A Lie is a Lie

“Has anyone ever told you what I did in the old country? How I grew up?”

Dimitri was just regaining his consciousness after passing out moments before. Slowly coming to, he could first taste the blood seeping into his mouth from the empty gum pockets where once teeth were before. A stream of dried blood covered his upper lip below something that was once a nose. He was missing an ear, and although his eyes were swollen shut, the light shining in his face had worked its way through the swelling and aggravated the pounding headache he was experiencing.

He tried moving but his legs he had lost feeling in them and his hands were bound behind his back wrapped with duct tape and secured to the backing of his chair. His predicament was slowly starting to come back to him and Dimitri realized where he was sitting and that he was figuratively in a world of shit.

“What?” Dimtri garbled with a string of bloody drool falling from his mouth. Adding to his problems was the gag pulled through his mouth like a horse bit and tightly tied behind his head. He yelled as best he could, “I don’t know who took your money.”

Ignoring what Dimitri said he continued. “My father was an alcoholic and died from cirrhosis. And when your father dies from that affliction, the years leading up to the end was no walk in the park. Drunken outbursts, random beatings, watching our family’s money spent on alcohol. It was pathetic!”

A sharp jolt exploded through Dimiti’s leg and his body seized when the baseball bat shattered his right shin just below the knee cap. His blood curdling scream was muffled by the cloth in his mouth, his body pulled against his restraints, and he squirmed within his bindings but after realizing he wasn’t going anywhere, his body relaxed and his cries turned to sobbing and painful moans.

Alexi smiled at seeing the pain Dimitri was in. He looked at the old man who held his hand up, motioned him to back up, and shook his head no.

“Pardon my nephew’s exuberance Dimitri. He never liked you to start with, an opinion I should have listened to, and I think he is enjoying this opportunity.”

Dimitri’s sobbing had now become a low rhythmic wail. He kept his head bent down, with his chin almost on his chest, and slowly shaking it back and forth with his cries.

“Oh, my upbringing,” he took a moment, lit a cigarette and then continued. “So with a mother working in a sewing factory, and a father who had been useless but was now finally gone....I had to start contributing to our household or we would starve. The only place I could find work was the slaughterhouse.”

Dimitri tried to scream as he felt the lit cigarette being stubbed out on his chin but again the gag stifled his cries. “Please…...please, I don’t know who took your money,” he fought to say through his bloody muzzle.

“The first time I had to slaughter a pig I cried. As I walked up my body shivered and my legs felt weak. Make no mistake, the animal in that killing stall knew its end was near. It could smell the blood and sense its doom. For a long time afterward the screams of those pigs haunted me.”

He laughed, “I actually missed the first time I tried to kill a pig with the bolt gun. I was so nervous that I held it against its head at the wrong angle. I pressed the lever and the bolt sheared off 3 inches of its scalp instead of punching through its skull and entering the brain. I started crying as the pig frantically jumped and slammed against the walls of the stall. Meanwhile the men nearby were laughing while I cried because of what I had done to this creature. Nevertheless, I soon learned to ignore the hopeless pleading of the pigs and later watching the light fade from a beast’s eye became enjoyable.”

He lit another cigarette and continued. “Years later when a behavioral specialist with the KGB analyzed me he determined that I had become detached from empathy and looked at living creatures without feeling. I saw them as objects.”

He slowly takes a drag from his cigarette and releases the smoke. “The security services saw my lack of care, my inability to form bonds with other humans, and my knack for disassociating myself from another’s pain and suffering as a gift.”

Dimitri was starting to fade into unconsciousness but was brought out of it with a slap from Alexi. He straightened up as best he could and started repeating himself in a normal tone with a conviction that conveyed a belief that this time he will believe me, “I didn’t steal. I didn’t steal. I don’t have your money…...I didn’t steal from you.”

“I need you to stay attentive Dimitri because we are now getting to an important part of what I’m telling you.”

Dimitri could smell his flesh burning and feel the searing pain on his cheek when yet another cigarette was extinguished on him. Despite his adrenaline waning his muffled scream lacked the intensity of previous outcries and it didn’t hurt any less than the three prior burns. He cried, “I didn’t steal,” this time without the persuasive tone he had earlier.

Alexi looked at his uncle. “Are you sure it was him? I’ll kill him anyway just because I never liked him but I’m starting to think he didn’t do it.”

The look Alexi received stopped him cold, and whatever he thought about saying afterward was lost. The old man continued his story.

“You see Dimitri…when I was in Moscow I was taught how to recognize when someone was telling me the truth or when he was lying. We were taught to read a person’s posture, listen to the changes in speech, notice the nervous tics developed, watch where the subject’s eyes kept darting to, and observe the microexpressions that betrayed their thoughts. Unlike in the west, we didn’t have machines that measured pupil dilation or minute rises in body temperature, we relied on hours of questioning and our training to root out deception.”

Growing tired of playing this game with Dimitri the old man decided to wrap things up. He pulled the Makarov pistol out of his waistband and laid it on the table where Dimitri could see it.

Dimitri started to panic. His eyes grew big, his body started to convulse, and again and again he desperately claimed his innocence.

“Shhhhhhh my dear boy. You see most people at that time thought of those in my trade as nothing more than brutes. We were mindless thugs who ripped out fingernails, broke bones and flayed skin to get to the answers we wanted to hear. They never understood that there was an art to uncovering all of this deception. The lies. Now that was many years ago, time has moved on, and I have adapted to a new and uncomplicated life here in America.”

His voice started to raise, “One where an arrogant little shit like you thinks I’m just a simple shop keeper. A butcher who you can steal from and ignore like an insignificant peasant. You see Dimitri I have changed with the times and embraced technology too. Alexi, bring me his phone!”

Alexi grabbed the phone off a table where it and other items found on Dimitri were laid out. He handed it to his uncle. “What is your phone’s security code Dimitri?”

Whatever fight had been in Dimitri’s body earlier had now left and he slumped in the chair as far as he could only being held up by his bindings. “Three…..three….seven...eight, eight, one,” he responded slowly tailing off at the end of the string.

Coming out of the security screen, the old man thumbed through the phone until he came to an app called “Wallet Locker” and opened it.

“Alexi, what else did he have with him.”

Alexi headed back to the table and picked up a small black notebook and started thumbing through it. “Just this and there’s nothing in it. A few shopping lists, phone numbers, and addresses. Here is this page with a bunch of random numbers, symbols and letters in a row.”

“Read them to me Alexi and let me know if the letters are lower or upper case.”

As Alexi read from the page, Demetri’s sobbing grew and the old man keyed what was read into the phone. After the last one was entered he hit enter and was in Dimitri’s account on the crypto currency app. Tapping the menu he opened up the category labeled as account summary and saw that there was only a balance of $47.32 in the account.

He pursed his lips and thought for a moment. He then tapped on the menu again and brought up the transactions page. His expression changed like he saw something disturbing on the screen and the confusion on the old man’s face was easy for Alexi to see.

“What was in the little black book uncle?” Asked Alexi

Demetri started screaming, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

Alexi yelled, “Shut up!” Then he quickly stepped in front of Dimitri and hit him across the mouth so hard that both Dimitri and the chair fell over. Alexi rubbed his knuckles and looked at his uncle, “Well did he steal the $2 million?”

“No!”

Alexi laughed, “I told you he didn’t do it uncle. He is too stupid and we scare the fuck out of him.”

“No, he didn’t steal the $2 million from me but there is a transaction coming from one of our accounts. After he received the wire he turned around and sent it to The Bear.”

“The fucking bookie?” Alexi shockingly responded.

“Yes, The very one!”

“He was going to kill me! He was going to fucking kill me!” Dimitri sobbed on the floor.

He chuckled to himself. “We went through all of this and only found $20,000 of our lost money.” The old man stood up. “The Bear works for me Dimitri and he would never have touched you without my permission. We are done here Alexi, please clean this mess up.” He turned, walked out of the room and the echo of the gunshot followed him outside.