IF LOVE WERE A FLOWER
Tunnel of Horrors
If Erik had been under the illusion that things would become easier now that his part was done, he was gravely mistaken. It only became worse. Not that he had to do much, no, his job was now to wait for the money, allow Bruno Riccy to divide it among them and finally wait. Wait, if de Mer's plan would work.
It was terrible not to do anything, not being able to control anything, not even knowing what was happening. The first problem was that the city didn't pay in time. They had assumed it would take about two or three weeks, it took five. Erik had to deal with Riccy each day because Bruno Riccy suspected Erik of already having the money and trying to swindle them. It became worse when the money was really there and they all met in the 24-hours-bar.
Truth was, that Erik was deliberately delaying the payment because he had to prepare the room for their meeting. He wanted it to have a special echo-mechanism that allowed people in the room above it - which was a normal hotel room - to hear everything that was spoken in the private room of the bar below. Thus they could have some reliable witnesses to this. De Mer was absolutely delighted at the idea of having two notaries protocolling the meeting, the problem was, that Erik needed some time to prepare the rooms and build in the eavesdropping operation for except himself and de Mer no one would have to know. Officially Erik was just repairing something in the building after having found that some rats had died between the boards of the ceiling and the floor above. Of course someone might have wondered why he did it himself instead of just sending some worker, but then, they knew he often did work himself he could easily have someone else do.
After having seen Bruno Riccy each day for the last two weeks demanding to know why the money wasn't already there Erik was barely able to control himself now as they sat in the private room together, but being unfriendly or even rude would do no good, on the contrary, he had to behave now, accept their praise and pretend to be happy about the money they could share among them. The profit was huge. Instead of doing real construction and renovation work in stone and steel he had used wooden boards, strawmats and clay and some cheap colors. So of course there was much more money to be divided among than even the corrupt expert - the other one who was drunk so very often wasn't there as expected - was astonished.
"Your friend Mr. Y is far more valuable than we anticipated," the judge said to Bruno Riccy.
"He's a magician, our friend Y," the Italian laughed, jovially clapping Erik's shoulder like one would pet an especially well-trained dog, "A toast to our friend Y!"
Erik shifted uncomfortably. He hated being touched and petted like a dog, but somehow this seemed to be common practice and accepted by the other men. They would sometimes clap each other's shoulders.
As soon as he placed the bundles of banknotes on the table - of course this would all be done in cash only - the haggling began. Of course they had agreed previously on how to share but now everyone was trying to get some extras and even Erik participated, not because he wanted the money but because he knew if he wouldn't fight for his share they would grow suspicious. With Riccy's thugs placed as security guards in the park Erik couldn't afford any problems without risking severe punishment. So he was haggling for Cents as if his life depended on it and found that he even liked it. It felt like wolves tearing apart their prey fighting for each bite and their rank in the pack. Erik would have loved to find himself somewhat in the top but soon found himself as the underdog, which was somewhat to be expected. He did not dare fight harder for he wanted them to think they had him on their side accepting his low rank among them, that he was thankful just to be one of them.
And then the meeting ended like he had suspected it would: they ordered drinks and a girl from the second variety to do a dance of the veils for them. The more the men drank, the worse their manners became. Now suddenly they offered dollars to the girl for taking off some of her clothing after haggling for Cents like misers. Erik stayed in the back now, he didn't like how these men were getting more and more excited about the girl - even demanding more girls should be summoned - and more and more drunk. The girls were no dancers, they were prostitutes and knew what to do but the shameless display of nakedness was disgusting. Erik didn't understand how anyone could find this exciting, he only saw disgusting drunken old men groping prostitutes. That was certainly nothing anyone could ever find appealing, could it?
Maybe it helped that he himself was not as drunk as they were. He was sitting next to a potted plant and secretly emptied glass after glass into the potting compost, wondering if the plant, whatever it was, would survive that much champagne, wine, brandy, even absinthe. And the ashes of the cigars that soon ended in there too. Too much of the burning ashes and cigar ends ended on the table, the chairs, the carpet and even the dresses of the harlots. Not that he calculated with a certain amount of these damages anyways, in a bar one just had to calculate with the usual damages drunken men caused eventually, he just wondered how low these men could go. They were high ranking officials, a judge, two prosecutors, several politicians - and Bruno Riccy, who, like Erik, kept in the background and was a bit more sober.
Suddenly Erik would have preferred the Italian to participate in the celebration and drink. "I hope you enjoy yourself?" he asked.
"Apparently," Riccy replied and lifted his glass.
Erik took his glass and they clinked glasses, false smiles on their faces. Erik knew his smile wasn't as bright as Meg's but he finally mastered a stage-smile now. A mask. Not only was he wearing a real mask covering half of his face now, he wore a second one, a mask of false politeness. Erik had do drink a few glasses with Bruno, he couldn't just empty them into the plant pot because the other man's eyes never left him. When Riccy smoked the fourth cigar Erik decided he had to do something to counter the alcohol. He had gotten the cigarettes with a bit of cocaine in it, he knew they would counter the alcohol. Even knowing that fighting one drug with another drug wasn't a good idea didn't stop him.
As one man after the other left the bar and went to get a room in the hotel with one of the prostitutes Erik decided it was save to leave now. He needed fresh air.
He came home late and found Meg sitting in the kitchen, reading the newspapers. She sniffed and smelled the stench of smoke on his clothing and the smell of alcohol on his breath. He wasn't drunk, but he surely was squiffy. "O Erik," she sighed, "Do you really have to come home drunk and stinking like a smokehouse?"
"Shut up!" he snapped, "Do you think I like having to endure that? Do you think it is fun drinking and smoking with disgusting old men, watching their..." he stopped himself, took off mask and wig to wash his hands and face. Like every evening Meg had fetched a bucket with water from the faucet and placed it in the kitchen so they had water in the morning.
"O Erik, can't you... too late! Just great! Now I have to fetch another bucket with water! Couldn't you use the tin can and the bowl?" she snapped annoyed. That water had been intended as drinking water to be boiled in the morning. The water in the tin can was for a sponge bath.
"Shut up, you ninny. Next time you can come with me to watch these filthy bastards groping prostitutes! Would you like that?" he retorted with growing anger.
"Ooooo are we wallowing in self-pity again?" Her mockery didn't do any good.
"You started it!" That was surely not the best reply, but he felt the burning in his stomach and throat from too much wine and cigarettes and was certainly not in the mood for bantering.
"Mama? Daddy?" Tony came from his grandmother's room, "Why are you yelling?"
"I did not do any yelling," Erik said, his voice becoming soft as he saw his beloved child, "But I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up. Now... I'm going to sleep."
"Night," Tony mumbled sleepily and returned to his grandmother's room. Obviously he had decided to sleep in her bed this night.
"And who is to fetch a new bucket with water?" Meg complained. Water he had used to wash off something from his hands and face after a binge couldn't be used as drinking water, even if boiled.
Erik sneered at her and made a point in using his chamber pot - in his own room of course, he wasn't so far gone he would do this before her eyes or when his child or his mother in law could enter the room any moment - much to Meg's annoyance. Couldn't he have used the toilets in the ground floor before coming upstairs to his flat? "If you are on your way downstairs, you can as well take this with you!" he ordered, "Order of the head of the family. Do your wifely duty and obey your husband!" It was utterly childish how he let out his frustration on her.
"I'll douse it over your head, you vile cretin!" Meg was really yelling now, waking up her mother and most likely everyone else in this block of flats.
"What is it now?" Antoinette demanded, coming from her room. Just great. Now everyone was awake.
"You go and fetch a fresh bucket and rinse out the chamber pot!" Erik ordered and slammed the door to his room shut. Tiny pieces of plaster came off the wall from the sheer force of it.
Meg rolled her eyes. "Put Tony to bed, mother, I take care of this."
The next morning when Meg woke she found that Erik was already up and had done the work she usually did in the morning: cleaning the chamber-pots, warming water for everyone to wash in the kitchen, boiled water and prepared tea and coffee and the table was set for breakfast. She smiled as she saw Erik placing the hot porridge - he had prepared it as Tony loved it, with milk and honey - at the table. When he noticed her he flinched like someone caught in the act and blushed. Was he ashamed that he had done something to apologize?
"Thank you," Meg said simply.
"You're welcome. Meg, I... please just let us pretend yesterday evening didn't happen," he mumbled.
That moment a shriek from Tony made them both jump. "NOOOOO! Granny I won't put on that! No! It's icky!"
"It is cold and you most certainly will put on this!" The joys of having a child... Every day Tony found some reason to do some screaming in the morning.
Erik's job done they had to wait. Wait and wait. For months and Erik was not kept informed what was going on. He knew something was happening, but what? Did the prosecutors and the judge cover up everything or not? What happened in the government? Who were de Mer's backers, were they mighty enough to protect them or would Riccy's backers be able to guess their scheme and overpower them?
Erik was unable to perform now. He just could not, the only thing he could do was work on his tunnel of horrors. The tunnel of horrors was large but he enlarged it constantly, following his model system adding one module after the other. The official version was that he planned to have the world's largest tunnel of horrors and whenever someone tried to have a bigger one he would add some modules and would have the largest one again.
In truth he build in a sophisticated security system with real traps. There was no danger for customers, as long as they would stay in the small cars that ran on the tiny railways through the building. But if anyone tried to walk the maze on foot he or she would easily fall prey to some of the traps he laid. It was more or less the same system he had used in the opera, only on a smaller scale, which didn't make the traps less lethal. In the vaults of the building he build in something like a dungeon. It could be used as hidingplace for him and his family, with the food and tanks of boiled water he stored there they would last several weeks, maybe more. Or it could of course be used to lock someone up there, maybe a hostage? It was a dungeon as much as a safety room, depending on who had the key and the knowledge how to escape the traps or switch them off.
A tunnel of horrors as safety room. Erik almost laughed at himself at the idea, but then, it was fitting, wasn't it? To a monster like himself a dungeon beneath a tunnel of horrors was the only place where he could feel at home. He sighed and lit a cigarette. It was one of those with a bit cocaine in them. They were sold at almost every kiosk, they contained so little of that drug, surely they would make a perfect substitute for the pills? A saver, milder substitute that would not cause addiction? Erik shrugged the thought off. He needed something that would lessen his panic attacks now and keep him functioning. He could always stop again when this was over.
Erik lost track of time. He was constantly on alert and noticed that he was slowly descending into a diabolical mix of addiction and madness, but he didn't know how to stop it or just slow down.
When he sat in his small kitchen, drinking a glass of wine, he stared out of the dirty window to see the sky and a bit of the ocean under the stars. He loved the ocean. "Erik?" Meg's voice came from the door, she must have woken despite his effort to come in silently. Or had she waited for him? He did not show any reaction. "Erik, I'm worried," Meg said, leaning against the doorframe, "You are not yourself lately."
"I know," he replied, his voice a bit rough from too many cigarettes that day. Not all of them contained cocaine, most were just normal cigarettes without any additional substances. He cleared his throat and took a sip of wine. It was some of the wine that had been left over from the variety, he still could not buy bottles just for his personal use.
"Not only I am worried. Mr. Smith, Mr. Singer, Joe, Irene, Vincent, Squelch, Attamamma, the He-She - we all are worried about you. Especially Benny and Suzie. Suzie knows first-hand what you are getting yourself into! Do you want a heart attack?"
"Gladly," he replied and rested his chin in his hand, his elbow on the table. Meg saw his deformed face, the deformity even more gruesome in the light of the single candle flickering on the table. A tear rolled over his cheek. "It is so very cruel that I cannot even afford to die now. You and Tony, you need me. I was informed today that the covering up in New York began and works even more smoothly than expected. It will be the big catch. But if they arrest the Boss and his backers, his bodyguards are to carry out some revenge order, I'm afraid. It will be a very unpleasant Christmas."
Meg knew better than to question him. She knew what was going on. "Erik, do you..." She took a deep breath and gathered all her courage. "Don't you think being sober would be better in case of an attack?"
"Yes," he replied, staring at the wine in his glass. "I know. I just... I'm so scared. There is nothing I can do, nothing but wait and it is... I've never been a patient man. I do have a plan and if I could I would set it in motion at once, but that would give the whole scheme away. And... I cannot bear the thought that someone would hurt Tony."
"Tony missed you at his birthday, you know."
"Birthday? O, yes, sorry... he's... four now, isn't he?"
"Go to bed!" If he was not sure how old his child was, he really should not drink more. Meg had to smile when she saw him getting up like an obedient child and going to his room. He would soon be asleep, she knew.
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to be continued
Next chapter will be up Friday. Thank you for reading and please review! :-)
