The Winner: Part Twenty-Seven

“Apple, wake up,” I say. The only time she’s been conscious all day is when I shot her with heroin this morning. Pretty much the only thing that even lets me know she’s even alive is watching how her nostrils flare whenever she tries to breathe. I jar her some more. “Wake up, you have to wake up.”

She finally starts to come conscious. When she draws a full breath, it almost sounds like a death rattle. “Wha…wha’s goin’ on?”

“Apple, wake up. It’s Poopy. I need you to wake up.”

She slightly lifts up her head. “Wha…da…fuck…do you want? Do you have another shot?”

“Apple, I need you to listen closely to me. The people who have your children have contacted me again…”

“I don’t care. I don’t care about anything any more.”

I was afraid this would happen. I grab a small cup filled with some clear fluid from the nightstand. “Drink this, it will make you feel better.”

I put the cup to her chapped lips and pour it in, being careful that all the methadone went in her mouth. I had to spend all morning huddling with a line of junkies outside the methadone clinic on Baker St. just to get this stuff. Of course, they would only give me a single dose, but I was able to trade the rest of the heroin I had for a couple of the other junkie’s methadone doses, so I have enough now to keep Apple from going crazy from withdrawal.

Of course, it would be easier to just keep shooting her up with the heroin I already had, but for the next few days, I need to keep her lucid if my plan is going to work.

After she’s had the entire cup, I wait for a second. “Do you feel any better?”

“No. I still feel like shit. I want my shot.”

“Just wait for a little bit,” I say, caressing her scabbed up arm. “Apple, I have some good news. The people who have your kids contacted me again. They said they’re going to give them back to us in a few days.”

“I don’t care any more. They’re probably dead.”

“No,” I say. “They’re probably alive…”

“Probably?”

Dammit. “They’re going to send us a video proving that they’re still alive. Then, I’m going to pay them the ransom they want and they’re going to return them to us. Isn’t that some good news?”

“I told you. I don’t care any more. I don’t care about anything. I just want to die.”

She lays her head back down on the pillow like she’s going back to sleep. Those words she just said send put me onto instant boil. I fucking slap the side of her junkie face.

“How dare you? Do you know how much shit I’ve had to go through just to keep your fucking kids alive? Do you know how much easier these last few weeks would have been if I just was like, ‘fuck your kids’ also? I’ve been through a living hell and back trying to get them back! I had to stick my arm up some dude’s…well, you don’t want to hear about that. But I’ve been through a whole lot and spent my entire fortune trying to get them back.”

Of course, my whining about how bad my life has been probably doesn’t register with Apple since she just lays her head back down and mumbles. “I don’t care any more. Kill me.”

I get off the bed to keep myself from beating her senseless. I walk out of the bedroom and try to figure things out and realize that her attitude isn’t that big of a problem. I’ll just let the methadone work on her for a second and calm her nerves. Besides, I bet if she sees her children alive, she will come around.

So I wait. I wait about twenty minutes until I don’t hear Apple bleating in the bedroom for me to give her more heroin. Once I’m pretty sure the methadone is doing its job, I get the cellphone, cycle through to the last received call and press SEND.

I let it ring three times then end the call. Almost immediately it starts vibrating, the call coming in from a different number with an area code I can’t identify. Burke is on the other end of course.

“Hello Mr. Peanutz, are you ready for the uplink you requested of us the other day? We have a webcam set up on the stripper’s children.”

“Yes, I’m ready,” I say. “I’m going to need you to do something when you have the video stream going.”

“What do you want now?”

“I want you to throw up the west-side hand sign in the middle of the video.”

“West-side?”

“Yeah, you know. It’s that gang sign that you, um, African-Americans like to throw up. You know, to your brothers. To show that you’re down.”

“I wouldn’t know, since contrary to your bigoted worldview, I didn’t grow up in a ghetto,” Burke says. “And why would you ask me to do this, besides just to piss me off?”

“For a really good reason actually,” I say. “Mainly so I know that the video is live and not something you taped weeks ago in case I asked for a proof of life. You don’t have to be on the camera, just your hand.”

I hear Burke chuckle. “Looks like you’re getting smarter Peanutz. I just hope you don’t think you’re too smart for us because you’re not.”

I roll my eyes, but of course, he can’t see it. “So are you going to do it or not?”

“Sure. I’ll do it. I’m sending the stream to you now. Your phone should get a connection bar on it. Just press accept when you’re ready for the stripper to view the video.”

The phone goes dead again before it starts buzzing again. This time, the screen says “IN COMING VIDEO UPLINK…DO YOU WISH TO CONNECT?” I accept, just like Burke said. The phone’s small screen goes black, then the camera pans in a jagged, lagged motion to show what are presumably Apple’s two kids in the frame. The older one is in footie pajamas with his hands zip tied in front of him and a gag. For being bound and gagged, the kid looks remarkably calm. I bet after weeks of this treatment though, his mind is just dead. The other kid, the baby, is wrapped up in a blanket like a newborn, probably to keep his mom from finding out he is now deformed. The baby looks asleep. I’m thinking he might be dead, but the people behind the camera probably know I’m thinking this since one of them comes up and kicks the baby lightly with the toe of his wingtip loafer. He must have hit the raw stump since the baby starts to scream in pain.

That’s when a hand, a black hand, Burke’s hand, rises up into the foreground with its middle and ringfinger crossed, west-side style. The hand waves mockingly in front of the camera for a few seconds before he uncrosses his fingers, leaving only the middle one up, flipping me off. “You motherfucker,” I sneer, gripping the phone even tighter. When this is all over (provided my plan works of course, which is a big provided) I’m gonna make that nigger do his Tupac impression again, only at gunpoint, and afterwards I’m gonna shoot him in the balls, just like Tupac, then I’ll let him writhe on the floor for a couple minutes before I put another one in his…

…But I can’t get too ahead of myself. They aren’t gonna keep this video uplink going forever, so I rush into the bedroom and put the phone in front of Apple so she can see the screen.

“Tell me, are these your kids? Look closely.”

Apple rolls her head listlessly to the side, ignoring me. Fuck. I grab her by the hair and lift her head up so she has to watch.

“Look dammit! Are these your children?”

At first, it looks like I might as well be showing her the business pages of the newspaper for all she reacts. Then, suddenly, I feel her head shaking. She’s not so much crying as convulsing.

“Kev-in. Bubba. They’re alive. They’re still ALIVE! OH MY GOD! WHERE ARE THEY? POOPY! TELL ME WHERE THEY ARE? PLEASE! I NEED THEM BACK SO BAD!”

I let go of her head, and although I haven’t been all that rough with her, a disturbing amount of hair comes off on my hand when I let go. It must be from the malnourishment these past weeks. Apple keeps yelling hysterically at the sight of her children. She starts to hyperventilate.

I can’t hear anything except for her in this room so I go back outside and dial Burke’s number again. No one answers, so I let it ring and finally hang up after letting it go for about a minute. No response. I dial the number again and let it ring. After I hang up again, wondering if he’s ever gonna answer, the phone buzzes again with an incoming call. It’s Burke.

“What do you want now, Peanutz? Are you satisfied that the stripper’s children are still alive now?”

“Yes,” I say. “She confirmed it. By the way, kicking a baby is kinda fucked up.”

“You’re one to talk,” Burke says. “You know what else is fucked up? Cutting off a baby’s arm. Haven’t we convinced you yet that there is no length we won’t go to to ensure your cooperation?”

“If you’re so hardcore, why don’t you go saw off his other arm?” I say reflexively. I hear Burke draw in his breath over the phone, and he is correct so I quickly add, “Just kidding. You don’t have to do that.”

“Very well. Then is there anything else?”

“Yes,” I say. “Now we’ve got to work out how you plan on returning them to their mother.”

“We will return the stripper’s children after you’ve killed the president, just as I’ve promised.”

“Well, if this all goes off like you planned it, how will I know you won’t just kill them?”

“I assure you Mr. Peanutz, it would be pointless to hold the children after you’ve completed your task, since that’s our primary leverage against you.”

“No. It would be pointless for you to give them back alive if I’m already dead. After all, I’m sure that Apple won’t be happy with you returning one of her children minus one arm. She’ll probably get the authorities to come chasing after you guys afterwards.”

Burke chuckles. “I can also assure you that she will have even less luck trying to alert the authorities than you did.”

I grit my teeth since of course he’s right. “Listen, I’m not getting anywhere near the president until you’ve given Apple back her kids. You have to give them back before I do anything.”

“Well then instead of just killing her children, we’ll kill her and your mother as well, as well as yourself. You understand we cannot return the children before, since you would then have no incentive to actually go through with it.”

“And you understand that you have no incentive to risk exposing yourselves after I’ve killed the president, so I might as well just go back in the bedroom and shoot Apple in the head before killing myself because, if I’m gonna die anyway, I much prefer doing it in such a way that it totally fucks up your careful planning.”

A pause, and then Burke says, “I need to speak with my associates. Hold on for a moment.”

“Don’t cut off any more baby arms,” I sneer, but Burke must have already muted the phone. I keep the phone glued to my ear and pace around the room anxiously. I stub my already sore toe on piece of wood that used to be the base of my calfskin recliner. I trip and fall to the floor, banging my back against the remains of my IKEA coffee table. The splintered wood tears a hole in the back of my shirt and I’m pretty sure it tore through a nice little patch of skin as well. Here I go threatening to kill myself and then I nearly impale myself. If Burke still has cameras in here, I’m sure he’ll get the point.

After a few minutes of keeping me on hold, Burke finally comes back on the line…

“Mr. Peanutz, we’ve decided that we will do as you request and return the children before you complete your task. However, we will only do it once our man on the inside has attached the explosive device to your body. Will that satisfy you?”

Well, I was hoping they would be stupid and do it even sooner. That would have made my job easier, however my plan doesn’t depend on it. “Here’s my stipulation, I will only put on the bomb if I get a call from Apple afterwards telling me she has them and they are all safe. I will only go through with it after they’ve been released. Then I suppose I might as well go through with it. I mean, it’s not like I like George Bush or anything.”

“Very well, Mr. Peanutz. Tell the stripper that we will have people come over and pick her up shortly before you go to the country club. They will take her to the place where her children are once you are at the site and our mole is ready to prep you for the assassination. So you might want to untie her from that bed sometime in the next day or so. Oh, and don’t plan on telling her to stall since if you do we will just kill her and her kids right there.”

“Fine. You have a deal.”

The phone goes dead without Burke even issuing me a polite “goodbye”. Oh well, fuck him. Everything is starting to click into place now. If my plan goes as I have arranged it, then by this time next week, that nigger and his massa Van Hertzwelder will be spending most of their time in stress positions in one of the deepest, darkest dungeons of Guantanamo Bay. I picture in my head them screaming as some intelligence spook waterboards the fuck out of them, and the thought makes me giggle…

And if the plan goes wrong?

Well, my remains and my reputation will be fused together with one of the most controversial men of the twenty-first century and I will live forever in infamy.

At least Apple will get her kids back…