Chapter 4
The snore that came from her mouth is what woke her, at least that’s what she tried to convince herself as she napped beside the pipe, which seemed to be the safest place she’d found this night. The muffled voices below her are what gave her warning. The panel was still open and if they looked inside of that last stall, they would surely see it. She didn’t dare go higher without a light and was now afraid that if she went down, she’d alert them to her presence.
She looked up the ladder longingly at the dim red light. Sure just knew escape was that way but she had to go back for her bag and her light. She couldn’t crawl higher in a building any more than she could climb a tree to escape a bear. She had to come down eventually and she would rather it be on her own terms. Gingerly she began her descent, desperate to be as quiet as possible.
She clung to the last rung of the ladder, trying to figure out what to do next. She knew they would soon come in and then she’d be trapped. Lowering her body down until she was hanging by her hands, she dropped, landing with a foot on either side of the toilet, mightily bruising the insides of her knees. She tried not to cry out and bit her lip to fight back the pain. She slumped against the wall, hands grasping her knees.
She heard the voices in the lobby again, this time much more clearly. She ran from the stall she was in and slid into the one that was “out of order” quickly locking the door behind her. No sooner than she had pulled her feet up on the bench then she heard the outer door swing open.
“Are you going to move that guy away from the door anytime soon?” one of them demanded.
“Nah, by the time someone finds him, we’ll be long gone.”
“There wasn’t anything in the wallet about a code was there?”
“No, it was empty, literally. The guy didn’t have much in there other than a driver’s license, a library card and a photo of a really hairy woman.” He laughed. “You should see those caterpillars on her forehead.”
Charlie absently touched her eyebrows and wondered if he would have said the same thing about her, not that it really mattered. She heard a very slight electronic beep coming from the front of the bathroom. Apparently the two men didn’t hear it over their own banter.
“I bet they didn’t get his cell phone.” She thought to herself, “Those idiots didn’t even think to look for a telephone on the guy’s belt.”
Of course, she didn’t know if he had one or not, or if that beep was from one of them.
“Go ahead and drag him in here while I take this wall down. Just in case someone looks through the front doors, I don’t want them to see feet sticking out back here.”
“Alright, but I’m not cleaning the blood up.”
He looks around and notices the footprints in the blood, “Man, you’ve got little lady feet.” He says, insulting his partner as he opens the door. With a grunt and a faked vomiting sound, he laughs and drags in the diamond brokerage manager. He drags him through the blood and then by strange chance he covers Charlie’s footprints with the body
“I don’t have lady feet!” The other one said as he swung a sledge hammer, shattering a mirror and the tiles on the wall, sending fragments flying
“Hey watch out! Man that almost took out my eyes! Give me some safety goggles.”
“I don’t have any.”
“Well, I want some if we’re going to do this. I don’t want to get blinded trying to get rich and not enjoy the wealth.”
“Yeah me too. There are some in the jeweler’s office, I’ll go get them.”
“I’ll go too.” He says, pointing at the body. “You’re not leaving me in here with him.”
“Let’s hurry. I want to get this done.” The two hurry out the door and Charlie listens for them to leave. She doesn’t hear the lock being bolted.
“Here we go. It’s all or nothing now.” She puts her pack on her back and leaves the safety of the stall, heading toward the main door. She puts her ear to the door, listening for their return. A loud beep sounds from the shirt pocket of the dead man and Charlie nearly jumps out of her own skin. She leans over and reaches into his pocket to retrieve a new touch-screen smart phone. There is a “message waiting” warning on the screen. The little light glows green in her hand.
“This might come in handy. I can call the cops.” She touches the screen to dismiss the message waiting indicator and sees the little battery icon flashing orange. It’s almost dead. “I better do this now.”
She touches “911” on the phone and hears a voice, “911 what is your emergency?”
“I’m in trouble,” she whispers.
“I can’t hear you. Can you speak up?”
“I think they killed a man.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at the new fashion mall. The guards, they…”
She heard voices approaching quickly. She’d blown her chance to escape. She shoved the phone in her pocket and ran back to the stall, again locking the doors.
She heard the men return and begin swinging a sledge hammer at the wall. The noise was deafening in the small room and she could hear chunks of concrete hitting the door of her stall.
“Wait a minute. Let’s make sure this is the right place.”
She hears one of the guys open the drawings of the walls. “See, between the second and third sink fixture is the chase. We can go right through there.”
“Ma’am please stay on the phone and we’ll track your location.” The voice came from her pocket, muffled and the two men got quiet. She pushed down on the phone in her pocket, praying that the phone would be quiet and they didn’t hear her outside.
She was reassured by the continued pounding on the concrete wall. It seemed to go on for a few minutes before she heard a sudden pop and loud curses. She could hear water rushing and spraying against the doors of the stalls.
“You idiot, you hit the water line with the hammer!”
“It was in the way. I didn’t know it would explode!”
“What did you think it would do?”
“Turn the water off!”
“How?” He took a breath, “I don’t know how!”
“We need something to plug it. Look around. Stick some concrete in it.”
“I don’t see anything that will fit!”
“Look in that out of order stall, maybe the plumber left something behind.”
Dread filled Charlie’s heart as she made herself as small as she could on the bench behind the door. She heard the door rattle as someone tried to open it. She’d only locked one of the locks and it shook loosely.
She held her breath and as expected the door slammed open with the kick from a large boot. It flew open and slammed into the bench right beside her, then rather comically if it weren’t for the situation, it slammed back closed of its own momentum. Charlie pulled her feet up close to her body as the door was pushed back open, completely blocking her from view. As long as he didn’t come in the stall he wouldn’t see her. She could see his fingers coming around the edge of the door and was surprised to see that he had manicured nails. It was just one of those odd details that you usually overlook that she noticed this time.
He mumbled something to himself and then closed the door again.
“There’s nothing in there. The plumber cleaned everything up.”
“I’ll roll up my tie and stick it in the pipe.”
“Better be careful” He said jokingly, “you might get fired from your rent-a-cop job!”
The telephone beeped again, complaining about its battery being low. Charlie put her hand over it and pushed the volume button on the side to mute it, wishing she’d done that earlier. She looked at it to make sure it was off and noticed a string of numbers on
the background screen. “He made the combination his background!” she thought. “I’m surrounded by idiots.” Then she realized he was probably already dead and apologized silently.
The door to the stall flew open and two men barged in, grabbing her by her arms and legs, dragging her out.
“It’s the model,” grunted one of the men wrestling with her. “What kind of luck is this? She just showed right up.”
“Get her out and take her with the others.”
They stripped her pack off and roughly patted down her cargo pockets on her pants. The amateurs failed to search her shirt pocket where the phone was. It was probably because she was a girl. Even though they’d already killed a guy, they still had taboos with young women. She’d hoped the 911 operator was still listening but was pretty sure the low battery had disconnected them.
They dragged her out of the bathroom, through the stream of spraying water into the lobby. They yelled for their third who came running through the store front. His eyes grew large as he saw her.
“She was hiding in the bathroom.”
“Take her in with the others. This is getting complicated.”
They pushed her through the diamond brokerage where she noticed that all of the glass cabinets with the bright white lights were empty. They noticed her looking.
“Look at that will ya? She’s facing three armed men and still can’t help but look for diamonds. That’s a woman for you – diamonds are their best friends.”
“As soon as we get that door open, they’ll be my best friend too.”
Charlie was roughly shoved into the office next to the vault door. “Here’s another one.”
Two women were sitting on the floor beside the vault door, dressed in just their blouses, taped together at the wrists, back to back. She hoped they didn’t make her undress too but instead they started arguing among themselves.
“There are too many here. Pick one to keep and shoot the rest. The model girl doesn’t know the escape code so she can’t go through and unlock from the inside. She’s getting a bullet for sure.”
“I don’t know. I kind of like her.” The guard that winked at her the previous day.
“You want the money or the girl? Can’t have both.”
“I want the money. I can find a new girl.” He lifted his gun and pointed it at them and motioned for the smaller of the two brokerage women to step aside. “I guess it’s going to be you two.”
They both began to cry and Charlie was immensely sorry for herself. “I didn’t come to the city for this. I just wanted to escape.” Her tears flowed, “I want to call my mama.”
“Oh shut up, you’re not calling anybody.”
The other woman was silently crying too, waiting for her fate. Her face already swollen from being hit.
In a flash of brilliance, that for once served her well, Charlie thought of something, “I have the door lock code! You don’t have to punch a hole through the wall.”
One of the men punched the other in the back. “She heard every word!”
“I have the door code!” She continued. “You don’t have to kill us!”
“Now just how do you have the code?”
“It’s on his phone! Here look.”
She handed the telephone to one of the men who studied it and then had it jerked away by the other two who also studied it. That moment was the exact moment the telephone chose to die. It beeped once and then shut off. “No!” they all yelled, but one.
“It’s ok, I got the code.” The leader of the bunch said. He strode purposefully over to the vault and began entering numbers into the keypad. Soon an electric buzz indicated that the lock was disengaging and he could hear metal sliding on metal as the bolts were being withdrawn from their recesses.
“Oh baby, here we go.” He tugged on the door and it pulled slowly open, lights turning on automatically, lighting up a dozen large velveteen trays, twinkling with more diamonds than Charlie had ever seen. “Those are the display diamonds. Get them too.”
“I got them,” one of the guys said, entering behind the leader, several of the black duffle bags in hand.
Charlie was mesmerized by the sparkling light show that was dancing around the interior of the vault as he shoved the trays into the bags. “Hey this isn’t going to work,” he said to the leader of the men. “They are going to fall off of the trays and go loose in the bags.”
“Here, take these,” the other said, tossing a number of large canvas bags to him. “Just dump them in there. The others should still be packaged for travel.”
“What can I do?” the one guarding the three women asked, anxious to be involved.
“Just keep an eye on them.”
“Don’t be pocketing anything in there!” He warned the other two.
Charlie noticed that he was becoming agitated and starting to pace. He talked angrily to himself, obviously not the ‘brains of the outfit.’ She thought she could gain some favor with him.
“Hey, can I have a couple of those? They are so beautiful!”
“What?” He asked, incredulous.
“Some of the diamonds – you guys have a ton of them. I just want a couple.” She looked at him pleadingly. “Please? I’ll do anything.”
“No! Are you loco lady? You’re lucky to still be alive.”
“But those are diamonds!” one of the other women chimed in. “Me too, I want a couple!”
“Can I have a pear cut? Can I have a marquis also?” The last of the women added.
“Look, you three,” He yelled at them. “You’re not getting anything!”
All three of the women were now chiding him, begging for the diamonds. “They are putting them in their pockets in there! I saw them. They aren’t going to share with you unless you take them! Share them with us too!” Charlie acted desperate but what came next, she didn’t expect. The tough guy grabbed her by the arm and shoved her roughly toward the other two women.
“Sit down! We have to tie you up. I need to go in there and help.”
“Let me go with you!” She added desperation to her voice, maybe even overly so she thought.
“No!” he pushed her toward the women sitting behind the now open door.
Charlie turned to face him, her hands holding his forearm, opposite his gun. “Please let me go. I won’t tell anyone.” She had meant to continue the charade of frustrating her captor but instead let her true intentions slip out. Her real desperation crept through in a flood of tears.
Her captor could hear the other two talking inside of the vault. “What are you saying in there? I can’t hear you. Are you cutting me out of the deal already?” His paranoia was growing as there really is no honor among thieves.
“Shut up and watch the women. We’re almost done.”
“No, I want to know what you’re saying. You’re not cutting me out!
“I bet they’re in there right now trying to figure out how they are going to kill you and take your share of the diamonds,” Charlie fed his anxiety. “I bet their pockets are heavy already.”
“I’m very sorry girl. I don’t have any more duct tape to tape you up. I have to get in there.” He turned the gun toward her, her focus on the cavernous-seeming muzzle moving toward her. From out of nowhere, a heavy fist plowed into her temple sending her sprawling to the ground beside the door. She saw red, then black, then nothing.
The world swirled around her as she felt a pain in the top of her head and heard a hissing that was beginning to become clear. “Wake up!” one of the women was hissing at her and kicking her in the top of the head with her stretched out leg. “Wake up! Go get help!” She pushed her with her foot as much as she was able to.
“Oww
, that hurts!” she said, grasping the sides of her head and trying to sit up unsuccessfully. Apparently the thug had been watching too many television shows and action movies where a single punch will put someone out for the duration, allowing him to complete his dastardly plans. Unfortunately for him, it was rarely the case and ended up stunning the victim if they weren’t outright killed by the impact.
“Be quiet!” The other hostage whispered. “No one is watching you. They are all in the vault. You can get away and get help!”
Charlie pushed herself up on her elbows and then to her hands and knees. Her world was swimming in circles and she could see lights dancing before her eyes. She grabbed the door of the vault to pull herself up. It moved under her grasp.
The vault door, despite being excessively heavy and virtually impenetrable, was mounted on top of the line hinge mechanisms and a small statured woman such as Charlie was easily able to move it. She grabbed at it desperately to stop its movement so as not to alert the three inside the safe.
“Inside the vault!” her inner voice screamed at her. “They are all three inside! Shut the door!”
She leaned against the door, dizzy from the punch and probably harboring a concussion. She pushed it as forcefully as she could.
“Hey! The door is closing!” one of the men shouted from inside. They all scrambled toward the door but two of the three couldn’t get around the large security boxes stacked in the center of the floor for the large diamond shipment. The final thug, the one who had punched Charlie, thrust his arm with the gun out of the door as it attempted to slam shut.
He screamed as the massive weight tried to close through his arm. His armed jerked in spasms causing him to pull the trigger on his gun several times. He shot several bullets ricocheting around the show room. All of the women screamed and Charlie threw her weight against the door again, making the man scream along with them. He withdrew his now injured arm, allowing the door to slam closed.
“It’s not locked!” one of the bound women yelled. “Push the buttons!”
Charlie desperately stabbed at the buttons on the keypad as she felt impacts on the other side of the door, men’s bodies trying to force it open. A shrill beep came from the mechanism and she could hear metal sliding on metal as the bolts engaged. A red light appeared on the control pad.
“You did it!” The other two women celebrated! “You trapped them inside!”
She sat down hard on the floor, her head swimming. She heard an unpleasant ringing in her ears. “Can’t they unlock with the emergency code inside?”
The other two looked at each other and laughed. “Who’s going to tell them the code? It was in case we got locked in, not them.”
“Call an ambulance,” was the last thing she remembered telling the women as she heard gunshots inside of the vault. Her world closed in on her and swept hear away to darkness.