The Zero Game

“I’ve been trying to contact you – there’s been no answer for a week,” Sauls said, stepping backwards. “Do you even know what’s going on? The FBI seized it all… They took every last thing from the mine.”

“I know. I read the papers,” Janos said, limping forward. “By the way, since when’d you get a private driver?”

“What’re you -? You followed me?” Sauls asked, backing up even further.

“Don’t be paranoid, Sauls. Some things you can spot from your bedroom window – like my car that’s parked in front. Did you see it out there? The iris blue MGB…”

“What do you want, Janos?”

“… model year 1965 – first year they changed to the push-button door handles. Hard to shift with the nails in my leg, but really a beautiful car…”

“If it’s money, we paid you just like we said…”

“… unlike that old Spitfire I used to have, this baby’s reliable… dependable…”

“You did get the money, didn’t you?”

“… some might even say trustworthy.”

Backed up against the kitchen counter, Sauls stopped.

One hand still in his pocket, Janos fixed his eyes on his partner. “You lied to me, Marcus.”

“I-I didn’t! I swear!” Sauls insisted.

“That’s another lie.”

“You don’t understand…”

“Answer the question,” Janos warned. “Was it Yemen, or not?”

“It’s not how you think… When we started-”

“When we started, you told me Wendell was a private company with no government ties.”

“Please, Janos – you knew what we were doing down there… We never hid-”

“A private company with no ties, Marcus!”

“It’s the same result either way!”

“No, it’s not! One’s speculation; the other’s suicide! You have any idea how long they’ll hunt us for this? Now who signed the damned check – was it Yemen or not?”

“Janos…”

“Was it Yemen or not?”

“Just please calm down and-”

Janos pulled out a gun from his pocket and shoved it against Sauls’s forehead. He pressed it forward, digging the barrel against his skin. “Was. It. Yemen. Or. Not?”

“P-Please, don’t…” Sauls begged, the tears already welling up in his eyes.

Janos pulled back the hammer on the gun and put his finger on the trigger. He was done asking questions.

“ Yemen!” Sauls stuttered, his face scrunched up as he shut his eyes. “It was Yemen… Please don’t kill me…!”

Without a word, Janos lowered the gun, sliding it back in his pocket.

As the gun left his forehead, Sauls opened his eyes. “I’m sorry, Janos… I’m so sorry…” he continued to beg.

“Catch your breath,” Janos demanded, handing Sauls the glass of cranberry juice.

Sauls desperately downed the drink, but it didn’t bring the calm he was searching for. His hands were trembling as he lowered the glass, which clinked against the counter.

Shaking his head, Janos pivoted on his good leg and turned to leave. “Good-bye, Sauls,” he said as he made his way out of the kitchen.

“S-So you’re not gonna kill me?” Sauls asked, forcing a petrified smile.

Janos turned and held him with a midnight stare. “Who said that?”

A long, pregnant pause passed between the two men. Then Sauls started to cough. Slightly at first. Then harder. Within seconds, his throat exploded with a wet, hacking wheeze. It was like a backfire from an old car. Sauls grasped at his neck. It felt like his windpipe had collapsed.

Janos stared at the empty glass of cranberry juice and didn’t say a thing.

Between coughs, Sauls could barely get the words out. “You little motherf-”

Again, Janos just stood there. At this point, a black-box-induced heart attack was too much of a calling card. A temporarily swollen windpipe, however, was just another choking accident in the kitchen.

Clawing at his own throat, then clutching at the counter to stand up, Sauls fell to his knees. The juice glass shattered across the black and white floor. Janos left before the convulsions started.

It was time for a vacation anyway.

Epilogue

STARING THROUGH THE glass partition at D.C.’s Central Detention Facility, I can’t help but listen to the one-way conversations around me. Rosemary’s doing fine… Don’t worry, he’s not gonna use your car… Soon, they said soon, sweetie… Unlike the movies, the visitors’ hall here doesn’t have walled-off partitions on my right and left for extra privacy. This is D.C. Jail on a D.C. budget – no perks allowed. The result is a chorus of chattering voices, each one attempting to keep it low, but pitched loud enough so they can hear themselves over all the noise. Add the unnatural hum of the prisoners’ voices as they seep through the glass, and we’ve got all the makings of a giant, enclosed phone booth. The only good news is, the people in the orange jumpsuits are on the other side of the glass.

“Here he comes,” the guard by the door calls out to me.

As he says the words, every visitor in the room, from the black woman with blond hair to the well-dressed man holding the Bible in his lap, imperceptibly turns their head to the left. This is still Washington, D.C. They all want to know if it’s someone worth looking at. To me, it is.