Hello it's me. Chase Episode #2

 

Hello, it’s me.

Chase. Episode #2



Me. Text: I’m in Vegas, what ’cha got? Phone rings in my hand.

Me #2: “Caesars Palace, Lucky run in the fifth to win, all in, loud click in my ear. No small talk, I guess.”

Drove the strip until I saw Caesars, pulled into a nearby parking garage, short walk in the sun and right to the betting window. Guy looked at me like I was crazy when I handed over $500 for Lucky run to win. I’d better win, I don’t have money for lunch now. “Race is in two hours.” He tells me with a smirky face.

Well, what to do for two hours. So, I’m supposed to be a numbers guy, let’s go see. I wondered over to the blackjack tables and stood back and watched for a few minutes. The guy closest to me I can see his cards; he’s got a queen and a two, hit, eighteen, he stands. This goes on for a few minutes and I step up a little closer so I can see the cards as they hit the table. I’m starting to see a nice pattern, I’m calling the cards in my head before they hit the table, eight, next is a King, ten, I missed one but I’m getting better. Guy in front of me has had enough. He gets off his stood and nearly runs into me. “Sorry, you can have my chair I’m not winning today.” “Oh… not me I’m outta money I’m just watching now.” I say kind of with an eye roll. He hands me two chips. “Here, it’s only ten bucks but maybe you can do better than I’ve been doing.”

I take his chair.

“Bet?” the dealer says.

“Let it go around a couple times, I need to get my head in the game.”

“Bet”

I lay down my two chips, Jack and a two. Hit, six, hold.

My two hours are up and I’m packing $250 worth of chips to the window to cash and my Lucky run ticket comes to $2750 bucks. They take 25% out for taxes and I’m out the door looking for a nice lunch spot.

Me, Text: $2750 less tax.

Me #2, Text: $2750? Should have been $2500?

Me, Text: Blackjack.

Me #2, Text: Good with numbers all of a sudden huh? Get out of town, head South and then East to New Mexico.

Two days later.

Me, Text: I’m in Gallup, New Mexico. Phone rings.

Me #2. “Hi, nice work on Blackjack. Go to the nearest liquor store. On the New Mexico Lottery play 24,18,5,32 and 9 as the power ball. Buy a good GPS after placing your numbers and head for Santa Fe, get a place along Hwy 84 and 599.”

Me: “Okay I’m on my way. When is the lottery being called?”

Me #2. “This Saturday and you can cash out Monday. Lay low, I’ll bet with having to give up tax information they are out looking hard. I’m pretty sure they will put most assets in Utah, but we need to be very careful. When you pick up the cash they will know where to look.”

Me: “Why the GPS?”

Me #2: “I need you to do a money drop for me, I’m cashed out also. I’ll give you the coordinates and you bury me some money.”

Me: “Will that work? I’ll pick up a small waterproof container, how do we know it will be there in your time 25 years from me in the future?”

Me #2: “I’m heading to Santa Fe also, I’ll go out and find a place that hasn’t been touched for years. I’ll pick a place with a good landmark and get the coordinates a couple hundred yards out from it, where there are no tire marks or trails. Should be safe enough, no one just goes out and tears up an area out in the open up for no good reason.”

Sitting in a crappy little Hotel isn’t what I’m good at. Bored to death with the TV and sick of order out I can’t wait for Monday to cash out.

Monday.

Me, Text: Holly shit, $40,000 less tax! No one’s going to notice?

Me #2, Text: Oh, they are going to notice. Go about three miles on Hwy 599 to Camino de loss Montoyas Rd. Head to Calabasas Trail head, it’s about eight miles. Take the main trail out two miles, there is a rock formation to the left with three little peaks, go west in a direct line with the three peaks, exactly one hundred yards out from the peaks is a lone rock about the size of a Volkswagen bug. Go another sixty feet west of it and bury the money. 35.72356, -105.96278 make sure you are standing on those coordinates.

Me, Text: How much do you want?

Me #2, Text: Give me 10k, that will keep me going for a while. You need a decent car, first pick up anything else you need in town, pay cash. Then pick up a car next week. I’ll talk to you after I pick up the money probably Wednesday so you have time to get out there. I’m going to be looking for a guy to get some new ID, I’ll find out if he was doing ID’s back in 2023 and where he was.

Me, Text: Okay got it.

I hiked the two miles from the Trail head parking lot, there as it should be where the three peaks. I headed to the West end and lined them up in a row down looking down the towards the East. Walking as straight as I could around the little juniper trees, I was close to a hundred yard and found the lone rock sitting in a small clearing, nearest tree was about fifteen to twenty yards out. Checking the GPS for the coordinates I walked very slowly letting the device catch up as I moved pretty straight away from the rock West bound. The GPS read 35.72356 – 105.96278. I stood still for a few minutes making sure the unit was satisfied with the reading. Dumping my little backpack, more a day pack I scrapped the top needles and sand away to one side and dug down about ten inches, flattened out the bottom and laid the clear waterproof plastic Tupperware type container in the bottom, you could clearly see the hundred dollar bills inside as I pushed mixed sand and small stones over the top. I packed the soil down every couple inches and finished off with the twigs and needles that cover the ground in this area. Checking the GPS coordinates again it still read the correct numbers. I thought ran through my mind that this would sit here for 25 years just to be dug up by myself in the future; funny thought and extremely hard to get my head around.

I cut cross country back towards the parking lot. I was coming to the lot at an odd angle since I was off trail and could just start to make out cars parked through the juniper trees. Winding the last few yards between trees I saw something strange; alarms were going off in my head, something wasn’t right. I stepped in close to the trunk of the nearest tree hopefully I hadn’t been seen. I climbed up about three limbs where I could see out of the tree towards the parking lot. In the back row of the little Trail head parking was a woman in a wheelchair wearing a blue dress. My hair was standing straight up; I’ve seen her before. She was lined up where she could see down the trail as it left the parking lot, anyone keeping to the Trail would be visible for minutes before they got to the Trail head.

Me: “Shit pick up, I’m in big trouble. Come on.” Five rings, nine rings, twelve rings.

Me #2: “Hello”

Me: “OH FUCK, there’s a woman in a wheelchair I’ve seen before, she watching for me!”

Me #2: “Are you safe now?”

Me: “I think so, I buried the cash and headed back cross country and when I got to the parking lot, I saw her sitting looking down the trail. She didn’t see me, but I’ve seen her before in Vegas, she sticks out like a sore thumb in that blue dress and wheelchair.”

Me #2: Okay, that’s a glitch in the number system we made. They are pushing it way past it’s limits and are having problems keeping it stable. You’ve seen the Movie “The Matrix” haven’t you, I’m sure I watched the first two, then got bored and didn’t watch three or four or however many they made.”

Me: “You’ve got to be kidding, we made this and now they are after me using our system like in the Matrix?”

Me #2: “They’ve got to be tracking you on the phone again. Head back out to the three peaks and dump the phone where you can see it from a good distance and wait. I need to know just how far they’ve pushed this; we both could be in some real trouble if I’m right on what’s possible. Did you leave the money in the car? I don’t think you can go back without walking into their trap.”

Me: “No I’ve got it with me, I bought pre-paid VISA cards so they are in my pocket.”

Me #2: “Damn I didn’t think of that at all, your already better at this than me. Hurry out and drop the phone where you can see it, make sure you are as far off as you can get and still see it. Don’t get spotted. Your going to have to make it back to town and start off at zero again. Get another drop phone and call me. Good luck.”

Me: “I’m not sure how much longer my luck is going to hold out.”

I turned on my heel and jogged in the sand back to the three peaks. I climbed the most Western peak and found a spot I could run out the backside in a hurry. Out from the main trail I see and nice wide-open spot clearly from about two hundred yards from my hide. I made a wide approach to that spot and dropped the phone in the middle of the clearing. I did everything I could think of to hide my tracks but I’m no back woods guy so if they worked at it they could track me to this exact spot with little trouble.

It's been a long day, two miles out, two miles back and a killer jog back two miles, rock climbing and dumping the phone, I’m beat. I’m hopeful I can stay awake long enough to watch the phone.

Two hours; my eyes are blurred, dry and I can’t stay awake much longer with the sun starting to go down and the temperature is dropping.

Eyes popping wide open, I drop so only my eyes can see over the rocks I’m hidden in. The woman in the blue dress is searching for the phone, no wheelchair as her long dress drags the sandy ground like she’s floating with no feet. She’s swinging right then left like a blood hound trying to find the scent. Five yards out she spots the phone in the little clearing; slowly she approaches it, drops down on her knees she crawls up to it and I can see she’s smelling the phone in long deep breathes.

Two hundred yards is a long ways away, but I feel like I’m five feet away as she comes up on her knees head swaying left and right looking for the scent in the air. My head is wavering, I might faint as I watch her shake and twitch molding into another form. She’s now a wolf.

My shin skips off a rock outcrop as I run in shear panic. My only thought is to get away, how fast the now wolf can catch me has to be short. I’m hyper ventilating as I run away. I head North West as I remember the road snakes up towards the Trail head from that direction, my only hope is to make the road and somehow get in a vehicle, on foot I’m dead.

I can hear the road as one lone car passes somewhere a short distance a head. I can see the black top, down a ten-foot embankment I’m on the pavement. Sitting fifty yards down the road a car is parked in a small pullout with a small boy standing with the front passenger door open peeing. I can hear the dad in my head “Why didn’t you pee before we left the Trail head?” I sprint to the car grabbing the boy under my arm and jumping into the front seat. Screaming in Dad’s face behind the wheel “Go go there’s a wolf chasing me GOOOOOOOO…..” I slam the door “Please go or we’re all dead!” I’m holding the boy tight and twisting to look out the back window. Down the embankment only fifty yards behind where I came out of the woods the wolf makes the jump and lands in the center of the two lane road a good forty foot jump. Dad is looking now in the mirror “What the hell?” He floors it.

From the Ramblings

t