by Nate Granzow
He raised the handgun to my chest.
"Wait," I said firmly. "You and I both know he was lying. He knows me, and they'll have no choice but to negotiate with you if you can prove I'm here. Dial the number again, and let me speak to him."
My stare shifted from my captor's eyes to the gaping black bore inching its way level with my head. As if contemplating my proposition, William tapped the phone against his chin.
"Soon. We'll give him a few hours to think about it. And to convince him of the urgency in which they need to comply, I think we should continue with the regimen Mongkut's been so carefully instituting. A few more hours in that chair should put you in the right frame of mind for a convincing plea, don't you think?"
21
Zucconi Zucchini
Chicago, 1998
"You're going to miss your deadline, Cogar," Kailas said as I slouched before his desk. I found myself staring at the deep shadows beneath his eyes and wondered if the man ever slept.
"The guy won't talk to me. How am I supposed to get this interview if he pretends I'm not even there?"
"Did you stake out his office like I told you?"
"I've been waiting in the lobby for the last six hours."
"Cogar, I admire your perseverance, but here's an important lesson I want you to learn," he said, grabbing his coat from the wall separating his cubicle from the next. "People, particularly those who are used to getting what they want all the time, can be belligerent. They pretend they don't have time for you, and it doesn't bother them that you're waiting for them in the lobby because your time isn't worth shit to them."
"I knew that already, Kailas."
"Yeah, but what you don't know is how to overcome that—how to force their hand. You can be polite like you've been doing, or you can apply a little leverage and see what happens. The worst they can do is tell you to fuck off. I mean, isn't that what he's saying by making you wait in the lobby, anyway?"
Together we strolled out of the office and down the street, waiting at the crosswalk for the light to change.
"Every problematic situation in life has a solution, Cogar. It's just a matter of finding it."
"I feel like you're dressing this up to sound like something other than blackmail."
"Did I say to blackmail the guy? Jesus. All I said was you need to apply a little pressure to get them to cooperate. I'll show you what I mean."
I led the way up the stairs to the fourth floor, where the receptionist, recognizing me, sighed and tapped her pen against her desk impatiently.
"Young man, I'm afraid Mr. Zucconi cannot see you right now. He's in a meeting."
I pointed my open hand at the woman and looked at Kailas, frustrated.
"See?"
Stepping forward and leaning over her desk, Kailas said quietly, "We have an appointment. It would be very rude for him not to meet with us."
She picked up her phone, but Kailas reach over and pressed the cradle down.
"We'll just go on in, thanks."
Leading the way, Kailas marched down the hallway to the office with Zucconi's name in brass on the door. Without knocking, he pushed his way inside.
"What the hell are you doing? You can't be in here," the plump businessman said loudly, looking out the door for his receptionist and unconsciously tightening the knot on his tie.
"We've got an appointment, Mr. Zucchini, don't you remember?"
"It's Zucconi."
"Right, well Cogar here has been waiting patiently for you to finish up with your mistress, and now that she's gone, you're going to make time for his questions. Now."
The plump man's jaw dropped as he jostled uncomfortably in his chair.
"How did you…? I mean, that's fine. Now's good."
"Invite him to sit down," Kailas said matter-of-factly.
"Of course. Please, Mr. Cogar, have a seat."
I proceeded to ask him the questions I'd prepared, still shocked at how effective Kailas's aggressive strategy had been. When I had finished, Zucconi coughed into his hand and casually said, "So, you boys aren't going to mention that bit about…well…"
"Your marital infidelity? Of course not, Mr. Zucchini. That would be libel, wouldn't it, Cogar?"
"Only if it isn't true," I said, glaring angrily at the man across the desk. The bastard had wasted my entire day for the sake of a few questions he had willingly answered in five minutes.
"I think we're done here, then. If Cogar has any additional questions, you don't mind if he comes back here, do you?" Kailas mocked.
"Of course not. Come back anytime, gentlemen."
As we left the building, Kailas steered me over to the sandwich place by our office.
"So, what have we learned today, Cogar?"
"That you're damn good at blackmail, just like I said."
"There you go again with that blackmail bullshit. I never once tried to extort anything from him, did I?"
"Does information count?" I asked.
"Smart ass. Aren't you the least bit interested to hear why I knew to use his extramarital affair to get him to talk?"
Opening the door to the restaurant for Kailas, I smiled and replied, "Because the photos of Zucconi's wife and kids were laying face down on his desk; his mistress must have just left, and he didn't have time to reset them. The place was rank with cheap perfume and there was a smudge of lipstick on the inside of his collar."
Kailas was silent as he assessed me.
"I didn't notice any of that. I just keep up with word on the street. That fat bastard has had more sexual indiscretions than the fucking president. It was a complete shot in the dark that his mistress had been there. You know, Cogar, you're pretty clever. Let me buy you lunch."
*******
Though I was mad at him for hanging up on William in my time of need, I reminded myself that Kailas had been forced to make a snap decision with very limited information. For all he knew, I was still in South Korea and this was some kind of hoax. If he were aware of how desperately I needed help, I was certain he'd make an exception to his hands-off rescue policy. Despite his gruff, detached façade, Kailas had always treated me like a friend—one of the few he had. All the same, his skeptical hesitation came at a very bad time. I could only hope now that William was feeling patient; or, at the very least, humane enough to kill us quickly.
22
A Visitor in Forlorn Darkness
When William and his tumor of a henchman finally exited the basement, I was left staring at Harold through the darkness, striving to hear his breathing, a groan, anything.
"Harry?"
"Yeah?" he finally whispered. His voice was dry and distorted by the swelling in his lips, but I was relieved he was alive.
"How you holdin' up, bud?"
"I've seen better days. I feel like someone tenderized my ass with a rolling pin."
"I wish you would have told me sooner about all this. We could have gotten you help."
His head rolled back slowly, and he moaned.
"Cogar, it's not that simple, man. This goes way beyond what you think you understand."
"I'm a pretty astute guy. You never even gave me the chance."
He chuckled dismissively before erupting into hoarse coughs. A shimmering trickle of blood slipped down his chin.
"I was going to tell you back on the boat, but I should have known how you'd respond. Good ol' Cogar. Fuckin' boy scout through and through."
My concern for my friend began dissolving into bitterness.
"You should start by apologizing to me for this monumental fuck-up of yours, Harry, not attacking my character. This 'boy scout' chased you through Shanghai trying to keep you alive, and now I'm gonna die for it. And you have the gall to criticize me?"
He was silent for a moment. We were both exhausted, in pain, and looking for an outlet, and I knew not to consider anything either of us said to be a true reflection of our intentions.
"I'm sorry, Cogar. But you have to understand this isn't just my fault. I mean
…there are others…"
Harold's voice trailed off as though he had said too much, and had just realized it.
"What do you mean, others?"
"I don't want to get into it right now, Cogar. We've got other shit to worry about beyond whose fault this is."
Lifting my chair a few inches off the floor with my toes, I let it slam against the concrete. It made him jump.
"You're going to tell me what I'm up against here, Harry. Who else is in on this?" I paused and locked my jaw as I tried to force the words from my mind. "Was…Jessica involved?"
Harold snorted.
"Come on, man. No, your girlfriend's not in on it. It would have made my life much, much easier if she had been, really."
Relieved, I breathed out audibly.
"I just meant, you know, the girls from the boat and a few others from back in Seoul helped me out occasionally. You wouldn't know them, anyway."
"Harry, if we get out of this shit, you need to promise me you let this stuff drop. Understand? So help me, if you don't, I'll give you a beating that'll make this nightmare look like a spa retreat."
A white smile crossed his swollen features.
"Bring it on, old man."
"And Harry…"
"Yeah?"
A sudden crash of light and sound forced me to turn my face away, and by the time my eyes had acclimated, Harold was gone, and the door was slammed shut once again—plunging me into forlorn darkness.
23
Wakey Wakey, Eggs and Bakee
Most people will never experience life without some sense of time. I'm not talking about taking your watch off while on vacation, or disregarding your sleeping habits while on holiday, but a complete and utter isolation from the outside world—trapped in a box that gives no notion of day or night, light or dark. Ten minutes may feel like hours, or vice versa. The only means for me to glean any sense of how long I had been locked up was by the arrival of my torturers, which, as you might imagine, is hardly something to look forward to.
But the most painful part of my incarceration wasn't the physical torment. It was the inactivity and the uncertainty. I still didn't know if Jessica had escaped or if Harold was alive, and despite my regular inquiries, my captors weren't in a talkative mood. They were too busy holding a competition to see who could get me to scream louder.
We had already spent a few hours playing 'hold a candlelight vigil under Cogar's feet', but that had become unexciting when the scalded tissue stopped sending pain signals to my brain, and so they had moved on to a game with more requisite athleticism. Armed with thin, braided steel cable bike locks, the two men alternated whipping me across the fronts of my shins—as lighthearted as if skipping rocks by the lake.
Interrupting their sport, the basement door opened and Mongkut rushed inside.
I couldn't understand their dialogue, but the short man's gestures were abundantly clear. There was an intruder outside. And whoever it was, they were about to have a very bad day.
Grabbing their weapons, my captors left me in the dark. It was a reprieve from the violent torture I had endured, but of the emotions that rose from my core, none resembled relief. Some part of me knew with a morose certainty that it was Jessica who was about to be captured or killed. And she was the only thing keeping me alive. The thought of her safe escape was all that gave me hope, and hope, as any torture survivor will tell you, is all that keeps the spark of life kindled.
The door burst open, and the three men dragged a limp body through the doorway. I breathed out thankfully, and despite my extreme agony, even mustered a grin.
Pulled along by his perfect blond hair came my old pal, Perry Rothko. Holding my tongue as they strapped him to a chair like my own, I noticed that Rothko had two black eyes resulting from the broken bridge of his nose, and was missing an incisor on the left side of his mouth.
Calling his underlings out of the room for a conference, Mongkut slammed the door—leaving my rival and I in the darkness, alone.
"Perry? Perry…"I whistled, "Wakey wakey, eggs and bakee."
Head lolling upright, he mumbled, "Where am I?"
"You, my foolish friend, have been captured by a drug lord with an abundance of daddy issues, and are now going to be subjected to endless hours of unforgiving torture. So glad you could join me."
"This can't be happening."
"Why?" I snorted. "Because you got caught this time? You followed me to steal my story—again—and failed. It's called karma you no-talent troglodyte."
The reservoir of helpless rage I had been storing during hours of torture finally had an outlet, and I was going to give Rothko every ounce of it. My rival was coming around, returning to his normal, arrogant and clueless self.
"You know what, Cogar? Fuck you. You're still clinging to the thought that this gig takes some kind of special talent—that's your problem. It's not at all about how hard you work, it's about luck and being smarter than the other guy."
"Fuck yourself, Perry. You're not smarter than the other guy, or anyone, for that matter. And it's all about how hard you work in this industry, which is why you'll never be any good at it. You think you can call yourself a journalist just because you carry a press pass and ask people questions. And that's a perfectly fine attitude to take if you're on the staff of the Appledale Farmer's Advocate out of bumfuck North Dakota—where you belong. But if you make a living speaking to people whose only goal in the immediate future is to avoid starvation or keep their tongue from being cut out for talking to a foreign reporter, you have to try harder than that. And that's why you're here, Perry. You don't have what it takes. What you do have is a parasitic instinct to latch on to someone like me."
"Listen to yourself, Cogar. It’s stifling, the jealousy you're spewing. First of all, it's been years since that unfortunate accident you had in the Sudan. Let it go. Besides, you damn near got me killed back at that bar in Seoul. If anyone should be mad, it's me. Second, it's clear that you're still struggling with the fact that I earned that job with the Times, and you have no one but yourself to blame for missing out on the story."
That did it.
Though it brought waves of pain smashing against my swollen feet and shins like surf against a crumbling cliff side, I scooted my chair toward Perry.
"You pompous bastard! It was no fucking accident; you stole my notes to get that job and you know it!"
I kicked at his knee as hard as I could, knowing it would hurt me more than it would him. I was partially relieved when he scooted out of the way before it connected.
Wheeling around for another attempt, the door to the basement swung wide, a wave of fresh air briefly overcoming the stale smell of garbage and urine.
Mongkut entered, followed by two of his goons. He looked to be in a hurry, a fresh torrent of sweat dripping from his forehead as he slammed the door behind them. The nervous pressure I always felt in the pit of my stomach when something was about to go terribly wrong throbbed with alarming enthusiasm. Perry, ignorant as always, smiled and shifted his chair toward my torturers.
"Hey fellas! Look, this is all a simple mistake, and I can't say I blame you for misunderstanding—"
Placing his foot against the chair front in the gap between Rothko's legs, Mongkut kicked him over backward and withdrew a Makarov pistol.
"Wait!" I yelled, surprising myself with my unwarranted concern for my rival's wellbeing. After all, I had spent years wishfully imagining Rothko being run over by a bus or crushed by a falling piano.
"You shut your mouth, piece of shit."
It was my turn to have my chair upturned. Striking my head against the fractured concrete, the world became a haze of blurred sound and light. I could feel the blood coursing through my hair as I stared at the basement's mold-covered ceiling.
It occurred to me as I lay there that this whole ordeal was entirely unfair. I had survived dozens of situations that I had stumbled into purely through carelessness or brazen stupidity. This was one of the few times where my nob
le efforts to save someone else had been to blame for putting me on the verge of death. What was even more unjust, I was going to die beside Rothko: not in bed with a beautiful woman, not while shielding the president’s daughter from an assassin’s bullet with the world looking on, but in a lousy dungeon with my least favorite people on the planet, looking and smelling like road kill. My life’s story was about to end in an unpleasant and anticlimactic fashion. I only hoped they’d kill Rothko first; it would allow me some slight sense of fulfillment before I met my end.
Just as Mongkut thumbed the hammer back on his pistol, a metallic plinking sound—like that of a bouncing, rolling aluminum can—came from the stairs. A white light, as if a thousand photographers had taken a flash photo at once, and a boom so deafening that it was replaced with a shrill ringing in an instant, exploded throughout the basement. Unable to reach my hands to my ears with them bound to the chair, I rolled to my front, the chair upside-down and my ass in the air, and tried to scoot away. So disoriented by the blast, I initially thought I had been shot in the head: It wasn't unheard of for gunshot victims to survive bullets to the brain while losing sensory abilities. That thought terrified me, and with renewed fervor, I began to wriggle against the floor like a wounded snake held in place by its tail.
Suddenly, I was yanked back to a sitting position, my hands cut free. Though blurry and discolored, I could still make out the tattered, bullet-ridden bodies of our captors strewn across the floor. Mongkut's swollen corpse stood out from the other two, his back perforated—a bloody schism along the spine ripped open by the silent hail of gunfire.
I told that bastard he'd get his.
A hand grabbed my collar and I was half led, half dragged up the stairway and out the door.
24
Rescued
The sunshine and the breeze hurt in ways that things so typically pleasant shouldn't. Blood trickled from my ears, a violent ringing playing through them with the insistence of a warning siren. Slowly, the world came back into focus. Before me, Perry lay in a crumpled mass, rocking as he held his head with both hands. Ahead of us, dozens of policemen, tactically dressed and heavily armed, positioned themselves behind squad cars and armored vehicles, sporadically firing their weapons into the warehouse as targets presented themselves. Two paramedics stood nearby, along with one exceptionally beautiful woman.