Redheads Read Free Page B

open. His neck felt like molten wax and his head collapsed back into the blanket. The man in the mask was pushing on his chest but let up after about fifteen seconds.
    Then the man’s hand was over Chris’s mouth and nose, pushing down hard enough that he felt the cartilage in his nose buckle as it bent sideways. He saw purple flashes behind his closed eyelids. His arms and legs might as well have been an amputee’s fantasy. He couldn’t move them at all.
    “I could smother you. What could you do about that?”
    Chris couldn’t answer. He was choking, but his stomach was a mile away and he didn’t retch.
    The man pulled his hand away and Chris felt a little air trickle into his chest.
    “Saw you eight months ago in Vancouver,” the man said. “Hanging around the docks. I couldn’t grab you then. This time I was ready. Wait’ll you try this.”
    Chris could do nothing but wait.
    He was screaming in his mind, begging his arms to move. The inside of the van felt like a pool of quicksand. He was sinking. The man had a new syringe in his hand.
    “It’ll put you down.”
    He felt the second needle’s sting, and this time, the wave that spread from it was black and empty.

Chapter Five
    Chris had no idea how much time had passed. He wasn’t in the van anymore. He couldn’t open his eyes. It was cold; his skin had tightened into goose bumps. Something was squeezing his face and there was a rushing feeling in his nose. It was too cold to be blood. There was a whirring noise from somewhere behind him. He kept trying to open his eyes but couldn’t. He felt himself slipping back into the drug that had knocked him out. He told himself to focus. Where was the man in the mask? There was no noise but the mechanical whirring from below and behind.
    I’m going to lose this fight , he thought, and slipped back.
     
     
    Later, his eyes were open. He was looking at man in a chair for a long time before he realized he was awake. He was seeing himself in a full-length mirror. He was naked and was sitting in an ancient wheeled office chair. His arms were taped to the armrests and his ankles were taped to the single column that supported the seat. Many wraps of duct tape went around his chest and held him upright against the back of the chair. His mouth and nose were covered with a clear rubber mask that was held in place with webbing straps. A flexible hose led down and disappeared behind the chair. The whirring noise came from back there.
    The mirror was about five feet away and might have been the door to a closet. There was thin carpet on the floor and an aluminum stand with a canvas webbing top. A fake marble sink was backed by another mirror and he could see plastic cups wrapped in plastic bags, and a basket of sample-sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner.
    The only light came from the vanity over the sink. The rest of the motel room was dark. The mirror showed him the front wall of the room and the ends of two tiny beds. The window was covered by a curtain the same wet-sand color of the carpet. The mask and its machine whirred on and on and forced cold air up his nose and down his wide-open mouth. His tongue felt rough and dry. He couldn’t move it. He studied the mirror again but couldn’t see his clothes anywhere. He assumed they were in the room. The man would not have stripped him before bringing inside. Of course the gun was probably with his clothes and was no use anyway when he was taped to a chair, naked, and couldn’t even close his mouth.
    He heard the bedsprings creak and then heard steps across the carpet. He still couldn’t turn his head but he could move his eyes. In the mirror, a shadow passed on the front wall of the hotel room. He had never felt this cold, but his muscles were so useless he couldn’t even shiver. He heard a quiet click.
    “He’s awake. White male, I’m guessing mid- to late-thirties, approximately one hundred eighty pounds. No ID. Beginning interview.”
    It was the same gravelly