He strode to the door while I tried my best to hold him back by clinging on to him – and failed miserably.
“You want us alive?” he called. “Excuse me for saying so, but you have a funny way of showing that.”
Raucous laughter answered his remark.
“Well,” the rough voice called, “we had to show you we mean business, didn't we? So are you gonna come out?”
“Depends. Who are you, and what do you want?”
“We are the people with the guns. And we want you.”
“Us both?”
“What? No, we don't want no hooker. We've got enough of them already. We want you.”
Giacomo simply nodded, as if that had just confirmed what he already knew. He turned to me.
“Angela.” His voice was so soft. Softer than ever before. “I'm so sorry for what I'm about to do.”
“What...” Before I could get another word out, he had grabbed me. “Let go!” I screamed. “Let go, Giacomo, I'm not going in that elevator. I'm not-”
I broke off, when I saw that he wasn't heading for the elevator. Instead, he opened a small but sturdy-looking metal side door I hadn't noticed before, and shoved me into the tiny room beyond.
“Giacomo, what are you doing?”
“I'm locking you in,” he responded, fishing a key out of his pocket. “Once the door is locked, I'll throw the key into the water, so they won't be able to get the door open.”
“But then I won't be able to get out! I'll suffocate! Please, Giacomo, don't...”
“No, you won't suffocate, Angela.” Again, he plunged his hand into his pocket. This time, it came out holding a tiny black object that at first I didn't recognize. Even when I did, I couldn't bring myself to accept the knowledge. After all, how could it be that all of a sudden, Giacomo had a cellphone? But when he threw it to me, I touched a button and the screen came to life, I believed it.
“When I'm gone,” Giacomo continued, “call the police on the cellphone and tell them where you are. If they don't believe you, call your parents. Tell them to come with blowtorches and get you out of here.”
“Tell my dad to come with a blowtorch to the Golden gate bridge and get me out of there, because I've accidentally wandered off in the middle of the night and locked myself into San Francisco's most important architectural masterpiece?”
“Something along those lines, yes.”
“Right.”
I stared at the cellphone in my hand again.
A cellphone. A cellphone?!
My breath caught.
“Giacomo, but that's it! You don't have to lock me in. You don't have to go with them. You don't have to do anything but let me call the police! Now! They'll take care of those men out there, and everything will be fine!”
In my sudden happiness, I didn't even bother to wonder where Giacomo had gotten a cellphone from – and an expensive-looking one, at that. My happiness crushed every other thought. Yet it didn't last very long. Just a few seconds of bliss, shattered by Giacomo's next words.
“No, Angela,” he said, sadness in his voice. “You cannot call the police. At least, not while I'm here.”
“Why not?” I demanded, fresh tears welling up in my eyes.
“Because if I had to choose between falling into the hands of those men out there, and falling into the hands of the police, I'd pick those men any day.”
And with that, he slammed the door shut and plunged me into utter darkness. I heard the key turn in the lock, and then a splash, as he threw it out into the ocean where it would sink to bottomless depths, never to be seen again. Just like him. He was out of my sight.
But not out of my mind.
Oh no.
“Giacomo!” I cried. “Don't! Don't go out there! They'll kill you! And if they won't, I will, if you go out there! DON'T!!”
I heard a deep voice laughing softly, sadly. Then Giacomo called: “I'm coming out now!”
“No! No!” My yelling was useless. Nobody listened to me. I was helpless. Trapped.
“Neil,” I heard another voice, “Shouldn't we go in, instead? I mean we don't know what this guy is hiding out here for. We don't know what else might be in there.”
“Hmm.” The rough voice again. “You're probably right, Dave. Hey, you!”
“Yes?” I heard Giacomo's voice through the metal. A sob escaped me. He was alive. He was still here.
“Stay where you are. Drop any weapons, and stand with your hands over your head facing the back wall.”
“Yes.”
Light steps on the metal. Giacomo's steps were always light, although he was so tall and muscular. Like a panther. But would a panther survive an attack by several lions? I very much doubted it.
'Please,' I prayed, 'let him get out of this alive. Please, God, I don't care what happens to me, just help him. Let him get out of this alive.' It was the most earnest prayer of my life. Considering the number of times I'd actually prayed, excepting grace at the table, that wasn't saying much, but still... I hoped that somebody, somewhere, was listening.
The engine of the motorboat sprang to life again. I could here it coming closer, then stopping. Heavy feet crossed the makeshift bridge. The door creaked.
“That's right,” somebody sneered. “Right up against the wall, and don't move.”
“I wasn't planning to,” a deep, dry voice responded.
O God, shut up will you? Do you want to get yourself killed?!
“Hey! Don't get smart with me!”
“Have no fear. I'm sure it would be much easier without you.”
Fortunately, the other man didn't seem to understand what that was supposed to mean. To judge by the snickers I heard from his companions though, they did.
“Shut up and hands behind your back,” the gruff voice of the guy who seemed to be in charge barked. “Is there anyone else here with you?”
“No.”
“What about the girl?”
“Locked up.”
“Right. Now hold still while I tie you up. One move and my friend Danny makes a nice, big hole in your head.”
“Understood.”
Giacomo's tone had shifted. It sounded deeper again, like it had that night out in the park. But it was more than that. It sounded... professional. Like he was used to something like this. Like it wasn't anything to get worked up about.
“You wanna tie him up?” A voice complained. “Neil, that's just a waste of time. There are five of us, and he's just one guy. Let's grab him and go.”
“Have you seen the reward Wozniak said has been offered for that guy?” Neil, the leader, growled.
“If he's really the guy we're looking for.”
“Well, have you seen it?”
“No.”
“Well, I have. And I tell you, anyone who's got a price like that on his head is dangerous enough to be tied up. Hand me the rope.”
“All right, all right. Here you go.”
I heard a few grunts while the leader was presumably tying up Giacomo.
“Right, I'm done. Turn around. Let's have a look at your face. Let's see if we've gone to all this trouble for nothing.”
A few seconds later, I heard men laugh. I wanted to shout at them to stop, I wanted to claw their eyes out. But instead, my nails scratched uselessly against the metal of the door.
“Neil, is this a joke? That's just a kid! He can't even grow a real beard yet!”
But Neil didn't answer.
“Neil? What's up? Let's go. We're wasting our time here.”
“No,” Neil said. “We're not. That's him, all right. I recognize the face from the photo they showed me. He used to have a mustache and wear a black suit and tie, and he looks a lot messier then on the picture, but it's him all right.”
Black suit? Mustache? What were they talking about? What picture? Had they been looking for Giacomo?
“You must be joking.”
“No, dammit, I'm not joking. It's him all right.”
“At his age? What can he have been up to, besides drinking milkshakes?”
“That's an interesting question, actually.”
“You don't know?” That was Giacomo! A moment later, Neil snapped: “Keep your mouth shut!”
“Let me deal with him,” one laughed. “I'm good with kids and babies.”
“Ha! Go on then.”
“It's easy, really. All they need is a bit of attention...” I heard a groan, and someone sink to the floor. “You just have to be gentle with them!” Another thump, and another groan. “You have to be very careful. If you're not, people might not get what you're doing and think you were actually trying to hurt them. But I wouldn't hurt a kid, now, would I?”
Another groan, and now I realized whose it was. The tears began to stream down my face with new vigor. What were they doing to him? And then, they laughed. They actually laughed. I wanted to pound on the door and tell them to stop, but I couldn't find the strength.
“OK, guys,” Neil called, still chuckling. “Let's rip this place apart. Anything and everything that's interesting, we'll take with us. You, boy?”
“Yes, old man?” Giacomo was speaking! There was pain in his voice, but somehow he managed to make it drip with arrogance. Another thump, and another groan.
“Shut your mouth! Go sit over there, and don't move!”
“Yes.”
There was a few minutes silence. Then, an astonished outcry. “Man! Will you look at that!”
A few metallic clicks could be heard.
“Some kid's tools to play with,” one commented.
“Guys, that's a Heckler & Koch G36!”
Somebody whistled.
“And an SA80! What the fuck...”
“Well, what did you expect?” I heard Giacomo ask in a dry voice. “Did you think I would go around with a pocket knife?”
“Ha! Next you're going to tell us that you actually know how to use that stuff.”
“If you're trying to provoke me to have an excuse to shoot me,” Giacomo wheezed, “It won't work. I know he wants me alive. I only want to know one thing: how did you find me? I didn't think I left any traces behind.”
Somebody laughed. “No traces? Buddy, you left a whole lot of bloody traces! If you don't wanna be found, you'd better not go around picking fights with people.”
“I'm not sorry for what I did.” Giacomo's voice was cold and deadly. “Nor will I ever be. I don't know what Moretti plans to do with me, but if I were faced by the same decision again, I would do exactly the same as I did before.”
“What's he talking about?” Somebody complained. “This kid is getting on my nerves! Let's just off him and get back.”
“No!” That was Neil's voice. “Whoever this kid is, he's telling the truth about one thing: we have to get him alive.”
“What do you mean, Neil, whoever he is? Don't you know? Don't you know why we are supposed to get him?”
Neil didn't answer. Instead, I heard Giacomo ask, incredulous: “You don't know? You were sent after me, and you don't know?”
“We weren't 'sent after you'”, Neil responded, and one could hear the mockery in his words. “You've got a pretty high opinion of yourself, you little scumbag. We just picked up a couple of pretenders last night. Can you believe they were using our sign? Some nerve those kids have. Well, they weren't so cocky anymore after we dealt with them.”
“What?!”
“They told us about this kid who'd beaten some of them up, and he sounded exactly like the guy our boss had told us to look for. So we had a look around, asked a few contacts.” He sounded smug. “It didn't take us long to pick up your trail.”
“Dio Mio, I can't believe this... So you're not Moretti's men?”
“What? Who?”
“Not even Rizzo's?”
“I don't know who the hell we're talking about. We're with the Fuck you Suckers. Wozniak told us to be on the lookout for an Italian guy and you...”
His words were cut short by Giacomo's laughter.
“Locals! I've let myself be captured by a bunch of locals! God!”
There was another thump.
“If you don't want me to slice you, you'll shut your mouth!” Neil hissed. “I've been OG for seven years now, and more than one man has ended up with my knife in his gut.”
“Oh, now I'm scared.”
I almost whimpered at that. Why did he have to be so arrogant? Maybe, maybe if he would keep his mouth shut he'd get out of this alive...
“And I actually let you tie me up,” Giacomo continued, seemingly unaware of the gang's growing anger, which I could almost feel through the metal door. “How embarrassing.”
“Tell me, what did you do?” The leader asked. “Why does someone want your head on a platter? Did you talk too much to the wrong person? Man, am I going to enjoy hurting you...”
Giacomo chuckled darkly.
“You don't wanna know what I did.”
“Oh, don't I?”
“No. Because if you did, you'd be just as dead as I am.” A few moments of thoughtful silence, and then he added: “But I almost forgot: you already are.”
“Are what?”
“Dead.”
“Hate to disappoint you kid, but I'm alive and kicking.”
“No. You were dead the moment you told me you aren't Moretti's men. I never would have dreamed of the possibility that some gangster scum might stumble in on me. But apparently...” Another thump came from the adjoining room, louder this time, followed by a groan. “...the world has more surprises in store than I thought.”
“Dammit! You son of a bitch!”
What was going on there? Were they hurting Giacomo? It sounded like somebody was getting killed in there. Frantically, my hands flew over the bare surface of the door, to the wall. They touched something which felt like plastic. Automatically I pressed, and yelled in surprise, as light flooded the room. I had found the light switch! There was a light switch!!
And that wasn't the only thing there was. Beneath the light switch I could see a lever labeled: DOOR OPENER. ONLY USE IN EMERGENCIES.
I gripped it and pulled.
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Hi!
We're approaching the climax of the story! :) Is it suspenseful enough? ;)
Cheers
Rob