Read Online The Guardian by Bill Eidson - Free Book Online Page A

walk away, heard him say, “Shit! It’s on your head.”
    “No,” the woman said. “Not again.”
    “Shut up about that! Your head, you got that?”
    “I won’t take that.”
    “You will if I say you will. Now get her ready.”
    The woman said in Janine’s ear, “Shush. Just be quiet.” The woman cut away the tape binding Janine’s arms and legs and led her away. A door closed behind them, and the woman was crying as she got Janine ready. She told Janine she was putting dark glasses over the tape and giving her a hooded sweatshirt to wear. The woman’s hands were shaking, and that made Janine cry more, the tears stinging her eyes inside the tape.
    The woman said, “Listen to me; listen to me. I don’t know if you heard his name, but never say it if you did. If he asks you what it was, just play dumb. Say you don’t know what he means. Cry, do anything, but if you heard it, never say it. Do you understand?”
    “Yes,” Janine said softly. And the shame of it was, she did.
     
    They put her on the car floor again. The man drove the car hard. Janine could feel it move in a jerky way. The woman’s voice was very bright now. “Easy, baby. We don’t want any cops, do we?”
    “Shut the fuck up.” His voice was very clear. “Don’t call me ‘baby’ or anything else. The little chick’s got big ears.”
    “Sure. You’re right.” The woman patted Janine’s head. “Once you get the money, where you want to drop her?”
    The man didn’t answer.
    After a few minutes passed, the woman said, “I just wanted to know.”
    “I told you to shut up.”
    “Baby, we don’t have to do this.” The woman’s voice sounded tired.
    “I’ll decide what we have to do, and then we’ll do it. And that’s my last word.”
    After a long time—Janine wasn’t sure if it was ten minutes or a half hour—the car stopped. The man said, “This one should do it. I broke the bulb this afternoon, but the phone works fine.”
    “You’ve got it all thought out so smooth.” The woman led Janine out of the car.
    Without being able to see, Janine found even walking was hard. She wanted to have her hands out in front all of the time, sure she was going to walk her face right into something. But the woman said for her to keep her hands by her sides. Janine could hear cars passing.
    “Don’t get any ideas, honey,” the woman said. “This is a busy road. People are driving by too fast to pay you any mind. You’re just a kid wearing her hood up, walking to the phone with your dad and mom. You got that?”
    “You’re gonna tell your old man you’re fine and we haven’t hurt you,” the man said. She heard the sound of a phone being dialed, the little beep-beep-beep of the numbers being punched in, and suddenly the realization that she would be talking to her parents was all she could bear. Her lower lip start to quiver. She’d always hated that, and she forced herself to breathe deep. She found once again she could stop the tears if she really had to.
    “Well, hello,” the man said, his voice suddenly friendly in a mean way. “I got something for you here. Have you got something for me?”
    The phone was shoved against her ear.
    And her father was there, saying into her ear, “Janine? Is that you, baby? Are you there?”
    “Daddy!” she cried. And then her mother was there, too, on the other line. “Janey, Daddy’s going to get you. Hold on, baby.”
    Her dad said, “Janine, tell me fast. Do you think he’s going to hurt you? I don’t mean talk badly to you—I mean do you think he’s going to hurt you?”
    “Yes,” she said, softly.
    “Speak up, sweetheart. It’s important,” her dad said.
    So she yelled it. “He is! I know he is!”
    And then the phone was snatched away, and she lashed out with her fist and hit the man. She was screaming, “No, no, no!” and she hit him again, and then he knocked her down. The woman was dragging her away, saying, “Don’t! Are you crazy? Don’t do that!”
    The