Once the beatings stopped Saul Steadholder put the fingers of his free hand into his mouth and checked the damage. One tooth, a back one, was broken. He fished the shrapnel out of his inner cheek and looked at it, uncaring. His left arm hurting like hell, he carefully put the crown into his pants’ pocket. Perhaps a dentist could do something with it. His jaw felt broken. He tried to whisper a word.
“Julia.” He said quietly.
Nope, not broken. It just hurt like hell. The men had pummeled him fiercely. First with slaps, then punches. When he had fallen out of his chair, his left wrist still handcuffed to the enormous metal table, they’d kicked him till he pulled himself up again. His left arm was almost certainly dislocated. His ribs felt like they had been hit by a car, which then reversed itself and hit him again.
Worst of all was the pounding in his head. He felt as if his brain were trying to detach itself from his spinal cord and go into free float.
‘How much time does he need?’ Saul asked himself. He raised his left arm a bit, wincing as new bolts of anguish shot up it, and checked his watch. The cheap Timex had taken the licking better than he. Despite a rather large scratch on the glass he could still read the digital display:
6:47 PM.
When had David called him? It had to be before five. Saul had still been at work, grading some papers, when the phone rang.
Over the years Saul and his wife Julia had come to dread that sound. More often than not it was their oldest, David, needing money.
Money for bail, money for drugs. The calls had come with more frequency as David got older. They had tried to help, attempted to get him into rehab, experimented with tough love. Nothing made a difference. All they could do was watch their beloved son spiral deeper and deeper into a web of vice and doom.
So when the phone first rang Saul had not answered. He silently prayed that it would not ring twice. His prayers went unheard. Still he continued to grade papers, his mind becoming more cloudy, more dreadful.
On the third call he answered.
It was David. Of course it was David.
Many of the lies David told, Saul believed because he wanted to. He wanted to believe that David needed money for a job, to fix his car, to pay for a suit so he could look good at an interview. Deep down he still knew they were lies. False hope was better than the reality, however.
This time, Saul believed the truth because he had to.
“They’re going to kill me, dad.” David had pleaded. “If these guys find me, they will kill me.”
He hadn’t been lying. Saul knew it then, and doubly knew it now.
Outside the two goons were discussing something. They had closed the door but Saul could still make out a little.
“Ain’t calling him at this hour. Kid’s birthday.” Said goon one, a balding, mustachioed ape of a man.
“Call Smooth.” Demanded the other man, a thin, wiry skeleton of menace.
“Fuck.” Said the bigger man with resignation. Apparently the smaller man had more clout.
After that, Saul couldn’t make out anything more. He tried to wipe away the blood on his face with his shirt, but it hurt too much to move his left arm for very long. After doing the best he could by rubbing his face on his right shoulder he simply sat still and tried to will himself to stop hurting. He had little success.
‘Call Smooth,’ the man had said. That must be the next circle of Saul’s personal Inferno. He pictured a Nazi S.S. Guard for some reason. Aryan. Clean cut. Uniform immaculate.
‘You vill talk!’ the man would demand, riding crop slapping down upon a black leathered hand.
The image was so ridiculous Saul had to chuckle inwardly a bit.
Whoever ‘Smooth’ was, he probably wasn’t cast out of ‘Hogan’s Heroes’.
The two men outside paced the hall leading to the dingy room. Saul looked around him, tried to see if he could gain any advantage, however slight. He saw nothing. He knew he was on the second floor in a tenement somewhere in the Crescent District. Distantly he could hear sirens. Be they police, fire or ambulance he couldn’t discern.
The sole window looking out to the street was covered with a dirty sheet. A broken couch lay underneath it. The hardwood floor was in desperate need of cleaning. Dust bunnies sat motionless, frozen under Saul’s gaze like deer in headlights. Another door, to the right, was boarded up.
Couch. Table. Saul’s chair. Another chair on the opposite side of the table. Nothing else in the room except a single light bulb hanging down from exposed wiring.
He realized he was not the first person to have been handcuffed to the metal table. This was their interrogation room, whomever ‘they ‘ were. When they’d scooped him up in the university’s parking lot they’d neglected to exchange names.
Saul waited some more. How long till Julia noticed he was running late? Probably quite a while. On some nights he got lost in his work and didn’t notice the hour till well after nightfall. Through the makeshift curtain Saul could barely make out the dying light of dusk. Streetlamps would be coming on soon.
Occasionally one of the goons would stick their head in the door and check on him. Neither said anything nor did they come in.
‘Still here!’ he wanted to say in mock cheeriness. In his younger years, the hard years when he was full of bravado and dreams he probably would have. That was the old Saul Steadholder though. Someone so different it might as well have been another person. The Saul Steadholder bound to this metal table was a mild mannered English Lit. professor.
Moreover, he was no fool.
Saul checked again. 7:15. His ass was starting to hurt. The irony of being worked over by two professional thugs and thinking about how uncomfortable his chair was made him chuckle for a second time.
Some more time passed. The bleeding had stopped, at least he thought it had. He would need stitches, he thought. That is if he didn’t die here.
He had been avoiding that possibility since this began. In his world people could be reasoned with, rational debate taken up. He was no longer in his world. These people played by different rules. The knowledge hit him like a sledgehammer:
He might die here. Tonight.
Suddenly, he wanted to cry. A feeling of despair hit him like a wave would a child standing too far out in the ocean. He gasped for breath.
‘Calm yourself.’ Saul inwardly commanded himself. ‘You’re not dead yet. Where there is life there is hope.’
Amazingly, the exhortation worked. If he died here, he would die here. He wasn’t giving up his son. So they would do what they wished. One way or another, his fate was already sealed.
“The die is cast.” Saul muttered to himself as he tried to put on a brave smile. His words sounded slurred, funny, and hollow. He was reminded of the dentist’s office, trying to talk around a mouthful of cotton.
He heard a car pull up outside. He listened intently. Should he yell for help?
“Smooths’ here.” He heard goon number 2 say from behind the door.
No, best not to yell. Not that he really thought yelling for help would be an option at any point this evening. He was dealing with some kind of mafia or gang, men who committed heinous crimes for a living. This location would have been well thought out. If screaming could save him they would have gagged him when they left the room. They were not concerned about him yelling.
They wanted him to talk.
Feet came up the stairs two at a time. A new voice entered Saul’s new world. Younger. Deeper. Polished. He couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but when he heard two sets of work boots descending to the street he guessed the man had told them to go get something to eat.
The wooden door opened and a man strode in. He carried about him the air of someone who was doing something rather pleasant beforehand, and wished to be there still instead of where he currently found himself. He looked vaguely Italian, or maybe he was just tanned. He had on a gray t-shirt and dockers. His shoes looked expensive. They certainly were Italian. As was the leather briefcase he carried. Saul had been eying one almost exactly like it for years, never daring to spend that kind of money when his old briefcase would suffice.
The man himself was perhaps thirty. Early thirties at latest. He owned this room, Saul realized. Wether he held the actual deed was another matter. At this very moment though, he was the Lord of the Manor. His status exuded from his easy, cat-like stride to his combed-back dark hair. He approached the table.
“Mr. Steadholder?” Asked the man. His voice was warm, bassy. Somehow soothing. His eyes twinkled with compassion. A small, serious frown spread across his classicaly handsome face.
Saul just nodded.
The man pulled up the chair opposite Saul and sat down.
“Mr. Steadholder, you can call me John.”
“Saul.”
John nodded. He pulled Saul’s driver’s license out of a pant’s pocket. The two goons must have given it to him. He studied it.
“Not a bad picture, Saul. You should see mine.” The man shook his head with mock mourn. “Terrible.” He stuck the ID back into the pocket and pulled out a pack of smokes from his t-shirt pocket. He had to stand up again to fish out the lighter from his pants, then sat back down. He lit up and then motioned the pack towards Saul.
“You smoke, Saul?” Asked the man. The question held no animosity, no hint of terrors to come. They might as well be two colleagues at work, discussing the weather or a TV show.
Saul shook his head in the negative.
“Quit. Years ago.” Saul replied. He stole a glance at the man’s watch. Looked like a Rolex. Nearly eight o’clock. Julia might have started to get concerned, but wouldn’t be calling the universities security guards to check on him yet. In another half hour, perhaps.
John blew a wispy lungful into the air around the hanging light bulb, seemed to study the play of the illumination across the haze.
“Good for you, Saul. Filthy habit.” Replied John. “Need to quit myself.” Not looking at Saul, still idly studying the light bulb, the man began to speak.
“I want, from the onset, to make one thing perfectly clear to you, Saul,” said the man in a serious tone. They had moved from the weather to politics. Important Matters. The man looked at Saul and locked eyes with him. “I will never lie to you. On that matter, I assure you.”
Saul nodded, a bit hypnotized, or perhaps it was shock setting in. The man was charismatic, no doubt. Here was a leader, born not made.
Saul tested the waters.
“Is your name really John?” Asked Saul.
“Of course not.” Came the reply. The man graced Saul with a disarming smile.
“Are you going to kill me?” Saul questioned, sounding more pitiful than he had hoped for.
The man looked slightly forlorn. “If I have to, Saul. Yes.”
“So there’s a chance I can walk out of this?”
John nodded slightly. “I want your son, not you. All you have to do is tell me where he is. After that one of my boys will drive you to Mercy Medical. We’ll never see each other again.”
There was an air of truth to the man’s words. Still, Saul doubted.
“How do you know I won’t call the police?”
“Because if you did that, Saul, we’d be forced to kill your whole family.” The man stated flatly.
Saul chewed on the man’s words. There was no deceit in them.
The two sat across from each other, silent for a moment, each gauging the other.
“I don’t know where he is.” Saul finally said.
The man studied Saul’s face, took another drag.
“You’re lying.” He said as he exhaled. And that was that. Saul had lied, the man knew it, and more importantly Saul knew that he knew it.
“He’s my son.” Said Saul.
The man nodded.
“Are you going to kill him?” Asked Saul.
“Yes.” Came the reply.
Saul looked at his feet.
“I can’t do that then.” Saul said. “I… I can’t.”
Silence.
“Maybe not.” Replied John.
More silence.
John stubbed the smoke out on the metal table and leaned back, admiring the ceiling. His chair must have had a reclining backrest, unlike the hard wooden ass chapper Saul found himself in.
“Some never do talk.” John said matter of factually. “Most do. But some? No way. Ain’t happening.” He emphasised the last sentence with a dismissive hand wave.
“Would you talk, if our roles were reversed, John?” Asked Saul.
John pondered the question, looked back at Saul.
“I don’t know. I’d like to think I wouldn’t.” He replied.
Saul looked down again. Sighed.
“If I don’t tell you what you want to know, what happens then? Are you going to try to get another member of my family to tell you where David is?”
The man laughed a little, as if Saul had told a dirty joke.
“No. Your two daughters, Rebecca and Hanna? Safe. Same with your wife Julia.”
“How do you….”Saul began.
“Internet.” Came the cut-off reply. “Also, you have a bio up on the college website. Wish I’d looked there before I spent twenty bucks on an info search,” said the man with a hint of ruefulness.
Saul nodded. He was beginning to feel sleepy. Was he dying? At this very moment, was something inside his body leaking somewhere it shouldn’t? Was this what death felt like?
“But I will kill you, Saul.” John said, bringing Saul back to the moment. “I don’t want to do that. Your wife needs you, your daughters need you. You seem like a nice guy.”
“What you ask….”Saul began.
The man leaned down, picked up his briefcase and put it on his lap. With two twists it popped open. Saul grew silent. Fearful.
Instead of a knife or a gun, though, the man pulled out a photo. He placed it on the table, facing Saul. It was a picture of a young woman, maybe 20. She was wearing a dress, a lake in the background. Very pretty. Her smile reminded him of Hanna’s: kind of impish yet innocent. Like she was inwardly laughing at some secret joke only she knew.
“She’s beautiful.” Said Saul.
“She’s also the daughter of a very powerful man,” said John, looking at the photo with Saul, “my boss.”
“What does she have to do with David?” Asked Saul. “Is she pregnant?”
“Your son,” John began, seeming a bit hesitant, “…hurt her. I won’t go into details, both for your sake and mine. Let’s just say that what happened to her, at your son’s hands,” he said with a bit of accusation, ”I hope never happens to your daughters.”
“I don’t believe you,” spat Saul in anger. His son was many things. A druggie. A thief. An ex-con. A liar. A source of anguish. But he would never do what the man was implying. David, his sweet little boy, would never hurt someone on purpose.
“I don’t lie, Saul.” Responded John. “Not at this job. Some? Some do. I’ve never found it to be effective.”
Saul looked away from the picture, shamed. Fresh tears formed at his eyes. Was the man telling the truth? Could David have hurt the girl in the picture?
As if feeling embarrassed for him, John put the picture back in his briefcase and sat it on the floor. He pulled out a handkerchief and placed it in front of Saul. Then he stood up, lit another smoke, and walked to the window, giving Saul some time to process what had been said. He looked behind the sheet and onto the street. If he saw anything of interest he didn’t indicate it.
Slowly he made his way back to the table, taking his time, giving Saul a chance to compose himself. As ridiculous as it was, Saul appreciated the gesture.
John slid back into the chair. His voice was soft, understanding. “I know you’re in a tight spot, Saul. I got kids myself. But I got to tell you, Davids’ rotten. You know it. I sure as hell know it. You think this is the first time I’ve had to deal with him?”
Saul stared at the floor, mute.
“It’s not.” John continued. “The…organization I work for, we do what you might consider bad things sometimes. But we have honor, Saul. Some lines don’t get crossed. Your son? No honor.”
“But…” Saul began.
“No buts, Saul. Aren’t you tired of him fucking up your otherwise good life? Your other kids, your daughters, they like him? They always ending up in jail, disgracing the family name?”
“No,” Saul said with a touch of defensiveness, “they’re good kids.”
John took a deep breath. “Exactly, Saul. Picture a life without David. Think how serene it would be.”
“Losing David would devastate my wife.” Replied Saul sadly.
“Saul,” said John in a reassuring tone, “if we don’t pop him, someone is going to. He is in way too deep for you to bail him out this time. He’s already dead, Saul. The question is, are you?”
Saul began to openly cry. He tried to reach the handkerchief but his arm hurt too much now to lift it. Memories of his little boy flooded his mind. His sweet, innocent, angelic baby boy. He wanted to be with him right now, hold him in his arms, make this all go away. He didn’t care about the pain anymore, he was beyond it.
Consciousness seemed to be wavering. The light from the bulb was growing darker, only to get bright again. He could hear his heart beating inside his chest.
“Where there is life,” Saul rasped through blood and tears, “there is hope.”
John looked on sadly. He reached down into the briefcase, pulled out two metal items and affixed one to the other. Saul looked up and into the silenced pistol’s barrel.
The hole looking back at him seemed enormous.
“I’m going to count to three, Mr. Steadholder. When I reach three, you either tell me where I can find David or I am pulling the trigger. This is my final truth to you.” John stated the last sentence almost by rote, emotionless. He had said it many times before, Saul guessed.
“One.”
Saul took a deep breath. What would Julia do without him? What would become of his daughters? Was the man telling the truth?
“Two.”
Saul began to tremble.
‘David sweet, sweet David I love you so much oh God please keep him safe Julia I love you Rebecca Hanna I love you oh God please help me please God I don’t want to die oh God please I’ll do anything just save me please I’m begging you..’
“Don’t make me do this, Mr. Steadholder.” Demanded John. “Last chance…”
Images of his family, his life, his dreams, minor successes and defeats flooded through Saul Steadholder’s mind as his body shook uncontrollably. He wanted to go home now. He wanted to be with his family. Why did David put him in this position? ‘Damn you, David. I love you, David’.
“I love my son. I want to live.” Saul cried.
“Three.” Said John.
Saul made his choice.
*
David Steadholder waited on his dad for a few hours. The time passed by rather nicely thanks to a Valium/Cocaine cocktail. When the old shit didn’t show up David said fuck it, mugged a fag he lured into an alley, and caught a Greyhound out of the city. His family never heard from him again.
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