Man of Wax (Man of Wax Trilogy)

by Robert Swartwood

  Carver and I went straight to the manager’s office. There was a door in the back of the office, a screen door, where light from inside suffused onto the small cement porch that contained a plastic patio chair and table. On the table was a glass ashtray. In it was a dozen stubbed out cigarette butts.

  • • •

  AT THAT MOMENT, on the other side of the motel, Ronny and Bronson were busy going from one room to the next. As Ronny would later tell me, almost all the curtains were closed in every window. There were only two rooms that had their lights on, and those were rooms two and five. They snuck up to each dark room and listened but there was no sound, not even the soft murmur of conversation, and they backed away.

  • • •

  WITH A STEADY hand Carver gripped the screen door. We’d already worked out how this was going to go but now he glanced back, stared at me for a few long seconds as if asking if I remembered. I nodded. He continued opening the door. We knew nothing about this screen door, whether or not it was going to screech, but whatever the case we needed to act fast.

  Only a little sound was produced as Carver opened the door, just a slight hydraulic hiss, and then Carver was rushing inside, his heavy boots somehow quiet as they stormed over the linoleum. I followed a second later, and I found myself in a back office, which smelled of beer and weed and sex. This last didn’t make sense but then we turned a corner and there they were on the floor, a man and a woman, just lying there naked on two stacked mattresses. White sheets covered their bodies. The one was definitely Kevin but the other I couldn’t make out, her face buried into her pillow. Beside the bed were crumpled condom wrappers and balled-up tissues.

  Carver walked toward them slowly, his rifle aimed, until he was standing right next to Kevin’s side of the bed. With his right hand, he pulled out a switchblade from his pocket, flicked it open. Kevin continued to sleep, his eyes closed and his mouth open, emitting a slight snore. Carver extended the knife until the tip touched Kevin’s Adam’s apple. Kevin’s eyes opened for a second, as if blinking open in sleep, and then realization hit him that this wasn’t a dream and his eyes opened wide and he was just staring up at Carver, then at me, then back at Carver.

  He made a noise, something that sounded like “huh?” and his legs started to kick. Carver pressed the knife right into Kevin’s throat. Kevin’s body jerked, stayed very still. He just stared up at Carver as Carver leaned forward. The girl still lying with her face in the pillow hadn’t moved at all, and for some strange reason I wondered if she was dead.

  Carver whispered, “Where are they?”

  Sleep had been chased from Kevin’s system and now he was wide-awake. His scarred face had flushed. He glared back at Carver, his chin raised because if he lowered it any the tip would cut deeper.

  “Fuck you,” he whispered harshly, defiantly, and Carver cut his throat.

  For some reason I expected Kevin to die instantly, but it took him awhile. Convulsing on the bed, gurgling blood, trying to breathe in air—it was so much that it caused the girl lying next to him to sense something was wrong and sleepily raise her head from the pillow. She saw what was happening immediately and started to scream. I was there a moment later, the rifle now strapped over my shoulder as I put my one hand over her mouth, my other hand on her shoulder to keep her in place. She still tried to fight me but by then Kevin was almost dead and Carver took his knife away from Kevin’s throat, the blade now dripping blood. Kevin gurgled for just a few more seconds before stopping altogether.

  Next Carver pointed the knife at the girl’s throat, shook his head, whispered, “Shh.”

  She stopped struggling but continued to shake.

  “Are you going to scream?” Carver whispered.

  With my hand still on her mouth, I felt her head as it moved from left to right and back again.

  Carver looked at me and nodded once. I took my hand away.

  “Now,” Carver whispered, leaning down across where Kevin lay dead in a growing pool of his own blood, “where are they?”

  The girl continued to tremble. “You ... you’re going to kill me.”

  “That depends on you. I asked him a question and he refused to answer it. Now are you going to follow his example?”

  The girl didn’t say anything, just began sobbing. Carver looked at me again and I saw the irritation in his face. He extended the knife even closer toward her throat.

  “Do you want me to kill you?”

  A soft sound, almost lost within her sobbing: “No.”

  • • •

  AT THAT MOMENT outside, David had rushed in from where he’d been positioned on the other side of the highway. He started helping Ronny and Bronson, who had already determined that the only rooms occupied right now were in fact rooms two and five. How many were in each room was impossible to tell, but now that David was here with his silenced rifle, they started toward room five.

  • • •

  “OKAY,” CARVER SAID, staring right back into her eyes. “Then answer my questions and I won’t kill you. I promise that.”

  “They ... they’ll kill me.”

  “Not if I kill them first.”

  • • •

  RONNY TRIED THE knob for room five. It wasn’t locked. David stood in front of the door, his rifle raised. He glanced at Ronny, at Bronson, at Ronny again. He nodded. Ronny turned the knob and pushed the door open, and David stepped inside.

  • • •

  CARVER SAID, “NOW tell me where they are.”

  “Wh-Who?”

  “The woman and the child. The ones being held captive. What room are they in?”

  • • •

  THERE WERE ONLY two men in room five. The bed had been taken away and the entire place was filled with tables. On the tables were a half dozen computers. This was the base for the game, where the cameras in the player’s glasses and car and wherever else transmitted to and then the transmission was broadcast out over the Internet. Two men, each no older than thirty, sat on folding chairs working at these computers. Neither of them had time to move or say a word before David stepped in and shot them both. Bronson followed, hurrying over to check the bathroom, while Ronny stayed out on the walkway, keeping an eye on room two.

  • • •

  THE WOMAN SHOOK her head. “No,” she sobbed. “I—I can’t.”

  Carver pressed the knife right against her throat. She released a sudden but breathless scream.

  “Then where’s Simon?”

  • • •

  BESIDES THE TWO bodies, room five was empty. The three men started over toward room two. They set up the same way as before. Ronny tried the knob but found that this one wasn’t going to turn. He nodded at Bronson, whose job it would be to kick down the door. Bronson got in position. He glanced at Ronny, at David. Both men nodded. Bronson kicked it open, and the two other men entered, their guns raised.

  • • •

  THE WOMAN HAVING told us all she knew (which wasn’t much), Carver returned his knife and then raised his rifle. The woman made a soft noise, something that sounded like please, and he shoved the butt of the rifle right into the side of her head. She dropped at once. This time she was facing up and I managed to get a good look at her, even in the dark.

  She was the girl who’d dropped off the package Monday morning. She was the one chewing strawberry bubblegum. She was the one who gave me the automatic thanks after I signed my name.

  Carver glanced at me, said, “Let’s move,” and we started toward the front.

  56

  We hurried through the small waiting area of the manager’s office and hit the door that took us out into the inner section of the U. The pickup and van were there like before, but now there was another car, too, a sedan just like the one that had driven me from the police station in Chicago.

  Across the sand-speckled parking lot, the door to room five stood open. There was sound to our left and we raised our rifles but first David appeared, followed by Ronny, then Bronson. They were sh
aking their heads.

  “Empty,” Ronny said.

  Carver put his finger to his lips, shushing Ronny and the rest of them before they spoke another word. We both started forward, passing by room one until we got to room two and the others.

  “That’s because he’s not in there,” Carver whispered.

  The three men were bunched up on the porch, each holding their weapons at the ready, making it nearly impossible to push through.

  “Who?” Bronson said, stepping back to get out of Carver’s way, but he must have said it too loudly, giving away his position, because before Carver could shush him again or pull him back, gunfire erupted from inside room three. The window shattered; glass rained everywhere. Bronson’s body convulsed just like Howard Abele’s on his bed.

  Before any of us could rush forward to where Bronson fell or begin returning fire, room three’s door opened and a man stepped out. All of us raised our weapons but none of us opened fire.

  We couldn’t, because the man wasn’t alone.

  He was holding a small boy in front of him, a small black boy. With his other hand the man held a gun straight at the boy’s head.

  “Anybody moves, anybody breathes, and I’ll kill him.” There were four of us but the man kept his attention solely on Carver. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it, my friend?”

  Carver was silent. The boy in the man’s arms began crying.

  “Shh,” the man said, stroking the boy’s head with the barrel of his gun. His eyes never left Carver’s face. “Come now, Carver, be civil. Say hello to your son.”

  57

  For the longest time nobody spoke. The only noise was that of the waves, the traffic, the squawking of spooked seagulls. And the boy crying in Simon’s arms.

  Then Carver said something, a murmur I couldn’t hear.

  Simon said, “Say it again, Carver. I don’t think your men heard you.”

  Carver cleared his throat. “Stand down.”

  Standing there on the walkway, my rifle aimed right at Simon, I watched Ronny and David both glance at each other. Neither one moved.

  “Goddamn it,” Carver shouted, “stand down!”

  Ronny was the first to lower his rifle. David followed a few seconds later. I just stood there, the rifle stuck in my hands.

  “Drop them,” Simon said.

  Neither Ronny nor David moved.

  Simon said, “Fine, then I’ll kill him now,” and pressed the gun right into the boy’s head. The boy screamed even louder.

  “Do as he says,” Carver said. “That’s an order.”

  It didn’t look like either man was going to follow that order. Then, all at once, Ronny’s rifle fell to the ground. David glanced at him, stared a moment, then dropped his rifle too.

  “All your guns,” Simon said.

  First Ronny pulled a nine-millimeter from the waistband in back of his pants. David slowly took out a gun that was strapped to his ankle. They tossed those on the ground as well.

  “Ben, now it’s your turn.”

  For the first time Simon looked at me. And, for the first time, I looked at him. Really looked at him. He was just a regular guy. Standing no taller than six feet, a full face and short dark hair. Like anyone you’d see on the sidewalk, at the grocery store, at church. He grinned as me, his teeth white and straight.

  “I know you don’t want to but neither did these two men, and see how helpful they were? Drop the rifle, Ben. No, on second thought, throw it up here.”

  It was the last thing I wanted to do, and to be honest I didn’t think I could. As much as I told myself to let go, my hands refused, until finally, after a couple of seconds, first my right hand relaxed its grip, then my left hand, and before I knew it I’d tossed the rifle.

  “Good,” Simon said. “Now, Carver, be a good boy.”

  “Let him go.”

  Simon shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “This was the deal. You trade me for my son.”

  The entire time the boy continued to cry. He was squirming in Simon’s arm but Simon was doing a good job keeping the boy between himself and the rest of us.

  Simon’s eyes shifted from Carver to the rest of us. He smiled and said to Carver, “Your men don’t even know, do they?”

  Carver said nothing.

  “All this time you’ve been telling them, what, that your son was really dead?”

  Again Carver said nothing.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Simon said to the rest of us, “there was a dead baby in that toilet. But it wasn’t Carver’s son. Carver didn’t know that at first, but he eventually found out. He understood that we kept his son alive—or at least I kept teasing him with the idea he was still alive.”

  Silence.

  Simon smiled again. “Every time I had the chance, I reminded Carver that his son was still alive. His wife, well, she unfortunately is no longer with us. We found a much more, shall we say, profitable use for her. We have video of it too, Carver, in case you never saw it.” He paused. “Did you ever see it?”

  “Let him go,” Carver said.

  “All this time,” Simon said, “you’ve been trying to get to me because I have your son. And all this time you’ve been lying to your men, haven’t you? Telling them that their families were already dead so they would leave the game.” He shook his head. “Tsk, tsk, Carver. For a man once named the Man of Honor, that’s not very honorable at all.”

  “Give him to me.”

  Simon shifted his eyes to the rest of us again. “Don’t get me wrong. By now your families are gone. Well, except yours, Ben. They’re still around, but you’re still out of luck.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, but before Simon could respond Carver shouted, “Give me my son!”

  Simon said, “By the way, Carver, your son is quite a bright boy. Do you know what his first word was?”

  The boy continued to sob, but his sobs were less vicious now. He seemed to be losing wind, staring at Carver like he actually recognized his father, ignoring the gun aimed at his head.

  Simon repositioned the boy on his arm, rolled his shoulder, grinned again.

  “It was entertainment. How do you like that, Carver? We sat him in front of one of the games and he pointed at the screen and said, Entertainment. Like I said, very bright boy you’ve got here. Knows his stuff.”

  Carver said nothing.

  Simon sighed. “Oh well, if you’re not going to play nicely, maybe you shouldn’t play at all. But I’ll give you one last chance. Simon says catch.”

  The boy screamed again as he went airborne, Simon throwing him at Carver. Carver started forward, shouting and shooting at Simon who had begun firing the gun. Carver’s rifle gave three consecutive kicks before he threw it aside and lurched forward to catch the boy.

  I’d seen what was happening even before Simon said his final word. I started moving at once. The moment the boy was in the air I pushed past Ronny and David, my head down and my shoulders up because I knew that any moment one of the bullets would tear through me. I hopped over Bronson and continued forward—four more steps, three more steps, two more steps—and I reached Carver just as the rifle fell and he grabbed the child. He lost his balance and started to fall back but I made it to him just in time. I gripped hold of his shoulder and his arm and kept him steady and on his feet.

  I expected the boy to still be crying out, to be screaming, but he had fallen silent.

  A moment later, held now in Carver’s arms, I saw the reason why.

  58

  Again, nobody spoke for the longest time. The ocean, the traffic, the breeze, even the seagulls spooked once more by the sudden volley of gunfire—all that was constant but had become more than just background. Blood pounded in my ears. I’d been certain there for a second that I was as good as dead. But no, the only ones dead now were Bronson lying on the walkway, and Leon Ellison lying dead in his father’s arms.

  “Carver?” Ronny’s voice, fighting to make its way through the silence. “Carver, you okay
?”

  Carver sat on the ground where I’d helped lower him. My hands were still on his shoulder and arm. I could feel him trembling. The sun was higher now on the horizon, giving this area of the world just enough light, and I finally saw his face. I saw the tears. I saw the pain. I saw the anger and the frustration. Mostly though, I saw the hate.

  And I saw he wasn’t looking down at his son. He was holding his son like he was never going to let go, yes, but his eyes were on something else.

  That was when another noise fought through the silence. One that must have been going the entire time. It reminded me of being back in Howard Abele’s mansion, sitting there beside his bed. The chuckling of a dying man. Now that dying man was Simon. All three of Carver’s bullets had struck him in the stomach.

  The man wasn’t wearing a vest; the abundance of dark blood was enough to confirm this. He had fallen and managed to prop himself in a sitting position against the wall, right between the opened door of room three and the window of room four. He sat there, chuckling, blood dribbling from the corners of his mouth.

  His gun lay only a few feet away. It wasn’t within reaching distance, and as long as he didn’t have himself wired to any explosives, we were okay for the moment. Still I found myself standing and walking toward him. Bending to pick up the gun and continuing on. It was only a few feet and didn’t take long at all, yet somehow I felt as if I’d walked a mile.