“I…can’t…run…any…more…” AJ gasped as his pace dropped off to, just above, a walk.
“Come ooooon,” I tugged his arm. I was out of breath, too. “We don’t…have much…time.” I glanced at my watch, we only had ten minutes left, before our time was up, and we still had four blocks left.
“There’s no way, we’re gonna make it,” he pulled out his pack and lit up another smoke.
“Quit smoking, while you’re trying to run…that might help, a little,” I glared at him. He rolled his eyes and put out the smoke.
“Alright, let’s get our asses moving,” he sighed as we picked our pace, back up. We, finally, reached the bar…two minutes late.
“Shit, we’re late!” I cursed as I leaned over, resting my hands on my knees. Just as I stood up, I heard a loud boom, in the distance. “Well, I guess something just got blown up…gee…what a fucking surprise!”
“Wonder what it was? And, what the fuck are we supposed to do now?”
“Shh…” I held my hand up, listening closely. I heard tires squealing. I looked around to see a Benz, coming our way. “That can’t be good.” The car came speeding up the street and the windows began to lower. Going by the typical gang type movie…that can only mean one thing! I grabbed AJ’s hand and pulled him inside the bar, just as gun fire began to ring out into the air.
“Okay, you know what, Nick? Fuck this shit!” AJ’s eyes were wide, as we lay face down on the floor. I covered my head, with my hands, as the windows above us shattered.
“I think we’re safe, now,” I sighed as I heard the tires squeal again, in the distance. Standing up, we both brushed the glass off.
“And I think we are the farthest thing, from safe, Nick! What did he say the name of this game was? ‘See how long it takes to kill a Backstreet Boy’?” Our heads popped up, at the shrill sound of a phone ringing.
“I bet that’s for us,” I sighed, looking around for the phone.
“Great…lucky us…” AJ rolled his eyes, pointing to a phone on the wall. I rushed over, snatching the receiver and holding it to my ear.
“Hello?” I hesitantly answered the phone.
“A bit late, are we? That’s too bad. I hope this doesn’t turn into a habit, Mr. Carter.”
“Yeah well…”
“Shut up and listen. There is a key, in the bar which you are standing in…find it. You will need it to open a deposit box numbered 1496. You have 1 hour to find the key and the correct deposit box…for each half hour you go over that limit…someone will die. Once you open the deposit box, you’ll know what to do.”
“Wait…” Of course, it was no use, the line went dead. “We have to find a key, AJ. It’s somewhere in the bar and we have to find it. Then we have to locate the right deposit box for it…the number is 1496 but he didn’t say what bank.”
“Peachy,” AJ let out a long exasperated sigh, as he began to rummage around. “Don’t forget to look in the most obvious areas, Nick. It could be right in front of our faces.”
“Yeah…the best place to hide something is right under my nose.”
“I found it!” AJ hollered 20 minutes later. “The dumb fuck taped it to the back of the mirror, on the wall.”
“Great. Now what? I don’t even know where to begin, trying to find which bank we have to be at.” I ran my fingers through my hair. We had about 40 minutes to find the matching deposit box, before something else happened. I snatched the key, from AJ. Looking down at it, I turned it over several times…it was a really weird looking key.
“It’s not an ordinary key,” AJ shrugged his shoulders, as we headed out of the building.
“Maybe if we just pick a bank, they could at least tell us where to go. I mean, they would recognize this kind of key, right?” I huffed as we jogged, down the street. Looking for a bank, any bank, we had already jogged five blocks.
“There…look…” AJ pointed to a small bank, on the corner.
“Never heard of it,” I noted, raising an eyebrow. “But hey, it’s worth a shot.” We ran, up to the steps and entered through the large wooden doors. The lighting was dim and the smell was musty. It was everything you wouldn’t expect from a bank. Slowly, I walked up to the woman at the front and only desk.
“How may I help you?”
“Yeah, um, my….uh…grandmother passed and, uh, she left me this key,” I stumbled, over my words, as I held out the key. “I think it’s to a safe deposit box, but I don’t know what bank.”
“Ah yes, well, you’ve come to the right place,” she smiled.
“I…I did?” She couldn’t be serious! This was the first on that we tried. It couldn’t be that easy…could it?
“He did?”
“Yes,” she giggled. She led us into a back room. After looking at the key again, she punched a series of numbers into a keypad, on the wall. AJ and I watched, in amazement, as the back wall rose, slowly, to reveal a whole other room. “Come with me.” AJ and I looked at each other with confusion, before following the woman.
“Um…” I started, but was cut off as the woman spoke over me.
“Alright,” she smiled at me, holding her hand out towards a glass encased wall. “Your deposit box has, now, been automatically positioned behind the bulletproof glass. You have to enter your eight digit code into the system, over there. You must enter your code, exactly; otherwise you will be locked out of the database for 24 hours. Okay?”
“And…what if…I forgot my code?” I asked, softly, staring at the box behind the glass.
“Well, the code is only in this system and cannot be accessed by anyone. Not even employees. I suggest you remember it because there is no other way to get the box. We can’t look it up and the system cannot be gotten into. There isn’t even a way for anyone to break in and get the boxes,” she shrugged. She stepped off, to the other side of the room and told us to take our time.
“He didn’t give me a code, AJ! We’re so screwed! It could be anything,” my eyebrows scrunched as I threw my hands in the air.
“Well…did he say anything else on the phone? Anything at all that could have been translated into a code?” AJ asked, leaning close to the glass, looking at the box.
“Just some rhyme. It sounded kind of familiar, but I don’t know where I’ve heard it before.” I shrugged, sliding down the wall. I rested my head, in my hands and let out a long sigh.
“Come on, what the hell was it?” AJ pressed, kneeling beside me.
“Um…it was…,” I put my fingers on my temple, trying to recall his exact rhyme. “A Chinese man who eats his sticks...no, no…with sticks…A Chinese man who eats with sticks. A fat…no big…a big magician doing tricks…” I held my hands out, on front of me, as I tried to piece the rhyme back together.
“That’s it, Nicky, come on…” AJ coaxed me gently, looking up into my eyes.
“A ten foot beard that needs a…god what was it? It needs a…a…COMB! That’s it!” I took a deep breath and blurted, “No time for more, I’m almost home!”
“Okay so what do we get with a Chinese dude, a magician and a beard?” AJ turned, on his knee and plopped next to me. We were down to having only 12 minutes of time, left.
“A Chinese man who eats with sticks, a big magician doing tricks, a ten foot beard that needs a comb, no time for more I’m almost home.” I recited.
“Dr. Seuss.” The woman blurted, causing AJ and I to turn to her.
“What?” we both asked, raising our eyebrows.
“It’s Dr. Seuss. From his book, ‘And To Think I Saw It On Mulberry Street’. It’s one of my all time favorite books. It was the first children’s book he ever wrote…published in 1937.”
“Okay… it is an eight digit numbered code…” I stood to my feet and began to pace. “It has something to do with Dr. Seuss…most likely, that particular book.” I sighed, shaking my head. Like I knew anything about this dumb book! How was I supposed to remember something like that? I’d be lucky if I had ever been read the whole book…it’s not like my mom was the type to read bedtime stories. I may have heard parts of it, but I doubt I’ve heard it in its entirety.
“Alright…let’s talk this out, Nick,” AJ stood and began to pace, opposite of me. We crossed paths as we started to ramble.
“Okay, it was published in 1937…but that’s only four numbers. Maybe add the month and day?” I started waving my hands around, while I spoke, as if it would help.
“No. It wouldn’t be that hard. There’s no way to just know that…it’s got to be something we can easily figure out.” AJ shook his head, as we crossed paths again.
“Okay…what about the number of pages? Uh, what about…um, the actual story…is there a number in the story?”
“Dude, I can’t even remember the story,” AJ huffed, in frustration. We were down to nine minutes.
“Me either…”
“Marco is the boy in the story and he walks down Mulberry street. He sees a horse and carriage but his imagination runs wild and it turns into an elaborate story with a zebra, brass band, elephant, airplane, the Chinese guy…you know. It gets pretty wild,” the girl started to giggle.
“But, are there any numbers?” AJ questioned, with a high level of irritancy.
“No.”
“Come ON! Think!” I scolded myself, rubbing my temples. “Maybe it’s not that book…maybe it is Dr. Seuss himself…like his birthday or something.”
“You know…the keypad has letters on the numbers, just like a telephone…so technically, it could be a word,” the woman gave us a half smile.
“Oh…well, great, because that just triples the number of possibilities!” AJ huffed.
“Okay…focus,” I huffed, still pacing. “How many words are in the title?” I lifted my fingers and started to count, “And…To…Think…I…Saw…It…On…Mulberry….Street damn it, that’s 10! The eighth word is…uh…‘on’…that can’t be it.”
“This shouldn’t be this complicated!” AJ shouted, banging his fists, on the wall. “We’ve literally got like one minute to figure this out!”
“Oh my God,” I stopped, mid stride, and laughed. I rushed over the keypad and typed in my answer, watching eight little stars appear on the screen. AJ stood, looking over my shoulder. “Here goes nothing!” We both held our breath, as I hit the enter key.
“Holy fucking shit! You did it, Nick! You fucking did it!” AJ screamed, spinning my around. He pulled me into a hug and I returned it, happily. “What the hell was the damn code?”
“Mulberry. This whole damn time, the fucking code was Mulberry! How obvious is that?” I laughed. We both started screaming and jumping around like little teeny groupies. A loud buzzing filled the room, causing us to stop. I turned, arm still across AJ’s shoulder, to see the deposit box drop onto a conveyor belt. Our eyes followed it as it went around to the side and shoved the box out of a small hatch door.
“Time to see our next clue,” AJ sighed. Both of us came down from our elation and back to reality. This was far from over and we both knew it. I picked up the deposit box and took it over to the small table.
“You ready for this?” I questioned, holding up the key.
“Not even close.” He shook his head and leaned onto the table, to watch me open it. Slowly, I inserted the key and turned it. After hearing it click, I lifted the lid and my heart dropped.
“You’re shitting me! How fucking twisted is this mother fucker? UGH, what an ass hole! Is he for real?” AJ slammed his fists onto the table, as I stood motionless. All I could do was stare.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Sorry it took so long. I hope you guys will be happy with this chapter!
