The Humanist Read online

  Alan laughed. “Take a look around you. What do you think this room represents?”

  I looked around. Honestly, it didn’t tell me too much at all.

  I was working up another question when the door swung open. I looked up. Talon dragged in a chair, scraping its legs on the concrete like fingers on a blackboard. He closed the door and eased himself down on the chair.

  “Well, now,” he groaned, as if the mere thought of being in the room tired him. “We have some business to attend to.” He looked at Alan. “Jefferson, you accused our newest member here, Jones, of cheating. Now, this is something we take seriously, very seriously.”

  He pulled out a gun from the back of his pants. It was a black short-nosed revolver. Smith & Wesson was etched on the side of the barrel. It’s amazing how much detail you can see in the face of possible death. I’m not even a fan of guns or any of that stuff.

  Talon leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, the gun hanging loosely in his hands, as if he didn’t care for it, either.

  “Now, either you accused someone of cheating who wasn’t...” he said, pointing the gun at Alan, leaving his sentence and firearm hanging. Then he pointed it at me. “Or you did cheat.”

  I stared at the end of the barrel, waiting for the flash, or the gunshot, an explosion of gunpowder. I wondered if I would see it before I heard it.

  “Either way,” Talon continued, “we’ve got a mess to clean up, I’ve got to keep order. Now, as you know, not everyone in there is totally above board and legit. In fact, some of them are downright assholes.” He leaned back in the chair. “But I got to keep them in line. If they smell blood, there’ll be a mutiny. If people start accusing other people of cheating, with nothing but a bad taste in their mouth, then this little world we have here will come crashing down to nothing.” He stood. “I just can’t let that happen. Way too much riding on this. So, I don’t care if I gotta whack a long-time player or a scapegoat, if I need to pluck out some eyeballs with my fingers, I will. To be honest, I don’t care either way.” He waved the gun between us.

  Alan squared up and pulled his jacket tight defiantly. I, on the other hand, was kind of shitting my pants. I wondered if it would hurt or how long it would take.

  “So, who’s it gonna be?” Talon taunted. “Any volunteers?”

  Silence. As you would expect.

  He laughed. A little at first, then a gut-busting roar. I watched him in terror, my eyes wide, realizing I was in the presence of a complete nut job.

  “I’m just kidding.” He looked at me. “Shit, you should’ve seen your face!” He continued laughing. He backed away, his joyous cackle echoing against the walls. He opened the door, disposed of his gun, and retrieved something else. He then turned, holding up a machete. It looked either dirty or rusted. The once sharp blade had a series of nicks taken out of it at random intervals, giving it a rough, serrated appearance.

  Talon dropped his maniacal smile, and his face darkened. “The punishment for cheating isn’t death. You just get to lose a part of your body.”

  He stepped toward me. “So, kid, you have a preference?”

  Chapter 16

  “A preference for what?” I attempted to ask as I backed away, the last few words getting caught in my throat and coming out garbled.

  “I mean,” Talon said as he held up the machete, “do you want me to take your left or your right hand?”

  “My what? Why the fuck do you want to do that?”

  Talon stepped forward, like a lion stalking its prey. “If I catch you stealing, you need to pay the price. Here, under my roof, cheating is the same as stealing.”

  I looked over to Alan. He was still standing there, obstinately, waiting to see what the outcome would be. He crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes set in a hard stare.

  I held up my hands. “I stole nothing! I didn’t cheat!”

  “He says you did!” Talon swung the machete toward Alan.

  “Fuck him!” I followed up. “He’s a fucking liar!”

  Alan reared up. “Of course, you fucking cheated!” He stepped forward, avoiding the blade that was still pointing in his direction. “I saw him do it, Talon. He’s in with that damn dealer. Dropped an eight on the flop! I mean, really!”

  “Who gives a shit about an eight?”

  “I give a shit when it gives him three of a kind.”

  “Trips? Really?”

  “Yeah,” Alan said. “It’s bullshit. That damn dealer is in on the act. Must’ve been.”

  “So, the dealer should be in here, not the kid?”

  “That fucking kid is in on it.” His face was red. “I can feel it. I guarantee it!”

  Talon looked at me. “Hold out your hand.”

  I froze. I couldn’t believe what the hell was going on.

  “I told you,” I said, slowly, evenly. “I didn’t cheat.”

  “I know,” Talon said. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

  All the color drained from Alan’s face. “Now...” he managed. “Now, just a minute.”

  Talon turned. “No. I’ve reviewed the footage—very closely. You know how seriously I take this. There’s nothing to suggest anything untoward took place, aside from extremely good luck. I mean, an eight on the flop, who’d have thought!”

  “But, Talon, he must have cheated. He must have!”

  “Hold out your hand.” The instruction was firm, like a tired teacher directing a class of four-year-old’s about how to do trigonometry.

  Alan started to, but then he retreated.

  “Please, Talon. Don’t do this.”

  “You know the rules.”

  “But—”

  “Now, Alan. You can either lose two fingers or lose the whole hand. I don’t give a shit which. You just figure which is better for your game.”

  Alan looked down at his hands. I tried to imagine what was going through his mind. Was he actually considering which was better? Where was his innate desire to survive, to escape pain? Why wasn’t he fighting? Why didn’t he make a break for the door? Because he knew he couldn’t escape—that if he tried, the punishment would be worse.

  He held out his left hand. It shook as Alan lifted it up. Talon approached—rather, stalked. Alan removed the rings that adorned his left hand, then pulled back his fingers, leaving his pinky and ring fingers shaking in the open, like dry leaves blowing in the autumn wind.

  Talon worked up to them, like a snake slithering through the underbrush. His focus was solely on those fingers, not the owner. He opened his mouth as he hypnotically danced around them, his jaw ajar, teeth bared. I didn’t think he would do it. I remembered the story he told me when we first met about how he popped out someone’s eyeball. Back then, I thought it was all fairy tales and bullshit, something made up to scare me into obedience. Boy, had it worked. But the scene in front of me was immensely scarier than all of that.

  Alan looked the other way, preparing to take his medicine. He breathed deeply, waiting for the initial impact, preparing himself for the incision, the crunching of Alan’s teeth on bone. If there was any reason for me to doubt Talon’s sanity, this was it. Surely this was it.

  A whimper. And then the scene stopped. Alan faced me, a bead of sweat running down the length of his brown face. “Fuck you, kid,” he mouthed. Talon, his jaw open, a finger in his mouth, stared at me with contempt. It was then I realized the noise had come from me. I had fucked up the moment. But why I had to be there to witness it, I didn’t know.

  I turned into the corner, squeezed my eyes shut, and placed my hands over my ears.

  But it wasn’t enough to stop the pictures forming in my mind.

  Not enough to block out Alan’s wailing as Talon bit through the bone.

  I vomited, many times—until there was nothing left. I kept my eyes tightly closed. I tried to cleanse my mind, to think of Olivia, my plan, anything to erase the image of Talon biting off two of Alan’s fingers. But it was no good. The more I tried to push it from my mind, the more it intruded in
to my consciousness.

  A hand came to rest on my shoulder. I jumped, then turned, head down, half ashamed of my actions, half scared to look up in case Talon was standing over me with two flesh sausages in his mouth and blood caked on his face.

  “Jesus Christ.” It was Tessa. She held a lit cigarette in her fingers, her arms folded over her breasts, and that disapproving look on her face. “You fucking expect me to clean up this shit? Christ!”

  I shook my head.

  “For the love of God, kid, clean yourself up. Talon wants a word with your skinny ass.”

  Chapter 17

  I found Talon in the parlor. He was sitting at my table, in my seat, stacking chips. He watched me watch him as he piled them into a tower, divided them, and then started again.

  “Sit,” he ordered.

  As I sat down in Alan’s position at the table, I stole a quick glance to Stone, who was sitting in the corner, watching me closely.

  I struggled to look at Talon, instead focused on the chips that still sat in front of us.

  “I’m sure you can appreciate what happened tonight,” he said.

  I put my elbow on the table and rested my head in my hand. “Ah, I’m not sure I do.”

  “Well, it’s quite simple. There are rules, and when someone breaks the rules, consequences need to be delivered. How I choose to exact the punishment is up to me. So, I’m not looking for your agreeance, but I am expecting your acceptance.”

  That is how this world works. I guess I had nothing to worry about. If you did nothing wrong, there was nothing to be concerned with. Be a law-abiding citizen, and you won’t give a shit what the cops do.

  “Consider it done,” I said.

  “Good.” Talon grinned. “As per the rules of engagement, Alan’s chips are now yours. Congratulations. That makes quite a good night, considering the pittance you brought in with you, considering how little you played, how little you risked.”

  “I feel like parts of my body were at risk.”

  “Well, you put yourself in that situation. There’s no point blaming it on Alan. If you hadn’t had made such a point of being a shit, he might not have looked twice at you, even with your lucky break.”

  I didn’t reply. It felt like he was scolding me, like I had done the wrong thing.

  “Listen,” he continued. “You need to work on a bigger kitty.”

  “Yeah,” I said, embarrassed. “I’m working on it.”

  Talon pushed my chips, now stacked in four towers, in my direction. “Work faster.”

  “That reminds me,” I said. “There was something—”

  “You lost me a lot of money tonight,” Talon interrupted.

  “Sorry? I don’t understand.”

  “I said, you. Lost. Me. Money.”

  “How?”

  He pointed to the door. “What we do in there is not what you do out here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In there, we don’t bet on cards. We bet on people.”

  “On people?”

  “Yeah. We bet on who at each table will take home the goods. Do you know how long Alan has been at this table? He had my money. But shit, wouldn’t you know it, you got under his skin. I don’t know how you did it. In fact, I don’t even want to know why you did it. The fact is, it happened. And that set me back. A considerable amount. And you had to pull out an eight on the flop! Goddamn!”

  Praise or contempt? I couldn’t distinguish.

  “The fact is, kid, no one expected it.”

  “I have a way to make it up to you,” I offered.

  Talon raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really, kid? And what would that be?”

  “A business proposition.”

  Talon rolled his eyes big time. Didn’t even attempt to hide it. This would be a hard sell.

  “Just hear me out. Five minutes. If you don’t like it, I’ll bail out and see you next week.”

  Talon checked his watch. “All right, kid, I’m listening, but it had better be good.”

  I took a deep breath. “People are a commodity. You of all people should know that. They are resources that perform, or they don’t. You bet on players’ performances. There are winners and losers out here, and depending on their decisions and your decisions, you either win or lose.”

  “So?”

  “Let me extrapolate. Imagine if everyone, anyone, had a discernible value. And imagine, just like the stock market, you could buy, sell, trade stocks in a person. If their stars on the rise and you buy at the right time, you’ll be on a good wicket. But buy into someone and they get arrested, lose their job, get involved in a smear campaign, and your stocks are in trouble.”

  Talon stroked his moustache. “Sounds like an interesting concept.”

  “More than a concept.” I pulled my phone out of my jacket pocket. “I’ve got an amazing proposition for you.”

  My head slammed into the table with such force the chips fell around me. I yelped and cringed at the impact. My phone skittled over the table surface and into another stack of chips. A pistol cocked. It was that same pistol that had been placed against the side of my head earlier.

  Talon placed his head on the table so we could look at each other.

  “Who the fuck you think you are? Are you a cop?”

  “What? No!”

  “If I ask you, you have to tell me. Now, I’m going to ask you again. Are you a cop?”

  “No!” I reinforced. Shit, I sounded like I was nervous, my voice fluctuated.

  Talon sat up, and I was wretched onto my feet.

  “Now,” Talon said. “Stone will search you. If he finds anything even remotely suspicious, like a plastic sheriff’s badge, things will be very unpleasant for you. Do you believe me?”

  I nodded.

  “What I did to Alan in the other room will feel like a weekend in the Bahamas compared to what will happen to you,” he continued. “You’d be surprised how many parts of the human body can be gnawed or plucked out before someone passes out.”

  “I get the picture,” I said, raising my arms to the side and spreading my legs. “Stone? Do your worst.” Then I considered my words. “But, like, don’t actually do your worst. I mean, be thorough, but not that thorough.”

  Stone grunted then roughly ran his hands over my body. He checked every pocket, even ran his hands through my hair. Removed my belt, looking over it before disposing of it on the table next to my face. Then he reached around and grabbed my cock and squeezed my balls a little too hard.

  “Shit,” I said, flinching.

  “Oh, Stone is thorough,” Talon commented.

  Stone pulled down my briefs and ran a finger up my crack before getting me to squat and cough.

  Talon looked me up and down. Spent a little too long looking at my tackle for my liking. I cupped my hands over my groin.

  “Satisfied?” I asked, my eyebrows rising.

  Talon smiled. “You can never be too careful, never be too...paranoid.”

  I grunted and reached for my clothes. But before I could, Talon stomped his sandal on my underwear.

  “Talk to me, kid. I want to hear your proposition. But I want you to tell me when you are at your most vulnerable.”

  He removed his foot, and I shuffled, naked, to the table. I fumbled for my phone that lay just out of reach. I grabbed it on the second attempt, my junk rubbing against the table that God knows how many people had sat at. I reminded myself to disinfect my special areas, especially before I saw Olivia again. Nobody needs that shit.

  I turned on my phone and opened the link Sonja had sent me. The screen came to life. A living, breathing simulation. Bar charts grew, line charts took shape, numbers pulsed. I angled the screen so Talon could see it.

  “Explain this to me,” Talon said, his vision locked on my phone.

  And so, I did.

  “The concept is simple,” I told him. “What if people were stocks? Everyone has a value, depending on a range of factors. Now, the average Joes and Sues, these are the non-v
olatile stocks. They may go up and down and little, but not in extremes—except for specific events. Let’s say Joe Smith is married, has two kids, pays his mortgage, and earns 100K a year. He has a profile. Known attributes. He has a certain value. But what he’s worth won’t change unless he contracts an incurable disease or wins the lottery, and those are difficult things to predict. It comes down to luck.

  “And then you’ve got more affluent people. Celebrities, politicians, entrepreneurs, well-known folks. These are volatile stock, top tier. Think the Apples, Amazons, and the like. The stock that everybody wants but few can afford. High risk, high rewards. We’ve all seen celebrities do stupid shit and disappear from the radar forever. People who take the wrong fork in the road and end up mopping floors in a Starbucks instead of starring in the next blockbuster. Just like companies. Think of companies like Nokia and Kodak. Entities in their prime who made a bad call. Where are they now?

  So, the concept seemed straightforward. People will invest in people. Let’s call them investees. Now, the investees don’t use the money and, in turn, don’t pay dividends. I take the invested capital and invest in a side account, on the real stock market, using my superior market insight and prowess, and pay dividends from the proceeds. As long as the incomings are more than the outgoings, things would be okay. I, of course, take a cut, just like I would anyway.”

  “And how much is that?”

  “I haven’t decided yet. Let me continue. The best thing is there’s no regulation. The market is whatever I say it is, and if everyone thinks that’s fair, there shouldn’t be a problem. And this is probably the best part about it. There’s no one standing over my shoulder, no rules, no laws, no governing bodies. No one running to a lawyer to sue. None of that shit. I need a shit load of investors who realize the beauty in the anarchy,” I finished. “I need people like you.”

  “I make plenty of money already. Why would I bother doing this?”

  “For the same reason people buy and sell stocks in companies. To make more money than they have. Besides, you’re doing this now. You do it in that room every time people like me are throwing cards and chips around the table. All I’m doing is opening up the potential pool, expanding your horizons, increasing the opportunities.”