My examination of the gangster’s den right after I regained my hormonal balance, didn’t actually reveal too many disturbing details or outrageous blood-curdling facts. Apart from a few packs of drugs and a handful of ammunition for .38, there wasn’t much else. We didn’t find chopped-up human bodies in the fridge or stashes of cash in a black suitcase under the bed. It was just an ordinary place where small-time criminals lived, which I had managed to turn upside down during my lonely raid through it. The shack was a total mess now, and it looked like a bum’s den instead.

Despite everything, I was still nervous. The house was lit up like a Christmas tree, and we were merrily rummaging through its owners’ stuff as if the most terrible thing that could happen to us if they caught us here was to smack our asses or punish us standing silently in the corner for an hour or two. I felt like a stupid Snow White who had just sneaked uninvited into the house of the black Caribbean Santa and his seven voodoo dwarfs.

My assistant, quite unlike me, had no such concerns. She ran around agitatedly like a rabid dog, poking her muzzle into every hole and sniffing at everything as if she expected to find a dozen Easter bunnies hidden around the house. Her problem was that she never came across any, and as I watched her—so enthusiastic and refusing to let it go—I was so worried that I felt the urge to take a shit. When I shared my terrible fears with her about us getting caught here, she only cried out, “Just a minute more!” and reached her hand into a cupboard box full of Christmas balls to take one out of it. When she did it, suspicious-looking powder spilled on the floor. Terrified, I closed my eyes and prayed that it was only sugar. When I looked back a few seconds later, Lara smacked her lips happily and grinned like a naughty child who had just discovered a jar of jam hidden in the cellar. She had white powder all over her face.

“Heroin!” she shouted confidently, and she did it so loudly that her voice rose up to heaven, split everyone’s ears up there, and then descended back to earth to see if there were any deaf people down here who were still uninformed.

I closed my eyes again. The feeling of being a Snow White in the house of the Caribbean Santa momentarily disappeared from my head. Instead, it was replaced by the image of the Caribbean Bogeyman—the evil master of all drugs—who was going to turn up any minute and threaten my poor white ass with a giant syringe dripping in his hairy arm.

When, after a while, I reopened my eyes, the situation had changed further. My so-called assistant was nowhere in sight, and instead of her ass sticking out of the wardrobe or the cabinet under the sink, I saw an open door, which I hadn’t noticed so far. It was cleverly disguised to look like a column shelf—in the corner beside the front window—but it was actually a secret closet. Right in the next moment, I heard a heavy thud, some swearing, and the noise of things falling down in the hideout.

At first, I cautiously approached the place to look inside, but when the stink of awaiting trouble behind the door hit me right in the face, I turned around and decided to leave this part of the investigation to my partner. She was already dealing with it anyway, and besides, there probably wasn’t enough space for both of us in there. Instead, I walked to the fridge to get something to drink. I grabbed a beer and walked back to an armchair to place my butt in it.

I had a terrible feeling about all this. Soon, I literally lost my will to live and felt like a dead volcano that had gone extinct ten thousand years ago. I was actually so detached from reality that even when I heard Lara shouting in the closet, “I think I found something,” it didn’t reach my consciousness. I just took the remote control from the coffee table before me and turned on the cable TV. Afterward, I leaned back in the armchair and let the world around me fade away as I tiredly watched the screen. After a minute, I sank into total oblivion, and that’s how the next sharp turn of events struck me. Before I even knew it, a pair of belligerent drug dealers popped in, blocking my only way out of the shack.

I looked around myself, sleepy and dizzy. My hands were still clutching the bottle and the remote, and I was watching a dazzling blonde-haired sex bomb give a skillful blowjob to a huge mulatto guy on the screen. In fact, I was so consumed with the porn scene that I wasn’t even scared at first. In the next second, however, when my mind registered the danger, I shuddered unpleasantly, but unfortunately, it was already too late to do anything about it.

The moment my new pals saw me, they stopped near the door, reaching for their guns, alarmed. However, after that, they suddenly recognized me—it was clear they did—and they grinned, glancing at each other meaningfully. Then they came closer to me.

By the way, I was surprised when I saw them, too, because the scumbags looked exactly like the images in Lara’s photo—as if the picture was taken just yesterday. One of the men was slightly shorter and more muscular, with a gruesome knife scar on his face. It started at his chin, went up across his left cheek and temple, and disappeared somewhere in the dark bush of his curly hair. Actually, under different circumstances, it would have been an intriguing mark to study, but right here and now, it looked threatening.

Scarface’s partner, on the other hand, was leaner and a bit taller, and he didn’t have such a brutal appearance—probably because his hair had started to thin out, and the top of his crown was almost bald. He seemed a more promising party to negotiate with, at least initially. However, when he opened his mouth to smile, his expression immediately beat all my stupid illusions. His teeth were unusually small, disgustingly yellow, and terrifyingly sharp—like those of a hungry piranha. At the same time, his evil eyes seemed somehow lifeless and cold—like those of a pit viper.

When the two men came close enough, they looked at me again and suddenly burst into laughter—almost simultaneously. The gold chains hanging around their necks and the bracelets on their wrists rattled unnervingly. All gussied up like that, the guys looked like unconvincing characters from a cheap social drama about the immigrant community in Miami, but in this particular situation, I ultimately failed to see the humor and the fun of it all. Absolutely confident that I was going to die very soon, I suddenly realized that nothing in my life mattered anymore: the porn I was watching, the beer I was drinking, Lara in the closet, this stupid case of mine, my damn career—it was all in the past now.

“Well, well, well! I can’t believe what my eyes see here!” The scar-faced jerk articulated his first words as he moved his disgusting face closer to mine. His voice sounded like broken glass scraping over ceramic tile. “This fucking bastard has a real knack for surviving, man! I warned you he may wake up, didn’t I?”

After hearing what he said, I shivered again. Up until this moment, I had somehow kept my head buried in the sand, even though I knew my ass was probably sticking out exposed. Now, I had no choice but to accept the truth. I clearly had a close relationship with these two, and maybe we had really killed five bottles of whiskey in my apartment for whatever reason! It was a sobering moment for me.

The bastard, who was talking to me, suddenly reached out his hand to pull the beer out of mine, angry. He was obviously pissed off that I had taken the liberty to rummage through their stuff.

“The jerk seems to fancy the same shit as we do, Larry!” he roared. “Can you imagine that? What are the odds?” Then he passed the bottle to his friend. Larry took it from him and started examining it theatrically, pretending to read the label.

“I reckon the guy’s cool!” He announced his decision after a while. “Man’s beer taste doesn’t lie. He must be a solid dude!”

I let the two idiots finish their silly act and reclined in my chair, thinking feverishly. It seemed I didn’t have many options here except to wait and see how the situation evolved. At the same time, I knew I had to avoid showing them my fear because it would only aggravate them further. I had some problems with that, though. Right now, my position was so horribly disadvantageous that staying calm cost me enormous amounts of energy.

There was something else distracting me from my task, too. The entire time, I couldn’t stop wondering why Lara still hung in the stupid closet instead of coming out to surprise the scumbags and save me. Couldn’t she hear what terrible things were brewing out here? As I thought about it, I was desperate not to look at the hideout because the door was still ajar, and I was afraid the drug dealers would notice it at last. After all, the longer they were unaware of the fact, the better my chances of survival were. Lara was my only hope at the moment.

Bob—obviously the one with the scar since the other was Larry—grabbed the bottle from his associate’s hand and sharply hurled it against the wall behind my back. It shattered loudly, but I knew his violent gesture was just theatrics. It was intended to scare me. Nevertheless, I was glad he did it because now, my big-breasted, blonde-haired assistant would finally realize the seriousness of my situation.

“Listen to me, you filthy little dickhead!” The jerk leaned over to me, hissing maliciously into my face. “You’re nothing more than a stinking piece of horseshit! Do you realize how fundamentally fucked up you are now?”

At first, I didn’t answer because it seemed like a rhetorical question, and besides, I couldn’t do so even if I wanted to because Bob’s jewelry rattled too loudly after his jerky movement.

However, after the jingling stopped, I looked at him and asked, “What did you expect me to do? Since you two have been to my place, I assumed I can come to yours.” Then, I slowly put the remote down on the coffee table and cautiously rose to my feet. The drug dealer was alarmed immediately.

“Wait a moment to hear my point first! I’ve got something really important to tell you,” I went on quickly when I saw the bastard wanted to hit me. And after saying it, without further explanation, I turned around and leisurely walked to the fridge in the small kitchenette in the corner. Since it was a dead end and I couldn’t escape from there, the two scumbags did nothing to stop me. Nevertheless, I was too nervous, and the entire time, I expected a bullet in the back of my head.

Luckily, nothing like that happened. I successfully reached the refrigerator, opened its door, and took another bottle of beer before the eyes of the drug dealers, who were still looking at me dumbfounded. Then, I theatrically gazed at the label without any idea what I was doing. Generally, I was trying to buy some time until I came up with a plan, but the problem was that my cowardly brain refused to play along and left me hanging there with no backup at all.

I stood like this, stupidly staring at the bottle for a whole minute, and after I finally finished reading through the entire label, I had to give it up and just do something—no matter what. Since opening the bottle was the most natural continuation of this situation, I looked around for the fork I had used to open my first beer, and when I didn’t see it anywhere, I got terribly worried that my little performance would eventually fail. I was actually so concerned that in my nervousness, I accidentally dropped the beer, which fell on the metal ring surrounding the refrigerator base. The bottle burst into pieces, which were scattered all around the floor.

Larry and Bob just looked at me, flabbergasted. I could easily understand their amazement because I would have been too since none of my actions made any fucking sense. Anxious to keep my momentum, I quickly reached into the fridge again, grabbing another bottle, and as I prayed that my act would be far more successful this time, I almost made the same mistake because my hands were shaking so badly. I managed to secure my hold on the beer at the last moment, but only after clumsily juggling it for nearly ten seconds.

Finally, I raised my eyes and looked awkwardly at my captors. They had just started recovering from their surprise and were eager to see what I would do next. Unfortunately, I had no idea what to do next and was fully aware I was running out of time. Being desperate, I just hurled the beer at Bob before I had the chance to screw it up again. This time, everything worked as planned, but the bastard was quick, and he dodged the bottle, which broke into the wall behind his back.

Without wasting time, I turned around to grab a fresh pair of ammunition and promptly shot them at the bald Larry, who didn’t even bother to lift a finger about it. He just let them pass by his ears as if they were beer nuts, and he expected them to make him happy if they hit him in the mouth.

Naturally, my fifth bullet flew to Bob again, and it nearly knocked him out because he made the mistake of going for it—just like an impatient catcher who was already pissed by my total incompetence at throwing. However, in the last moment, he came to his senses and dodged, letting the bottle bounce off his hands safely.

By old tradition, I directed my sixth and seventh missiles to Larry, who, by the way, was already falling asleep with boredom, and as for the eighth bomb, well, I accidentally knocked its neck against the edge of the sink, and it went off prematurely, spilling its contents unspectacularly at my feet.

Then there was the ninth bottle! I counted on it to bring my performance to a bombastic culmination before I finished my act with the tenth, but it all ended disappointingly bad. Bob had already crashed the ninth bottle into the wall behind my back, and there was no tenth in the fridge. The tenth, eleventh, and twelfth beers the bastards had obviously drunk already.

I sighed desperately and looked around dejectedly because now my little show seemed over. On the refrigerator shelves, there were only two cucumbers, a banana, an old slice of pizza, and some yellow cheese, but they all smiled apologetically at me, assuring me that I wouldn’t win any battle even if I had them on my side. They weren’t even rated on the Mohs hardness scale, so I had to believe them and leave them alone.

Eventually, Larry and Bob overcame their initial confusion and looked at me. They waited a few seconds for me to come up with some other extravagant shit, but since I did nothing, they only shrugged. I had no other idea in my head, whether extravagant or not, and my only weapon against their guns now was the broken bottle in my hand. Luckily, the bastards were still reluctant to use their weapons, so I decided to take my chance. In the following minutes, I turned our hearty meeting into a slapstick comedy by playing tag with the jerks and leapfrogs afterward.

I frantically started running around the house, making sharp jumps between the furniture, but unfortunately, it didn’t work as I hoped. The problem was that either I hadn’t calculated my path very well, or simply the movies about Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were not based on real-life experiences. After only two steps across the living room area, I unexpectedly bumped into Bob’s ugly scar almost face-to-face. I drove my forehead against his nose, and he roared painfully like a wounded grizzly bear. Thanks to the impact, I actually had a pretty good chance to get out of the place, leaving my poor assistant behind if Larry hadn’t nailed me between the eyes right before I managed to sneak out. The jerk was quite agile and had a perfect stance, waiting for me near one of the armchairs.

I didn’t know if it was because of his excellent shape or my wild rush, but my head literally exploded after the blow. I dropped my weapon, tossing my nose into the air and losing my orientation. My feet followed suit soon after, and I found myself on the floor, hitting it with my backbone so hard that my entire brain almost splashed out of my eye sockets.

Larry used the moment when I was still lying down disoriented and grabbed my shirt collar, dragging me to the kitchen table, which was pretty massive. There, he tied my hands to the legs. Meanwhile, Bob came to his senses too and got up, angry. His nose bled profoundly. Mine wasn’t very good either, but I felt like the winner in this weird competition because at least it didn’t bleed. I smiled crookedly at the bastard.

He took a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe his face and sat in the armchair, putting his gun on the table. He groaned painfully as he cleaned his nose but didn’t express any unpleasant intentions concerning my well-being—not for now, at least. The drug dealer just mumbled under his breath with the handkerchief still pressed to his face, “You’re such a loser, Mellrow! I’ve never seen such an incompetent dick as you in my entire life. And I wonder in what state of mental derangement you’ve actually decided to become a detective in the first place.”

Naturally, I didn’t like his remark and was even offended by it, but given the guy’s pain, I could understand his frustration. That’s why I rose above my hurt feelings and avoided arguing with him over my professional qualities.

“It was only a tactical move,” I explained instead. “I did it to make you underestimate me, just as you did!”

“Yeah?” He croaked hoarsely, shooting a malicious look at me. “You’re such a great manipulator, aren’t you? Let me see what terrible things you have in mind for us now that we’ve underestimated you so badly. I’m really curious!”

“I really have no problem with you,” I cautiously tried to blow my nose, too. “It’s your middleman who I’m after.”

“Our middleman? And who would that be?” he asked suspiciously.

“You know full well who your goddamn middleman is. Don’t be ridiculous!”

The two scumbags suddenly glanced at each other, suspicious.

“Oh, stop the bullshit, you two! He’s just stalling!” Larry roared, annoyed, after a while. Then he turned to me. “You know what, Dick Tracy? I suggest you tell us immediately what you’ve reported to the police. Last time, you got away with it, but now you won’t. Last time, we were negligent because we thought you were supposed to carry that information to the grave, but now we won’t make the same mistake.”

I looked at him and tried to shrug, which was virtually impossible with my hands tied to the table leg. He obviously wasn’t very skilled at math. I couldn’t see what my motivation to tell them anything was supposed to be if I knew I was going to die anyway. After a few seconds, Larry obviously realized the flaw in his suggestion, and he tried to sweeten the deal for me.

“You can spare yourself a lot of pain if you do,” he encouraged me rather unconvincingly, demonstrating his complete luck in fantasy.

“If I’m dying both ways,” I made an effort to knock some sense into his stupid head, “what stops me from feeding you total bullshit and still having the painless death?”

The jerk stared at me for a moment. There was a sudden silence in the shack after my remark because my logic was clearly strong enough, and the two morons didn’t know what to say. In any case, it made Bob nervous, and he stood up, coming to me and angrily slapping my face. My left ear rang from the heavy blow.

“Listen to me, you cheeky little bastard,” he hissed spitefully. “You won’t get away with it this time; beat this simple fact into your stupid head! Now, either you turn into a fucking Scheherazade, or I cut your ears right now! Then I’ll scoop your eyes out. How do you like that, huh?”

“You know well that what I’ve told the cops isn’t the issue here, don’t you?” I promptly started maneuvering because I obviously had to give the jerks some reason to keep me alive for a while longer. “My report doesn’t matter because they don’t care. You should really worry about the guy who stands between you and the buyer of your shit, though. The trick Sonya and you are trying to pull simply won’t work!”

Bob sharply turned his head to look back at Larry, surprised.

“What is this even supposed to mean?” Baldy asked me without coming closer.

I didn’t answer at first and took my time—pretending I was in pain—because I didn’t actually know what it was supposed to mean. Unfortunately, my performance didn’t help much. The seconds quickly passed, and I started flapping my arms and legs in the black waters of my desperation as I drowned in them, searching for a straw to clutch at. I realized I lacked enough information to get their attention. In the meantime, the water quickly reached my mouth, and soon, I had to decide whether to shorten my agony by letting it in or to keep pointlessly flapping while hoping for a miracle.

“Do you really believe the little whore would play ball?” I mumbled with the last oxygen remaining in my lungs, attempting to fabricate a convincing story from almost nothing. “You’re stupid if you think she’s not working on both sides. Eventually, she’ll kick your asses just as the other whore did!”

This time, the drug dealers took my words far more seriously, and Bob silently returned to sitting in his armchair, lighting a cigarette. On the TV screen in front of him, a fat Mexican “lady” was trying to insert the neck of a wine bottle into her ass, and he grabbed the remote to switch to another channel.

“Where’s the stupid cunt? Did she come to you?” he asked after a while without looking back at me. I finally sighed with relief because it was obviously a hit, and the Butterfly hadn’t sold me a complete lie as it seemed. She bailed out as she said, and now that I knew Sonya was on the loose, too, it was a good starting point for improvising.

“You’re not thinking straight,” I unleashed my imagination momentarily. “Why would she come to me? She wants money, and I have none. Why don’t you ask your middleman where she is instead? I’m pretty sure he would have something to say to you!”

A heavy silence followed for a couple of seconds. Only our breathing could be heard in the room until Larry’s voice echoed in it.

“Something’s not right here. I don’t believe our guy would take that risk,” he looked at his friend. “Not before we’ve sealed the deal, at least!”

“But he did ransack our place, didn’t he?” Bob shrugged, unconvinced, while still smoking. “So why not?”

“We can’t be one hundred percent sure it was him!” Baldy disagreed.

“You really don’t get it, boys, do you?” I embarked on wild improvisation again. “It’s not about your deal anymore. The two bitches sold you out because they thought you were done. They want to call the shots now!”

My two captors frowned without saying anything. I promptly used the short pause to dig into my memory for something else I could use, but unfortunately, that seemed to be all. I hadn’t squeezed anything else out of the Butterfly and didn’t know who the scumbags were trying to blackmail or why. And besides, no matter how long I stalled here, it all had to end eventually!

After half a minute of thinking, Bob suddenly turned to his buddy.

“Do you believe him?” he asked grimly.

“Not much, actually,” Larry replied curtly. “I think he’s just trying us out.”

“Well, in this case, you are not too good at running scenarios!” I rushed myself to refute Baldy’s point. “Can’t you see there is a much larger fish involved now? Why do you even think your current deal matters to him?”

Honestly, even before saying it, I had already thought a few times I should stop mentioning their middleman so often. By doing it, I had all the chances to screw up, but I hoped in gangs like theirs, someone always wanted to take advantage of the others. Now, I was sure I had gone too far. Larry suddenly came to me, visibly annoyed, and leaned over, fixing his mean eyes on mine.

“What exactly do you know about that middleman anyway?” he asked me.

I stirred uneasily at the table base.

“Relax! Nothing’s going to happen yet, but you should be careful!” I desperately tried to worm my way out of the situation. “He will wait until the deal is over, not because he cares but because he wouldn’t want the police to start nosing around. When it’s all done, though… Well, you know it will be a whole different story, right?”

And here, I shut my huge mouth at last because I had finally blown it. I knew I would be cross-examined brutally until it was clear that I bluffed, and when I noticed Bob jumping out of his armchair, enraged, I expected him to do just that—come to me and smash my head over something I knew nothing about. However, I soon realized it wasn’t the case. He ran in the opposite direction instead, and three seconds later, he leaped into the hideout like a black panther jumping on its prey. It was only now that he noticed the door was ajar! In the meantime, Larry surprisingly hit me in the face so hard that all the Pleiades came down from the sky and started dancing around my head. It hurt terribly, and my nose really bled this time.

After about a minute or two of struggling to overcome the terrible pain, I finally managed to raise my eyes and focus on something that wasn’t moving. Because of my huddled position under the table, my blood dripped right into my mouth, and I had to swallow some of it to avoid suffocating. Like every time it happened, I was amazed at how salty it tasted. I never really got used to it my entire life.

My vision gradually cleared up after a while, and my eyes stopped at Larry’s face. He was still looking back at me, happily grinning, as if I had just given him an exquisite compliment, and he didn’t know how to thank me. Behind his back, everything seemed okay. Total peace and harmony reigned over the closet, and I couldn’t hear the “oohs” and “aahs” or any other exclamations characteristic of the moment when Tom met Jerry. I couldn’t see the ubiquitous dust cloud coming from the place either. It meant that Lara was still alive, but I was afraid she wasn’t going to come out with a cartridge belt across her naked breasts and a machine gun in her hands to save me.

Since Larry clearly didn’t have any intention to torture me further, and after his initial outburst, he looked somehow benevolent—as if he were terribly sorry for losing his temper—I asked him, nodding toward the closet, “What’s the matter with him?” Then I swallowed some more blood because I was going to choke on it.

“He’ll be fine; don’t worry about him!” Baldy tried to soothe my emotional and physical pain. “He’s just too sensitive and sometimes takes offense at nothing!”

“Well, I suppose he didn’t think I’d come all the way here just to watch porn and have a couple of beers, did he?”

“I told you! He’s a bit touchy and maybe naïve too. I wouldn’t blame him, though. Since you look like a complete idiot, you can easily deceive everybody!”

I gave the guy a nod of gratitude for his “kind” words, but I restrained myself from commenting because I still wondered why it was so damn quiet inside the closet.

“Besides, the hideout was his soft spot, you know,” the drug dealer continued. “He designed it to withstand even a meticulous police search. And here you are! The first amateur snooper who chases cheating wives around town pops in and cracks it open. You should put yourself in his shoes and not judge him too harshly!”

Of course, I did not intend to put myself in anybody’s shoes, nor did I want to explain that I steered clear of such cases in my practice, but I was definitely offended that he considered me an amateur. Although, if you think about it, I did miss that hideout—Lara was the one who found it! In any case, I didn’t have the chance to defend my honor because, right then, Bob surprisingly returned to us, much like he had disappeared. His jumping out of the closet was worthy of creating a brand-new kung fu style!

“The fucking bastard has turned everything upside down!” he roared, frustrated, from which I concluded he hadn’t met Lara inside. She had probably managed to sneak out while we chased each other around the shack, and even though I was going to do the same thing to her before, I still felt kind of betrayed that she had left me behind.

“Don’t worry, nothing’s missing. Our shit is fine!” Bob continued his rapport, making me draw a second conclusion—that Lara was a fairly incompetent detective. In fact, I was pretty lucky that she sucked so much because otherwise, they would bust my poor ass while searching me for something I simply didn’t have.

“I guess he didn’t know what to look for,” Larry suggested, “because he’s pretty dumb, you know.”

Unlike his previous statement, when he called me an amateur, I didn’t take offense now. It suited me well that they considered me stupid because it increased my chances of surviving. They were going to underestimate me again! To increase my chances even further, I promptly started plotting my escape as I sat so nicely packed with the table and completely unable to move. Soon, I got so carried away in my dreams that I started coughing excitedly and forgot to stop. Larry even patted me on the back a few times, worried about my health.

Feeling moderately hopeful after his kind gesture of concern, I took the liberty to ask him, “What are you gonna do to me?”

“We’re gonna kill you,” he tried to encourage me with a soft smile. “Don’t worry; we won’t waste time torturing you. After our last attempt, we know it’s not exactly a result-driven tactic!”

“But couldn’t you torture me a little bit, at least, before killing me?” I tried to negotiate toward a more time-consuming end. “Or maybe torture me a little bit more instead of killing me whatsoever?”

He pretended to be considering it.

“No!” Baldy rejected my offer after a while. “But here’s a deal for you! We could kill you and make sure it feels like torture. Is that okay? Do you wanna have one last cigarette?”

I looked at him dejectedly and thought feverishly. One cigarette’s time wasn’t long enough. Clearly, the entire Sonya thing was just a damp squib, and it didn’t work. Now, I had to come up with another “brilliant” idea, but unfortunately, I had none in my head. I had hit a dead end, and this was probably how I was going to die.

“You know what? I’d rather have a beer,” I announced my final decision after a short consideration. And I really wanted one! I had always wondered why characters in books chose cigarettes in such situations, given that a beer would buy them much more time because they would have more control over how long they would drink. Nevertheless, I doubted my captors would be kind enough to honor my last wish. Bob was particularly quick to express his disapproval of it.

“Of course, why not?” He came to me, growling and cracking his fingers before my face. His eyes were cold and malicious. “Let me just hop into the car, and I’ll fetch you a six-pack so you drink up one bottle and juggle the rest, alright?”

I looked at him sourly but ignored his biting remark, and I turned to the far more civilized Larry. I had to pull another card out of my sleeves—even the weakest one—because it was now a matter of life and death.

“Listen to me.” Being in a hurry to save myself, I pleaded. “You know I’ve known all your deals for a very long time, right? I would’ve done it already if I wanted to mess with you. But that’s not what I care about! As far as I’m concerned, you can still go on with your smuggling business, bribing the officials, money laundering, transfers to offshore bank accounts, and everything else. Why put it all at risk by killing me for no reason?”

Here, I wisely paused for a moment before telling them I knew all about the submarines full of drugs crisscrossing the Caribbean Sea, the blackmailing of high-ranking politicians, and the buying up of federal judges. I recently watched a movie about Pablo Escobar, and my imagination was running really wild.

“So why don’t we cut ourselves a deal instead?” I continued hesitantly. “If you let me go,” at this moment, I stirred uneasily under the table because my position there was too unconvincing, hurting my image of a powerful man capable of stopping the entire drug smuggling between the Americas all by himself, “I won’t give you any more troubles. I’ll let you finish your deal undisturbed, and as a token of goodwill, I’ll serve Sonya’s head to you on a silver platter!”

Then I stopped talking at last. Geez, I really wish I had done that earlier! I felt like a second-class actor on fire who had gotten way too far and said all the lines of all the characters in the play instead of only his own.

When I finished my plea, my two pals looked at me, puzzled and confused. At least, I thought they were confused because they didn’t react at first. Larry was particularly touched because he coughed delicately while Bob only smacked his lips twice.

“So you say you’ll give us Sonya on a silver platter?” After thinking about my offer, Baldy broke the heavy silence. “Is that right?”

I gave him an enthusiastic nod, and what the devil made me do afterward, I couldn’t even begin to understand. Instead of keeping my mouth shut, I opened it again, and with pathos strong enough for the opening scene in a movie about the Trojan War, I said, “I swear to all the gods, the bitch will regret her vile betrayal till the end of her earthly days!”

No one reacted to my solemn and totally inadequate oath. Whether the bitch was going to regret anything or not, and until when, I didn’t have the slightest idea, but I would have surely laughed my ass off if I were them and I had heard myself declaring such a hollow and ridiculous phrase.

“And you won’t tell anybody about the money laundering or bribed officials?” Larry wanted to be sure.

“Not a single word!”

“And we’re keeping our numerous offshore bank accounts?”

“All of them!”

“You swear?”

“I swear to the gods!”

At this point, I already knew it was the end of my little dog-and-pony show here. I felt like a worldwide champion in a triathlon of idiotism, cretinism, and imbecility. The two drug dealers obviously thought so, too, and it was only natural because I was clearly too good at it.

“I think he’s got no idea what he’s talking about.” After a short pause, Bob announced my death sentence. “He’s a complete jerk!”

“Yeah, I think so too!” Larry agreed, and then he turned to me.

“You know, we’re so thankful for your willingness to spare our lives!” he assured me in an affected theatrical manner. “We really appreciate your courtesy, and to express our endless gratitude, we’ll let you pick the way you die. Basically, there are two options: Bob could crack your scull open with his knucks, or we could hang you upside down on that hook over there. Which one do you prefer?”

He showed me the hook they used to suspend their boxing bag. Both choices he offered seemed equally barbaric and unacceptable to me. It was also rude of him to make me choose such a thing. It almost felt like having the patient’s measurements taken for a funeral suit before sending him for surgery in the hospital.

I turned my eyes away from the hook without saying anything and desperately started assessing my chances of survival. Soon, I realized that there was nothing to assess at all. My head was totally empty except for the trivial bluff that the police were waiting outside, ready for an assault, which they definitely wouldn’t buy. It seemed that the only thing I could do before dying for a second time was at least know how I was killed the previous one. So I braced myself and asked them.

“Wow! You’re really a sick son of a bitch, Mellrow! Do you realize that? You need to go to a psychiatrist!” Larry shook his bald head instead of giving me the answer. Bob, on his part, took my innocent question as an attempt to ridicule them, and he promptly came to me, wagging his knuckles in front of my eyes.

“Do you know how quickly you’ll remember everything if I whack your face a couple of times with this thing?” he hissed.

I looked at him. He was a terrible and very stupid bloke, for sure. To threaten me with his brass thingy without using it, as if I had no idea what it was used for, seemed immature. Besides, he involuntary spat in my face while doing so. I tried to turn my head and wipe my cheek on my shoulder, and my gesture embarrassed him. He suddenly put his knucks into his pocket and strolled to the distant wall, where he stood up, facing it.

“So we’re back to the hanging now!” Larry suddenly announced in a businesslike manner. He raised his head to look at the hook again. “Are you sure? I’ve heard the victims shit themselves after hanging on the rope for half an hour. Is that how you want people to remember you?”

“I’m not so sure about the shitting,” I mumbled without looking up. “I’ve heard it differently. I’ve heard these victims rarely have the chance to die because of the unexpected ramifications.”

“Yeah? What unexpected ramifications?” He looked at me, surprised.

“Well, the cops who would storm in, for example. They often wait outside, ready, you know.”

He smiled condescendingly at me.

“Let’s get back to the shitting, okay? Leave the cops alone for now,” Baldy decided to continue the virtual forensic session after my death. “I’m terribly curious whether you’d shit yourself through the mouth if we hung you upside down. What do you think?”

“I really doubt it!” I tried to discourage him. “It’s a long way from the large intestine back to the throat, and besides, I haven’t had any meals since yesterday.”

“I beg to differ about the meals!” Larry challenged my humble opinion. “Your bowels always have something aside. I’m actually sorry you won’t be alive to acknowledge my point when I prove it.”

At this moment, Bob suddenly finished his self-imposed punishment in the corner and angrily turned to us.

“Oh, cut this fucking bullshit already, both of you! You’re starting to piss me off!” He roared angrily, and this time—to my horror—his partner agreed without any objections.

The jerks quickly untied my hands from the table leg and tied them in front of me, after which they dragged me out of the shack. The cool night air caressed my face, and the gentle breeze ruffled my hair. The moon was in the sky now, and the latter was full of big, flickering stars. Their bright reflections sparkled on the water’s surface like fireflies, making the bay shine in romantic bluish twilight. It all looked like a fairy tale.

“It’s an evening too beautiful to die,” I thought dejectedly. “It’s such a shame I won’t see the sunrise!”

The two scumbags didn’t let me enjoy the poetry of night, though, and they roughly pushed me toward the empty parking space beside their shack. It was crammed with scrap metal and other garbage, and I saw two cars among everything. One was a nineteen-seventy-five Plymouth Fury, and the other was an ancient, beaten Ford. It looked exactly like the car Lara and I had rented.

“Still want that beer?” Bob pushed me again as he breathed in my ear, listening tensely. The damn cat that spooked me so much on our coming here—quite unfortunate as it seemed—now howled again. It felt like celebrating my imminent death.

“Why?” I asked him, not yet believing I was going to die. I still hoped Lara would come and save my poor ass eventually. “Are you buying?”

“I’m not buying, but if you’re thirsty, you’re in luck!” The bastard grinned. “You’ll have a chance to have a big one this time. I really doubt you’d be able to drink it all!”

In the meantime, while we kept exchanging civilities with Bob, Larry kept rummaging into the trunk of the Chrysler in search of something. He didn’t pay any attention to us.

“What do you mean, ‘if I’m thirsty’? You’re not drowning me, are you?” I suddenly squeaked, having a sobering insight about their true intentions.

“Come on, don’t spoil it. It’s a surprise! You must take a deep breath and avoid strong emotions to save oxygen. A car fills with water for about a minute and a half, and then you’ll be on your own for at least seventy-two hours until they find you.”

At this point, I got really scared at last. The situation seemed hopeless, and I looked around, desperate. Unfortunately, I didn’t see anyone hurrying to save me. The area was empty of people, and even if someone watched in the darkness, I doubted they would care enough. In such a sketchy neighborhood, it equaled committing suicide.

“And you’re willing to destroy an entire Chrysler for me?” I tried my last chance to open a fairly useless discussion about the weapon of crime. “It’d be ridiculous!”

“Well, it’s not exactly a Cadillac! Besides, it won’t be the Chrysler but the Ford. And it’s not like it’s the latest model, you know.”

“But aren’t you afraid that when the police search the area and find the vehicle so close to your shack, you’ll be the first to go on their list of suspects? Especially if you have a record with them, which I believe is your case!”

“You know what? You overthink it!” The jerk scolded me. “When the police find this car—probably at some point next week or maybe even next month—our shack will be already empty, and we’ll be someplace else, on the seaside of another ocean.”

At this moment, Larry finally finished his work in the trunk of the Chrysler and closed it loudly. He had things that looked like rope and a brick in his hands.

I turned my eyes to him, worried. I felt the noose around my neck sharply tightening, and even though I didn’t want to panic prematurely, I had to admit that it would have been so much nicer if I had already been saved.

The drug dealers made me turn around, pushed me onto the backseat of the Ford, and tied my hands to the grab handle, shutting the back door behind me. Since the terrain ahead had no slope, Larry started the engine while stepping on the clutch, and he stuck the gas pedal down using the brick. After that, he adjusted the rearview mirror for me.

“So you could see us waving goodbye!” he explained.

“Thank you very much,” I said in a trembling voice. “I hope we meet again soon!”

“Sure thing! If not here, wait for us in the next world, okay?”

The bastard put the car into first gear and removed his foot from the clutch, after which he slammed the door and did a military salute to me with a grin. Bob only looked at me grimly.

The Ford solemnly moved forward as if leading the Independence Day Parade, heading straight for the pier. No more than thirty yards separated me from the waterfront, and it was high time for Lara to finally appear. She was still missing, though, which was quite discouraging, to say the least. I frantically pulled my hands in an attempt to rip the damn handle off, but it didn’t move. I also tried to stretch my right leg and release the gas pedal, but I couldn’t reach that far in my restrained position in the backseat. The bastards had done their homework well!

At this moment, I began seriously doubting the prospect of my so-called saving. There was simply not enough time left until the deadline—virtual and literal—and besides when I looked outside, I couldn’t see any sign to give me at least a little hope to cling to. I only noticed an ominous pair of eyes staring at me from a garbage pile. It was the horrible cat whose meowing had been bending my ears all night long, and on top of that, it was too dark for me to distinguish if the animal was black or not. Who knows why, but I considered knowing it very important.

Only twenty yards left. Realizing that I was doomed, I sharply pulled myself together and tried to get out of panic mode so I could make the critical decisions at the end of my life. I stretched my lungs as much as possible and took a deep breath. It was so deep that my ears popped, and the world around me darkened from too much strain. At the same time, my mind grappled with the task of finding an innovative way to extract oxygen from water. I was trying to figure out how the fish did it.

At some point, my eyes fell on the approaching ocean, and I looked at it, desperate. Its front was getting closer and closer, and its surface glimmered so beautifully in the night, with flecks of moonlight emerging here and there—just like little mermaids coming up to take a breath. They hypnotized me. Watching them, I suddenly thought Lara must have hidden beneath the pier; there was just no other explanation for why she was still missing! Maybe she was waiting for me right there, ready to pull me out at the last moment—after the scumbags couldn’t see me anymore but before the Ford plopped into the bay. She had indeed thought it through very well. It was the perfect plan!

Only ten yards left, and maddening paranoia quickly gripped my brain. No fucking Lara was waiting under no pier! Why would I still believe in this? The bitch had probably ditched me, and it was already too late for anything. The car quickly shortened its distance to the platform and stepped on it, then crossed along, and when the Ford reached the end, it shook slightly, hesitating whether to dip down or hang there, balancing. My heart skipped a beat, hoping the old wreck would stay like this forever. Alas, in the next second, the vehicle leaned further, and after two more seconds, it noisily collapsed into the ocean, raising a fountain of splashes.

It’s actually quite interesting how quickly a car fills with water. One could think that this entire blister of air, which is inside, will have a tough time getting out—at least that’s how they depict the situation in the movies—but in reality, the blister just makes a short “blup,” and it’s gone. The job is done! Bob had said it would take a minute and a half, but it seemed like a second and a half to me.

Soon, the last pockets of air turned into tiny little bubbles; they slipped through the door rubber seal, and my eyes sadly followed their playful path toward the surface. Now, I had to give up every hope of Lara waiting for me at the bottom. To survive there for so long, she must have turned into a fucking siren.

Eventually, I just couldn’t hold my breath any longer. My lungs hurt terribly, and I had to open my mouth, wheezing and coughing wildly. In my desperation, I gaped like a hippo; I couldn’t even believe I could open my mouth so wide. And then, I immediately jumped on the seat, surprised beyond belief. The drug dealers still waved goodbye in the rearview mirror!

I blinked my eyes a few times, uncertain of what was happening. I needed at least twenty seconds before my blurry mind grasped that I was still in the Ford with my hands tied to the grab handle and that I was still drifting toward the ocean. Apparently, after straining my lungs so much, I had lost consciousness for a few moments—probably because my blood pressure dropped sharply—and now I had to experience every horrible moment so far again. I had to watch, again, the scumbags grinning in the mirror, the ocean approaching threateningly in the front windshield, the terrible cat staring at me from the top of the garbage pile, and my stupid assistant almost tripping on an old tire as she came out from behind a heap of trash without hurrying too much. I also had to watch Larry and Bob reaching their hands to draw out their guns, surprised, eventually grabbing nothing and trying again. At last, I saw the disappointment on their faces when they realized their weapons were inside the shack because they hadn’t expected such a thing to happen.

Almost an eternity passed until my lazy savior dragged her ass to the Ford, opened the front door, placed her butt on the seat, and shut the door behind her. We were moving at less than ten miles per hour, but we were a mere couple of feet from stepping on the platform, so the situation was critical.

“Move away, goddamn you!” Lara roared angrily and pushed my right leg, which I still had stuck between the front seats after my vain attempt to save myself. She almost broke my knee while doing it.

Then she grabbed the steering wheel and sharply turned it to the left. Before the drug dealers’ flabbergasted eyes, the car swerved along the alley, avoiding the pier in the last possible second, and then we sank into the darkness behind the docks. The entire time, the scumbags didn’t move at all. They were so shocked that it didn’t even occur to them to hop into the Chrysler and catch up with us. They would have done it in minutes with the speed at which we moved.

Soon, they disappeared behind our backs.

Still feeling dizzy and barely understanding what was happening around me, I only raised my head slightly and asked, “Was it really black?”

“Was what black?” Lara grunted in the rearview mirror, surprised and confused.

“The cat.”

“What cat? What the hell are you talking about?” She snapped and almost broke my knee again while trying to change gears.

For the first time doing it, she actually coped pretty well. I should admit, it wasn’t bad at all, and she drove me like this—tied to the grab handle—all the way to our miserable hotel without saying anything more.

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