“Take his blindfold off. He’s supposed to see it coming.”
“You don’t want to do that,” I shouted. “Do not remove my blindfold.” I felt a hand on the back of my head and then the cloth that covered my eyes was removed. The two men who had followed Murton into my bar the other night, the same two men who worked security for Samuel Pate stood before me, their faces void of any emotion. “You shouldn’t have done that,” I said. “You’ve just complicated the situation.”
The two men looked at each other. “Get a load of this guy,” the taller of the two said. “We’ve just complicated the situation.” He turned and looked at me. “It’s your situation that’s complicated, Hoss. It’s about to get worse, too.”
I was in a large room that looked like an abandoned warehouse. A solitary light fixture hung low on its cord over a small card table with two chairs. On top of the table were a rubber mallet, a roll of duct tape, a handheld stun gun, a pair of tin snips, an electric chain saw, and a small digital camera. The shorter of the two men saw me looking at the table and said, “We’re supposed to get pictures along the way. Seems a little excessive to me, but people like this, you gotta do what you’re told. Nothing personal, you understand.”
I felt a quiver run through my jaw and I was ashamed at my inability to control its movement. But something else was happening along the way as well, and when it did, my breathing became more regular and my heart began to slow. If I was at my end, if this was my time, I would go with as much courage as I could muster. My regrets were few, though significant. When I closed my eyes I saw Sandy and how we were just beginning our journey, a journey she would have to continue without me. I saw a faceless, unborn child, and though I could not tell if it were a boy or a girl, I knew it was mine and Sandy’s. The thought of how I would never know a child’s love or the joys of being a grandparent in the later season of my life filled me with a sense of loss I thought myself not capable of. I saw my father then, and realized that any pain I was going to endure just now would be immeasurable compared to the pain he has suffered at the loss of my mother and then finally the loss of his only son. When I spoke again, it was not for myself, but for those who would live on without me. My voice was strong, and for a moment I showed no fear.
“No matter what happens to me here, I’ve got people in my life that won’t rest until this is squared. Do you hear me? Whatever you think would happen to you if you walk away now is nothing compared to what it will be if you don’t. You won’t be caught and convicted. You’ll be hunted like animals and someone, somewhere will flip your switch. You won’t even see it coming. Samuel Pate isn’t worth what you’re doing here, don’t you see that?”
The taller of the two men walked over and picked up the roll of duct tape from the table. He took the cloth they had used to blindfold me and forced it into my mouth, then tore a foot-long piece of tape from the roll and placed it over the cloth. “Samuel Pate? You think this is about Ol’ Sermon Sam?” He looked at the shorter man and said, “You hear that?”
The shorter man shook his head. “Come on, let’s get going, already,” he said. “I don’t want to be here all night.” He then stepped closer and pressed the stun gun against the side of my ribcage and pulled the trigger.
The shock of the stun gun locked my body in a ridged arc against the restraints and caused my bowels and bladder to let go, the air rife with the odor of my waste. I felt my heart stammer in my chest and the shock roared through my body like a double header locomotive steaming into an electrical storm in the middle of the night. Both men jumped back away from my incontinence and the short man said, “Ah, Jesus Christ, look at that. Why don’t we just park one in his squash and be done with it?”
“You know why,” the tall man said. “We’re supposed to do it slow, make it last. He’s supposed to suffer before he get’s it. Now get that hose over by the wall and rinse him down. I ain’t gonna work standing in his shit.”
My body was numb from the shock they had just given me, so when the water hit me I could not tell if it was hot or cold. The short man sprayed my fecal matter and urine from the floor and off of my legs while the tall man took pictures, the flash of the camera momentarily lighting the darkened corners of the room.
The short man dropped the hose and turned the valve off to stop the flow of water. He then picked up the mallet and beat me repeatedly across both thighs, my stomach, and my chest. One of the blows struck me square on the shin of my left leg and I heard the bone crack like a dead twig yanked from the branch of a tree. I tried to cry out but the rag held in my mouth by the duct tape prevented all but the smallest of sounds from escaping my throat. The tall man shocked me repeated with the stun gun and I lost all control of my body. My heart beat in an irregular fashion from the electrical charge running through me, and I was unable to draw even the most ragged of breaths through my nose, my nostrils wide as I tried to find my dying purchase of air.
My body hung limp now, and I was amazed at how much damage had been done in such a short amount of time. My head hung low on my chest, its weight almost more than I could manage. My eyes watered without shame and in my quest for air I had swallowed part of the rag in my mouth and it now blocked my airway.
The tall man took another picture then ripped the tape from my mouth and pulled out the rag. A mixture of blood and drool ran down my chin and dripped across the flat of my stomach before it hit the floor and I knew I was bleeding on the inside. The pain was unbearable, relentless in its grasp, but with the rag now out of my mouth, I was able to get enough air to remain conscious. I looked at the tall man once again and when I did, I saw something behind him that gave me hope, not just for myself, but for all those things I thought I might never experience.
I gathered what little remaining strength I possessed and lifted my head to speak. “Murton Wheeler is going to square this,” I said, my voice barely louder than a whisper.
“I doubt it. Undercover Fed’s have a way of falling off the map sometimes. We’re going to take care of him just like you. Your time is up here bubba. Like I said, nothing personal, but you went and rattled the wrong cage.”
I could feel my chest getting heavy and knew I was drowning in my own blood. I spit more blood from my mouth and lifted my head for what I was sure was the last time. “I know where he is,” I said. “Wheeler.”
The short man had moved over to where the tall man stood and they were now standing side by side, no more than a foot away from me. “Okay, I’ll bite, tough guy. Where is Wheeler?”
“Right behind you,” Murton said. He then raised his arms in front of him, and I saw he held two chrome plated semi-automatic thumb busters, one in each hand. The light reflected off the. 45’s polished finishes and danced around the enclosure like shards from a broken mirror. He pulled the triggers on both guns at the same time and I saw his arms fly high with the recoil of the massive weapons. The two men flew backwards as if they had been tied to a catapult and yanked from my line of sight. Murton ran past me and I saw his lips move, but the gunshots had temporarily deafened me so I could not hear what he said. Then I heard two more shots behind me, one right after the other and when Murt walked back around in front of me I eventually heard what he was saying, but his words seemed to be slow and sluggish, like someone had pulled the power cord to an old LP record player, the music of his voice getting slower and deeper as the record spun to a stop. “Don’t you die on me, Jonesy. I’m gonna get you out of here. Just like before, remember? Hang in there man. Jonesy? God damn it, Jonesy, don’t you die, you hear me? Jonesy?”
In the distance I thought I heard a siren coming for me, though I do not know if it was real or imaginary. But when Murton cut the ties that held me against the steel beam and lowered me to the floor I was sure I saw my mother. She stood behind him, her face radiant and the room was somehow brighter with her presence. She shadowed Murton’s efforts, her hands over the top of his as she directed his movements and though I tried to reach out to them both I could not move my arms. The effort of it all was too much and once again I slipped away from myself, uncertain of my fate, my body warm in the hands of my past.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Jenny Anderson needed something. Trouble was, she just didn’t know what it might be. She was bored. Not just in the moment, the I’ve-got-nothing-to-do-right-now kind of bored, but bored with her life. She had no children to care for, her and her husband Bob found out long ago they would never conceive a child-her anatomy, not his-but it never bothered them enough to look at radical methods of child bearing like having someone carry a child for them. That just didn’t seem right. “Might as well adopt a kid,” Bob had said one evening about ten years ago. So
