Switcheroo (24 page)

“You must be joking.”

“Hardly. Somebody was holding a
bunch of your checks and ran them through all at once. Listen, they say that
they can give you a line of credit as a second mortgage on your house.  Is that
okay?” Willie asked.

“Do it then!” I was screaming. “I
gotta go, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

What else could happen? No, wait,
don’t even think that.

Chapter
46

I had Fred Smithey on the line.

“Bell Buoy Sea Food Market, it’s
in Edisto, South Carolina. We’re headed there now,” I barked. “You can find it.
Just drive to Edisto and ask anybody, they’ll tell you how to get to the Bell
Buoy.”

“I am overworked already and I
want to be home at night with Kim,” he hissed.

“Bring her with you. Expense it,
and I’ll pay you back.  I need you to do this. I can’t be in two places at
once.”

I could get close though with
these switching trucks.

Maybe Smithey sensed the panic
behind my pleading. He finally agreed to meet me in Edisto.  I could hear Kim
in the background complaining that her feet would swell during the drive, but
she didn’t say she wouldn’t go. Ah, young love. Well, crusty old dude and young
pregnant chick love. Just weird.

I called Partee and lied to him,
telling him that my chartered boat was going to arrive at Coconut Grove, north
of Miami, in about two hours and that I would bring the truck to the Cheesecake
Factory there.  Kind of a cheesy (get it?) meeting place but it was all I could
come up with right then.

Jacobo called me back.  I had him
explain to the Captain that he should wait in Edisto until Fred Smithey got
there and then turn the truck over to him.  I had Jacobo promise the Captain my
last thousand in cash to make sure nothing went wrong.

The timing was perfect. We got to Edisto at about four in the morning on Sunday night. There was no security light on the
docks behind Bell Buoy Sea Food.  Edisto rolls up the streets at about nine
o’clock except for a couple bars on the other side of the peninsula. As quietly
as I could, I used the Bell Buoy’s boom and winch to lift the truck in its
fishing net and move it to shore. It was like playing a high stakes version of
the carnival grab game, where you use the tiny crane to pick up a stuffed
animal.

The truck cranked and I was able
to hide it in a stand of pines and shrub that was between the seafood house and
the nearest condo complex. The Captain took the boat out and tied off on a
piling in the inter-coastal. We came back to shore in a small dingy.

On shore, I scanned my
English/Spanish dictionary for the right words to explain to the Captain what
was going to happen. There was no word for teleportation.

I finally boiled down to, ‘two
trucks will switch.  I will be gone’.

“Dos camiones agrado conmutar. Yo
agrado ser ido. Fred aqui cinqo hora,” I said.

It had taken me ten minutes with
my dictionary to write down this sentence on a napkin.  My hideous Spanish
grated on his ears. He listened with a kidney-stone-passing look on his face. 
His expression changed when I handed him the thousand greenbacks.  I had him
step back a little. I reminded him the trucks would switch and said Adios. He
said Adios and more Spanish, which I took as a thank you. We shook hands.

I called Fred’s cell.

“Fred, where are you?”

“Just hitting the edge of town.”

“You’re kidding me! I just got the
truck ashore. You made great time.”

“Woulda got here faster but Kim
has to pee every third exit.  I kept the car running and waited for her. We did
okay.”

“Listen, Fred. I gotta go.  The
Captain is waiting for you here and will help you get the truck on the car
carrier.”

“Can’t you wait fifteen minutes? 
I’ll be right there.”

“Nope, a little girl is in danger.
I’m leaving now. Just get this truck back to Knoxville, okay? I’ll see you.”

I hung up.

I got in the truck, closed the
window and set the cheap digital clock to 3:17 for my third trip through the
wormhole. Everything faded as my eyes disintegrated and my mind melted away.

I came to in Tennessee, still in
the driver’s seat in the same school gymnasium I had seen before. The halogen
lights were off. The soft light of dawn was beginning to creep through the high
windows of the gym, making an opaque glare on the varnished wood floor and strange
shadows were all around.  My mind was stumbling drunkenly, trying to find
stable footing. I wasn’t sure if I was me or a shadow of me, thrice removed.
These thoughts brought me to the conclusion that all must be well with my brain
and soul. At least as well as could be expected.

I would give myself ten minutes to
find Briana. I set the timer on my watch for ten minutes and then set the
truck’s clock to 3:07. This would save me fumbling with the digital clock to
get out of there, when and if I found Briana.  I quietly opened the truck door
and wobbled out. Just then Slink rounded the corner and ran up to me.

“You are gonna stop me?” I
snarled. Slink turned white.

“Parteeeee!”  He screamed, and
then retched.

“Where’s the girl?” I said this
quietly.

“Parteeee!”  Slick yelled again.
The look on his face said he was about to vomit. I looked at each of the two
entrance doors, waiting. Finally I decided to go look for Briana myself. To
punish Slink, I threatened him.

“I’m gonna punch your teeth in and
kick your nuts up into your stomach!” I screamed at him.

Slink doubled over and vomited
what looked like barbeque and fried okra.

I ran out a door next to the
stage. I was in a darkened hallway of what looked like an elementary school.  I
ran down the hall, my steps echoing loudly on the dusty tiled floor. I figured
a delinquent like Partee would take over the power center of the abandoned
school, the principal’s office.  I hustled down the hall toward what I hoped
was the front of the school.  Making a right at a dead end, I ran down another
long hall. I was sweating and huffing as I ran.

Lockers flew past in a blur broken
periodically by classroom doors.  Between gasps, I yelled Briana’s name and
tried to listen for an answer. In the pale light from the classroom windows, I
could see dusty footprints up and down the hall.  I slowed and just followed
the footsteps; none of them went into any of the classrooms.  I was going more
slowly as the halls darkened between the doors and it was hard to see the
tracks.  One more left and right and I past the front entrance. I started
yelling more and I heard some noise coming from the school office.

I burst in and there, chained to a
desk in the corner of the office, was Wendy’s Briana.  She had runny eye makeup
from crying and was looking a little raccoon-ish.  I could have hugged her but
it was obvious she did not want to be hugged.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Russell Stover, they call me
Rust.”

“You!  Oh, you have got to be
kidding.  You’re the reason I’m here.  They told me if they held me you would
show up.  And I was already pissed at you about Mom.   She was perfectly happy
until you showed up.  You show up at our house wasted and she said you’re
messing around with a young girl half your age.  I prayed for help but I can’t
believe you are the one who showed up. And what’s with the priest outfit? Are
you here to rescue me or molest me? God has a sense humor now?”

“I……..”

“Look out!” She screamed.

It was too late. A hard shot to my
kidney was followed by a kick to my gut. I dropped to the floor in pain before
I even realized what was happening.

I rolled and looked up.  Partee
closed in; his face dark, a glare from the high windows on his chrome dome.

“You just don’t quit do you? 
You’re like dog shit stuck in the tread of my hiking boots.”

“You stepped in poop and now you
are kicking me with those boots?” I said between gasps of shallow breath.

Two more kicks to the stomach and
one to the head followed. I guess sarcasm doesn’t pay.

My head rolled back as Partee’s
cinder block fists lifted me up by my shirt.

“You’d be dead, but I need my
other truck.  I used up five years worth of favors with my south Florida connections. It isn’t in Miami, is it?”  He kneed me in the groin.  My knees
buckled, but Partee held me up. I saw stars and planets.  The pain owned me.  I
tried to speak, nothing.

“I can’t hear you, tell it!” He
head butted my nose, which exploded with blood.

“South Carolina,” I gasped, head
still rolling back and side to side.

“Now we’re getting somewhere.”

My vision was fading but I heard
an unmistakable and loud thwack.  Partee threw me down and when he turned,
there was Randall Kendrick holding a gun on him.

“That hurt!” Partee screamed
grabbing the back of has head, feeling the blood oozing from the back of his
lumpy, shaved scalp. He staggered toward Kendrick.

“That always works in the movies,
pistol whip to the back of the head and the bad guy drops. You should be
unconscious.”

Kendrick sounded nonchalant.  He
gestured with the gun as he spoke, but finally pointed it at Partee’s forehead.

“This ain’t a movie and I’m not
the bad guy, you are!” said Partee.

“Technically, you are both bad
gu..”

“Shut up!” They shouted at me
simultaneously.

“I’m gonna need to tie you up now
so I can take back my intellectual property,” He said to Partee.

“I am gonna have fun killing you,”
Partee spat as he took a step forward.

“I can see you won’t go without a
fight.”

Kendrick’s shot to Partee’s right
knee deafened everyone in the room. I was flattened as Partee’s two hundred
fifty pounds landed on me.  He writhed, screaming and grabbing his knee.  He
bled on me, thrashing this way and that, crushing my spleen and possibly other
vital organs.

“Get him off me!” I’m not sure if
anyone heard me. Partee quieted as he bled some more. Kendrick pushed him off
me with his foot.

“Tie him up.”

I got up, shaking as I rose. 
Briana pulled down an ancient window blind and cut the string from it using the
sharp edge of a metal desk drawer.

She gave me the string and I tied
Partee to a chair.

We walked by the puddle of
Partee’s knee blood. Briana looked up at the dirty ceiling to avoid looking at
Partee and the blood pooling under his chair.

“Bye Partee,” I said as Briana and
I walked out of the dusty office. Kendrick followed with his gun at our backs.

Chapter
47

I looked back at Randall Kendrick
as we walked down the dim, dusty halls toward the gym.

“What are you looking at?
Surprised to see me here?”  I quickly looked away. Randall was obviously not
taking his meds. “You know, Rust, you’re not the only one who can triangulate
the location of an object using satellite phone records.”

I had needed Joel at LISA to
locate the trucks.  I did not have an in at the phone company.  I did not know
how these trucks did what they did. Science? Nope.  To me it was magic. With
Kendrick’s pistol pointed at my back, it was hitting home that I was in way
over my head.  I closed my eyes and prayed that Briana would get back to Wendy
safely.  That was my prayer. My one wish.  Maybe dying in a priest’s outfit
would help me get to heaven, although I was dubious.  Impersonating a police
officer in this life could land you in jail. What would impersonating a priest
get you in the afterlife?  I shook my head to scatter these thoughts.  My
stopwatch was showing less than two minutes until the truck teleported. If I
timed it right, could I jam Briana and I into the truck before the reaction
started?  I hoped we would be teleported before being shot.

“If we get out of this I am
telling Mom to drop your ass,” Briana hissed.  We were approaching the gym. A
minute and a half left.

Slink was standing next to the
truck when we entered the gym.  Something was wrong.  The driver’s side wheels
had been removed and the little truck listed to one side, sitting with its
brakes and hubs on the gym floor. Tired cogs cranked in my head. I had closed
the driver and passenger side windows which would contain the teleporting
reaction, as William Madison had instructed.  The special rubberized paint
coated the rest of the vehicle and the tires insulated the reaction from the
ground.  Without two of the four tires, would the system fail to activate or
would it ground out?  Would it continue into the ground?  Would it ever stop?
The questions were out of control again.

“Partee isn’t here to stop you and
I can’t fight you.  But I can stop you driving out of here.”

Removing his hat, Slink wiped his
sweaty forehead with a rag. Then his hands shot up at the sight of Kendrick
with his gun. “Who are you?”

“The name’s Kendrick,” Randal
said, pointing the gun first at Slink, then back at us. Briana loathed me, but
right now she was glued to me as the only adult there who wasn’t an obvious
criminal. Less than a minute left on my watch’s timer.

“Kendrick, Madison told me that
this process has to be isolated. The metal brakes touching the…” Bang, the
entry door to the school flew open and there was Partee rolling in on a
cafeteria cart.

“Here’s Johnny!” He screamed,
pushing himself across the gym floor with surprising speed using his good leg.

“You couldn’t tie him any better
than that?” Kendrick annoyed, casually waving the gun at me.  He was way too
relaxed to be armed. Then he braced the pistol with both hands and pointed at
Partee’s rolling form. Partee noticed this too and shielded his head with a
metal lunch tray from the middle shelf of the cart.  Kendrick fired.

“Run,” I whispered to Briana.  I
pushed her in front off me toward the exterior exit entrance from the
gymnasium. We burst through the door into the blinding sunlight. The door
slammed shut behind us. As we ran through the cracked parking lot, I heard a
familiar crackling sound over the noise of my pounding heart and rasping
breath.

We reached the grass of the
adjacent field as the sound changed to the sort of monstrous crackle you hear
right before you hear thunder. It grew louder in an exponential spiral. I
grabbed my ears and fell to the ground. As I lay there sweating and bleeding
from a gash on my head, I thought that the sound had become even louder. But
that was simple shock, the sound was gone; nothing, silence.  My chest was a
hornets’ nest of pain and my ears were numb.  I couldn’t even hear my own
panting.

“Are you dead?” Briana asked. She
sounded hopeful.

“No, just stifled.”

I sat up slowly and leaned
forward, head between legs.

“I guess I am glad you are not
dead. You smell like a dumpster in July, though.”

I guess my three days at sea
followed by running from a interdimensional implosion had me smelling pretty
ripe.

“You should be happy. I have a
cell phone and I can get us out of here.”

“I can walk ten miles,” She
announced. She did not want me to feel needed.

“And in which direction would you
walk ten miles?”

Briana Forsyth broke off and
looked across the parking lot.

“Uh, you need to see this.”

She took a couple steps forward.
Then she broke into a jog and headed back across the vacant parking lot.

I stood.  About halfway across the
parking lot the pavement ended. Briana had stopped running and was looking
down.  I shuffled over to the edge and looked down, too.  We were looking into
a huge hole.  The old gymnasium - gone. Part of the school’s rear wing – gone.
It was not like the crater left by a meteor strike or an explosion.  It was as
though a giant ice cream scope had swooped down leaving a gargantuan
semi-spherical hole. I leaned forward and my gaze dropped to the bottom.  In
the shadows of some roof debris, I could make out a dusky little Ford Ranger.

The door opened.  A figure. Fred
Smithey?

“Mother of Pearl, where am I?” he
screamed.