21 Tales Read online

  Sure, I could tell he hated every second of what he was doing. Sonofabitch. I ignored it when he picked up a nutcracker. Fuck if he was going to see fear or anything else in my eyes. Victor helped him pull my fingers apart, and then my middle finger was clasped between two metal bars. Benny twisted the nutcracker until the bone in my finger cracked like a dry stick. A satisfied smirk showing, he kept twisting.

  “You’re crying, Joe,” he said, his voice more of a grunt from his exertion. “Fuck, just like a little girl. Why don’t you just tell us where our money is so we can get this over with?”

  He kept twisting. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the skin separating on my finger. I could see the broken bone sticking out of the gaping wound. Damn, it hurt like a mother. I had been concentrating like hell to welcome the pain and become one with it, and for the most part before it had worked. This time, though, fuck. One more hard twist and the world ebbed violently in and out like a wave crashing over me, then everything just disappeared.

  I don’t know how long I was out. I had passed out a few times before this, but those times it seemed like I was only gone for a few seconds, this time I knew it had been much longer, maybe as long as a half hour. Gradually I became aware of a tapping noise. My eyes were being forced open and as they focused the grayish blur in front of me transformed into Al’s round sorrowful face. He was slapping me lightly, trying to bring me to consciousness. Once he realized he had succeeded he stopped his slapping.

  As he stared at me, his eyes were as sad and soulful as ever and he even let them turn a bit moist.

  “Fuck, Joe, it doesn’t have to be this way,” he said. “If you do the right thing, we can all walk out of here happy.”

  The two of us were alone. I guess the plan was to play good cop-bad cop. Or good-torturer, bad-torturer. My finger was throbbing as if it were being pulled apart in a vise. I didn’t let on, though. A quick sideways glance of it showed they had wrapped a bandage around it, probably hoping I’d forget that the bone was popping out of the skin.

  Al’s thick eyelids lowered a bit as he tried smiling at me. He was maybe fifty and had a heavily-lined face and dark curly brown hair. A big man, bigger than the rest of them, but also softer than any of the others. Kind of a teddy bear-type. At two-sixty, he probably outweighed Benny by a hundred pounds, but then again, Benny was as hard as a blade of steel.

  “You’ll still get some money out of this, Joe,” he said. “Not a full share, not after what you put us through, but something. I’ll try to get them to agree to fifty grand. How does that sound?”

  I let that sit between us for a while, his sad soulful eyes ever hopeful, then I asked him if he thought I was a fucking idiot. It was the first words I’d spoken since they’d snatched me. He seemed surprised I had bothered to respond to him, then he manufactured some hurt in those soulful eyes of his over the fact that I didn’t believe him.

  “I don’t think that at all, Joe. If you can just trust me, you can walk out of here alive and with some money in your pocket. By the end of the day we can all be happy. Now what would be wrong with that?”

  “One more time,” I said. “I’m not an idiot. I know I’m a dead man here so quit the fucking act.”

  Al was frowning, his large brow heavily creased.

  “I don’t know why you’re saying this. There’s no percentage in us killing you. If we leave your body here, you’ll connect us to the couple upstairs. If we take your body with us, then we have to worry about how to dispose of it. It’s just so much easier for everyone if you walk away on your own—”

  “Shut the fuck up.” I waited until he closed his mouth, then I went on. “Here’s the deal, and I’m only offering it once. I accept the fact I’m a dead man, and to be honest about it, I don’t give a shit. You can have Benny fucking cut me open and pull my intestines out inch by inch and I’m not talking. I have nothing against you, Al, and not much against Victor and Tony, but I’m not too happy with Benny right now. If you want to know where I hid the eight hundred grand, you have to kill that psycho bastard in front of me. I have to see him die. You do that and I’ll tell you where the money is. I know I’m going to die today, but I want to see that cocksucker go first. One more thing. I lose any part of me—a finger, a tooth, anything, and the deal’s off. The money will disappear with me.”

  When I was mentioning the part about Benny cutting me open and pulling my intestines out inch by inch, I could see the idea of that flash in Al’s eyes, but he quickly dismissed it, realizing it wouldn’t do the trick. It wouldn’t get me to talk. Once he dismissed it, his eyes went back to being soulful and hurt. What a bunch of fucking hogwash he tried selling me about the difficulty in getting rid of me. Benny would have no trouble cutting me into pieces. Put those pieces in some garbage bags, and it would be no problem leaving me scattered along the highway. Or use a few gallons of sulfuric acid to melt off my face and fingerprints. Getting rid of my body would be easy, and I was sure Benny had already thought up a dozen ways to do it. Jesus, it was one thing to torture me, another to insult my intelligence.

  Al’s face darkened as he thought over my proposal. Finally, he shook his head.

  “I can’t do that, Joe. For Chrissakes, let’s be reasonable.”

  I’d already tuned him out. When they snatched me they had emptied my pockets. I knew they had searched the motel room I’d been staying in. There were no other clues where the money might be. I knew as well as they did that without me talking they were never going to have any idea where the money was. I couldn’t help smiling at the thought of that. Al took hold of my face and moved it so we were again looking at each other. He could see the reason behind my smile. He let go of me and tugged absentmindedly at his lip as he regarded me.

  “Joe,” he started, his voice weak, awkward, “if you don’t start cooperating with us it’s going to get ugly. You know that don’t you?”

  I didn’t bother answering him. I didn’t have to.

  We sat together for a few minutes with Al wringing his hands and trying to think of something to say to me. Then he got up and left. When he came back, it was with the rest of them. Benny stormed to the front and hit me hard in the ear, knocking me to the floor. I could feel a trickle of blood leak from my ear. Victor and him righted my chair, then Benny got in my face.

  “You stubborn fuck,” Benny said, his breath sour and smelling like cat food. “We would’ve given you some money and let you walk out of here mostly in one piece, but fuck you! You had your chance. When I’m done with you—what’s left of you, anyways—is going to be begging to tell me where the money is.” He slid a switchblade from his pocket and opened it, making sure I got a good long look at the six-inch blade. “You’re going to start losing slices, Joe, and whatever I cut off you’re eating, even if I have to shove it down your throat. So what’cha in the mood for first, a nose or ear?”

  I just stared through him. If he was expecting fear or anything else, fuck him. Let him whittle away at me all he wanted. This was the ultimate test, and I knew I was up to the challenge. The adrenaline now was pushing through me, making me dizzy. And as far as Al went, let it eat away at him for the rest of his miserable life that he might’ve found out about the money.

  “No preference, huh?” Benny was saying, his breath now smelling more like a toilet than cat food. “You want to make it look like you ain’t fucking listening to me, is that it? Fuck you then. You want to act like a deaf man, might as well make it your ear.”

  I didn’t move. I sat as still as stone. Benny, furious, his face crimson, moved quickly and grabbed my ear, bringing the edge of the blade against it. Before the blade could be pushed upwards, there was a blur of motion, then Benny being pulled away from me. Tony had him in a bear hug. Benny looked startled as all hell as he looked at Al moving towards him holding out a piece of the same type of razor wire that was biting into my ankles. Victor looked confused also.

  “What the fuck…” Benny started.

  Before he could g
et another word out, Al was on him, wrapping the razor wire around his neck and pulling it tight. He had prepared for this, both ends of the razor wire attached to makeshift wooden handles so he could pull tightly without cutting his own hands. The shock in Benny’s eyes was really something to see, but he wasn’t going down gently, his legs kicking spastically like they had a life of their own. Not that it was doing him much good.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Victor sputtered out. He tried to pull Al away. Al turned and barked at him to step back, his eyes dead black holes, any soulfulness from them long since gone.

  “If I don’t do this, Joe doesn’t tell us where the money is. Now back the fuck away!”

  Victor hesitated for a moment, but took a step back and watched Al’s round face purpling from his effort as he pulled the wire tight and just about decapitated Benny. Benny’s legs were still kicking, though, making me think of a chicken with its head cut off. The stench of his bowels emptying filled the room.

  “He’ll tell us. We just need to keep working on him,” Victor argued, his eyes jumping from Al to Benny’s head that was now nearly sliced off. His feet had stopped kicking. Another few pulls on the razor wire and his head would be completely separated from his body. Al realized that and let go of the wire. Benny’s lifeless body slumped to the floor.

  “He wasn’t going to tell us shit. Not with the military training he’s had.” Al was clenching and unclenching his fists, then rubbing his hands. He slowly shifted his eyes to mine. Ignoring Victor, he addressed me. “I did what you wanted. Now where the fuck is the money!”

  The adrenaline was pumping through him even more than it was me. Any pretense of civility and calm were long gone. Fuck, I envied him.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked as innocently as I could. I then turned and stared hard at Victor. “You’ve only done half the job so far.”

  Victor got it first, then Tony, with Al being slow on the uptake. Victor’s face blanched white. “M-Motherf-fucker,” he stammered out, fury raging in his eyes. He started to pull a thirty-eight automatic out of a holster. I don’t know who he was planning to shoot, me or Al, but before he had the gun out Tony tackled him to the floor and the two of them were thrashing about. Slowly Al realized the stunt I pulled. At first nothing but anger in his eyes, then a begrudging admiration, and finally a cold calculating look as he realized he’d now only have to divide the money two ways. He nodded to me, then joined the fracas.

  “You double-crossing motherfuckers,” Victor kept repeating as he fought over the gun. It started to look like he was getting the upper hand over Tony, but Al changed the equation by kicking Victor hard in the head. From where I was sitting, I couldn’t as much see the kick as hear it, as well as the dull oomph that came out of Victor. I heard another thud, then saw Tony crawling up and getting onto Victor’s chest. The way his shoulders were tensing I could guess what was happening. When he was done, Al helped him to his feet. The two of them walked over to me, Tony looking disheveled, his breathing ragged, Al, his eyes nothing but dull black stones.

  “Both of them taken care of,” Tony said, his face flushed, his eyes tensed.

  “You’re jumping to conclusions there, pal,” I said. “Victor wasn’t part of the deal. It was you and Benny.”

  Tony took a step back, asking, “What the fuck you mean me?”

  “Exactly what I said. You and Benny. That was deal Al made with me.”

  “He’s fucking with you,” Al tried to tell him. He reached for him, but Tony jerked his arm away, his eyes bouncing nervously between the two of us.

  “Why the fuck me?” he demanded.

  “Because I never liked you,” I said as straight-faced as I could.

  “Why? What I ever do to you?”

  “For Chrissakes, Tony, get a grip,” Al was saying, “He’s just fucking with you. There was no deal other than Benny.”

  Tony wasn’t buying it, especially after Al kept quiet and let him kill Victor. His eyes darted around for the thirty-eight that Victor had dropped on the floor. “Joe, why don’t you like me?” he asked, hurt, half-looking at me, half at the gun.

  “I don’t know. Something about the way you look. It’s hard to pinpoint these things sometimes.”

  “You were not part of any deal!” Al shouted. He made another reach for Tony, which was the wrong move. Tony dove for the gun. Al, having no choice, followed him. I ended up knocked over onto the floor. I couldn’t see them during their death struggle but I could hear them while they grunted and groaned. Where I landed, my right hand—the one where Benny had pulled off my fingernails and damn near tore off my middle finger—was only inches from the switchblade he had dropped. By tensing and relaxing my arm muscles over the last few hours I’d been able to create an inch of slack in the rope, and was now stretching my fingers, ignoring the pain in them, as I reached for the knife. The tip of my index finger was able to touch it. Working slowly I inched the knife close enough to where I could grab it. The death struggle was still going on by the time I had the knife in my hand. It was another several minutes before it was over, first one gunshot, then another, the noise only muffled slightly by a human body. My back was turned so I had no idea who had won. I lay there and waited, trying to shield the knife from view.

  Whichever one it was, he sat on the floor breathing hard. It took several minutes before he got to his feet and walked over to me. I only had one chance and I had to time it right. As my chair was being pulled up, I pushed the knife blade several inches into his leg trying to sever the posterial tibial artery. From the way the blood gushed out of the wound, I knew I’d connected. I learned hundreds of ways to kill people during my time in special forces, and this was as good a way as any.

  It turns out the person I killed was Al. He took a couple of steps away from me, already woozy, and then sat hard on the floor. It’s amazing how fast you can die from having that artery severed. His eyes were already glazing over, and I had to talk quickly so I could explain where the money was. After all, I felt it was only right I kept up my end of the deal.

  “I guess you figured out that after I took the money I headed west, but you probably don’t know that I stopped off in Vegas along the way. You see, Al, as an adrenaline junkie, I had to stop there. I didn’t really give a shit about the money, but taking it the way I did was a bigger rush than you could ever imagine. The problem was after a rush like that I needed another fix, and Vegas gave it to me. I put the eight hundred grand on black, and for those few seconds while that little black ball bounced around the wheel I had the adrenaline pumping like you wouldn’t believe. The ball landed on black, and all I could feel was deflated. I needed another spin of the wheel, I needed to feel that rush again. The casino gave their approval for another bet, so I let one point six mil ride on black. This time I lost. If I had won I would’ve kept betting until I lost, ’cause the rush was more important than the money. Anyway, that’s where the eight hundred thousand is, left at the Bellagio’s casino.”

  The way his head was tilted to one side I knew he was gone. Cutting the artery like I did, without medical attention you only have about sixty seconds, and I think my explanation took a little longer than that. Eh, fuck it, I tried.

  So there I was. Three fingernails pulled off, one finger badly broken, razor wire biting into my ankles, my hands tied to the chair, with maybe an inch of leeway in the rope securing my right hand, and holding a knife between my thumb and palm, my fingers too fucked up to hold it any other way. Upstairs lay a dead elderly couple, in the basement with me were the bodies of four violent criminals. If relatives came during the next few days to check up on the couple upstairs, I’d be saved, but would probably be tied to this gang and the armed robberies we’d pulled off and would be heading to jail for a long time. If no one came and I couldn’t figure out a way to free myself, I’d be dead within a week.

  Fuck, I’d been in tighter spots. Thinking about my situation got the adrenaline pumping.

  God, I loved
it.

  The only problem was, when I figured a way out of here, what was I going to do to top this?

  How was I going to get another adrenaline fix after this one?

  A problem for another day.

  Nine-Ball Lessons

  This one’s short and sweet about two hoods philosophizing over life-lessons that can be learned from a game of nine-ball.

  Charlie “the Mole” Greco gently kisses the eight-ball into the corner pocket setting up an easy nine-ball shot in the opposite corner. As he’s chalking up his stick, he asks me how playing pool is like making love to a woman.

  I shrug, tell him I don’t know.

  “Think about this,” he says. “Even though you usually get better results with a gentle touch, sometimes it just feels so damn good to slam it home.”

  Charlie bends over the table and slams the nine ball hard nearly bouncing it out of the pocket, his face turning red as he laughs at his own joke. Nobody I know likes laughing at their own jokes more than Charlie. He looks up at me, kind of quizzical, wondering why I’m not laughing along with him, ’cause usually I do. I tell him I got too much on my mind. Which is true. I drop a ten-dollar bill on the table for the game, and he waits while I rack up the balls for the next game.

  Charlie and I’ve been playing pool every Thursday night at the back table in Donnegan’s since high school, almost twenty years now. I dropped out of school after one year, being more muscle than brains and having an open invitation to work for “Big” Tony Lombardo, but Charlie being a smart guy finished high school, then two years of college before dropping out to take the job I helped arrange for him with Lombardo. I do “muscle” work for Lombardo – stuff like breaking deadbeat’s arms, busting heads, sometimes much worse. Hence my nickname, “Knuckles”. Not too hard to figure out. Charlie’s nickname is my fault. He doesn’t have much of a neck, and has kind of a long nose and round face like a mole would, but that doesn’t have anything to do with me giving him that name. And it’s not because he spies on people or has any sort of facial blemishes. I started calling him “Mole” because of his bad eyes. Before he got his contacts, Charlie used to squint like a mole coming out of the ground. Probably because of the physical similarities the name stuck, but if it wasn’t for me, and his eyes were better, he would’ve ended up with something like “Professor”, or maybe “Socrates” or “Plato” or some other philosopher, ’cause he’s always philosophizing about life, especially how it relates to pool.