Sympathy For the Devil

by Terrence McCauley

  The guard motioned toward the closed bedroom door. “In there. Sleeping it off. Had some company last night and he hit it pretty hard. Ain’t been out of his room all day.”

  The guard with the broken nose was trying to get to his feet, but Hicks put a shoe to his ass and pushed him down again. “Go crawl to your buddy over there on the couch.” And to the guard on the sofa, he said, “I could’ve killed both of you by now, couldn’t I?”

  The man swallowed; nodded.

  “But I didn’t, did I?”The man shook his head.

  “That’s because I don’t want you dead. You play this smart, everyone keeps on living. That’s why you’re going to open your jacket real slow and take your gun out with your thumb and index finger. Do it real slow, then toss it on that chair over there.”

  The guard did exactly as he’d been told to do. Hicks said, “Now give your friend a hand and help him up on the couch. Make sure he keeps his head back. It’ll help with the bleeding a little.”

  Hicks kept the Glock aimed at them as he went over to the bedroom door. He was just about to put his hand on the knob when the door opened and a smiling Rachid Djebar came out, already dressed in tan pants and a white shirt. Clean shaven, too, like he was walking into a board meeting.

  “Good morning, my friend,” the Algerian smiled. “I take it you have come here to discuss something with me.”

  Hicks grabbed him by the collar and pulled him into the living area. He pushed him against the wall; keeping his gun on the guards with one hand as he patted down Djebar for a weapon.

  Djebar laughed the entire time. “Why would I spend money paying these men to protect me if I carried a weapon of my own?” He looked over at the two men. “Given how easily you got in here, though, perhaps it is something I should consider.”

  Hicks knew he should’ve checked the bathroom and the bedroom to make sure they were clear, but there was only one of him and three of them.

  Instead, he took his handheld off mute, and said, “All clear. Get up here right away.”

  Djebar straightened out his rumpled shirt. He wasn’t a large man, but his clothes made him look bigger than he really was. But it was clear they were expensive, maybe Saville Row if Hicks had time to check the labels, which he didn’t.

  “Ah, I see you have brought friends,” Djebar said, his English clear with just a hint of a French accent. He looked like an alert, eager young man, not like the conniving fifty year old power-broker Hicks knew him to be. “That is good as I always like meeting new friends.”

  Hicks stepped far enough away so he could cover all three men from a good angle. “We’re not friends, Ace. And you’re going to find that out soon enough.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Djebar smiled. “I get along with all sorts of people, as I’m sure you know well.”

  “What makes you think I know anything about you?”

  “Because I am still alive and if you were here to kill me, all of us would be dead by now. You said so yourself to these men here. And if you were a policeman come to arrest me, there would’ve been far more of you. That leaves only one logical conclusion: you must be interested in my line of business. Perhaps my matchmaking abilities? Either you want me to serve as a matchmaker between you and another party or you wish to discuss my past previous clients.” The Algerian shrugged. “As I profit from both making and telling, I see no reason why I should be concerned.”

  And Hicks saw no reason to tell him anything. “Just shut your mouth and stand there.”

  But the Algerian was undaunted. He leaned on the back of the large chair that faced the couch where the two guards were sitting. Behind them, a corner view that looked out ten stories above Times Square. Djebar looked back at the view over his shoulder and flashed Hicks his best salesman’s smile.

  “A million dollar view, is it not? Maybe more since a million doesn’t buy as much as it once did. From here, we have a clear view of where the ball drops on New Year’s Eve and the daily hustle and bustle of Times Square; the Crossroads of the World. We have the exceptional above and the mundane below, none of which can be fully appreciated by being in the middle of it. One must see it from a distance in order to appreciate the dichotomy, doesn’t one? A distance, for example, which those of us up here can enjoy. A distance—a perspective, if you will—that can only be attained through money. That’s all it takes in your country. In most of the world, really? Have enough money for a suite like this and you can have it. Have enough money and enough influence and you can have this suite whenever you want it. But without money, where are you?” He pointed to the street. “Down there with the rest of the people, crawling around like ants, looking up; never knowing just how insignificant they are until its too late. This is your America, Mr. Hicks. The country you kill for. And the country you’ll one day die for.”

  Hicks should’ve guessed Djebar might’ve known his name. “You know who I am.”

  “How could I not?” Djebar said. “You dealt with an old mentor of mine in Karachi years ago. When I was still an apprentice and you an American operative. You wouldn’t remember me, but I certainly remember you. And that is why I know you are an honorable man with whom I can work. So let us get down to business and discuss why you have come to see me today.”

  Hicks had been in Karachi several times, but didn’t know which mentor Djebar was talking about and he didn’t remember Djebar. There were always young people around; all of them listening and hoping the American will notice them. Maybe give them a job and a way back to America.

  He heard a knock at the hotel door, followed by two knocks. The signal he’d agreed upon with his partner. “You might want to hold off on the praise. I’ve got a feeling your opinion of me is about to change for the worse.”

  Hicks opened the door and stepped aside to give Roger Cobb enough room to push a wheelchair into the room. A black medical bag was on the seat.

  And Djebar was not smiling any more.

  But Hicks was. “You might remember Roger from Karachi. He was with me.”

  Djebar looked at the wheelchair and the medical bag and subconsciously took half a step back.

  “He was there?” Roger appraised him from head to toe, then smiled. “Handsome boy. I would’ve remembered. Did we party?”

  Djebar looked at the bag on the wheelchair and took another step back. “Whatever you are planning to do to me, it won’t work. I’ve been trained to resist all forms of interrogation.”

  “Good. I love a challenge.” Roger took a syringe out of his pocket and removed the plastic top. “This is just a little medicine to help you relax. We’re old friends from Karachi, remember? We’re going to get real close, you and me. Very, very close.” As he began walking toward Djebar, the Algerian took one step back and then another until he was against the wall with nowhere to go.

  Roger’s tone was almost soothing. “Oh, come now. It’s not as bad as all that. Just one little pinch and we’ll all be on our way.”

  Djebar pushed off the wall and tried to run, but Roger caught him by the throat; as quick and clean as a cobra striking a rat. The Algerian gagged as Roger pulled the smaller man toward him and injected the clear contents of the syringe into his neck.

  Hicks pushed the wheelchair forward in time for Djebar to fall into it. Within a few seconds, Djebar’s chin was on his chest, drooling.

  Roger took a thin hospital blanket from his bag and wrapped it around Djebar. “That should keep him upright for the ride ahead.”

  The guard whose nose wasn’t broken asked, “Where are you taking him? What are you doing to him?”

  “You don’t want to know that,” Hicks said as he took the guard’s gun off the chair and began to strip it. “In fact, we were never here and none of this ever happened.”

  The guard thought about it for a moment. “My man here needs help. His nose is busted and bleeding bad.” He looked at Roger. “You some kind of doctor? Maybe you can help?”

  “Healing isn’t exactly my forte,” Roger said as
he grabbed his bag and approached the guard with the broken nose, but I’ll see what I can do.” He reached into his bag for some forceps and gauze and began to tend to the broken nose.

  Hicks spoke to the other guard. “We’ve already closed out Djebar’s account with your company. I made sure he paid it in full with a damned generous tip for you guys for doing such a good job. We’ve also seen to it that Djebar has paid for this room through the weekend. And his AmEx Black Card is still wide open, so make sure you enjoy it.”

  Roger laughed as he began to pack the other guard’s nostrils with gauze. “Ah, to be in your shoes, friend. One can have a good time getting into a lot of trouble with one of those cards. Believe me, I know.”

  “But why do all of this for us? Why not just kill us?”

  “Because I already know all about you, Miguel Reyes, and I know you’re not part of this. You’re just a nice Dominican boy from Washington Heights who loves his mother, his two sisters, and his nieces. I know you’re not going to interfere in our lives, because I know you don’t want us interfering in yours.”

  “Shit,” Reyes said as he looked from Hicks to Roger, then Hicks. “Shit.”

  “Here’s what’s going to happen next. Roger’s going to set your friend’s nose and we’re going to wheel this asshole out of here. You’re going to spend the rest of the day here ordering room service and putting it all on your pal’s Amex card. As far as your bosses are concerned, you dropped him off at JFK and that’s the last you saw of him.”

  “I just hope this is the last time I see you.”

  “Keep your mouth shut about what happened here today, and you’ll never see me again. If you make it about more than that, if you tell anyone what happened here or about me or my friend, I’ll be the last person you ever see. Your family, too. Understand?”

  Roger set the guard’s nose in a crude splint and injected him with something for the pain. He made a show of using a new needle. “Don’t worry. It’s not the same one I used on Djebar. No telling what potpourri of social diseases are battering around his system. This will make you sleepy for a while and dull the pain for a day or so.”

  Roger closed up his bag and got up from the couch. “I was right. Healing isn’t as much fun as hurting.”

  The guard with the broken nose dozed off, but Reyes said, “What about my gun, man? That’s mine, not the company’s.”

  “It’ll be waiting for you when you get home tomorrow. Don’t forget, I have your address.” Roger dropped his medical bag in Djebar’s lap, but the man was too out of it to notice.

  As they wheeled Djebar to the elevator, Roger said, “Leaving them alive was a mistake.”

  Hicks disagreed. “I’m not killing two guys for doing their job. They worked for the company Djebar hired to watch him, not Djebar himself.”

  “Well if you were going to leave his black card with them, the least you could’ve done was tell them about the Jolly Roger. The club can always handle more customers.”

  Hicks looked down at Djebar. His head was slumped forward and he’d begun to drool on his blanket. “You’ve already got one.”

  AN HOUR later, Hicks watched Roger prep Djebar for questioning via the television set in the waiting room he’d set up for such sessions. Roger referred to the interrogation chamber as his ‘studio.’ It was actually a former dentist’s office in an old building in the West Village. The years hadn’t dulled the smell of awkward desperation and fear that most dental offices had. Roger’s activities in the years since had only added to it.

  The place was still outfitted with late seventies furniture, complete with a glassed in receptionist’s area where patients could make their payments. An old sticker on the window still read: ‘MasterCharge The Interbank Card Accepted’ and ‘Your BankAmericard Welcome Here.’

  Only Roger’s patients didn’t make payments in cash, check, or credit card. They didn’t have to present proof of health insurance either. They paid by telling Roger the truth. And if the truth was currency, then Roger was often well compensated.

  Roger had strapped Djebar’s arms and legs to a dentist’s chair. The chair had been re-covered in soft rubber to make for easier clean up after a session. A drain had been installed in the center of the floor and florescent lights powerful enough for surgery hung down from the ceiling. The small dentist’s tray had long since been removed in favor of a proper surgery table that held scalpels and sutures. Much heavier equipment, too, like steel bone saws and spreaders that sparkled in the strong light.

  Many of Roger’s patients often laughed at the equipment when they saw it, trying to convince themselves it was all just for show. But by the end of their session, they’d learned that Roger never wasted time on theatrics and, quite often, put all of the tools at his disposal to good use.

  Through the old television in the observation room, Hicks watched Roger slip the heavy rubber coroner’s apron over his head before he injected Djebar again. Hicks knew the last injection had been a sedative, but this would be just the opposite.

  Djebar snapped awake just as Roger pulled the needle from his neck. His eyes instantly bright and alive.

  Hicks watched Roger pull up a stool and sat next to Djebar; smiling down into the Algerian’s face. “Welcome back, my friend. How was your sleep? Restful, I trust?”

  Djebar now squinted at the light and tried to look away, but realized he couldn’t. His head was secured in a vice that Roger had attached to the chair’s headrest long ago.

  “Where… where am I?”

  Roger reached up and dimmed the light just enough to stop it from shining into his eyes. “Where are you? That’s a very interesting question. I like to think of this place as a threshold of new beginnings and new truth. You’re in a place where a precious few people have enjoyed the rarest of opportunities to shed the bonds of their old lives and embrace a rebirth. To become something new and clean and pure.”

  Hicks watched Djebar struggle to look anywhere but at the light. He managed to move his head just enough to get a glimpse of the bone cutter glinting on the operating table on his left. “Oh God. Please. I’ll tell you anything. Anything at all. Just don’t hurt me.”

  Roger placed a finger to Djebar’s lips. “Of course you’ll tell me anything, my friend. Anything at all, especially whatever you think I want to hear. But I’m afraid that won’t be good enough for our purposes, because I don’t want you to tell me just anything, Djebar. I want you to tell me the truth. The pure, unadulterated truth about your friend Omar and why you’re here and what you were hired to do for him.”

  Djebar began to speak, a panicked jumble of English and Arabic and French but Roger gently placed a finger on his lips again. “Everything’s going to be fine, Djebar, because the truth isn’t just an assemblage of facts. It’s a process of discovery that can’t be rushed. Anything you tell me now will only be a hint of what I really want to know, and I want to know everything about everything. About Omar. About why you’re here and about all your other dealings all over the world. And together, you and I will help you remember things you thought you forgot. We’re going to remind you of things you never thought you knew. It’s a journey we’re about to take together, my friend; a journey that, for you has been oh so very long in coming.”

  “No,” Djebar whispered; his voice as small as his eyes were wide. “No, please. We can deal. We…”

  “Our destination on this journey is the purest truth we can know, and you and I will arrive at that glorious place together very soon.”

  Hicks watched Djebar dry swallow. He began to tremble in his restraints as he saw Roger tie a thick rubber surgical mask under his nose.

  “Why? Why are you doing this?” Djebar whispered. “To me? I told you I’ll tell you anything. You don’t have to do this to me! And for whom? For your country? For your own people who hate you and despise you for what you are?”

  Hicks watched Roger reached for his rubber gloves. “But this isn’t about me, my friend. It’s about you and what you
are now and what you’re going to become in such a short amount of time.”

  Through the old speakers of the television set, Hicks could hear Djebar begin to whimper and pray in Arabic as Roger snapped on the rubber gauntlets that came up to his elbows. He saw Djebar’s surprise when Roger joined him word for word in his chant of a passage from the Quran. In Arabic. It was a passage Hicks had heard prayed in these interrogations many times before. In English, it meant:

  “The righteous shall return to a blessed retreat: the gardens of Eden, whose gates shall open wide to receive them. Reclining there with bashful virgins for companions, they will call for abundant fruit and drink.”

  Roger smiled down at Djebar from behind his rubber mask. “Such a beautiful sentiment in such a sacred book used by such ugly, ugly people for devious purposes. People like you who want to exterminate people like me.”

  Djebar shut his eyes and whimpered when Roger stroked the side of his cheek with the cold rubber glove. “In pain, there is truth and beauty to be found. And if that is true, by the time you and I are done here today, you will be the purest, most magnificent man alive.”

  Hicks watched Roger pick up a scalpel and let Djebar watch the light dance along its sharpened edge. “To paradise.”

  Hicks turned off the television as Roger brought the scalpel down on Djebar’s sternum. He could still hear the gurgled screams though the thin walls. It was, after all, an old building.

  HICKS HAD smoked two Churchill cigars before the examination room door opened. Djebar’s screams had gone hoarse before they had ended and that had been longer than Hicks wanted to remember. The screams had been followed by a heavy silence, then gasping whispers and tears and muffled words. He had even heard laughter coming from the room, but not for a long time.

  Hicks could’ve gone somewhere else while Roger conducted his interrogation, but he never did. The idea of going for a walk or grabbing coffee at Starbucks while Roger cut into someone struck him as cold and odd, even more so than the torture itself.