Derailed

FORTY-ONE

Dexter had slipped in during the heat of the battle.

We’d been rolling around on the floor, and neither one of us had heard the door open. That allowed Dexter to enter the room, pick up my gun, click off the safety, and point the barrel at my head.

I was leashed and muzzled. My hands were tied behind my back with my own belt. They took off my shoes and socks and stuffed one clammy sock into my mouth.

They did the same thing to Sam. Sam resisted momentarily, and Vasquez kicked him in the head.

I could smell Sam’s blood.

It smelled almost sweet, but since I knew where it was coming from, it was a nauseating sweetness. That was a problem. Because it made me want to throw up, and the thought of throwing up with a sock already stuffed into my mouth made me want to panic.

Not panicking was easier said than done. I was wondering, for instance, what they were planning to do with us, with Sam and me. I had the strong feeling they didn’t know yet.

They seemed at loose ends. They kept muttering and whispering to each other — sometimes in Spanish, sometimes not.

“Nosotros tenemos que hacer algo,” Lucinda was saying now.

I’d taken just one year of high school Spanish, and the only word I actually remembered was gracias — but I could intuit their confusion anyway.

I overheard Vasquez whispering something in English to Lucinda.

“Afterwards . . . we can go . . . Miami and . . .” They were taking off.

It made sense. After all, Sam was useless to them now, a would-be cash cow that had been irrevocably damaged. All that time and effort put into leading him here and nothing to show for it.

They were legitimately upset. They were unhappy I’d shown up. I was the reason it hadn’t worked out the way they’d planned. Me. I’d gummed up the works and left them with a problem they hadn’t counted on. Their weapons, after all, were fear and deception, but now I’d made those weapons useless.

Which left what?

“You stupid fuck . . . ” Vasquez was sitting on the bed with his hands on his knees. He was talking to me. “I told you not to pull this kind of shit again. I told you to go back to Long Island and stay there, right? You lost money before, motherfucker. Money. You should’ve thanked God. Now what you gonna do, huh?”

Perhaps pray.

It wasn’t merely the words that were frightening, that made me think praying was in order—it was the fact that Vasquez himself seemed frightened saying them. Now what you gonna do, huh? As if it were a question they’d asked themselves, then come up with an answer they hadn’t liked. When scary people start sounding scared, that’s when it’s okay to be scared yourself.

The three of them went into the bathroom together. Someone — I thought it was Dexter — was arguing against doing something. I could hear his raised voice.

When they came out of the bathroom, Dexter didn’t look very happy. It appeared he’d lost.

But Vasquez and Dexter were going somewhere now.

“Ten minutes,” I heard Vasquez whisper to Lucinda, “and then we’ll go down to . . . Little Havana . . . my cousin . . .”

Vasquez and Dexter left the room.

Which left the three of us. Sam, Lucinda, and me.

“What are you going to do with us?” Sam said through the sock in his mouth. The words muffled, but understandable.

But Lucinda didn’t answer him.

“I won’t tell,” Sam said. “If you let me go, I won’t say a thing, I promise. Please . . .”

Still no answer from Lucinda. Maybe she’d been told not to say anything — no fraternizing with the enemy. Maybe after having had to talk to Sam Griffen for months, it was nice not having to say anything to him now. Or maybe she knew exactly what they were going to do with us and thought it better not to tell.

“The sock . . . it’s choking me,” Sam said. "Please . . .”

Lucinda finally responded, but not with words. She got up and walked over to Sam — a short walk of five feet, maybe.

“Please,” Sam said, “take it out of my mouth . . .please . . . I’m choking . . . ”

So Lucinda reached down to pull out the sock.

As soon as her hand reached into his mouth, he bit down on it, and Lucinda screamed.

Maybe he’d been asking himself the same questions I had and come up with the same answers. So maybe he’d decided he had nothing to lose.

She kicked out at him — “Motherfucker!”—trying to get her hand out of his mouth, but Sam was holding on like an attack dog, the kind trained to take down robbers and not let go, even if you shoot them dead. Lucinda, screaming and punching at Sam’s head with her free hand, but Sam still not letting go, holding on for dear life.

I tried to get over there, but I had to worm my way to them, because my hands were tied behind my back. I had to move in sections. I was trying to help Sam. Because something bad was going to happen now. I could see that.

For one thing, Lucinda had managed to get her hand out of his mouth. Finally. For another, she was raising the gun in her left hand and beginning to bring it down on Sam’s head. Sam’s mouth was bloody, her blood and his seemingly mixed together, as Lucinda brought the gun down on his face again. Then again and again.

“Please,” Sam said, “please, I’m a father. . . . I have three children, ” as the gun smashed into his cheekbone. As it smashed into his nose. Hoping, I guess, that this might give her pause, might make her stop hitting him. But it only seemed to make her madder. Sam kept pleading, “Three children . . . please . . . a father, ” but Lucinda kept hitting him. Harder and harder—I could hear the sound of metal hitting bone. As if he were saying, Hit me, and she was just going ahead and obliging him.

I’d managed to get eight inches, ten inches, a foot closer to them, when I finally realized it didn’t matter.

Not now.

Sam was dead.

Vasquez and Dexter walked back into the room.

Dexter was carrying two garbage bags — the large, industrial-strength kind, big enough for an entire lawn of leaves. Or a couple of bodies.

Maybe that’s why when they saw Sam was dead, when Vasquez kicked him softly with his shoe and actually confirmed this, no one seemed particularly upset about it.

“He bit me,” was all Lucinda said, and Vasquez nodded.

Then Vasquez picked up a pillow and said to me: “Time to go to sleep.”

Vasquez has a gun, but he can’t take the chance of someone hearing it.

They were going to suffocate me.

I’d been doing something while Lucinda killed Sam. While she’d gotten up and gone into the bathroom to wash the blood off her hands. While Sam lay there without breathing. I’d remembered something. Dexter had come in and picked up my gun, and then he’d given the gun to Lucinda when they went out.

Which still left one other gun.

Vasquez’s gun. Where was it?

Under the bed. Where it had come to rest when I’d knocked it out of Vasquez’s hand.

Maybe five feet away from me. That’s all.

They were going to suffocate me.

I’d begun to inch my way over to it.

Something else. I’d begun to test the quality of the knot that Dexter had tied with my belt. It wasn’t meant to be used as a rope; it wasn’t supple enough to make a good knot. There was some give there.

They were going to suffocate me.

By the time Vasquez and Dexter reentered the room, I’d opened a tiny hole in the knot. I’d moved myself to within two feet of Vasquez’s gun.

Close enough to reach it. If I could get my hands out in time.

“Bedtime,” Vasquez said.

Your life does not flash in front of your eyes.

I would like to tell you that now.

That’s what they say happens to you when you face your own death, but it’s not true. Not for me — my entire life did not play itself out before my eyes. Just one small part of it.

When I was seven years old and at the beach.

I’d been playing in the surf and not paying attention, and a rogue wave had come along and knocked me under. By the time they pulled me from the water, I was purple, cyanotic, and — if not for the ministrations of a first-year lifeguard — dead. From that day on, I was forever scared of drowning. From that day on, when I had dreams about dying, it was always that way. With no air in my lungs.

That’s the part of my life I saw now.

Before Vasquez placed the white pillow down over my mouth, I managed to gulp in one deep breath.

There was a game we used to play as a kid. It was called No Breathing. A game I played with nearly maniacal devotion after that incident at the beach — as if I knew it just might save me one day.

I used to be able to do three minutes. Maybe even four.

Go.

The pillow smelled of sweat and dust. I began to work my hands back and forth against the knot in the belt.

I pushed outward with both wrists. Then relaxed. Then pushed. Then relaxed.

It was like a painful isometric. Vasquez had all his weight pressing down on me. It was hard to move my hands.

I kept my wrists pushing, though. Even though the belt was cutting into my skin like a dull blade.

It was slow going. I heard someone pacing a few feet from me. The bed squeaked. Lucinda cleared her throat. Someone turned on the radio.

My hands were going nowhere. I kept pushing and pushing, but it was like pushing against a locked door. Like running in quicksand. I was pushing, but nothing was giving. My chest was starting to ache. My arm sockets felt as if they were being pulled apart. They were screaming at me.

No, they screeched. Not on your life. Not possible. Forget it. Stop!

My lungs were on fire now. I couldn’t feel my hands.

Then the belt began to give.

Just a little.

Just loose enough to get a little piece of my hand through.

I pushed with all my strength. Then again and again.

My wrists were bleeding. I kept pushing.

I got my hands halfway through. Both hands were sweating. The sweat and blood was helping them slide through the belt. That was good, that was wonderful. I kept pushing.

My hands were three-quarters out. I needed to push just a little bit more, just a little bit. It was my knuckles, though.

They were a problem. Please.

I gave one last push — one last push for everything. For everything I needed to make it back to. For Anna. For Deanna.

Now.

I pushed and pushed and pushed . . .

One hand came free.

I’m dying.

My left hand, the arm closest to the bed.

It’s black. I can’t see. I’m dying.

I heard Vasquez say, “Huh.”

I heard Dexter say, “Watch out.”

I frantically felt for the gun under the box spring. My lungs were bursting. I slid my hands this way and that way under the bed. Where was it?

I felt the gun. I got my fingers around it.

What’s this? What’s happening?

I brought it out from under the bed.

And at that very moment, at that very instant in time when I might’ve turned the tide, I died.