I hit the ground with a thud, not knowing how exactly I got there, or as I start to think about it, who I am.
The room is dank, and rather dungeon esque, a small window on the wall to my right, lets in a dim, spotty light, allowing me a half decent view of where I am. The floor is hard packed dirt, the walls rough stone, handmade by the looks of it. There is a rectangular opening about 9 feet up the wall, and a small steel door, no more than 3 feet high, beside what I originally think is a bag of flour, or something more sinister.
As my eyes adjust I realize it is a person, sleeping, though god knows my less than graceful entrance should have woken him up. An older guy, late 50s or so, stocky, dressed in an off the rack, but still decent ( besides the ambiguous gore ) suit. He isn’t dead, as he is snoring loudly, but that hardly gives me comfort.
I try desperately to get my mental bearings, but they don’t come as easy as the physical ones. And looking around at where I am , maybe this is a good thing. I mean who gets thrown in a dungeon?
Every time I try to think beyond the here and now, I get a weird lightheaded feeling, threatening to make me black out. And on top of everything, I don’t think a black out would be beneficial.
I cough a few times, trying to wake up the other occupant. But no such luck, he simply turns over, as if he is sleeping in his own bed as opposed to a creepy basement.
Eventually I give up trying to be polite and just kick him. He wakes up with a sleepy yet angry noise, and looks at me with an hassled look.
“ So your finally here ?” he says, a slight hint of an accent I can’t really place, in his voice.
“ I guess so, any chance of you telling me where here is?” I say , our conversation has a touch of a confrontational tone.
“ Nope, not in the slightest actually. “ he says pulling himself into a more upright sitting position. I notice one eye is closed, the dim light makes figuring out the reason fairly hard, so I decide to continue to try and get some information.
“ Is it a possibility I at least know who you are?” I say, put off balance by damn near everything in my current situation.
“ That is something I can answer , my friend. “ he says, and surprisingly seems to perk up a bit. He pulls out a cigarette ( not something that I enjoy in the confined space, but who am I to begrudge someone a pleasure in this situation?).
“ I’m an asshole. A huge asshole, an asshole of gigantic proportions. Sadly, I only recently realized this, which I guess is part of the reason I am here. “ He starts, he sounds genuinely regretful, of whatever actions he had taken to brand him an asshole.
“ But that is a bit vague isn’t it? Well I’m 52, I have four kids, wife got killed a few years ago. Born in the states, and moved here for business reasons. “ he continues , and gives a pause. I step in before he can take control of the conversation.
“ I am guessing this business, it isn’t exactly on the legal side of things?” I say, he looks a tad deflated.
The accent gets turned up a notch, Jersey, or New York I guess.
“ Yeah, bingo. But its not what you think, no one has their arm around me, I am not some kingpin, just a guy who realized that it is a lot easier to work in a black hat than a white one. I’m no saint, people don’t pay, for what I provide, they get harmed. But I’ve never had someone tossed in the river, if that’s what your thinking. Well, yet anyway.” His tone goes a bit unhappy toward the end.
“ Is that a threat?” I say, legitimately worried.
“ Kill you?” he laughs, “ yeah , not something I am going to be doing any time soon. Wouldn’t be too healthy for me. “
“ What do you mean?” I say, another mystery, added to the pile.
“ Too long to explain, and too painful, literally. “ he says, looking at the ground. “ Anything else you wanted to know?”
This whole situation seems weird, beyond the obvious that is. It feels a lot less like being tortured or kidnapped, than a job interview , or sales pitch.
“ I don’t know, never really had much experience with people like yourself. Or situations like this. “ the conversation seems to constantly on the verge of stopping, like being stuck playing with a cousin one hated as a kid.
“ A little advice? Don’t try to compare this to anything else you’ve ever done. “ he exhales a thick cloud of smoke, the smell is strong, probably a cheaper brand. Strange considering the guy appears to be well dressed, or rather, as well dressed as someone could be given the circumstances.
“ So you’ve done this before? Is this some kind of experiment, something I signed up for?” I say hopeful to have an answer, even one, a small one, in this situation.
“ No, I am like , what do they call them, props, in a movie. You are more like the star. “ he chooses his words carefully, obviously trying to not give away too much too quickly.
He take sin a big breath, the same kind one does when pulling out a splinter , crushes the cigarette, and reaches into another pocket. |He pulls out a somewhat dirty envelope, nothing written on the front, and hands it to me.
“ This is yours, open it and read it. “ he says, adding , almost as if he just thought of it, “ After we eat.”
“ Eat?” I say confused and a bit scared, what exactly am I going to have to eat? He goes to a corner of the room, and brings out two relatively clean Styrofoam containers. When we crack them open, no pig eyes, human liver, or shit. Just two pretty good looking burgers.
“ Don’t worry, they’re fine. I’ve been eating them for… fuck, a bit , lets say. “ he seems a tad nervous as he almost spills some beans he shouldn’t.
We eat, we talk.
I find out that his business of choice is grey market merchandise , everything from copied dvd’s to the odd handgun. His kids are in school, none seem to be interested in the business he is in, and beyond that he hasn’t told them the nitty gritty of what he does. He hates his wife, but she has stomach cancer, so he won’t leave. He has never killed a man, but has thrown the odd punch to keep his business running.
He was born in new york, jewish by decent, agnostic by experience. He knew a few people within mob circles, but never really socialized with them, avoided them actually. And all said and done, a pretty funny guy, dealing with the situation much better than I was.
As we finish the burgers, I open the envelope, he was looking for another cigarette at the time, what I saw on the paper shocked me. Written in a neat, but slashing, angry scrawl:
“ He holds the lives of three men in his hands. There are two exits in this room, the doorway above you, and one below you. Getting to the top will require removing the man’s femur, you’ll find a set of bolt cutters, modified , under a stone in the east corner of the room. He will obviously, not survive the process. You can go through the lower door, but if so, he will be let free, and inevitably these three people will die. “
I am shocked, and just as he lights up a second cigarette I ask, bluntly.
“ Is this true?” I say, half yelling.
“ About the three people? Yeah. Trust me, if your reading it there, your reading the gospel. “ he sounds unconcerned.
“ What did they do?” I ask, my tone, half mad half anxious.
“ Doesn’t matter, “ he laughs , “ too bad I didn’t realize that before hand. But the fact is that I am going to kill them, by my own choice, if you let me go.”
“ If?” I say shocked , “ Why wouldn’t I?”
It is his turn to look confused.
“ Three people on the line maybe? “ he says asking it legitimately as a question, not simply making the statement.
“ Okay, but let’s be honest here, those are three people that might deserve it. And to be selfish about it, you have to kill them, not me. “ I say, matter of factly.
“ The easy way isn’t always going to be the best way around here, cliché, I know, but true none the less. “ he says, and it honestly seems like he is trying to argue me out of letting him live.
“ You suicidal?” I ask pointedly.
“ fuck no, but I know that things are bigger than me. If I was a believer I would talk about a yamekule right about how. “ he says, his tone is unwavering.
Suddenly something hits me, a slow, peristaltic pain happens in my head. Like something physical is moving around, unfortunately the only analogy I can make , in this serious situation is that it felt that my brain was taking a shit, one full of pointed metal.
“ Maybe there is another way…” I say , getting to my feet , tears coming out of my eyes, through no effort of my own.
I walk over to the east corner , noticing , as I wipe the tears from my face, that they aren’t your standard tears, but rather blood. I move the fake stone and see the large set of bolt cutters. I sigh a bit as I realize that they won’t be useful at all for the first part of my task.
“ You good with pain?” I say, putting my face an inch or so from the rough dirt and stone wall, looking for something, that even I don’t quite understand.
“ I’d rather you just smash my skull in with those before doing anything , if you didn’t mind. “ He says, with a chuckle.
“ But if the choice was pain, or death, which are you picking?” I say, colder than I expect.
“ I’d like to walk out of here, if that’s what your asking… what do you have in mind?” his voice getting a bit apprehensive.
I don’t tell him outright, because really, I don’t know. But rather I start to, only half consciously relate a story.
“ Ever hear about how sharp an obsidian scalpel is?” I start, “ hundreds of times sharper than the surgical scalpels we use. Actually they are starting to use obsidian for normal medical use. But that is besides the point. Well the skill involved in doing it is called knapping. “ as I rant I start to rub my finger along the sides of a thick stone. A lot of gravel In the dirt, unpleasant, for what I have in mind, but not insurmountable.
“ Well, that makes my day.” my companion states, sounding a tad unimpressed.
“ Now, obsidian isn’t the only thing you can do this with only the best, many different minerals , if properly knapped, can make quite the edge. Certain types of shale for example, like this bad boy right here.” I start to press a bit harder, dislodging a bit of dirt “ All you really need, is something harder than the rock, and a bit of technique , the technique being the most important part. If you have some idiot with a hammer trying to knap, your going to end up with gravel. Useful stuff, but not for these kinds of things. “
Its going to take a long time , I realize, nothing at all besides bare hands to remove the makeshift grout. And more than likely I am going to loose some skin in the process. But if the choice is between that, and watching this guy die with the vast majority of his leg in tatters, I’ll take gaining some nasty scars.
“ As you can probably guess, I can knap. And I have an idea, instead of ripping out your femur , I’m going to take some other bones, maybe a bit more important, but in the same sense, ones you can actually survive their removal. “ My voice is cold, not serial killer cold, but…doctor cold. And I wonder where it comes from. This gains me nothing but the threat of a blinding headache.
“ fingers?” he says tentatively.
“ Actually, yeah, how’d you know?” I say genuinely curious.
“ it’s a good thing to use if you don’t want to kill someone.” its his turn for a steel timbre to creep in to his voice.
I turn toward him, “ How can you be so okay with that shit?” I say, feeling a bit of blood, running down my hand already.
“ I’d ask you what you do for a living, but your not going to know. So let me put it this way. If you own a welding shop, chances are, your going to have some people have welding accidents. Hell, kid, if you own a restaurant your probably going to see people get some nasty burns, cuts, and shit. There is no business you can be in , where your not going to hurt someone. The only difference in mine is that the people that have these ‘accidents’ happen, could have easily avoided it, by not trying to rip me off. I ain’t a shylock, kid, I don’t run numbers, I don’t sell drugs. I sell shit, the same kind of shit you buy every day, and sometimes folks want credit. And just like sears, I’ll give it to them if I think they are worth the risk. “ his tone is a bit defensive, but nothing in it would indicate that he is just rationalizing.
“ Yeah , with the exception of the fact that sears doesn’t send lenny the moyle in to remove pieces of you if you don’t pay up. “ I am barely paying attention, but still half offended, half intrigued at his answers.
“ Maybe they should , it’d lower prices to the rest of the folks that don’t want to rip anyone off.” I find myself unable to argue his points, maybe it is how well they were made, maybe it was the fact that I am more concerned with saving his life. Who knows, but a moral debate with someone who can be best described as half of a mobster is the last thing that I need at the moment.
I realize that this is going to take a long time, longer than a few minutes, but in the same sense, how long, and how much unpleasantness is too much to save a life?
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