RED SOX: It must be Fall.
FEEDBACK: It’s a good thing p.phair@comcast.net
by
phair
Deni relished the comfort of her own blue jeans. She retrieved them from the black leather suitcase on the floor of one of two walk-in closets in the master bedroom. The pants were a little baggy but they would do. Next, she tugged on a black pullover shirt but frowned at the poor fit.
“Used to look great on me, now it hangs like a sack,” she grumbled. “Need to get some good food into me. Or, at least, something edible.”
Shaking off thoughts of about her chronic malnutrition from the nightmare that is prison cuisine, Deni turned to examine her face in the bathroom mirror. The mirror was still fogged from the steam of her recent shower. She grabbed the towel she dried her hair with and wiped down the glass. An ugly purple bruise was forming around the bloody gash running across her cheek. She dabbed at the oozing red liquid but it did nothing to stop the bleeding.
“Ice, maybe some ice will help,” she muttered to her own reflection.
Deni walked out of the master bath and into the bedroom. A soft sniffle drew her attention to the bound woman on the floor. Sawyer was right where Deni left her after lugging the unconscious woman upstairs. Deni taped Sawyer’s ankles together and tethered her by the neck to the bedpost with a length of curtain cord before she searched the room and then showered. The captive woman’s eyes were red and puffy. Her mouth was bruised and swollen. Blood dribbled from her split lip down her chin and on to her sweatshirt.
“If you think you got reason to cry, just give me a couple of minutes more and you’ll really have cause to weep.”
Sawyer’s body visibly shook at the threat. She did not look up to meet Deni’s contemptuous glare. It took her two tries to clear her throat enough to speak.
“Please, don’t hurt me,” she begged.
Deni chuckled and then replied, “Don’t give me any reasons and I won’t hurt you. Now, tell me where Eugene is.”
Sawyer dragged her knees up to hide her face behind them. Her cries intensified when Deni walked over to her. She became almost hysterical as Deni squatted down in front of her.
“Stop fucking around,” Deni commanded as she tugged Sawyer’s hair, pulling her face to face. “Your husband’s closet is a panic room. His tool bag was right out in the open. Don’t try to tell me you don’t know anything about everything.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about. My husband is Raphael Roman. He doesn’t own a tool box. He’s can’t fix anything. He’s terrible with his hands. He’s an art dealer.”
Deni released her hold on Sawyer. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out the zip-sealed baggie. Reverently, she unfolded it and removed the newspaper clipping inside.
“Tell me who’s in this picture,” Deni demanded when she showed the yellowed paper to Sawyer.
“It’s me and my husband. That’s Raphael. Look at the caption. It says right there that it’s Raphael Roman. You must’ve made some kind of mistake.” Sawyer sounded hopeful as she continued, “It’s okay. It’s all some kind of a mistake. That’s all it is. Untie me and then just leave. I promise, I won’t tell anybody you were here. I’ll make up something about my injuries. Nobody will have to know.”
Deni sneered, “Well, that’s mighty nice of you to offer, Sawyer. However, I didn’t make any mistake. The guy in the picture is Eugene Hussey. He’s a con man from way back. Never was there a slipperier bastard born.” Deni paused before adding, “The son of a bitch is also my husband, not yours, mine.”
Sawyer stared in muted horror. Her eyes filled with tears. Slowly she shook her head no and struggled to speak.
“Can’t be, no, he’s not. You’re crazy. It’s just not possible. No, you’re nuts.”
“Oh, I might be nuts too but I’m not wrong. The guy you’ve been calling Raphael Roman is my old man, Eugene Hussey.” Deni made her promise solemn, “He’s also a dead man as soon as he walks in the front door.”
“Oh, my God!” Sawyer gasped at the threat. “You can’t be serious.”
Deni smiled broadly, “Sure I can.”
Deni climbed the stairs leading to the master bedroom. Her belly was full of the first good meal she eaten in more than five years. One of the hardest parts of prison for her had been the food. It was absolutely awful.
“Well, the food, the chains, the no sex, the locked behind bars, the listening to morons all day long,” Deni thought to herself. “Come to think of it, prison is just not a very nice place at all.”
Deni entered the bedroom chuckling. The noise made Sawyer flinch. Sawyer kept her eyes down and pulled her knees up to her chest. She had stopped crying and her lip had stopped bleeding but she still shivered uncontrollably. That struck Deni as odd because the room temperature was quite comfortable.
“You can’t be cold,” Deni snorted. “Why you shaking?”
Sawyer did not look up to answer. “I’m…I guess…I’m just afraid.”
“Afraid? Are you kidding? What are you afraid of?” Deni questioned with raised eyebrows. “You afraid of me?”
Sawyer looked up to see if Deni was serious. “You…you said you were going to snap off my fingers…,”
Deni smirked, “Well, there was that.”
“And, you punched me…a couple of times…,”
“Think of them as ‘motivational taps’ to nudge you into telling me the truth.”
Sawyer frowned. “You knocked me out.”
Deni snorted a laugh, “Don’t know my own strength.”
“You said you were going to kill my husband.”
Deni became very serious as she clarified the claim. “Our husband! Eugene/Raphael is our husband. Now, I’m a tad sleepy after my delicious breakfast. I’m just gonna lay down on that lovely bed and have a little nap. If you want to have a snooze go right ahead. You’re gonna need all the strength you got when I wake up because, Sawyer, you should be very afraid of me.”
Sawyer was cowering behind her knees again when Deni woke an hour later. Soft sniffles filled the air. However, the woman did not resume her sobbing.
“I can fix that,” Deni thought to herself and climbed out of bed.
She went back into the closet and grabbed the suitcase where she found her clothes. Whistling lightly, she sorted through several items until she found what she went looking for.
“Okay,” Deni announced happily as she exited the closet with shears in her left hand and a set of handcuffs in her right. “Let’s find out how much you really do know. We’re gonna play twenty questions. You know why I only ask twenty question?”
Sawyer’s face paled as she looked at the shears. She slowly shook her head no. She was unable to work up any voice to reply.
“Because you only got ten fingers and ten toes to cut off so you can only get twenty wrong answers.”
Deni laid a heavy kick to Sawyer’s shin. Sawyer cried out in pain while Deni forced the injured leg and its mate flat on the floor. She sat straddling them to weigh them down.
“Don’t,” Sawyer whispered.
Deni leaned forward pulling Sawyer into a bear hug. The woman gasped as her tether tightened around her neck pinching off her breathing. Deni began to whistle again as she fastened one cuff around Sawyer’s right wrist and the other around the footboard slats. Sawyer choked on the pain of having her arm twisted upward behind her back. Deni was unmoved by her discomfort. She used the shears to cut through the tape and free Sawyer’s left hand.
Sawyer struggled to push away from Deni but she was no physical match for the woman. The escaped convict easily twisted Sawyer’s hand between them. It took her a few extra minutes to force Sawyer’s middle finger out of the tight fist. Deni positioned the blades of the shears on either side of the soft skin and applied a bit of pressure.
Sawyer screamed, “Oh God! Don’t do it! Please, don’t! I’m a pianist!”
Deni smiled, “I know you are.”
The pressure of the shears increased but the blades did not break the skin.
“Now, let’s get on with my twenty questions, shall we?” Deni asked.
“Is that one of the questions?” Sawyer snapped back.
“Hey, funny! Okay, I’ll play nice. Yes, that can be one of the questions. Here are the rules. From here on out, only I get to ask questions. You will answer every question I ask or you’ll lose a finger. If you give me the wrong answer or I don’t believe you then you’ll lose a finger.” Deni thought for a moment, “I feel like I’m forgetting something.”
Sawyer grimaced and replied, “Your mercy. You’re forgetting how to show mercy.”
Deni’s features softened and her eyes moistened, “Five years inside takes that all away from you, Sawyer. You have to forget pity, mercy, all the little nice parts of being human. You only get to think about is how to survive. It don’t matter who gets hurt or who dies as long as you keep breathing.” Deni scowled, “Now, stop distracting me.”
Sawyer lowered her head and fell silent. She did not shed a tear. Her body stopped trembling. She did not even try to pull away.
Deni was disappointed at the lack of terror. Her plan relied on the premise Sawyer would be so frightened she would tell Deni everything she needed to know. So far, Sawyer was not keeping up her end of twenty questions. Deni applied more pressure on the shears and a line circle of red appeared. Sawyer finally yelped.
“Good, now that I got your attention again let’s get back to it.” Deni eased some of the tension on the shears and blood began to trickle down Sawyer’s fist. “Okay, two questions down and you still got ten fingers and toes. Nice! Question three, where is Eugene?”
“Spain. He’s in Spain bidding on a private collection. I can’t reach him. He left his cell here because he didn’t want his competitors tracking him with GPS,” Sawyer answered in a monotone without looking up.
“His competitors?
“A group out of New Jersey with deep pockets. Corporate pockets.”
“They track with GPS? They can do stuff like that?”
“Yes, they can and they do.”
Deni’s brows drew together in confusion, “Really?”
Sawyer nodded, “It’s not legal but they still do it.”
“That’s weird. I thought only the government can do stuff like that.”
“The government can only do it with a warrant and that is legal.”
“Oh yeah, right. Okay back to my questions. When’s he coming home?”
“Monday.”
“Hmm, spending the whole weekend in Spain. He wouldn’t be working over the weekend, no way. What do you think, Sawyer? Think GenieRalph if cheating on us?”
Sawyer glared at Deni.
“That’s what I forgot! Thanks for the reminder. If you give me ‘tude, I’ll cut two fingers off just for spite! Got it?” Deni stated with renewed pressure on the shears.
Sawyer bit her lip to keep from crying out.
“How is our boy financing this scam? And, I already know about your cash reserve so save it. He’s got his own tap; what is it?”
“Raphael,” Sawyer corrected herself when she felt the shears tighten, “Eugene, whoever he is, told me he had money from his first wife’s life insurance policy.”
“Must’ve been a big policy,” Deni grumbled.
Sawyer shrugged her shoulders. “I never asked how much or what happened to her. He said it was a car accident. He seemed too upset to talk about it so I never pressed him.”
“You should have,” Deni hissed. “Because I’m the first wife and I ain’t hardly dead at all, now am I?”
“No, you’re not and that’s question thirteen.”
Deni counted back in her head. “Damn, you’re right. I better be more careful with you. You’re kind of sneaky in a quiet way. Now, as far as you know, GenieRalph got any legal trouble with the cops or feds?
“None. He’s an Elk and a Free Mason. We live a very public life.” Sawyer went on to ask, “Are you positive Eugene and Raphael are the same person? My husband is not hiding from anybody. You’d think Raphael would be hiding if he was really Eugene.”
Deni shrugged, “Eugene wasn’t wanted by the cops. Why would he need to hide?”
“If I thought you might be looking for me, I’d hide,” Sawyer mumbled.
“Is it that you really only want nine fingers? ‘Cause you’re pushing me, bitch!” Deni warned.
Sawyer stayed quiet and averted her gaze.
Deni took a deep breath to calm herself. “Alright, where was I?”
“That was question seventeen.”
Deni frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Yes and that’s question eighteen.”
“Fuck. I’m running out of chances. I’d better move on to the important stuff.” Deni grew very serious, “Where’s Jeffrey?”
Sawyer stared at her mutely. The pressure on her finger increased. Sawyer hissed in pain.
“I really don’t know who that is. Give me a description so I can figure out who you’re talking about,” Sawyer bargained.
“Short. Jet black hair. Last time I saw him, he was in diapers.”
“Fuck you! Leave my son alone!” Sawyer was incensed and renewed her struggle to free herself.
Deni was equally angered. “Your son? My husband’s not enough for you? You want my boy too? Fuck you, bitch! Where is Jeffrey?”
Deni increased the pressure on the shears. Blood started to flow freely from the deepening wound. She reluctantly eased the grip. A glance at Sawyer’s determined face told her the time for bluffing was over.
“You selfish, cunt! You live in this huge house with beautiful grounds and you won’t let my kid enjoy it with you. You send him to some fuckin’ private boarding school where they do who knows what to him while you enjoy the good life. Fuck you, lady!”
“Fuck you right back!” Sawyer screamed. “Go ahead and cut it off! I’m not telling you anything about him. I won’t let you hurt him. He can’t defend himself. I’m all he’s got!”
Deni really lost her temper. She let the shears go and punched Sawyer in the face. It did little to ease her anger. A second punch did not help much more than the first. Deni needed to extract revenge on this woman who usurped her place in Eugene’s and Jeffrey’s lives.
“Let me make this perfectly clear,” Deni announced as she grabbed the shears again. “You can have Eugene…after I kill him. You might get a couple of buck out of the deal if you insured his useless ass. But, Jeffrey is MY son! You got no business messin’ in his life as anything other than the whore Daddy fucks every night!”
Deni turned around keeping her weight on Sawyer’s legs but allowing her access to the woman’s toes. She took the big toe on the left foot and separated it from the others. Carefully, she positioned the shears on either side of the digit.
“Because I’m a music lover, I’m gonna snip your toe off instead!”
Sawyer screamed as the shears cut deeply into her flesh. She passing out a heartbeat after the toe thudded onto the carpet.
“See, I’m still able to be merciful, Sawyer,” Deni mumbled as she climbed off the bleeding woman and went to the master bathroom to get sick.
