Sufficient Ransom (12 page)

She hoped that the padded sounds of her sneakers on the pavement didn’t seem as loud to any chance passerby as they did to her. Keeping close to the darkened buildings, she crept along, the dimness of the occasional streetlight providing barely enough illumination to see by. Her only consolation was that the lack of light would make it difficult for anyone to see her. Ann passed a stray dog with matted hair and what appeared to be open sores on its back. The limping creature was a sad reminder of her own aloneness.

Ann re-traced her steps a street or two, then stopped. She tried to remember if she had come from the road to the left or the road to the right. The sound of fighting—gunshots, and shouting—in the distance were growing louder. There was a faint glow in the sky above the low-slung buildings to the left. She was afraid of what she would find when she reached the main roads, but at least there would be light and deliverance from this suffocating isolation.

She crossed the street to the left. Hurrying along, she passed another darkened building. Suddenly one of its windows lit up. Ann let out a cry of surprise. Through the yellowed window shade the silhouette of a man had emerged. She heard angry voices, then silence. The figure lunged at the open window. The shade snapped up revealing a heavyset man in a sleeveless undershirt. Leaning out, he turned his head from side to side, peering out into the darkness.

Ann pressed her body to the rough stucco to the right of the window, hoping the man wouldn’t spot her. She heard voices again. A door creaked open. She didn’t wait. Footsteps pounded the pavement behind her. Her pursuer was shouting for her to stop. She kept going. The sky was getting brighter. She heard a car horn, sirens, more shouting. The buildings she passed had fewer broken windows.

The voices and the running feet had stopped. Gasping for air, Ann slowed her pace. All of a sudden she heard a loud crack. Then she felt it. A heavy object hit the back of her legs. She fell to the ground face down, her left arm pinned under her body. A sharp pain stabbed her wrist. She rolled over trying not to scream. Through the tears of pain in her eyes, Ann glimpsed four men standing over her in a semi-circle. One of them held a baseball bat spiked with nails. His eyes glaring, he moved the weapon back and forth between his thick hands.

She blinked in disbelief as the cries died in her throat. Each of her attackers wore a tee shirt emblazoned with the image of Santa Muerte. The figure’s skeletal mouth mocked Ann with a diabolical grin. She tried to stand up but the man with the bat pushed her down with his foot.
His voice a snarl, he spat out a stream of incomprehensible Spanish. She caught the words, “
Puta Americana.”

The three boys—Ann realized by now that that’s all they were—snickered as their leader vented. When she fumbled in her jacket for the picture of Travis, the bully with the bat leaned down and shoved her shoulder back.

“Wait!” Ann pushed herself to her feet. Something in her newfound confidence must have shown, as the boys let her get up unmolested. She reached into her pocket. “I’m getting a photo.” She pronounced the word “photo” with a Spanish accent so they would understand her meaning. She waved Travis’s picture at them. “My son. My niño. Do you understand? My son’s been kidnapped. I believe he’s here in Tijuana. Please help me.”

Before she could stop him, the boy with the bat ripped the picture from Ann’s hand and crumpled it in his fist. Throwing it in her face, he shoved her to the ground. Scrambling to her knees, Ann bulldozed her body at the leader, knocking him over. Her aggression momentarily stunned his accomplices, giving her the chance to reach for the bat that was lying a few feet away, unattended. Survival instincts on full tilt, Ann lifted the nail-studded weapon over her head and smashed it down onto the bully’s face. His bloody mouth roared. Before she had a chance to run, the bully reached up and tore the weapon from her hand. On his feet, he swung the bat at Ann’s head, narrowly missing. Seeing their chance at her, the three boys lunged at Ann, pushing her to the pavement. She took blows to her face, her chest, her abdomen.

A gunshot at close range sounded, followed by a voice booming in Spanish,
“Cesar! Cesar!”

The beating ceased. Ann was lying on her back, her shirt torn from one shoulder. Warm blood trickled down her face. She rolled out of reach of her assailants who, distracted by the noise, stood in stunned silence. Standing up, she saw a man emerge from the shadows. He held a bullhorn in one hand and gun in the other.

Squinting against the glare of the street light, Ann took in the man’s form. Short and stout, he wore a black and yellow striped sweater, dark pants, and patent leather shoes. She blinked. The man’s clipped hair was bright yellow and spiked. He wore a pair of black-rimmed, rectangular glasses perched on a small nose. He looked to be about sixty-five-years-old, possibly older.

Unsure whether she should run while she had the chance, Ann glanced around to see what her attackers were doing. She was alone. A quiet wonder washed over her that she should be so suddenly and inexplicably delivered from a brutal beating, by this apparition, dressed like a bumblebee. She would have fallen if her savior had not caught her in his arms.

7:45 P.M
.

A
nn glanced around the silent, cavernous space. Canvasses of painted shapes, some discernable as human figures, others not, covered the black walls. Sculptures of wood, of metal, and still others of cloth, were spaced evenly across the concrete floor.

“This way.” The man in the striped sweater stood by a red velvet curtain at the back of the room. His accent was distinctly American. There was something familiar about his face, but Ann couldn’t place him.

Looking around the space, she murmured, “An art gallery…” Turning, she peered at the man. “Who are you?”

The small eyes behind the eyeglasses crinkled. “I’m Chuck Blackmart.”

The paint-splashed canvasses. The untitled pieces.
It is him
.

Chuck Blackmart pushed the curtain back and invited Ann into a small kitchen. He pointed to two leopard-print chairs at a square glass table in the corner of the immaculate space. “Have a seat.”

Wincing, Ann eased herself onto a chair. Blackmart returned with a bottle of mineral water and a glass. He didn’t exactly invite her to partake, but Ann did anyway. She chugged the cold water and poured herself another. After emptying a second glass, she poured a third and emptied that too. The smell of brewing coffee made her stomach growl.

Her thirst slaked, Ann’s fears started to mount again. Though she had spent the last two hours trying to find Chuck Blackmart, now that she was face to face with the artist, she was afraid that when he found out who she really was he would turn her out. Maybe the attack had made her wary or maybe it was just the sudden realization that she was asking the impossible of a man whom she had publicly derided. She tried to push her fearful thoughts back. Her own suffering was not important. All that mattered was finding her son and bringing him home to safety.

Blackmart was at her side with a first aid kit, looking her over critically. “You look like you could use some food, but first your face and hands need tending. You want to do it or do you want me to?”

Touched by the artist’s gruff kindness, Ann’s eyes started to fill. Her hands shaking, she fumbled with a box of antiseptic pads. Seeing that
she was having some difficulty with it, Blackmart took the box from her hand. He opened one of the pads and started wiping blood from her forehead and cheeks. After spreading antibacterial ointment with a single pink finger, Blackmart covered her cuts with layers of white gauze. He secured the bandage with medical tape, stood up, and went to the refrigerator.

Ann closed her eyes. Her cuts cleaned and covered, she felt better. She heard the scraping of a knife on bread, the opening and closing of cabinets, and the clinking of glass. When she opened her eyes she saw a plate of sandwiches on the table in front of her. She smelled the fresh bread and the pungent pickles. Relieved that the moment of reckoning with the artist was not imminent, she picked up a sandwich and bit into it. She moaned inwardly. Cold turkey, mayonnaise, and crunchy lettuce had never tasted so good.

While she ate, Blackmart moved about the kitchen, straightening things out. After her third sandwich, Ann felt her strength returning. The aspirins the artist had given her were easing the soreness in her limbs and her abdomen.

Blackmart sat down and folded his pink hands on his lap. “Now tell me. Who are you? And why are you in Tijuana?”

Remembering her blog post about his work, Ann cringed inwardly. She had written:

Chuck Blackmart fancies himself an artist. He’s more like an undertaker with a sick sense of humor. One look at “Contemplation” dubbed, “The Blackmart Dummies” and you’ll know what I’m talking about. On display at the Museum of Modern Day Art in La Jolla, The Dummies are a series of twenty-nine, full-size, rubber corpses each modified to show progressive stages of decay. Every morning before the museum opens a staffer gaffs the corpse in the tank and replaces it with the next corpse in the series, a slightly more decomposed version, where it will bob in the tank for the next 24 hours. And so on. Until the last corpse in the series is displayed—a skull and a few bones dangling from a gibbet. I urge everyone who cares about true art to denounce this trash. Contact The Day to voice your outrage. I know I did
.

“Is your identity a secret?” Blackmart said, his voice lilting upward. “Is there a reason why the street gangs should be beating you up in front of my gallery? Or were you just in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

It was time for Ann to make her appeal to the man who had just saved her life. She looked at the artist fearfully.
No need to tell him my full name
. “My name is Ann.”

Blackmart’s eyebrows lifted. “Ann,” he repeated. “Well, that’s a start. What’re you doing in Tijuana, Ann?”

She hesitated then said, “I’m looking for my son. He disappeared two days ago in La Jolla, where I live.”

“La Jolla? Hmm.” Blackmart looked at her a little more closely.

She shifted in her seat, uncomfortable under the artist’s steady gaze. If he discovered who she really was, he wouldn’t help her. The brutes would be waiting…

The artist’s eyes had narrowed. “And why do you think your son’s in Tijuana, Ann?”

She forced down the lump in her throat. “I have reason to believe he was kidnapped by a woman who’s involved with a local businessman.”

Blackmart’s eyebrows shot up.

“Look, I know it sounds crazy. You see Kika Garcia in San Diego thinks I abused my son. It’s a lie of course. I’d rather die than hurt my own child. Her boyfriend, Max Ruiz—you may have heard of him. He came into—” She stopped. If she mentioned her art gallery, he would throw her out, for sure. The artist was looking at her strangely.

“I came to find Max Ruiz, to see if he can tell me where to find Kika Garcia.” Ann talked on trying to convince Blackmart that she knew what she was saying, that she wasn’t crazy.

She felt heat rising to her face.
He must have read the newspapers. He must know who I am. If only he would say something. The brutes took off the moment he appeared. Almost as if he had power over them. Blackmart’s influential. He has to be to live unharmed in this city
.

“You live here,” she pleaded. “You must know the people in charge.”

A loud knock at the gallery door startled them both.

Frowning, Blackmart stood up. “Wait here.”

Fearing her attackers had returned Ann looked about the kitchen for a hiding place. Moments later, she was safely tucked into a utility closet, the door firmly shut.

After a while, Ann heard the artist calling for her. She opened the door a crack and saw that he was alone. She stepped out.

Blackmart’s face had lost all its congeniality. “I’ll drive you to the border. There’s fighting in the streets tonight. This is no place for a woman.”

“But my son.”

“I don’t know anything about your
son
.” Blackmart held the back door open waiting for her to pass through.

Ann was about to step into the alley when a strange man entered the kitchen. She heard other male voices behind the curtain. The man was dressed in white trousers, a black satin shirt, and highly polished black shoes. His close-cropped, black hair did nothing to hide the fact that his left ear was missing. A jagged scar in place of where the ear had been, hinted at the violence that must have accompanied its removal.

Ann shrank back. The man was staring at her, a look of surprised anger on his swarthy face. When she turned to the artist for an explanation, she saw that he too was angry.

Blackmart addressed the man in a tense voice. “
Ya regreso. Espérame
.”

Seated beside Chuck Blackmart in his black Ferrari, speeding through the darkened streets of Tijuana, Ann was convinced the artist could help her if he wanted to. Living as well as he did, he had to have the protection of the local gangs. His face had changed when she mentioned Max Ruiz. And he seemed so eager to get rid of her the moment that earless creep showed up.

Her voice was tentative. “Please Mr. Blackmart. Help me find my son. You know this city. You could find out where Max Ruiz lives and take me to him. I’ll pay you anything you ask.
Please!
”

Blackmart’s face was like a ball of hard wax. “There’s nothing I can do for you,
Mrs. Olson.”

C
HAPTER
6

Friday, October 5

6:30 A.M
.

T
he bedroom door opened and Richard entered. His spartan features were lined with worry and fatigue. “How do you feel, Ann?”

Her ordeal in Tijuana had increased her husband’s suffering. She would never forget the look of horror on his face when he saw her swollen, bandaged face. She would rather die than burden him any more. “What’s going on with the police?” she asked, eager to get away from talk of her ill-fated trip and onto the subject of their son.