Method 15/33 Read online

  Once I took Mozi on a fly-fishing trip to Montana—my hope to extract from him the poison so flooding his veins. All he did was fish. And one night, he cried in his tent. I didn’t want to embarrass him, so I stood helplessly outside, pacing around the bonfire, staring at the flames like I do, biting my thumbnails, and confused as to what step I should take. I prayed the zipper would come down, and he’d crawl out to find and talk to me. I wanted so badly to enter his tent and hold him. Squeeze all the bad memories away. But he never came out.

  I’m still so heartbroken whenever Mozi waddles in his slippers into a room; a vastness follows him, sucking away whatever energy he might have carried with him. The blackness under his eyes, his drooping lids, these are the signs of his sleepness nights.

  So I hunt. I hunt all those deplorable, worthless nobodies, those vacant suits of meat who deserve nothing, those demons who abscond with children and deserve less than we’d give a rabid rat.

  My parents formed their newfound goal, a relentless hope that their babies would never be taken again, a responsibility they poured into me. They dragged me to the shooting range, insisted I take up archery. Whispered in my sleeping dreams how I should train for law enforcement. This was their vicarious wish, their way of coping with the horror. My seeing gift was out of the bag, and I became the regional record-holder on bull’s eye arrow shots and telescoping those with a second arrow.

  Oh, whatever.

  Here’s the point: I can take any shot. Any damn shot.

  The Feds first tried to force the sharpshooter program on me. But I insisted on kidnappings. They either relented to my persistence or conspired to be voluntarily unaware of the psych tests that must have warned otherwise. Eventually, they assigned Lola as my partner or problem, depending on how viewed. I’d definitely say problem when we first met, but very soon thereafter, a partner in the highest sense.

  So as Lola and I drove through the very middle of flat Indiana in a borrowed F-150, and as my vision sharpened and my hearing dulled, I set my sights on shooting someone that day. Everyone who took a child and taunted me, also took Mozi, scared Mozi, stole his humor, over and over again. And I felt every single one of them should suffer terrible pain and unbearable humiliation.

  We turned where our truck owner told us to turn. The all-season tires scattered rocks along a dirt road, which had parts paved and parts unpaved. Unpruned apple trees, knotted and jagged with age, bordered the drive, and out beyond rolled the longest field full of cows I’d ever seen. How quaint I thought the fall arrival must have been for students when this country school was in its prime. Now it drooped in coldness and neglect, tortured by the lethargic rain, which barely cared to fall on this forgotten place. Everything was draped in a blackness above and an evil within.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  DAY 33 CONTINUES

  I had the ultimate asset in Brad’s VW: his gun, Asset #42, if only I could pry it from his bloody fingers. After he called me the C word, my eyes began to flutter and roll deep within their sockets. This happens to me once in a great while. It is this involuntary state my mind takes me to when my overactive cerebral cortex is in overdrive. Trance-like I become, and the sensation of lightness, busyness, zapping in my brain feels so great—like a perfect buzz with the best of wine, only you become sharper in thought, not blurred like you would with alcohol. The feeling is rather addictive, but you can’t force it—you must simply wait and allow for the tingling to take over.

  All I needed was a distraction to Brad’s left. If he turned his head, his right arm—the one closest to me and which held the gun—would shift back. If I acted on this split second when his muscles would be in repose by pushing with one hand on his right shoulder, his elbow would jam into his seat and his forearm weaken. His grip would loosen. With my other hand, and with the element of surprise further lessening his hold, I could snag the gun. I’d have all of one second to make the move once a distraction hit.

  But what distraction?

  We were stalled in the middle of the woods. Trapped at the end of what must have been a mining road.

  The rain fell, again, only here and there. The watery plopping was not even loud enough to call to mind the firing of my first-grade school shooting episode.

  A squirrel might hop tree to tree. A bird might swoop limb to limb. These movements were not enough of a true distraction. I had no assets outside that car. Or none that I knew of, just then.

  I could have said, “Hey, look, over there, a polar bear.” And since he was a dumb-nuts psychopath, he may have craned his neck. But first he would question me, even if for only a nanosecond, and in so questioning, he’d tighten his grip. I needed a truly alarming jolt to make him twist, for this was what would push him physically and mentally into my plan. Shock and jelly muscles. These are what I needed.

  Since I could find no distractions in scouring the forest outside the VW, my eyes continued to flutter, flipping through options, calculating and connecting dots, drawing lines, designing a new plan. The car was littered with assets. And as I logged them, my eyes rolling, he taunted me with wicked words.

  “You crazy little bitch, you lunatic. Look at you,” he said, his face curled in disgust.

  A screwdriver on the floor of the backseat, two feet from my left hand, down, left angle, Asset #43.

  “Stop blinking your fucking eyes!”

  Roll of duct tape around the stick shift, Asset #44.

  A pen on the floor by my right foot, hitting the pinky toe side of my Nikes, Asset #45…

  The tie around his neck, Asset #46.

  His phone in the cubby, Asset #47.

  “Panther, you scare me. You try, oh ha ha.”

  I fluttered on, even though the blinking was becoming less and less natural and more and more forced. I thought a charade of craziness might lull him to feel safe in his own. He seemed to be getting distracted. His grip lessened on the gun, which I could tell by the return of some wrinkles on his waxed knuckles.

  And then…

  Like a glorious gift, when I was about to consider very closely the screwdriver, to my great surprise, an outside distraction actually came. If I weren’t so practiced and empty, I probably would have been stunned.

  “Put your fucking hands up in the air,” a man yelled from outside the car.

  I didn’t even look up. Brad twisted toward the voice in the woods, just as I had only seconds before hoped he would, and I simultaneously shoved his right shoulder into the seat. His elbow pushed back, his grip opened, and I grabbed that damn gun.

  I looked up to see a mixed-ethnic man, half-Asian, half-Caucasian, his legs A-framed, and his gun poised. His gray suit screamed federal agent.

  Behind the car was a thick woman with a short haircut and a masculine nose. Her gray pants and white button shirt also screamed federal agent. She, too, had Brad in her gun’s scope. Beside her was not an apparent agent, but a farmer-looking old man with a cocked and aimed rifle.

  “Get out of the fucking car you piece of shit, asshole,” the woman demanded.

  “Lola, take cover, I got this. Boyd, stay put. Yeah. Stay put, old boy,” the male agent said, a bit too calmly. He squinted to aim, and I believe he winked at me, as if thrilled to perform a murder on my behalf.

  I could tell he meant to hurt Brad.

  I liked him immediately.

  I squirmed backwards, intending to exit the car, and realized too late that I was still buckled in. And then Brad took the wild option, one I had considered but ruled out because I thought it too insane, even for him. Before I could exit the car, he floored the gas, going faster than appropriate down the short stretch of remaining road. We barely missed the passing trees when he jerked the wheel swiftly left and off the road. Low-lying limbs scratched the sides of the car as we continued on and up the granite slant of the low end of the quarry.

  Into the water we plunged.

  The gun fell beyond my reach.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  SPECIAL AGENT ROGER LIU
/>
  We arrived at Appletree, and just as soon as we did, Boyd came hauling out the door of one of the wings. Appletree Boarding School, so said the weathered sign on the side. Boyd slung his rifle up over his shoulder. He beckoned us to get out of the truck and run to him. My hearing was coming back in waves, a disconcerting undulation of dying and then replenished noise. A whoosh, a crackle, a series of disjointed words, up with volume and then a quick decline.

  Boyd’s words came to me in a flood. “Come on now, y’all. Bobby’s pretty sure they took the dirt road that goes to the quarry. They trapped in there, for sure. Prolly hidin’ an all. Bobby just ran up here to tell me so and he’s off to the hospital with the otha girl. Otha girl says there’s anotha girl. Girl is Dorothy, the one Bobby’s got. This seem right, Mr. Liu?”

  “Yes, Boyd. Where do we go?”

  “Come on now, I’ll show y’all.”

  Procedure says I should have confiscated Boyd’s gun and made him point the way, insisted he stick close to the schoolhouse and call any other authorities there might be in surrounding communities.

  Fuck procedure. Lola and I needed back-up. And I didn’t have any time to spare on others getting mobilized.

  Boyd, turns out, is a champion hunter. Hunted his whole life. Back then, he held the Indiana State Title for largest buck taken with a single shot. So Boyd knew how to traipse lightly on fallen leaves. The sight of him, it was almost cute, tip toeing like a creeping Fred Astaire through the woods. Lola and I were trained on how to follow footprints and muffle our own approach, so we did just so. But frankly, I couldn’t hear much of anything anyway, so I’m no judge on how quiet we really were. My hearing had gone back to a muffled wind. I’d catch only pieces of Lola’s whispers.

  “Liu…there…smell…gas…car…engine running.”

  I didn’t smell any car. The aroma to me was just the forest, the wet leaves, the musty bark, the crispness of damp dirt. I think this is the exact same scent most everyone else on the planet would catch when walking in the woods. But since Lola was the connoisseur of odor, I followed her nose.

  Boyd nodded his approval, for he was headed that way anyway.

  Sure enough, we came upon the back end of a parked VW. Smog billowed out of the tailpipe, plainly visible on the cold air.

  I crept slowly closer and to the driver’s side. And as clear as if only one foot in front of me, I saw Lisa, seemingly in a trance, blinking her eyes wildly. She looked exactly like the school photo they had scanned in her file—the file they gave to the wrong team. Who I thought was Ding-Dong faced her, not me. He seemed to be shouting in her face. How odd they appeared, victim and perpetrator, sitting in a car in the middle of the woods, staring each other down.

  I shouted for him to put his fucking hands up in the air.

  Lola followed by demanding something. I heard only “piece of shit.”

  I watched as Lisa stopped blinking when the man turned to see me. Watched as she pushed his shoulder and grabbed his gun.

  Did she really just do that? I was so thrown to see such an act by a child. But again, my vision. I was only ten yards away. I saw exactly what I saw as if I was in the car with her and watching her actions in a slow-mo replay. The girl took his gun.

  Still, I held my aim.

  I think something must have hatched in me. A calmness I had never known. I believe I felt nothing, actually, which was comforting. Maybe all I felt was relief that I would again scratch that ancient itch in me, be able to once again maim an awful human. I had so many accomplices to help: Lola, Boyd, and even the victim. I’d read her file, knew she was gifted, recalled her struggle with emotions. She appeared so calm in that car as she took his gun.

  I even saw her slight smirk in holding the handle. A look of pride.

  I knock and I knock and you answer.

  The devil indeed is a she.

  Why didn’t I take the shot when I could have? Why didn’t I burst his skull? Yes, I surely could have. It would have all been over so much sooner. But from where I stood, the only shot I could take would have been fatal. The man sunk so low in the low VW seat, and the door was so high, only his beedy head stuck up in the glass of the door. A head shot would surely be the end. I didn’t mind killing him. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was I truly wanted him to suffer for the rest of his life. I wanted him disfigured, hurting, and holed up in solitary confinement, or even better, embroiled in the general population of a state run prison. I may have been a federal agent on a federal mission, but I’d work behind the scenes to place his case on a silver platter for the state. A low-resource Indiana prison would be so much better for this bag of meat, especially if I could—and I would—send word to fellow inmates of his crimes against children. Oh yes I would, and Lola would too, but only after she’d taken her own turn with him. In private. For which I’d play the fool.

  Why is Lola like she is? Look, that’s her backstory, and damn, I dare you to try to crowbar the past out of her. All I know is the foster families took a toll on her, and that’s all I’ve ever got, even after all these years. But hey, if you want to pry, go right ahead, Barbara Walters.

  Now I know I could have taken the shot, and I would have clicked to reason and done so had I been given just two more seconds to contemplate what I was doing. Surely, in just two more seconds of thought, my lovely Sandra would have whispered in my ear, just by my memory of her. I was robbed of introspection, however, when in a flash he sped ahead. Lisa fell back in her seat, jostled off whatever game she was surely playing, and struggled to find her balance. And though I was relieved she was still alive, when they disappeared through the trees and over a ridge, I felt nothing but awful dread.

  Boyd directed us left to a winding path through the woods. He said not one word to us, only led a compliant train under a canopy of cold trees. The sky was a darker gray with spots of black, a cancer mold in the pockets that were once a nice fighting blue.

  At a clearing, a piling of granite slabs arched up in a circle. A quarry appeared, and suddenly my experience forced me to accept that whatever Boyd was about to show us would destroy any strain of relief at finding Lisa alive. Lola was motioning wildly, running like mad to the quarry’s edge. Ahead of me, she turned and screamed by the looks of the veins popping from her neck. But a weird whistling blocked her words, and then a whoosh, and suddenly sound returned, and the bubbling of water met my ears. I raced to meet Lola and Boyd at the quarry’s edge, only to see the Bug’s taillights sink under the black surface. Ripples of water splashed the granite walls, but oddly, in a slow way and without much force, as if the water was as thick as syrup and thus difficult to displace.

  Lola and I kicked off our shoes, scuttling to a low spot that would provide an easier entrance.

  “Now don’t, y’all. Don’t just go flopping in there, now,” Boyd said, halting our quick progress.

  “What the hell are you talking about, chicken man?” Lola shouted, her forehead crinkled in pain. She pointed her gun at Boyd. I did too. Neither Lola nor I trusted anyone, usually. We only needed the smallest of reasons.

  Boyd placed his rifle on the ground and his hands in the air. I lowered my weapon, relieved my chicken farmer was still a good man and all my senses intact.

  “Now, now, I just mean, now. Be real careful and all,” he rushed to say. “This here a mine they abandoned some forty years ago. Before this here place was a school an’ all. My daddy and Bobby’s daddy use-ta hunt this here property. They say old cars been thrown in there. Scrap metal. Junk. Y’all go jumpin’ in, you’re likely to get a leg tangled and drown yourself.”

  Do you see how following a bureau procedure might have gotten me or Lola killed? Sometimes trusting the locals really can help. Yeah, well, tell the chiefs who run the Bureau about deviating from the game plan. About abandoning their damn metrics. Go ahead, tell them all about how instinct and heightened senses really should rule. See how far you get. And then come talk to me and Lola.

  Sandra would probably stop me
here with a gentle look of warning, a squint of her eye and a subtle tuck of her head. She’d place her rose-lotioned hand on my arm as her silent way of calming me. She’d say I’ve gotten a little heated and out of my regular character in remembering and retelling all of this. And she’d be right, as she typically is. Back then, before entering the quarry, I did try to find one humorous item about the scene around me. But then I thought, why would I even think it’s appropriate to consider comedy now? Perhaps I was simply stretching hard for Sandra to save me, feeling bereft at being so separated from her, out there, cold, diving into dark, trying to save a drowning girl and her baby. A chain of safety is what I wanted: Lisa saving her child, me saving Lisa, Sandra saving me. But Sandra wasn’t there. Sandra was never with me when I trudged into hell.

  Cautiously, gingerly with testing feet, but as quick as I could, I stepped into the water. That’s when I noticed the rope tied to the side of the well.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  DAY 33 CONTINUES

  I was buckled in. Brad was not. As we nosedived into the water, I calculated our fall at about a slight ten-degree angle. We were, thankfully, on the low end of the quarry. Across the way, the wall was about thirty feet high from surface to ledge; a fall from that end would have been much harder to take. Our fall was only about four feet. So really, it was more like we were driving down a boat ramp. Nevertheless, although short-lived, our descent was pretty fast, so we entered the water hard.

  Only days before, my now dead but then alive captor informed that the quarry was forty feet deep in some spots, so I braced to keep falling and falling. But actually, we stopped short almost as soon as the car was submerged, hood first. All in, I’d say we were ten feet deep. No big deal, as far as I was concerned. Still, let’s not minimize the situation. People have drowned in as little as two inches of water. Exhibit A, the man in my cell.