Rent Chaos
When a routine sabotage becomes a cold-blooded killing, a reluctant accomplice is forced to confront who he really is and how far he will go.
Just to be clear, I wasn’t there to hurt anyone. I was just there for the money. I met the guy thirty minutes before the car was to arrive. He picked me up on the outskirts of my neighbourhood and drove to the outer reaches of the city, where the earth turned to dust and you could see the trail of sand on the ground gather pace as it was swept up under the morning wind. It was dawn, the best time to commit such an act, I would have thought. I don’t know, I never killed anyone before. Like I said, I was there for the money, not to make friends.
Still, it was a long drive and the silence was deafening.
“You live nearby?” I asked after an hour in the car with him, blowing hot wind between my palms as he drove the rust bucket on with his windows down. He said nothing.
I turned to him, he heard me alright. He just didn’t want to talk. Alright, fair is fair. I felt a bit sheepish. Like I had just lost some intellectual battle of wits. The first one to talk loses. We drove on. Then I felt a little semblance of a victory when he switched on the radio. Turns out he didn’t like the silence either. I got you.
As the sun began to rise the outer desert grew clearer in the morning light and I had this sudden fear wash over me, like maybe it was me who was the one this random guy was sent to get rid of. He didn’t know me, maybe I was the target. Maybe this was all an elaborate hoax to lead me into a false sense of security, but that the real objective in bringing me out here is to be rid of me and bury me out in the desert. Why not?
But who would want to kill me?
I spent the next forty-five minutes listing off all the crazy people I knew and wondering which of them were angry enough to pull off such an act.
“We turn off here,” he suddenly announced. It was the first time I had heard his voice since he picked me up.
“You Gabriel?” he asked back then. I had given a fake name on the dark web, rent-chaos. The first time I had offered my services. Someone was offering twenty grand to lay down tyre punctures for a specific SUV that was to be approaching the turnpike off the grand highway at exactly seven fifteen in the morning of the twenty third. The number plates would read ‘XR8TPU’. Twenty grand was a good number, I volunteered immediately.
“Yeah that’s me,” I said.
“Hop in.”
That was three hours ago. Finally he spoke again.
“The tyre chains are in the back. When I pull over, you go back and grab them. Hand me the other end and we lay them down just past the toll gantry up ahead,” he instructed.
All sounded simple to me. He pulled the car over, I went back to the rear and grabbed the spikes. They were challenging to handle. They spiked at all angles and appeared razor sharp to the touch. No wonder he entrusted that part to me. I felt a little at ease after that, like maybe it wasn’t me who was getting killed.
He took the other end and ran across the road and managed to sprawl out the length of the spikes as he jogged across. I watched as they tightened under the bitumen, ready to score the next vehicle that approached.
When it was laid, he ran back to the car. I followed.
“So now we just wait?” I asked. He didn’t reply.
“You don’t say much, do you?”
Again. Nothing.
“What if another car comes first?” I asked.
He turned to face me.
“No one ever comes first, it’s always him at this hour,” he explained before he turned to look back at the trap. Once I got a taste of the conversation, I couldn’t help myself.
“So who is this guy? Why does he get this treatment?”
No reply, as expected.
“Not even a hint?”
“This man was the judge in my case,” he said. That was all he said.
Then a car could be heard approaching.
“Is that him?” I asked as we both leaned forward, watching the horizon for the vehicle to come into view.
“Is it?”
“Quiet!”
The car sped up into view and seemed to accelerate as it passed us. I watched in what felt like slow motion as it approached the trap of the tyre blades as they pierced all four on his silver coloured SUV, popping them audibly on the bedrock of the desert, the sound reverberating into the distance.
My partner stood and ran out towards the skidding car as it came to a halt some twenty-five metres away from the trap laid. He removed a weapon from his back belt. A pistol, shiny silver. He cocked it and jogged over, faster and faster. He turned to face me.
“Keep my engine running!” he yelled as he turned back to the idle SUV.
I stood still, frozen in time. Helpless to stop him from committing the murder I knew he was about to commit.
Do I watch? Do I run? I can’t stop him, he’s too far away!
The thoughts circled round my mind like a merry-go-round.
I could see him reach the SUV, he started firing round after round. This broke me out of my trance, my hypnosis. I ran back to the car that brought us here. I ran faster than my legs would allow. My mind spoke to me and something inside concocted a plan.
He wants me to be a getaway driver. It’s not unusual for me to run to the car. This is okay. He won’t fire upon me.
I thought.
I made it to the driver side. I got behind the wheel and ignited the engine, slipped into gear and floored it out of there.
Just drive, I said to myself. He can’t get to you now, just drive and don’t stop driving.
Then I remembered as the sound of the chugging vehicle, the rust bucket slowed to a decipherable slowdown and eventual stop.
“You Gabriel?” he had asked me.
“Yeah,” I lied.
“Get in,” he said.
He had then performed some sort of killswitch ritual by which the car roared to life. Some sort of multi-button press that allowed the engine to kick start.
What was that combination? Do I remember?
The car stopped to a halt on the barren, desert road.
I looked in the rear view.
An empty road, breaking off at the horizon.
I dabbled with the buttons that surrounded my vicinity, desperate that I would strike lucky on the combination. I checked the rear view once more.
He wasn’t there yet… But he would be coming soon.