There was no possible way Alexis could have known why I was laughing, not when the reason eluded me. But I guess my laughter was just so infectious that he was compelled to partake in the forced merriment. But since he was able to reign it in before I could I was forced to listen to more of his words. “Alright, you’ve had your laugh, now tell me what happened after you stole the hand.”
The command chilled me to the core. Remembering what I had woken up to was enough to knock the laughter right out of me and place me back in that freezer. I suppressed the shiver that tried to run up my spine. I didn’t like the idea of admitting my mistakes to Alexis, but what I disliked even more was the idea of showing him my discomfort. In the end I knew I had little choice, “There isn’t much to tell really.”
Why am I trying to annoy my new executioner? Have I learned nothing over the last day? “He found out that I cheated but more importantly, at least to him, he found out how I cheated. So as I’m being led to my money, one of his goons used a stun gun to render me unconscious. And when I woke up, I found that I was being held captive.”
Stroking the left side of his chin Alexis calmly asked me to clarify his confusion. “And just how did Dempsey and his goons manage that?”
He obviously knew more about our abilities than I did, he had to know how to hold someone like us against our will. Perhaps a part of me was getting tired of the interrogation, because my next words were less respectful than I had intended them to be. “Well for starters I came to in a rather spacious and cold freezer with a pair of IVs pumping saline and drugs into my veins.”
With him leaning there against the wall and nodding I couldn’t help but think of those old cartoons, specifically the one with the coyote and roadrunner. I remembered enough of them to know that the roadrunner always won their little skirmishes; next time I needed to be the roadrunner, I was tired of being the coyote. After a moment, Alexis locked his gaze upon my eyes and said, “That’s a decent starting point for him. But you should still have been able to do some forging. Why didn’t you just forge some heat into the lining of your clothing?”
If I could have moved my body at all I would have thrown a punch. It was bad enough that I had to humble myself this way but now he was going to add insult to injury. I attempted to calm my frustration as I replied. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s a rather simply technique to infuse your body with some heat, for little enough of an investment.” We stood there, well I stood there in silence until he have registered the fact that I still had no idea what he was talking about. He eventually asked me a follow-up question, though I would have preferred him not to adopt such a condescending tone of voice. “Do you use hand warmers?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, just think on a bigger scale.” He said dryly. I tried to think about this, but the thoughts kept slipping from my grasp. Nothing that he had said made any sense. He continued to wait with a hopeful expression plastered upon his face; however, he didn’t wait long before filling in the blank for me. “You would simply turn the inner layer of your cloths into a rather large hand warmer. Make sense?”
Aggravated by the man’s arrogance I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Nice thought that. I wonder why I just didn’t try to change something, anything. Oh wait, I did! Unfortunately for me those IVs were filled with something that was designed to keep me from doing anything like that.”
“They were able to prevent you from forging with some drugs?” Alexis asked in puzzlement.
Did Dempsey know more about people like me than Alexis, or was it Dempsey’s woman that knew more? With a mental shudder I forced myself to think about Alexis’ question. All that mattered was his shock at Dempsey’s ability to hold someone like me. Wait, he doesn’t know how to keep me from, what had he been calling it, forging? Could I possibly…? No, he had to be misleading me, there was no way I would be able to forge something. But Alexis’ shock told me quite plainly that I was restrained purely with physical restraints. And if that was true, then it would stand to reason that I could forge something. Not that it would do me any good since I was unable to touch anything with my hands.
Of course all that these thoughts did was feed my anger at the recent twists in my life. How have I ended up here? Sighing I knew I wouldn’t be able to speak in a civil tone so I clenched my teeth and bit off a single word, “Yes.”
I saw the wonder in his eyes and in that moment the man was transformed into a child on Christmas morning. After staring past me for a while he idly spoke to no one in particular. “I wonder what kind of drug would be able to accomplish that effect.”
“You’d have to ask his witch?” My mouth blurted before I could think about trying to leverage that small piece of information.
“Witch?” Dempsey asked as he slowly raised both of his eyebrows.
“It’s something I overheard my two guards talking about. So I assumed that this witch made the drugs that were coursing through me.” I instinctively tried to force a shrug from my shoulders, but like every other part of my body, they refused to comply with the command. So instead I just finished voicing my thought. “I guess I could be wrong, but that connection just feels right.”
In the utter silence that followed, Alexis repositioned himself ever so slightly. His back, or something, must have been uncomfortable. But his eyes finally fell upon the gun resting impotently in my hands. Without taking his eyes from my weapon he issued his next command. “All right that tells me how you ended up in my home. Now I want to know why you agreed to come. And I don’t want to hear the cheap answer.” With a deep breath he moved his eyes from my gun back to my eyes and his tone took on a mocking expression as he told me what he considered the cheap answer—“I didn’t want to die.”
Without hesitating I answered. “Too bad, because it’s all I have to offer you.” I paused only long enough to moisten my lips with my tongue before continuing on. “In the end I was able to convince myself that you were a dead man already for interfering with Dempsey. And to be blunt, I wasn’t willing to die in a vain attempt to protect a dead man.”
With a wry smile spreading across his face, he replied. “Without that little explanation your answer would have been wrong.” After taking a deep breath Alexis continued, “I can see how you were able to ease your conscious. However, just so you know, your argument is flawed. For the moment let’s just say that you were able to assassinate me. What about the next time? It would have gotten harder and harder to use that line of logic in the future.” Staring into my eyes I could swear he knew I had simply been planning on biding my time, but he ignored this and continued. “Yet that is neither here nor there. I’m more interested in the most important question. Why are you still alive? Normally Dempsey is not that forgiving to people who try and cheat him.”
“I asked him that as well.”
“And…”
“And he told me…” I began until I realized that he hadn’t even blinked at the fact I had actually met with the crime lord. “Wait, you’re not the least bit surprised he met with me personally?”
Shrugging his shoulders Alexis replied, “It’s not like I know all that much about him. I try not to get involved with that sort of person. But one of the things I do know is that there isn’t a single person in his organization that he hasn’t personally recruited. He is very hands on with his employees.”
“Now his meeting me actually makes sense.” I paused for a bit to allow the statement to sink in, but I eventually answered his earlier question. “To tell you the truth I don’t think he was being entirely honest with me. What he said was, well what he implied was, that he could use someone else like me on his payroll.”
Through a scowl Alexis asked, “He simply wanted another forger on his payroll?”
“That’s what he implied,” I answered. But after a moment I added my opinion of Dempsey’s so called reason. “But that doesn’t make sense to me.”
I would have continued but Alexis broke in. “Well,
that’s because you don’t know enough for it to make sense. That man could do some dangerous things if he ever managed to get someone like you on his payroll.” He paused a moment to consider before going on. “But from what you’re telling me he already has someone like you on his payroll. Now we just have to find a way to keep him from getting his wish with you.”
Shocked, I looked straight at Alexis and asked, “You’re going to help me?” But before he could answer the question, the gun that had been resting in my hands finally reverted back to its original form. Since I was unable to move my fingers, thanks to Alexis’ enforced paralysis, the pen fell from my grip and tumbled to the floor.
Looking from the falling pen to me, I could see Alexis’ eyes bulge as he bent down to examine the pen. “I knew you had forged that gun, but I had just assumed it had been forged from a toy.” Shifting his shocked gaze from the pen back to me he asked, “You forged it out of a pen?” The incredulity was thick in his words.
“Impressed?” I asked through a proud smile.
“You do have lots of raw potential.” He replied as he stood up. He began to chew on his upper lip for a moment as he thought in silence. I could almost hear him trying to figure out what he was going to do with me. When his eyes finally locked back with mine he stared for a moment before declaring. “You are a very gifted young forger. The world is not ready for someone of your potential to wind up as Dempsey’s puppet.”
Even though I was afraid of what I thought his answer was going to be, I forced myself to ask my next question. “Not that I’m trying to sound ungrateful…”
And no sooner was that partial thought spoken than did he finish my question. “But why am I willing to help the boy who just took a shot at me?” I nodded in confirmation. He leaned in close and spoke as quietly as he could and yet allow me to hear what he said. “Who said you would want my help?”
“What?”
I must not have been able to keep the fear from my voice because I could see a slight smile crack his lips as he replied. “What you don’t know…” he paused to emphasize that I should have known what he was alluding to, but of course I had no idea what he was referring to. But then with a shake of his head he seemed to dismiss the other half of the thought because the next words out of his mouth made no sense. “And to be honest with you, I honestly don’t care why you don’t know.”
In my growing fear I spoke flippantly, “So what? I get some kind of forger’s jail time or something?”
He either ignored the tone or he just didn’t care, either way, he merely replied to my question, “There is something like that for the lesser laws but for breaking any of the major laws like you just did, no, we only have one sentence for that, execution.”
If I could have fallen, I’m pretty sure I would have collapsed on the spot. I was that astonished that he could speak about an execution, scratch that, about my execution, so casually. I was so frustrated I blurted out, “What?! You’re going to execute me?!” I fought to reign myself in, but all I accomplished was to start stuttering. “Y… Yo… Y… You can’t do that, I didn’t even know these laws of yours.”
“Like I said, I don’t care.” His words were completely devoid of emotion. “Ignorance of the law isn’t a valid excuse in this country; you’re expected to educate yourself about them.” Leaning back against the wall he asked me a question, “So what makes you think I’ll find your ignorance a valid excuse in regard to our code of laws?”
“B… B… Bu… But…”
He used his index finger to signal me to keep quiet, and with that serene look, I was only too pleased to comply with the command. Once he was sure that I would remain silent he went on in a casual tone—I couldn’t believe this, he was casually speaking about my death, great. “Don’t bother trying. I’ve heard every possible excuse you could ever come up with a dozen times over.”
“That’s not fair.” I was grasping at straws and I knew it, but when the only other option is death, you grasped at any straw you could find.
Hearing the derision in his voice I could tell he considered me nothing more than a disobedient child. “Neither is a rogue forger who is doing things that make the rest of our lives harder. All your exposure would manage to do is put magic back into people’s minds.” He flashed that threatening index finger back in front of my face as he spat out his next few words. “Let’s see just how poor your education was. Have you ever heard of the Salem witch trials?”
I offered a curt sound of affirmation in response and Alexis continued. “Well what you probably don’t know, though hopefully you’ve put it together by now, is that some of those witches were external forgers like you and me. But they weren’t the ones who brought the attention down upon our kind. They were innocent forgers who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Those rogue forgers managed to escape their punishment.” He paused as if trying to keep control of his escalating anger. “Right now I’m trying to decide what I’m going to do with you.”
I made a last desperate attempt, “There’s no way you have the kind of authority to execute me.”
As he shook his head in reply, all I could see was that calm face. How could anyone so calmly discuss executing someone? “Unfortunately for you, you tried to murder one of the few forgers in the United States that actually wields that kind of authority.”
His revelation stunned me into silence. I couldn’t even manage to mutter a curse, and at this point, that was all I wanted to do. How did I possibly manage to anger two people with that kind of power within a twenty-four hour span? It must be some kind of record. No one was that unlucky. Glancing around I noticed that Alexis was no longer in the hallway, or rather he was no longer in my line of sight. That was when worry truly began to build up inside of me. What would happen to me if he simply left me here?
Tentatively I called out to my would-be executioner, “Alexis, where are you? What are you doing?” I was answered by silence and after having a mild heart attack I called out again, “Alexis, please don’t leave me here.”
“Don’t worry boy. Like I said, I haven’t decided what I’m going to do to you, yet.” Alexis answered as he exited his den. As he patted his freshly dawned coat he continued. “First thing’s first, I need to rescue you from that mobster. Then I’ll be able to figure out what I will do with you.” The smile he wore on his face made me think of a ravenous lion staring down at a lame zebra. I only wish I knew who he had pegged as the zebra. Me, Dempsey, or both of us.
Chapter 19
Despite the trepidation building in the pit of my stomach, I gritted my teeth and forced myself to ask the next question. “If you’re not going to execute me, would you take me with you?” To be honest I had no idea what I was hoping for, but I figured if I was potentially a dead man then there was no harm in asking. And if I could go with him, maybe I could convince him to let me live.
Instead of speaking he stood and stared at me for a moment. All I knew was I wouldn’t retract my question nor would I be the first one to break the silence. I had poked the proverbial sleeping bear, and speaking would be the same as running away, I had to wait for Alexis’ next move. While I stood there I could see him thinking about my question, he was honestly considering it. Perhaps my request would turn into more than wishful thinking.
Waiting for the answer that would change the rest of my life… Okay maybe that was a bit strong, but the answer would at least affect my life in some way. I tried, I really tried to wait patiently, but he still kept silent, all the while studying me with those unwavering eyes. As the silence stretched I came to a couple of conclusions, first, he was reweighing my worth. Granted, I had only known the man for a short while but for some reason I had the feeling that he was typically steadfast in his decisions. If nothing else, I had managed to make him reconsider my worth. Now if only this was enough to tip his decision in my favor.
The second thought that ran through my mind was much more simplistic. Alexis knew how to use silence almost like a physical
weapon. As the strain grew, second by second, I could swear I was being pummeled by fists. Despite the mental beating I was taking I would like to say that I managed to keep my dignity and never resigned myself to whatever was to come. I would like to say that, but it wouldn’t be true. The truth was that, for a moment, I was willing to accept my death. After that initial moment I found my determination once again. I wouldn’t resign myself to merely wait for my execution. Only a dead man patiently waits for death when he thinks there is even the slightest chance he will live.
After allowing my anxiety to build, he slowly started to nod his head in assent. He kept silently nodding until I lost count at around thirty nods. What ever happened to a simple “yes” or “no”?
After a few more moments he stopped moving his head and latched his eyes upon mine, keeping the silence intact. If I could have, I would have started looking for wounds from this bloody silence. Eventually, he broke the silence and his words honestly shocked me. “To tell you the truth, I was thinking about telling Dempsey that I had just killed you out of hand.” The bluntness of those words were like a knife to my heart. He must have seen the look of fear that sparked in my eyes because he quickly finished his thought. “It would have been mostly accurate if not completely true…”
I quickly interrupted his train of thought, “You still haven’t made up your mind?!” I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut.
With my words I could see the rage bubble up in his eyes, but that didn’t last very long. Attempting to recover from the lapse of control Alexis shut his eyes as his lips closed down upon a captured breath. Right then I realized that my mouth could have either gotten me struck down or restrained in complete darkness. “Don’t you listen, boy? Or are you too intent upon running your mouth? Not two minutes ago I told you that I haven’t made a decision. Do you honestly think that I could have decided such an important issue in as little time as that?”
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