Cargo: an edge of your seat thriller Page 9

  “You want her to throw up on purpose?”

  “To clear out her system, yes. She has overdosed, after all,” the Doctor reminded Tom, then mumbled, “On just about every drug in the book from what you said. Goddamn.”

  “Right, Right. Damn, that’s really gross.” Tom looked down at the girl’s bare breasts with the electrodes stuck on them. “Such a hot girl, too. Damn.”

  The Doctor rolled his eyes.

  “Gross,” Tom said again. “So, when’s she supposed to start barfing?”

  The Doctor looked at the clock. “Any second now, we should see Old Faithful erupting.”

  “Old Faithful!” Tom exclaimed, surprised that the formerly stern Doctor was making a joke now. “Oh, man, that’s funny. You’re a regular guy, you know that? Strange. You almost seemed like Superman in here. It’s like you can do anything.”

  Doctor Ivy laughed and shrugged. “That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” the Doctor said, finally relaxing. “I reattached a guy’s hand in a makeshift clinic once.”

  Tom’s eyes widened. “Did you? I’ll bet that would make a great–”

  Just then, the beeping stopped and was replaced by one long streaming blast of that same note.

  “Aw, hell, what does THAT beeping mean?” Tom asked. “Does that mean she’s all better now?”

  Doctor Ivy had already raced to the girl and started pumping her chest and breathing into her mouth. “No, you idiot, that means she’s gone into cardiac arrest. Get me the crash cart!”

  “The what?”

  “The defibrillator! That…” The Doctor struggled to find words the idiot Tom might understand. “… thing over there that looks like two…fucking…irons attached to a computer.”

  “Oh, sure. Neat,” Tom said and did as he was told.

  “Would you hurry, man. This girl just stopped breathing!”

  It was right about the time the gravity of the situation hit Tom like a ton of bricks of hashish that his phone rang.

  “Oh, man, oh, man, it’s Anthony,” Tom moaned in dejection. He fumbled for his phone, swore under his breath and gave a confident, “Yo!”

  14

  The Heart of the Matter: 6:01 AM

  Anthony Peterson scarcely had the luxury of licking his wounds after the verbal assault his son had laid on him, deserved or not. Time and air were both running out, and he wanted to live.

  Secondarily, he wanted payback.

  Some little voice in the back of his head said he wanted to change and start over and make up for all the wrong he had done.

  But first…he had to make sure he lived. Then, he would decide on the rest.

  He dialed Tom and waited for the younger man to answer. His heart and mind hurt almost as much as his body did. He could use a drink right about then. A drink of anything, really. Even water.

  When the line finally connected, Anthony heard sounds of chaos in the back and Tom fumbling with the phone, swearing under his breath and saying, “Yo!”

  Tom sounded hyper and probably high, but trying to cover for himself and the anarchy surrounding him.

  Peterson felt suspicious, but remained calm. “Tom? How is everything?”

  “Great!” Tom half-laughed. His voice sounded panicked as if he was actually saying that everything was fucked, but trying to fake it. “Just, uh, finishing up with the doc right now!”

  Peterson was dubious and listened to the background noise. It sounded like a defibrillator charging. “Clear!” he heard another voice shout. He knew the voice. It was that of Doctor Ivy.

  Then, he heard the violent sound of an electric shock followed by the thump of a body on a metal table.

  “Tom…what was that?”

  “Nothin’!” Tom said and laughed a high-voiced, nervous laugh.

  “Tom?”

  “The, uh…” he laughed again. “The Doctor is just giving her a little jump start is all! It’ll be all right…in a minute.”

  Peterson listened again. Ugh, the Doctor was shocking her to life just as Peterson himself had almost been shocked to death. The very sound of the charge made him nauseous.

  He heard the defibrillator charge again to the point that a high, mechanical whining sound filled his cell, making him feel sicker. Then, he heard the jolt of the electricity into the body and another thump.

  And then, there was silence. No beep of the heartbeat on the monitor. No shouts of relief. Nothing.

  Peterson’s eyes widened. Had this girl died? Tom would be no use to him in jail. With Tom in jail, Susan was gang-raped first, then killed, and Peterson himself would starve or suffocate to death. In his present physical state, he was unsure which would come first.

  “Tom?” he said, cautiously. “What’s happening?”

  Tom laughed again in that nervous titter, but this time he sounded like he was crying at the same time.

  “Well…” he started. “She’s not…breathing…and she’s not…moving…so…my guess is she’s…”

  Peterson slowly started to form the word “Dead?” with his shocked lips.

  Before he could speak, he was interrupted by the most blood curdling scream he had ever heard. It was the scream of a woman who had suffered a cardiac arrest, died, and then been dragged back to the land of the living by a very skilled, very unscrupulous physician.

  Heaven could wait.

  Peterson smiled and allowed himself to relax even as his ear was filled with the sound of coughing and vomit splattering all over the floor.

  “Well, that’s going to stain,” he heard Doctor Ivy say in the background.

  “Heyyyyyyyyyyy!” Tom shouted with glee. “She’s back! She’s…vomiting up a hell of a lot of blood…but she’s alive.” Tom took a moment to say a few muffled words to the girl with what sounded like the phone against his chest, then he came back. “The Doctor’s got blood all over his face now, but that’s not important, is it? She looks like she’s going be all right now. Oh, wait!”

  Peterson heard more hacking and coughing and retching blast out of the phone. When it subsided, he finally said, “Tom?”

  “Yeah?” Tom sounded almost pleasant, an inappropriate tone for this situation.

  “Is she all right?”

  In between sickly vomiting sounds, Tom responded, “Oh, suuuuure.” Clearly, Tom knew the girl was pretty fucking far from being all right, but at least she was alive.

  Peterson waited for a beat and then, politely as he was able, told Tom, “Well, then I need you to get the hell out of there, Tom, and get your laptop open!”

  Tom stammered as if his mind was racing, then finally agreed. “Uhhh…yeah!”

  Peterson waited as Tom quickly finalized things with the Doctor in a series of faraway muffled sounds. He then heard Tom stumbling at speed out of the Doctor’s in-house clinic.

  Tom raised the phone again and said, “Hey, you were right, that doctor was incredible. Oh, and hey!”

  “What?”

  “He gave me a Bluetooth!”

  Peterson almost laughed. “That’s great, Tom, that’s great. Let me know when you’re back in the car and then fire up your laptop!”

  Peterson closed his eyes and winced as he heard Tom accidentally run into the side of his own car, swear, and drop his keys. He fumbled with them, managed to get the door open, and then slammed it once inside. “Man, this guy has a big garage. It’s nice!”

  “Come on, Tom!”

  Tom didn’t hear. He hadn’t put the Bluetooth on yet. Instead, Peterson heard him fumbling around in his car for what seemed like an eternity, trying to get his laptop up and running.

  “Okay!” Tom said, a little too loudly. He seemed to be a bundle of energy, but was trying hard to remain cool. “We are good to go!”

  Peterson told him the good news. “I think we have the last of the money,” he said, leaving out how he got it and what that money cost him.

  “Really? That’s great!” Tom responded, gleefully.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” Peterson said impatiently. “
We just need to make the transfer.”

  “It’s not in your account yet?”

  “No, Tom, the banks aren’t open, I can’t make overseas calls, and I don’t have internet on this goddam phone.”

  “Oh!”

  “But we have to move fast!” he said. His fear was that Evan or Elena or both might liquidate the accounts as fast as they could to prevent him from getting the money.

  He gave Tom the account numbers and told him to initiate the transfers and illustrated that time was of the essence.

  Peterson realized that he somehow had a better memory for bank account and routing numbers than he even did for phone numbers. If the stakes weren’t so high, he might have found that amusing. Or depressing.

  He waited patiently while Tom clicked and typed and then heard him exclaim, “Holy fuck!”

  Tom laughed in shock and Peterson feared that something had gone wrong.

  “What, Tom, what?”

  “It’s all there, now, Anthony!” Tom said. “Well, it’s gonna be when everything else comes in. All of it’s gonna be there. With interest!”

  Peterson sighed in relief and felt the tension leave his body, at least for the moment.

  Tom continued to laugh. “Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!” he shouted, impressed. “Damn, you’re good, son! How did you come up with the rest of the money?”

  “Those accounts.”

  “What were they?”

  He paused, not proud of himself. “My children’s trust funds.”

  Tom inhaled, painfully, expressing what Peterson was feeling, that it must have hurt to do so. “Damn!” he said. “And if you think they didn’t hate you already…”

  “So, listen,” Peterson said, interrupting him. “Once the other returns come in, I need you to wire this money–”

  But Tom interrupted him back. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s not be too hasty here.” Tom sounded like he finally had a chance to share an idea he had been incubating. “Are you sure this is the way you wanna play this?”

  Peterson was taken aback.

  This shit again? Tom was repeating himself, and lives were on the line, including his own.

  “What exactly are you saying, Tom?”

  Tom coughed and said happily, “I ain’t sayin’ nothin’! All I’m saying is there are opportunities that come around in life, you know? Opportunities that you should think very hard and long about before deciding your course of action.”

  Peterson went cold, and the tension returned. “Tom? You told me you were clean. Are you high, Tom?”

  “High? No!” he responded, sounding amused. “I just dropped some low-grade blotter acid to mellow me out is all.”

  “Tom, I need you lucid for this. It’s a matter of life and death, and you’re supposed to be clean!”

  “You want me to go back in and see if the doc has some coke?”

  Peterson rolled his eyes. “No, Tom, no!”

  “Are you sure? Cocaine should even me out if you want–”

  “Goddamn it, Tom, no! I need to know you’re clean. I can’t have my life and my wife’s life in the hands of a goddamn junkie!” Peterson almost screamed those last words.

  “Oh, no, don’t worry. This isn’t a twelve steps violation, man. LSD isn’t addictive.” Then, he giggled the way only inebriated people do, sounding a bit emotionally punch drunk.

  Mostly, Tom sounded pathetically, uselessly inebriated.

  “Tom, you need to focus here,” Peterson said. Apparently, the meaning of life and death was lost on Tom at the worst possible time. Peterson dreaded what was coming.

  “Look,” Tom said, “all I’m saying is that we should consider…consider, now…all possible options before we proceed.”

  Peterson tried to stay calm. “Did you just say ‘we’? Tom, this is my wife’s life we are talking about here.”

  Tom laughed sarcastically. “Well, come on, man, let’s get real. She’s a trophy wife.”

  Peterson tried to reason with Tom and stay sane and calm, but it wasn’t easy. “She is my wife, Tom!”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, she’s your wife, but is she really worth it?”

  Peterson shook. He could feel his scream rising to the top of his throat, but he pushed it back down again, clenching his fists to calm himself. He hated Tom, but he needed Tom.

  “I mean, ten million dollars?” Tom continued. “That’s kinda overkill, don’t you think? Is any wife worth that much? Really? Hell, is any person worth that much?”

  Tom waited for Peterson’s response, but Peterson was still fighting back his rage. The acid might not have caused Tom to hallucinate, but it certainly emboldened him to a point of false stature.

  “Oh, you think I’m kidding?” Tom continued his litany. “Let’s take my old man. If someone was ransoming me for ten million, hell, three million dollars, he’d just say screw it! Sayonara, Tom, Junior! I’ll just make another one that looks just like him!”

  Peterson breathed angrily and said, “Your father is eighty-six, Tom!”

  “Yeah, but my point is, Anthony, you can get another trophy wife who looks just like her. She just ain’t worth it, buddy!”

  Peterson was shaking more than ever and fought to sound reasonable. “This is my wife, Tom. My…wife!”

  “And you heard what I said about her.”

  Oh, yeah, Peterson heard all right, and if he lived through this, Sully was going to have a roommate.

  “And, Tom? Might I remind you that this is also my life! There is no half-off deal for saving one of us. They are going to kill me if I don’t get–”

  Tom interrupted him. “Yeah, you know? About that… I’ve been thinking. You know, like I said, how much is anyone’s life worth? Even yours? I mean, really? Mine? Yours? Life is cheap, not expensive.”

  Peterson honestly believed that his situation couldn’t possibly get any worse, but Tom had just made sure it did. There would be hell to pay if Peterson survived this. And because of this bullshit, Peterson had one more vengeful reason to survive.

  With every bit of patience he could muster, Peterson said, “What…exactly…are you proposing…Tom?”

  “Proposing?” Tom chuckled. “Hey, I’m not making a proposal, my old friend! I’m just sayin’. I mean, the situation as it stands now, you really are at my mercy, right?”

  Wrong thing to say to me right now, Tom! Peterson thought. He was going to enjoy his revenge.

  “I mean, you trust me to do the right thing, to care about you, your trophy wife, especially with you locked away somewhere, who knows where, left to slowly die for who knows what reason? All alone, no trace, never to be seen again. And here’s me, good old Uncle Tommy, with access to literally all of your accounts now?” The son of a bitch paused to let that sink in before he finished twisting the knife. “I mean, theoretically I could just…hang up this phone and go on my merry way.”

  Peterson shook his fist and tried to sound reasonable. “Listen, Tom, we’re…friends!”

  “Yeah, friends!” Tom interrupted him sarcastically. “Everybody needs friends when they’re down and out, don’t they? In desperate times with desperate measures? But what about…employees? That’s right, employees!”

  Peterson licked his lips and waited for Tom to finish his bullshit diatribe. It was damnable what he was going through with this man. Never again would he put so much trust in another person.

  “Employees. Let’s talk about long suffering employees who are bitter about being passed over for promotion after promotion,” Tom continued.

  “Tom, no! You’re my most trusted man. I haven’t passed you–”

  “Oh, but Anthony, baby…I’m just being hypothetical here, you know? Talking about those poor working stiffs who get snubbed again and again when it comes time to hand out the year’s bonuses.” He chuckled slightly and continued. “Bitter and angry employees with a serious grudge against their employer of many, many years. Employees who’ve had to eat…shit over and over and over again.”

  Peterson wait
ed for him to finish.

  “You know, Anthony? Hypothetically.”

  Fighting back his fury, Peterson pronounced his words carefully “What…do you want…Tom?”

  “Well, ya know, internet gambling looks mighty good right about now.”

  “Tom!” Peterson bit his tongue.

  Tom paused, calculating in his head, then responded casually, “Tell ya what. I said it was all there? Or soon would be? With interest? I take the interest, wire the rest to whoever you say. We’re done. Consider it, I don’t know, an overdue annual bonus. Or a severance package, if you prefer.”

  Peterson stared straight forward like a man possessed. He now sympathized with his angry son and wanted to shout at Tom the way Evan had shouted at him.

  But he couldn’t.

  He couldn’t!

  Because Tom was right. Anthony really was at Tom’s mercy.

  But Tom was also right when he had observed that Peterson had trusted him.

  No more. Never again would this happen. Peterson trusted so few people and one of the last remaining had betrayed him.

  “I’ll take that silence as a yes, then?”

  Peterson didn’t answer. He did not trust himself to speak politely. And he still needed Tom to rescue him.

  On the edge of rage, Peterson listened as Tom typed out the transactions on his laptop.

  And at last…there was silence.

  “Finito,” Tom said proudly. “Thank you, Anthony. You’ve finally made me rich.”

  And with that, Tom hung up.

  Peterson was a bundle of raw nerves as he lowered his cell phone arm.

  He felt like a girl who got fucked on the first date without the courtesy of dinner first or even an orgasm. The whole thing was exhausting. Not even his fury was invigorating. But he had a new reason for payback, it would seem. A new reason named Tom Pocase.

  Perhaps the fact that the money transfer was, in fact, ‘finito,’ at least into his own accounts, his brain was telling him it was okay to rest. He felt drowsiness finally take him over again.