Part 6:

How About a Board Game?

Mo and Gus walked quickly through the gravel and down the left side of the warehouse where they had stashed the truck. Gus had backed it under an old rotten tree, where the branches hung low enough to cover the top of the truck, as well as most of the windshield. Around the tires, he had pushed dead wood and weeds, which hid it well when coupled with the darkness.

Mo pushed his way through the underbrush to the driver’s side and yanked open the door, while Gus cleared the tires and then climbed in the passenger side beside him. Gunning the engine, Mo threw the car into drive, as they bumped out from beneath the tree, the branches scraping like nails on a chalkboard across the windshield.

"The little fucker can’t have gone too far,” Mo said, as he flipped the wheel hard to the right and gunned the engine. They bumped down through a small ravine and up the other side, which took them directly behind the warehouse. Mo tapped on the brake and then pushed hard on the gas, plowing through the field in the direction of where Brian was now running.

***

Brian was jogging back through the field when he heard the sounds of the truck firing up, making his blood run cold. Dropping to his stomach, he pressed himself down into the dirt and waited. He could hear the truck revving, and then he heard it lurch forward.

Crawling on his belly, he kept his eyes straight ahead, looking for any signs of the truck and where it might be headed. It was hard to see anything through the tall weeds, and he knew that if they were looking for him, which they most likely were, they wouldn’t use the headlights.

Lying there, trying to figure out what to do next, he suddenly remembered his cell phone. Son of a bitch, he thought, reaching his hand back to his back pocket. In the middle of all of the chaos, he had forgotten that he had tucked the phone in his pocket before he had entered the warehouse. He didn’t know if he would be able to pick up a signal out here in the middle of nowhere, but he was hopeful. Hell, this was California; there had to be cell phone signals running over every square inch of this state.

***

Howie sat on the edge of the bathtub in his hotel bathroom, his hands shaking and tears pooling in his eyes. He knew that he had just heard the sound of death on the other end of the cell phone in his hand. Looking down at the phone, he quickly hit redial and was redirected into Brian’s voicemail. Hitting redial again, he stood up and walked out of the bathroom into the master suite.

"Collette, get up!” he yelled as he walked around the bed, hitting redial over and over, hoping someone would answer.

"What?" she mumbled, as he threw back the covers, looking for the scrap of paper on which he had written down the address Leighanne had given to him.

"I need you to help me." He sounded desperate as he reached over to snap on the light on his nightstand. Just as he pulled his hand back, he connected with a glass of water, which was also on the nightstand. The glass tipped sideways as water splashed up and over the rim. Howie reached for the glass to stop it from falling, but it was too late. The glass rolled and smashed to the floor, sending water and pieces of broken glass everywhere. Looking down, Howie gasped as the water saturated the scrap of paper he was looking for that lay on the floor by the bed.

"Oh Jesus, Jesus, no!" He dropped to his knees, retrieving the paper from the floor, but it was no use; the words and numbers were a blur of black that was bleeding down the page onto his hands.

"What happened, baby?" Collette was lying on her stomach on the bed, looking over Howie's shoulder.

"Take this." Howie thrust the cell phone at her as he grabbed for the hotel phone on his nightstand. "Keep hitting redial; if anybody answers, give the phone to me.” She took the phone from his shaking hand, a look of worry in her big brown eyes as she hit redial and put the phone to her ear.

Howie stood up, swiping tears from his cheeks as he waited for Leighanne to pick up the phone.

"Yes?” She answered on the second ring.

"Leighanne, give me that address again.” Howie's voice was shaky, his words harsh sounding.

"What’s going on?"

"Give me the fucking address now.” He heard her set the phone down, and in seconds, she returned, reading the address off to him over and over as he scribbled it down on the palm of his hand.

"Howie, what’s wrong, what’s happening?" Her voice was hysterical, and he could tell she was also crying now.

"Nick is dying, Leighanne. I have to get him help. He’s dying.”

Leighanne let out a blood-curdling scream as she dropped the phone to the floor.

***

Nick lay on the floor of the warehouse, the cell phone dropped to the ground by his head, his body still. His mind slowly began to fade… He could see the angry waters, and he knew that he was all alone. A wave towered over his head, as he choked back tears. Then the wave came crashing down over him… and his mind faded to black…

***

Howie read off the address to the police dispatcher. He had already been rerouted twice and put on hold once. He pleaded in a desperate tone for them to get his friend help.

"He’s dying!" Howie screamed into the phone at the calm woman on the other end. "Get someone out there now. He is Nick Carter, a singer in The Backstreet Boys, and he needs help.”

"Okay, Sir, you are going to need to calm down," she replied in a flat, monotone voice, with absolutely no clue who The Backstreet Boys were. " I have sent an ambulance and some officers to the address you have given me. Can you tell me what your friend is dying of?"

"I don’t know what the fuck he is dying of. What are you asking me such a stupid question for? If I tell you that he’s dying, then that means he is dying and needs help. What the fuck difference does it make what he is dying from?"

"Sir, you need to calm down.”

"Fuck you.” Howie threw the phone across the room, watching it smash into a reproduction of Monet’s Waterlillies that hung on the hotel wall. Glass shattered, spewing everywhere, as Collette let out a scream and dropped the cell phone to the bed.

"Howie, you’re scaring me. Please tell me what’s going on?" she begged, as he stormed past her to the walk-in closet.

"Don’t stop hitting redial!” he shouted over his shoulder, as he threw open the closet doors and disappeared inside.

Collette scooped up the cell phone and hit redial again, frustrated as it took her repeatedly into the voice mailbox. "Who is dying, Howie? What is going on? Will you please talk to me?"

He came out of the closet, wearing a pair of jeans and tugging on a black turtleneck sweater. Running his hands through his hair, he stepped into a pair of black loafers by the bed and grabbed for his keys on the marble-topped dresser.

"Give me the phone.” He held out his hand, waiting for Collette to hand it to him. She handed it over, her bottom lip trembling.

"Please don’t go, Howie. Whatever it is, please let the police take care of it.”

He shook his head as he turned and walked to the door, Collette on his heels. He hit redial over and over as he walked quickly across the living room and down the hallway to the front door of the suite.

"Whatever you do, don’t open this door to anybody, do you hear me?" She nodded, her eyes pooling with tears. "I promise I will call you when I figure out what the hell is going on." Cupping his hand beneath her chin, he tilted it up to him and smiled. "I promise everything will be okay, Collette.” Pressing a warm kiss to her forehead, he smiled and walked out the door, slamming it behind him.

***

The cell phone was gone. Brian was frantically searching through the weeds and brush around him, hoping that the phone had fallen from his pocket when he had hit the ground, but there was nothing.

And then, before he even had a chance to mourn the loss of the cell phone and think of another plan, the headlights to the truck flashed on twenty feet in front of him, blinding him as the car charged forward, flashing on its brights.

"Shit!" Rolling to his right, the wheel of the truck missed Brian by inches as it roared past him, kicking dirt up in its path. Opening his eyes, Brian fully expected the truck to turn around, come back, and run him down, but instead, it plowed forward towards the horizon in the direction he had first been running. Son of a bitch, they hadn’t seen him. Scrambling up onto his feet, Brian stayed low as he ran towards the warehouse, a slight smile on his face.

***

Howie strode across the lobby of the plush Beverly Wilshire Hotel towards the concierge.

"I need a car and a driver immediately!” he shouted, his words echoing off of the crystal and marble all around him. The man snapped his head up with a confused look, grabbing for the phone on his desktop.

Once at the desk, Howie stopped. Reaching in his back pocket for his billfold, he pulled out a wad of bills and peeled off two fifty dollar bills, pushing them across the small desk top to the man.

"Yes, Mr. Dorough, they are pulling a car around the front right now for you, sir.”

"Do you have a pen and piece of paper?" Howie's hands were sweating, and he was worried that the address he had written on the palm of his hand would smear. The concierge handed him a hotel pen and piece of stationary. Howie quickly scribbled the address down and tossed the pen back to the man. Then he walked to the front doors of the hotel and outside to the waiting town car that was idling at the curb.

Climbing in the car, he handed the driver the piece of hotel stationary with the address on it, telling him it was an emergency and he needed to get Howie there as fast as possible. The driver closed the door behind him, tipping his cap as he walked around to the driver’s side door. Sinking back in the plush leather seats, Howie looked out the tinted window to the darkened streets and prayed for a miracle.

***

Leighanne sat on the floor of her loft, staring at the phone on the floor beside her.

Nick was dying.

And Brian was with Nick.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, she grabbed for the phone and dialed Brian’s cell phone number. She was directed into his voice mail,

“This is Brian. Leave a message, and I’ll call you back.”

"Brian, it’s me. Baby, where are you? What’s going on? Please call me back, please.” She held the phone tightly against her chest, her heart pounding, her head spinning. She tried to picture his face the last time she had seen him… tried to remember what they had said to each other. In the midst of all of the fighting, had she told him that she loved him?

Images swirled through her mind, a million miles an hour. Images of the first time they had met, his sweet smile and quirky sense of humor. The way he held her hand when they walked down the street and the softness of his lips when he kissed her on the forehead. She thought back to their wedding, so grand and elegant, like a fairytale. The way he had held her when they danced and the sparkle in his eyes when he had told her that he loved her.

And now it was over, and she wished she had it all back.

***

Nanette had been a dispatcher for the police department for almost twenty years, and in those twenty years, she had heard it all. She was used to people praising her in one breath and berating her in another when they were upset, so this last call was no different then a million others when she logged it in her reports, shaking her head.

Her coworker Pauline walked up behind her, looking over her shoulder, as Nanette's hands flew over the keyboard, logging what info she had been given from the last call. She was just entering the name “Nick Carter” and “Backstreet Boys” as Pauline sat down beside her, eyes wide.

"Is that call for real?" she asked, her eyes skimming over the details. Pauline had two young teenage daughters, so she was well-versed in boyband trivia. Who was the cutest, who was the ugliest, who sang the best songs, and who was dating whom.

"I guess. The man on the other end of the call was very upset. He ended up hanging up on me.” Nanette finished her entry and submitted the report. "Why, do you know who this Nick is?"

"Of course." Pauline slid up a chair and sat down beside Nan. "He’s in The Backstreet Boys. They're a singing group; they have had tons of hits. You haven’t heard of them?"

Nanette shook her head. She had never had children, and at almost fifty years old, she had no need to watch MTV.

"Nan, I don’t know if that was a crank call or not, but I think that you should send a few more policemen out. If what the man on the other end of that call says is true, we could have something major on our hands.”

Nanette placed the call in to the department, requesting more backup. They had already sent out one ambulance and two uniformed officers. When Nanette relayed to them what she knew about the call and Nick’s celebrity status, they agreed to send out more police officers and to keep her informed of what they found.

The police and ambulance were already on route to the address provided when the call came across the wire for more backup. The were about twenty minutes out from the site and had already figured, based upon the area of town they were headed into, that it was most likely a routine drug deal gone bad or something of that nature.

They had no idea.

***

Brian ran down along the side of the warehouse, picking up his speed as he hit the clearing. He glanced for a brief moment toward the warehouse doors, wondering if Nick was holding on. He just had to be, Brian thought, because the alternative was too painful to imagine.

Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw and heard no signs of the truck. They must still be cruising the land in the back of the warehouse, which gave Brian the motivation to run faster down the dirt road in front of him. He tried to keep his mind focused on getting to the main road. Once out there, he would just keep running until he saw a car. He would then flag it down and beg for help.

The sky had turned a shade lighter, as morning tried to push through, but Brian could see it was a typical overcast day and that no matter how hard it tried, it would be hours before he would see sunlight. He was trying to stay focused on the road ahead, but his mind kept drifting… He didn’t even hear the sound of the truck as it pulled onto the dirt road, headlights dimmed, and gunned its engine.

***

"There that little shit is,” Mo said through clenched teeth, pushing his foot on the gas, his knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel.

Gus reached for his seat belt; he had a feeling he was in for one hell of a ride.

***

Brian was thinking about the last time he and Nick had played Monopoly together. He didn’t know why that popped into his head just then, but for some reason, it did.

They had been on tour promoting Millennium and were in some random hotel in Utah. A.J. and Howie decided to go clubbing, since it was going to be a two-night concert and they would be staying overnight. Kevin was in his room playing poker with some of the road crew, which left Nick and Brian trying to think of something to do. Brian knew that Nick wanted to go with A.J. and Howie, but in the end, he waved them off and shut the hotel room door behind them, leaning back against it with a sigh.

"So whadda you want to do?" he asked Brian.

Brian was sitting on the king-sized bed, remote in hand, flipping through the channels. "It’s midnight; I figured I would just turn in.”

"Bor-r-r-r-r-r-ring.” Nick rolled his eyes. "I’m wired from the show; I wanna do something.”

"Then why didn’t you go with the guys?"

"I just felt like hanging out with you.” Nick shrugged, walking across the room, hands jammed in the pockets of his well-worn gray sweatpants. "Do you want to play a game?"

"No video games; I’m not in the mood.”

"How about a board game?" Nick leaned against the cabinet that housed the TV, as well as the liquor.

"We don’t have any board games.” Brian snapped off the TV and tossed the remote onto the bed. Nick smiled his lopsided grin, waggling his eyebrows as he headed for the phone.

Thirty minutes later, a bellhop arrived with a brand new Monopoly game, still in the shrink wrap. Nick gave him a $100 tip for his trouble and went about setting up the game, whining, as always, that he had to be the top hat, as he sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed opposite Brian, who had settled for being the race car.

The game started out the same as always. Nick went around the board half a dozen times, collecting money, while Brian snapped up properties. After an hour and a half had passed, Nick owned Oriental Ave, Baltic, and St. Charles place, and he had about six hotels on each one. Brian owned just about everything else.

"I hate this stupid game,” Nick said after landing on Go To Jail for the eighth time.

Brian just laughed as he placed another hotel on Park Place. As Nick moved the top hat down the board to the jail space, he ended up knocking all of Brian’s hotels off of the yellow properties. "Sorry.”

"No you’re not; you did that on purpose,” Brian said, picking up the hotels off of the bedspread and placing them back on the spaces.

"No I didn’t.”

"Yes you did. You’re a sore loser.”

"You’re the loser,” Nick snapped back, as Brian spread his arms out over the board as if to say, Look at all my properties, and look at yours.

"Yeah, you’re right, Nick; I’m the loser. What have you got there? Three properties and about six dollars?"

Just as Brian finished his sentence, Nick picked up the racecar and threw it across the room. Brian picked up Nick’s top hat and threw it in the opposite direction. Then Nick grabbed the board and flipped it in the air as hotels, houses, and money went flying, a hotel hitting Brian right between the eyes.

"Now that I did on purpose,” Nick said, folding his arms over his chest with a snotty grin.

Brian’s first instinct was to slap him upside the head and knock that stupid smirk right off of his face, but instead, he started to laugh. He started to laugh so hard, tears were streaming down his face. Looking around the room at the scattered Monopoly money everywhere and hotels and houses littering the bed and floor, along with the game board that was now facedown by the window on the far wall, only made him laugh harder.

Nick looked at him like he was crazy, but then, suddenly, the laughter became contagious. The two of them laughed so hard, their stomachs hurt and they couldn’t even talk…

Brian was trying to remember what happened next, when suddenly, the main road came into view. It was so close, he could feel the asphalt under his feet. Breaking out in a wide grin, he was just starting to pick up his pace a little when the truck clipped him from behind, sending him up and onto the windshield with a loud thud.

***

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