by Strand, Jeff
"No."
"What if . . . what if instead of cutting off my little toe, you sewed an extra toe onto my foot? That would still be a disfigurement, right? You could get the same point across without actually removing anything from me."
The boss, Baldy, and Harry all stared at me for a very long time.
"I'll be honest with you," said the boss. "I've never heard an alternate suggestion quite that bizarre."
"It's messing with my mind," said Harry.
The boss shrugged and tossed his cigar to the floor. "Yes. Yes, I accept your proposal." He gestured to Baldy. "Go get me a sterilized needle and some thread." He gestured to Harry and kicked the side of the cage. "Pick me out something to cut his toe off with."
My heart sank. I hadn't considered the issue of where the additional toe would come from. "I changed my mind," I quickly said.
"Oh, no, I like your idea. I may start doing that from now on."
I was torn on how to proceed. Begging for the prisoner's toe to be saved would be the same as begging for my own toe to be removed. Speaking strictly in terms of equitable treatment, he'd lost a nose and an ear, and so it was only fair that I lose the toe. Yet at the same time, if he'd already lost two body parts, why not a third, especially if it was one that was usually hidden from public view?
"Isn't there somebody you've already killed whose toe you could use?" I asked.
"Stop talking," said the boss. "Or I will take your head."
I stopped talking.
I could describe what happened next, but you probably don't want to read about somebody getting his toe sawed off. Since it was the baby toe, I would have expected it to pop right off. It didn't. It's possible that the brother in the cage was simply thrashing around too much for it to be an efficient process, but even then I was astonished at the amount of resistance that one little toe put up. Maybe the razor was dull. Maybe the boss was purposely cutting slowly to drag out the excruciating pain. Maybe he was just sawing at a particularly bony part. I don't know. Regardless, it seemed like it took forever for the boss to finally remove it. He held up the bloody toe, pinching it between his thumb and index finger.
I'm also going to make the educated guess that you don't want to read about somebody having a toe sewn to their body, especially when the only numbing involved was rubbing an ice cube on the side of my foot for about a minute. I don't think the boss cared much about the pain; he just didn't want me to squirm as much. It still hurt worse than my last eight toe-stubbings combined. I tried to imagine that I was in a special magical land where I wasn't having somebody else's toe sewn onto me, but it didn't work because my mind kept saying "Hey! You're having somebody's toe sewn onto your foot, and it hurts!" I even tried to think about how it wasn't as bad as having my toe cut off. You'd think that would be a soothing thought, wouldn't you? Not at all.
Anyway, when the process was complete, I had one foot with five toes, and one with six. The sixth toe was right next to my little toe, sort of sticking out at an angle because my foot really didn't have sufficient room for it.
The boss admired his work. "Now, I expect you to leave that toe on," he said.
"I will."
"If my men come to check on you, they'd better count eleven toes."
"They will."
"I don't want to hear excuses about how it fell off."
"You won't."
The boss seemed satisfied. "Then you are free to leave."
* * *
In the past, whenever I'd thought about having an extra toe, which wasn't often, I'd assumed that it would improve my walking skills. Not to a huge extent — I wouldn't be able to walk up walls or anything — but perhaps it would provide a bit of extra traction or something. That wasn't the case. I was practically limping as they led me out of the room in my blindfold, and when they dropped me off at my apartment I almost tripped three different times going up the stairs.
At least I was safe.
I wasn't sure what to do with the nose and ear. Best to just throw them away, I guessed. I opened the refrigerator, took out the baggie, and walked over to the garbage bin.
Then I stopped.
Back in the boss's lair, there was a man in a cage. They'd cut off his nose, ear, and toe. Once they found his real brother, they'd probably cut off more.
I couldn't just let that happen, could I?
I was no hero. Still, I knew right from wrong. And leaving that poor soul to die was wrong.
They'd told me not to call the police. But they hadn't told me that I couldn't try to rescue him myself.
I owed it to the poor disfigured man in the cage to at least try to save his life, didn't I?
But how? How could I save somebody when I didn't know where he was being held?
I closed my eyes, concentrated hard, and tried to recreate all of the car's turns in my mind. It started with a . . . left? Right?
This wasn't going to work. After returning the baggie to the refrigerator, I went into my bedroom and searched through my dresser drawers for a blindfold to help better recreate my experience. I didn't remember ever having bought one, but it wasn't necessarily a purchase that would stand out in my memory. I didn't search for very long, though, and settled for tying a black sock over my eyes, which seemed to have the same effect.
I tried again to recreate the turn schedule. The first turn had been . . . right. No. Left. Maybe it was a slight veering rather than an actual turn.
I removed the makeshift blindfold. This wasn't going to work.
What could I possibly do? I knew nothing about the man in the cage.
Except the name of his brother.
They were looking for Josh White. I was Josh White, but there could easily be more of us. I raced to the phone book and flipped through the W section. There were five Josh Whites, and long list of J Whites.
I called Josh White #1. I wondered if he had caller ID, in which case it would look like he was receiving a phone call from himself. That would be memorable.
"Hello?" a man answered after the fourth ring.
"Mr. White?"
"Yes?"
"Do you have a brother?"
"No."
"Thank you."
The second Josh White wasn't home, although his wife sounded nice. She wouldn't tell me if he had a brother. She might have been concerned that I was going to say that I was his long-lost brother and ask for money or something.
The third Josh White immediately accused me of being a telemarketer and informed me that he was on the national Do Not Call registry. He wouldn't let me explain and finally hung up on me. I decided to come back to him, time permitting.
The fourth Josh White sounded very stressed out when he answered, which was a good sign. "Do you have a brother?" I asked.
"Yes! Who is this?"
"I'm not one of the kidnappers," I said, fending off that particular question before it could arise in the conversation. "I saw your brother not too long ago."
"How is he? Is he okay?"
"He's not dead."
"Oh, thank God! Where is he?"
"I'm not completely —"
There was a knock at my door.
I froze. What if it was Baldy and/or Harry?
"Open up," said Baldy.
I cursed, which is something I rarely do, even when I'm the only one around to hear. I hung up the phone and walked over to the door, trying to assume the facial expression of somebody who hadn't just made a phone call he shouldn't have. Baldy and Harry shoved their way inside as soon as I turned the doorknob.
"We forgot about the nose and the ear," said Harry. "We can cut off another ear, obviously, but the nose can't be replaced. We're not usually this sloppy; we were just distracted by having you turn out to be the wrong person and then needing to kidnap you."
"You don't have to make excuses," said Baldy.
"I don't want him to judge us."
"Who cares if he judges us? Guy's a wiener." Baldy turned his attention to me. "Where are they?"
"They're in
my refrigerator," I said.
Baldy scowled. "Are you some kind of ghoul?"
"No, no, I just thought I should keep them fresh in case you returned for them." I hurried into the kitchen.
My phone rang.
I opened the refrigerator door, opened the crisper, and removed the baggie with the nose and ear. The phone continued to ring. Unsure how to proceed, I cursed under my breath (a mild curse, acceptable for broadcast television) and dropped the baggie back into the crisper.
"Aren't you in the habit of answering your telephone?" asked Harry.
"Not when I've got guests," I said. "I'm sure it's only my mom, calling to babble about mom stuff. I cut those apron strings long ago. Most of the time I don't even —"
Baldy picked up the phone. "Yeah?" He listened for a few seconds, then broke into a grin. It was not a grin that hinted at sunnier days ahead for me.
"Well, well, well," he said. "Calling to warn him, were you?"
I shook my head. "I was calling to distract him. I figured you were on your way over there. I like to help out wherever I can."
"Do you think I'm a complete idiot?"
Clearly, there was only one politically correct answer to that one: "No."
Keeping his eyes fixed on me, Baldy spoke into the phone. "We'll be over shortly. Don't call the police or we will kill your brother. Don't leave or we will kill your brother. Don't tell anyone or we will . . . right, that's what we'll do. See you in a bit."
I feel no personal shame in admitting that at that moment, I was absolutely petrified. This evening, which had taken an upswing when the boss decided to let me go instead of kill me, had just suffered a definite drop in quality.
"So, what are we going to do about your betrayal?" Baldy asked me.
"Offer complete forgiveness and call it a learning experience?"
"In your dreams," Baldy said. "In your magical, elf-filled dreams."
"So you mean he called the real brother?" Harry asked. Baldy nodded. "Aw, man, that wasn't cool at all."
Baldy pointed his gun at my chest. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you right now."
"The noise. The moral aspects. The legal aspects. The mess. The cost of the bullet. The wasted effort on the toe surgery. The —"
"Enough!"
"To be honest, that last one was a pretty good point," Harry said. "The boss was pretty proud of that extra toe surgery."
"So what? We'll have his corpse stuffed and the boss can keep it in his bedroom."
"Also, he didn't bring it up as one of his points, but we'd have to take the time to dispose of the body, or risk having it traced back to your gun. We should at least take him back to the boss and do it there."
"What, are we this guy's frickin' chauffeur now?" Baldy asked. "We can't drag him along to go see the other brother, so we'd have to make a special trip to drop him off with the boss. Let's just kill him now."
"Why can't we take him along?"
"Because that's insane!"
"I'm not saying we have to take him inside."
"You gonna ask him to patiently wait in the car while you collect a kidnapping ransom? Think before you speak, or else dumb things come out!"
"Here's the thing," said Harry. "This is all about intimidation, right? We're trying to scare the brother into paying the ransom."
"Right."
"Can you imagine if your brother got kidnapped, and the kidnappers showed up with this guy who had your brother's severed toe sewn to his foot? That would mess you up!"
Baldy considered that. "Yeah, I guess it would."
"I mean, you wouldn't know what these lunatics were capable of after seeing something that deranged. If that were me, I'd pay that ransom and then run out to an ATM machine to offer up an advance on future ransoms!"
"It's just ATM. 'Machine' is part of the acronym."
"Oh. I think I knew that."
"What if he escapes?"
"How far is he gonna get on that foot?"
Baldy sighed. "I just don't know. The more convoluted this plan gets, the more opportunity there is for things to go wrong. I'd hate for this whole scheme to crash and burn because we were trying to be inventive."
"You do have a point there," Harry admitted.
Though I wanted to protest, I had to concede that Baldy's logic was sound. It was never a good idea for these kinds of plans to get too convoluted. Simplicity was the key to success. If I were in their position, I probably would've shot me thirty seconds ago.
I'd always assumed that when the dark specter of death approached, I'd put on an almost legendary display of cowardice. Pleading, sobbing, screaming, trembling, whining — all of these elements were included in my mental picture. However, when I realized that Baldy was a mere instant from pulling the trigger, I did none of those things. Instead, to my great astonishment, I swung my fist at his gun.
There's a fine line between bravery and stupidity. Taking a swing at a man with a gun would seem to fall into the latter category, but my aim was true and my speed was sufficient. My knuckles smashed into the barrel of the gun, knocking its aim away from me just as Baldy fired. The bullet struck my stereo, which I'd been planning to upgrade, though not for another few months.
Trivia: punching a gun hurts.
Baldy gaped at me. I couldn't quite tell if his expression was "newfound respect" or "homicidal rage."
"Keep it down up there!" shouted my neighbor Preston, pounding on my floor from below.
Having deflected death, I now found myself unsure how to proceed. I couldn't make much of an impact by saying "Now leave my apartment immediately, lest I bat away your revolver again!" And yet I had to follow-up somehow, or he'd simply point the gun back at me and shoot a second time, thus wasting my original effort. Should I tackle him? Try my luck again and try to kick the gun out of his hand? Grab Harry and use him as a human shield? Make a run for it? (Clearly, since this remained a volatile situation, these thoughts went through my mind very, very quickly.)
I went for the tackle. This was, in retrospect, a poor choice. Baldy bashed me in the side of the head with his gun, and I dropped to the floor. Though I was in great pain, I kicked my legs out, attempting to strike him in the ankles and knock him off balance. Unfortunately, I was facing the wrong direction and this was ineffective.
"We need to go before somebody calls the cops!" said Harry.
I truly believed that Baldy was going to kill me and leave me unable to write down this narrative, although of course he didn't. "Fine, we'll bring him with us! Dammit!"
* * *
I sat in the back of their car, feeling like a child in Time Out. I'd always enjoyed Time Out when I was young, because it offered uninterrupted time for reflective thought, but now I was fidgety and uncomfortable and fearing death.
About twenty minutes later we pulled up in front of the other Josh White's house. It was a fancy two-story home in a nice suburban neighborhood — I could understand why he was the actual target of their ransom demands instead of me.
"Wait here with him," Baldy told Harry. "I'm going in."
"What if the place is crawling with cops?"
"My gut says that he won't disobey instructions. He wants his brother to live."
"What if your gut is misinformed?"
"Stop being such a weenie. I'll be back in five minutes. Don't let him get away."
Baldy got out of the car and walked up the driveway, toward the front porch. I realized that a window of opportunity had opened for me. If I were in Harry's place, I'd object quite strongly to a comment like "Don't let him get away." That wasn't necessary advice. Was Baldy trying to imply that without the benefit of his instructions, Harry would have simply let me open the door and frolic to freedom? It was insulting. I was actually kind of offended on Harry's behalf.
"He orders you around a lot," I noted.
Harry smiled. "That's the way I like it."
"Excuse me?"
"I have enough responsibilities in my social life. This is
relaxing."
"Oh. But what about his tone?"
"He means well. I'd rather have him be too forceful than not forceful enough."
Some points are very difficult to argue, even if you know deep inside that you could make a strong case for your point of view. I decided to drop the matter.
The front door opened. Baldy pushed his way inside.
"He won't kill him, will he?" I asked.
"Nah. We need the ransom."
"What if he gets the ransom, and then kills him?"
"Why would he kill him if he got the ransom?"
"Evilness?"
"He's not like that. He might — might — kill somebody who refused to hand over the cash or the briefcase of jewels or whatever we were there to get, but he wouldn't just kill somebody to be mean-spirited. People don't respect that. I'm not saying he won't slice off something. Jake does like to slice off things. But as far as actually murdering him, I think you'd be surprised by how . . ." He trailed off and looked very concerned. "You won't tell him I said his name was Jake, will you?"
"Of course not," I assured him. Secretly, I knew that sharing this information at the proper moment could save my life. Sharing it at the wrong moment could also get me killed when I might not have been killed otherwise, so I had to be careful.
A gunshot went off inside the house.
"Do you think he murdered him?" I asked.
Harry shook his head. "No, no. He must've just shot the guy's finger off or something like that." He looked up and down the street nervously. "Usually he uses a knife for that kind of thing, though. I don't like this."
"Should we go in and investigate?"
"I don't want to disrupt his concentration."
We sat in the car and waited.
"How long does it take to bleed to death after your finger gets shot off?" I asked.
Harry shrugged. "I'm not sure. We've had people die after getting their fingers cut off, but not exclusively because of that. You usually follow it up with something more serious, like a slit throat. Just watching people slowly bleed to death — that's no way to spend your afternoon."
"What if you don't want them to bleed to death? What if you're only trying to send a stern message?"
"Then you break the fingers, not cut them off."
