Homecoming: Chapter 9
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DISCLAIMER: Most of these characters are not mine at all, but they are memorable. Thank you, Mr. Marlowe. The others? Yeah, they're mine
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6:25 p.m. East Coast time, Monday Evening, April 23, 2012, Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean off the New York coast
It is a very conflicted Vulcan Simmons who stands in front of Alexis Castle in her stateroom on the oceanliner at sea. Alexis has been well-treated. Locked up, but well-treated. Except for a skeleton crew, the ship is – as far as she knows – virtually empty. They have left her balcony door unlocked, almost daring the young woman to try to escape.
But the only escape is a jump into the cold Atlantic waters, and hope that you are a marathon swimmer. Which she, of course, is not.
Surprisingly to her, what she also is not – at least not yet – is all that afraid. They have treated her with kid-gloves to this point, which means for now, they need her alive. Her only concern is that there has been no video taken of her, no pictures taken of her.
Which means no documentation that she is still alive. If this is a ransom play, that does not make sense. And if this isn't a ransom play . . . well, then, what in the world is going on?
Her first thoughts have been gambling buddies of her father. That would make sense. They get into town last night, and immediately word gets around. How, she doesn't know. But she knows somehow word gets around. If her dad owes people money, then yeah, this might make sense.
Except if her dad owed people money, they would have jumped on an airplane and flown to California to collect. That this did not happen squashes that theory.
Those are her thoughts as Vulcan Simmons unlocks her door and enters her stateroom.
Simmons, however, is double-minded. He is both angry and curious.
Angry that he has lost so much in the past hour. One man dead – perhaps more, he doesn't know. One man left brutalized, and his wife kidnapped. It seems every few minutes, a new text comes in with more bad news. Clearly, taking young Miss Castle has pissed someone off royally, and this is what is bothering him.
Castle's father is an author.
An author!
All of this mayhem, all of this anger, all of this violence over the daughter of an author? Something is not right here. He feels it in his bones.
When he was told to grab the young woman, and hold her for forty-eight hours, he – of course – had questions. Why her? How much ransom are you looking for? What if the ransom isn't paid? And why for specifically forty-eight hours? How far do you really want to go with this?
The fact that his 'client' who ordered the kidnapping had few answers concerned him, of course. Not enough to refuse the contract. I mean a million and a half dollars is a million and a half dollars. But sure, he had his concerns.
Now?
Now those concerns are full-blown worries. The fact that his client didn't want a ransom, didn't want the girl harmed in any way, and didn't answer any further questions is now coming back to haunt him.
As is the client.
He suspects it is Elizabeth Bracken. In his mind, she is the only one who might have such an axe to grind. At the same time, it makes no sense that it would be her, because she has given him no such indication of any such grudge with Castle. Or his bitch girlfriend who flew the NYPD coop to head west. But he knows – at least initially – Kate Beckett was one she considered when trying to determine who killed her husband. It wasn't until it was proven that Beckett was long away in Sausalito, California – and had been for almost two weeks – that Mrs. Bracken had crossed Beckett off her list.
Hurting Beckett through Castle is certainly a possibility with the now-deceased Senator's widow. But Bracken just doesn't feel right. That hesitation is the only reason he hasn't picked up the phone to confront her to this point. He has learned – over a decade-plus time – that a direct confrontation with that woman is damn near suicide.
Yet, who else could it be? And if it is Bracken, why would she disguise herself from him . . . after all he has done on behalf of her late husband. Why the secrets?
This is why he both suspects her, and immediately rejects her as the secretive client. She knows him. He has done work before for her, and for her deceased husband. And it has always been completely on the up-and-up. So, it's not her. It can't be.
But who else?
Those are the thoughts plaguing the Washington Heights mobster as he enters into the stateroom.
"Miss Castle," he begins. "Kidnapping aside, I hope you are well. You are comfortable? This room has been stocked with plenty of water and sodas. I did not know which you would prefer. Plenty of fruit."
He glances at the uneaten plate of food on the desk.
"I promise you, the food is not poisoned," he reminds her. "I told you before I stuck you with that little needle that that would be the worst of it."
Finding her courage, the young redhead begins to open up. She has questions. He has the answers. For however much time she has left, she at least wants to know why this is happening.
"Why are you here with me?" she asks. "Checking up? Where am I going to go?"
"Oh, I don't expect you to go anywhere," he laughs. It is a humorless laugh, that sends chills down her spine.
"I just don't want any of the crew here getting any ideas with a hot young thing like yourself."
"Flattery? Chivalry?" she mocks, bravely. "After a kidnapping?"
"Strange bedfellows, I admit," he tells her, walking past her to the balcony and glancing out at the ocean racing underneath them.
"I will admit, I don't have a lot of answers for you, but I will say this," he continues. "I have some questions myself. We will play a game, you and I. I will ask a question. You answer honestly, then you get to ask a question."
As soon as he says these words, it dawns on him. The final pieces fall into place. Elizabeth Bracken knows him. Knows him well. She knows the quid-pro-quo games he enjoys playing. She knew that he would have this kind of discussion with young Castle. His you-scratch-my-back-I-will-scratch-yours games are legendary in the city. That they often end up brutally for his game companions is immaterial. She knew he would play this, and potentially say something that would give her away.
Therefore, she played this one incognito. That's why the secrets, the disguised voice box. It starts to make sense.
He smiles, and Alexis is taken aback as she does not know the reason for the smile. She just knows that with every passing second, she is likely closer to her own death, no matter what the frightening man tells her.
But, she also decides, she will play his game for now. She is captured. What can she possibly tell him that gives him a bigger leg-up anyway?
"First question," he begins when she makes no comment. "Why are you back in the city? You and daddy ran away so suddenly," he laughs, mockingly.
"What would bring you back?"
"A wedding," she answers, stoically. He's trying to rile her. She won't let him.
"Must be close friends," Simmons chuckles to himself. "Quid pro quo," he tells her. "Your turn."
"There is no ransom for me, is there?" she asks, already knowing the answer.
Simmons nods his head approvingly. The girl has stones, and she is smart in that she has figured that much out. Still, he tests her reasoning.
"No," he replies. "My question. How did you know there is not a ransom?"
"No one has taken pictures of me, or a date-snapped video . . . unless you did it while I was unconscious," she replies.
"Good reasoning," he admits. "I am many things, Miss Castle, but a man who takes pictures of an unconscious woman is a someone even I would detest. Your turn, again."
She eyes the large man suspiciously, then asks her second question.
"Why am I here?" she asks.
"On this boat?" he replies.
"No. Why am I taken? Why did you kidnap me?"
He laughs as he replies. His laughter comes to easy. It annoys her.
"Well, technically, I did not kidnap you. That act was performed by others, if you will recall, Miss Castle."
"What I recall is you jabbing a needle in my neck," she tells him. "Answer my question, please," she concludes, arms crossed in a defiant stance.
He smiles again at her courage.
"A client of mine asked me to take you," he tells her. "This client was very specific – not to hurt you, not to harm you."
"Then why do you have me? You don't want money. You've said you aren't going to harm me. This makes no sense."
"My instructions are to keep you for between forty-eight and seventy-two hours," he answers. "My client was very clear. This could take as little as two days and as many as three."
"What could take two or three days?" she asks him.
"Ah ah ah," he chuckles. "Quid pro quo. It is my turn."
He turns back to the waters rushing by. Behind him somewhere, the sun is beginning to settle in the west. He takes a deep breath of the ocean water he loves so much. The small cruise ship is one of the small perks he has allowed himself from years of drug profits. He has entertained many on this vessel. Criminals, corrupt cops, politicians, businessmen and businesswomen. His parties have become legendary in the city.
"There is someone looking for you, Miss Castle," he begins. "Someone who is apparently very good at finding people. Finding people to hurt. Finding people to kill. I assume finding people like you. I have to ask myself . . . and do not take this as an insult . . . but your father is not worth this type of man's time. Your father is a writer, for God's sake. I have looked your father in the eye. He doesn't have it in him to befriend this type of person. So, I have to ask myself . . . and I am asking you . . . why? Why is someone looking for you, and willing to kill for you?"
He can tell that this information is a surprise to her. He is good at reading people. He looks at the dilation of her eyes, he notices her breathing. They tell him that her response is true.
"I . . . someone is looking for me? Well, I mean I'm sure Dad is looking, and Kate is looking. I have to believe that Detective Esposito and Detective Ryan are looking. We are all old friends . . . but you said someone is killing? Dad won't do that. Neither will Detective Beck- . . . neither will Kate."
He nods his head, dissatisfied with her response, but trusting its veracity. She's a teenager, she isn't going to lie in this situation. Not to him.
He walks past her to the door, opening it without turning back.
"We will speak again, Miss Castle," he tells her. He closes the door without a backward glance and begins walking down the narrow corridor when his phone beeps. He sees the incoming text. A loud, groan turns into a wailing sound as the large man feels his legs wobbling. It is a battle he loses as his legs give way underneath him. As he falls, he struggles to maintain the mobile phone in his hands, which now comically flies through the air.
In a squatting position, the phone back in his hands, he falls against the wall. First it is fear. Then it is disbelief as he stares at the picture on the phone once again. Finally, the anger surfaces, and explodes as he sees the photo of his mother gagged with tape, along with the ominous message.
The words assault his brain like small needles precisely placed for maximum pain. He blinks, just by instinct and years of experience, keeping his eyes closed, focusing on the words, not the image of his mother. That's when it hits him.
Alexis.
He knows who has his mother, that much is clear. The word on the street is that a Willie Crockett is terrorizing the city looking for a girl. That much he already knew. He tested the young Castle woman's knowledge, and honesty – but apparently the younger Castle was holding out on him.
The text from Crockett with his mother's image doesn't refer to Miss Castle in the way that it should. He should have referred to her as Miss Castle. Or Alexis Castle. Or the girl. Or the young woman. Hell, anything would have been better than just Alexis. Because just using her first name tells Vulcan Simmons exactly how personal this is.
They likely know each other!
His legs find their strength, driven by the anger inside him now. He gets to his feet, moving quickly now back to the stateroom holding Alexis Castle. Only discipline keeps him from breaking the door down, causing him to use the key.
He bursts into the room, full of fury.
"Now you are going to tell me what the hell is going on, and you are going to tell me right now!" he thunders as he tosses her backward unto the bed. He raises his fist to hit her when a voice screams from the back of his head, reminding him that this is personal. When she is returned, he wants no stories or evidence of slaps or hits. No bruises.
Still, he pins her shoulders roughly to the bed, hovering over her.
"You lied to me," he hisses at her. "You told me you don't know who is looking for you. But he knows you. He knows you well. In fact, he is on a first-name basis with you."
"I don't-" Alexis begins, but he raises his fist to her once more, cutting her off.
"No lies, little girl," he tells her, eyes blazing. "I will cut you right here and now. Now tell me . . . why is this Crockett guy looking for you?"
"Willie is looking for me?" she exclaims, wide-eyed. Those simple words are like a heavyweight punch to the chest to Vulcan Simmons, whose ability to breathe has just temporarily left him.
"She calls him Willie!" he thinks to himself, now unsure of this entire mess. She is personal friends with the most lethal and feared hitman on the west coast.
"And as far as he knows, I have kidnapped her," he thinks to himself.
"Mr. Carlos must have sent him," Alexis thinks out loud. "That would kind of make sense, actually."
"She knows of Carlos, and is on a first-name basis with his right-hand man," Simmons realizes.
He quickly moves away from her, from the bed, as if the sheets themselves have just burst into flames. In another setting, Alexis would laugh. For now, she sees the curious retreat for what it is – a recognition of who your enemy really is.
"So how do you know Sam Carlos?" Simmons asks in a quiet, almost somber tone. He is thinking about his mother. He is calculating the odds of her staying alive, and not happy with those odds.
"He is good friends with my dad, and better friends with Kate Beckett," Alexis tells him. This time she notices the paling of the large black man's face. She is stunned to realize that the San Francisco crime lord's reputation extends this far – and this fiercely.
"If this is Willie, he won't stop until he finds me," she decides to add. Clearly the knowledge of her pursuers has more than worried her kidnapper. She can play this to her advantage . . . and maybe come out of this thing alive after all.
"If you let me go now, I promise I will tell him that you treated me well," she adds.
"It won't matter," he tells her. "He has my mother."
For a moment, a conflicted Alexis Castle struggles with her thoughts and words. In the end, it is the defiance of a teenaged senior that wins the inner struggle.
"Well, you shouldn't have taken me, then," she mumbles to herself. She isn't going to pity this man. He started this entire mess, and yes, that sounds like a childish way to look at it, but so be it.
For a moment, the drug lord just stares at the young redhead. She can see the wheels turning in his head, and the anger in his eyes. Her confidence about getting out of this alive starts waning significantly until he finally speaks again.
"Let's go, Miss Castle," he tells her, as he roughly grabs her upper arm, pulling her towards the door.
"Someone wants you," he decides. "Let's give them what they want."
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6:49 p.m. East Coast time, Monday Evening, April 23, 2012, Back in Washington Heights
Willie Simmons approaches the residence here cautiously. After everything that has gone down this afternoon, there is no way that his final contact won't be waiting for him. For a moment, he considers a remote assault. He smiles as he thinks back on the rockets that he and Sam Carlos launched just a month or so ago on Baker's little whorehouse in North Beach San Francisco. He is considering a similar approach.
His only hesitation is that he doesn't know if children are in the house.
The one thing he knows is that Simmon's little gang of kidnappers live well. That ends tonight.
Opting for the soft remote assault, Crockett arms the hand-held gas grenade launcher. He steps out of the car, glancing around. His shades are on, and the baseball cap pulled down low will conceal his identity.
The first round whizzes some seventy yards down the street into the side window of the target house. Quickly the ground floor of the home fills up with expanding gas. Quickly arming a second gas grenade, he fires into an upstairs window. Finally, he arms a third grenade – this time a flash grenade. He fires this one into the same window as the first.
Quickly getting into the car, he issues instructions to Scooter Fuqua.
"Drive, quickly," he tells the young man. In the back seat, Vulcan Simmons' mother sits frozen, terrified at the military-grade weaponry and the big man who commands such weapons.
Seconds later, as they pull up to the house, they are greeted with three men who come rushing out of the house, coughing and rubbing watering eyes. Crockett gives them to the count of five, waiting to see if any additional thugs are in the home. Satisfied, he exits the car, his large gun in his hand.
"Which one of you took Alexis Castle?" he asks. "I will start shooting in three seconds."
One man foolishly reaches for his weapon. He is greeted with a whistling bullet just above the bridge of his nose.
"Jesus!" one of the men screams.
"Not even close," Crockett tells him. "My inner count is at two. Last chance."
"I did," the taller man of the two left replies, hands held high.
Crockett nods his head and replies with a second shot, this one straight into the neck of the shorter remaining man.
"Then it is just you and I," Crockett tells him. "In the car – back seat – now!"
The man walks quickly, arms still raised in surrender, as Crockett opens the back door to the sedan. The man slides in, and seeing the backseat passenger, loses all hope.
"Mrs. Simmons?" he all but croaks, terror in his voice. He is roughly pushed aside into the middle seat, as Crockett pulls his large, massive frame into the back seat with the fourth kidnapper and Vulcan Simmons' mother.
"Drive, Scooter," he tells the young Stanford man. Without a word, the car accelerates away from the residence.
"You know our next stop" Simmons tells him, then turns his attention to his new back seat passenger.
"So, early this morning, you took a friend of mine," Crockett begins.
"Oh God," the man replies, his face in his hands.
"Once again, I must say that you are far off in that regard," Crockett smiles. "I have never been confused with the Almighty. Let's not start that now."
He grabs the man by the collar, pulling his face up so that they are face-to-face, inches away. Crockett offers a slow glance at the now mute older Simmons woman, and smiles. In the next second, his forehead crashes on the nose of the equally-fear-frozen man, who now screams in pain from the busted nose. Blood is everywhere, dripping down his face into the back seat.
"I am going go ask you once," Crockett warns. "I am on a tight schedule, and actually a bit hungry. So an honest answer or two, and I promise you, our business is done."
On one hand, Willie Crockett knows that this last interrogation is entirely unnecessary. He knows who his quarry is. He has his mother. He has sent proof of this knowledge. The chances of this guy knowing anything new, anything in terms of where to go next are slim. But often it is that slim chance that proves to be the winning hand. He takes his chances.
And after all – there is a message to continue sending.
"One question . . . damn, I'm sorry, I forgot your name," Crockett tells him.
"Paulie," the man replies nervously, trying to breathe through his mouth. "Paul Washington."
"That's right," Willie nods. "Well, Paulie Washington from Washington Heights, this is your lucky – or unlucky day. You decide."
He gives the man a cold stare before continuing.
"I want you to think about your answer first, Paulie, because if I don't like it, your brains are going to be splattered all over Mrs. Simmons there. Now, truth be told, I don't know if the bullet will stop inside your brain, or go right through and plaster through her face. And honestly, I don't care, because like I said . . . I am hungry. Are we clear, Paulie?"
"Yes, sir, we are clear sir," the frightened hood responds.
"Good, good," Willie smiles. The smile is worse than anything Paul Washington has ever seen. He squeezes his legs together to hold back the string of urine threatening to explode.
"Your boss – Vulcan Simmons – took a friend of mine. A very good friend. I want you to think now . . . think about where your boss would take a young woman he has kidnapped. You know your boss, Paulie. You know some of his hideouts. Maybe not all, I will grant you that much. But you know some of them. Now think, Paulie – because your life depends on this. Where would he take her. Where would he feel safest with a prize like this?"
After a few seconds, Paul Washington answers.
"His boat," Paulie replies. "It's a party boat – a small cruise ship actually."
"Interesting," Crockett tells him. "I actually like this answer, Paulie. Now tell me . . . does this ship have a name?"
"The Finder," the bruised and broken man tells him. "It's called the Finder."
"Excellent," Crockett tells him. "Now see, that wasn't very hard, was it?"
Turning his attention to the front seat, Crockett gives a quick command to Scooter Fuqua.
"Pull over here," he tells the driver. Without hesitation, Scooter pulls the car over. They are just a block away from the bank where the hand-off from the kidnappers to Vulcan Simmons actually occurred earlier today.
Crockett quickly exits the vehicle, dragging the bloody Paul Washington out of the car with him. He tosses the man onto the sidewalk, and then quickly re-enters the car, this time in the front seat next to Scooter Fuqua.
"On to the bank up ahead," he tells the driver. Quickly the vehicle accelerates away, leaving a stunned, battered but living Paul Washington in its rearview mirror.
Willie Crockett glances back at Mrs. Simmons, who is staring out the back window at the rapidly retreating form of Paulie Washington. She turns and finds herself in direct eye contact with Crockett. He can tell what she is thinking.
"I told you, Mrs. Simmons," he remarks amiably. "I am not a liar. He told me what I wanted to know. That was the deal. If your son gives Alexis to me – alive and unharmed – you go free."
"And what about my son?" she bravely asks.
"Don't push your luck, grandma," he tells her, then turns back facing the front windshield, whistling a tune out loud. Seconds later, the sedan stops in front of the bank. Simmons pulls his cap down lower, as a precaution. He then steps out of the vehicle, this time with a portable grenade launcher, similar to the one used back at North Beach.
Quickly loading the device, he flips a switch, and smiles.
"Fire in the hole," he states affiably. A loud whoosh and back explosion launch the missile into the front glass window of the bank. The explosion rocks the block as the flames quickly spread inside the bank. Crockett steps back into the car, glancing at Fuqua.
"Finally," he tells the driver. "Let's find a Subway sandwich shop. I am famished."
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A/N: I spent the last week trying to get into the Olympics. I enjoyed a few events, but not like I have in years past. I don't know if it is just the times, or if I am just getting old. Gosh, I really hope it is the former. Anyway, Chapter 10 will be up this week.