Chapter 2…finally

Let me start at the very beginning now that I have given you a very basic outline of the History behind the failure of mine. It all started when I had to travel to Istanbul on some business. You might find this strange but in this day and age geniuses need to survive and several blackmail threats had born fruit. I was going to meet one of these so-called victims. He was from London but wanted to meet in Istanbul for security reasons. He was staying in The Pierre Loti Hotel and I was to meet him there. I arrived at the airport and collected the car waiting for me. In about twenty minutes I was cruising along the outer walls of the Topkapi palace on Kennedy Caddesi.

Counting down the turnings to the winding road that lead to Topkapi and eventually  Pierre Loti I began to slow. Watching the signals I slowly inched forward. As I was halfway through the turn Somebody who cared not for the rules of the rules came and turtled my car, which was an expensive Bentley. Oh well there went my blackmail money. I would have to pay the rental for the damages.

Next thing I remember was waking up in bed in a hotel room with a gun at my head. Now it all made sense. Mr.Victim was willing to pay for someone to ‘accidentally’ ram the car of the person who was taking ownership of his money. Now he held the upper hand. Life was still a blur right now. There were at-least three people in the room, one of whom was counting money. This ignoramus must have been the one who broke the red light. I use that terminology(Ignoramus) as he was peeling of not one but two or three notes each time. I heard the guy with gun muttering that I had woken up. That meant that the third man in the $2000 dollar tuxedo was my supposed victim, the man whose victim I was now. If I remembered right, his name was Abernathy. I decided conversation was the best time waster. At-least till I thought of a decent plan.

So why am I being held hostage? Abernathy…… right?

Yes you moronic blackmailer! You think you could outwit me? You, a boy. Half my age and thinks he can outwit me? What a joke.

He had just made a mistake. He made the gunman stand down. What an idiot. Anyway he still had not answered my question. so I reminded him. His answer wasn’t too surprising:

I decided to turn the tables on you, you spoiled brat. Teach you a lesson, rascal. The money is now mine, see? If I do not get the money transferred to my Swiss bank account right now, Giovanni here will make sure you do not reach home.

At this the gunman gave me a toothy grin, where i counted at-least three flashes of silver. Then I pointed out that there was no means to transfer the money.

There is a laptop in the bag. Take it. It has wireless internet. Show me if you know how to transfer money, kid  was his reply.

The truth was, I did. But what happened was anything but kiddish. Abe stepped away in an attempt to give me room. This he definitely should not have done. I moved from a lying down posture to a crouching posture, acting like it was hard or rather painful to get up. Using the bend in my knees and the wall as a springboard, I leapt right at the gun man, planting one fist into his face and the other in the drivers stomach. My suspicions confirmed that Abernathy had no fighting skills, I proceeded to relieve the gunman of his gun. Abernathy was shaking now, and rightly so. I proceeded to trash talk him. This usually breaks down the confidence of a person and reduces him to a gibbering mass of clothes and flesh. Oh, and this works better when they are already gibbering.

I should call you Abernathy Darwin Dunlap. At-least that stands for what you have. A.D.D. I’m surprised you even made it this far without forgetting something. Didn’t you see me tensing when I was getting up? You, sir, are a disgrace. Maybe I should use the blackmail money to pay for your place in a mental institution.

He was shaking now. The trash talk was working. Or maybe it was the gun in my hand. I suddenly swung the gun in an arc toward his head and he nearly jumped out of his skin. That proved my suspicion he was afraid of firearms. I smirked to myself. He had given his fear away when he shouldn’t have. Now he was exploitable. I guess I was having too much fun.

So I cut to the chase and asked him why I had been kidnapped(literally). He gibbered for a couple of minutes till I pulled off the safety of the gun. He gave a little shriek and then muttered something I, nor anyone in the world would have understood. I placed it slowly in my left hand and spun it around, hoping he was smart enough to get the message. Obviously he wasn’t.

I didn’t get that could you repeat it?

Still no reply. He really was stupid. This time I slid my trigger finger into place. It looked like finally that tube-light in his head had flickered on. With an alarmed look at the fifty millimetre gap between my finger and the trigger that was closing with rapidity, he said that he needed the diary. This puzzled me as I had never had an inclination to write a diary nor had I read anybody else’s. I was starting to think that I had driven him too nuts when he let loose a stream of words which I think can be best explained like this:

I need the diary that you have that you found and regard as worthless and is written by the monk Jeffrey that tells the story of the god who failed and also how to make the best home-made chocolate cookies in the world.

And to imagine he said this all in one breath. Anyway I decided he would not pose much of a problem anymore and left the poor guy conscious but barely sensible. As I left the hotel he was staying which was incidentally his own, I looked around for a taxi but could not locate none. Oh well I was going to have to leg it to the Hyatt, the hotel I was booked at. You might ask me why I did not leave the country immediately. There were two immediate reasons. The first: I needed to think about     what A.D.D. had said,

and secondly: I had paid the bill in   advance, and seriously,   who turns down two   days in a luxury hotel?

So i reached the hotel and the doorman raised his eyebrows since he was used to seeing almost all the guest stepping out of fancy Mercedes’ or BMW’s or the like. He probably did not expect a guest to show up in a sweat soaked tux to show up on foot. I just grinned broadly at him and proceeded to the reception to check in and collect my keys. I jogged up the stairs since the previous lift had been occupied by a rather large woman and her Chihuahua who managed to take up all the space in the lift. The only other person in the lift, the doorman, was squashed flat against the buttons at the side. I reached my floor and turned on the shower, knowing I had deserved it. In the middle of me soaping, the bell rang. I cursed under my breath and walked dripping towards the door. When I opened it, there was no one, but a small piece of paper that said dinner at 8. I cursed again and went back to my bath, promising myself to go for dinner at 8 and have a shouting match with whoever sent that message. I let the tub fill after my shower and then soaked in it, pondering the two mysteries that had caught up with me today.

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