Page 48 of Submit
He’s predictable too, going to the same office every day, eating from the same diner for lunch at noon, and leaving to go home at exactly five in the evening. He doesn’t have the work ethic I have and definitely doesn’t have the drive to follow me like I’m following him.
In a week’s time, there is once when he doesn’t go directly home from work, instead he’s driving to a warehouse in the old meat packing district of Manhattan. The area has been revamped since the eighties, when it really was an industrial area, but still some of the old buildings stand untouched, and he’s headed towards one now,
Is this where you’re keeping her?
I stay far enough behind him so that he won’t realize that I’m following him, and the fact I’m driving a blue Chevy rental car that he’s never seen, and would never imagine me in, helps my incognito stalking.
I watch as he stops in front of one of the rundown buildings, and the garage door rolls open for him. It’s one of those old-style ones that’s moved by hand, and as I look inside, I see two men handling it.
“Great, so you’ve got help. Good way to waste your money asshole.”
Accomplices never work out. They either fuck up or end up spilling the beans eventually. And these two don’t look like they have very many brain cells between them.
The door closes behind his car, and I pull up one building away, parking the Chevy and looking for my binoculars on the passenger seat. There’s a dozen windows in the old building on this side, so I’m hoping I can see something inside, like where he has her and if she’s okay.
The windows are so dirty I can barely see anything, but what I do see just looks like an abandoned building with no one inside. They must all be on the first floor, where unfortunately, there isn’t a way to look inside.
“Looks like I’ve gotta do this the hard way.” I sigh to myself, sitting back and watching the doors like a hawk.
When he comes out, I’ll go in. Dumb and Dumber shouldn’t be a problem.
It’s not long, maybe a half hour, when the garage door opens again, and he slips out. I duck down in my seat, peeking over the door ledge as he drives by me, and what I see has my blood run cold.
His forearm that rests on his door sill is covered in blood beneath the rolled-up sleeve of his dress shirt. It’s enough blood that something bad has just happened.
“Fuck.” I curse to myself, watching him leave, keeping my eyes on him in my rearview mirror until he turns the corner and disappears.
If he just did something to her, maybe there’s time to get to her. I’m hoping so.
Clicking my door closed quietly behind me and going to the building, I search for an entrance other than the massive rolling door. Around the corner I find it and jiggle the handle, surprised when it pops open.
The hinges squeak quietly as I open it just enough to slip inside, and in the darkness of the interior, I’m shrouded away from prying eyes if anyone heard it.
I sneak through the massive room, the concrete floor silent under my hiking boots with thick rubber soles. There are doorways leading in two directions and I slide up to one of them, putting my ear to the metal door. It’s silent, but coming from the direction of the other one, which looks to head to the southern side of the building, I hear the voices of the two men. They’re arguing amongst themselves, with their voices growing louder as I approach.
“What the hell do we do with her now?” The one asks the other with panic laced in his voice.
“The fuck if I know. He just said to get rid of her.” The second guy says, and my heart drops into my stomach.
Get rid of her can only mean one thing. She’s already dead.
I’m unarmed, with this beginning as just a surveillance mission, and now here I am, in an abandoned building with two men and probably a dead body. The term improvisation doesn’t even begin to describe what’s going to come next.
“Here we go.” I say to myself just before I slam my shoulder into the door, blowing it open.
The two men, both dressed in black like some sort of dollar store mercenaries, turn around quickly, their faces ashen and their eyes large. One reaches in his waistband, and in the little bit of light from a single bulb above their head I see the shape of a pistol.
Without thinking, running on just instinct, I dip behind a stack of pallets and crates on my right just before the shot rings out.
“Fucker, you can’t shoot in here, someone will hear.” The other guy says to him, and a second later I hear the gun click, chambering another round.
“Yeah, but what do you want me to do? We can’t be caught like this.”
“We didn’t kill her, he did. Don’t make us murderers too.”
“Fuck what do we do?” The guy with the gun asks, and I have to laugh at the idiocracy of the two of them.
“You can leave, walk away and you won’t get hurt.” I call out from behind my hiding spot. “I just want the girl back.”
