Chapter Twenty Seven - One Messed Up Hombre

The phone was ringing when Rudy got back to the duplex and he ran to grab it.

“Rudy here.”

“Mr. Davis. So nice to speak with you again.”

The smugness virtually dripped from the handset. Rudy didn’t reply but he knew that this helping of crow wasn’t going to go down easily.

“You have something of mine and now I have something of yours.” Azeri continued. “And what a lovely thing she is.”

“Just leave her out of this.” Rudy snapped before he could catch himself.

“She’s already in it. I’ll tell you what though, just to be a sport, I’ll give you one chance to save her life. 6 AM tomorrow, just like you were supposed to do today. I trust that you no longer doubt my ability to get what I want.”

Rudy wished that he could climb through the phone and choke the living shit out of this arrogant bastard.

“You’re not going to let either of us live when this is over, so why bother?”

“Perhaps not,” Azeri replied, “but what choice do you have? Raven is really a lovely girl. What fun we shall have before I finish her, unless you cooperate.”

“You son of a...” Rudy was seeing red.

“Mr. Davis, please.” Azeri interrupted. “This isn’t helping your cause.” He clearly felt that he was holding all the cards.

“Okay, okay.” Rudy said. “But I can’t have what you want that soon. I need 48 hours to retrieve it.”

“It didn’t take 48 hours to hide it, why would it take that long to recover it.”

Rudy didn’t have an answer and was desperately racking his brain to come up with one.

“It’s not going to be as easy to recover as it was to hide.” he finally said.

“Perhaps I should send one of my associates to assist you in its recovery.”

“No. No, that’s not necessary. I have the goods and the money; I’ll bring you both if you’ll just give me 48 hours. What difference does it make to you? You’re holding all the cards and we both know it. Just give me the time and I won’t let you down.”

“No, I don’t suppose you will. Charlie tells me that you are quite fond of Ms. Olsson. Forty Eight hours from right now, same location as before. If you disappoint me again, you and your girlfriend will both be shark bait.”

“Understood.” Rudy hung up the phone. Charlie?! What in the hell was Charlie’s involvement in all of this?

Rudy didn’t have a clue what to do next. His first instinct was to contact Charlie for help but after that remark, Rudy wasn’t certain that Charlie could be trusted. It was just all too pat. Everyone in his life was so interconnected in this thing, it just couldn’t possibly be happening. Nothing made sense to him at this point. Nothing.

Panic, fed by his confusion, was rising in Rudy so quickly that he thought he might explode. He was getting dizzy and short of breath and soon his knees buckled and he found himself sitting on the floor. Physical exhaustion had always been the best antidote to a panic attack so he took his shoes off and burst out the front door in a dead run along the beach. He had to clear his head and think, come up with a plan.

His lungs burned as he ran in the sand, legs churning to keep momentum. When he could run no longer, he stopped, hands on knees and gasped for air until his breathing returned to normal.

Rudy ran along the beach nearly every day but he had obviously run farther than he ever had before because he was standing in the shadow of a 25 foot high cliff that he’d never seen. There were small caves carved in the promontory, presumably from being pounded by storms.

Instinctively, he climbed the promontory and crawled inside a tiny cave. For the moment, he felt safe in its womb-like confines. He’d nearly forgotten about his cracked ribs but the pain returned as he relaxed and now it was excruciating.

He closed his eyes and tried to clear his head. He’d never been much for meditation but he tried now to clear out the confusion and open some pathways in his mind so that he could think and reason his way through this situation.

Soon he relaxed and he let go of his cares and let his mind drift where it wanted to. In a matter of minutes he was back in Utah in the second grade, bursting through the front door of his childhood home. He was home for lunch and was met by the familiar aroma of baking bread.

It must be Tuesday because Mom always bakes bread on Tuesdays. These were the innocent, Norman Rockwell times of his early youth. Kennedy’s Camelot was yet to shatter.

Mom served up the traditional baking day lunch of fried bread dough, dripping with butter and honey. Thank goodness he was an active boy or he’d have been as big as their house.
Something had been troubling young Rudy since Sunday School last weekend and he decided that this was a good time to ask Mom about it.

“Mom, what’s arms-a-getting’?”

“You mean, Armageddon?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Well, it’s when a big battle in the end-times will take place, between the armies of good and evil.” Mom struggled with the answer.

“Like America and Russia? My teacher says Russia is evil ‘cause they’re common-ists.”

“Yeah, something like that.” Mom chuckled in relief, hoping she’d satisfied young Rudy.

“How come God doesn’t just squash the devil and then there won’t have to be a war?”

Just then, the town’s emergency siren went off and Rudy climbed under the kitchen table as he’d been taught in school. It was a little strange, though, to be having an air-raid drill during the lunch hour. They were a regular occurrence in school but Rudy couldn’t remember ever having one during the lunch hour.

“Come on, Mom, get down here.” Rudy shouted. “You’re supposed to get under a table so you don’t get radiation in your head.”

“That’s okay, Rudy. I need to get the dishes done and you need to get back to school.”
“Ah, come on Mom, it’s fun.”

Reluctantly Mom got on her knees and crawled under the table with her son. Rudy threw his arms around her and gave her a big squeeze and he felt safer than he ever had in his young life. Little did he know that this was the last time he would feel safe for a very long time.

Back at school, Rudy stopped at the huge brick drinking fountain in the playground for a drink of water.

“Hurry, hurry children. Everyone inside now, go to your classrooms.” A teacher was shouting.

Normally children lined up outside the doors for a head count before entering the building but this day the entire faculty seemed to be in the playground or the hallway ushering children in.

“The President has been shot.” Someone shouted.

When he was seated at his desk and after a few squeals and squelches, the radio began playing through the intercom system. Rudy heard the familiar voice of Walter Cronkite say “President Kennedy died at 1 PM, some 38 minutes ago.”

The room was silent, the grown ups were crying and soon some of the children began to cry as well. Rudy didn’t understand. How could the President be dead? Everyone loved Kennedy; no one would ever want to shoot him. If the President wasn’t safe, how could anyone else be safe ever again?

When Rudy got home a short time later, he found his mother seated in front of the television crying. Rudy sat next to her on the sofa and curled up in her arms.

That night he lay in bed trying to sleep. When he had his ear to the pillow and heard his heartbeat, he imagined that it was the sound of footsteps, the footsteps of the Presidents killer and he was walking, walking, walking. His destination; Tooele, Utah and his intent was to kill young Rudy just like he had killed the young President.

After a couple of hours, Rudy convinced himself that, while those were the killers footsteps, he was probably still in Dallas, which must be someplace far away like in California or something and it would take at least two days for the killer to walk that far. He finally drifted to sleep.

Sleep offered no relief for young Rudy. He dreamed that he and his entire extended Mormon family were gathered at his Grandmother’s house. All were sitting around nervously awaiting something, though he didn’t know what, when a knock came upon the door.

“It’s him!” someone shouted.

“Oh, no.” another voice said.

“Oh God help us.” Said someone else.

“Don’t let him in!” shouted another but it was too late.

The door opened to reveal a tall, shadowy figure and then everything went dark. The room began to spin and everything was flying around the room in ever faster circles.

Furniture, people, books, coats, everything. Rudy felt a fear beyond anything he’d ever imagined. Voices screaming, shouts, cries, and through it all Rudy heard the voice of his Brother-in-law, the young Mormon Bishop.

“By the power of the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood vested in me, and in the name of Jesus Christ, I order you to leave.” His brother-in-law repeated this over and over as the room spun in chaotic darkness.

Rudy awoke to the sounds of his own screams.


The setting sun entered the little cave and stabbed at his eyes. Gradually, he remembered where he was and the fix he was in and kicked himself at the realization that the setting sun meant that he had wasted several precious hours.

The sand was warm between his toes and the gentle sound of the receding surf might have been soothing to him at any other time. He felt as if everyone else on the island was busy enjoying a paradise that he may never again experience.

He’d been nearly paralyzed with fear but it was fear for Raven, not for himself. The real pickle she was in was that her safety relied on him, the one who’d never done anything courageous in his life. The one who never did anything unless it came easy. This is who Raven’s life depended on now and his heart broke for her.

A voice called to him as he walked along the beach toward home, but he didn’t hear it in his ears, he heard it in his head. It didn’t speak in words exactly, it was communicating with him on another level, somewhere deep in his brain where speech originates. He turned toward the sea and began wading in. When the water reached his waist, he dived in and began swimming along the ocean floor.

“Hey, over here.” The voice said. He swam deeper and deeper, looking around but saw nothing.

“Right here, chump. Do I have to sting you to get your attention?”

It was Elder Sea Nettle.

“You!” Rudy said.

“So Davis, you believe that things happen for a reason?”

“Oh gees, not this again.”

“Hey listen, I don’t have to be here. If you’re going to give me a bunch of crap, I’m heading right back to the Atlantic where I belong."

“Okay, okay, calm down.” Rudy said.

“Believe what you want Davis, but here’s what I came to tell ya. You obviously have a lot of fear. I mean that little flashback you just had? Shees, what a doozy. Fear written all over it, dude. Man, I gotta tell ya, you are one seriously messed up hombre!”

“Is there a point here?” Rudy was growing weary of the smart-assed jellyfish. “I’ve got some stuff on my mind right now, so maybe you could just move it along?”

“My point is, Mr. Scaredypants, there are forces at work in the Universe that you don’t have a freakin’ clue about.”

“Uh-huh...”

“For example,” the jellyfish continued undaunted, “You’re down here talking to a jellyfish, swimming with the ease of a shark and you haven’t felt the need to breath in what? Ten minutes?”

“I thought you said you were a Sea Nettle and not a jellyfish?” Rudy said.

“Do you wanna hear this or not?”

“I’m listening.” Rudy said.

“So go back to your place, get your plan together and do what you gotta do. The odds are against you but the Universe is with you. It will work out. Just let go of your fears and get it done. But remember, when this is over you’ll owe the Universe big-time.”

“Owe it what?” Rudy asked.

“Don’t worry about that for now. You’ll know when the time comes. Oh, Charlie... remember that time at the birthday party when he tried to tell you that things weren’t always as they appear?”

“Yeah, I remember, he was drunk.”

“He was drunk,” Elder Sea Nettle continued, “but he was trying to tell you something. Trust him, you’ll need his help. Soon enough you’ll know what he’s up to.”

“Would it kill ya to just give me a straight answer for once?” Rudy ask, he realized, no one.


The sun was bright in his face when he awoke on the beach that was as familiar to him as Raven’s face. The cliff and the caves were nowhere to be found. He checked his watch and it had been exactly five minutes since he’d run barefoot out the front door trying to clear his head.