Misplaced Innocence (26 page)

As if Charisma hadn’t already figured that much out.
 

~*~

Time ceased to be relevant. Charisma lost any concept of time as she drifted in and out of consciousness. At some point she realized she was beginning to spend a little more time aware of her surroundings than not, but she still wasn’t sure that was an entirely good thing. A combination of throbbing, dull, aches and sharp stabbing pains radiated from nearly every part of her body.
 
The pain, in addition to her nauseated stomach, made Charisma almost wish she weren’t conscious at all. She struggled to stay awake because the thought of not knowing what was coming next was more frightening than the pain.

Without warning, the elevator doors clanged open. Freddie scurried up from his position on the floor and assumed his most nonchalant pose against the available surface of a support beam. Charisma could hear the soft scuffle of feet as Frankie paced anxiously in the vicinity behind her, torn between feeling justified in Charisma’s abuse and terrified that his boss might not approve. Or worse, that he might have wanted to use that violence for other, more important, things like information acquisition. Dom sat in the chair in front of her, flashed his eyes towards her and announced, quite unnecessarily, “He’s here.”

Charisma’s heart sank. The heavy, resigned note in Dom’s voice seemed to take the rest of her vague hope away. She didn’t know what she could do for herself now. Her plan had utterly failed; besides leaving her mauled, no one had been able to find her in time. Her last glimmer of rescue seemed to dwindle away.

From around the corner, a tall man in the requisite black suit appeared. His beer belly strained the middle button of his blazer slightly. A cigar rested casually between his lips, almost more of an extension of his self than an accessory. Smoke curled from the hot end in wispy tendrils that climbed lazily toward the ceiling.
 

“Well,” he said with a stony, emotionless face, “it took you fools long enough to get here.”
 

Silent reverence followed. The three men knew there would be no sense in arguing that a journey by car from Arizona to New Jersey was going to take a while regardless of how many angry mobster bosses were breathing down your neck. It was all for show anyhow. What mattered was that they had made it and Charisma was still safely in their grasp.

He grunted when no one responded. “Well,” he said, turning his attention to Charisma. “Let’s get started, my evasive beauty.” There was a new glint in his eye that she could hear clearly in his voice. This was the part he had been waiting for. A new chill swept through her abused body. “You will tell me” he remarked casually, turning briefly to Dom, “why she looks like this later.”

Freddie and Frankie exchanged looks and swallowed audibly. Dom shook his head and grimaced. That conversation would not be pretty.

“Now, this can be simple, or this can be difficult. You get to decide how it will be. It’s very simple. If you tell me where your boyfriend is, I will let you go.” He tossed his hands up in the air as if to finish the sentence with, ‘and if you don’t, I can’t say how things might end.’

Charisma didn’t say anything. She wasn’t sure if she should just make something up, or go with the truth. Either way, she doubted she would ever be set free.
 

“And, if you lie…. Trust me, I will know if you lie. We will verify the information before you leave, of course, and if it is faulty, I will have to kill you.” There was an ominous edge to his words, as though it would be nothing more than an unpleasant task; nothing more exciting than taking out to trash.

Truth, definitely. Charisma didn’t need to think very long or hard about that. They had tracked her down from across the country. There was actually very little she doubted they couldn’t do. Now didn’t seem like the time to test those boundaries. “I don’t have a boyfriend,” she muttered around her swollen lips without lifting her head.

“I don’t care. You know who I’m talking about. Where is John Daniels?”

It was the first time she’d heard his name in years. The sound brought back with it a rush of unfortunate memories and now unfamiliar feelings. “I don’t know.” She forced the words out. They were the bitter truth. She hadn’t seen that man since the incident. She tried not to think of him. She closed her eyes, knowing that she would never be believed. “I swear.” The words were barely audible.
 

“I don’t believe you.” The worse were terse, effective. “I will give you one more chance,” There was a long pause. “Before I will become more, shall we say, insistent.”

“Since that night on the street, outside the club. I swear, I haven’t seen him again. We talked on the phone. I told him I couldn’t do this any more, couldn’t be a part of this double life he lived. I was getting out.” The words spilled out uncontrollably, in an attempt to make them understand she wasn’t lying. It was all too true. The panic in her voice betrayed the images flooding her brain. Images of him, on the street corner, illuminated only by the pink and blue fluorescent lights of the neon sign, eyes wide with horror. The mobster, who had followed them out, yelled at them in increasingly angry tones. Not that it was an alarmingly unusual experience. Someone was always yelling at somebody else about something. This time it had been about money. Missing money.
 
Afterward, she saw him staring at what he had done, gun in hand, not sure he had meant what had happened. And the girl, lying on the ground, blood seeping around her, her innocent body broken, mangled.

Tears welled up in her eyes as the scene she had spent so long trying to repress swept through her mind, flooding her senses.

“We were on the corner,” she breathed heavily. It was like it was happening all over again. She could taste the pain and metallic fear on her tongue. She remembered the heavy way reality had overwhelmed her. She wasn’t just some coed involved in a romantic affair. “We ran one way, the man ran the other. We ended up in an alley and I told him I was done, I swear.” She remembered the feel of his chest beneath her fists as she beat him with them, the ragged sound of her voice and the taste of her tears. “I told him that I knew something like this would happen, that I had told him to come clean and he refused, and Donna....” She couldn’t bear to think about the way her friend would toss her head back, the sound of her laughter and the way her smile made her blue eyes positively twinkle. It had been months before she stopped waking up thinking she had heard the sound of her laughter again. “I told him I wouldn’t be a part of it anymore. I told him I was out. ‘Don’t call the cops,’ he begged. “I told him I never wanted to see him again. It didn’t stop him from calling, from trying, but I meant it. I was done.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks, leaking from her swollen eyes. “Please, I swear. That’s the way it happened. I don’t know where he is, just let me go, you have the wrong girl.”

“So you claim you never saw him again.” She could almost hear it in his voice, the disbelief. Or the anger that maybe all their effort had been for naught.
 

She choked back tears, murmured her confirmation, tried to regain her composure.

“And you have no idea where he is?”

She nodded. Her stomach somersaulted. Maybe she had a chance.

“But you saw what happened. And now you know who we are…” Benedict didn’t have to say the rest for Charisma to catch his horrifying meaning.
 
What little hope she had dissipated.
 

“No. I mean, I didn’t see anything. I mean, I heard a gun shot. I didn’t see who it was….” She trailed off. It was obvious where this was going. Bad didn’t even begin to describe this situation. “I couldn’t even pick him out of a crowd.”

“Well if you don’t know where Mr. Daniels is, then you are no use to us anyhow. Shame. Dispose of her,” he said with a wave of his hand. Without another word, he turned toward the door.

“But we traveled so far for her!” Freddie interjected, disbelief etched in his words, as Dom rolled his eyes with an expression that couldn’t have more clearly said, ‘amateur.’
 
But Charisma was too involved in Benedict’s statement to take any notice.
 

“Yes. And now you are going to kill her,” Benedict said with a sneer. “And next time you question me you will be killed too, consider this your only second chance.”

“Yes, sir.” Freddie’s voice positively warbled.

“Wait!” Charisma scrambled, unnerved by the sudden rush of feet, some moving toward her and some away. “Wait! I’m sure I can be useful.” She grappled for what to say next. Something that would make her seem more useful than she really was.

“I need to find John Daniels. You cannot help me and you have seen too much.” his words were bland, matter-of-fact.
 

“I,” she stammered, “I don’t know. I can think of something, I just—”
 

“Enough!” Benedict yelled. “I am through with her. This is nothing more than a waste of my time. Benedict nodded at Dom, who closed his eyes briefly before pulling back the side of his blazer to reveal a revolver. He untucked it from its holster at his waist.
 

Charisma went numb. She wanted to cry out, but she couldn’t. that was where she always thought she would end up. Only usually she didn’t envision herself tied to a chair beaten to a bloody pulp.
 

But Benedict had turned and was ignoring her as he walked away. She knew what would happen; it was almost a clip from every gangster movie she had ever seen. They would wait until the elevator doors closed, until Benedict was out of earshot, before he pulled the trigger.

“I have his phone number!” she blurted out

“What?” Benedict stopped in his tracks without turning around. “What did you say?”

“I, I have his cell phone number!” She couldn’t keep her voice down; panic imbued itself into every word.

“I do too, you idiot; he changed it.” he said with exasperation at her clearly desperate attempt.
 

“I have his new one. His second one.” Words tumbled out. She wasn’t even sure what she was saying.

“Why would he have two?” Freddie wondered out loud.

“He lived a double life,” she offered, weakly, more than expecting that the reason would be quickly rejected by the men. She was surprised when her logic seemed to be good enough for Benedict and he turned away from the door and returned to her side.

She wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip through her fingers. She had already wasted too many chances. She kept talking, thinking now the more she could say the more likely he might hear something worth keeping her alive for. “I called him, when I escaped.” She let her eyes flicker in the direction of Frankie and Freddie. Their secret was out now. “I thought if I could get to him, explain where I was he would feel obligated to help, since he is the reason I’m here.” She was lying through her teeth; she just wished she knew if they were buying it. One thought spilled out of her mouth after the other, unfiltered by any sort of reasonable process.
 

“I don’t believe you,” Frankie interjected, speaking to her for the first time since his fists had connected with her flesh. In fact, he had hardly looked at her. She wondered if it was guilt that kept his eyes averted. She entertained the idea for all of two seconds before discarding it. That was next to impossibly unlikely. “You called him Jared.” The accusation lay heavy in the space between them.

She swallowed. She hadn’t believed Frankie would be quick enough to remember anything she had said. In fact, she didn’t even recall saying Jared’s name at all. “I always did,” she lighted on, “it’s his middle name.”
 

“It is not,” Benedict interrupted flatly.

Charisma began to scramble. She could almost feel this new glimmer of hope begin to slip away. “It’s not the one he uses in public. You know how it is. John Jared Daniels? That’s a horrible name for any self-respecting politician. Some sort of family name. Uncle or something. It was our special thing. It made me feel like I knew him better than the whole world, what with everything being so public. He liked it when I called him that.”

Benedict grunted in what might have been taken for as an acceptance of the explanation. “Call him. Tell him to meet you here, outside, on the corner of 5
th
and Clayton.” Benedict’s eyes narrowed. He was daring her to do it, waiting for her to fail so he could take his kill. “If it isn’t him, you will die more painfully than you could ever think possible.”

Fact. You couldn’t argue with that.

“It’s him. Can I go to the phone?” she asked tentatively.

They untied her hands and tossed her a cell phone, leaving her feet neatly tied. She redialed the number, and for the first time in a long time things were going well. Or what could be called well, all things considered.
 

Charisma pressed the button and held her breath. The phone rang, once, twice. Each unanswered ring left her breath coming faster, terrified that she might go to voicemail. On the fifth ring, Jared’s familiar voice came through the receiver. She almost sobbed.
 

“Hello?” His voice was strained, tense. She wondered where he was right now, at his table eating dinner or lying in his warm bed, where she wished more than ever she could be.
 

“John.” She said the words emphatically, as if she could say it with enough conviction to make him suddenly believe his name was, in fact, John. “It’s me, Candy.” She wanted to say things quickly enough that he didn’t have time to interrupt her, to correct her in front of the others, but slowly enough that he would understand what she was asking. She held her breath, praying that he would play along and not tell her she had the wrong number, or do any of the million different things that would be perfectly reasonable responses to this bizarre call. And even though she was moments away from having her last breath, hearing his voice brought a wave of comfort crashing through her body.
 

~*~

“It’s her; it’s the same area code!” Jared’s voice rose with anxiety as he recognized the number on his caller ID. Was it possible that Charisma had gotten back to a phone? After the deadening silence that had followed her last, brief phone call he had lost hope for her safe return.