“Why? I mean, what’s wrong? Have you got trouble?”
Rachel walked into the kitchen, holding her hand up to her face to shield the bright light from her sleepy eyes. “What is it Ben?” she asked, with concern and a little bit of fear in her voice.
Ben was gulping water like he had been walking through the desert and had finally stumbled upon an oasis. “There’s a man I work with down at the office. Electrical engineer, and a brilliant one, too. I ain’t never really trusted him, especially since he started goin’ out of his way to be nice to me. He used to treat me like a red-headed stepchild, but the last couple of months he’s been, well, too nice, if you know what I mean. I wanted to believe he was bein’ sincere, but I could just tell he was tryin’ too hard. Anyway, I was gettin’ ready to leave tonight and was gonna go over to the next office to tell him. All the doors in the offices have to be locked at all times and I was about to stick the key in the door when I saw him takin’ pictures of some of the blueprints with a tiny camera. Or at least that’s what I think he was doin’. So, I made sure I made a racket as I was unlockin’ the door and saw him quickly put the camera in his inside coat pocket. Then, I hid outside and waited on him. I followed him down to the bridge that crosses that little creek on Kentucky Avenue. He climbed down the bank once he got there. I figure he’s hidin’ something down close to the creek.”
Ben took one more drink of water and pointed toward the closet. “So get your clothes on and get a flashlight. We gotta get down there and see if we can find out what it was.”
Rachel had a look on her face that said she really didn’t want us to do this, but she didn’t say anything. I got my clothes on and found my flashlight. I flipped it on to make sure the batteries were strong and kissed Rachel on the cheek. Me and Ben got in my truck and started driving across town to the bridge.
*****
“Drive across to the other side,” Ben told me. “There’s a little picnic area over there where we can park and maybe not arouse suspicion.”
I drove across the bridge slowly, trying to see how wide the creek was. It had rained a lot lately and I figured it would be swollen and probably out of banks. I couldn’t see anything, though. The night was dark with only a small sliver of a moon. I found the picnic grounds and drove my truck as far down the little road as I could. We got out of the truck and Ben started trotting, forgetting that my injury in North Africa had put an end to my days of moving in a hurry. He stopped and turned around.
“Sorry. I still forget, sometimes.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “If it wasn’t for the pain I’d probably forget, too.”
When we’d crossed the bridge, I gave Ben the flashlight. “I don’t know if I ought to try goin’ down that bank, especially in the dark,” I said. “If I hadn’t thought it might be dangerous, I’d have brought Rachel with us. She could have helped you.”
“That’s alright,” Ben said. “Somebody needs to stay up here and keep watch, anyway. Just kind of hide somewhere off the road. If somebody drives by that looks suspicious, just let out one of those annoyingly loud whistles of yours. I’ll be able to hear it over the runnin’ water.”
Ben took the light and climbed down the bank, trying hard to keep his footing and not slip. When he reached the bottom, he shined the light into the thick trees that were on the creek bank. Then he looked down and tried to see if there was any grass that was laid down where Feldman had walked. He saw what looked like some Johnson Grass that had been disturbed and followed the faint path until he came to the bare dirt of the creek bank. He saw Feldman’s footprints leading down to an old sycamore tree that’s roots had been exposed by years of running water. Ben shined the light all around the roots, trying to find anything that looked out of place. The tracks didn’t go any place else, so whatever Feldman was doing, he had to have done it here. Ben was pretty sure he didn’t risk breaking his neck going down the steep bank in the dark just to take a leak.
There was only one set of footprints, so he didn’t meet anybody. What was he doing here? Ben thought he knew, but couldn’t see any evidence of it. Then he had a thought. He held the light with his left hand and put his right hand down into the cold water, beneath the roots that were visible. He felt around on the roots that were under the water until his hand grabbed something that felt like a small rope. He laid the light down and pulled on the rope with both hands until he got whatever was tied on the end to the surface. He took his small knife out of his pocket and cut the rope, laying whatever the object was on the ground. When he shined the light on it, he saw that it was a piece of an old rubber inner tube that had been fashioned into a container and tied with thin twine at the top. He quickly cut the twine and stuck his hand inside. He felt a small object and pulled it out, examining it closely. He could see it was a very small, cylindrical container made of heavy rubber, similar to the rubber of an automobile tire, only much more pliable. Ben picked it up, turning it this way and that, trying to find a lid of some kind. Then he saw a small crease on one side where the rubber overlapped. He took his knife and pried on it. When he got it separated, he saw the teeth of a tiny zipper. He kept prying until he found the slider and pulled on it, unzipping the container. Inside was the smallest roll of film Ben had ever seen. At least he thought it was film. He quickly put it back in the container, zipped it back up and stuck it in his pocket.
I was crouching down at the edge of the bank, near a big tree with low branches, when I saw the light bobbling and knew that Ben was climbing back up the bank. I hurried as fast as my lame leg would allow over to him and gave him a hand. We hurried back across the bridge and into the little park to my truck. After we got in, Ben showed it to me.
“This is the smallest roll of film I’ve ever seen,” Ben said. “That camera must be tiny. I wonder where Andrew found a camera like that?”
“He didn’t get it from our government,” I said. “That camera was made for being easy to hide. For sneaking into places and making pictures of things that are not supposed to be photographed. Do you think the man is a spy?” My heart was starting to race from the excitement. I reached down and hit the start button on my old Ford pick-up. The motor turned over several times but it wouldn’t fire up. I pumped the accelerator a few times and tried again. Still, all the motor would do was turn over.
“Must be flooded,” I told Ben. “I don’t want to run the battery down. I’m gonna raise the hood and put my hand over the breather and try to choke it. When I tell you, try the starter again.”
I got out and raised the hood. I held my flashlight on the motor with one hand while I started removing the wing nut from the breather cover. I almost jumped out of my skin as I felt a sudden vice like grip on my ankle. It felt like the jaws of a steel trap. I lost my balance and fell to the ground. The man was on me as quick as lightning, and I immediately saw a pistol pointing at my face. Then I heard the truck door open and looked up to see Ben being held at gunpoint by another man. The man who had the gun on Ben had the coil wire from my truck dangling from his hand.
“Won’t run worth a damn without this, will it mister?”
CHAPTER THIRTY
I recognized the man immediately. I didn’t know his name, but I had seen him numerous times working with the electricians. He was one of the foremen and had been a master electrician for years. The other two men I didn’t know, but soon found out that one of them was Feldman, Ben’s coworker who had taken the pictures and hidden the film.
“You two start walking and don’t even think about trying anything foolish or heroic. All three of us are armed,” Feldman said in a sinister voice that sounded like a movie gangster.
We obeyed, seeing as we weren’t in any position to argue. We walked through the park and down a little path toward another row of houses. We were led to the end of a dead end street where a car was parked behind a stand of giant oak trees. One of the men opened the back door and motioned with his pistol for us to get in. Me and Ben were both bound and then blindfolded. One of the men got
in the back seat with us, making sure we saw the gun in his hand.
We rode what seemed like maybe ten minutes before the car stopped. I tried to judge how many turns we made so I’d know the direction we were traveling. But it was no use. They could have been taking us anywhere. When the car finally stopped, the door on my side of the car was opened and we were told to get out. The men had a hand on each of our shoulders guiding us as we walked off the pavement and into the grass. I assumed we were at a house or some kind of building. I heard keys turning a lock and a door open. They took us inside and sat us down beside each other on a couch.
“Alright, Ben, my young, inquisitive friend. What did you do with the roll of film you found?”
“I don’t know what you mean? What film?” Ben said, in the most convincing voice he could conjure up.
I heard the sound of an open handed slap and heard Ben let out a slight grimace. I instinctively starting struggling with the ropes that were tied around my wrists.
“Don’t hit him, you bastards,” I said through clenched teeth. All the outburst accomplished was getting me the same thing Ben had just gotten. A hard slap across the face. The man hit me so hard, my ear started ringing.
“We don’t have the time or the inclination to play games,” Feldman said. “I assume you must have seen me taking pictures before you unlocked the office door. Why else would you have followed me, then come back with your friend and walk down to the creek? I know you’re a bright young man, Ben. After you saw my tracks in the soft sand by the creek bank, you would have figured out where the film was hidden.”
“I’m telling you, I didn’t find anything. I looked all around where your footprints stopped, but I never saw anything.”
“Search him,” Feldman said. “You go outside and search his friends truck,” he said to another man.
I could hear the man patting Ben down roughly. “Take off your coat,” the man who was searching Ben said. Ben complied and the man went through his coat, then told Ben to take off his shoes.
“It’s not on him anywhere,” the man said. Then he told me to take off my coat and shoes and began searching me. After he had roughly groped and patted my whole body, he said, “This one don’t have it either.”
“I’m tryin’ to tell you, I didn’t find anything,” Ben said. “I didn’t even know what I was lookin’ for.”
“Look, Ben. If you’ll give me the film, I’ll let you live. Mind you, you’ll have to be relocated to a place a long way from here and we’ll have to keep you there until we are safely out of the country, but at least you’ll live. If you don’t give it to me,…. well, I don’t have to say anymore, do I?”
I couldn’t imagine what Ben had done with the roll of film. He had to have hidden it in the truck somewhere. I was sure the man who had gone to search it would be back with it any minute now.
“Go help Henry search the truck,” Feldman said to the other man. “Tear the thing apart if you have to.”
I heard the man walk out the door. I could hear Feldman walking around the couch. I was waiting for a punch or slap of some kind on me or Ben. But he just kept walking.
“Ben. Make this easy on yourself. Your not going to be any good to anyone dead. Be reasonable.”
“Why should I believe you wouldn’t kill us anyway, even if I had this film your talkin’ about, which I don’t.” Ben said. His voice sounded calm, considering the predicament we were in.
“You just have to trust me, Ben. I give you my word.”
“A man who is involved in espionage against his own country. Who gained the trust of all his colleagues and was regarded as one of the top electrical engineers on the project, and then betrayed them all. Forgive me, Andrew, if I don’t put much stock in your word now. Why don’t you take these blindfolds off so we can at least see? We already know what all three of you look like, anyway.”
“Oh, you’ll get the blindfolds off soon enough, I assure you,” Feldman said, sounding like a mad scientist.
*****
We had been moved into another room, which I could only assume was a basement since we had been led down a flight of stairs. The place had a damp feel to it and a musty smell. We were seated roughly on a wooden bench and true to his word, Feldman removed our blindfolds. The outside walls were concrete block and there were four bare light bulbs hanging from naked wires. Over in one corner, a shower spigot was sticking out of the wall. There were no partitions around it, but there was a drain in the concrete floor. Some of the larger houses had been built with basements, so I figured this was one of them. To my surprise, the two men had found nothing in my truck, which I figured was probably torn all to pieces. The truck was the least of my worries now, however. I was just hoping me and Ben got out of this alive. Right now the odds didn’t seem to be in our favor.
The biggest of the three men grabbed Ben by his arm roughly and pulled him over to the shower spigot. He ripped his shirt off his body and pushed him down in a metal chair, tying him to the chair and binding his feet. Another man came out of the dark corner of the room carrying a hand crank telephone with long wires attached to it. At the end of the wires were small copper clamps which resembled the clamps on the ends of jumper cables, only much smaller. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what they were about to do. He walked over to Ben with a look on his face like he was doing some daily, benign task. He held the copper clamps up in the air, then nodded to the other man who had his hand on the crank of the phone. The man turned the crank slowly at first and the man with the clamps held them close together. A small electrical arc jumped from one clamp to the other. Then the man started turning the crank faster and the arc got bigger and bigger.
“Okay, Ben,” Feldman said. “One more chance. Tell me where the film is. Don’t be a damned fool.”
“Ain’t got it,” Ben responded defiantly.
Feldman reached over and turned the cold water on just enough for it to spray a fine mist on Ben who had been placed directly under it. The man with the clamps placed one on each of Ben’s earlobes. Feldman nodded to the man holding the crank. He turned the crank slowly and Ben immediately started shaking like he was having some sort of convulsion. He shook so violently that the chair tipped over and the cables came loose from his earlobes. The man who was turning the crank stopped long enough for the other one to stand the chair back up. Ben hadn’t uttered a sound, but I had a feeling that would change soon.
When the man got Ben’s chair turned upright, he reached down and untied his feet. Then he unbuckled Ben’s belt and unbuttoned his pants, pulling them completely off, along with his underwear. I couldn’t imagine what horrible thing the man was going to do next. I started to yell, but thought better of it. The man then bent down slowly, holding the clamps up so Ben could see them. Then, slowly, he put one of the clamps on Ben’s testicles. Ben couldn’t help letting out a painful grown. The man turned around and looked at me, an evil grin had his face askew. He looked like some sort of hellish demon. Then he attached the other clamp on Ben’s limp sex organ.
“Stop it, you son-of-a-bitches!” I yelled. “Ben, just tell them where the damn film is if you know!”
Ben didn’t say a word. The man turning the crank hesitated for a minute, seeing if Ben would come to his senses and say something. Ben just sat there, squirming from the pain of the clamps on the most tender part of his anatomy. The man shook his head and turned the crank again, faster this time. I thought Ben was going to shake completely out of his skin. A buzzing sound was coming from his mouth that sounded like a hive full of honey bees. His head was thrashing back and forth so violently, I was afraid he was going to snap his neck. After a few seconds of the worst kind of pain I could imagine anyone going through, the man stopped. Ben’s head slumped over, his chin resting on his chest. Feldman walked over to him and held his head up. He gave him a couple of gentle slaps on his cheeks. No response.
“Ben. Ben, can you hear me?” Feldman asked in a loud voice.
“Probably just passed
out,” the crank turning bastard said.
Feldman put his hand on Ben’s neck, checking for a pulse.
“Well, he’s still alive. Maybe he’ll come around in a minute,” he said.
“Maybe he don’t have the film,” one of the men said. “Hell, we couldn’t find it on him or in the truck. As much pain as he just experienced, if he knew anything he would have talked.”
Feldman turned around with his back toward Ben, facing the man at the phone. “You don’t understand, Carl. Ben is a patriotic little nigger. He goes around reciting Jefferson and Washington and James Madison all the time. He buys into this “greatest country in the history of the world” shit, even though the people he praises brought his ancestors over on ships……”
Before I had time to blink, I saw Feldman stumble forward. The gun he was holding in his hand was suddenly pointing at Carl and I heard a deafening bang that echoed through the cinder block walls. Carl fell backwards, letting out a loud grunt. Then I saw the black skin of Ben’s hand around Feldman’s as he wrestled the gun from his grip. Harold, the other man, sprung into action. He ran for his pistol that he had laid on a shelf in the corner to keep it from getting wet from the shower. Ben pointed Feldman’s pistol at him.
“Stop, or you’re a dead man!” Ben yelled.
Harold didn’t heed his warning. Ben squeezed the trigger hitting Harold in the left shoulder. Harold spun around and hit the floor, writhing from the burning gunshot wound. Feldman was paralyzed from utter surprise and fear. He lay there motionless. Ben pushed himself away from Feldman a couple of feet, then gave him a hard blow across the side of his head with the barrel of the pistol. Then he got up slowly, walking like a drunk man toward the gun Harold had gone for. He grabbed it and walked over to where I sat, tied up. His legs looked like they were made of rubber. How he had moved so quickly when he jumped Feldman, I don’t know. Apparently, he had just enough adrenalin coursing through his body for that one mighty burst. Ben only weighed about a hundred and forty pounds, but had always had tremendous strength for his size. He stopped for a minute as if he were confused and didn’t know what to do. Then he turned around and staggered back to the chair he had been tied to. He picked up the ropes and took them over to where Feldman was laying. He worked slowly, trying to tie Feldman’s hands behind his back. His coordination was altered considerably from the electrical current that had passed through his body, and he was having a difficult time.
The Sharecropper Prodigy Page 22
