TITLE: Phone Booth : Redial
AUTHOR: Ananova Crowe
~REDIAL~
The ambulance jumped down the street, but Stu didn't feel it. He was flying high. The horn blared as the sirens wailed and he was completely oblivious to it all.
Kelly was seated in the back of the ambulance, silent, looking at her husband's sleeping face. The attendant was patching up his ear when he turned and handed her two blue bags. She smiled at the man, before kneeling down onto the floor next to the gurney.
Her mind flustering through what had just happened.
Working gently, she untied his shoes, the soft, Italian leather smoothing beneath her fingers as she removed them, one, after another, and set them beside her knees. His hands worked slow, methodically, as she broke the disc inside and the goo-filled bag began to turn cold.
As she waited, she looked to her husband's chest, to the purple splotch just below his chest, right at his rib cage. She thought he'd been shot, never able to know just how close she came to losing her husband on that fateful day.
She draped the ice packs over his slightly swollen ankles, keeping Stu's socks on as she leaned back and sat down in the side of the ambulance once more, putting his shoes in her lap.
A pizza guy.
Her entire life could have been completely ripped away from her with one lousy shot.
From one lousy pizza guy.
~
"I'm gonna go fix some lunch, would you like anything?"
Stu raised his head from his magazine, stretched out on the couch in a faded, button up brown shirt and a pair of jeans and sneakers.
It had been two months since he and Kelly had settled down away from everything. Stu had quit his job and they had moved down into the less crowded parts of New York after he'd gotten out of the hospital and off the news. They'd gotten themselves a new house, a new life, a new dog. Things were going well.
"What are you making?" The bay window in front of him looked out over the sloping lawn and down onto the gray street, peaceful and barren. He liked it here.
"Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches."
"That sounds great," he called out to her, before putting his nose back into the magazine.
The phone rang.
A ringing phone had to be answered.
It had been two months now, and lots of people had called throughout that time. Relatives and companions mostly, nothing unusual. News reporters and magazine columnists had called while he was back at the hospital, but still nothing suspicious then.
They didn't get many phone calls now that they had moved, dislodging themselves from a life they had known so well and now hated to ever go back to.
Despite the two months, Stu still had a problem with phones, but he was slowly getting back into the saddle with answering them. And due to what had come to conformity, Kelly picked it up.
"Hello?" There was a pause. "Yeah, just a minute."
Kelly came out of the kitchen with the phone and the connected phone jack, dragging the chord behind her. "It's Captain Ramey, he says it's important."
Captain Ed Ramey was the officer who'd helped him through the ordeal two months back. The one he'd humiliated, then made amends with and now called a friend. Stu smiled as she handed him the phone and obliged as she bent for a kiss.
He set the phone jack down on the table atop his magazine and rubbed at his eyes, looking at his watch. Noting on the leather banded clock that it was eleven thirty five in the morning. He yawned despite the time and brought the phone to his ear.
"Hello?"
"Hello Stu."
His heart froze.
It wasn't Ramey.
"How'd you get my number? How'd you find me?" He was outraged.
"Good, then it is you. I was beginning to think I'd gotten the wrong number." The voice was slow, methodical, digging beneath his skin, just as he'd remembered it.
"How did you find me?" He shot up from the couch, taking the jack with him and went to the bay window, scanning.
"You've really cleaned up. I like the shirt. So much less expensive than black on maroon sorbet, don't you think?"
After peering out into the vacant street, he closed the blinds.
"I'm sick of your mind fucks asshole. Leave me alone." He hissed into the phone. "You can't get me here, I can call the cops and they'll be here so fast it'll make your fucking head spin." It all came back to him like a horrible deja vu.
"Sweetheart?" Kelly came out of the swinging door with a towel rubbing at her hands, a questionable look on her pale face. "Are you alright?"
He held a finger up to her, then flashed her his palm, his eyes casting worry her way.
"How's Kelly?" The voice smirked. "Gotten prettier, hasn't she?"
He put his hand over the receiver, "go-go back into the kitchen," he instructed, fear fading the color out of his face. His eyes hunted her shirt, looking for a red dot but not finding any. "Stay there."
"Stu, what's wrong?" Kelly was worried.
"Just go!" He demanded, lifting the blinds with his fingers and peeking out, looking for something, anything to catch his attention. He remembered this voice's face. The cool, methodical pallor, the glasses. He didn't remember him from before, but he knew him now.
"Nervous? Aw, poor Stu. How's your ear?"
"I can hear you fine enough asshole."
The voice laughed. Wispy breaths that stabbed his brain. "Oh Stu, how I've missed you."
"I'm hanging up."
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." His voice tested.
"What? What are you going to do about it? Shoot me? There's no apartments to hide in across the street, there's no fucking crowd or hookers to laugh at, there's no- I'm not in the middle of fucking New York City where you can point your rifle at me in a phone booth-"
The voice laughed again. "Oh Stu, I don't need a rifle today. This kitchen knife does just fine."
Stu's heart froze again.
"Your wife smells good."
"Where are you?" His words were barely a whisper.
"Is she wearing lavender? I've always loved that fragrance."
"I said: where are you?"
"Her skin is so soft and pretty, like milk..."
"WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?" He turned hastily towards the kitchen and made a move towards it.
"Don't move Stu, or this pretty skin comes off." He heard a muffled cry from the other line.
"No..." Stu's voice caught in his throat as he stopped seven feet away from the kitchen door. The one he'd told Kelly to go back into.
"That's right Stu...you have a nice house here. Away from it all."
"No. No, no, no, no, NO!" Stu leaned forward and beat the phone against the wall in animosity towards himself for being so stupid. "Oh God..."
"No I'm not, but thanks for the compliment." There was a pause. "Actually, you've given me a great idea Stu, why don't you call me God from now on?"
Stu stood motionless, his eyes fixated on the wide shadow beneath the kitchen door. Seven feet in front of him.
"Say my name Stu."
His lips trembled.
"C'mon Stu. Say my name."
"...God..."
A shivering pleasurable breath came from the receiver. "I love that." It was a whisper.
"How did you find me?"
"You don't really think you could just disappear on me Stu, did you? Figure it all would end? That that would be the end of it?" The voice paused. "I've been watching you."
"Why?" His fingers were at his ear, feeling the broken, but healed, surface.
"Because I had to make sure you were true to your words Stu. I couldn't just leave you and hope on Scout's Honor that you would stay clean and wholesome person. I had to watch you, at every waking hour. Guess where I was."
"I don't know....where were you?"
"Everywhere you were. I was following you. I followed you home from the hospital. I stayed within fifty feet of you at your every moment from then, till now. I shadowed you and you never even knew it. That's how I found you. And I've come to ask you a favor."
"No."
"Come now Stu, be reasonable, you've been through this once, you know what I expect." There was another stifled scream as he drove the point home, jabbing the kitchen knife into Kelly's soft throat.
"Alright! Alright, what do you want?"
"Go to the door, outside, on the step, is a package for you."
He more or less yelled his answer to the kitchen door. "Okay! I-I'm moving to the front door, don't hurt her." He reached the door and fisted it open, finding a package about the size of a dictionary wrapped in white paper and tied with brown string, he picked it up and brought it inside. The package was heavy, the contents bulky and shifting inside.
His heart was racing.
It was all happening again.
"Now what?"
"Open it,"
"What's in it?"
"I will not ask you again."
Stu unbound the knot easily with one hand and let the string fall to the floor, then he unmangled the wrapping from around the package and found it to be a box.
"Open the box,"
Stu did so, running his finger under the flap to unstick it before kneeling and dumping the contents onto the floor, chancing a glance to the kitchen door, seeing the shadow of his wife's and the "God's" feet.
His throat tightened as he sifted through the four clunky items. There was a large silver gun with black grips, a small black, folded cell phone, a red and yellow box of bullets, and a white circle thing with a square bulge off to one side of it.
"By now you've found the .24 caliber pistol, the box of ammunition, the black cell phone, and the VHF radio tracking collar." The voice knew his every move.
"Load the clip and put the gun into the back of your jeans. Then, put the collar around your neck and switch it on. After that, turn on your cell phone and hit speed dial one."
Stu did as he was instructed, he thumbed the bullets into the empty clip, put the gun on safety and slipped it into the back of his pants. Then, he took the white collar, found the little black switch on the bottom of the square bulge and flipped it on and put it around his neck, tightening it. The weight settled oddly around his neck as he unflipped the phone, pressed it on, waited, then pushed speed dial one.
He held it up to his other ear, looking towards the door.
"Who am I calling?" He asked into the landline phone while the cell still rang.
"Hello Stu," he could hear the man's voice on both lines now.
"Hang up the landline phone." And Stu did so without hesitation.
"Feeling like a caribou yet Stu?" The voice sniggered.
"Hey, fuck you pal..." He didn't want the words to be his, but they were, and the caller just laughed.
"Are you ready to hear my favor?"
"Yes," Stu rubbed the back of his head, chewing on his bottom lip, the collar feeling like it was tightening around his throat hard enough to choke him.
"I want you to call a cab. I want you to have them pick you up."
"That's it?"
"You expected more?"
"Where am I suppose to drive to?"
"I'll tell you that when the cab comes."
"Do you want me to call now?"
"That all depends on you. Do you want your wife to die now?"
"No..." he was stuck.
"Then wait for my instructions."
Stu nodded and sniffed, running his finger beneath his nose, nervous movements, anything to do. He ran his hand up through his hair and came down along his ear again, feeling the chink in the edge.
"Call them now."
"Can I get a phone book?" He tested the voice.
"Where is it?"
"It's in the table, near the couch."
"Alright Stu, but nothing funny or your wife will die." The voice was so smooth, it made his senses tingle with hatred.
He made his way towards the couch, all the while his eyes flicking towards the kitchen door.
He pulled open the table drawer and pulled out the hefty phone book, placing it on the table and finding the page for cabs.
"Who do I call?"
"Whichever one you like."
He chose the first one his finger landed on and dialed on the landline phone.
"Can I get a cab to 247 W. Bloom Street?" Then he hung up the landline phone, the cell still open.
"Now what?"
"Open the blinds." Stu walked over and pulled on the chord, the blinds clacking up. "Wait."
He waited. He seemed to stand there for a half an hour, listening to nothing, except the muffled breath of his wife through the cell phone, no doubt stifled by the man's arm around her neck.
"I love you Kelly..." he whispered into the phone as he cupped it to his face, never wanting the breath to stop. Then, a yellow cab came into view, parking along the side of the road and giving two honks.
Even from the distance, Stu could tell that the cabby was a heavyset man with dark skin. He wore a tight white wife beater and an open Hawaiian shirt overtop, revealing his large gut. His black hair was extremely curly and his large nose was pockmarked.
"Go out and get in."
"What about Kelly?"
"If you want her alive, you'll do as I say."
Gritting his teeth, Stu went for the door, stepped out, and shut it behind him, feeling like he'd just severed the lifeline between him and his wife. He made his way towards the running cab, the cabby turning in his direction, a naturally sour demeanor on his large face.
"I'm so sick of this shit. I did what you told me to do before. I'm done." It all came out so fast, he didn't have time to stop it. "Why can't you just leave me alone?"
"That was a bad thing to say Stu." The voice was uncommonly cool. "But I'm a sympathetic man. I'll let that slide, because it was in the heat of the moment." And the voice paused to let the words sink in. "Remember what I told you about change? You seem to have forgotten."
"I didn't forget." Stu breathed, feeling a shudder go down his back, he nearly crumpled against the side of the cab.
"Good, now wave goodbye to your wife."
Stu began to turn.
"Don't turn around." He said in pauses, drawing out his words.
Stu put his other hand up in case he was watching, showing his submission. "I'm sorry."
"Wave goodbye."
Stu raised his hand and could only manage a small wave, before dropping it back to his side.
"Get in the cab."
Opening the door, Stu got in and sat, the gun digging into the base of his spine as he remained stiff in the plush leather seats.
"You tryin' a new fashion statement?" The cabby motioned to the radio collar through the rearview mirror.
Stu ignored him.
"Tell him yes."
"Yes. I'm starting a new bandwagon. Something you wouldn't know about." He tried to make the cabby leave him alone, pushing his face against the window, looking at the houses that neighbored his, hoping to catch at least a reflection...
"Where you headed?" The cabby's voice was deep and hateful now at being disregarded. He twitched but didn't turn to look.
"Don't tell him."
Stu ignored him, chewing at his nails.
"Hey, I'm talking to you." The cabby turned towards him, flustered.
He needed to appease two people at the same time. "Just drive," Stu informed the cabby, who put his large elbow up against the caging separating them and turned back to meet his eyes, cocking a massive black eyebrow at Stu's tone.
"I need a destination mac," he spit coldly.
"Do - not - tell - him."
"Would you just drive, please?"
"Look buddy, I'm almost done with my shift. So either you give me a destination or you find a new cab.
"Here," Stu said decisively, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out his wallet, pulling out a twenty dollar bill, then sliding it through the small slot, dropping it onto the seat.
"Now would you fuck off please?" Stu turned away from him, hunkering down to try and figure things out. "Jesus Christ." He listened intently to the phone.
"You're reverting to your old tactics again Stu. What happened to respect?"
"Hey. Who the fuck are you talking to man?" The cabby hissed.
"None of your damn business."
"Hey man-you disrespect me in my----" but the cabby's voice was covered by a more important voice. "Tell him who you're talking to Stu."
"I'm talk- I'm talking to God...alright?" He worked quickly through embarrassment.
The voice laughed. The cabby didn't.
"Whatever man..." then, beneath his breath "you motherfuckin' asshole."
The cabby threw the car into gear while grunting things under his breath, the cab beginning to get hot and crowded. Stu pulled at his collar as he felt beads of sweat roll down his cheeks.
"There are people in this world who are sympathetic to others Stu, this is not one of them. Do you know this man?"
"Yes." Stu breathed, knowing what the voice wanted to hear.
"Who is he?"
"He used to be me."
"Very good...I certainly have taught you a thing or two. I'm glad you still remember them."
The car was silent for a long while. The cab breaking out of the subdivisions and into the busy streets looking over muddy water.
"Look mac, where the fuck am I going? It's gonna be the final time I ask your ass-"
"Ask him if he knows where his daughter goes every night."
"Do you know where your daughter goes every night?" Stu relayed the information without hesitation, but shrinking back in fear of the repercussions. The voice went on, and Stu dug himself into a shit hole at the puppeteer's command.
"Do you know that your poker buddies have all had a chance to fuck your daughter? And that your wife knows what you do to Milla when she's up in bed and can't get out because of her weight? She's eating herself to death because it's the only way she can deal with you."
The cabby's eyes were as wide as a horse's as he looked at Stu through the rearview mirror, speechless.
The voice couldn't stop laughing for a long while.
"Tell him to turn on the music." The voice said finally, getting over its twisted delights.
"Could you please turn on the music?"
The cabby hacked a breath and looked over his shoulder like Stu was crazy.
"Pull the gun Stu," the voice commanded.
Stu's hand dropped to the back of his pants and he raised the barrel towards the back of the cabby's head, flipping off the safety with his thumb. "Would you just turn on the radio you stupid motherfucker?" There was anguish on his face, but he knew the cabby did not know why. He rested the gun on its side across the top of the driver's seat, the barrel against the cabby's rolled neck.
"Alright mac! Take it easy!" His voice thundered as he stuck up his hand in surrender and reached out to flip on the dial.
"Tell him to put on whatever he likes."
"Choose a station you like." Stu instructed, and the cabby nodded his head, his eyes flashing from the road to the rearview mirror while the dial spun. Suddenly, through the stations of static, came a lively, slightly Jamaican sounding rhythm.
"This sounds good."
"Here!" Stu startled the cabby. "Here's good."
"Turn it up." The voice instructed.
"Could you turn it up please?"
The cabby did so, before putting both hands back on the wheel.
"Relax Stu, you've done well so far."
"I hate you..." Stu breathed as he sat back against the cushioned seat.
"What was that Stu?" The voice asked.
"Nothing...I didn't say anything..."
AUTHOR: Ananova Crowe
~REDIAL~
The ambulance jumped down the street, but Stu didn't feel it. He was flying high. The horn blared as the sirens wailed and he was completely oblivious to it all.
Kelly was seated in the back of the ambulance, silent, looking at her husband's sleeping face. The attendant was patching up his ear when he turned and handed her two blue bags. She smiled at the man, before kneeling down onto the floor next to the gurney.
Her mind flustering through what had just happened.
Working gently, she untied his shoes, the soft, Italian leather smoothing beneath her fingers as she removed them, one, after another, and set them beside her knees. His hands worked slow, methodically, as she broke the disc inside and the goo-filled bag began to turn cold.
As she waited, she looked to her husband's chest, to the purple splotch just below his chest, right at his rib cage. She thought he'd been shot, never able to know just how close she came to losing her husband on that fateful day.
She draped the ice packs over his slightly swollen ankles, keeping Stu's socks on as she leaned back and sat down in the side of the ambulance once more, putting his shoes in her lap.
A pizza guy.
Her entire life could have been completely ripped away from her with one lousy shot.
From one lousy pizza guy.
~
"I'm gonna go fix some lunch, would you like anything?"
Stu raised his head from his magazine, stretched out on the couch in a faded, button up brown shirt and a pair of jeans and sneakers.
It had been two months since he and Kelly had settled down away from everything. Stu had quit his job and they had moved down into the less crowded parts of New York after he'd gotten out of the hospital and off the news. They'd gotten themselves a new house, a new life, a new dog. Things were going well.
"What are you making?" The bay window in front of him looked out over the sloping lawn and down onto the gray street, peaceful and barren. He liked it here.
"Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches."
"That sounds great," he called out to her, before putting his nose back into the magazine.
The phone rang.
A ringing phone had to be answered.
It had been two months now, and lots of people had called throughout that time. Relatives and companions mostly, nothing unusual. News reporters and magazine columnists had called while he was back at the hospital, but still nothing suspicious then.
They didn't get many phone calls now that they had moved, dislodging themselves from a life they had known so well and now hated to ever go back to.
Despite the two months, Stu still had a problem with phones, but he was slowly getting back into the saddle with answering them. And due to what had come to conformity, Kelly picked it up.
"Hello?" There was a pause. "Yeah, just a minute."
Kelly came out of the kitchen with the phone and the connected phone jack, dragging the chord behind her. "It's Captain Ramey, he says it's important."
Captain Ed Ramey was the officer who'd helped him through the ordeal two months back. The one he'd humiliated, then made amends with and now called a friend. Stu smiled as she handed him the phone and obliged as she bent for a kiss.
He set the phone jack down on the table atop his magazine and rubbed at his eyes, looking at his watch. Noting on the leather banded clock that it was eleven thirty five in the morning. He yawned despite the time and brought the phone to his ear.
"Hello?"
"Hello Stu."
His heart froze.
It wasn't Ramey.
"How'd you get my number? How'd you find me?" He was outraged.
"Good, then it is you. I was beginning to think I'd gotten the wrong number." The voice was slow, methodical, digging beneath his skin, just as he'd remembered it.
"How did you find me?" He shot up from the couch, taking the jack with him and went to the bay window, scanning.
"You've really cleaned up. I like the shirt. So much less expensive than black on maroon sorbet, don't you think?"
After peering out into the vacant street, he closed the blinds.
"I'm sick of your mind fucks asshole. Leave me alone." He hissed into the phone. "You can't get me here, I can call the cops and they'll be here so fast it'll make your fucking head spin." It all came back to him like a horrible deja vu.
"Sweetheart?" Kelly came out of the swinging door with a towel rubbing at her hands, a questionable look on her pale face. "Are you alright?"
He held a finger up to her, then flashed her his palm, his eyes casting worry her way.
"How's Kelly?" The voice smirked. "Gotten prettier, hasn't she?"
He put his hand over the receiver, "go-go back into the kitchen," he instructed, fear fading the color out of his face. His eyes hunted her shirt, looking for a red dot but not finding any. "Stay there."
"Stu, what's wrong?" Kelly was worried.
"Just go!" He demanded, lifting the blinds with his fingers and peeking out, looking for something, anything to catch his attention. He remembered this voice's face. The cool, methodical pallor, the glasses. He didn't remember him from before, but he knew him now.
"Nervous? Aw, poor Stu. How's your ear?"
"I can hear you fine enough asshole."
The voice laughed. Wispy breaths that stabbed his brain. "Oh Stu, how I've missed you."
"I'm hanging up."
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." His voice tested.
"What? What are you going to do about it? Shoot me? There's no apartments to hide in across the street, there's no fucking crowd or hookers to laugh at, there's no- I'm not in the middle of fucking New York City where you can point your rifle at me in a phone booth-"
The voice laughed again. "Oh Stu, I don't need a rifle today. This kitchen knife does just fine."
Stu's heart froze again.
"Your wife smells good."
"Where are you?" His words were barely a whisper.
"Is she wearing lavender? I've always loved that fragrance."
"I said: where are you?"
"Her skin is so soft and pretty, like milk..."
"WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?" He turned hastily towards the kitchen and made a move towards it.
"Don't move Stu, or this pretty skin comes off." He heard a muffled cry from the other line.
"No..." Stu's voice caught in his throat as he stopped seven feet away from the kitchen door. The one he'd told Kelly to go back into.
"That's right Stu...you have a nice house here. Away from it all."
"No. No, no, no, no, NO!" Stu leaned forward and beat the phone against the wall in animosity towards himself for being so stupid. "Oh God..."
"No I'm not, but thanks for the compliment." There was a pause. "Actually, you've given me a great idea Stu, why don't you call me God from now on?"
Stu stood motionless, his eyes fixated on the wide shadow beneath the kitchen door. Seven feet in front of him.
"Say my name Stu."
His lips trembled.
"C'mon Stu. Say my name."
"...God..."
A shivering pleasurable breath came from the receiver. "I love that." It was a whisper.
"How did you find me?"
"You don't really think you could just disappear on me Stu, did you? Figure it all would end? That that would be the end of it?" The voice paused. "I've been watching you."
"Why?" His fingers were at his ear, feeling the broken, but healed, surface.
"Because I had to make sure you were true to your words Stu. I couldn't just leave you and hope on Scout's Honor that you would stay clean and wholesome person. I had to watch you, at every waking hour. Guess where I was."
"I don't know....where were you?"
"Everywhere you were. I was following you. I followed you home from the hospital. I stayed within fifty feet of you at your every moment from then, till now. I shadowed you and you never even knew it. That's how I found you. And I've come to ask you a favor."
"No."
"Come now Stu, be reasonable, you've been through this once, you know what I expect." There was another stifled scream as he drove the point home, jabbing the kitchen knife into Kelly's soft throat.
"Alright! Alright, what do you want?"
"Go to the door, outside, on the step, is a package for you."
He more or less yelled his answer to the kitchen door. "Okay! I-I'm moving to the front door, don't hurt her." He reached the door and fisted it open, finding a package about the size of a dictionary wrapped in white paper and tied with brown string, he picked it up and brought it inside. The package was heavy, the contents bulky and shifting inside.
His heart was racing.
It was all happening again.
"Now what?"
"Open it,"
"What's in it?"
"I will not ask you again."
Stu unbound the knot easily with one hand and let the string fall to the floor, then he unmangled the wrapping from around the package and found it to be a box.
"Open the box,"
Stu did so, running his finger under the flap to unstick it before kneeling and dumping the contents onto the floor, chancing a glance to the kitchen door, seeing the shadow of his wife's and the "God's" feet.
His throat tightened as he sifted through the four clunky items. There was a large silver gun with black grips, a small black, folded cell phone, a red and yellow box of bullets, and a white circle thing with a square bulge off to one side of it.
"By now you've found the .24 caliber pistol, the box of ammunition, the black cell phone, and the VHF radio tracking collar." The voice knew his every move.
"Load the clip and put the gun into the back of your jeans. Then, put the collar around your neck and switch it on. After that, turn on your cell phone and hit speed dial one."
Stu did as he was instructed, he thumbed the bullets into the empty clip, put the gun on safety and slipped it into the back of his pants. Then, he took the white collar, found the little black switch on the bottom of the square bulge and flipped it on and put it around his neck, tightening it. The weight settled oddly around his neck as he unflipped the phone, pressed it on, waited, then pushed speed dial one.
He held it up to his other ear, looking towards the door.
"Who am I calling?" He asked into the landline phone while the cell still rang.
"Hello Stu," he could hear the man's voice on both lines now.
"Hang up the landline phone." And Stu did so without hesitation.
"Feeling like a caribou yet Stu?" The voice sniggered.
"Hey, fuck you pal..." He didn't want the words to be his, but they were, and the caller just laughed.
"Are you ready to hear my favor?"
"Yes," Stu rubbed the back of his head, chewing on his bottom lip, the collar feeling like it was tightening around his throat hard enough to choke him.
"I want you to call a cab. I want you to have them pick you up."
"That's it?"
"You expected more?"
"Where am I suppose to drive to?"
"I'll tell you that when the cab comes."
"Do you want me to call now?"
"That all depends on you. Do you want your wife to die now?"
"No..." he was stuck.
"Then wait for my instructions."
Stu nodded and sniffed, running his finger beneath his nose, nervous movements, anything to do. He ran his hand up through his hair and came down along his ear again, feeling the chink in the edge.
"Call them now."
"Can I get a phone book?" He tested the voice.
"Where is it?"
"It's in the table, near the couch."
"Alright Stu, but nothing funny or your wife will die." The voice was so smooth, it made his senses tingle with hatred.
He made his way towards the couch, all the while his eyes flicking towards the kitchen door.
He pulled open the table drawer and pulled out the hefty phone book, placing it on the table and finding the page for cabs.
"Who do I call?"
"Whichever one you like."
He chose the first one his finger landed on and dialed on the landline phone.
"Can I get a cab to 247 W. Bloom Street?" Then he hung up the landline phone, the cell still open.
"Now what?"
"Open the blinds." Stu walked over and pulled on the chord, the blinds clacking up. "Wait."
He waited. He seemed to stand there for a half an hour, listening to nothing, except the muffled breath of his wife through the cell phone, no doubt stifled by the man's arm around her neck.
"I love you Kelly..." he whispered into the phone as he cupped it to his face, never wanting the breath to stop. Then, a yellow cab came into view, parking along the side of the road and giving two honks.
Even from the distance, Stu could tell that the cabby was a heavyset man with dark skin. He wore a tight white wife beater and an open Hawaiian shirt overtop, revealing his large gut. His black hair was extremely curly and his large nose was pockmarked.
"Go out and get in."
"What about Kelly?"
"If you want her alive, you'll do as I say."
Gritting his teeth, Stu went for the door, stepped out, and shut it behind him, feeling like he'd just severed the lifeline between him and his wife. He made his way towards the running cab, the cabby turning in his direction, a naturally sour demeanor on his large face.
"I'm so sick of this shit. I did what you told me to do before. I'm done." It all came out so fast, he didn't have time to stop it. "Why can't you just leave me alone?"
"That was a bad thing to say Stu." The voice was uncommonly cool. "But I'm a sympathetic man. I'll let that slide, because it was in the heat of the moment." And the voice paused to let the words sink in. "Remember what I told you about change? You seem to have forgotten."
"I didn't forget." Stu breathed, feeling a shudder go down his back, he nearly crumpled against the side of the cab.
"Good, now wave goodbye to your wife."
Stu began to turn.
"Don't turn around." He said in pauses, drawing out his words.
Stu put his other hand up in case he was watching, showing his submission. "I'm sorry."
"Wave goodbye."
Stu raised his hand and could only manage a small wave, before dropping it back to his side.
"Get in the cab."
Opening the door, Stu got in and sat, the gun digging into the base of his spine as he remained stiff in the plush leather seats.
"You tryin' a new fashion statement?" The cabby motioned to the radio collar through the rearview mirror.
Stu ignored him.
"Tell him yes."
"Yes. I'm starting a new bandwagon. Something you wouldn't know about." He tried to make the cabby leave him alone, pushing his face against the window, looking at the houses that neighbored his, hoping to catch at least a reflection...
"Where you headed?" The cabby's voice was deep and hateful now at being disregarded. He twitched but didn't turn to look.
"Don't tell him."
Stu ignored him, chewing at his nails.
"Hey, I'm talking to you." The cabby turned towards him, flustered.
He needed to appease two people at the same time. "Just drive," Stu informed the cabby, who put his large elbow up against the caging separating them and turned back to meet his eyes, cocking a massive black eyebrow at Stu's tone.
"I need a destination mac," he spit coldly.
"Do - not - tell - him."
"Would you just drive, please?"
"Look buddy, I'm almost done with my shift. So either you give me a destination or you find a new cab.
"Here," Stu said decisively, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out his wallet, pulling out a twenty dollar bill, then sliding it through the small slot, dropping it onto the seat.
"Now would you fuck off please?" Stu turned away from him, hunkering down to try and figure things out. "Jesus Christ." He listened intently to the phone.
"You're reverting to your old tactics again Stu. What happened to respect?"
"Hey. Who the fuck are you talking to man?" The cabby hissed.
"None of your damn business."
"Hey man-you disrespect me in my----" but the cabby's voice was covered by a more important voice. "Tell him who you're talking to Stu."
"I'm talk- I'm talking to God...alright?" He worked quickly through embarrassment.
The voice laughed. The cabby didn't.
"Whatever man..." then, beneath his breath "you motherfuckin' asshole."
The cabby threw the car into gear while grunting things under his breath, the cab beginning to get hot and crowded. Stu pulled at his collar as he felt beads of sweat roll down his cheeks.
"There are people in this world who are sympathetic to others Stu, this is not one of them. Do you know this man?"
"Yes." Stu breathed, knowing what the voice wanted to hear.
"Who is he?"
"He used to be me."
"Very good...I certainly have taught you a thing or two. I'm glad you still remember them."
The car was silent for a long while. The cab breaking out of the subdivisions and into the busy streets looking over muddy water.
"Look mac, where the fuck am I going? It's gonna be the final time I ask your ass-"
"Ask him if he knows where his daughter goes every night."
"Do you know where your daughter goes every night?" Stu relayed the information without hesitation, but shrinking back in fear of the repercussions. The voice went on, and Stu dug himself into a shit hole at the puppeteer's command.
"Do you know that your poker buddies have all had a chance to fuck your daughter? And that your wife knows what you do to Milla when she's up in bed and can't get out because of her weight? She's eating herself to death because it's the only way she can deal with you."
The cabby's eyes were as wide as a horse's as he looked at Stu through the rearview mirror, speechless.
The voice couldn't stop laughing for a long while.
"Tell him to turn on the music." The voice said finally, getting over its twisted delights.
"Could you please turn on the music?"
The cabby hacked a breath and looked over his shoulder like Stu was crazy.
"Pull the gun Stu," the voice commanded.
Stu's hand dropped to the back of his pants and he raised the barrel towards the back of the cabby's head, flipping off the safety with his thumb. "Would you just turn on the radio you stupid motherfucker?" There was anguish on his face, but he knew the cabby did not know why. He rested the gun on its side across the top of the driver's seat, the barrel against the cabby's rolled neck.
"Alright mac! Take it easy!" His voice thundered as he stuck up his hand in surrender and reached out to flip on the dial.
"Tell him to put on whatever he likes."
"Choose a station you like." Stu instructed, and the cabby nodded his head, his eyes flashing from the road to the rearview mirror while the dial spun. Suddenly, through the stations of static, came a lively, slightly Jamaican sounding rhythm.
"This sounds good."
"Here!" Stu startled the cabby. "Here's good."
"Turn it up." The voice instructed.
"Could you turn it up please?"
The cabby did so, before putting both hands back on the wheel.
"Relax Stu, you've done well so far."
"I hate you..." Stu breathed as he sat back against the cushioned seat.
"What was that Stu?" The voice asked.
"Nothing...I didn't say anything..."