Chapter 10: The Skull of Doom, Part 10

EPISODE with JASON "SWINGO" JONAS

September, 2007

HEATH, OHIO

1

A middle-sized young white man enters a sparely-furnished, ample-sized room lit brightly from overhead. He carries a briefcase like a lawyer on the way to a meeting. His stylish sports lenses make him look professorial, and he is dressed like a teacher walking between classes on a crisp New England day: a white button-down shirt, khaki pants, and a charcoal herringbone blazer that could be a Harris tweed. On top of it all is a black vest with many pockets that surge as though holding a few hard, dense objects. Something clinks as he drapes the vest over its back rest of a rolling chair.

The room appears to be the conference space of an industrial building. It holds only a wastebasket; a long, heavy table; and a dozen chairs about it. At the middle of the table sits a large, broad, powerful-looking man. He has curly dark hair and a short beard and mustache. His forehead has a bruise. He wears a Cleveland Browns sweatshirt partly torn at the neck, revealing a T-shirt likewise torn. Curly chest hair sprouts above it. The man's forearms are extended across the table, each wrist wearing a plastic, police-style handcuff, the other link of which is laced through the long cable of a bike lock fixed at each end to a leg of the table.

The slender man hangs his jacket on top of the chair that holds the vest, then gives it a tap with his foot and watches it roll across the room to a gentle stop against the wall. With vest and jacket off, he looks half the size of the man across the table from him. He sets the briefcase on the seat of the chair beside him, opens it, and takes out a clipboard holding a legal pad and a pen, which he sets on the table before him. Then he draws his own chair up and takes a position opposite the big man.

"Now we can talk," he says.

"What do you think we're gonna talk about," says the big man, "except when I'm gonna kick your ass for you all over this county, you fucking fairy!" He rattles the cable, folds his hands at the far edge of the table, and nearly picks it up.

The man in the jacket puts a hand on the table and casually drives it back to the floor. He looks disappointed. "Look, Joe - I can call you Joe, right? - I was hoping we could have a friendly conversation together. All I need is a bit of information. I tried talking to you this afternoon and you didn't have much time for me. Now... We've got nothing but."

"My crew is on the hunt now," says the big man. "I'm gonna enjoy this."

The smaller man leans over the table on his elbows, raises his right hand over his eyes, and looks down. As if thinking, he rubs the center of his forehead with the tips of the third and ring fingers of his right hand. "Oh, yeah," he says. "If you're thinking about the Sopranos out there, Alto and Mezzo, well... They're in timeout. They'll wake up with headaches." He sets two cell phones beside him on the table. "You can give them these in the morning. I left their pics on there."

The big man rattles the cuffs again, trying to lift the table.

"Now listen, Joe," says the smaller man. "The only thing I'm after is just a bit of information. Do I have your understanding?"

The big man rattles the cuffs again and pounds his fists into the table. His fury is terrifying.

"I'll take that as a sign of enthusiasm," says the smaller man. "I'm enthusiastic, too. Now, how about we start over?" He reaches to the briefcase on a chair beside him, produces a neat, glossy photograph, and sets it on the table in sight but not reach of his companion. It is the unmistakable image of a glassy human lower jaw, with perfect teeth. Seen from the side and just above, it rests like a jewel on a blue felt pillow. The picture appears to have been taken in a drab room much like the one they are in. The smaller man holds the photograph up and gazes past it, moving it in the air as if comparing the wall and fixtures in the photograph to the room around them. In just a few seconds he holds it still. The picture was taken in the same room.

"We have a match!" he says brightly. "Just like that! I wish you could see this from where you are, Joe. Now, don't try to tell me you don't know anything about this."

The larger man glares.

"I'm trying to get some information about a certain object that may have been found at, near, or about one of the Native American monuments in the state of Ohio," says the smaller man. "It's related to this. I know you recognize it. Now, I'm going to ask you a few questions. Some of them I know the answer to and some I don't. And I'm going to ask you to be open with me when you talk to me. Are we maintaining our understanding?"

"Yeah, we are," says the bigger man. "I'm not going to tell you nothing. And I'm going to tear your fucking nuts out before I kill you. How's that for an understanding?"

The smaller man takes on the expression of a teacher who has been rebuked by a burly student. Then he appears to recover his confidence. He takes off his glasses and sets them beside him. "Now, listen," he begins. "Joe. I take it I can call you Joe, right? I'm Jake. How you doing? You good? Doing good?" The big man glares. The wire through which the handcuffs are laced creaks menacingly.

"Joe, there are a couple guys out there who don't look at things the way I do." He nods back toward the open door. "Not at all. They're much less patient than I am. Much less trusting. They don't trust human nature, Joe. That's a sad thing, isn't it?" He looks straight at the big man across the table as if sharing an emotional realization.

"Well, Joe, I'm different from them. I still have some trust in human nature. I told them that I thought you were a businessman. You run a couple businesses. You have this trucking company, you have the bars, you have the oil rights recovery stuff... Some other enterprises not everybody knows about. The trucking helps you cover up all the deliveries, I understand all that. A businessman. You understand situations. I told those guys that you would try to help us out. I asked them if I could just come in here and talk to you. If they come in here, they're not going to start out talking."

"You don't have anybody out there you fucking fairy!" yells the big man, tightening the cable again. He lunges for the throat of the smaller man like a snarling pit bull coming to the end of its leash. The lunge misses by inches. The table rises.

The smaller man doesn't blink. He presses the table back down with a hand. "You're being way too emotional about this, Joe," he says. "I hate it when things get emotional. So unnecessary. But it will all end up the same way. The guys out there are going to see to it. And I'd like us to stay with the possibility, Joe, of us maybe being able to work together in the future if we need to. We might be able to help you through some situations that are likely to come up. And we can avoid any kind of unpleasantness with just a little direct communication."

"Like what are 'they' gonna do to me that'll get me to say word one?" snarls the big man with half a smile.

The smaller man looks confounded. His expression becomes that of someone searching for the answer to a trick question. His hand goes to his forehead like before in what is obviously his reflex gesture of thinking. Then he reaches quickly and perfunctorily under the table toward the briefcase on the seat of the chair beside him, hauls up a contractor's nail gun, presses it on top of the big man's left hand, and swiftly fixes the meat of it to the table. A small drizzle of blood runs around it onto the brown lacquered surface.

[To Be Continued...]