9: The Cons of Fame (Flashback)

*The car door crashed open as Mike came running through it. The drive way was occupied by a black Police sedan with a removable blue light glowing on top of it. A bunch of blue and white ones surrounded the street. An ambulance stood at the corner of the street. Mike ran to it. A couple of officers tried to stop him from getting too near. The wide-open door of the ambulance had offered him a view he wouldn’t ever forget. His trusted driver, Antonio, lied dead with his head soaked with his own blood. Mike puked. The officers comforted him and led him to the house. Mike couldn’t help but shiver at the possibilities. “My son! My son!”, his head kept screaming. A squad of police was buzzing inside and outside the house. Two detectives shared their plans in hushed tones. The house was filled with robotic sounds coming from the police coms. As he staggered into the house, he found Grace on the couch, sniffling with a box of tissues on her lap. A few women from the neighborhood had arrived to comfort her. She broke down crying every now and then. When the neighbors saw Mike enter the house, they offered unwelcoming glances. Glances that said, “Look what you’ve done to her!”, out loud. Mike had more troubling matters at hand than to worry about that. He dashed to his wife. She abruptly sprung to her feet and hugged him. He felt the front of his shirt soak with her tears. He felt every muscle in her body shake as she sobbed, clinging onto him. He wanted to tell her that everything was going to be alright, but he couldn’t. He himself needed someone to tell him that. He seated her down and put his hand on her cheek. A rather large detective, wearing a dark blue official field jacket, emerged from the crowd wandering about in the house.
“Detective Wade Johnson, NYPD, I hope I’m not disturbing you”, he said as he gently neared the troubled couple. He was white, stood six feet tall with a plump figure and lacked any facial hair except for his eyebrows. He had a totally bald head except for a few strings on one side that stretched all the way to the other. “A moment?”, he added and gestured Mike to speak with him in private. Mike staggered out of the living room, into the study which seemed deserted as compared to the rest of the house. A team of four officers was setting up a bunch of machines. He wondered why the detective wanted to talk to him and not his wife, then he realized that he was the one who looked to be in better emotional shape. He only looked better. He closed the door behind him as soon as the two arrived in the room. All four long and wide walls had book shelves built on them. The entire room had a wooden theme. Everything from the table to the shelves, from the curtain to the drapes were either red or mahogany. The pile of papers that he had felt was unnecessary to take with him, taunted him from the tabletop.
“Let’s start with how much you already know?”, the detective inquired. Mike slowly put his hand on his forehead, trying to place all the fragments of information he had into a sentence.
“Grace told me that my car was hit on the way to school. Antonio died and Jack …Jack?”, he broke down crying mid-sentence. Wade sighed and looked to the ground with his hands in his pockets. “That’s what we are trying to find out”, he responded and guided Mike to the closest chair. “Your wife conveyed to you everything we told her, except we kept a piece from her”, he added. Mike stared at the detective through his tears. “Antonio didn’t die from the accident”, the detective spoke in a barely audible yet heavy tone, “He was shot”, he continued. Mike was terrified. He lost the sensation in his legs. He had been thinking what a squad of police along with a detective doing in his house for a hit and run case. This was a kidnapping case and hence, the machines on his table. The shock on Mike’s face assured the detective that he hadn’t received any call for ransom yet. “He was shot multiple times and once in the head. The exit wound tells us that it was from point blank range”, the detective explained the severity. The crew busy with the equipment on the table, signaled a thumbs up which the detective answered with a nod.
“I’m afraid whoever killed your driver, has your son”, Detective Wade conveyed the grim apprehension. Mike felt his heart jump out of his chest. The detective caught Mike slipping into a spiral of emotion and panic. He was helpless. There was no time for formalities.
“Do you suspect anyone who might try to get to you through your child?”, Mike heard faintly through the thumping in his head. He had more money, anyone with less was automatically his enemy, he thought. Wade felt it. “Anyone in particular?”, he added. Mike couldn’t push the gears in his brain to save his life. Nothing came up. He shook his head. All he could think of was his boy waving goodbye to him hours earlier with his green T-rex bag pack. How he had hated it, the googly eyes, the misplaced tag that looked like a booger and the missing tooth. He would have bought him something ten times better but he had fallen in love with that atrocity at the first sight. The loud and abrupt robotic beeps of the equipment surrounded by a group of newbies jerked him out of his thoughts. The room fell silent. He was confused at first but as soon as he caught the look on the detective’s face, he realized what they feared.
“If they are resourceful, they already know we’re here. Let’s assume they are not”, the detective whispered to Mike as he motioned him toward the equipment. It was a call recorder and tracker. All the phones in the house were disconnected and the phone line was connected to the equipment. It had a few headsets connected to it. “We’re down three rings already. I wasn’t expecting them to call this early!”, Wade exclaimed and ordered one of the operators to answer it but stay silent. He followed the order. It bought them some time. “I’m sorry. I don’t know who it is but you’re gonna have to talk to him”, he added as he put a hand on Mike’s shoulder. It failed to comfort him. Mike was receiving blow after blow. It could be a telemarketer or the murderer of his driver who holds his son hostage. He was paralyzed. “We don’t have time, Mr. Rosenberg!”, the detective’s voice shook him into motion and he picked up a headset. He handed one to Mike. There was silence on the other side. Mike wondered if the caller had bothered with the first words yet.
“Rosenberg residence”, he announced, shakily greeting the caller. He felt the words take a toll on him. Detective Wade motioned him to calm down and mouthed, “Act natural”. There was nothing on the other end except labored breathing. The cops in the room froze. Mike was cold all of a sudden.
“Mr. Millionaire…”, a raggedy voice finally spoke, trying very hard to sound calm. “I want a million dollars, no! two million dollars!”, the phone croaked. The desperate father begged. “Please! I’ll give you even more! Just don’t hurt my baby!”, he shouted in a trembling voice as tears flowed uncontrollably. The officers listened intently on their headsets along with the detective. He may have begged a bit too loudly. Grace kicked open the door and barged into the room with a hysterical look on her face. She locked her despairing eyes with her spouse. Mike looked back at her helplessly. Both of them were frozen where they stood. Wade ditched the idea of keeping her out of it. Mike waited. There was no response from the other side but some inaudible scrambling and scratching. “Let me talk to him!”, Mike shouted helplessly as he lost his patience. The scratching noise gained strength. “Yeah. Yeah. Here!”, the voice said in a quick burst. More inaudible voices and noises followed. Seconds felt like days. “Daddy!”, the voice was certainly of little Jack. Mike felt his blood run cold. “Bud! You alright? Speak to me son!”, he desperately shouted. Grace couldn’t help but wail loudly. “Daddy...”, Jack said, this time more softly. “Yes bud?”, Mike impatiently asked. “Blow at theses baddies! Make them go away!”, Jack screamed. Mike failed to suppress his urge to cry. He fell on his knees. Grace joined him on the ground. The headset was silent again. Wade was busy scrawling on his notepad even when the line was silent.
“Alright, time’s up! two mil! At the phonebooth outside china town. 6 PM”, the kidnapper said quickly, almost overlapping his own words. Mike was having a hard time registering all this. “And don’t you dare call the cops! If you tell, you’ll receive a pinky finger in the mail tomorrow!”. Wade gave an odd look. “No!”, shouted Mike but the call was disconnected. The couple cried for a while. The officers couldn’t find an opening to talk to them. Mike saw the detective ready to share his thoughts so he got a hold of himself. Grace was in no condition to talk. An officer led her to the living room where her neighborhood friends waited anxiously and closed the door.
Mike stood up and found the nearest chair. Wade walked up to him. “They’re probably the dumbest sons of bitches I’ve ever seen in my damn life!”, he exclaimed. Mike was puzzled. “Even after the shitstorm they caused on the road, they doubted that we would show up at your house”, he added. Mike’s head failed to register any information. Wade understood. “I was worried if we were chasing some well-equipped gang, but it’s just a bunch of junkies trying to hit the jackpot”, the detective continued. For the first time in the conversation Mike looked up at him. His eyes displayed the question like billboards. “I’ve dealt with their kind more than I like to admit”, Wade answered. “A desperate junkie exceeds expectations”, he added.
*