"Fugue" is the sequel story to "120 Seconds," and the subject of my second student film. It was written by me on March 21, 2000.
Byron Crowe woke up in a cheap hotel room with a cell phone in one hand and a gun in the other. When his eyes flickered open for the first time he was aware of very little. At first the world was blurry and none of his other senses had come to him. His head lolled the one side and he fixed on an electric red glow that could only be the numbers on a digital alarm clock. When they came into focus he made the time out to be 7:56, he assumed at night. Slowly, feeling returned to his body as if after a lifetime of sleeping. He could feel that he was fully clothed and that a dull ache was fading from his muscles.
When Byron sat up, he braced himself for a stabbing pain to shoot through his head. Sure enough, it came. Instinctively he moved to place one hand against his temple and almost clubbed himself back unconscious with the heavy weapon he was holding. It was a Glock 9mm, an efficient gun that would do its duty very faithfully. How Byron knew that he wasn't quite sure.
Finally, he decided to take in his surroundings. Cheap hotel room. Queen sized bed not turned down, him laying in the center. No footprints on the vacuumed plush carpet. Bad oil painting. Shades drawn. Boots (his since he wore only socks) and a jacket sitting on a chair. He checked the gun. It was loaded. He checked the cell phone. It was on. It had full signal, but only one bar worth of charge left in its battery.
After a moment, Byron got out of bed, careful to check under it first. He quickly checked the rest of the room over and found the small sterile bathroom and the tiny closet empty. The whole place, it seemed, had been sanitized for his protection.
In another moment, the stiffness and ache had gone from his body and he now seemed to be operating with a rush of adrenaline as he was putting on his boots. When he swung the jacked behind him, he felt something heavy in one pocket and heard something rustle in the other. He was just reaching for them both when the cell phone he'd left on the bed rang quietly
Someone must have turned the ringer option to its lowest setting because it didn't make much noise at all. Byron pressed the "send" button and listened. After a moment the other party decided he must have been listening.
"What do you remember Mr. Crowe?" The voice was calm and polite. Byron did not answer, and after a moment the voice spoke again. "I can hear your breathing Mr. Crowe, I know you're there."
"My name and how to answer a cell phone and not much else." Byron began looking around the room for a where a pinhole camera might be hidden, or perhaps a good place to hide a microphone.
"Your room is secure, but I expect you know that by now. Don't waste your time doing an extensive search. You're not staying."
"Really? What if I want to stay and catch some TV, it's almost 8."
There's nothing good on Tuesdays Mr. Crowe, and you have something to take care of."
This caught Byron off guard. He hadn't known it was Tuesday. He'd trusted that his body would have simply known the day of the week, but Tuesday felt wrong. "And what is that?"
"Somebody needs your help Mr. Crowe. Your services are being called for."
"What are you talking about?"
"Take a look in your left jacket pocket." He did. It contained a medium sized manila envelope. "You can go ahead and open it, it's for you." He did. Inside were three Polaroid photos and something that looked like a thick gray credit card. He looked at the top picture and saw a well-dressed businessman on the street. It looked like he was about to get into a limousine.
"Who's the suit?"
"He's in from out of town." Byron just then remembered that he was in New York. Up until then it hadn't occurred to him that he didn't even know where he was. His mind started to drift a little, wondering exactly how many things he didn't know. The next photo showed the same man on a different street (a bad neighborhood) holding the hand of a young girl who looked to be crying. He appeared to be laughing as if he'd just heard a great joke.
"Cute kid." Byron said as he flipped to the last photograph. It showed the same man, again, on a side street talking to a slimy looking man who was wearing too much gold. Barely noticeable in the side of the frame was a small hand. Byron's stomach turned. "What is this?"
"The battery on your phone is about to run out Mr. Crowe."
"What's going on?" Some bit of self-restraint inside Byron Crowe had given out. He knew that the last thing on earth he should have done would be to demand answers, but now he couldn't help it.
"That is hotel room key card. There's a number written on it. Do you see it?"
"What's going on here!?" Byron was not yelling, but there was obvious stress in his voice. The adrenaline coursing through his veins was causing it. He noticed he was sweating as well.
"The number Mr. Crowe." It was still a calm voice, but slightly firmer now.
"I see the fucking number."
"As I said Mr. Crowe, you have been called for."
"To do what?"
"She needs your help, and there isn't much time. She's not in the room right now, so you must move quickly. Listen carefully Mr. Crowe-"
"No! You listen to me! You've got a very paranoid man here that someone made the mistake of leaving with deadly weapon. If you're not really careful something bad is gonna happen."
"I expect so." The line went dead. Byron looked at the phone in time to see the back-lit display give out and go blank. The battery had run out. Byron cursed under his breath and wanted to stomp his foot when he noticed he was already pacing. Instead he jammed the cellphone into his other pocket. It made a sound when it struck the heavy object he'd forgotten was in there. Gently, his probed into the leather pocket and went past the phone to a cold cylindrical metal object. He withdrew it and nodded. It was a silencer for the Glock.
With the silencer fitted, and the safety off, Byron crept out of his room into the hotel hallway. As he was investigating which direction room 508 was, he began to remember that he wasn't exactly the type of man who liked being someone else's puppet. He shook his head in anger yet again when he saw room 508 was only two doors down. His own door latched shut behind and it occurred to Byron that he did not have a key that would open it back up.
Byron approached the door, but stopped several feet away. "What the fuck?" he asked himself. "What are you doing?" And with that thought he stopped in his tracks.
Byron had just snapped the safety back into place on the Glock and made up his mind to head for the emergency exit he knew was at the other end of the hallway when a faint sound caught his ear. He listened carefully and after a moment made out the sound of agonized moaning... whimpering.
With a heavy sigh and his heart racing, Byron slipped the keycard into a wide slot beneath the doorknob. He fingers performed the task effortlessly and steadily, no matter that his mind and body were rapidly starting to over load. Not from nerves though, Byron was certain of that much. Nerves would have made his fingers tremble.
He expected the card not to work, or to set off some blaring alarm, but it merely opened the door quietly. He pushed on the heavy wooden door and slid into the room.
When he was in, and the door closed behind him, he took full notice of the place. It was set up identically to the room he'd awoken in. There was a short hall with the bathroom on the left before it opened into the "main room." The bed was tucked behind a corner created by the room's opening so the occupant could not see him. The lights were all off, the blinds and shades drawn, and the only light was coming from the bluish white glow of the TV.
"Is that you sweetie? Were you a good girl and got the ice like I told you," came a disgusting sugar coated voice from the bed area. Byron felt rage building up within him like bile. He double-checked his grip on the semi-automatic pistol and strode forward. As he started to do so, the slimy voice spoke again. "Hey, this movie just came on. Some twisted German thing. It's giving me some ideas." In the last moment before he turned the corner some deeply trained part of him mind sprang into action. He made the last step a sort of rolling maneuver and brought the gun up. He hadn't planned on shooting anyone, he didn't really even know what he was going to do, but he wasn't expecting to actually fire. That was for sure.
What he saw next captured his mind in an instant. There, lying on a stripped bed was the businessman from the photographs. He was probably in his late forties or early fifties, slightly overweight and very average looking. He wore only a pair of ratty briefs and a too-small T-shirt, and lay propped up on a mountain of pillows. He was pantomiming that a pair of women's panties was a female body, and bouncing them off of his groin. The television was tuned to an adult channel, and the screen showed a young woman being taken forcibly. "Wanna come and play," the man began and noticed Byron. "Wha-" he began and started scrambling to his feet. He made it out of the bed and backpedaled directly into a wall, which stopped him. He let out a terrified squeal and farted. "Don... don... don..." he stammered.
"Quiet," Byron snapped. As he did, the cowering businessman raised his hands to his face, and for the first time Byron noticed that the panties he was still holding were a pair of child-sized underwear covered with Poki-mon characters. Byron had fired a half dozen silenced rounds before he knew what he had fired one. It was far past too late.
For a moment, he just stood and stared. Finally, he heard his mind screaming at him. "Move. Move! MOVE!" He had to go. Had to get out of there. Quickly, he tried to pocket the gun, found it was too large to fit with the silencer attached and had to fumble it off. He burned two fingers on the hot metal. He finally fit the two items in separate pockets and got the keycard back into the envelope that it came from. It was his intention to destroy that envelope as soon as he could, but in the last moment that same voice which had questioned his actions earlier did so again. Instinctively it seemed, he slapped the envelope down on the nearest surface, and quietly exited the room, somehow managing to recompose himself.
He slipped back into the hallway and made for the stairs. It was a cheap hotel, but it seemed gigantic. He got to one end of the hall before finding the door was marked "Emergency Exit Only." A klaxon on the wall threatened to give him away should he dare open it. He spun on his heels and made for the other side of the floor looking for the regular stairwell.
As he was walking to the elevator side of the floor he passed a sinle person. A very slight Asian woman who had gone to another floor to get ice stepped out of one elevator and brushed past him. He caught her eyes for a split second, and when she looked back he dropped his own eyes to the floor, but not before he noticed three things. First, the robe she wore was too thin to hide her hardened nipples. Second, her robe betrayed her complete lack of undergarments. Third, Byron Crowe would swear for the rest of his life that there was a thin smile on her lips as she gave him an almost imperceptible nod. He got the feeling as he pushed through the doors to the stairs down that he had just made a very big mistake.
But it was too late. He began to sweat as he raced down the stairs. He had to get to a back door and... he didn't know what to do. He only knew he had to get out, now more than ever since he'd been seen.
----
"If you're not really careful something bad is gonna happen."
"I expect so," he said and disconnected the line.
Several minutes later his phone rang, and at once he answered it. "Miss Song?"
The voice on the other end spoke in a delicate Asian accent. "It's done."
"Very well. Clean it."
"And Byron?"
"He's left the hotel and is no longer any of your concern. Just be sure the photographs are destroyed."
"How did you know he'd leave them," she asked. After a pause, the line was broken. Their converstaion was over.
