Chapter 32 #3
I approached him and he was able to angle his head just enough to see my face.
His eyes bulged in fear, his chest rising and falling rapidly, fighting for breath, sweat soaking his body, panic making his frame shake so hard he was practically vibrating with fear.
I reached behind his head, unlatched the restraint and took off the gag.
‘Please, I’m sorry. Let me go . . . I swear to God, I’m sorry . . . Help! Help!’
I stared at him, and said, ‘You can scream all you want, but this room is soundproof. What happens next is up to you, Cory. Is this your phone?’
He nodded.
I held the phone up to his face and it unlocked. I opened the tab for emails and started scrolling.
‘You sent photos of me and my daughter to an editor at the Manhattan Star and the Daily Post. The trolls have picked up this article and run with it. How much did you get paid? Oh, twenty-five thousand? Not bad. Here’s what’s going to happen now.
I’m going to email this guy from your phone and tell him that the twenty-five grand will be refunded.
You’re coming clean, Cory. You’re going to say those photos are not real and were made with AI.
The editor will take them down straight away. Does that sound okay to you?’
‘But . . . but . . . the pictures were real,’ he said. ‘I’ll . . . I’ll be blacklisted. I won’t be able to sell a picture anywhere after that. Please, I’ll split the money with you—’
‘I don’t think you understand the full picture here,’ I said. ‘No pun intended.’
I gestured to the security glass. The Lizard stepped forward and knocked it.
Cory’s gaze flitted from the glassed enclosure, to me, then Tony, then the Lizard.
‘What? What’s going on? Wha— Jesus fuckin’ Christ, fuck! What the fuck are those things?’
‘You shouldn’t fuckin’ swear so much,’ said Tony Two Fucks.
Out of the gloom, just visible in the low-level LED lighting, two huge reptiles moved toward the glass. The largest one came right up to the Lizard, looked at him and a long black forked tongue licked the glass.
‘Good boy, Ernie,’ said the Lizard.
‘This is Ernie,’ I said. ‘The smaller one is Bert. They’re Komodo dragons.
And they’re hungry. My friend here works in disposal.
In a digital world, it’s increasingly difficult to make a body disappear.
Bert and Ernie solve that problem. They can rip through two hundred pounds of flesh and bone in no time. ’
‘They don’t like the teeth, though,’ said the Lizard. ‘Teeth don’t digest. They show up as little pearls in their turds. It’s easier on them if we take your teeth out when we chop up your body.’
‘W-what?’ said Cory.
‘I think your career as a photographer is over, one way or another,’ I said as I typed out the email to the editor on Cory’s phone.
It didn’t take long. I let him stew in his panic.
He watched as the Lizard laid out his tools on a leather cloth – a pair of pliers, his filleting knife and a bone saw.
‘So what will it be?’ I asked. ‘I can send this email, and you send back your fee for the photographs and play along nicely. Or I send the email, and you just disappear.’
‘Wait! Let’s talk! I can get them to take the pictures down, but I can’t say I doctored the images. There’s got to be another way.’
‘He’s not getting it,’ said the Lizard. ‘Maybe he’ll understand better when I’ve cut his foot off.’
He picked up the filleting knife.
‘No!’ screamed Cory.
‘You drugged his daughter,’ said Tony. ‘If it was up to me, I’d cut off your fuckin’ hands and feet.’
‘I’ll do it! I’ll do it!’
I hit send on the email, used his face to log into his banking app and found the payment for the pictures.
Wired it back to the sender. Christine had already sent an email threatening to get an injunction to have the articles removed.
Now, with written confirmation from the photographer that the picture was fake, it would come down fast.
‘We know where to find you, so make sure you don’t change your mind,’ I said.
‘Anything you want. Just let me go.’
‘Let him loose,’ I said.
Tony and the Lizard removed the straps and Cory, still trembling, sat up on the table.
‘Thank you, I swear I’ll play along. Just let me go and I swe—’
He didn’t see the Lizard throwing a right cross – it was too fast – but I saw the flash of his fist and Cory’s head rocking and then it hit the back of the table.
‘If it was the Lizard’s kid I wouldn’t chop him up,’ said the Lizard. ‘Just give him a small cut and throw him in there with Bert and Ernie, then grab some popcorn.’
‘I thought about it too,’ I said.
‘It’s a mistake, letting this prick live,’ said Tony.
‘We’ve got nothing to worry about,’ I said.
‘He doesn’t know where he is, and I guess you’re going to leave him unconscious on a street corner somewhere, so he can’t lead the cops here.
He knows our names, but he won’t go to the authorities.
He’s got no proof of anything other than a couple of bruises and a couple of loose front teeth.
Besides, he doesn’t want the cops asking the hotel questions about one of their guests being roofied.
He’s not connected to any criminal enterprise, and he’s scared shitless.
We’ll be okay. Thank you both for what you’ve done.
I’ll thank Jimmy personally next time I see him. ’
‘You okay, Eddie?’ asked the Lizard.
‘Not really, but what’s new.’
‘If you need anything, call the Lizard,’ said the Lizard.
‘I’ll bear that in mind. Give Bert and Ernie an extra pork chop tonight.’
‘You want to come back to the apartment for lasagna?’ asked Tony.
‘No, thanks,’ I said, looking at the dragons. They eyed Cory hungrily as he lay unconscious on the table. ‘I lost my appetite.’
I didn’t tell Tony that Denise had brought me one of her lasagnas for lunch just after she started at the firm. While it was a nice thought, Denise wasn’t much of a cook. The lasagna didn’t really work as food, but I remember thinking at the time that it would make great loft insulation.
Denise loved Tony, and so she loved cooking lasagna for him.
Tony loved Denise, and he loved eating her lasagna.
And that made me happy.
I left the Lizard’s house, fired up the Mustang and dialed Christine’s number on speaker as I headed back into Manhattan.
The call went to voicemail. She wasn’t talking to me.
‘Christine, the picture and the article will be taken down within the hour. The rest of the videos linking to it will all be deleted within a day or two. I took care of it . . .’
Hesitating, I tried to decide what else I should say. What kind of apology could I make that I hadn’t made before, a thousand times over.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I love her so much. I love you too. You know that. I just . . . I don’t ever want anything bad to happen to anyone because of me.
You were right to move on. You were right to get me out of your lives.
If you want, I’ll stay away. For as long as you think it’s right.
You don’t need to go to court. I won’t fight you.
I just want you both to be safe. I hope Amy is okay.
I hope you’re okay. Give my best to Kevin.
He’s a good guy. And he’ll be a better father to Amy than I ever could. ’
I hung up, stared at the road ahead.
As I went over the Queensboro Bridge, the lights from the city blurred and swam.
I blinked the tears out of my eyes, wiped my face.
Sometimes driving is strange. I didn’t have a particular place I needed to be, and no destination in mind, but somehow my hands turned the wheel and I found myself headed downtown, and then toward Chelsea.
By the time I pulled up at the curb outside a Korean noodle shop, the rain was beating the hood of the Mustang.
I got out of the car and hustled into the noodle bar.
It only took a matter of seconds, but I still had to stand on the entrance mat and brush rivers of rainwater off my coat.
I ordered a bowl of the chicken ramen and a diet soda, then took a stool at the counter facing the window.
The food didn’t take long. I leaned over the bowl, letting the heat from the broth warm my face, but I still felt my wet shirt clinging to my back.
I would dry up soon. I wasn’t bothered by it. The cold reminded me I was alive.
As I ate, I glanced up at the apartment building facing the noodle shop.
Third floor. Seventh window from the right.
A lamp in that apartment cast a warm glow on the ceiling.
The rubber plant that sat on the window ledge of that apartment had grown since I’d last been here.
People who aren’t doing so well tend to forget the little things.
I took the relative health and prosperity of the rubber plant as a reflection of the wellbeing of its owner.
I ate my noodles, used the big wooden soup spoon for the broth and then popped the tab on my diet Pepsi. The broth was salty, but I liked it that way. I always ordered the same thing here.
Sat in the same place.
Stared at the same window.
Then something happened that I didn’t expect.
A young woman in a long brown overcoat left the building. The rain had eased a little, but she waited by the entrance for a few seconds until a tall young man in a black overcoat came out and opened a wide umbrella. She linked arms with him and smiled. He smiled back.
The last time I’d seen the young woman she was standing outside her little run-down rental home in the Bronx, some years ago. She was staring at a large leather bag I’d left on the front step, with a white envelope on top of it.
The envelope had her name on it.
Hanna Tublowski.
I’d watched her read it, then stare at the leather bag, then look around for who might have left it. That’s when I’d hit the gas on my old Mustang and drove away before she could see me.