“I’m really glad you called,” I say into my cell phone.
It is Freddie; he is about to board an airplane to visit his mother, who lives in Dallas, for the Thanksgiving holiday.
“You doing anything special?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “Rob’s still asleep but he told me that holidays are ground zero for relapses and that he’s got to spend all four days in meetings to protect his sobriety.” I sigh. I don’t get into the fact that I didn’t even bother to buy a turkey this year. There just didn’t seem to be any point.
“You sound lonely,” he says, sympathy in his voice.
“I miss Robyn,” I say. “I really thought that going on TV and offering a reward would lead to something.”
“You don’t know that it won’t,” he says. “Sometimes it takes people a while to work up their courage to do the right thing.”
“I guess,” I say, peering out the kitchen window at a pallid sky.
“They’re getting ready to board now; I have to go.”
“Have a great holiday,” I say, envious of his capability to hop on a plane and leave his real life behind.
“I’ll call you when I get back into town next week,” he says.
We say goodbye and then I toss the cell onto the kitchen counter. It skids across the surface, stopping under a week’s worth of mail that I still need to sort. Already it’s nearing noon and I haven’t gotten my shower. I sough out a breath of discontent, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and grab my cup of coffee, preparing to head to the bathroom when I hear pounding on the front door. I can’t imagine who on earth it could be. I set my coffee cup back down and walk to the living room.
Staring through the peephole I see a face that can only mean trouble. I open the front door.
“Jenny,” I say of Robyn’s troublemaking friend. A look of hysterical panic is in her eye.
“You’ve got to help her,” she says, her voice wild. Her eyes fill with tears.
Terror instantly invades my body.
“What’s wrong?” I say, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. “Is Robyn okay?”
“He said something about you having to choose. He’s never been like this before,” she says.
“Who?” I demand.
“He always said he was our friend and that he would take care of us! But now-”
“Choose what? What are you talking about?”
Jenny is openly crying now.
I seize her by the forearms.
“Jenny!” I yell. “Get a hold of yourself! Now tell me what is going on!”
She wrenches free.
“It’s Peña! He says you got one hour and then he’s gonna kill her if you don’t choose. I don’t know what he’s talking about.” She digs into one of the front pockets in her jeans. “I wrote it down. This is where she is. He wants you to go there.” She hands me the note.
On a scrap of paper is an address in the City. From the street name I recognize the address: Robyn is in the Tenderloin.
“He says if you call the cops he’ll kill her.”
In my mind I’m already calculating how long it will take to drive to San Francisco. One hour is cutting it very close. Immediately I am thinking about whether or not to try to reach Rob at the Alano Club. There’s no time. I’ll leave him a note.
“I have to go,” I say, leaving Jenny standing at the front door.
In the bedroom I survey the floor for clothing. I bounce out of my pajamas and into the nearest pair of pants I can find. I jerk an old sweatshirt over my head and slip on a pair of nearby flip-flops.
I grab my purse and fly out the door.
The sky in the City is a cadaverous grey. The air, frigid.
I ease the Corsica onto Sacramento Street. I look at the map again. “Okay, Polk should be coming up after Franklin,” I say to myself.
Apartment buildings are sandwiched together one after the other with an occasional market or liquor store squeezed in between. Traffic is light because of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Sure enough, I see Polk Street and flip the turn indicator on just as I make the right turn. I reread the scrap of paper that Jenny gave me again. “It’s gotta be right here,” I say under my breath.
Across the street, on the corner of Sacramento and Polk stands a boarded up storefront covered in black soot. On the top is a dingy sign half obscured by carbon smudges; I can make out the name Bob’s. A recent fire has obviously nearly destroyed the building. From the looks of it, Bob’s was probably a corner grocery market. I can’t make out the address. But just past the burnt out hull of a building, I see it. The blue BMW, front license plate advertising its owner: BLU BOY.
I lurch the car to a stop and yank the gearshift into park. Cars are parked up and down both sides of the street. To hell with wasting time trying to find a parking space. People can drive around the Corsica.
I hop out of the car and sling my purse strap over my shoulder.
I look at my watch; fifty eight minutes have elapsed since Jenny delivered her message.
Although the storefront has been boarded up, near where the brick and what used to be a large glass window meet, about waist high, I catch sight of a small opening where one of the wood planks stops short. It looks barely big enough for a cat to get through. I’m not sure I can squeeze through, but I’m damn sure going to try. I stick one leg into the opening, bending nearly in half, as I wedge myself into the narrow fissure. I feel like a contortionist, jamming my body into the small gap. I have to stuff myself rear end first and then at last, the one foot on the inside finds solid ground. Turning sideways, I hop backwards inch by inch, as first one shoulder and then the other shoulder presses through the breach, wringing my flesh as I drive myself through to the inside of the burned out store.
Inside, I am immediately overcome by the acrid, sour stench of burnt plastics and wood; a miasma of toxic stink. It is pitch black inside, save only for narrow glimmers of light that bleed in between the planks of wood on the outside of the building. I know I don’t have a flashlight in my purse, but my hand drops inside anyway, my fingers searching for their prize: the Colt.
“Robyn?” I whisper. I listen for a moment, but don’t hear anything.
I take one tentative step forward. My foot lands on something already broken. The crunch of the glass muffled beneath my shoe. As my eyes begin to adjust to the darkness, I can now make out frameworks of shelving units that used to hold food. Nearly all of them have been destroyed by fire. The floor is littered with burnt boxes of cereals and crackers and dented, half burnt cans. Most of the structures look more like skeletons of shelves than actual shelving.
I cross the floor, careful to avoid as much debris as I can. I step over a half burned bottle of Heinz catsup as the odor of burnt wood and catsup and pickles invade my nostrils.
At the far end of the store, I catch sight of a long mass of twisted, melted steel, and realize those must have been shopping carts. Beyond me, ahead by about ten yards, I hear a sudden noise dart across the floor and realize that I’m not the only one making my way through the charred groceries. The hairs on the back of my neck shoot up and a shiver of repulsion flies across my skin as I try to dispel the image of rats scuttling around near me.
Towards the very back of the store, I see a faint outline of a doorway. As I approach, I glimpse a door, ajar, outlined by a diffuse light on the other side. My heart thuds wildly in my chest as I draw near to the door. My mouth is dry as ashes and the stench of the burnt and rotting food causes waves of nausea to roll through my body. I take another cautious step towards the door. I am near enough now that I can reach out and touch it. But before I can raise my hand I hear a sound. A whimper. I bolt through the door. What I see causes me to freeze in shock.
The room is small, perhaps what used to be an office or small break room for the employees of the store. On the left wall, a door leading outside a back alley stands open, letting in light. In the shadows I see a long table and bench lie on their sides, charred and twisted from the fire. In the center of the room two chairs set back to back a foot apart from each other. Two girls tied and gagged are in the chairs; both looking at me, abject terror fills their eyes. Robyn sits in the chair on the right and Chevy is on the left.
“Oh my God,” I murmur. “It’s okay girls, it’s going to be okay.”
I make a move towards them, but from the darkness he emerges. BLU BOY saunters towards the girls, a gun in each of his hands. He gives me a malevolent grin.
“Jou think jou are so smart,” he says. “Jou go on TV, think you do something big.” He waves both guns around in the air. “But you see?” he says, aiming a gun at each girl’s head. “I am the one that do something big.”
“No! Please,” I beg; my eyes well with tears. “I’m sorry. Please!”
“Now is too late,” he says. “Jou habe to choose. One girl live, one girl die.”
Robyn and Chevy let out plaintive cries of panic.
“Whish one you want to live?” he asks.
“Look,” I begin. “If you want to kill somebody, kill me.”
As I plead my mind races with scenarios. My hand is still inside my purse and although my palm is drenched with sweat, I am still clutching the Colt. I flashback in my mind to the day that Freddie took me target practicing, trying desperately to recall what he taught me. But in my heart of hearts I realize there is no way I can pull my handgun from my purse, aim and fire before Peña would be able to get off at least one shot, maybe two. I lose, no matter how I play my cards. But I also realize that Peña gets off on fear. I can at least try to stall him while I try to figure a way out of this. Slowly, I pull the.22 from my purse, aiming directly at him.
Peña’s eyes register a jolt of surprise and then amusement. “Look at jou!” he lets out an arrogant laugh.
I grasp the Colt with both hands.
“If you kill either of them, I kill you,” I say, doing my best to inject strength into my voice. “Is that what you want?”
He laughs again, but the amusement in his eyes quickly turns to rage.
“No one fucks with me, jou hear me? No one!” he shouts. “Jou think jou turn my cholos against me? Make them rat me out for money? I run this fucking city!”
His outburst frightens me. Needles of fear shoot through my veins.
“Look, Peña,” I say, trying to reason with him. “You let the girls go, right here, right now, and everybody walks away. I swear to God, I won’t notify the police. Do you even see any cops here? No! Because I did exactly as you said. I haven’t called anyone.”
As if to make me a liar, a siren breaks through the gloom of space. My mind races back to the note I left at home for Rob. I should have realized that the first thing he’d do would be to call the San Francisco police department. I grit my teeth in angst. But San Francisco is a big city. Sirens go off all the time. I am hoping that is what Peña is thinking.
“I count to ten, and then I kill one girl. Jou choose.”
“Peña, don’t do this,” I say.
“One, two, three,” he starts counting.
He wants me to beg for my daughter’s life. But begging for Robyn’s life means consigning Chevy to death. It is an impossible option.
“If you shoot either of them, you die. Is that what you want?”
“Four, fibe, seex,” he continues his countdown.
The siren, which began far away, now wails louder and has been joined by others. They are so loud, in fact, that they sound as if they are just down the block. Could it be the police coming here? And if so, will they get here in time?
“Leave right now, while you still can,” I say. “Because so help me God, I will kill you,” I threaten.
“Seben, eight, nine,” Peña continues. He jabs the barrels of both guns sharply into each girl’s head. They both let out muted sobs of panic.
Just as Peña opens his mouth to say the word ‘ten’, a shadowy figure darkens the doorway to the left. Everything seems to happen simultaneously. A look of alarm jerks across Peña’s face as he looks to the left and sees a cop. The policeman’s gun is drawn. He is aiming directly at Peña’s head.
“Drop it!” the policeman shouts.
“Fuck you all,” Peña says. He raises the gun in his left hand, aims it at the policeman. Suddenly, the deafening cacophony of explosions shakes the room.
It is only after I fire the Colt that I realize I closed my eyes when I pulled the trigger. When I open my eyes, I see Peña, sprawled on the floor, lying in an expanding pool of blood.
“Drop your weapon!” the cop shouts at me.
I do as I am told and dare myself to look in the direction of the girls, holding my breath in desperation. Chevy sits quietly crying.
Peña was able to fire both guns simultaneously. His shot towards the policeman evidently missed. But the shot from the gun in his right hand, at point blank range, aimed directly at Robyn, hit home.