Richard Stevenson - Tongue tied

Plankton was pondering something. "Jerry wasn't in on this, was he?"

"What do you think?"

"Just answer my question before I shoot your black heart across your backyard and across the sound to Norwalk!"

"No, no, Jerry didn't know! He was sick about the whole thing. He even got me to raise the reward money to six-five. I just used Jerry, picking up information on the police investigation, and on some PI from Albany that was involved, and some Amish queen from the FFF that we tried to make it look like he was involved in the snatch.

I'm sure Jerry would've gone along with it if he knew, but the way I did it was even better. Don't you get it, J-Bird? It would only really work perfectly if you all were sincerely distraught and ripshit."

Plankton considered carefully what he had heard. Then he said to Thad and me,

"Tie him down. I want him stretched over the table, butt end up, and tied tight.

Find some rope, or some neckties in his bedroom."

"Hey, wait a minute…!"

Blam! Blam! Blam! The gun went off again, smashing a shelf full of what looked like Venetian fruit bowls. The far side of the kitchen was a rainbow of flying Murano.

I said, "I'll go look in the garage for something to tie him up with."

"No, you won't," Plankton said. "I don't trust you for shit, Strachey. I didn't trust you from the second I laid eyes on you, you being some limp-wristed Albany fairy. Use those electrical cords," Plankton said, waving his gun at some extension cords, one leading to a lamp on a phone table, another to a television set mounted on a metal wall shelf. "Those'll work. Tie him down with those cords."

Glodt, on whom the automatic was trained, looked frantic. "Jay, what are you going to do?"

"You'll see."

"You're not going to rape me, are you, Jay?"

"Not exactly."

"Jay, I think you're losing it. You're not the J-Bird I thought I knew."

"Do it!" Plankton snapped at Thad and me.

It took four extension cords, including two Thad retrieved from the pantry, for us to tightly secure Glodt's feet to the legs of one side of the table and his wrists to the other. Glodt had begun to whimper. He had no idea what he was in for, though by now I was beginning to think I did.

"Get the case," Plankton said calmly.

I picked up the aluminum case Thad had brought in from the car and placed it on a nearby chair.

"Open it," Plankton said.

I unsnapped the latches and lifted the lid.

"Pull his pants down," Plankton said, and Glodt let out a scream.

Thad said, "What is that thing, an electric nose-hair trimmer, or what? Are you going to shave his butt-hole or something, J-Bird? Look, I have to tell you, this is getting to be a bit more than I can stomach. Honestly."

"What you're looking at," Plankton said, motioning toward the contents of the case,

"is a tattoo gun along with its inks and accessories. I was blindfolded at the time, so I can't say for sure. But my guess is, this is the tattoo gun that that fruitcake in Oyster Bay used to desecrate the holy temple of my crumbling, pathetic, middle-aged body.

And now, Steve, your holy temple is about to be desecrated, too."

Glodt screamed again and began to struggle violently. Plankton stepped closer to Glodt and shoved the barrel of the automatic against Glodt's right temple. Glodt froze in place but almost immediately began to shake all over.

"Strachey, you can do the honors. If you refuse, I'll blow Steve's brains out. If you think I'm bluffing, go ahead and test me."

"I've never used one of these things," I said.

"You can experiment. On Steve."

"I took your basic Introduction to Art History in college, but I have no artistic talent myself."

"You won't need any. This doesn't have to be perfect. Anyway, it's pretty much all text."

"I thought it might be."

"Plug it in."

"I might need another extension cord."

"Thad, find another cord." Thad glanced at me again, and I nodded. I was beginning to understand that everyone in the room would almost certainly survive the day unin-jured and largely intact.

Plankton confirmed this by saying, "Tattoo what I tell you to write on Steve's butt.

Then I'll put the gun down and you can call the cops. But if you don't do it, I'll kill Steve.

Deal?"

"Deal," I said.

Glodt mewed softly as I loosened his belt and tugged his jeans and undershorts down in the back.

Thad returned with another extension cord and plugged one end into a wall socket near the coffeemaker. The other end I attached to the tattoo gun. The device resembled a large hypodermic syringe with a needle in the end. When I flicked a switch, the needle vibrated.

I said, "These little jars appear to contain ink. What color would you like, J-Bird?

Or should I ask Steve?"

"Blue would be good," Plankton said. "It was good enough for me, and it will be good enough for Steve."

I removed the lid from a jar of dark blue ink. With the tattoo gun poised above Glodt's buttocks-which were remarkably firm and well-preserved for a man who was probably in his early fifties-I said to Plankton, "What is it, J-Bird, that you would like me to write?"

He told me, and Glodt began to sob.

Thad said, "That's cruel, J-Bird. That's sick."

"Do it, or I'll kill him. It's not as cruel and sick as murder."

I thought he was probably bluffing, but he spoke with such cold rage that I wasn't sure. In any case, I figured Glodt could have the tattoos removed-slowly, painfully- before they could bring him any greater harm.

"I should sketch this out first," I said, "so that I do the job as neatly as possible. Is there a marker or something?"

Thad brought a felt-tipped pen from the telephone table. He wasn't trembling, nor did he have goose bumps. But his face was taut and pale, and I could see in his eyes that he was suffering. Thad's early days as a daring FFF rescuer must have seemed so innocent and larky next to this, and I didn't doubt that he would soon head back to his eggplants and moody lover and orderly extended gay-and-lesbian family and never again head off on some midlife adventure that the likes of people like me had lured him into.

I took the pen and carefully wrote on Glodt's perspiring left buttock: "Queen of the New York State Correctional System." Then on his left cheek I drew an arrow pointing to Glodt's anus, and the words "Enter Here."

It took me a few minutes to develop a feel for using the gun and when and how to dip the needle in the ink jars. So I made a few blotchy mistakes. But when I finished the job an hour or so later, it wasn't bad overall, and the J-Bird complimented me on my work.

Then I made some phone calls, and soon after that two ambulances arrived, along with a Center Island police cruiser. At almost the same moment, Lyle Barner and Dave Welch glided up the Glodt driveway.

Glodt was still draped over the kitchen table when Lyle and Welch came in, Lyle's police special drawn. The J-Bird had laid down his automatic by then, and Lyle soon lowered his.

Welch said, "Hey, nice butt."

Taking note of the J-Bird, Lyle said to Welch, "What are you, queer or something?

Now, what the hell is going on here, Strachey? It looks to me as if you have a lot of explaining to do."

Welch shook his head, Thad raised an eyebrow, the J-Bird snorted, and Steve Glodt said, "Are you police officers? Thank God you're here! I've been attacked and held prisoner by these radical homosexual activists! Apparently they are the same deranged perverts who kidnapped my friend and full business partner, Jay Plankton here, who luckily was able to escape from his sadistic captors!"

There was a pause while we all looked over at the J-Bird, who suddenly let loose with a ferocious cackle.