load up the keepers and just drive off. Probably after I made that cell-phone call they decided to change locations. None of the neighbors that I talked to had any idea of what was going on, nobody said nothing.

I got back to Ypsilanti, put the dog to sleep with a special treat I prepared. Not to kill the dog but to make him extra sleepy for that night. The garage has the van back, it's a mess, it was towed and has the police writing on the broken windshield, the date and location it was found. No red dots tonight. Nobody home as far as I can tell, but I see there is a fancy alarm system on the building itself so I set up a camera watching the door and fade away into the night. I can sit in my car a block away and eat chips and see who comes and goes, hopefully I picked the right door.

Nothing happens.

My job is that way. 

I am back in Albion eating pizza with Sharlyn, this time at Cascarellis. Nice booths, not so cluttered as Charlies. I like the pizza here better, for pizza. It's not a good idea to tell her much about the bigger picture, my whole situation, but I am learning this and that about what the police know. They have not connected the stolen car with the van, but without Iggy Sales, they have no reason to connect the two or for that matter to bother much with either. The van went back to Ray after the police were faced with storing it and he came forward, generously. 

It's time to focus on Ray a bit more. I am back in Ypsi watching that door again, using my monitor. Nothing happens. Then two guys carry a heavy bundle into the garage. Gee, do you think it could be a body? Now I have something to do tonight.

The dog is nowhere in sight. Nobody around. I wait another hour. Then I go into the unlocked garage. It's Iggy Sales. It looks like he was poisoned, in the dark his eyes are wide and questioning, his tongue is black and sticking out. Looks like his last few moments were unpleasant. He is not wearing his leather coat, he is wrapped up in a plastic sheet, like a painter’s drop cloth. I go through his pockets, he has no socks, all the usual places. Nothing, nothing and nothing. I get him wrapped up again and hear something at the door. I must be living right. 

I am behind the stinking van, Two guys I am not able to get a good look at notice that something is different about Iggy, they joke about him moving around too much. They put him into a car trunk and I am alone in the garage. Lucky for me they seem to forget something, gives me time to hop into my car and follow them, but not too closely. We go out into the country, I stay far behind, as there is only one road, that must be where they have gone.  I see their car parked in what looks like a hunter’s parking spot on a lonely muddy place in some woods just off of the road. I keep going of course, they are nearby, waiting for me to go on. I drive past, quite a ways down the road and park, wait about ten minutes, then walk back to spy on them. The car is now gone, but Iggy must be nearby.

Another hour, just watching. Then another because it pays to be cautious. I am in no hurry. It's just getting light as I look around the lonely muddy place, it's hard to miss where a new hole has been dug, even with the sticks piled up on top, it's a mushy mound. This must be the final resting place for Iggy Sales. I am just heading back to my car, thinking maybe later I will come back with a shovel to remove all doubt, when I hear another car coming. It's them again. Forgot something, it seems. I hide a ways off and watch, not too close. They are not happy, I do not have to get any closer to tell this. Two white guys, medium height, medium build, chain smoking cigarettes, both have short dark hair, scruffy but no serious mustaches or beards, they look like they could be hunters maybe, except no guns, no tools at all for the work they are doing, they wear gloves. Both are dressed in jeans and sweatshirts, maybe mid-twenties, not much to say to each other. They keep an eye on the road, like sneaky guys do, but there is no traffic. They are looking all around, they gather up more sticks, pile it all up some more, pour gasoline on it, set it off and then speed off into the new morning. 

By the time I get back to my car they are long gone, no way to follow them. I pause by the road watching. The fire quickly burns out, it's wet in those woods. Now it will be easy to find this place again, it's the burnt spot in the swampy woods not far from the road, near where the hunter’s parking spot is. I mark my county map anyway. It's a smoky muddy mess here now, no point in poking around. Iggy is not going anywhere.

Back to Ray’s place to watch the door-television show some more. Parked about two blocks away, trying my best to be invisible without looking like I am hiding. I do not see anyone watching me as I watch my little screen, this is as far away as I can be and still make out what the camera can show me. Each time I do this I try to park in a different spot, and I am running out of new spots. I can only be in a few places where I can watch that door.

I sit and watch nothing for a while. Then I go.

That night I am back up in the tree house, watching the house and garage. My break is going to come from paying attention. St. Louis seemed to have nothing for me, Albion is pretty much dried up, that leaves watching Mr. Ray Kochinski here in Ypsilanti. Who are those two guys? Where is the dog? 

In the early hours there is a fire, Mr. Kochinski’s house and most of the garage burns down. I watch the whole thing from the tree house. I woke up when the fire trucks arrived, how did the fire start? Why now? I have not been sleeping very regularly these past few weeks, that is why I feel asleep up there tonight. I get a room in a motel and hunker down.

Maybe it's time for something new.

Sharlyn has something new for me. The van was thought to be used in a whole bunch of crimes, including several bank robberies and kidnappings in Illinois and Missouri. It took a while for the FBI to send in its report, they are at the garage now trying to see what they can salvage. I have already been in to have my own look around. The dog is dead inside the van. 

I liked that dog.

Shar asked me to meet her at the Albion police station, I mean the city safety office, and I could tell that she was trying to smooth over her nervousness. I said I would be there but I lied. Dang me.

I still have not figured out what is going on. I need to know what Shar knows now. I wait for her. I am watching her apartment. She has a visitor, so I drift away and wait. He leaves just before dawn, so next I visit her.  

When Iggy Sales was in custody he told some strange tales about me, and now the FBI has just confirmed what he said. They were hoping to take me into custody quietly. They think I burned down the house, and they have no clue that Iggy is even dead.

Now I am in Indiana at a place I have never been to before, in a motel.

There is a knock on the door and someone is coming through the bathroom window.

When I awaken I am bound tight, my hands are taped together, my mouth is tightly connected to the back of my neck, my eyes are covered but my nose is free. That is it. My legs are taped together but I can wiggle my knees. Then someone binds my knees together and kicks me in the stomach.

Now it's been a long time, I am very hungry and the tape is still tight but it's wet. I think I am upside down and there are heavy objects all around me. I panic for a while, but that does no good, so I listen through the tape, mostly I hear my pulse and breathing. It's hopeless. 

I decide my only recourse is to start small, my fingers. First I push them in every direction, and slowly the tape sort of gives. I work the small gap, slowly and persistently. I am so hungry. The smells are bad. The other weights around me are probably other bodies. Is anyone here alive? Finger leads to palm, palm leads to an impossible new gap. I focus on making that gap bigger. Soon my hand is pushing free from the tape, it's slow going. I have nothing else to do, there is my breathing and sounds within my own head, there are the weighty objects on and around me, and there is my growing patch of freedom, my fingers, now can pull my wrist free.