CHAPTER 6: X
1
David Apolskis didn't like going to the building on Kings Street in Palmer, Illinois. Not that he'd ever admit as much to his colleagues or his boss. He didn't even allow himself to complain when the call came, though sometimes he managed to trade with one of the guys at work. David was willing to do more work and spend an extra half hour on the road, if it meant someone else got to do the Kings Street delivery for him.
What was worst about it was, there was no rational reason for it.
The building was in a nice neighborhood. It was fancier than most places David ever visited. You could tell before you even got to the door, which was tall and majestic, opening on a pristine hall with carpeted stairs and a spacious elevator that took David to the penthouse, where Owen Kravecki lived. There was just no way to deny it to himself, though. The man gave him the creeps.
Maybe it was because he was dressed in one of those expensive suits that reminded David of lawyers, politicians. Who the fuck wears a suit in their own home?
Owen Kravecki. That was who.
He was never mean to David. On the contrary, he went to great lengths to be pleasant, took the food with a smile and always tipped David decently.
But beneath the sleeves of his jacket, David's arms were all gooseflesh when the man took the food and his hands brushed against his.
Sometimes, in the few minutes that the transaction lasted, Owen Kravecki made small talk. "You go to school, David?"
He'd asked for David's name the first time he'd seen him.
"Yeah."
Though he skipped more classes than he attended.
"College?"
"High school."
The man took the food. Slipped David an extra bill on top of the twenty for his meal.
"Thanks, man."
"Have a nice evening."
David rushed down the stairs. The elevator was too slow going down, and he was always desperate to get out, like the very air inside the building was crushing him.
The fear David felt—and it was fear, no other name for it—was never something he thought much about once the moment had passed, nor did he try to explain it to himself.
The human desire for rationality often takes over more primal instincts, and because there was no rational reason for David to be afraid of that man, of that building, he would have denied it to anyone who confronted him about it, as he denied it to himself.
He didn't wonder why the man was always careful to reveal as little as possible of his apartment, meeting David in the hall and closing the door behind him. He didn't wonder that, lately, the man had started ordering food for two, although David never heard or saw a glimpse of whoever was keeping Owen Kravecki company.
There was only one thing David knew about the man or woman who'd been sharing Owen's meals. He wouldn't like to be in their shoes. Not for all the money in the world. Not for anything.
2
You would think that being afraid for your life would take away the possibility of being bored, but as Sara soon realized, it didn't.
The only thing she had to pass the time with was the Bible and television. There was little comfort in the former, and she couldn't bring herself to focus on the images onscreen, talk shows, TV series, the news program. The people on the other side of the screen might as well have been aliens reporting the weather from Mars. Their words had no impact on Sara's reality. Besides, to land on familiar programs was uncanny, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver's Last Week Tonight. Sara usually watched their shows on replay while she ate, one of the pleasures of living alone. While she was in this room, seeing reminders of her life outside was like touching the sore ends of bruised nerves.
If she really started to think about home, she would cry.
And crying was out of the question.
She still hadn't determined whether the sensation that she was being watched was well founded or sheer paranoia.
Soft knocks rapped on the door.
Sara's heart rocketed as it always did, when her illusory bubble of solitude burst at Lance's approach. Nothing to worry about. It was half past seven. One good thing about TV was it helped her keep track of time. The routine of meals with Lance was a special sort of hell, but it was routine.
And in this place, what Sara feared most was the unknown.
A pause followed the knocks.
Lance was being polite.
Sara was sure he was the kind of man who waited before you were decently dressed before he started to torture you.
He entered the room, and as always, filled every inch with his presence. Sara sat frozen on the bed, staring at him, like she was waiting for the hate in her eyes to turn solid and pierce him full of holes. It was abominable, to be sitting on a bed while he was standing; she always had to resist getting up before he entered, because it would be tantamount to showing him her fear on a silver platter.
There was a bag in his hand. Takeaway food. The name of the company on the plastic bag and the carton boxes: Freshly. It was a sad piece of irony that, before she was kidnapped, Sara ate Freshly meals whenever she was back from the hospital in time to eat at home. Busy people who don't like fast food have options now, when they can't find the time or the inclination to cook.
Lance was a busy man. Hopefully, she'd go back to being a busy woman someday.
But if she had a choice in the matter, she'd never eat one Freshly dinner ever again.
"How are you today?" He asked.
"Please, let's not."
He played innocent. "Let's not what?"
Sara contemplated pushing her courage with an honest answer. Let's not pretend like it makes a difference how I am, seeing as you'd shoot me dead if you thought my father wasn't going to do as you asked.
But the quick throb of her heartbeat reminded her things could get a lot worse, if Lance decided she was being defiant.
"Let's just—not."
After a pause, he accepted her answer with a nod. The discomfort of eating under his watch hadn't toned down, but Sara had learned to go past it; she went through each forkful without giving her body a choice. If she had to throw up in the toilet later tonight that was too bad, but just part of the game. Now especially, if dear old dad was thinking of screwing Lance over, it was better her docile-kidnapped-girl act was topnotch.
"I spoke to your father again today."
The food felt like a lump of cement in Sara's throat. She tried to swallow, eyes fixed on her plate. Don't look at him don't look at him.
Lance's silence pushed around Sara like a physical force. He wanted her to respond.
Like it or not, she was the second player in their current game of kidnapper-to-kidnapped. It didn't make the least difference to Lance that she was an unwilling player. Maybe he was one, too. You don't choose that kind of job when you can help it. Not when you wear thousand-dollar suits and you look like you belong in a prime-time white-collar drama. So, maybe Lance felt stuck with her in a way, with a babysitting job he considered far beneath him, and he thought if he was being a good sport, then she should be, too.
Lance was probably the type of guy who made you say you loved him when he raped you.
Not that he looked the raping type, to Sara's good fortune. You had to acknowledge the small mercies.
"And?" Sara finally said.
It was good enough for Lance. Minimal participation. "He was a little—disappointing."
Sara still struggled with her cement-like mouthful. Her throat must have narrowed to the size of a marble.
"No offense," he said. "All politicians are the same. You give them a deal all clear-cut and neat, and they always," he sighed, "always try to negotiate. They go for the third way. I'm not surprised as such, still, I thought the message had come across when we spoke on the phone this morning. Didn't you?"
Somehow, survival instinct kicked in and Sara managed to swallow her food. "Yes."
He made eye-contact with her. Sure as anything, he was trying to tell if she was lying. And she was. All she could do was pray she'd gotten better since she was a school girl swearing to God the hickey in her neck was a bee sting.
"Hum," Lance pondered. "Well, you know your father best."
The thumping of her heart was deafening to her ears.
He could hear it.
He must know a liar when he saw one. Even a good one.
Distract him.
"What did he want?" she asked.
Maybe he wouldn't humor her with an answer, but she thought he would. It was too boring to play this game alone, to toss the ball against the wall. He was always pleased when his second player showed interest in the game.
"To stall," he said.
Sara's teeth gritted. That wasn't good.
"Well… you did give him a very short deadline."
"I didn't give it. I'm only the messenger, Sara. Besides, I didn't think you'd want to drag this out any further. Don't you want to go home?"
"Painfully."
Her honesty made him laugh. It sounded so casual, Sara could imagine they were colleagues, making pleasant chat while queueing for coffee in the morning.
"There you go," he said. "And the governor has no reason to be enjoying this any more than you do."
Quick thinking. The best liars blended some truth in, right? "His career is important to him."
"Ah."
Lance sounded like he'd put his finger on something interesting. The silent question rose from him, so loud, Sara could almost hear it.
More important than you?
"I mean, he'll want to do this right. A complete U-Turn in two days would be political suicide. Like you said, my father thinks in black and white. He must think if you give him more time, he can come up with a way to fit this into his image."
"Oh, Sara," Lance sighed. Every time he said her name, she felt like there was a hornet's nest hiding under her skin, ready to come to life. "Let me make this very clear. I don't care about your dad's career. If he gets reelected, if he retires. That matters to me like yesterday's trash. And to the people I work for, it matters even less."
Sara didn't manage to nod, but it must be plain from the look on her face that he'd made his point.
"I just don't like that your father feels in a position to negotiate," he said. "I didn't bring it up to my employers. Do you think I should?"
Sara's mouth opened on solid air. Thankfully, he went on before giving her a real chance to answer.
"Usually, when you take people's children, they're careful to butter up to you. It's almost embarrassing. Now, your dad asking for a delay—you don't think that means he's getting overconfident. You don't think he somehow got the wrong message from our talk this morning?"
This time, the answer he expected was obvious and easy, "No."
"I hope not."
Thump.
He took a single step closer. Sara felt ready to throw her food at him although it wouldn't help, to stab him with her fork although it was plastic. He'd given up on feeding her himself, thank heaven, and maybe she could dig the fork into his eye. Plastic or not, that would hurt. But then, he could hurt her a lot more, using real knives. Even just using his hands.
Sara remained sitting, straight like all the bones in her body had turned to steel.
"Maybe," he said, "just to be sure, we can push the message a little deeper when we talk to him tomorrow."
Sara didn't dare agree. Push the message deeper might mean her losing a finger or a toe.
"What I mean is, you can try to make it absolutely clear to him how important it is that he does everything we ask him to."
Another easy answer. "Yes."
"Good. You can finish eating."
And much to her surprise, Sara found she could.
3
In all but an hour, the brothers had seen everything there was to see of Palmer, the town "Where the best begins". Six thousand inhabitants, one movie theater, two supermarkets, some three or four diners.
"That can't be it," Lincoln said.
They had left the car at a parking lot in the city center, which had to look like a joke to anyone who'd ever stepped foot in Springfield or Chicago. A car even as little noticeable as theirs going in circles around town wouldn't be the definition of discreet, in the apparent desert that was Palmer. Given how small the town was, it was best to go on foot.
After a while, the two brothers stopped for coffee at one of the diners they'd spotted, to look the part of visitors just passing through.
"You were right," Lincoln sighed. "He must have just changed the license plates here and went on his way. I can't see an agent from a criminal organization living in a place like this."
"But he wouldn't have taken Sara where he lived, would he?"
Lincoln shrugged. "Still, this doesn't fit the profile. No remote cabin in the wood, no isolated houses. The habitations are all tenements. That means neighbors."
"We agreed he might have a soundproof apartment."
"Yeah, but—" Lincoln didn't finish. Michael already knew what he meant to say. That this tiny, somewhat charming town, where everyone had a smile for you if you made eye-contact longer than two seconds, just didn't give you kidnapping vibes.
"Maybe this town is a dead end," Michael said. Lincoln had started nibbling at the cinnamon cookie that had been served with his coffee. "But hear me out for a minute. I've been giving this a lot of thought."
"Shocking."
"And it occurred to me that this must have come as a surprise to them."
"What are you talking about?"
Michael sometimes forgot to give context along with his deductions, like it just slipped out of his mind that he and Lincoln didn't share a single thinking process.
"Those company men. Whoever they are. They must have expected a staunch Republican like Governor Tancredi would vote against gun reform, no?"
Lincoln shrugged. "Maybe."
"What was your reaction when you found out about it?"
"Dude, I barely know the name of our sitting president."
"Okay, well, what I'm trying to say is that a kidnapping isn't what you want to do when you're a secret organization trying to shape the political landscape. Kidnappings are messy. They make a lot of people angry."
"Sara just has her father. And if you ask me, he isn't nearly angry enough."
"That's not the point."
Michael trapped the ridge of his nose between his thumb and index. The ambient chatter inside the diner was overly loud to his ears. He had to peel layer after layer of the outside world to get back to his thought; always, he imagined returning to a cavern with walls made of flesh and brain tissue.
"They rushed this," Michael said. "They must have, or they would have come up with a cleaner way of persuading Frank."
"So," Lincoln frowned, "let me get this straight. Since this whole thing started, you've been saying these guys are pros, like they must be ten steps ahead of us. And now, you're saying they've made a mistake?"
"They are pros, and they will have been careful about this. I just don't think it's something they planned in the long run."
"What difference does it make?"
Michael looked up at him. "We're talking about secret agents, right?"
"Right."
"Surely, they've got a hidden identity. An uninteresting cover."
Lincoln considered this and repeated, "Right."
"Let's focus on the man who made the phone call to Frank. Let's call him X. Well, X can't be of any interest to society. On paper, he's got to lead a life as uneventful as possible."
"And you're thinking maybe that's the place to be leading such a life."
"Maybe. If I'm right, and Frank's refusal to oppose gun reform took them by surprise—what would they have done? Picked one of their best agents, because they want this done right."
"X."
"X," Michael agreed. "Now, where does X take the governor's daughter? What's the next best thing to a cabin in the woods? He can't just rent some motel room. He wants to be in control of his environment. Maybe this kidnapping is going to drag on, maybe he's going to have to make the woman scream to get a reaction from her father."
"Jesus, Mike."
"Maybe he thinks of his apartment, soundproof. Where all the neighbors know only his alias, where he feels safest. He doesn't kidnap people all that often. And really, X is just like anybody else. When he's out of his comfort zone, he wants to feel safe."
Lincoln waited. Digested the information.
"Linc," Michael said, "let me ask you one thing. What was your first thought when you saw this town?"
"That it wasn't the sort of place where people kidnapped women."
"There you go."
Lincoln laughed. "So, because it doesn't look the part—you're saying it might be the real thing?"
Michael shrugged, but didn't manage to look casual. His eyes never left his brother's. "Appearances can be deceiving."
…
End Notes: Please let me know your thoughts on this chapter. By the way, I don't mean disrespect to small towns – I'm from a town smaller than most people can imagine, so really ;-) not a condescending city girl. Take care!