Short Stories

The Kidnapper's Mistake

“FRIEND, take a seat, and listen to my tale. Try some barely-seasoned lard and vodka with chunks of potato left in...I've been told it's a specialty of this tavern. Then again, I've heard the same thing about every goddamn restaurant in this country!”

“Where are you from? By your accent I would say--” began a swarthy, heavy-set man with a bushy mustache and a sweaty bald pate.

“The states.”

“Ah,” the man said this with a snort of derision, as if he had figured out exactly why the barely-seasoned lard and half-way vodka wasn't so highly lauded. “You Americans are used to Big Macs. That's all.”

“Yes,” said the American carefully, “but warm, gooey lard at McDonald's costs a dollar, not thirty-seven rubbles.”

“Well, there's the shortage!” This from the local's companion, a pinched, drawn-out man who looked perpetually mournful.

“Yes, the shortage. Oh, come on. You must be smarter than that. There's always been a shortage.”

“Not before the war.”

“Which war? Iraq?”

“Crimean.”

“But that took place in the 1850s!”

“So?”

The American nodded ruefully, rubbing his beard. He was thin and alert looking, with dark sunken eyes and a wild mane of hair. His clothes were dusty and faded, and the way he sat in the corner of the bar suggested that he wanted no surprises.

“You said you had a story?” ventured the heavy-set man.

“I do.”

“Oh, you Americans never have real stories. Just complaints about Gypsys and comparisons to FDR.”

“No, but I have a real one. It began almost nine months ago...do you remember what was happening then?”

“Sure. The General Secretary Ivan Ivanov Ivanovich Blubkin went missing.”

“That's right. Now what if I said I had something to do with that?”

“You're a spy?”

The American smiled, lifting the smelly vodka to his lips. “Not at all. By the way,” he said. “This stuff tastes like gasoline.”

Sirens rose from the country of Lyuglobniaksia. The formerly (and formally) Soviet Republik was in deep crisis. A group of rebel insurgents called the Pyople's Army were making their way to the capital, leaving in their wake destruction and burning.

And in the midst of all of this, the corrupt General Secretary of the Committee of the Workers Mr. Blubkin vanished. The papers swarmed with tentative headlines, like, “IS THE BRAVE AND GLORIOUS LEADER OF OUR MOST HEARTY PEOPLES DEAD by any chance because really that might work out in our favor,” and “THIS HEADLINE DOESN'T MATTER BECAUSE THE NEXT GOVERNMENT WILL HAVE IT RETRACTED AND EDITED ANYWAYS.”

Truly, a time of much excitement. But all the way across the world, a walk in central park was intimately connected with the political scandal in Lyuglobniaksia (which, for reference purposes, failed to make the news except for a thirty second clip at breakfast time).

Before he had made a foot onto the Bay Bridge, Henry Sherwood was accosted by a tall, muscle-bound man with a large vein in his temple. “Stop where you are going at once!”

“What the hell?”

“Do not try to move or resist! There is a man behind you with a knife!” as if on cue, Henry felt a sharp jab in his back.