Nov 13

Written by: Bruce A. Sarte
Sunday, November 13, 2011 7:08 PM 

This Sample Sunday is from my upcoming novel release, Philadelphia Story.  The novel is due out in January, 2012 from Bucks County Publishing and will be available in Paperback, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook and Apple iBookstore formats.

In this scene, out of Chapter 8, Lance has been kidnapped by unknown assailants while investigating Linda's apartment.  He is tied up in the back of a car.

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“Where did heffe say to take him?” the passenger asked with a heavy latino accent.

“We takin him to the airport, homes.” the driver with an equally heavy latino accent answered.

“Niiiiice…” the passenger intoned distracted by something outside the window.  The driver reached over and hit something on the radio bringing blaring latino music from the speakers.  If my head didn’t hurt before, it did now.  Trumpets and drums were everywhere.  The car took a corner hard and I slid about half a foot, mostly on my face, into a black bag of some kind.  When I shook my head to free myself  of the bag I noticed two things: one, my head was also bleeding into my eyes and two, there was something hard in the black bag.

“Hey, what’s dingo boy doing back there?”  shouted the driver over the salsa music.

“I dunno.  Nothing.”  yelled the passenger apparently not actually looking because I was suddenly very busy.  I began working my mouth, trying to pull the bag open with my teeth.  I was frantically gnawing and writhing at the bag when my tongue hit something nasty on the bag causing me to reflexively gag and spit the bag out.

“Oh God…” I couldn’t keep it in.  I quickly realized how much noise I was making and tried to look up and see if my captors had heard me.  There was no response from my new muchachos.  When I returned to my bag-biting, I had made my way to the opening and started ferreting into the bag with my nose when it encountered something hard and cold.  One sniff and I knew what it was…

“Betsy…”  a big smile crept across my face as the plan formed in my head.  Another glance up to see the head of the driver bobbing along to the beat and the passenger looked like he was almost asleep.  I needed a little assistance.  So I started screaming as loud as I could.

“Owwww… dammit… mother fucker son of a bitch!”  This immediately got their attention.

“Yo man, what the fu… how’d he get on the floor, man?”  The driver started yelling.

“Man, I don’t… how the hell would I know!  You the crazy muthfuckin’ driver yo!”  the passenger retorted as if the driver was somehow blaming him.

“Oh, come on dammit…”  I started twisting and turning for effect.  But it also helped push the Betsy further to the top of the bag and finally onto the floor.

“What’s wrong with him?” the driver screamed and punched a button on the radio stopping the infernal music.

“What am I?  Doctor Kiljoy?  How the hell would I know, man?”  Again, the passenger on the defensive.  I continued to wriggle which pulled the ziptie a little bit loose -- or maybe it was just digging into my skin more.  I wasn’t sure, but I knew it was mostly numb at this point.

“Well fuckin’ do sumthin, man!” The passenger now taking control of the situation.  The driver didn’t say anything but I felt the car sway to the side and screech to a halt.  My body moved sideways and then slammed into the console.  

“Assholes fucking… ahhhhhh!”  I screamed even louder.  But it really did hurt.  “I’m gonna kick your asses all the way back to fucking mexico you beaner taco eating cocksuckers”

“Oh, that’s it.”  The driver had apparently heard enough.  The rather large latino male jettisoned himself from the car and had the back door open in an instant.  He stood there looking at me as if I were nothing more than a sack of potatoes.  Meanwhile the passenger began to get out of the car, more slowly then the driver.  I jerked my head backward grabbing a mouthful of that nasty black bag just as the driver grabbed one of my ankles, roughly yanking me from the car.  I hit the pavement hard with the bag spilling out behind me.

“You calling me a bean eater?  I’m gonna kick your ass, gringo.”  And he did.  Several kicks with the toe of his boot landed squarely in my stomach.  Suddenly this plan didn’t seem like a good idea… until his buddy came around.

“Yea, grin muthafucka!”  He grabbed my collar and yanked me up to my feet.  He was big and strong just like his buddy.  But he was slow.  He wound up to sink a right roundhouse into my head but I struck out at him with a headbutt right to the bridge of his nose.  His face exploded in a gushing fountain of blood and pain.  When my right foot connected with his groin he was already screaming in agony.  Now I’m pretty sure he was one bad moment away from losing consciousness, so I gave it to him with a kick to the face.  His buddy, the driver, must have been stunned because he didn’t make a move.  I turned on him and landed a left sidekick to his chest that sent him reeling back into the trunk of the car.  A quick look at the passed out latino spotted a knife in his back pocket.  I ran over, carefully squatted down retrieving the knife about two seconds before the driver regained his balance.  I had just began sawing away at the zip tie when he began advancing on me.

“Go ahead, try that cheap shit on me again.”  Now the driver produced a knife not unlike the one I had in my hands.  Problem was, mine was behind me.

“What?” I said, “Like this?” And started the kick again but pulled back as his hand swiped the knife through the air.  I spun on my heel and fell to the ground swiping his legs out from under him sending his two hundred plus pound frame to the ground… hard.  I was back on my feet working the zip tie again until it snapped.  My hands were now free and I moved my feet toward Betsy.  I lunged to where Betsy had fallen, retrieved my gun only to be grabbed by my feet again and yanked backward.  He wasted no time putting his boot firmly into my skull sending my senses on a roundabout trip to hither and yon.  I instinctively rolled into a ball and he continued to kick at my back.  It hurt but wasn’t a game ender.  Betsy had jumped from my hands but saw the she was just an arms length away.  I reached out, clutched the gun just as his boot came down on the ground missing my hand  by the tiniest of margins.  He recovered and tried to bring his knee down into my shoulder but I quickly rolled and brought Betsy’s barrel to bear on my driver friend.

“You’d better stop and think outside the bun on this one mijo.  We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”  I began in my best Dirty Harry impression.  “Putting two into you is the easy way.”  Staring him down the Betsy’s sleek barrel I noticed something incredibly familiar about him.  It was Sleeves from the #1 Dragon warehouse.

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Copyright ©2011 Bruce A. Sarte