One Good Turn (A James Bishop short story) Read online

  At the same time, Beard Man stepped forward and grabbed Stetson by the throat. Stetson made a gagging sound and launched a right-hand punch at Beard Man’s stomach. Both men fell to the floor, still grappling with each other.

  On the jukebox, a woman was singing about how she didn’t want a lover. The rest of the patrons were watching the action from their seats, transfixed. Sylvia turned away and used the confusion to duck into the hallway at the rear. She didn’t know where it led, but there had to be an exit somewhere back there.

  As she ran down the passageway, she saw two doors on her left, with POINTERS on one and SETTERS on the other. Beyond them was a sharp right turn. She entered the turn and found herself in another short hallway that ended in a steel fire exit door. She hurried to the door and used one hand to slam the crash bar down, then pushed the door open and darted outside.

  It was some kind of reserved parking area, almost an alleyway, running from left to right. There were no lights back there, but she could make out a ten-foot-high chain-link fence about twenty feet ahead. She thought she could see razor wire at the top. She couldn’t see what lay beyond. Maybe another parking lot. On this side of the fence, two vehicles were parked side-on, one in front of the other. A sedan and a pickup.

  She placed the beer bottle on the ground and looked to her left. She saw only darkness beyond. She turned the other way and saw a dumpster, and in the far distance what looked to be street lights. That was good enough for her.

  Sylvia began running down the passageway towards the light, her clogs making harsh slapping sounds on the asphalt. Her feet hurt already. She passed another parked vehicle on the right and another dumpster on the left. She kept going, watching the street lights gradually getting closer. After a few more seconds, she noticed some kind of grid up ahead, and slowed. As she got closer, she could see it was another chain-link fence barring the way.

  ‘What the hell?’

  She looked up and saw more razor wire at the top. She couldn’t believe it. What did they think this was? Fort Knox? Reaching out with both hands, she clasped the wire mesh with her fingers and rattled the fence back and forth. It didn’t budge. There was no way out this way. ‘Goddammit,’ she cried.

  She quickly got hold of herself and took her hands away. That wouldn’t help. There was obviously one way in and one way out. She’d just picked the wrong direction, that was all. She turned and began running back the way she’d come. She passed the parked vehicle again and saw the shapes of the sedan and the pickup about thirty feet ahead. She kept on.

  Suddenly she heard a hollow metallic clang and a door-sized rectangle of light appeared about fifteen feet away to her left. Sylvia immediately stopped in her tracks. She knew it was the same fire exit from which she’d emerged. She could hear the muffled music from the jukebox out front. Two male silhouettes came into the alleyway, and she saw that one was wearing a baseball cap. He also looked like he was holding a knife.

  ‘Sylvia,’ Beard Man’s voice said softly. ‘I can see you standing right there. Now I got a gun pointed right at you, so don’t you move, there’s a good girl.’

  Thanks to the light spilling out from behind them, he probably could see her. And he probably had a gun, too. Cursing her luck, Sylvia tried to think of a way out. She didn’t know what to do. All she could think of was to run back and climb up the fence, razor wire or not. Of course, she’d be cut to ribbons. That was if Beard Man didn’t shoot her in the leg first.

  Then she saw salvation, as a set of lights suddenly appeared in the alley from somewhere up ahead and started coming their way.

  Thank God, she thought.

  The headlights grew in size as the vehicle got steadily closer. She watched as Beard Man shut the fire exit door, then turned to the vehicle and made a vague waving motion with his arm. She wondered what was going on until she saw the car slow before coming to a complete stop about twenty feet away.

  Her heart sank. There was no salvation there. The car was theirs. As was the driver. She was trapped on all sides.

  The two men stepped in front of the lights and begin walking towards her.

  SEVEN

  Sylvia wished she’d kept hold of that beer bottle. Then she could at least have given them something to remember her by. But all she had were the clothes on her back, and they weren’t even hers. Now these two meatballs would take her back to him. And there’d be no second chances this time.

  She thought she’d been so close. What a joke.

  The men were just ten feet away when Sunglasses raised the knife and said, ‘So what’s it gonna be, Syl? The hard way or the easy way?’

  Sylvia said nothing. There was no easy way.

  Suddenly, their driver began to rev the car engine behind them. Then he did it again. Like it was a signal for something.

  Both men turned and Beard Man said, ‘What . . .?’ as the car revved a third time, drowning out the rest of the sentence.

  Then the headlights were switched to full beam, and with an ear-splitting screeching of tyres, the machine simply took off. As it raced down the alleway towards the three of them, Sylvia spotted the dumpster at her left and quickly ducked behind it, losing a shoe in the process. She rose to a crouch and immediately heard two solid thumps, one after the other. Something heavy collided with the dumpster, hard enough to move it a few inches.

  There was another screeching of brakes and Sylvia watched in amazement as a front bumper and part of a wheel came to a stop about a foot from her face. The wheel vanished just as suddenly as the driver reversed the car. Sylvia got to her feet and saw it stop just before the dumpster. The driver’s-side door opened and a man got out.

  He kicked at something lying on the ground, then walked round the front of the vehicle into the glare of the headlights. Sylvia knew straight away that she’d seen him before. It was the guy in the denim jacket from the bar. The one she’d seen when she first walked in, sitting on his own next to the jukebox.

  He glanced at something on the ground on the other side of the dumpster, and then came over to Sylvia. She guessed he was a little over six feet tall, with an athletic build. His dark hair was cropped close to his skull and he had pale eyes. He looked to be somewhere between his mid thirties and early forties. It was hard to tell under the harsh headlights.

  ‘You all right?’ he asked.

  Sylvia nodded. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.’

  ‘Good. Give me a hand with these two, then.’ He turned and walked to the other side of the dumpster.

  Sylvia shook her head and tried to make sense of what had just taken place. In the space of a few seconds, everything had changed, and she was still trying to catch up. Spotting her other shoe a few feet away, she went over and slipped her left foot into it. Then she walked to the man and looked down at the spot he was staring at.

  Sunglasses had lost his sunglasses. He still had the baseball cap, though. He was lying in a crooked heap with his face pressed against the side of the dumpster, as though trying to listen to something inside. There wasn’t any blood, but his head was positioned at a very unnatural angle. It looked to Sylvia like his neck was broken.

  ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘Sure looks that way,’ the driver said. He didn’t seem particularly fazed by it. He bent down, placed a hand under each armpit and raised Sunglasses off the ground a few inches. The man’s head hung down like a rag doll’s. ‘Wanna open the dumpster lid for me?’

  ‘Look, I’m not complaining, but why are you doing this?’

  He stared up at her. ‘I don’t think now’s the time, do you? If that’s their driver in the Taurus out front, he’s gonna start wondering what’s going on pretty soon.’

  ‘Okay, just wait a second,’ she said, and began quickly searching Sunglasses’ jacket pockets. ‘There are others after me. Before you do anything, I need to find their cell phones.’

  ‘Be quick,’ the man said, holding the body up.

  She found Sunglasses’ cell phone, pulled it
out and dropped it on the ground. After stamping on it a couple of times until she was sure it was broken, she picked up the pieces and opened the dumpster lid. It was filled with black garbage bags. Maybe three quarters full. The smell was rancid, like week-old eggs. Scattering the cell phone remains inside, she grabbed one of the top bags, hefted it out and set it on the ground. Then she pulled out another one and set it down next to the first.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘It’s clear.’

  The driver nodded and began dragging the corpse over to the opening. Sylvia left him to it and ran to the car, an idea growing in her mind. She stopped when she saw Beard Man on the ground between the car and the fence. He was on his back, with blood running down the left side of his face and neck. Probably where he’d been kicked by the driver. His right arm also looked broken at the elbow and wrist. Unfortunately, she didn’t think he was dead, just unconscious. She searched the ground, finally spotting the gun lying next to the fence. It was a short-barrelled revolver. She picked it up and placed it in a pocket of her cargo shorts, then searched Beard Man until she found the inevitable cell phone.

  Once she’d destroyed it, she approached the open door on the driver’s side. The engine was switched off. Close up, she could see it wasn’t a Ford Taurus at all, but a black Toyota something. She checked the ignition slot and saw that the car keys were missing.

  Damn.

  She turned and watched as the driver picked up the unconscious Beard Man and hefted him over his shoulder. He carried him back to the dumpster and threw him in, tossed the two garbage bags on top, and closed the lid. Then he turned and jogged back to the car.

  When he saw the gun Sylvia was pointing at him, he came to a complete stop and slowly raised both hands.

  Sylvia kept the short barrel aimed at the man’s chest. She’d only ever used a gun at a target range, but she knew the chest was the area to go for. Less chance of missing. She felt bad about this part, but she could no longer afford to trust anybody. She’d been through too much. And she was pissed off.

  ‘I’m real grateful to you for helping me out,’ she said, ‘but now I really need to borrow your car.’

  ‘I’m not stopping you.’

  ‘Good. Throw the keys over to me.’

  ‘What keys?’

  ‘Look, I’m not screwing around here,’ she said. ‘I’m at the tail end of a very bad three days and I want those keys.’

  ‘You ever shoot a handgun before?’

  ‘I can hit whatever I’m aiming at, don’t you worry.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. Just make it quick, okay?’ He lowered one hand and touched the centre of his chest with his index finger. ‘Right here should do it.’

  What the hell was he trying to pull? Did he think she was joking? ‘Just give me the keys,’ she shouted.

  He shook his head. ‘Can’t do it. My vehicle insurance premiums are already sky high as it is. But if you don’t mind letting me drive, we can do it that way.’

  Sylvia bit her lip, knowing she couldn’t very well shoot the guy. Not after what he’d done. She didn’t even know him. But it was clear he wasn’t the type who could be easily bluffed.

  ‘I’ll take you wherever you wanna go,’ he said, lowering the other hand, ‘or you can shoot me and drive there yourself, but you better decide fast.’

  Seeing no other choice, Sylvia lowered the gun and stuck it back into her waistband. ‘Okay, you drive.’

  EIGHT

  Sitting in the passenger seat, Sylvia watched as he slowly reversed back the way he’d come, using just the rear-view mirror to navigate. Both were silent. She turned in her seat and looked out the rear window. Before, she’d seen only darkness in this direction, but now she could make out a faint light in the distance where the alley opened out on to the street.

  They’d almost reached the entrance when the driver suddenly stamped on the brakes and killed the engine.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Sylvia said, turning to him.

  ‘Police,’ he said, staring at the rear-view. ‘Don’t want them seeing my lights.’

  ‘I don’t hear anything.’

  The man said nothing. Sylvia turned to look out the back again, and a second later she saw red and blue lights reflected off a building opposite. Then a sirenless police car appeared from the left, heading for Main Street, light bar flashing. Once it was gone, the driver started the engine again. He waited a few more seconds and then calmly backed out on to the street and slowly steered them in the opposite direction, away from Main Street. There was no other traffic, and no pedestrians either. The cruiser had already disappeared behind them. Sylvia watched various office buildings pass by on either side.

  ‘You know this town?’ he asked. His accent had a slight New York edge to it.

  ‘Don’t you?’

  He shrugged. ‘A little, but I only arrived today. Directions would be helpful.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Just keep on this road while I think for a minute.’

  He nodded and kept them at a steady twenty. Sylvia looked out the window and thought through the best course of action. Finally she said, ‘I guess you better take me home. It’s about seven or eight miles from here. Right on the outskirts of town. Just keep on this road for another mile and turn left when I tell you.’

  ‘You’re the boss.’

  She turned to him. ‘You realize you just killed a man back there, don’t you? Maybe two, for all I know.’

  ‘They stepped right out in front of me,’ he said. ‘There was nothing I could do.’

  Sylvia actually smiled at that. She couldn’t help herself. It was so surreal, how calmly he was taking it. ‘And it doesn’t bother you at all?’

  ‘Depends on the situation. But in this case, no, it doesn’t bother me too much.’

  ‘Really? So this kind of thing happens to you all the time?’

  He said nothing to that. After a few beats of silence, she asked, ‘Who are you?’

  He paused, then said, ‘A transient.’

  ‘Meaning what? That you’re just passing through?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Back at that bar, you were watching me. When I walked in.’

  He nodded. ‘Those bruises on your legs interested me. The rope marks around your wrists, too. Then when those two idiots came in and started making a scene, I saw you edging towards the rear and thought I might go get my car and see if you needed a hand.’

  ‘Well, thank you for that.’

  ‘Welcome.’

  ‘And sorry about threatening you back there.’

  ‘Forget it.’

  A pickup passed them going the other way.

  Sylvia sat and waited for the inevitable questions to come, but there was only silence in the car. After a while, she said, ‘Aren’t you curious at all?’

  He gave a faint smile. ‘Naturally. But I figure you’ll either tell me or you won’t. You’re the one with the gun, after all.’

  She almost smiled back. She found she was starting to like the guy, despite herself.

  ‘So how many are after you?’ he asked. ‘Other than the three back there, I mean.’

  ‘Four or five more, I think. In at least two more cars.’

  ‘So they must want you pretty badly.’

  She sighed. ‘Yes, they do.’

  ‘And the police can’t help you for some reason.’

  She turned to him. ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘You didn’t object when I let that black-and-white pass us by. And you haven’t asked me to take you to the local station, like most people would. Two plus two usually equals four in my book.’

  ‘Okay. And what else have you figured out?’

  ‘That you were probably held by these people over a period of days, maybe three, and systematically drugged and beaten. Maybe worse than beaten.’ He looked at her, and when she gave a single nod, he went on. ‘Somehow you escaped and made it into town. Then we met. The rest would be just guesswork on my part. And probably wrong.
’

  Sylvia looked out the front windshield and said nothing as she watched the buildings on either side slowly thin out. He was pretty observant, she had to give him that. After a few moments, she spotted the four-way intersection and the traffic lights about a hundred yards up ahead and said, ‘You’ll want to take a left at the lights.’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  The lights were red when they got there. There were no other cars waiting. The driver stopped and flipped the left indicator. They waited in silence. When the lights eventually changed, he turned left and took them back up to thirty. They began passing warehouses, manufacturing plants and acres of vacant lots.

  ‘There’s a guy lives around here,’ she said finally, staring out the windshield. ‘His name’s . . . well, that doesn’t matter, but his old man’s a big wheel in the local political scene. He’s got money and power and friends, and people usually do what he says. And the son, who’s an only child, feels he’s got the same privileges as the father.’

  ‘What he wants, he gets.’

  Sylvia nodded. ‘Especially when it comes to girls. He’s wanted to hook up with me for a number of years now, but he’s never gotten anywhere. Finally he must have grown tired of hearing no for an answer, and he had some of his pals follow me in their car. This was three nights ago. They drove me off the road into a ditch, and I must have lost consciousness, because the next thing I know, I’m naked and tied to a bed in this dirty basement . . .’

  She paused as the images she’d been trying to forget came flooding back, one on top of another. But that wasn’t altogether a bad thing. It made her angry all over again, and she wanted to keep stoking that anger.

  ‘Once I was awake,’ she continued, ‘I watched him inject me with something that made everything feel dreamy and unreal. It was like everything in that basement had lines around it, including him. You know, like in a comic strip.’ She sighed. ‘Then he . . . well, you can imagine what he did next. I guess he must have decided to keep me around for a while longer, you know, for whenever he got the urge. Which turned out to be often.’