The Hostage (29 page)

On his last word the man lunged forward. Out of reflex, Drake jumped back and lost his balance as he hit the luggage piece on the floor with his heel.

This time the floor collided with his tailbone hard, making him yell out at the sudden pain.

The man was on him in seconds. Three punches landed on either side of his face. With each blow, Drake could hear the man grunt a few words in another language.

It was over as fast as it had started. He rolled into a ball and breathed through his mouth, hoping the pain would subside. Both cheeks felt inflamed and larger than they were.

His mind reeled. He wondered where the man was. Footsteps down the hallway confirmed that he had left the bedroom. Now Drake could hear he was running down the stairs. The police sirens were closer.

He had to do something.

Even though he wanted to curl into a ball until it all went away, Drake turned and angled himself up to a sitting position. He got to his feet and listened. The sirens sounded like they were right outside.

Here he had a moment of truth. Stop running and give himself up or try to leave undetected and attempt to figure everything out on his own.

In that moment of indecision he ran. To not run would be to give in not just to the police, but also to the two brothers terrorizing him. That’s what they wanted. Whatever they had against him, both men were determined to see him incarcerated. There was a reason for that. Drake still didn’t know why but before he went down he needed to figure it out.

The police could wait. The jail could wait. It would always be there when this was over. Hopefully he could flip this on their heads and the asshole brothers would be the ones spending time there.

He hit the stairs running taking them two at a time. Red lights flashed through the front windows. The police were already there.

He ran to the back, through the kitchen and to the sliding door. A quick scan told him no one was in the rear of the house yet. He slid the door open and eased out onto the patio where he had spent many years having summer barbecues and parties. The memories flooded back and he was thinking about his parents again and what might be happening to them. Water covered his vision as his eyes teared up at the thought of losing all that he held close because two assholes got the wrong guy.

He couldn’t get to his car out front. All he had were his wallet, his cell phone and the knowledge of the area. He ran through the yard and hit the back fence in seconds. The gate opened from the inside. He flicked the latch and barreled through it but not before noticing someone watching him.

Drake slowed to see if it was the man from his parent’s bedroom. It wasn’t. He was looking at a woman. She stood in the shadow’s of a neighbor’s shed. He could only discern her figure and the long flowing hair.

With each step he moved away from her as more noises were coming from the front of his parent’s house.

Finally he turned and ran to the end of the alley. A quick left and up a small side street and Drake made it to the park that would lead him out to the Danforth by a 7-Eleven convenience store.

After all that he’d gone through it was the woman who disturbed him.

Something about her was familiar. It felt like he had a buried memory. One that called out to him and continued to try to get noticed.

Whatever it was he knew it didn’t involve murder. He’d remember a detail like that. There was no way he had ever done any real harm to anyone. If he had why wasn’t the law going after him for that? If these brothers really wanted to take his life away, just produce the truth that he had murdered someone.

They couldn’t
, Drake thought. Because he hadn’t done anything to anyone. But that was going to change.

The brothers needed to be taught a lesson.

What did it matter now? Drake had lost everything the way things were. It was only a matter of time before he was picked up by the police. The potential for him to spend the rest of his life in jail for a murder he didn’t commit was quite high.

He refused to spend any time locked up for something he didn’t do.

At least killing those two fucking brothers would make things more realistic.

Any jury would agree
, he thought and laughed at his rationale as he ran for his life.

Chapter 4

It didn’t take long to get to the twenty four hour 7-Eleven. No one had been in the park at that hour and Drake could detect no one following him.

He was done being predictable. The brothers from Europe wouldn’t figure out what he was up to next. From now on he was going to be surprising them or he’d end up in jail where they wanted him.

He had to keep moving and keep thinking. Soon a piece would fall into place and he’d be one step closer to figuring shit out.

Drake entered the 7-Eleven and headed for the side rack. It was quiet at this late hour. Only one man stood off to the side flipping through a magazine. He didn’t look up when Drake walked in.

In a corner beside the Big Gulp machine sat a baseball cap rack featuring caps with slogans about drinking, smoking and sex acts. Drake grabbed a Toronto Maple Leafs hat and walked straight to the counter. A quick glance at the newspapers and he saw that only one of them had the police artist’s sketch of his face on the front cover. That was fast. The early morning edition must’ve just arrived. The chance that the pierced, tattooed and purple haired clerk would put it all together was pretty slim. He probably didn’t read newspapers.

Drake set the cap on the counter and reached for his money.

“Do you read newspapers?” Drake asked. He had to know.

The clerk looked at him sideways and then flipped his hair back out of his face in an exaggerated head toss.

“No, dude. You serious?”

“Yeah, kinda. No biggie. How much?”

“Eleven and a half.”

Drake paid him with a twenty, got the change and headed for the door. He ripped off the price tag and firmly placed the hat on his head.

At the door he turned back to the clerk who was watching him. No doubt thinking
he
was the weirdo.

“You know, working the night shift, you really should read the newspapers or at least watch the news. You never know who might walk in on your shift.”

Drake turned and left, leaving the kid with a look of bewilderment on his face. He crossed the street and started up the Danforth heading for the Coffee Time Donut Shop a block up.

One look back before he lost sight of the interior of the 7-Eleven and the clerk was on the customer side of the counter, a newspaper in his hand, mouth agape.

Good
, Drake thought.
Just what I wanted
.

He hustled up the street, the baseball cap lowered to just over his eyes. He felt alive. The five hour nap earlier had rejuvenated him. It felt like one in the afternoon and not one in the morning.

Just as he suspected, a yellow cab sat in front of Coffee Time. At the corner of Jones Avenue he slowed to make sure no cops were in sight. A cruiser sat parked about five hundred meters down Jones. He saw nothing else. Not even any cops in the donut shop.

Drake walked across Jones and entered the coffee shop. He walked up to the taxi driver who sat nursing a large black coffee.

“That your cab?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you take me to the Valhalla Inn off the East Mall?”

“I’m off duty. Get the clerk to call you another one.”

Drake shook his head. “I need you. How much? Just tell me how much?”

“I said I’m off duty. Buzz off.”

Drake sat down at his table. The cabbie leaned back not knowing what to expect.

“Look, this is serious. I just received a call from my girl. She’s really fucking hot,” Drake said and used his hands to demonstrate her figure. “She called me all lonely and shit. She already paid for a hotel room. I’m wasting time here. I need to be there as fast as I can and at this time of night I could lose a half hour or more waiting for another cab.” He stopped and reached in his pocket to pull out his wallet. “Look, the ride would be no longer than ten to fifteen minutes, tops it would be thirty bucks. Drive my there and I will give you one hundred. Deal?”

The cabbie looked at the hundred being offered and took another sip of his coffee.

He didn’t protest right away. Drake knew he had him.

“You’d do the same for a twenty-two year old College girl with a perfect body. I need to get to the Valhalla Inn. Do a brother a favor.”

The cabbie nodded. “Okay, one hundred bucks. No meter.”

“Deal,” Drake said and shot his hand out to shake the cabbie’s. After a moment he pulled it back as the cab driver stood and headed for the door, his hand untouched.

Drake followed.

They got into the taxi and the cabbie asked for the money up front. Drake passed it forward to the front seat.

In seconds they were racing along the Danforth toward the Don Valley Parkway. At this late hour hardly anyone was on the highway. They made good time along the Gardiner and up the 427. The cabbie exited and got onto the East Mall.

The Valhalla Inn came into view. Drake leaned forward and whispered, “do you read the newspapers?”

“Yeah, all the time. Sitting in a cab all day you gotta read somethin’.”

“How about the news on T.V.?”

“When I get the chance. Why?”

They pulled into the main hotel entrance lane. “Just wondering if you recognized me.”

The cabbie look at him sideways. “Should I?”

“No real reason. You will be asked about this trip by the cops. I would advise you to tell the truth. That I talked you into taking this ride after your shift and with the meter off. It’ll look better that way.”

The cab slowed and then stopped ten meters from the entrance to the hotel.

“Why? Who are you?” his voice was suddenly more cautious.

“You’d know if you read the papers better.”

Drake reached for the door and jumped from the cab. The taxi sped away, the door slamming shut.

Perfect
, Drake thought.

He hustled away from the Valhalla Inn and into the darkness of the shrubbery beyond the parking area. He kept his movements confined to only when vehicular traffic in the area was absent. The only time he was really exposed was walking across the Bloor Street bridge. He needed a hotel, somewhere that took cash and no I.D. You don’t live in Toronto all your life and not know the landscape.

After he crossed the Bloor Street bridge he kept to the shadows again as he ran down The West Mall. He dropped down Westmall Crescent and onto Dundas where he immediately saw the little fires from the lamp posts at La Castile. Behind the restaurant was the Super 5 Inn.

As he passed La Castile he took off the baseball cap and folded the bill in half until it squeezed into the back pocket of his jeans. Then he removed the Dead Head T-shirt, folded it inside out and put it back on. When the police sent out a description on the news in the morning based on the eyewitness statements of the 7-Eleven clerk and the cabbie he didn’t want the guy at the hotel to readily recognize him.

He entered the front and handed the clerk, who wore a turban and a very thick black beard, two twenties. He received a room key and headed upstairs.

The room was standard and exactly what Drake needed for the night. He hit the bed hard feeling exhaustion settling in.

His plan worked perfectly. No one knew where he was. He had a bed and a shower for the morning. All he needed next was a shave and a change of clothes. That could be accomplished in the morning too.

The police would scour the area near his parent’s home and come up empty handed until they reached the 7-Eleven. Unless the clerk called them first which Drake doubted as he probably had a few priors himself.

The police would question the clerk and security cameras would show that he was wearing the orange Dead Head T-shirt still but now he had added a Maple Leaf baseball cap to his disguise.

They would be looking for someone that Drake wouldn’t resemble in the morning at all.

The cabbie might call it in. But even if he did, the same description would be sent out collaborating the store clerk’s story. Also, they would search every room of the Valhalla Inn. There were a considerable number of hotels in the area. They couldn’t possibly search each one in time and he was over ten blocks away in a room without a name on any computer. In six hours he would be gone and looking completely different.

Then he could figure out his next step. He had an idea of what he wanted to do but it would take some luck and planning on his part. He would also need patience.

Drake rolled to the side and wondered why he didn’t look in the mirror when he got to the room. It would have been his best chance to see what that asshole had done to his face. Probably nothing but red marks but he still needed to check. Getting a black eye right now could hurt his chances at staying disguised.