California Schemin' (10 page)

“Wait. Help me get this thing back on.”

The blond strapped me into the neck brace so
tightly I thought my head would pop off. I slid past the thug and
dropped into my seat. He didn’t give me two seconds before he
whipped an injection pen out of his pocket and got me in the arm
with it. As I blanked out I heard the blond’s voice. “Can I talk to
your friend for a moment, sir?” And then I was gone.

The next time I woke up I was upside down, my
stomach over the thug’s shoulder in bright sunlight. I immediately
threw up all over his backside.

“Shit. You could have warned me,” he said,
but he kept running, puke flying off the back of his pants.

“I’m going to puke again if you don’t put me
down.” I wasn’t really, but I thought it was worth a try.

He grunted but kept running. The combination
of the drugs, the motion, and lack of food was making me woozy. I
really just wanted to lie down somewhere until the world stopped
spinning. I tried to look around at the upside down view, but
nothing was making much sense and looking just made my head spin
worse. I felt more than saw the light change as we ran into the
open door of what must have been a hangar.

We slowed, I heard the click of a car door,
and he dumped me on a leather-covered rear seat and slammed the
door. He was outside the car, swearing about the vomit.

“Get in, Richard. We don’t have time for
this.” An unfamiliar male voice occupied the driver’s seat. We can
get the car cleaned later.”

The front door slammed shut, and Richard
turned to me.

“Sit still, and don’t do anything stupid. I’m
not interested in going to jail over this.”

“If you’re not interested in going to jail,
then you probably shouldn’t have forcibly abducted me from my home,
to say nothing of the damage you’re inflicting on my neck. I’m
supposed to be at PT.” I knew I sounded like a whiner, but I
couldn’t help it.

I didn’t have a clue how long I’d been out of
commission. Richard could have put me out any number of times
before I’d gained consciousness. I didn’t have a clue where the
heck I was, although I assumed it was probably California. After
all, that was where Lily Wallace had died.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

“OK. How about who are you?”

“I’m Richard Hambecker, this is Moose.”

That surprised me. He must be pretty
confident about what he was doing if he was willing to give me his
name.

The car pulled slowly out of the hangar and
made its way toward a military-style gate surrounded by chain link
fence with razor wire running along its top. As we approached,
Hambecker turned to me, an EpiPen in his hand.

“I really don’t want to stick you with this
thing again, so give me your word you’ll be quiet, and I
won’t.”

Hell no, I’m not going to stay quiet.

“You’d better stick me, because I’m sure as
hell not going to stay quiet.”
Shit. I should have lied to
him
.

“Nah,” said the driver named Moose. “You
don’t have to do that. I’ll just raise the privacy window. He hit a
button and a tinted window rose in front of me.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” I said aloud.

“Now, now. No need to be rude.” The voice
came through a speaker. “There’s no point in yelling, because all I
have to do is hit a switch, and the guy at the gate won’t be able
to hear you.

We pulled up to the guardhouse where a
uniformed young man looked at a clipboard and made as if to wave us
through. Then his hand went to his belt, and my hopes climbed into
my throat. He talked for a minute on his two-way radio and walked
to the window.

I slid over next to the door, ready to roll.
I didn’t think either of the guys in the front seat could see me
through the privacy window. If this was like most cars, then it was
the passenger’s privacy the window was in place to protect, not the
driver’s. I slid my fingers under the handle and pulled. Nothing. I
pulled harder. Still nothing. I pulled and pushed on the door at
the same time.

“Shit!”

I stared at the guard standing at the
driver’s window. He looked overheated in his uniform. Heat waves
were radiating off the tarmac making the chain link fence
shimmer.

“This Senator Wallace’s car?” The guard’s
voice was tinny and far away through the speaker.

“Yes.” The driver’s voice.

“There’s something going on at the main
terminal, but I was told that the senator was cleared. So you can
go.”

The gate slid back and we rolled forward onto
a deserted surface street.

“Sorry about that,” Hambecker’s voice came
through the speaker this time. “The rear doors have child locks on
them. We don’t use them for the senator, of course, but they do
come in useful on occasion.”

I stuck my tongue out at him through the
tinted window and looked out on the world. All the windows were
tinted, fading color and reducing the contrasts of the world
outside. A thrill of recognition ran through me. I knew where we
were. Of course, it helped that it hadn’t been that long since I
came to get Beau. I was in Sacramento.

I wondered if Sheriff Fogel had been at the
airport when we landed. How had we gotten out of the plane?

“Hey!” I yelled at the guys in the front. “I
want to talk to you.”

The privacy window slowly descended, and
Hambecker turned to me.

“Yep?” He said.

“Hammie, how’d we get out of the airplane?
Wasn’t there someone there to meet us?”

“What did you call me?” A flush was showing
above his collar.

“Uh, Hammie?” There was a red flush crawling
up my neck now, too.

“Don’t do it again. What did you ask me?”

“What happened back there?”

“You’ve got a wire in your neck brace. I
heard you talking to the flight attendants.”

Figures. He had me wired. What a schmuck I
was.

“I still don’t understand how we got out of
the plane.”

“They asked me to let everyone else off the
plane before we got you out. So I let about half of them go. Then I
hoisted you out of your seat, created a huge traffic jam, and
forced my way toward the back of the plane. Caused a huge
commotion. Popped an emergency door, and we slid to the tarmac
where I stole a luggage tram which I drove as far as I thought was
safe and then hoofed it the rest of the way to the VIP hangar. Not
how I expected I’d be using my many skills.” There was a tinge of
regret in his voice.

“You make it sound like you didn’t enjoy
that.”

“I don’t usually find myself on the wrong
side of the law. It goes against my nature.”

“Then why do it?”

“Good question.” But he didn’t tell me, and I
couldn’t get him to say anything else.

Thirty minutes later we drove into an
underground lot in downtown Sacramento. The men hustled me between
them into an elevator. When the doors slid open we were on the
uppermost floor of a hotel. At least I assumed it was the top
floor, since the elevator didn’t go any higher. Hammie and The
Driver, which was how I thought of them, quick-stepped me down the
hall to the last room.

The view wasn’t spectacular like it was from
the hotel in Washington, but the room itself was very tasteful, and
I’d venture to guess very expensive. There was a plush bed with a
faintly shimmery duvet cover and at least eight pillows, a tasteful
couch in the same peach tones across from a TV the size of a
picture window.

Hammie was not happy. He had his back to the
room, looking out the window as he talked on his cell. His replies
were terse. I was sitting cross-legged on the comfy bed, leaning
against the head board with a
People
magazine while Hammie
talked and The Driver sat in a chair by the door, snickering.

“He should know better,” The Driver said.

“Know better than what?” Now that we were
here, and the drugs were wearing off I was feeling strangely calm.
I wondered if I was in shock, but the strangest thing was the pain
in my neck was totally gone.

“To think he’s got any control over the
situation. He thinks if he just sticks this out, he’ll get his life
back. He’s just getting deeper and deeper in.”

I looked from The Driver to Hammie and back
again.

“What’s your name? I think Hammie told me,
but I don’t remember. I can’t keep thinking of you as The Driver.
It doesn’t seem right.”

“Marshall, but my friends call me Moose. I’m
the brains.” He laughed at his own joke.

“Just what is Hammie getting deeper into?
Something to do with me, I’d guess.”

“I’m not allowed to tell you.” Moose looked
regretful. “But I imagine you’ll know before too long.”

“It’s too bad you can’t slam a cell phone,” I
said to Hammie as he clicked his phone shut. “That would probably
make you feel much better.”

“Hah! Nothing could make me feel better at
this point. What size are you? I’ve got to go buy you a dress.”

“What do I need a dress for?”

“We’re going to a jazz concert.”

“A jazz concert? That’s interesting.” In the
back of my brain I was thinking this could only be a dream.

“So, what size?”

I told him my size, and he took off, leaving
Moose in charge of me. I picked up the phone next to the bed and
dialed the front desk. Before anyone could answer Moose had taken
the phone from me and replaced it in the receiver.

“What the hell do you think you’re
doing?”

“I’m going to need to shave my legs if I’m
wearing a dress. I was going to ask the front desk to send me a
razor.”

“Hang on.” Moose opened a door I hadn’t
noticed and walked into an adjoining room. He came back with a
disposable razor.

“Here. It’s new. I usually travel with
several.”

I hid my amazement and got to my feet. I
swayed for a moment, still kind of woozy from the drugs. I made it
into the bathroom and locked the door. Then I put the toilet lid
down and sat with my head between my knees, hoping I wouldn’t pass
out while locked in the bathroom.

I managed my shower by leaning against the
wall whenever dizziness overtook me. I shaved my legs, but I had
the feeling that I wasn’t doing a very good job. Hell, who was
going to be looking at my legs anyway? Certainly not Hammie, not
that I’d want Hammie to look at them. He wasn’t my type. All brawn,
a get-things-done-and-damn-the-consequences kind of guy.

I was back on the bed, wearing a hotel robe
and a towel in my hair, when Hammie returned. He tossed a pretty
blue dress with a matching jacket on the bed along with a Macy’s
bag. I grabbed the bag and pulled out a bra, panties and a pair of
nylons.

“I’m impressed. How’d you know what size bra
I wear?”

“I’m a good judge of a woman’s figure. Lots
of experience.”

Moose snorted.

“He called me on the phone while you were in
the shower, so I picked the lock and checked the tags in your
clothes. You know that bra you were wearing is so old I could
barely make out the size? That couldn’t be giving you enough
support.”

“I do not want to discuss my undergarments
with strange men.” I looked at Hammie. “How long before we have to
leave? I’m going to need some makeup.”

“I draw the line at buying cosmetics. You can
go without.”

“I’ll buy her makeup,” Moose said. “I’ve got
a basketful of sisters. I’ve bought all kinds of female stuff.”

I made Moose a list of what I needed, and he
went off with a grin on his face. I could swear he was enjoying
himself, and I couldn’t drum up an ounce of fear. The situation was
too unreal. If anyone had wanted me dead, there had been plenty of
time to accomplish that when I’d been unconscious. It seemed like
whatever the original plan had been, it had blown up in Hammie’s
face, and he didn’t know how to deal with buying dresses and taking
hostages to jazz concerts.

I took the dress and the undergarments into
the bathroom and changed out of the robe. I left the pantyhose
unopened. I didn’t plan on wearing hose to my own parents’ funeral;
no way was I wearing them for these goons. I pulled the soft
material of the dress over my head and marveled at how well it fit
me. Hammie really did know his clothes, much better than I did, as
a matter of fact. The dress was a three-quarter sleeve with a
high-waisted, formfitting, V-neck bodice that fell into a full
skirt of soft folds that swayed around my calves.
Nice
, I
thought, swooshing the skirt back and forth.

Then I looked at my feet. The only shoes I
had were the sneakers I’d been wearing on the plane. How did I get
those sneakers on, when I’d been lying on my bed in just my
socks
? Hammie put them on you. Probably before he carried you
out of the house
. I felt vaguely disturbed. Was I in denial or
something? Why was I merrily putting on a dress to go to a concert
when just this morning I’d been abducted from my home?
There’s
something wrong with me
. But I put that thought aside and
sashayed out into the main room to find out what Hammie intended to
do about shoes.

I was fuming. The makeup and shoe issues had
been solved, and Hammie had gone to his room and come back looking
very respectable in a grey suit. Then he had gotten Moose to take a
clear zip tie and an O-ring to handcuff us together. He wrapped the
zip tie around my wrist, crossed both ends through the O-ring
around Hammie’s wrist and then threaded the free end through the
lock. Standing, our jacket sleeves hid the cuff fairly well, but I
had the feeling that resting our arms on the theatre seat would
expose our wrists to the world.

“Hammie, I can’t go to a concert handcuffed
to you,” I said. “Someone will notice.”

“Will you stop calling me Hammie,” he said
for the tenth time. “My name is Richard. The only person who will
notice will be my fiancée, and with my luck she’ll notice that
we’re holding hands, not that we’re cuffed together, and that will
be the end of that.” He looked down at my wrist ruefully. “This
hasn’t been the most stellar day.”