Chapter 23
Ashley returned from her shower wrapped in a towel. She sat on the edge of the bed and contemplated the bottle of gin sitting on the night table. She picked it up and unscrewed the cap, but as she raised it to her lips she hesitated.
What the hell are you doing? she thought, disgusted with herself. What possible good will getting shit-faced do? You're not a drinker! Aaron needs you sober, you stupid cow!
S he stepped into the bathroom and poured the gin down the toilet.
There was a loud knock that sent a chill down her spine. She set the empty gin bottle on the sink, retrieved the. 22 from between the mattresses, and stepped cautiously over to peer through the peep-hole. A grotesque fish-eye image of Doolin Mars stared up at her; he appeared to be carrying a tray. She raised her pistol and took a deep breath; then, failing to notice that the security chain had been cut, she opened the door a crack.
Doolin had dressed for the occasion (if a lime-green sweatsuit could be considered dressed). He held up the tray and said proudly, "I made sandwiches."
Ashley was struck speechless. She was starving, but she would eat the socks off an NFL lineman after a big game before she'd touch anything from Doolin's tray. "I — uh… I–I'm not really hungry," she said.
"But you said — "
"I lost my appetite." She started to close the door, but Doolin jammed it with his foot.
"Some men came looking for you tonight, Arlene," he said, trying to get a look at her through the door.
Ashley froze. "What? When? What did you tell them?"
Doolin was surprised and hurt by the question. "Why, I didn't tell them nothin'," he said. "You should know your secret's safe with me, Miss Arlene." He withdrew his foot and looked up at her hopefully.
"Goodnight, Doolin," Ashley said. Then she closed the door and locked it.
As she leaned back against the door, she saw the cut security chain hanging limp next to her ear. "Oh my God," she cried. Then with the gun aimed at the peep-hole, she stepped back and sat down on the edge of the bed.
– From the driver's seat in the white van, Needles could see Doolin in his green outfit scuttling back to the motel office. He made a call and Souther answered from his office.
"We have our girl," Needles said.
"Did you make the plant?"
"That's affirmative."
They ended the call, and Needles drove slowly out of the motel parking lot.
– Ashley watched the door for several minutes. Then as she started to lie back on the bed she saw something on her pillow. She bolted upright, eyes wide, and stared at it for a moment, her hand to her throat. Someone had been in her room!
She tried to think rationally, fighting the urge to panic. She set the gun aside, and with trembling hands, picked up the small digital recorder and pressed PLAY.
Souther's recorded voice was tinny and distorted, but recognizable:
"Bravo for following my instructions, Ashley. You were smart not to call the police. Do us all a favor and stay where you are. I've taken care of things at your apartment, and I'll contact you when I'm ready."
Ashley shook the player, as if to coax more from it. "What about Aaron?" she cried. "I want to see my baby!" She shook the player again then heaved it at the wall where it shattered to pieces.
Chapter 24
Aaron held the gasoline lantern high, searching his basement cell for a way out, but the four concrete-block walls offered little encouragement. He climbed the stairs and tried the door. But as he expected, it was locked.
From the stair landing he had a different perspective on the space. He could see that the block walls only went about half way up — eight feet maybe — with wood-framing continuing the rest of the way to the joists high above. He noticed what appeared to be a small casement window on the far side of the room cut into the wood-framed portion of the wall about ten feet off the floor — it had been blacked out with spray paint. He felt a pang of hope as the window appeared to be reachable via a narrow ledge that ran along the tops of the concrete walls where the wood framing met the block. He set the lantern down on the landing and stepped out onto the precarious ledge.
He had to take care not to lose his footing, as every few inches a foundation bolt tried to trip him up, and a thick coating of gritty dust made the going even more treacherous. He used the exposed wooden 2x6 wall studs as handholds and dodged protruding nails that jabbed at his face and sticky cobwebs that tugged his hair.
He looked down, and he was higher than he thought — a fall from here would make the headlines. He continued on until at last he reached the small window, then flipped the latch and cranked it open.
The window opened outward at about three feet above ground level. The skies had cleared, and a cold wind blew through his hair and chilled his face as he stuck his head out to take a look. The moon was full, and he was able to see out across the ruins of the cannery's shipping yard.
The yard was a rectangular space about half a football field in area, bordered on two sides by the towering walls of the L-shaped cannery. The basement window where Aaron stood was beneath the east wing — the short leg of the L — that formed the eastern boundary of the yard; the main warehouse — the long leg of the L — formed the southern boundary. To Aaron's right, parallel to the main warehouse, an abandoned railroad spur fronted by a concrete loading dock made up the third, or northern boundary of the yard; while on the far side, straight across from Aaron, a massive, iron-banded, wooden water-tower overlooked the whole yard from the western boundary.
A tall, chain-link, prison-security style fence, which Aaron estimated to be fifteen feet high, ran under the water tower to the west and along the length of the dock to the north, enclosing the yard. It was fitted with three gates: a pair of large gates providing access to the dock and railway spur, and a single smaller gate near the water tower. Aaron could see that the two large gates were chained and padlocked, but the small gate was too far away to tell.
He leaned through the small opening, managing an arm and a shoulder before his feet slipped off the ledge and flailed through the air. His cheeks puffed out as the breath squeezed from his chest, and he struggled desperately to regain a foothold. Finally his toe caught on a wood stud and he was able to push hard with his leg and get his other shoulder through.
He paused to catch his breath, his upper body chilling in the wind, then grit his teeth, twisted and wiggled, and with an enormous final effort, popped through and flopped out onto the cold ground.
– He jumped to his feet and tucked into the shadows against the high wall of cannery's north-east wing. Sweat stung his eyes and he couldn't help imagining he was playing a level in a first-person-shooter with the difficulty rating set on insane — mercenary soldiers hiding everywhere, ready to blast him with AK-47s. Except this game was real.
He worked his way down the wall of the east wing then turned and hugged the south wall. As he rounded the boiler house, which protruded from the main warehouse about two-thirds of the way down its length, he noticed a lantern burning in one of the second floor windows. He judged it to be the one in Souther's office, the window next to his desk.
Damn it, he thought, why'd he have to choose tonight to work late…
Under this window, sloping all the way from just beneath it to the ground fifteen feet below, Aaron was astonished to see what appeared to be a huge pile of trash — like the tailings from a vast garbage mine. The disgusting obstacle filled the entire corner, where the boiler house met the cannery, and unfortunately it stood between him and the gate to freedom. In order to stay in the shadows, he would have to climb over it — a feat he quickly determined to be impossible. His only other option, short of aborting the escape and retreating to the basement, was to go around the pile, a route that would take him through the brightly moonlit area of the shipping yard, where avoiding detection would be next to impossible.