Authors: Chris Jordan
Once upon a time Shane had something like this. The suburban New York version, much more modest. Three-bedroom ranch with pool. Nothing remarkable, but comfortable and welcoming because that earlier version of Randall Shane was a nester. Loved to paint, putter and improve. Wife and child, backyard barbecue, Volvo wagon equipped with golden Lab, the whole bit. When that ended, a new Randall Shane eventually emerged, one who lives in rented rooms, hangs no pictures, and does as he damn well pleases. Although lately the urge for domesticity has been sniffing at his ankles like some sly, familiar dog, wanting to know where he’s been, when he’s coming home.
Not yet, Shane thinks, taking it all in, but when the time comes, this will do. There’s still the small matter of having to win a multistate lottery, but what the heck, a man can dream.
He tries a French door that exits onto the patio and is not entirely surprised to find it unlocked. No screaming siren, no flashing lights, so he assumes the security system is not armed. As his eyes adjust to the dim light he finds himself in what must be the master bedroom. The oversize bed designed to look like it’s floating over marble floor. Sleek matching furniture, beautifully lacquered and illuminated by discrete cove lighting. Louvered door to what he assumes is a walk-in closet, and the typical master bath that’s big enough to park an extra SUV if the garage ever gets filled up.
He checks out the walk-in. One side jammed with a young woman’s clothing, size six and under. The other side more sparsely populated with white guayaberras, khaki cargo
pants, a few muscle shirts, and a neat selection of Tommy Bahama silk tropicals that have either never been worn or are fresh from the dry cleaners. Gives him a picture of Mr. Ricky Lang and his wife or girlfriend, but the real purpose of searching a closet is to locate hidden assets like safes, file boxes or firearms. Especially firearms. Ninety percent of gun owners stash their weapons in a closet.
He checks all the likely spots. Then all the unlikely spots. The place is clean. Either the suspect is not in fact a bad boy, or he keeps his toys and weapons elsewhere.
It’s while he’s in the closet that Shane feels a faint thump resonate through the cedar-lined wall. Like someone tossed a tennis ball in an adjacent room. Or dropped a shoe.
Silence follows, but Shane instantly understands that he has miscalculated. Despite his initial assessment, he is not alone in the house. That’s when he decides to call Mrs. Garner, give her the name and address, ask her to share it with Special Agent Healy, a precaution he should have taken before venturing up the driveway.
Serious about wanting a lawyer on standby, he has no intention of letting himself be arrested, not inside the house. Helps that he didn’t damage a lock or slice a screen, because if need be he can argue that he was invited into the residence, plead a misunderstanding.
The old vampire defense—your honor, he asked me in.
When the call to Jane is completed, Shane slips the cell phone into his pocket. He’s bending down, preparing to recon through the slats of the louvered door, when a sizable fist comes crashing through the louvers and into his nose.
Knocking him down but not quite out.
The pink fog means the nose has been broken—not for the first time—but what really concerns him are two indisputable
facts: the man wielding the fist is immensely strong and knows how to punch, and has in his possession a Glock G37, which typically holds ten.45 caliber rounds in the magazine.
Shane knows this because the short barrel of the gun is about eighteen inches away, aiming at his broken nose.
“So which is it?” asks the man with the gun. “You sniffing panties or jock straps? Or maybe both?”
The thing about a broken nose is that the pain is beyond belief for a couple of minutes before it subsides to bearable. Making it hard to think clearly, or formulate replies to leading questions. So rather than make any rash decisions—like, say, attempting to disarm his assailant—Shane prudently decides to rest on his haunches and bleed for a while.
The light is behind his assailant, rendering him into a bulky silhouette that fills the closet doorway. Even at that, the description more or less matches the one given by Tony Carlos, the casino security chief:
What is it you Anglos say? Built like a brick shithouse? That’s Ricky Lang. Some people think he looks like one of the Three Stooges. Others call him The Hulk. Personally I find him just plain scary.
“You’re a big mother,” the hulking figure observes, emphasizing with the Glock. “Nothing in there is your size. Doubtful you could even fit one of Myla’s little thongs on that big fat head of yours.”
Shane gets the impression that, despite the taunting, his assailant knows full well he’s dealing with more than a common intruder. Having a little fun with him while he decides what to do next. Call the cops? Report a break-in? Shoot?
Florida’s Stand Your Ground law is pretty clear. A home owner can shoot and kill an intruder if he believes the intruder
represents a danger to his person. No obligation to retreat. No actual weapon or threat required, simply the impression of danger. And what person would not assume danger, having come upon an intruder?
Fire away, the law implies. Shoot ‘em if you got ‘em.
As the throbbing in his head subsides to no more than a common jackhammer, Shane decides he has nothing to gain by silence or denial. “You Ricky Lang?” he asks, his tongue so thick in his mouth he sounds drunk.
His assailant laughs. “What, you got my name off the mailbox?”
“It’s not on the mailbox,” Shane points out. “Can I get up? Maybe get a cold washcloth?”
“Nah,” says Lang. “You messed up enough of my stuff already. Can’t have you spoiling the washcloths.”
“Fine,” says Shane, wadding his shirttail and using it to stanch the blood.
“Come on out, but crawl. If you stand up or move quick, I’ll shoot,” Lang warns, backing up.
Shane works his way through the door. Calculations for escape or counterattack running through his mind. Maybe try a feint, get the gun hand moving, leap the other way. But moves like that work in the movies, not in real life. In real life Lang, who clearly knows how to handle a gun, will put a bullet in his spine.
One of the disadvantages of being large, he makes a bigger target.
Having crawled out of the closet as instructed, Shane remains on his haunches. That will give him an opportunity to launch himself at Lang if he gets the chance. Also he can bleed on the marble floor, leaving his DNA marker in the
cracks between the close-fitting tiles. Little gift for the crime-scene technicians, if it comes to that.
“Stop right there,” Lang orders. “Stay on your knees.”
Shane stops, letting his nose drip. His eyes are swollen from the blow but his vision has cleared and the light is such that he can finally focus on his assailant, who has perched on the edge of the oversize bed, the Glock never wavering.
Strong arms, to hold a weapon so steadily with one rocksolid hand. The average civilian has no idea of the difficulty, holding and aiming a large-bore handgun. Thirty-five ounces may not sound like much—a little more than two pounds fully loaded—but the compact weight, held in an outstretched hand, soon becomes massive. Gravity is unrelenting. The hand tends to drop, the forearm muscles compensate by raising, tightening. Muscles start twitching and the hand wavers or trembles. Officers are trained to brace the wrist with the other hand, but even with two hands, wavering or trembling can’t be avoided for long.
Ricky Lang does not waver or tremble.
Perched on the edge of the bed, grinning as if he’s just heard the best joke in the world, Lang does indeed resemble a Native American version of Moe Howard. Mostly because of the thick black hair, the crude bowl-cut that leaves glossy bangs covering his forehead. The Hulk description works, too. Something about his broad sloping shoulders, the over-amped lats and biceps, the narrow waist and powerful legs. Bare feet adding to the effect, as if the man was continually bursting out of his shoes.
Shane figures that in a fair fight—if such a thing ever exists—he might well prevail, using his own considerable strength and relying on his added leverage. But in close combat, an eye-gouging, throat crushing fight to the death, Ricky
Lang would be exceedingly dangerous. Might come down to who lands the first damaging blow.
“You can’t be a cop,” Lang muses. “Cops always come in pairs.”
“My name is Randall Shane. I’m former FBI. I consult on missing children.”
Lang finds this interesting. “No shit? A
former
Fed? So what, they fired you? Caught you going through underwear drawers, vamoosed your sorry ass?”
“Something like that.”
Lang shakes his head, vastly amused. “This is good. I’m out in my boat, changing the oil? I hear this footstep, real soft, on the patio? Take a peek and there you are, big as a linebacker, breaking and entering into my bedroom.”
“The door was unlocked,” Shane points out. “My colleagues have my location. They’ll respond soon.”
“Yeah? I’d like to meet ‘em. Except you said you were fired.”
“Resigned.”
“Uh-huh. So what you doin’ here, Randall?”
Moment of truth, Shane thinks and decides he doesn’t care to die with a lie on his lips. “I’m looking for Seth Manning and Kelly Garner.”
Ricky Lang smiles and nods. “The pilot and his girl. It’s about time,” he says. “What took you guys so long?”
There are lots of things going on with Shane physically, from the wicked throb of his freshly broken nose to the ache of his hamstrings, but nothing so bad it overwhelms the flesh-crawling chill that runs up his spine.
He did it. He found the perp.
Now if only he can live long enough to do something about it.
“You a hero, man,” Ricky Lang is saying, sounding genuinely
pleased for him. “Just this morning I’m trying to figure, should I kill ‘em or let ‘em go? You know, like weighing it on my mind? And then along comes you.”
“Easy decision,” Shane encourages. “Let them go.”
The disturbing thing, other than the unwavering Glock, is the way Ricky Lang’s smile flashes on and off like a neon sign with a bad connection. Like he’s all there one moment and gone the next.
“Want to know how I got you, man? Pow through the door?
Because I can be invisible.
I can make it so you can’t see or hear me, like a blindfold on your mind. Then boom! nailed you through the door. Because also I’ve got X-ray vision, like Superman.”
“You saw me through the louvers.”
“Nah, man, I
sensed
you. I got the magic, man. I got the power.”
“But you’ll let them go.”
“Sure,” Ricky Lang says with a shrug. “Why not?”
He stands up, tucks the Glock in his waist. “Let’s get you that cold washcloth, then I’ll take you to them.”
20. What Gods Provide
Live or die.
The choice has become that simple. During the dark and endless hours she has come to understand that dying would be easy. Just give up, let go. Stop drinking from the jug of water. Stop eating the ridiculous peanut butter sandwiches her captor left in a plastic bread bag.
Famished, she had demolished several of the awful sandwiches, gagging with every bite, the soft white bread tasting of greasy fingers. Worse than any of those icky hospital meals
because it has been touched by the unclean hands of her tormentors. And yet she had consumed the awful things because to refuse would have been to become weaker. Again, very like the conscious choice she’d made as a nine-year-old. Deciding to be strong and resolute and not give in to her illness. Summoning all of her strength, willing her body to overcome the ravages of radiation treatments and chemotherapy. Fighting for her life by refusing to die.
Kelly had been a voracious reader, even at her sickest. Partly because books were an escape, entry into another world where she could, if she wanted, be a warrior princess fighting dragons, or Harry Potter’s friend Hermione, or just a normal healthy girl having fun with her friends. An early chapter book stuck in her mind because of the vivid illustrations.
Myths of The Ancient World.
All about the battles between gods and heroes.
Especially resonant with Kelly was the way gods liked to play tricks on the heroes and punish them horribly for what seemed like small infractions of rules. Lying in her hospital bed, weak from whatever the nurses and technicians had inflicted on her small body, she could readily identify with the fire-giver Prometheus, chained to the ground so a vulture could eat his liver. And then overnight his liver would grow back and the vulture would come again, its great beak gleaming like steel. Or poor Sisyphus, being made to push a giant rock up a steep hill for all eternity, only to have it roll down, having to start all over, shoving and pushing forever and ever.
She invented her own tormented hero. The great, tragic and stunningly beautiful Chemo, trapped in her bed, held down with tubes and bags of fluids, having to endure the torments administered by the gods of Sloan-Kettering. Striving to be good and brave and true so the miserable disease would give up and leave her alone.
Chemo the Brave, Chemo the Magnificent. Chemo who fought death to a standstill and won back her life. Hadn’t thought about her in a long time. No need. But now in the muggy darkness of her little prison, Kelly summons her back. Not to suffer tragically, but to fight and win.
First requirement, a weapon. Other than her hands, teeth and fingernails, what is there? She numbers the objects in her mind.
1. Plastic water jug.
2. Small plastic lantern.
3. Five-gallon bucket. Three things, and none of them is exactly a loaded gun.
She decides to examine each object, with the aim of devising a weapon. The water jug is smooth and flimsy. She rejects it. The battery-filled lantern is fairly heavy, it feels sort of substantial, but the shape makes it awkward to throw. Leaving the bucket. She loathes the bucket, the humiliation of having to use it for a toilet. Could it become a weapon? Fling it hard enough at her captor’s head, the next time the door opened, maybe it would stun him, give her time to slip past him.