Chapter 9
It was a nightmare. This was too unreal to be true. He was back in the cellar, only things were different. He was strapped down to the cold table and lights, blinding lights were all around him. His head felt groggy as he blinked up at the faces that seemed to be all around him, swirling and grinning. There was Laura, looking pale and slightly woozy, dressed in a white frock. And at his feet there was Julia, her eyes blazing brightly, her lips fixed in a tight slash not unlike his grandfather's.
And there was this man dressed in white. He had on a white cap and a mask, and a long gown. Rubber gloves... moving fast, to his waist... the light was too bright, several lights on stands, blinding him. He looked up to see what the gloves were doing and they were at his waist. He tried to move, but the straps held him down. Laura looked sympathetic, but then she looked away. She was holding a metal tray and kept handing things to the masked man.
He pulled up his head, feeling a sharp bite in his neck and saw a pile of rags around his middle. They were stained with blood. His blood? His blood!
But he couldn't feel anything... not from down there... just the pain in his head that forced him to plop it back down to the table. He could see the masked man take something with funny long pliers. There was something golden clasped in its jaws, a circular thing... a ring. He tried to lift his head again, but the room was spinning around, bright lights, swirling... all around, dizzy, dizzy, the pain in his head like he'd been kicked by a mule.
What were these people doing to him? What were these people doing? To him? To him.
Another swirl, another pain, darkness. Darkness.
Madison Le Grande missed Claudette. She had quit when the men from Interpol had questioned her, refusing to put up with such an indignity even though she'd been cleared.
"None of them check out," Smedley told him. "Not even the girl who quit. Either it's a bluff, that is assuming it isn't a hoax, or a shakedown of some kind, or the insider they speak of is in your offices."
He crunched down on his pipe, brushing some imaginary lint from his lapel and waited as the wealthy man wheezed out a monotonous replay saying that it was highly unlikely as his offices were in New York, London and Paris, not to mention the branches. No, if the so-called insider wasn't down here in Bandol, then he didn't exist, all the more reason to point towards a fraud.
But if it was fraud, he had a feeling that it might be his daughter-in-law! The old man had mused it over for several days after he first called in the authorities, much as he didn't like that. But he had received the note, and Paula had already called Peter's disappearance to the attention of the authorities. It was his duty, unpleasant as it must be.
And so a man from Interpol, a sharp Englishman named Smedley had come to be assigned the case. He had impressed the old man with his logic, appealing to the number one sore point-money.
"If they get away with this, rich men all over the world will continued to be fleeced by such claptrap. It's up to you, but for the sake of the free world... "
"For the sake of the free world?"
"For the sake of the free world."
That had sold him. And the process of checking out his domestics began. Oh, how he missed Claudette. Sitting there in the library as Mimi, the new plump maid of thirty, labored over his flaccid tool with her lips. But try as she may, the old withered worm wouldn't stand up and do tricks. He was just about to regret having called the police in despite what Smedley said. He'd lost Claudette. Still it was a duty... and Peter had still not shown. But it only took him a couple of calls to Paula to rouse his detective instincts. He told Smedley of his apprehension about the way the woman had talked to him. She seemed overly anxious about her son, too anxious. When he saw her on television, pleading with the press in front of her apartment building, it all seemed too contrived. Why, she hated Peter practically as much as he did!
He told the official of his apprehensions, and wondered if the coordination with the F.B.I, might be stepped up. They had done all the work thus far behind the scenes, hoping to lull the kidnappers, if they did exist, into making a slip. He asked if he might have his daughter-in-law's phone tapped, but Smedley told him that might be sticky. What with the Watergate mess and all, it might be hard to pull of on a mere suspicion, although a life was at stake.
"Goddamn it," the old man cried, raising his voice for the first time in Smedley's presence, "I own half of N.T.&T., and I've done all kinds of favors for the bureau ..' let's fix it up."
As the poet said, money doesn't talk, it swears. Within twenty-four hours, Paula was tapped. But it was just twenty-four hours too late to intercept the call between Julia and Paula. So they waited, hoping the so-called kidnappers would make a move. Le Grande wasn't sure it was Paula-it could still be Peter, or the two of them working in concert. He just couldn't believe his grandson had actually been kidnapped. He must not let on to Paula, but that was easy to do with his monotone. He would just have to wait.
He really missed Claudette. Peter blinked his eyes, aware of the great pain in the area of his groin and the thudding of his head. He was still strapped down, still to that steel table. It hadn't been a dream. It was a nightmare.
He'd been here for two days since the operation. From what he gathered from the conversations he'd overheard, Anita had left to mail a package to his grandfather, this time from Boston to throw the police off the case. Just what it contained he didn't know.
There was a dull ache in his groin, from whatever they'd done down there. He couldn't reach it as his hands were strapped tightly to his side. He tried not to think of the possibilities, but left alone with his thoughts, he couldn't help but let his mind wander through paranoidal paths. They had attached some kind of catheter to his penis so he could urinate, and had strapped a bedpan under his elevated hips. They came in twice a day, Yolanda and Julia to attend to him, forcing him to drink water and eat some bread that nearly made him choke, but the pair remained strangely silent as they went about their duties, refusing to answer his frantic questions.
He wished that Laura would come down, but he never saw her. He wondered if she had really been there during the operation. She would know what they'd done that made him hurt so. He couldn't help but feel that something was missing, and something added if that were possible.
Madison Le Grande was roused from his armchair slumber by the butler. How he missed Claudette! He blinked his eyes and coughed, motioning the man to come in.
"A package for you sir."
He checked the package over, postmarked Boston, then opened it, sending the butler out. When he got it opened, he saw that there was a package of thick plastic wrap and a note inside. He opened the note and read it, his hands, trembling as he went on. If this was a hoax, it was the working of a very sick person. It read: Dear Sir: If you would have heeded our first note, this would not be necessary. As you have failed to comply, we have sent you this package containing your grandson's, Peter Le Grande, left testicle. Please do not doubt that this is from his body. The thumbprint at the bottom of the page is his. Please deposit the amount of one-million dollars in small unmarked United States currency in the account of Paula Le Grande, and we will be in contact with her as soon as we see that you have acted in good faith to work out the arrangements for returning Peter to her custody. This is our last warning. If you fail to follow the instructions, or attempt to contact the authorities again it will result in the death of your grandson.
He couldn't believe it, it must be a joke. The thumbprint at the bottom of the page was a red-brown, the color of dried blood.
With shaking hands, he opened the plastic bag. He noted a foul odor as he unwrapped it, still not believing it possible. As he unfolded the last layer, he saw that there was a greyish-pink object covered with hair in the bag. For the first time in his life, he fainted.
As soon as he recovered, he contacted his lawyers and ordered them to make arrangements to transfer the money to Paula's account. Then he called up Smedley, telling him the grizzly details.
"Whatever you do, you must not tell the press," Smedley cautioned him. "Just don't make a move till the boy's safe," Le Grande said, placing the receiver down. Now he would wait for the authorities to come and get the package. He stared long and hard at his bookshelf, cursing his lack of foresight. He'd really been wrong this time. Really wrong.
Peter winced as Julia pulled at the stitches, cutting them first with a small pair of scissors, then yanking them out with the tweezers. It had been five days since the operation had been carried out, and whatever they'd done to him, he'd soon know the results.
His whole body ached terribly from being tied in this one position. The crumpled towels around his waist blocked his view of the procedure, and he winced as each stitch came out. From the general area of Julia's ministrations, he felt that he was sure to be in trouble no matter how you looked at it.
"Now," said Julia, with the old familiar sadistic smile, you're about to see what happened to you. You'll look mighty fine this way, I'm sure."
Even though it was this sadistic bitch who'd been talking to him, he felt a relief at hearing a human voice after five days silence.
"Where's Laura?" he asked.
"Laura... you want Laura?" she teased evilly. "I should have known about her. Too weak. It's a good thing she had her little accident."
"Accident, what accident?" he implored impatiently as he pulled at his bonds, his head being all that he could move.
"Don't adopt that tone of voice with me you pigfucker!" she ordered him as she stepped near to his face. She had picked up two clothespins off her tray and menacingly held them over his chest. Then she clipped them onto his nipples and snapped them hard, causing him to yelp. She left them in place, protruding painfully from his chest.
"Those are strange little titties, but you might have real ones in the future."
The future again. What the hell was this woman trying to do to him? One moment breaking out of the cruelty and coming on like mother, then the next thing he knows he's tossed into the cellar and operated on for who knows what.
"Laura had a little accident the day of your operation. I guess she just didn't have the stomach for it, poor girl. It seems she stepped off of a chair with a rope wrapped around her neck."
The woman smiled, letting the impact set in. "You murderer," he found himself creaming. "I'm afraid you'll have to have a few more lessons in obedience if you don't tone down. Actually Laura did it all of her own volition. I guess your operation was just too much for her to witness. She hung herself.
"The good doctor disposed of the body. He has an abortion clinic and he knows how to take care of such matters in the right way. Poor man. Drinks you know.
"You see," she went on, relishing the horror on Peter's face as she spun the tale, "your grandfather just wouldn't believe the first proof we sent him. So we had to really convince him. That's why we called the doctor in for your little operation-plan B.
"Your food was drugged the night I came back from making my calls. After you had displayed your wanton abilities atop me, you passed out. We carried you down here and set up the operating room. When the doctor was halfway through the operation, you awoke from the drug, but we'd strapped you down-he used a spinal anesthetic. You passed out again shortly... "
He was beginning to suspect the worst... no his cock was still there, but he figured something else might not be. His mind flooded with crazy images, images his mind refused to really latch onto. Laura hanged. His body... he'd find out shortly... but he was beginning to click in on one thing... yes, he had seen this woman before. The woman who owned that art gallery. She'd called up several times too, asking for his mother.
"You're... my mother... you know my mother!" he finally blurted out.
"Better than you'd suspect. You see, this was all her idea. You really were quite an unmanageable young man. One day I finally suggested to her that you might be screwed up because you really were a girl at heart. We split the money fifty-fifty, after expenses for the help. What with Laura gone, that'll be less. And someday in the future we'll all live together, your mother, me and you. You'll be our maid. Oh, I can see how much happier you are when you're serving someone. We might even continue, after a suitable time, your operations. Maybe you'll enjoy life more as a real girl.
She was crazy. He couldn't believe that his mother would fall under the spell of such an evil person, his straight mother. But all the rest was babble to him, for he felt his mind slipping away as he screamed out his last protest. Now that it all made sense, the less sense it really made. His mind was going, he couldn't handle it anymore.
But as the coup de grace, the laughing woman pulled off the sheets and held a mirror up above his pubic area, adjusting the handmirror so that he could see. Through his feverish eyes, Peter Le Grande saw what had happened, saw the flap of skin where his testicle used to be and the golden ring that pierced through the skin. He screamed until he could scream no more.