Tom Schreck: On the Ropes

I got his number and dialed.

“Hello,” it was a female voice. Probably his new live-in, Foon.

“This is Duffy from the clinic. Is Clogger in?”

“No, game night, he gone already.”

“Isn’t it early?”

“Clogger gone…” The language gap wasn’t going to make this very easy. I didn’t have the time to translate.

“I know, thanks.”

I hung up. I didn’t dare call Clogger for fear that his cell phone was rigged. What the fuck was I going to do? My mind raced, my body went cold, and I started to sweat.

Holy fuckin’ shit.

Holy fuckin’ shit.

Holy fuckin’ shit.

All right, the only thing left to do was to call the FBI and let them do what they had to do. I couldn’t let them blow Clogger out of the sky, but I couldn’t let a capacity-filled Yankee Stadium get blown away with some bullshit dirty nuke. I watched my fingers shake as I hit the keys.

9-1-… You’re fuckin’ kidding me…

The low battery light went on and then the phone went dark.

Holy fuckin’ shit.

All this and the Yanks were already down in the top of the first.

With nothing else left to do to help Clogger, I decided to do something about Shony. I gave Al a few strokes and told him to be cool. I left the car turned on so he would be warm and so he could listen to the Blue Hawaii soundtrack. I had no idea what I was about to do. There was no activity going on outside the building for now, so it made it easy to approach. I crossed the street and ran down the right side of the building. The outside of the building was surrounded by heavy brush, and as I shimmied my way along the wall, branches and switches raked across my face. There was no light coming from this side of the building, but by cupping my hands around my eyes I could peer in the windows and make out a bit of the interior. These were windows to the small bedroom suites and each suite had a single bed, a padded wooden chair, a small bathroom, and an adjacent room with a child’s bed in it. I peered in each of the windows as I made my way down the length of the building, hoping to find something that would help. All the bedrooms were dark and looked uninhabited until I got to the last window.

Pressing my face to the window, I could see the four girls were all sitting on the bed. Their hands were duct taped behind them, they had tape over their mouths, and they were all blindfolded. They sat side by side on the bed, and I was almost positive that the first one closest to the wall was Shony. The four of them twitched and rocked and, without being able to make a sound, still exuded the terror they were feeling.

I went along the back side of the building, and about halfway down I could see bright lights coming through the windows and I could hear the sound of two or three voices. I approached the corner of the first window carefully and looked in. It was the multipurpose room-the one we weren’t allowed to see on our tour. Now I understood why.

They were setting up cameras and lights at different angles and there was a king-size mattress in the center of a stark floor where I presumed the webcast would be staged. I didn’t recognize the three guys setting up the cameras and the lights. I looked at my watch and it was seven forty-five.

I went back around the building, passing the bedroom where the girls were kept. I headed out to the front of the building and looked across the sidewalk to the parking lot. I heard a couple of voices, one male and one female, followed by the sound of car doors closing. The car started and I jumped back, pressing my back against the side of the building. I saw the van pull away from the halfway house with Bowerman and Tyrone in it.

I walked around the front of the building back toward the parking lot. I guessed that the equipment was unloaded and there would be no reason for anyone to be coming out to the parking lot, except maybe for a smoke break. I figured they had just started, so it was unlikely they’d be taking a break soon. I tried to picture where the bedroom that the girls were in was in relation to this side of the building. I would have to go through a lobby, a small corridor, a dining room, and then another hallway to get to the bedroom. If they were all busy setting up, there was a chance they wouldn’t notice someone coming in. My one shot was to sprint in, get the door open, and rush the kids out. I sure couldn’t stand out here all night. Pretty soon there would be more people coming, and it would make any kind of rescue even harder.

I went through the side door quietly with my back sliding against the wall. I got through the lobby, looked around carefully, and headed up the corridor. At the threshold to the dining room, I looked both ways and ran through the dining room to the threshold on the other side. Through that threshold I could see the door that led to the multipurpose room where the webcast was going to take place. To the right was the corridor to the bedrooms.

I checked both ways and ran as fast as I could down the corridor to the last door on the right. I got to it and turned the knob, but it was locked. I slammed my shoulder as hard as I could into the door, but the jamb held. I slammed into it again and a small piece of the jamb broke away. I was all sweat and heartbeat when I threw myself into the door a third time. The jam splintered more, but not enough. I could hear the muffled sound of the girls screaming through their taped mouths when I heard another door close and footsteps up the corridor.

“Fuckin’ asshole, you just don’t learn, do you?” It was Dunston and he had a bat in his hand.

“You didn’t fuckin’ listen the last time,” he said. “Now you’re going to die. I just wish that ugly fuckin’ hound was here so I could kill him first in front of you so that was the last thing you ever saw.”

Dunston walked down the hallway without rushing, holding the bat in two hands and flexing his arms. My mind raced, and I had no idea how to defend myself. I put my guard up, figuring taking a bat on the arms was better than taking it on the head. Dunston’s face contorted as he swung the bat at my head. I turned my body away, lifted my arm and tried to raise my shoulder muscle. The bat landed across all three areas but I still caught 50 percent of it on the left side of my head. A flash of light seared across my eyes and I wobbled into the other side of the wall.

Dunston reared back and sent the bat into the ribs he bruised on his last visit. That made my whole diaphragm feel like it was caving in. I stumbled forward but somehow managed to keep my feet and moved up the corridor.

Dunston kicked me in the ass, moving me up to the end of the corridor to the lobby before the multipurpose room.

“I’m going to make this last,” Dunston said. “Why rush all the fun?” He swung the bat into my left thigh. The force moved me into the dining room and dropped me to one knee.

“Not hard to see how you got the boxing record you got, asshole. You don’t even fight back.” Dunston punctuated it with another kick, this time to the other side of my ribs, pushing me out of the dining room and into the corridor. I could hear the sounds of the street and the occasional sound of a car passing, but it was at such a distance, a yell for help wouldn’t have done me any good.

Dunston stepped over me dramatically and leaned on the threshold at the end of the corridor, resting the bat on his shoulder like he was on deck at Yankee Stadium. He had a big grin come to his face as he stood in front of me with his back to the door.

“What the fuck do you care about a bunch of crack whores anyway?” he said, shaking his head. “I had the girls do your friend Walanda inside because she talked too much. Stupid whore blabberin’ about the ‘Webster.’ Didn’t even get the name right. Probably had no idea what a webmaster is. Then there’s all your park buddies-fags and bums. Duffy, you’re a fool,” he said.