Another “Ugh.” But he still doesn’t wake.
Damn it. Now what?
Use it, Mercado.
Yeah. Use it. I roll him over. I put his hands on his back above his ass. He starts to snore. He’s way deep. Fathoms. Kilometers. I put the flashlight on the bed, take off my backpack, and remove the duct tape.
Five minutes later it’s done.
His wrists are duct-taped together and the Ambien-cognac combo has kept him out.
The next step?
The car.
I go back downstairs and through the kitchen to the garage. I need the keys he keeps on a hook by the door.
I turn on the flashlight and there they are, but even if they hadn’t been there it would have been ok. Every Cuban knows how to hotwire.
I pop the trunk and throw out a crate of seltzer, a pair of ski boots, and a lawn chair.
Nice and roomy.
Back upstairs.
Sleeping beauty sleeps still.
I rip off another line of duct tape and slather it over his mouth.
That’s what wakes him. He groans. Jolts upright. I flip the lights. Ski mask, gun, the twenty-first-century equivalent of the devil in the forest.
Screams behind the tape.
He scrambles away from me, falls off the bed, and bangs his head on the nightstand. I let him lie there for a minute to gather his wits. Then I point the gun at his heart. It’s in this moment I decide that I’m not going to speak. Not a word until he’s at the lake.
He looks at the gun and nods his head. He struggles to his feet.
I point at the door and sidle around the bed so that he’s ahead of me.
He turns and stares at me. He’s wondering if this is a nightmare.
Yeah, it is.
I point at the door and give him a little push and he walks ahead of me, slowly, onto the landing.
I flip the lights.
All that stuff.
The celeb pics. Caricatures. Expensive art I hadn’t noticed before. Small postwar Picasso lithographs. Jack’s preferences are for the big and splashy but Youkilis, if I recall, attended Princeton. Taste. Class. Discretion.
He comes to the stairs, hesitates, looks back at me, afraid.
What’s he thinking? That I’m going to push him?
I point down. He shakes his head. He’s trembling all over. His penis has practically disappeared.
I point again, this time with the gun.
Gingerly he makes way down the inside part of the curve, rubbing against the railing with his left arm. His back twitches at the bottom and he takes another look at me.
I don’t like it.
He’s up to something, I better keep an-
Suddenly he trips and falls against the phone stand. The phone and a notebook and a cell phone clatter to the ground on top of him.
Accident? Was he trying to call 911? Quickly I pick up the phone and put it back in the cradle.
He’s groaning. He’s cut himself across the chest. I have no sympathy. I kick him in the ribs and direct him to get up. His eyes are calmer, less wide.
I’m uneasy.
He did something there. I don’t know what. But he did something.
I look at the phone and the wall-everything seems ok.
Better get the hell out of here. I point at the kitchen.
We walk in and I open the door to the garage.
I point at the garage door and while he goes ahead I swing the backpack around in front of me, unzip it, and take out the pepper spray.
He stops at the open trunk of his BMW, turns, and looks at me. He shakes his head. He’s not getting in the trunk. Trunk equals death. If he stays in the house he has a chance, but if he gets in the car he’s going to die.
I’ve been expecting this. I pepper spray him in the face.
He screams, his knees buckle. I run at him and ram him onto the lip of the trunk. He’s six-five and built, so if he falls to the ground it’s going to be a hell of a job to get him in there. I drop the gun and pepper spray and shove his pelvis with both hands. Even blinded and in agony he fights me, kicks, but it’s too late, I have him in. I punch him in the nose and, stunned and winded, he tumbles backward into the trunk.
I lift the backpack, take out the tape.
He’s sobbing, bleeding, but he’ll live.
I grab his ankles, pin them under my arm, and wrap them in the duct tape. The punch and the pepper spray have winded him and he’s as docile as a lamb. But that won’t last forever. This has to be
Roll after roll.
He starts to fight and buck.
Another loop over his mouth.
I close the trunk.
Muffled screams.
I don’t feel good about this.
I stand there for what seems like forever, then go back into the house and turn off all the lights.
Back to the garage.
He’s quiet.
Maybe he had a heart attack.
It would still be murder.
I click the button that opens the garage door and open the passenger’s-side door of the BMW. I throw my gear in the backseat, get in, close the door, turn the key, start her up, and drive out.
Lights on.
Seatbelt on to stop the alarm.
The BMW drives like a tank, and I would know, since I did part of my military service on a T-72.
The driveway. Full beam. Heart pounding.
I look behind to see if the garage door is going to close by itself.
It doesn’t.
I have to do something. I fumble around until I see a small box clipped onto the sunshade. A button says OPEN/CLOSE. I press CLOSE.
It closes.
I drive toward the gates.
Somehow they know I’m coming and open automatically.
I turn left down the mountain road.
I take off the ski mask and focus on driving.
I forgot to leave that note about being back in the afternoon. It’s ok. Forget it. The help won’t notice anything’s amiss. I’m the help.
The icy road. The trees. He starts to make noise back there.
I click the radio. Flip, flip, flip until I get a Denver classical station playing Shostakovich.
I take out the map book, hit the interior light.
Where are we?
Ah yes.
The Old Boulder Road to the first junction.
