Turn Up the Heat

Turn Up the Heat

“Turn up the heat,” Phantom said. Phantom was a small thin man, 25 years old, who fiddled with his hands as though he would perform a magic trick.

“We can’t afford it, not until we sell those jewels,” said Jigsaw, a big man with a small moustache and a large paunch. “Put on a coat. You’ll warm up.” He went back to his soap opera.

“It’s snowing outside. We have icicles on the eaves,” Phantom pleaded. They had rented a two-story house 10 miles outside the town. The tap water, if it ran, came out brown. The place had no storm windows and the insulation was no thicker than candy wrappers. The stairs squeaked and creaked like small animals in pain.

“I can’t hear you,” Jigsaw said. He slid back on the sofa and pulled a blanket around his bulky shoulders. Something hard and cold cracked over his head. “What the–?” He picked up a shard from the broken icicle and threw it at Phantom’s chest, which knocked him back a few inches.

Phantom charged him with the remaining half of the icicle. Jigsaw slid aside and punched his solar plexus. “Uhhhhh,” Phantom said.

“Leave me alone,” Jigsaw said. “You’re stir-crazy. Take a rest. Do some pushups. If we show our faces around town, we’re likely to be picked up for questioning. We need the heat to die down.”

Phantom slammed a fist into the living room wall and shouted,. “I’m not crazy! I’m bipolar, and I’ve got the meds to prove it.”

Jigsaw chuckled. “You put the bottles on the shelf like they’re trophies. You’re supposed to take the pills in them, you moron.”

“I’m not a moron, or you wouldn’t bring me along for your jobs.”

“Sure, you’re Einstein on steroids.” Under his breath, he muttered, “Still a moron.”

“So why do you bring me along?” Phantom glared at Jigsaw.

“Good help is hard to find these days.”

“Your helpers are serving time,” Phantom said. “Razorback shoulda moved those jewels by now. You know that and I know that. I’ve got big plans for that payoff.”

Jigsaw said, “He’s not as stupid as you. He knows they’re hot. If he moves them now, we all get trapped in a net and served to the D.A.” 

Phantom said, “The snow has stopped. I need fresh air. I’ve smelled your sweat and your farts for two weeks. I can’t take it anymore.”

Jigsaw rose from the sofa. “All right, I’ll take a shower and we’ll take a drive around town, get some fresh winter air. We’ll have to stay in the car. Leave your gun in its place.” He waddled toward the bathroom. 

Ten minutes later they squeezed into a green VW Bug and drove downtown, which had a string of snow-covered roofs of office buildings intermixed with fast-food restaurants. They saw no one they knew. Jigsaw took the Bug into the country and they dashed down tree-lined lanes as fast as he could push the venerable German engine. They passed farmhouses and pastures where horses and cattle grazed, nosing through the snow for grass.. He came to an intersection with another country road, took a left, and accelerated. He was only 25 miles over the speed limit when the deputy pulled him over.

“Keep your mouth shut, Phantom,” said Jigsaw, who rolled down the window. He put his hands on the dashboard. “Put your hands on the dashboard, moron,” he said. “Then he knows we don’t have weapons.” Phantom did as he told. “I forgot to tell you–”

“Shut up,” Jigsaw said. 

The deputy approached the vehicle. He was about six feet four, with big biceps. He wore sunglasses. He wore a blue uniform with a black belt at his waist that had the state logo on the buckle.

Jigsaw rolled down the window. The deputy leaned into the already crowded car, which made it jammed.

“Aren’t you out of your jurisdiction, officer?” Jigsaw asked.

“No, sir,” the deputy said. “Driver’s license and registration, please,” he said.

“I’ll have to check the glove box,” Jigsaw said. The cop nodded. Jigsaw fumbled in the glove box and came up with the registration. “I’m getting my wallet from my back pocket,” he told the deputy. He pulled out his wallet and handed the driver’s license to the deputy, along with the registration card. 

The deputy glanced at the license and said, “Hold on a minute while I do some checking.” He turned his back and returned to his patrol car. The gun in his right-handed holster bounced up and down as he walked.

Seconds passed, minutes passed. Jigsaw looked at his watch, then in his rear view mirror. The deputy talked on a phone. That was all he could see. Phantom’s hands circled in and out, faster and faster like a drunken magician. Jigsaw said, “Down, boy. They don’t have our fingerprints from the robbery because we wore gloves. They don’t have our faces because we wore ski masks. They don’t have much coverage because I blew out their cameras. So relax.”

“My fingers are itchy,” Phantom said. “I need some action.”

“We’ll have action when the heat dies down. You’ll spruce up your truck and take your sweetie out to dinner at a high-class restaurant.” Jigsaw started the engine and ran the windshield wipers to clear the snow away. In his patrol car, the deputy looked up and back down again.

“I need to stretch my legs.” Phantom opened the door and stepped into a cold pile of snow. “I shoulda worn my boots instead of my tennis shoes,” he said. 

“Didn’t your mother teach ya nothin’?”

“Naaa, she sat on the porch and smoked and rocked and told us to make our own dinners.” Phantom lifted each foot in turn and set it down in the snow. His hands fiddled in the air like they were making a sandwich.

“No dad?”

“He left as soon as she was pregnant with me,” Phantom said. “.He loved the bottle more than my mother or a baby. Last seen in Dearborn, Michigan at a bank.”

Jigsaw perked up. “Was he robbing it?”

Phantom dropped his head. “No, he was closing his bank account.”

“With a huge amount in it?”

“After monthly charges, he had $9.99.”

Jigsaw guffawed. “Then you met me at a farmer’s market, and the rest is history.”

“At least I eat, and I have a roof over my head.” He shuffled his feet and fiddled with his hands. “Jigsaw, I can’t wait no more. I need action. If it don’t come to me, I go to it.”

Before Jigsaw could say anything, Phantom loped along the snow-covered roadside toward the deputy. He drew a gun and fired through the windshield at the officer, who paused in shock, then stepped from his patrol car, drew, and fired at Phantom, who fled back to the VW Bug and jumped into his seat.

“Did he hit you?” Jigsaw asked as he started the car, threw it into gear, and took off. When they were going 80 mph, he asked, “What possessed you to do a dumb thing like that? If you kill a police officer, it’s the death penalty for sure.”

Phantom slunk down in the seat. “I needed some action, man. It’s in my blood.”

Red lights flashed dimly in his rear view mirror. Jigsaw took a turn on a side road, drove over several bumps, and hid the car in a grove of trees. With the car idling, he turned to Phantom and socked him in the jaw. “Moron! You turned up the heat! They’ll send an army after us!”

“I’m sorry, sorry,” said Phantom, who rubbed his jaw. He tasted blood. “Let’s get out of here!”

Jigsaw called Bulldozer, a friend from another jewelry job, and they set up a meeting place. He drove down the side road for several miles and rolled behind a shack. Beside the shack was a rusty metal corral. Behind the shack was his friend’s battered Ford pickup. The two men rushed from the Bug to the pickup, and the friend took off at a reasonable speed. “Don’t wanna attract attention by speeding,” he said. The ten-minute drive led to a weathered barn by a farmhouse. He drove the pickup into the barn, got out, and closed the large sliding door. The barn smelled of wood and burnt metal. A police scanner sat on a workbench, and he turned it up. The chatter was all about the man who took a shot and wounded a deputy and was last seen in a green VW Bug.

“See that sink over there?” Bulldozer asked. “Take the razor and the soap. Shave off your moustache.” Jigsaw did as he was told.

“And you!” Bulldozer pointed at Phantom. “We don’t shoot cops. That’s a capital offense, and I’ve got nothing to disguise you with.”

“Give me the gun,” Jigsaw said to Phantom, who complied. Jigsaw started an oxy/acetylene torch. He put on gloves and goggles and went to work to melt down the gun. At first, the work was slow, so he turned up the heat and the work went faster. The gun became a blob of dark metal. “That takes care of that,” he said.

Bulldozer looked over the scraps of metal on the workbench. “That’s a good start,” he said. “Now hand over your cell phones.”

“My cell phone!” Phantom cried. “That’s my lifeline.”

“All you do is play games on it,” Jigsaw said. “Give it to him. He handed Bulldozer his phone.”

“They can track you even if your cell phone is turned off,” Bulldozer said. “I’ll burn them down and take the parts to the dump.” 

“What about yours?” Phantom whined. “Jigsaw called your cell phone.”

Bulldozer sighed. “Mine too.” He took over the workbench and melted the three cell phones. He stuck the parts from the gun and the cell phones in a fireproof bag, and he tossed a set of keys to Jigsaw. “Take the pink truck in back. It’s registered to a cop who died in California three years ago. I’ll dispose of these items.”

Jigsaw and Phantom stepped over weeds and snow, and they slipped into the pink truck. “My favorite color,” Phantom said.

With a chunk-chunk-chunk, the truck started on the third try. The gas gauge was on a quarter tank. Jigsaw figured that the cops would look south, where they had been heading when Phantom shot the deputy, so Jigsaw headed north. The truck’s top speed on the highway was 45 mph.

“Some getaway vehicle,” Phantom said.

“Shut up,” Jigsaw said. “You caused this mess. You’re lucky I let you ride with me.” He came to a fork in the road. To the left was a city, to the right was a reservoir. Jigsaw swerved right and stepped on the gas. The water in the reservoir was high, with a few isolated shards of ice on it.

“Where are we going? This is the road to nowhere,” Phantom said.

“I said shut up,” Jigsaw snarled. His spit hit the windshield and dribbled down. “ I’ll do the driving and I’ll keep us from being spotted by the heat.”

Phantom answered, “I caused the trouble so I’ll drive us out of it.” He grabbed the steering wheel. Jigsaw fought against him, and they tugged back and forth. To throw Phantom off the wheel, Jigsaw accelerated, but it didn’t work. Phantom took control of the wheel and turned the truck toward an embankment and the reservoir. 

“We’ll go off the road, you moron!” Jigsaw shouted.

The pink truck bucked and bumped over the embankment. Jigsaw fought the wheel to steer it back to the road. Phantom put all his weight on the wheel. The truck plunged into the water and began to sink.

“Now you’ve got your action!” Jigsaw screamed as water poured through his window. Phantom tried to wriggle free through his window. The water overpowered him. The truck sank, and no one surfaced.

Hours later, it began to snow again. A deputy sat in a tow truck with the driver. Divers went underwater to secure the hooks to an axle of the pink truck. They surfaced and gave the driver a sign. He turned on the winch and began to pull the pink truck out of the reservoir. 

“Man,” the deputy said, “it’s cold in here. Turn up the heat!”

***