Dave Zeltserman - Outsourced

“Sounds too complicated to me,” Resnick said. “Why bother with something like that?”

“Because he thinks he’s smarter than we are.”

“I don’t know. Exposing himself so he can later claim he’s being framed doesn’t make sense to me.”

“Then what’s your explanation?”

“Either we’ve got some very clever bank robbers who knew where the surveillance cameras were hidden or someone very stupid in the FBI trying to sneak that tape in to frame Lombardo.”

“No one in the FBI manufactured that tape!”

Resnick took a sip of his coffee. “In that case we’ve got some very clever bank robbers.”

Dan had tried to ignore the phone ringing, but Carol shook him until he opened his eyes.

“Craig Brown from the Lynn Capital Bank is on the phone,” Carol told him. Dan wanted his wife to just go away, but he knew that wasn’t going to happen. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, the sunlight hurting his eyes and forcing them shut again. Shielding them, he squinted at his wife. “What time is it?” he asked, his voice barely above a croak. It was funny how he felt like he had a bad hangover. Not even as much as a beer the previous day.

“It’s already eleven thirty,” she said, her expression both brittle and alarmed. As lousy as he was feeling, the look on her face made him feel worse. He took the phone from her, grunted okay a few times and hung up.

“What did he want?” Carol asked.

“He wants to hire me to find out why their security system didn’t work. I’m meeting him at the bank at one thirty.”

“When’s that other man supposed to call?”

“This evening,” he said, remembering he was supposed to have a second interview that day. “After seven o’clock.”

As he pushed himself out of bed, a wave of nausea rolled through him. He had to steady himself against the bedpost until it passed. God, he felt sick, like he had suffered food poisoning. Slowly he trudged off to the bathroom.

When he looked in the mirror, he saw that his rash was gone. All at once it struck him how goddamn pathetic his situation was. He started laughing and, as he did, his stomach hurt like hell. But he couldn’t stop himself. At least he could be thankful for something, even if it was something as insignificant as his rash disappearing. The thought of that just made him laugh harder.

The two men were chained to a bar so that their arms were stretched over their heads and the tips of their toes barely able to touch the floor. The room they were in was soundproof, so there was no real reason for the gags in their mouths other than for the psychological effect and also to keep their screaming from giving Petrenko a headache. They were both animated now, both trying to make noise. Petrenko ignored them as he slipped on a butcher’s apron and then a set of goggles. He picked up a pair of latex gloves and pulled them over his hands, then stood clenching and unclenching his fists, making sure his fingers would have the flexibility to do what they’d need to. When he felt ready, he gave Yuri a nod.

Yuri and two other men unchained the heavyset Arab and carried him to a table that was wrapped in plastic. Plastic sheeting was also laid out under the table covering a good area of the floor. After a night chained in the position he had been, the man would have no strength in his arms, no ability to fight back. Yuri and the two other Russians dumped the Arab on the table like he was a sack of flour and then handcuffed his wrists and ankles to metal rings at both ends of the table. Petrenko picked up a scalpel and held it to the light.

The other man, the one named Abbas, tried to scream through his gag when he caught sight of the scalpel, his body contorting wildly. Petrenko shook his head sadly at the man and addressed him as if he were addressing a child.

“There’s no point in acting this way,” Petrenko told him. “You are going to die later today. Nothing you do will change that. Whether you die easily or not will be up to how long it takes you to tell me where my money is. And you will tell me. Believe me, you will be begging to tell me.”

Abbas was nearly epileptic as he tried to make a noise through his gag.

“You don’t understand,” Petrenko said. “I don’t care what you might have to say now. After you watch what happens to your friend, then I will care.”

He turned away from Abbas and walked over to the heavyset Arab handcuffed to the table. The man’s eyes grew wide as he saw the scalpel. He tried frantically to talk through his gag. In his panic he started choking on it. Petrenko couldn’t afford to let him die so quickly. He had no choice but to remove the gag.

“Please,” the man was saying as he gasped for air, tears streaming down his face. “I will tell you anything you want to know, anything…”

Petrenko in Russian asked Yuri to get him some cotton. He waited patiently for Yuri, all the while listening to the heavyset man blabber on and on about how he would tell Petrenko anything he needed to know. When Yuri returned with a bag of cotton, Petrenko tore off two pieces and stuffed them in each ear. Otherwise, he knew, this man would give him a headache.

The heavyset man’s voice was now barely a hoarse whisper; still though trying repeatedly to convince Petrenko that he would tell him anything he wanted to know.

Petrenko stopped him. “Unfortunately for you,” he said, “you have nothing to say that I care to hear.” Then pushing the edge of the scalpel against the man’s bare chest, he went to work.

Joel had been on the road for five hours before he arrived in Manhattan. The first thing he did was stop off for an onion bagel with cream cheese. Closing his eyes, he savored every bite of it. Back in New England the bagels were dreck, nothing but glorified rolls. After he finished it, he bought another one. He’d have no problem eating a dozen of them in one sitting, but he would have to limit himself to two. His waistline couldn’t afford more than that. As it was, he was going to have to pay later by doing several hundred sit-ups when he got home.

After his lunch, he headed over to Forty-Seventh Street and found the jewelry store his uncle Hyman worked at. Entering the store, he spotted his uncle, sitting on the same stool he had sat on for over fifty years. Eighty-two years old, half a foot shorter than Joel, with only a few white wisps of hair left on his mostly bald head. Along with his big ears and large veined nose, he looked like some gnarled figure that could’ve been carved out of wood instead of flesh. The old man did a double-take when he saw Joel. Sliding off his stool, he moved with a surprising quickness to meet his nephew.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. He took hold of one of Joel’s hands with both of his, his own hands thick and swollen. “I haven’t heard from you in three years and you just pop in here, just like that. What’s wrong with you, you can’t call first?”

“I’m sorry, Uncle Hymie, but I decided kind of spur of the moment to drive down here. I’ve got something I’d like to show you.”

“Eh, that can wait. You have lunch yet?”

“Yeah, I had a couple of bagels.”

“Bagels? You call that lunch? Let me take you to a deli, get you a nice brisket sandwich. Maybe some matzoh ball soup?”

“I don’t have time for that now, but I plan on stopping off at the Carnegie and taking a few pounds of pastrami and corned beef home with me. Also a bag of potato knishes. Can I show you what I got?”

“Always in a rush.” The old man shook his head, making a tsking noise. “You haven’t seen me in three years and you can’t even spend time to have lunch with me.”

“All right, if you’re going to make a federal case out of it-”