Charlie Huston - Caught Stealing

They started with the easy questions.

– Where’s the key?

To which I mostly spluttered.

– But I left it right there, it was right there. I don’t know what could have happened to it.

Then the questions start getting a little weird.

– What is the key for?

The sock comes out.

– Gasp! Gasp! Gasp! What? Gasp! What is the key for? Gasp!

Roman pauses for a moment and I’m expecting the sock to come back, but it doesn’t.

– What is the key for, what does it open?

What the fuck?

– Gasp! How the. Gasp! How the fuck should I. Gasp! Know? It’s your fucking key. Gasp!Your fucking object.

This is not a state-approved answer. The sock is stuffed in my mouth. I’m in the middle of drawing in a lungful of air and the sock cuts it off. I get sock fluff lodged in my throat and I start to choke. I feel like I might vomit. I don’t want to vomit. Please, God, don’t let me vomit. Please, God, I don’t, I just don’t want this. Please make this stop. Please. Red gets a grip on the next staple and starts to tug. The original wound was sharply defined, a pain that had carefully designated borders. As Red pulls at the staple, I feel the wound stretch. The original pain is distorted and twisted and a new pain, more crude, takes its place. Just as the flesh around the staple starts to tear, I feel a pop and the wound snaps back.

The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds has always been one of my favorite albums. When the Russians grabbed me and started dragging me toward the bed, I made a bit of a scuffle. To help cover the noise, someone, Red I think, put on a CD: Pet Sounds. I don’t know if this represents personal taste or if it was simply at the top of the stack. In any case it was a really good idea on their part, because even with the sock in my mouth, I’m making a fuck of a lot of noise, but then I guess it should come as no surprise that these guys know their business.

The sock comes out and I vomit onto my pillow.

– What is the key for?

I’m coughing quite a bit now, trying to spit up the puke and breathe at the same time, but I manage to give him an answer.

– I don’t. Gasp! Choke! I don’t know. I don’t know. Choke!

– What did Miner tell you about the key?

– Nothing, he didn’t say. Gasp! He didn’t say. Choke!Nothing about the key. I don’t know about the key.

– You knew where it was.

– Gasp!Accident. I found it by accident.

I get the sock again. Red is having trouble getting at the next staple, he’s really digging in. The pain is making me even more nauseous than I was with just the hangover and I think I may vomit again. Please, please, God. My throat is clenching and hitching and the blood in my nose is running back in. The coppery taste of the blood is blending with the bile of the puke. Please. Oh, God, please. The staple gives way and I scream again. They yank the sock and I spill out another flood of puke, this one tinted pink with blood.

– What did he tell you when he asked you to hide the key?

I can’t talk, I just can’t. I heave and blubber and beg and Roman sticks the puke-and-blood-soaked sock back in my mouth and Red hurts me again and I realize then that they are going to kill me just as soon as they can.

Roman is a cop. Despite what you may have heard, the behavior he is now engaged in, not even an officer of the NYPD can get away with. They will finish asking questions and, when I have no more to offer, they will kill me. And, having had this realization, I start trying very hard to think as clearly as I can, because I don’t want to die.

– What did he tell you about the key?

– Gasp! Gasp!He.Didn’t. Tell. Me. Anything. Gasp!About.The.Key.

– Why did he give you the key?

– He.He. Gasp! He didn’t give me the key.

– Why did you say you had the key?

– He. Fuck. He gave me the. Gasp!The cat. The key was in its box. I didn’t know. He didn’t give me the key. Gasp! He stuck me with it. I didn’t know.

– What is the key for?

Think. Think. I don’t want to die. I need to think. I’m trying to think of ways not to die, but the pain and the hangover keep getting in my way and I can’t keep my thoughts together in one place long enough to make them work for me. I try to keep answering the questions without saying something that will make me dead.

– I don’t know.

– What does it look like?

– I didn’t see it.

I get the sock and another staple goes. I think I black out for a couple seconds, I can’t really tell for sure.

– How do you know there was a key if you didn’t see it?

– It. Gasp! It was in an envelope. Gasp! I felt it. It felt like a key. Gasp! It felt like a lumpy key.Big.Lumpy.

– Where is the key now?

Fuck!

– I. Don’t. Know. I just don’t.

And the sock.And another staple.

– We did not come here looking for a key, but if Mr. Miner gave you a key, then we want it. Where is the key?

– Gasp! I just. Fuck! Gasp! I just don’t know. I put it back in the box yesterday. Gasp! And last night after those guys were here, I got drunk. Choke! I got real fucking drunk. I fucking blacked out. I fucking shit my pants, for God sake. I don’t know where it is now. I left it in the box.

The sock.A staple.

– Where is the key?

I say nothing. I try to get as much air as I can. I breathe. I try to figure out a way to live. And Roman says something odd:

– Chew the fat.

I have no idea what that’s about until Blackie releases my arm and starts scrabbling under the bed and I hear Bud crying. Then I realize he meant to say, “Get the cat.”

In all fairness, he probably did say “Get the cat” and I only heard “Chew the fat.” Bud is giving Blackie hell under the bed and the bastard is grunting and cursing in Russian. My left arm is free now, but the circulation is all messed up and it hurts so bad that I can barely move it. Not that I’d know what to do with it if I could move it, but it’s nice not to have someone pulling at it for the moment.

– Man, just. Gasp! Just leave the cat. Just leave it alone. Gasp! Don’t hurt the fucking cat.

Aren’t there rules about this kind of thing? I mean, there are rules, right? You can do whatever you want to people, but you don’t hurt fucking animals.

As if on cue, the toiletflushes, the door to the bathroom opens and the Samoan returns. Enter the torturer of animals.

– Sorry, guys, I hadta drop a deuce. Hey, you got air freshener or what?

Sooner or later, even the most profound events of your life are reduced to concerns like this.

– Under the sink.

– I looked there.

– The kitchen. Not the bathroom sink, the kitchen sink.

– Fuck you, who keeps freshener under the kitchen sink?

– I do.

– What, your shit doesn’t stink? You don’t needno freshener in the bathroom?

Meanwhile, Blackie has got hold of Bud and is dragging him out of his hiding place, but the fur is flying. Bud comes into the light of day howling and clawing at Blackie’s eyes. As the Russian stands upright, I get my first look at Bud. He’swrithing this way and that, trying to get a piece of someone, but his left leg is twisted up real weird and he’s not moving it at all.

– What the fuck? What, man, what did you do to the cat?

Suddenly the Samoan reaches over and grabs Bud. He wraps those huge hands around the struggling cat and locks him up. Bud’s legs are all trapped, just his head sticks out of the Samoan’s grasp. And then Blackie hits him, the fucker makes a little fist out of his little hand and hits Bud in the face.

– I kicked this shit cat, this fucking shit cat I fucking kicked. This fucking shit cat, I tried to pet and it fucking bit me and I fucking kicked the shit cat. So fuck you, Mr. Bartender, can’t make a fucking cosmopolitan. Mr. Fucking Shitty Drink Maker with the Shitty Cat.