Sean Black: Lockdown

‘Who is he anyway?’ Josh asked. ‘Your boyfriend?’

Natalya bit down on her lip.

‘He is, isn’t he?’

‘It doesn’t matter who he is.’

‘Why are you doing this to me?’

Natalya lowered her voice. ‘Look, I made a mistake. I’m going to try and get you out of this. But right now, I need you to cooperate.’

‘Why should I believe you?’

‘Because you don’t have any choice.’

Finally, after more stalling, Josh got changed. Natalya jammed his party clothes into the backpack, the easy part out of the way. Next, she picked up the bag from the drug store, steeling herself, then put it back down. Unless she was going to pin Josh to the ground to do what she had to do, and risk injuring him in the process, this was going to take careful handling.

‘You look nice in those,’ Natalya said.

‘No I don’t.’

‘They look good.’

None of this was cutting any ice and Natalya could see that Josh was getting jittery again.

He shifted position on the back seat. ‘Can we go home? Please? If you want money my dad can give it to you, but I want to go home.’

‘It’s not that simple.’

‘Why not?’

Natalya pulled a pair of hairdresser’s scissors from the drug store bag.

Josh’s hand shot to his scalp. ‘No. Not my hair.’

The car slowed and pulled to the side of the road, as a car behind blared its horn. The partition fell. This time the driver had the gun in his hand. He pointed it directly at Josh. ‘If I have to pull over one more time, you’ll regret it.’

Shaking, Josh turned his back to Natalya. Legs crossed, she sat behind him, and set to work.

Barely five minutes later the back seat was festooned with long strands of dark brown hair. Josh reached his hand back, ran it through the uneven spikes.

Natalya took Josh’s hand and squeezed it. ‘You can always grow it back. Now, let me tidy it.’

She made some more tiny adjustments, momentarily getting caught up in the task.

‘There. Now you know what would really suit this style?’

‘What?’

‘A different colour.’

‘I guess so,’ Josh said, sounding utterly defeated.

Natalya rummaged in the bag again, sighing as she came up with a plastic bottle of hair dye. Quickly scanning the directions on the back of the bottle, she tutted loudly, then leaned forward and rapped on the partition. ‘I can’t use this now.’

The driver stared at her in the rear-view mirror. ‘Why not?’

‘It needs water. It’ll have to wait.’

‘You sure?’

‘You think I’m stupid?’

She thrust the bottle through the partition, two fingers covering the part of the label which read ‘unique dry application’. The driver grunted, tucked the bottle into his jacket and restarted the car.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t let anything bad happen to you,’ Natalya whispered, putting her arm around Josh.

‘This isn’t bad?’ he demanded.

Natalya pulled him closer and he finally relented, snuggling in to her.

Fifteen minutes later he was beginning to doze off, his head resting against Natalya’s shoulder, as the car came to a stop and the driver opened the door, pulling them both out into the cold.

As they stood shivering in a freezing mist of rain, the driver produced a brand-new cordless car vac and used it to suck Josh’s hair off the back seat. Someone else would be along later to collect the car.

The area was desolate and semi-industrial, with a road off to the left. They trudged through a sugar coating of powdery snow towards an oversized metal gate which lay smack bang in the middle of a seemingly endless chain-link fence. Cars flitted past in the distance. Other than that they were alone. A man with a gun, Natalya, and the child she’d been charged with looking after and had just so cruelly betrayed.

Natalya looked around, trying to find a point to fix on — a street sign, maybe, or a store — but all she could see was waterfront. Close by she could hear the slurp of waves against a dock.

Everything had changed for her the moment Josh had been hit. Regardless of what was at stake for herself she was determined to make good her mistake. And that meant getting Josh safely home to his father.

She’d have to pick her moment with care, though. There would be no second chance at escape.

They hadn’t driven through any tunnels or over any bridges so she was sure they were still in Manhattan, but it didn’t take a genius to work out that this neighbourhood was a long way from the Upper East Side.

The driver pushed Natalya towards the metal gate with the heel of his hand. ‘Move,’ he grunted.

At the door, a solitary security camera panned round, accompanied by a faint hydraulic whirl. The gate clicked and the driver pushed it open, ushering Natalya and Josh through.

Perched at the end of a pier, a single-engine speedboat was tied up, no one aboard. Painted a dark grey, it sat low in the water. They walked towards it, the driver clambering down into it first, almost losing his footing as a sudden swell rose under the hull. For a split second Natalya considered running, but with the dock stretching thirty feet out into the water she knew they’d never make it in time.

Natalya helped Josh into the boat.

‘Get the rope for me,’ the driver said, pushing Josh down so he’d be out of view of any passing traffic on the river.

Natalya unhooked the stern line from the mooring and threw it back to him. Now was her chance.

The driver waved her forward with his hand as the boat began to inch away from the dock. ‘Quick.’

She hesitated, then caught Josh’s terrified eyes. There was just no way she could leave him. Taking one quick step, she jumped down, the driver catching her hand and half hauling her down into the boat.

The driver gunned the engine and they set off in a wave of spume and diesel oil. Soon the dock was out of sight, a black skyline etched against grey.

Natalya counted off those buildings she recognized. The tower of the Chrysler building. The Empire State. The gaping maw of a breach where the Twin Towers once stood, now replaced by the first nub of the Freedom Tower.

The driver dug into his jacket and pulled out the bottle of hair dye. He squinted at the instructions on the back like they were written in Sanskrit. Finally, he looked up at Natalya. ‘Dry application. Bullshit.’ He threw the bottle at Josh. ‘Make sure you rub it in good.’

Lock woke in a bed in a small room, hooked up to a monitor and some kind of IV. He prayed for morphine, but suspected saline. If he was still in this much pain, it had to be some weak-ass morphine.

He wiggled his toes and fingers, relieved to find that they seemed to be responding. To make sure that it wasn’t some kind of phantom sensation he flipped back the sheet, surprised that he could move so easily, and amused to find that he had an erection. Maybe it was some kind of evolutionary response to a near-death experience. Either that or a full bladder.

He waited for his excitement to subside, conjuring up the most unerotic of images to hasten its demise. No dice. Not even a yoga-emaciated Madonna could shift it. The blinds weren’t closed all the way, and he could glimpse the lights of the city that didn’t sleep beyond the window, getting on just fine without him.

Tentatively, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and, with one hand on the bed rail, stood up. For a second or two the room shifted suddenly, but the sensation quickly abated, and he managed to walk gingerly over to the tiny bathroom.

The man staring back at him from the mirror with a deadpan expression was sporting three-day-old stubble and a close-shaven head. Running his fingers across the top of his skull, he found a set of stitches. Whether it was a wound or the result of an incision wasn’t entirely clear. He touched his fingertips to it. No real pain, but definitely stitches.