“What’s going on?”
“The painting’s off the wall with back ripped open-right where I said the stones would be.”
“Guess Steve had the room number after all.”
“They’re busy taking the place apart, the perfect diversion.” Serge stuck the tube back in his pocket and pulled a gun from his waistband. “Extraction team ready?”
“Ready.”
Serge silently slipped his magnetic room key in the slot. A green light came on. He burst through the door. “Freeze.”
They stopped where they stood. “We’re here to fix the phone.”
Serge pulled a pair of wrist straps from his back pocket and handed them to Coleman. “Both of you: Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
“We want a lawyer.”
Coleman finished and stepped away. Serge walked up to test the tightness of the straps. “Lawyer? Why? Drawing up a will?”
“You’re not cops?”
“You wish. I mean that earnestly.”
“So you’re really a courier?”
“Strike two.”
“Then who are you?”
“Very close personal friend of Howard Long.”
“Howard?”
“Florida souvenir guy. Intensive care thanks to you.”
The hostages shot each other a knowing look, then over their shoulders to Serge: “That was never supposed to happen …”
“It’s our boss …”
“He’s crazy!”
“Bet I can give him a run for his money.” Serge opened the lower dresser drawer and removed an empty yellow legal pad. He clicked open a pen. “I’m going to need the names and addresses of everyone in the gang, your fences, where you’re currently staying, everyone you’ve hit in the last six months, who you’re planning to hit next, the location of all stashed gems, and personal preference: Ginger or Mary Ann?”
“What?”
“Threw that in to see if you’re listening.” Serge leaned over the pad with his pen. “Ready when you are …”
“He’ll kill us …” “We’re not telling you shit…”
Serge dragged a pair of chairs in front of the entertainment center. “Wilma or Betty?”
“You’re crazy.”
“Told you. Time’s up.” Serge waved his gun toward the chairs. “Have a seat. We now proceed to the consolation round.” He opened the drawer again and removed a second legal pad. This one covered with crude drawings. Serge rapidly flipped pages: deep pits full of snakes, vats of acid, catapults, homemade guillotine, jugs of poison with skulls on the side, mad scientist giant laser, large pool with circling shark fins-all containing bloody stick figures, some in pieces, others with flames or electricity bolts. Serge tapped his chin with the pen. “What will it be?…”
Water was running in the bathroom sink. Coleman’s voice: “I can’t get the stink off.”
Serge stopped tapping his chin and looked up with big eyes. “Coleman! That’s it! You’ve done it again!” He tossed the legal pad back in the drawer and kicked it closed with a foot. “This way I don’t have to use up any of my ideas. They’ll all still remain eligible for the playoffs.” He ran to a suitcase, pulling out several coils of rope and rolls of gray adhesive. “Duct tape again-I should buy voting stock … Hold still. This won’t take long.”
“What are you planning?”
“Ever watch Flip That House?”
“What?”
Serge worked industriously with the rope and tape. Repeated loops and triple knots, between their legs, around chest and necks, up behind their backs, threaded under arms, circling chair legs and ankles, until little of them was left showing. “Fairness is very big with me. Give everyone a chance, I always say. So if you can get free from your bindings by morning, before my plan has a chance to fully bloom, you’re free to go. My word of honor. Except the odds are against it. You never want to get tied up by an obsessive-compulsive. We over-engineer everything.” Serge finished the last knot, fastening them securely to the chairs, which in turn were rigidly held in place with ten large loops around the giant TV cabinet. Then mouths were finally silenced with another excessive amount of duct-tape head wrapping. “Stay here. Have to make a quick trip to the hardware store.” He ran out the door.
Coleman returned from the bathroom and sat on the edge of a bed with a beer. He smiled at the men, then turned on the TV with the remote. Three’s Company. “Could you move your heads?”
A half hour later, Serge burst back through the door with shopping bags, two large cardboard boxes and overflowing zest. “You’re in luck: found everything I needed.” He dumped the bags on the bed, grabbed a pair of scissors and the cardboard.
Serge’s ensuing labor was dedicated, furious and made no obvious sense. Soon, the captives found their heads resting inside the boxes, poking up through round holes in the bottom Serge had cut, their necks sealed to the openings with tape. Then more tape held the boxes fast against the entertainment cabinet. The men looked straight up through the open cardboard tops. Serge looked back down. Something was in each hand, which he enthusiastically thrust in their faces. “Know what these are? Bet you do, if you think hard. Take a guess! Coleman knows. People usually don’t even notice-and now the people on the top floors of this hotel can’t, because I snatched all the automatic air-fresheners from the walls. Internal timer triggers an actuator that presses the button on top of an aerosol can at olfactory intervals predetermined by focus groups.” Serge gave them each a manual squirt. “Lilac.” He popped covers off the dispensers and discarded the cans of freshener. “Have to modify these so my replacement cans fit. Be right back.” He disappeared from view. The hostages heard a high-pitched buzzing sound and struggled without result.
“Dremel hobby tool if you’re curious,” said an unseen Serge. “Sands, polishes, drills, cuts. Million and one uses. Now, million and two.” More buzzing. Then, abruptly, quiet.
Serge appeared again at the top of the boxes, literally bouncing. He held up a prototype of his new device, which had been sliced in half and reassembled with a cardboard stent to accommodate the new, taller cans.
“And I replaced the batteries with the super-alkaline ones in those commercials that show someone narrowly averting a horrible death, and tearful loved ones say, ‘Thank God for these batteries!’ Don’t want an operational failure at the crucial moment.” The device was stuck in their faces again. “Recognize the product? It’s great stuff. That’s really its name: Great Stuff.”
Serge pulled the dispenser back. “Revolutionary breakthrough for the do-it-yourself home improvement crowd! Seals wall fittings around pipes so roaches and rats can’t squeeze through, insulates voids in walls and under baseboards. But you ask, Serge, how on earth can such a reasonably priced product do all that? I’ll tell you! Revolutionary chemical breakthrough! These cans slowly squirt an innocuous gooey liquid foam, like whipped cream except yellow. If whipped cream ever comes out yellow, take shortcake off the menu that night. Where was I? The foam! When it first dispenses from the pump, it appears useless-and you look questioningly at the can: I got fucked! But then something miraculous happens. The yellow slurry eventually expands until it’s ten times original size! And after reaching full volume, the foam begins to cure until a few hours later it’s hard as a rock. I see the question in your eyes. I don’t know how it works either. But I don’t understand cathode rays, and I still watch TV.”
Serge went back to the bed and returned with an armload of his newly customized air-freshening dispensers. “Figured three per customer should do the trick.” He taped them around the lips of the boxes. “One for you, and one for you. Another one for you, and another … hey, look, one of the timers already went off and squirted.”