Forced Pair Read online

  The package followed, but at a much slower pace. She kept looking back, stopping. He turned and strode to her, intent on picking her up. When she folded her arms across her chest and refused to budge he asked, “Do I need to carry you again?”

  “No.” She spoke without really separating her lips.

  She headed into the rows of cars, vans, and SUVs, ahead and independently of him.

  She stopped near a water-stained and pigeon feces-speckled pillar and waited for him to come to her. He opened his mouth to possibly chastise her when he heard the unmistakable ping of high-velocity metal ricocheting off concrete no more than a foot above his head.

  VII

  Dent didn’t bother looking back. The shooter would undoubtedly be positioned somewhere up high, night-ops gear, nearly impossible to spot unless one happened to be looking in his general direction the next time he fired. Of course that would increase the odds of being fatally shot tenfold. And simply knowing there was a marksman out there was enough information for Dent to take proper action.

  In a crouch, hugging her knees to her chest, the package looked up at the small grey puff of concrete floating lazily from the small gouge in the pillar into the still air. He rushed for the package, intending to clamp down on her mouth to stifle the imminent scream, but the girl only looked to him with steady eyes. Perhaps she calculated the fact that a loud target made for an easy target.

  He reached down into her suddenly upraised arms and pulled her up into him. When dealing with a long-ranged weapon, distance coverage was vital to survival. Small steps would be slow steps. Slow steps would a quick death.

  He hugged the package to his chest, minimizing the added weight by adding it to his center of mass. Long, measured running strides took the pair through rows of dust-covered and sun-faded vehicles. He wove in between the metal barricades, running intentionally for those with taller bodies and occasionally ducking behind those with wider wheelbases.

  He could feel warmth bleeding through his shirt and bathing his neck with every breath the package took. Her breath was so erratic it was almost rhythmic, and he found that his steps began to match the pace. He reached the end of the parking lot and, in two large strides, covered the ten feet of raised dirt that separated this lot from the final lot. He ducked behind a maroon Honda, the paint on the hood peeling like the dried skin of a reptile. When he leaned against it and slid down to deposit his human luggage next to him he left a clean smear down the passenger door.

  She opened her mouth, but he held up a hand.

  Looking around he spotted a suitable target. “Carry or run?” he offered.

  She pulled the hems of her pink shirt and blue jacket down, arranging them to some semblance of what she believed was normalcy. “Run,” answered the girl.

  A slight incline of his head and he took off, the light scrape of rubber on newly tarred surface following behind him.

  Two aisles down, five cars to the left, and he skidded to a halt before a rain-spotted Prius. Two reasons he’d chosen the Toyota. First, it was a hybrid vehicle. It would offer the best chance of having the widest range of travel without the need to stop and refuel. And second, he could easily entice it to start for him without the use of a key.

  He pointed the package to the passenger door and then went to the driver’s door and slammed the back of his right elbow into the window. Two more tries and the glass gave way. A whooping-and-honking alarm blared as he reached through the broken window and unlocked the doors. Throwing the door open he reached down to the left of the footwell, swiped the glass shards away, and pulled the hood release. He worked his way to the front, yanked open and propped the hood, and pulled out first the alarm/horn fuse, killing the alarm, and then he pulled out one more necessary fuse. He let the hood slam shut and then hopped into the driver seat. The package was already in the passenger seat and watched every move he made. He had to make eye contact with her as he leaned forward and snaked his hands under the steering column to work his mechanical skills.

  A sharp pop erupted from under the hood at the same time a bright flash momentarily traced the gap between hood and windshield. The Prius started up with a whisper and maintained a steady RPM.

  The package leaned back in her bucket seat. “Nice,” she commented.

  Dent adjusted the seat back to accommodate his slightly longer legs than the vehicle’s owner. He checked the rearview mirror, adjusted it, and then checked the side views. Lastly he pulled the shoulder strap and buckled his seat belt. He looked to his right. The package looked back at him.

  He looked at her unhooked seat belt.

  She furrowed her brows at him and then complied.

  He reversed out of the stall, drove to the end of the aisle, bounced over the dirt and dead brush divider, and turned right, left, and then left again. They passed few cars on the street and within a minute he saw the reflective green sign that indicated the 10 FWY was up ahead.

  The sign recommended to stay right.

  He did.

  ---

  Heading east on the 10, Dent fished out the phone he’d confiscated from the woman at the airport and looked for a place to put it. The girl turned her head from the blurring landscape of parched ice plants and retaining walls that were designed to be aesthetic to look at him as he fumbled with the phone.

  He handed it to her.

  “Oh, you get one?” He took her tone to imply this to be a completely rhetorical question. Or statement.

  He lifted his hips and dug his right index finger into the small coin pocket of his jeans. He worked out the small SIM card and held it up.

  “Do you know how to change a SIM card?” he inquired.

  “You know how to be polite?” Tone and inflection the same as her last question. Or statement.

  He signaled his intent to change lanes. “Is that a yes or no?”

  “Sheesh. Yes.”

  He handed over the small data card. He signaled his intent once more and merged onto the 57 South.

  “Done,” the package announced.

  Dent looked in his rearview mirror and then back ahead. Traffic was light. Just him and perhaps twenty other vehicles steadily making their way down the slight decline and curves. To the left, atop a hill, a fluorescent cross was burning brightly in the night.

  “Dial any number,” he told her.

  There was no response so he looked over. The girl held the phone so its LCD touch screen faced him. A large 4 stared back at him. A number. Any number.

  He looked ahead and explained carefully, “Clear that number, then dial 714 and then any seven digit number.”

  “Better,” she mumbled. He heard the simulated took-took-took with each number the girl touched and soon a low ringing sound followed, barely audible over the wind through the nonexistent driver side window. A sluggish, “Hello …,” came from the phone’s speaker.

  “Hang up,” he told her.

  She did so and then proceeded to stare at him. He continued to keep his eye on the road. The 57 and 60 merged just ahead, dropping two lanes in the process. The girl leaned forward so he had direct visual contact and then tilted her head to the right.

  “Well?” she prompted.

  “Well what?”

  “What was that for?” She quickly clarified, “That call?”

  “It was a non-use SIM card from my days back with DUUP. Untraceable signal unless they know the specific band-address. And the fact that it works means they haven’t figured the incident at the airport was my doing.” A pause, then: “Yet.”

  “So …?”

  He suspected the girl expected an answer. He said, “If they are not aware of my flight with the package then there is a high probability that at this moment my main residence here is uncompromised.”

  “You mean there won’t be people shooting at us while we run around dirty cars and concrete pillars?”

  He was starting to recognize this repeated tone, an inflection the girl was wont to use.

  “There are no pill
ars at my condo,” he assured her.

  VIII

  He parked the borrowed Prius three blocks down from his complex. They made their way along the empty sidewalk, the steady rush of cars passing by even this late at night a normal backdrop. A few barking dogs made the typical night complete.

  He walked to the electronic gate that allowed entrance to the complex. He reached between the bars closest to the sensor and held his hand in the beam, steady for five seconds. He pulled his hand back then broke the beam for five more seconds. He had to pull his hand back out quickly as the heavy metal gyrated and screeched, the straining motor pulling the six-foot-tall gate aside.

  The girl brushed by him and observed, “Kinda defeats the purpose of having a security gate, doesn’t it?”

  He caught up to her and guided her in the correct direction. He explained to her, “I didn’t bring my keys or opener with me.” It looked to him as if the girl’s eyes rolled in their sockets.

  She looked around at the two-storied condominiums, some with small fountains gurgling away, nocturnal rest stops for stray cats and the occasional mockingbird or solitary owl. Strategically placed floodlights of gentle reds, greens, and blues illuminated the buildings that were slightly offset from one another, making them appear larger than they were.

  “Which one is yours?” she asked loudly.

  “Quiet,” he whispered at her.

  She folded her shoulders in on herself and asked, “People sleeping?”

  “I don’t know.”

  After a short second she asked, “Unwanted attention?”

  He missed a step, probably a loose flagstone, and looked at her.

  “Yes,” he replied. The package appeared to be a quick learner.

  ---

  He put the hide-a-key back under the lamppost head covered in bird feces, deceased insects and untenanted spider webs, then shut and locked the front door to the two-story, three bedroom condo. The girl was already standing in the middle of the bare open-aired room that consisted of three-quarters of the lower floor.

  “Booooring,” she commented, turning the two-syllable word easily into three or four. The walls were unadorned, the three-person leather wraparound couch in front of the small screen TV was unaccented black, the narrow bar separating the kitchen held one plain wooden stool, painted a crisp white. A few silver and brass pots and pans hung from the ceiling of the kitchen.

  It was what DUUPers would call “un-lived” or “eLess.”

  The door to the downstairs restroom was open and he made his way toward it.

  “Now what?” she called to him from her seat in the middle of the couch, where she had sunk between two fat cushions.

  “I need to figure things out.”

  “Can I watch TV? Eat?”

  He pointed to the remote on the pristine glass of the coffee table and then to the two-door burnished metal fridge in the kitchen and then entered the restroom.

  By the time he had finished and made his way back into the living room, the package was seated on the edge of the couch, her hand deep into a bag of flaming-hot Cheetos.

  “Cheese-flavored snack,” she said, possibly to herself, when she noticed his return. “Is that like butter-flavored?”

  Dent had no clue if she was speaking to him, so he remained silent.

  To him she commented, “You don’t have cable?” It may have been a question. Again, Dent was unsure. “And why do you have so much beer in your fridge? I had to dig around to find a soda.”

  She had found a soda … and two more apparently. All three were open and sitting in rings of condensation on the glass table. He left her there as she pushed the buttons on the remote control with increasing tempo and went upstairs.

  He passed by one room, empty down to the carpet and walls, and entered the room to the left. The final room was at the end of the hall, door closed. He didn’t spare a glance its way.

  His bedroom perfectly matched the downstairs living room. Black twin-sized bed, red-stained hardwood dresser and armoire, generic writing desk with laptop partially opened but powered down. Two windows and no TV. Nothing personal.

  He went to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer. Six phones, one from each of the major carriers, and three EBs from the only three manufacturers who held the rights to produce them, sat atop an induction charging strip. He pocketed the generic model of Motorola’s basic phone and their newest, up-to-date EB. He closed the drawer and walked to the empty wall that partitioned off the master bathroom.

  He placed his palm on a metallic four-by-four-inch plate installed in the wall. A slight tingle ran through his palm and then a green beam traveled up and then back down beneath his palm. Another tingle and then the metal scan-plate beeped twice. When he removed his palm a backlit ten-key pad appeared in electric blue, asking for the pin-code.

  The pin-code changed automatically every day. It was a simple thing to remember though. He had it programmed to be the current four-digit month and day plus ten. He touched 0-3-3-8. There was a slight whoosh and tremble from the other side of the partition that told him it had opened. He walked around the partition, into the bathroom, and faced the now-open panel.

  The pipes had long ago been diverted and the wall now held a different type of metal. He ran his fingers over the three rifles hung perfectly on pegs and then the four handguns similarly secured to the interior of the partitioning wall by plastic coated hooks. At the bottom of the compartment, just above his knee level, were stacks of U.S. currency in all denominations. There were also various prepaid debit cards, smaller stacks of Yen and Euros, and passports — digital and paper.

  He was deciding on the appropriate weapon and cash amount when he heard a “Whoa!” from beyond his bedroom door. He depressed the closing mechanism and the panel whooshed back into place. When he stepped into the hallway he looked to his left. The door at the end of the hall was ajar.

  When he pushed the door open wider and stepped in, he saw the girl staring around his room with a slow and encompassing gaze. Her face scrunched up as if she may have been sick as she looked at the colors around her. He followed her gaze, as if this were the first time he had stepped foot in his room.

  There was a fifty-two-inch plasma screen that dominated one corner of the room. The wall furthest from the door was painted in varying hues of blues, while the one to the right was striped purple and orange. The wall with the door was a green that was so similar to the reflective freeway signs that crowded Southern California that it might have actually been the same material. The last wall, which had the only window in the room, was a splattering of color, a rainbow that was shoved in a mixer without a lid and then set to puree.

  A tall, six-shelved bookcase sat precisely in the middle of the blue wall, with a smaller two-shelf case next to it on the right. Books were crammed into every available space that it may have been more prudent to remove the shelves and simply tower the books. Beneath the big screen was a shelf heavy with thin movie cases. Seventy-two, to be precise. The only chair in the room was a deep-brown leather recliner that faced the TV and window. Its cushions were rubbed white around the edges, same as the wide armrests. A pillow with a green cover sat in the crook of the backrest and seat. And upon the well-worn seat was a growing stack of books and plastic DVD cases, being thrown there as the package rummaged through his selections. Her purse was almost buried under the mess.

  “You should kill your interior decorator,” she said without looking away from her questing fingers and hands. And then she froze, as if something were wrong, and added, “I didn’t really mean that.”

  When she dared to look at him, he stared blankly at her.

  “Never mind,” she said. “You have tons of movies!”

  “There are more on the TV’s digital SSD.”

  “And books? I never would have guessed. Have you read them all?”

  Dent mimicked one of the girl’s head tilts and replied, “I think so.”

  “You think so?” She turned back to the
bookshelf, pulled one out, and then stopped short when she finally noticed the smaller shelved case to the right. Bottle after bottle of every type of liquor was stacked neatly on the shelves, labels facing out. Most were almost empty, and only a few were unopened or still corked.

  She whispered, “What do you do in here?” She turned and stood, the book in hand.

  Dent reached over and took the book from her hands. Faded pale-green cover was stained with liquids and the gold lettering could barely be made out. It read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. He opened the cover and a wash of Scotch floated up to his nostrils. He breathed in deeply. The inner cover page read the title as 20,000 Leagues Under the Seven Seas. He fanned through the worn pages, inhaled deeply again as the dog-eared and stained pages flipped by too fast to read.

  He handed the book back to the package.

  She received it with both hands and asked, “So, is this a good book?” She thumbed a few of the oft-handled pages and ran a finger along the heavily-creased spine.

  “I think so.”

  She clutched the book with the faded cover to her chest. “Can we stay here?” she asked, her tone soft, gently rising inflection on the last word.

  “No,” he answered, shaking his head. Before she could ask her next question, Dent decided to be proactive and save them both time and explained to the package, “We have somewhere to be.”

  He pulled the EB from his front right pocket and plugged in the address of the prearranged drop-off point for the package.

  IX

  Dent, with the package secured in the passenger seat, sat in the parked Pontiac. There was a closed-down party supply store to their right, the sign across the top of the building still proclaiming its nonexistent goods in false advertisement. The building had been empty for almost a year now. The only supplies inside may have been dusty retail shelving and perhaps underused registers. Nothing suitable for a party.