[Previously in Traverse, Inc. – Julie Peters finally meets Annette, and sees that someone has beaten her. She treats Annette kindly, in spite of the disdain the other inmates seem to feel for the woman. As she is leaving the jail she is accosted by a large man and thrown into the back of Cheese’s car.]
So, the traitor is Cheese. He probably sold us out for a new Minolta.
“Yeah, buddy, it’s a camera, scanner, printer, fax, phone, video editing suite, and e-book reader all in one! Just do what we tell you and it’s yours!”
“Gee, can I have the carry case and the tripod TOO???”
Jackass. I couldn’t believe this past week – hired, abused, fired, destroyed, rescued, hired, abducted, fooled, freed, friends dying trying to help me, hiding out, working an assignment in jail, betrayed, and finally, abducted again. Who would believe this?
Garlic man was staring out the window and trying to pull his under-sized suit jacket out from under his large backside with his right arm. He was obviously oblivious to my thoughts, and, so it seemed, oblivious to any sense of personal hygiene. He had his left arm draped behind me along the top of the back seat and I couldn’t tell which was worse, the garlic vapors coming out of his mouth and pores or the perspiration fumes emanating from his underarms. I gagged loudly and got his attention.
“Could you put your arm down, please?” I asked.
“No,” he grunted.
Could you stop breathing then? “I’m gonna puke in your lap, bud. You stink!”
“So, crack the window.”
Okay, just breathe on it, it’ll crack. “Fine, thanks a lot,” I said, and lowered the window six inches and edged over to stick my nose into the clean air.
“Where are you taking me?”
“You’re gonna see the man about a thing.”
“What thing?” I said. “I don’t have anything and I don’t know anything. What could he possibly want with me?”
“He don’t tell me that,” he said, and turned back to gaze out his window.
Have you ever known when you were done with something, someone, or some situation? It’s like a wall of emotion washes over you, the weight falls off of your shoulders, and fresh blood flows into your innermost being. You don’t care what comes next, but you want it to be your own call and not the result of someone else’s imposed will. Well, I was done. No more pleasant Patty; no more play thing, puppet, patsy or punk.
With my face in the breeze, I was close enough to the door to be far enough away from the big man to be able to reach me. I guessed that as big as he was, and in his nice tight suit, and leaning back in his seat, he was much like his deodorant – slow to react. I grasped the door latch - Oh, hey, this must be my stop – waited for the car to slow around a bend - and there’s Marge! I’ll be right back - and was in mid-air before garlic man could say, “Pass the Parmesan.”
It always looked so un-scathing in the movies when they jumped out of a moving car. A thud and a few rolls and they were up and running, but holy crap it hurt. I laid there trying to get my breath back from the jolting landing, and to see straight from the rolling. My head was spinning and then like in the elevator a few days back, I hurled right in the center of the dividing line of the road. My eyes blurred and with the spinning I saw six headlights coming my way. I couldn’t move my body so I ducked my head, as if maybe the car would miss my forehead while it turned my body into instant roadkill.
The car braked and swerved; the tire clipping my Gucci heel and sending it across the pavement. If you had asked me a few days before if I would be okay with my Gucci getting crushed, I would have fought you tooth and nail (well, maybe only tooth. I had just had my nails done), but now I was totally relieved. I looked back at Cheese’s car that had braked down the road and it was beginning to back up toward me.
Whoever was in the car that missed me got out and was running my way. Headlights were shining all around as other cars were getting closer. Garlic man was getting out of Cheese’s car and still I couldn’t will myself to move. Suddenly, arms were underneath me and dragging me toward the car that missed me. I could still see garlic man, but he had stopped, a look of panic in his eyes, and then three shots rang out from the car that missed me and garlic man was down. Another two shots and two tires on Cheese’s car were flattened. I tried to look back to see who was dragging me and who was shooting, but they teamed up and threw me into the car face down. I was half on the back seat and half off – my face on the carpeted floor mats that smelled like beer.
“You okay, Julie?” A familiar woman’s voice said.
Oh, yeah, never better. “Uh, huh,” was all I could manage. My head was spinning. Concussion maybe and my body ached from the fall, the bounce and the roll. I couldn’t place her voice…
“Good. We got you out of there just in time,” she said. It was coming to me….the voice….the beer….oh good, got it.
“Ruth?” I said.
“Yes, dear,” she sounded surprised. “You didn’t know it was me?”
“Uh, uh. You shoot garlic man?”
“What? Oh, no dear. I dragged you from the road. That man was going to take you somewhere where we wouldn’t be able to get to you, and we wouldn’t want that.”
“He was taking me to see a man about a thing.” As I said it, the man in the front passenger seat laughed loudly. Ruth did too.
“No, really,” I tried to impress on them the dire nature of what I felt was going to happen. “Cheese is the traitor and they were going to take me to…”
Now they both howled with laughter. I wanted to chuckle too, but I didn’t get the joke.
“No, dear,” Ruth said. “Cheese was taking you to see my son, and Garlic Man as you call him, is Jimmy Fusco and is undercover for Traverse, Inc. He secretly worked his way up to be one of Tony Scalisi’s top lieutenants.
“He was one,” said the man in the front. “At least before I shot his double-deal’n ass.”
“Oh, sorry Julie,” Ruth said. “I haven’t introduced you. This is my new boss, Mr. Tony Scalisi.”