J. Redmerski - Reviving Izabel

“Tell me about your wife,” I say, stalling, pretending to be the one still holding all the cards. “Before I ‘get to the point’ I want to understand your relationship with her.”

A part of me really does want to know. And I’m incredibly nervous; I can feel a swarm of bees buzzing around in my stomach. Maybe pointless talk will help ease my mind.

Hamburg cocks his head to one side. “Why?”

“Just answer the question.”

“I loved her very much,” he answers reluctantly. “She was my life.”

“ That is love?” I ask, unbelieving. “You let her memory die with the image of her being a drug addict who committed suicide just to save your own ass and you call that love ?”

I notice a light move across the floor underneath the door of the surveillance room. There was no one inside before, at least not that I could tell.

“Like blackmail, love comes in many forms.” He rests his back against the squeaky leather chair, interlocking his porky fingers over his big stomach. “Mary and I were inseparable. We weren’t like other people, other married couples, but because we were so different didn’t mean we loved each other less than anyone else.” His eyes lock on mine briefly. “We were lucky to find each other.”

“Lucky?” I ask, baffled by his comment. “It was luck that two sick people found each other and teamed up to do sick things to other people? I don’t follow.”

Hamburg shakes his head as if he’s some old wise man and I’m just too young to understand.

“People who are different like Mary and I were—”

“Sick and demented,” I correct him. “Not different.”

“Whatever you’d like to call it,” he says with an air of surrender. “When you’re that different from society, from what’s acceptable in society, finding someone just like you is a very rare thing.”

Absently I grit my teeth. Not because he’s angering me, but because I never imagined that anything this disgusting man could ever say to me would make me think about my own situation with Victor, or that anything he could say I would actually accept.

I shake it off.

The faint light underneath the surveillance room door moves again. I pretend not to have noticed, not wanting to give Hamburg any reason to think I’m anticipating another way out.

“I came here for names,” I blurt out, having not thought about it thoroughly.

“What names?”

“Of your clients.”

A change flickers in Hamburg’s eyes, the shifting of control.

“You want the names of my clients?” he asks suspiciously.

Oh shit…

“I thought you and Victor Faust already had possession of my client list?”

Keep a straight face. Don’t lose composure. Shit!

“Yes, we do,” I say, “but I’m referring to the ones you never kept a record of.”

I think I’m going to be sick. My head feels like it’s on fire. I hold my breath hoping I saved myself.

Hamburg studies me quietly, searching my face and my posture for any signs of faltering confidence. He rounds his heavy, double-chin.

“What makes you think there’s a ghost list?” he asks.

I breathe a partial sigh of relief, but I’m still not out of the woods.

“There’s always a ghost list,” I say, though I really have no idea what I’m talking about. “I want at least three names that aren’t on the list we have a record of.”

I smile, feeling like I’ve regained control of the situation.

That is until he speaks:

“You tell me three names that are on the list you have a record of and then I will oblige.”

I have officially lost the control.

I swallow hard and catch myself before I look ‘caught’.

“What, you think I carry your list around in my purse?” I ask with sarcasm, trying to stay in the game. “There will be no negotiations or compromise, Mr. Hamburg. You’re hardly in any position to be cutting any deals here.”

“Is that so?” he asks, grinning.

He’s onto me. I can feel it. But he’s going to make sure he’s right before he makes his move.

“This isn’t up for debate.” I stand from the leather chair, tucking my purse underneath my arm, more disappointed than before about relinquishing my gun.

I press my fingertips against the mahogany desk, holding my weight up on them as I lean over just slightly toward him.

“Three names,” I demand, “or I walk out of here and Victor Faust walks in to blow your brains against that pretty painting of the baby Jesus behind you.”

Hamburg laughs.

“That’s not the baby Jesus.”

He stands up with me, tall and enormous and intimidating.

While I’m running through my mind trying to find the source of how he knows I’m full of shit, he is a step ahead of me and announces it like a kick in my teeth.

“It’s funny, Izabel, that you’d come here asking for names that don’t appear on a list that you…,” he points at my purse, “…don’t keep a record of, because then how would you know that the names I gave you weren’t already on it?”

I am so dead.

“Let me tell you what I think,” he goes on. “I think you’re here all alone, that you came back because of some vendetta against me.” He shakes his index finger. “Because I remember every little fucking thing about that night. Everyfuckingthing. Especially that look on your face when you realized Victor Faust was there to kill my wife instead of me. That was the look of someone blindsided, who had no idea why she was there. It was the look of someone unfamiliar with the game.”

He attempts to smile softly at me as if to display some kind of sympathy for my situation, but it just comes off as sardonic.

“I think that if someone was here with you, they’d already be in here to rescue you by now because it’s obvious you’re in a load of shit.”

The door to the main room opens and the guard steps inside, twisting the lock on the door behind him. For a split-second, I had hoped it was Victor coming to save me right on cue. But that was just wishful thinking. The guard is looking across at me with spiteful, grinning eyes. Hamburg nods to him and the guard starts to take off his belt.

My heart falls into the pit of my stomach.

“You know,” Hamburg says walking around his desk, “the first time I met you I remember a deal being made between Victor Faust and myself.” He points at me briefly. “You remember, don’t you?”

He smiles and places his chunky hand on the back of the chair I just abandoned, turning it around to face me.

My whole body is shaking; it feels like the blood rushing through my hands has become acidic. It charges through my heart and into my head so fast I feel momentarily faint. I start to reach for my knife, but they’re too close, closing in on me from two sides. I can’t take on both of them at the same time.

“What do you mean?” I ask, stumbling over my words, trying to buy myself some time.

Hamburg rolls his eyes. “Oh come on, Izabel.” He twirls a finger in the air. “Despite what happened that night, I was really disappointed that the two of you left before fulfilling the deal.”

“I would say that after what happened, the deal was void.”

He smiles at me and sits down in the leather chair. I see him glance at the guard, indicating a demand with just the look in his eyes.

Before I can turn around fully the guard has both of my hands pinned behind my back.

“You’re making a huge fucking mistake if you do this!” I cry, struggling in the guard’s grasp.

He forces me over to a square table and shoves me on top of it. My reflexes can’t act fast and my chin is stung by the solid marble. The metallic taste of blood springs up in my mouth.