NEW YORK, New York. The Big Apple. The City That Never Sleeps. Spider-Man’s hometown. I assume it’s a pretty cool place to visit, when you’re not stuck in a fleabag motel for three days cramming for finals week in the psychopath exams.
“Where were you born?” I asked for about the ninety-second time.
“ Cleveland, Ohio,” said Thomas, spitting out his answer like he was in basic training.
“What’s your favorite food?”
“Ham and cheese on rye.”
“When will this nightmare be over?”
“Two hours, twenty-six minutes.”
“Can we quit now?”
“No we may not.”
I set the stack of papers on the bed, which was almost completely covered with pages of personal information about Mr. Ned Markstein, alias the Headhunter. We’d been going over it non-stop. This would’ve been a pretty miserable experience regardless of the information involved, but it was made worse by the fact that we were mostly working with descriptions of grisly murders. Fourteen of them, counting the mass decapitation. How I longed for the good old days of biology finals. Except the dissections.
I did find out that whomever the Headhunter was corresponding with hated me because one of his close friends had been sent to prison because of me. He didn’t identify the jailbird, not that it would have helped.
My own proposal was that instead of Thomas pretending to be the Headhunter, we should use the real Headhunter and make him very much aware that Thomas was pointing a gun at him, but Thomas said it was too risky. “One wink of his eye and the whole plan could be ruined,” he explained, using a tone carefully calculated to let me know that I was a blithering idiot.
So Thomas, Roger and I sat in a motel room making sure Thomas knew everything he possibly could about the Headhunter. The actual Headhunter was back in Florida, heavily drugged while being watched over and re-drugged by Craig. Roger and I weren’t allowed to leave the room, because we didn’t know if anybody was watching us. Thomas was scared of a bug or something being put on him, so the only place he went for food was the hamburger place next door, where the ketchup burned your mouth and the mustard had hard little chunks in it that hurt your teeth. I commented that our room was filled with so many bugs that one more couldn’t hurt, but Thomas didn’t find that comment particularly humorous.
The whole memorizing-every-detail-of-the-Headhunter’s-life thing seemed like kind of a waste to me. I mean, if the kidnappers didn’t know what the Headhunter looked like, how would they know his shoe size? I pointed this out, too, but once again it was explained to me that I was a blithering idiot, which is apparently not a good type of idiot for a person to be.
“Day three,” said Roger, speaking into his miniature tape recorder. “Morale is low. Television programs have continued to be poor, but we remain ever hopeful that reception will improve. Body odor maintains its downward trajectory.”
“Put that away,” I told him.
“Andrew continues to be a substantial penis,” he narrated. “For the record, this is not new behavior, but it’s rare that I have the agony of spending three days in his company without time for recuperation.”
Roger had decided that he was going to take notes on our entire adventure. Because I got the big book deal last time, he figured it was his turn. I tried to explain that there would be no adventure, that we were going to sit in a car and do nothing, but his response was “Yeah, right,” which was a little disconcerting since I was thinking the same thing.
About an hour later, Thomas opened a black briefcase. “It’s time to go,” he announced, taking out a pair of handcuffs. He proceeded to snap the bracelets around his wrists, and then held out his arms toward us. “If matters don’t proceed as planned, here’s what you do. Twist your hands in opposite directions like this, then pull your wrists forward like this.” The handcuffs unhinged and fell to the floor. “Understand?”
“Do you have those in fur-lined?” I asked.
“Pink fur, if you’ve got it,” Roger added.
“You know,” said Thomas, “I used to be appalled at the workings of the minds of individuals like the Headhunter, but after being around you two I’m starting to understand the desire to kill.”
“Hey, Thomas, you made a funny!” I said. “Congratulations! Welcome to humanity!”
“I wasn’t joking.”
AFTER WE each did a practice run with the trick handcuffs, which wasn’t all that easy with our hands behind our backs, Roger and I were separately led out to Thomas’ rental car. He was pressed up right against me, since if the kidnappers were watching it had to look like he was trying to hide the handcuffs from the general public. To anyone else, it probably would have looked like we’d had too much fun with the handcuffs, but fortunately the parking lot was empty.
Roger and I sat in the back seat, behaving ourselves, while Thomas drove us the half hour to our destination. I hadn’t seen snow in quite a while, but it was pretty much the same as I remembered it (white) and the thrill wore off quickly. He parked outside of a large six-story brownstone with lots of chunks missing.
Thomas turned around to face us. “Okay, I would now like to apologize to you gentlemen, since I haven’t been completely honest about the situation.”
I frantically began twisting my hands in the trick cuffs.
“No, it isn’t like that. The plan is exactly the same, merely a bit more involved. Not a lot. Barely at all. It’s simply that the meeting is inside this condemned building, and you’ll have to come with me.”
“You turd!” I shouted.
Thomas frowned. “Did you seriously just call me a turd?”
“Sorry. I have a seven year-old. But yes, you’re a damn bastard turd! What do you mean we’re coming in with you?”
“Like I said, I apologize. I had no choice. Your wife wouldn’t have let you come if she’d known.”
“My wife hasn’t been around for three days! You haven’t even let me call her!”
“Right. Well, you might not have come either. I promise you, the danger is minimal. Almost non-existent. The situation has barely changed from the scenario that you both agreed to.”
“Actually, I don’t remember being given all that much choice, if we want to get picky,” said Roger.
I sighed angrily. “So what other information have you kept from us? Should I learn how to defuse a nuclear warhead?”
“Nothing else, I assure you,” Thomas insisted.
“And why should I believe that?”
“Because,” Thomas said, pointing a gun at my face, “you don’t have a choice.”
“Aw, c’mon! Why would you do that?” I asked. “All this time I’ve been feeling pretty good about myself, putting myself at risk to help some poor guy get his wife back, and now you’re forcing me to do it, which means I can’t get any personal satisfaction out of it. Thanks a hell of a lot!”
Thomas lowered the gun. “I apologize. I just needed to ensure that you didn’t walk out on me.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Well, I’m putting the gun away, then.”
“What good does that do?” I asked. “I still know it’s there. I still know I’m being forced into this. You can’t exactly give a Boy Scout points for helping an old lady cross the street when he’s doing it at gunpoint!”
“There’s no gun,” said Thomas, holding up his empty hands. “I won’t shoot you. You have free will. Go as you please.”
“Just shut up and take us inside,” I said.
“I for one would be happy with merely the outward appearance of free will,” Roger complained.
“All right, let’s go.” Thomas unlocked his door, started to open it, and then looked a bit embarrassed. “Of course, I have to take you in there at gunpoint anyway to maintain the illusion. Sorry.”