The silence is deafening. It`s so dark in here. I can't see a thing. I don`t know how I got here, or why I`m here. The last thing I remember is opening the door to my van... Ooh, my head hurts. There must be a goose egg on the back of my skull the size of Brooklyn. Have I been kidnapped? It can't be. I haven`t any money. I`ve got just enough to live on and pay my bills each week and pay my two ex-wives. I have a second job. I`m employed nights as a watchman at the Kincaid Enterprise plant in Bickford. With two jobs, I`m still not rich. I`ve got less than ten thousand dollars saved for my retirement.
Why me?
I feel awful, as though I've been dragged through a knothole as my father used to say. My skin itches, my wrists and ankles are sore. They feel like raw meat. I try moving. I can`t feel my feet, they've gone to sleep. My mouth is dry, and it feels and tastes as the entire Russian army walked across it in their stocking feet.
Listen! The squeaking of rusty hinges, the turning of a doorknob, and the sudden thin ray of light awakens my senses. The light in the room expands as the door opens wider. A tall figure stands at the doorway. His bulk makes him look like a giant monolith, his frame filling the doorway. He moves closer to me. I struggle to get free, but the more I twist and turn the more it hurts. A sharp pain jolts the nerves in my ankles. It is of no use. I am bound too tight.
The door is fully opened now. The silhouette of the tall shadowy figure is moving closer and closer. Looking down I see, by the light, I am sitting on the only object in a small room, a kitchen chair.
"Are you comfortable, Mr. Fields?"
"First of all, it`s Field, nos." Amos hates it when people add that extra letter to his name and then insult him by saying, `what difference does it make?` Well, it makes a lot of difference to me. He adds, "secondly how would you feel being lashed to this chair for god only knows how long?"
"Sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Field. You have something we want."
"I? What could I possibly have that anyone would want? I don`t have anything besides a girlfriend, a mortgaged home, two ex-wives, and a six-year-old foreign car with more dings than a golf ball?"
"Great sense of humour, Mr. Field, but this isn`t the Comedy Club. We want it. Now. When you tell us where it is, you will be free to go," Goliath says.
"What if I don`t have?- it?" I asked.
"You know what it is, Mr. Field, and the sooner you tell us where it is, the faster you can get out of here." He went out and closed the door leaving me in the dark again.
What could they want? It`s a mystery to me... one day I`m a nobody with a mortgage, an ex-wife to whom I am paying alimony, and two sets of clothes, on and off, and next, I`m being held by kidnappers who want... want it?
Squeak, squeak. I must have fallen asleep because the sound of the rusty hinges woke me. Goliath was coming at me again. This time, he had a tray. Was it a syringe and a bottle of goofiness? No, as he got closer, I could see it was food.
"I`ll untie you so you can eat something. If you try anything funny, you will be sorry. The boss doesn`t like it when... well, let`s just say the boss doesn`t like funny business."
"Who is this. . . boss?"
"For now, you don`t need to know. You will find out soon enough if you don`t talk. He can be very mean, and I guarantee, you won`t like his methods of persuasion."
It felt like heaven being loosed from my mooring. I shook my hands and stretched my legs; they were numb from lack of circulation.
"Hurry up and eat." The food he brought, mashed potato, green beans and a small chicken breast with a dab of stuffing looked like a feast. I don`t know how long I had gone without food, but I was hungry, and I ate everything on the plate. The food was fair. I'd give it a 5. Not as good as my girlfriends. She is a great cook.
After I had eaten, Goliath left off the rope. "If you don`t try and escape, I`ll let you remain free. But, if you do...try and escape, I`ll tie you up so tight you`ll feel like the rear end of a Thanksgiving turkey. Clear?"
"Clear."
"I`ll be back in twenty minutes, and I will expect an answer by then--- or... I`ll have to use a little persuasion." His evil grin told me he meant business. He cracked his knuckles and sneered at me. His size was enough to make a person have an accident in his shorts. I can imagine what it would feel like to have him break my fingers one at a time, a feeling I`d rather not think about right now. I wish I knew what he wanted, maybe I could save myself.
A few minutes, maybe twenty minutes, I don`t have a watch, and there is no clock in this room, Goliath was back. He was carrying a pair of needle-nose pliers, the kind mechanics use in tight places.
"Are you ready to talk, Mr. Field?" He sneered again.
"What is it you want from me?"
"You know what we want."
"I`m no mind-reader... I have no idea what you want
"Don`t make it so hard on yourself, Mr. Field. Just tell us where it is."
"I would tell you if I knew what it was you wanted."
"The formulated plan for the X15 gyroscope."
"The X15 what?"
"You`re not deaf, Field. Where is the plan?" He held up the pliers with one hand and took my right pinky in the other. It didn`t take much imagination to know what he had in mind.
He clamped the pliers on my little finger and asked once more. "Where is the plan, Mr. Field?
"Wait," I said. "Please tell me who you think I am. I am a mill worker, not a rocket scientist."
"That`s what you say, but we know better. We have been watching you for months. Do you think with all we have at stake, we would grab the wrong person?"
"That`s what I`m thinking."
"We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. Which will it be, Mr. Field?"
I could feel the pain before the jaws of the pliers closed on my pinky. It was pure agony. I screamed in pain. He seemed to be enjoying his job, it was a pleasurable experience for him.
"Again. Where is the plan?"
"Again, I don`t know what you`re talking about." I screwed up my face waiting for the pain I knew was coming. He clamped the pliers on my ring finger, right hand and with both of his hands, squeezed with all the strength he had. I screamed again, only, this time, I must have blacked out because when I awoke I was alone in the darkroom again. My two fingers were throbbing; the pain was nearly unbearable. I looked, and they were black and blue, the bones crushed, and they were swollen to twice their normal size. The throb, in my hand, was in step with every beat of my heart.
I don`t know how long I had been awake when the door opened again. Goliath, with his pliers, came across the floor. "I see you`re awake now, Mr. Field. Ready for another go-round?" He sneered at me.
I begged, no, pleaded for mercy. I was in the dark, both figuratively and physically. I was kidnapped for the plans for the X15 gyroscope, which I had no idea what an X15 gyroscope was. I could now see into the other room where a man with long hair sat in a chair like mine, smoke curling around his head like a vaporous halo.
"The boss wants to watch this time: he enjoys a good show, and today? well, today is special. Either you tell me where the plan is or...or you lose one finger at a time. You see, I brought my hunting knife this time." He produced a Bowie knife, ran his finger up and down the blade to accentuate the sharp edge.
A high-pitched laugh came from the other room as the long-haired man threw back his head and roared. "Go ahead, Charlie... let him have it."
"Okay, Boss." He asked me again to tell him where the plan was, and again I told him I had no idea. He placed my right hand on the arm of a Captain`s chair he had brought with him and raised his knife. Before he could bring it down, a shot rang out, and the Goliath`s head exploded like a smashed pumpkin as he fell to the floor.
The next thing I heard was the voice of a man standing over me. He was wearing a dark blue uniform with lots of gold pins and stripes.
"Are you all right, Sir?"
"Except for my two fingers." I held them up for him to see.
"You`re lucky; Charlie would have cut off all your fingers, and may I add, enjoyed doing so before he was done, and then he would have killed you."
"Charlie who?" I asked.
"Charlie Rosenberg... Artie Atkinson`s right-hand man and enforcer." Artie Atkinson, the police officer, told me, was a small-time hood from Portland...dealt in drugs and prostitution mostly, but wasn`t above espionage and treason for a price.
"But, as I told this Charlie, I`m only a mill worker, officer. I don`t know what he wanted from me, and he wouldn`t listen to me either."
"You may think you are an average, everyday mill worker, but you are not. You are Amos Field, private eye. Charlie, working for Artie, knows you were the last person to see Doctor Melissa Gomez alive. Melissa was working on a special project for the government, a gyroscope. Artie wanted to get his hands on the plans for this scope. Melissa, he believes, gave these plans to you before she died."
"Wait a minute. I am Amos Field all right, that bump on my head, it must have given me a concussion, loss of memory."
"Mr. Field, Mr. Field." It was the voice of the policeman who saved me. "How are you feeling?"
"I hurt all over... look at my hand."
"It`s no wonder, Mr. Field. Two days ago you were brought into the hospital as a result of an automobile accident. You broke two fingers, cracked a rib and got one huge knot on your skull. Look, you are lying on the bed in the medical centre. You were talking in your dazed state; you claimed you were kidnapped by evil men. But, I assure you Mr. Field, you have not been kidnapped."
"Is he awake, Sergeant?" It was a tall stranger in the darkroom. I flinched, put my hand under the bedding.
"Officer, this is the man who used the pliers on my fingers. He squeezed and squeezed with all his might. Here, look." I took my hand out from under the sheet. It was bandaged. How could that be?
The tall man in the white frock and stethoscope around his shoulders who had just entered the room held a tray with bandages, forceps and... pliers.
"Mr. Field, this is Doctor Charles Rosenberg, the man who helped put you back together."
"I tell you, he wants the plans to X15 gyroscope... don`t leave me alone with him... please."
"I will stay awhile with you. But, I assure you, you have had a bad dream, Mr. Field."
Did I dream all this? It seems so real. Everything right down to the pliers seems genuinely factual, but, here I am in the medical centre surrounded by nurses and doctors.
The mind is a place where imagination dwells, no limits, no restraints, just passion and vivid fascination form pictures that appear so real one cannot escape its clutches.
Try and explain how this event happened!
