Chapter 10: Turnabout

Jessica woke up with a start. She didn’t remember the night all that clearly. George’s car had come to a stop when the tire popped, and the mobsters had descended on it, ripping her from the car. Then blank.

She had a headache. She felt around and felt a bump on the back of her head. She wondered what happened. She began to look around the room she was in. It smelled musty and like ... like food. There were shelves all around her and the room was unpainted metal, possibly stainless steel. She was laying on a little thin cot mattress, and there was an old man dozing on a similar mattress across the room. There was a door, also stainless steel, in one end of the room. No windows, but a lot of empty shelving.

She slowly and achingly worked her way up from the mattress. She was woozy, and felt kind of out of it. As she stood up the world spun around her, and she grabbed onto the shelving to hold her up. She felt an all consuming nausea, and she saw a bucket on the floor, she fell over it and threw up, and was disgusted that it was already half filled with pee and fecal matter. The room reeked of that, too.

She clawed her way up the shelves until she was standing, slowly this time. She felt unsteady on her feet. She was too confused trying to figure out her surroundings to think about why she might have been in them. Slowly, unsteadily, she crossed to the door, staying near the shelving to steady her if she needed it.

There had been a handle on the door, but it had been removed, crudely. She pushed on it, and it was solidly closed and she couldn’t open it. She started franticly banging on it.

“I wouldn’t do that miss,” the man said, “it only makes them angry, and then can be vehy mean when they ahe angry.”

“Makes fucking who angry!” Jessica yelled, “What the fuck am I doing here? I don’t understand any of this! I want to go home! Where’s George? Where’s fucking Jillian?”

“I don’t know, honey,” he said, “they didn’t tell me what they brought yah in hehe fowh, whehe yah came from, or who else was with yah. But they ahe angry, vicious, brutal gangstehs, and they don’t mind hurting yah, believe me, so cul down, okay?”

“Who the fuck are you?” Jessica said, her anger coming from fear, “And where the hell are you from, anyway? You sound weird, old man!”

“Old man, now, eh?” he chuckled infuriatingly “I’m only 58, I’ll have yah know. Anyway, McCahthy’s tha name, Liam McCahthy. I came hehe from Bawstun foddy yeahs ago, I guess tha accent shows. They got some scheme faw me, they locked me in hehe.”

Jessica’s mind was foggy. The man seemed on her side, at least. Kidnapped. Wait a second.

“You’re Anne’s father, right?” Jessica said with a bit more friendliness.

“Yah know my dawtuh?”

“No,” Jessica said, “Not really. She hired my boss to look for you, but I never met her. So Rico kidnapped you.”

She had calmed down a little. And her defenses were down. The affectation of angry teenager was slipping a bit, and the midwestern Okie girl shined through a little in her lilt.

The man’s eyes hardened suddenly, “Rico, now?” he spat, “That gump couldn’t kidnap a quarter out of his own pocket! My frickin’ son-in-law did it. I don’t know what that igit is planning but I didn’t like that skeeze when my girl brought him home.”

Jessica sat stunned. What was it George always said about planets and orbits?

“My frien ... my boss is ... oh god.”

“List’n, honey, who ah you to these chuckleheads, anyway?”

“My boss is a private dick hired by your daughter to catch Larry cheating on her,” Jessica said, “Then he told us they had kidnapped you.”

Jessica sat thinking on that. It seemed ... it didn’t make sense. Her head spun.

George’s left hand squeezed into the armrest, his right gripped the door pull. His heart raced, as he looked back and forth between the thin space not blocked by Akilah’s arms, the steering wheel, and the cowl at the white speedometer as it crossed 130mph as the town of Covina went past in a blur. Akilah’s arms moved expertly as they briefly dodged on to the shoulder to blow past a Lexus that was dawdling along at barely 90 mph.

She’s the best driver in the world, George reminded himself silently, She’s in her element, you are safe, if anyone can manage the San Bernardino freeway at 9PM at 130 mph it’s Acky.

Akilah braked shortly as they dodged across the road on a break in cars onto the shoulder and proceeded at a slower but still fast speed as they approached the off ramp onto 70 just west of Pomona. The car went around the wide, two lane ramp at fast speed, the tires howling, engine screaming. 70 was narrower, more dangerous. Two lanes, one shoulder, less space to screw up. Acky slowed a bit, but still maintained nearly 100 mph, blasting her horn in a way that made some people actually clear out of her way.

As she went around the ramp to 60, she accelerated again, cutting through the swath of traffic like a slippery eel, sliding through openings that opened as she went through, and closed as she passed. She read the traffic perfectly; years as a wheel person in LA traffic had honed her skills to a razor edge. George closed his eyes and tried not to think about it. It terrified him, the speeds at which she moved through such density.

He forced his mind to a month or so ago; Simcha had been at Sharon’s, Josh had been out doing some IT work for Warner Brothers ... Jill, Akilah, and George had been in the hot tub in the dome of Silver Penthouse. It was a happy memory. They had all been working hard the past year or so, with two different companies, and the schedules didn’t line up, and never when Simcha was home. Not like that, and Josh hadn’t even been there.

“Something has come up,” Akilah said amusedly.

“Aren’t you supposed to be concentrating on the road?”

“The road was empty,” Akilah said arrogantly, “For a moment. How could I not see that anyway, George? A shekel for your thoughts, yes?”

“You’re as cheap as your husband,” George said, “I was thinking about last time, in the hot tub.”

“Mmm, yes, that was nice,” Akilah said, and then suddenly paused as she had to go around an idiot going 50 in the left lane; she gave a long blast as she went by, “But Josh was not even there. We have not had that much time for having fun together lately. Was that the last time?”

“What about Sunday when Jill and Josh went to that awful concert. uh...”

“Whitney Houston, I love him but his taste in music...” she took a moment to make a gesture with her hand like flicking water from her fingertips, “But George, that was just us. I meant all of us.”

“I don’t remember the last time it was all of us,” George said sadly, “Speaking of them.”

The Grumman was in the right lane as they approached Palm Springs; Akilah tapped out the beginning to Shave & A Haircut as the Chrysler, touching 130, exploded past the van at double the speed. The vans deeper horn burped back as it receded in the rear view mirror, “Two Bits!”

“So fast you have to go always?” Josh’s voice squawked on the Nextel.

“She said to tell you it won’t go any faster,” George replied.

“Feh,” Josh squawked back, “A cop just made yuh, by the way.”

“Did you catch it?” George asked.

“A Vic,” Jill replied.

“They can’t touch us, Acky says,” George replied.

“The Motorola you can’t do the outrunning,” Josh grumbled.

“Car 30–21 to dispatch, in pursuit of dark Chrysler 300M traveling in excess of one-thirty, request backup, over,” the scanner in the van spoke out.

About 30 seconds passed before another call came back over the scanner: “Car 30-21, this is dispatch, no back up available, break off pursuit, repeat, you are ordered to terminate pursuit, over.”

A pregnant pause came, followed by a surprised officer, “Terminate pursuit, dispatch?”

“Terminate pursuit, car 30-21, please acknowledge, over.”

“Pursuit is terminated, dispatch, over.”

“Acky, they were called off,” Jill giggled, “Keep it on the ground, and put that hammer down, you’ll be Brawley bound and fly’n.”