Last shot

Chapter 32

Wearing a light cotton Tommy Bahama camp shirt against the balmy August night and a pair of leather slide huaraches, Ted Sands whistled through his teeth as he strolled from his Cheviot Hills house en route to his eight o'clock poker game. His third child, an '88 Bronco geared for off-roading and rock crawling, waited in the driveway. With its custom geared-down axles, widened rims kicking out the tread a few inches on either side, hybrid suspension with three inches of lift, and flared wheel wells accommodating thirty-five-inch Mud Terrain tires, the Bronco was too wide to fit in the garage with his wife's Chrysler Pacifica.

Stopping on the walk, Ted picked up a melted army man and a discarded Barbie sundress and tossed them back at the front step. He had the type of gym-enhanced build common in L.A., heavy on biceps and quads, with more muscle definition than could be achieved without kidney-straining supplements. As a third-string quarterback at a Division One college, he'd learned the art of physical upkeep without having to endure the rigors of injury. The sole nondoctor, — lawyer, or — studio exec on his tree-lined block, he moved across his front lawn with confidence, the erect stride of the proud homeowner.

He pressed the "unlock" button on his key chain, and the Bronco greeted him with a friendly chirp. Spinning the keys around his finger, he paused a few feet from the truck. A folded note fluttered from the tinted driver's window, Scotch-taped, his name rendered in red ink.

He turned a quick circle, laughing in anticipation of a practical joke, but his front yard and the street were empty. A neighbor passed in a Lexus with a tooted greeting, and he waved before returning his attention to the note. He took a step forward, plucked it from the window, and opened it.

Puzzled, he stared down at the blank interior.

A pair of hands shot out from beneath the truck, the left clamping over the top of his foot, the right, which held an unfolded knife, hooking around the heel. Before Ted could move, the blade drew back toward the undercarriage shadows, carving around the rear of his ankle and severing the Achilles tendon. Spurting blood made a soft tapping noise against the driveway. Ted bent, hands shoved to his thighs, emitting a breathy, incredulous moan. The blank note fluttered to the concrete, blood soaking through it in spots. Ted turned to run toward the house, but his right leg didn't respond, and he fell flat on his chest, still unable to find his voice. The hands seized him around both calves, dragging him beneath the Bronco. Limbs rattled against the oil pan.

The brief struggle ended with a thud.

Propped in an uncomfortable sitting position, a cramp vise-gripping his lower back, Ted came to in a dank room. A thickness had seized his legs, which were extended before him, and his head throbbed. He groaned and struggled to move his arms. A lamp hooked to a workbench ten feet away provided meager lighting. Scattered tools, a bundle of antique rifles, a few powdery bags of rapid-set concrete. He strained to look behind him; his body wouldn't obey, but he managed to twist his neck. A roll-up door had been raised, revealing the silhouette of his beloved Bronco outside. The spare tire swing-arm carrier had been released, the tailgate laid open. Two strips of aluminum formed a loading ramp, extending down from the truck's well-advertised cargo space.

A clicking jerked him back around. A form crouched just past his feet, where moments before there had been mere darkness. His night vision was starting to kick in, enough for him to make out the glint of a knife. With a thumb and forefinger, the figure raised the folding steel blade from its handle, then let it snap back into place. The knife, a wicked-looking compression-lock Spyderco, featured a hollow-ground blade, hump-spined with a thumb hole, and a precision-drilled titanium handle, multiperforated for lightness and balance. Ted had come across similar models in some of his shady "security" dealings, generally in the hands of word-of-mouth referrals with extensive unspecified training. The man holding him was the real deal, not like the tough-guy producers, playboy entrepreneurs, and gun-waving pseudogangstas-cum-record producers who generally paid his mortgage. He looked down and saw the reason he couldn't move his legs or feet.

They were sunk into concrete.

The block encased him to the waist, as if he were sitting in a half-filled bath. He shouted and jerked his arms, but his hands had also been immersed in the gray mass, the ragged mouths of the entries cutting into his wrists. Oddly, he and the block rolled a few inches back before striking something that halted their motion. Recollection crashed in on him-the bite at his ankle, his fingernails snapping as he was pulled backward across the driveway, devoured by the shadows beneath the truck. When he refocused, the man was down on a knee, winding black tape around the laces of one boot. The man picked up a hand mallet and hammer and advanced on him. Ted strained and thrashed but could barely rock his powerful torso. The mallet clinked into position. Ted closed his eyes and bellowed.

A bang. A clatter of wood on the floor.

Tentatively, he took a glimpse. The man had knocked free one of the forming boards from around the concrete block. A few steps and the man disappeared behind him. Another bang shocked Ted upright, and a second board fell free. He tried to talk, to reason, but his throat had chalked up, issuing only rasps. The man proceeded with his quiet, measured pacing and hammering until only the block and Ted remained, centered on what he now saw was a carpeted dolly.

Frantic, he sought the man in the darkness. He was crouched again, just beyond Ted's immobilized feet, wrapping what appeared to be heavy-test fishing line around a spool as if he were drawing in a kite.

"Wh…" Ted panted a few times, as if readying for a charge. "Who are you?"

The voice-deep and maddeningly calm: "Walker Jameson. Ring a bell?"

"No. Not really."

Walker focused on his task, continuing to take up the fishing line. "Jameson," he said. "Think hard."

Rising heat set Ted's cheeks tingling. "I'll tell you everything."

"Yeah," Walker said, "you will."