The Tingle

1 The Tingle Fiction 2500 words Ilan herman 530-677-8878 The Tingle

I drooled when Amazon dove to 34 bucks a share. I knew it wouldn’t go any lower. A minute later, I bought a million bucks worth of shares. That was in ‘08. Now it’s ‘09 and Amazon is up to 85 bucks a share. I cashed in, not because I’m partial to Amazon, God bless their cyber conglomerate, but enough is enough. My million got me 2.5 million, and I didn’t get my nails dirty. Betting on the stock market isn’t about money, at least for me, not that I’m braggin’. I rode the financial tsunami and came to rest on the peaceful Pacific jewel of Nosara, Costa Rica, a sandy shore where sea turtles come to nest. I built my house here, and this is where I hope to die when my time comes, hopefully decades away. You may ask why I’m privileged to such a luscious lifestyle. I never planned to be rich. Back in ‘86, I inherited 5000 bucks, according to my beloved uncle’s last will and testament. The money was tied up in stocks, mainly in an obscure company called Microsoft that went public the same year for 21 bucks a share. The lawyer said I should keep my money there ‘cause the market was moving up. I had no idea what he meant, but he sounded okay, so I didn’t cash in and kept my job as a substitute teacher. I saved my pennies and took a cool summer trip to Mexico. I came back to a quarterly report stating

2 that my 5k had grown to 50k. I called the lawyer to check where the accounting error had taken place. “No error,” he said with glee. “I’m gonna leverage ten million and you’re gettin’ in on the action.” “How can I trust you?” I asked. “You can’t; I’m a lawyer, but I ain’t gonna steal your money.” “I can live with that,” I said and hung up. The guy was possibly foolish but I sensed he wasn’t deranged. Six months later the lawyer called and snickered. “We made two million.”

That’s how it started. I’m a Microsoft millionaire.

Once the $$ were there, buying stocks became a game. I’m not trained in financial ways, but I made more money, lots more. I staggered through cocaine, rolled down an alcoholic slope, found sanctuary between women’s thighs, and when Bill Gates, the master of my fortune, went philanthropic, I did too, and gave away most my profits to worthwhile third-world projects. If you have a few extra shekels, I recommend you give them to the poor, but I won’t preach. I decided to never have more than a million in the bank. Go ahead, flail at my bourgeoisie conduct, but last year I made about 12 million, and donated 11 million. Put that in your pipe and smoke it before you call me a selfish bastard. I have yet to figure out why I was privileged to ride the Microsoft wave. Call it destiny. Money begets money, unless you’re Mike Tyson.

3 I lived a comfortable and humble life in Nosara. The local community loved me. I helped pay the town’s bills, and had nothing left to wish for. I don’t mean that to sound sad. Having nothing to wish for is good; leaves time to appreciate the is.

Two days after I cashed in my Amazon stock, I was walking to the beach to watch the sunset when a white van pulled up beside me. Two masked men pulled me into the back seat and placed a hood over my head. “You speak you die,” said a deep voice. I stayed still and quiet, each trembling breath a gift from eternity. Soon after, the van chugged to a halt. Still wearing the hood, and short of breath, I was shoved into a room and pushed into a chair. The hood was snatched off my head and with it a clump of my thinning hair. My heart beat like a sledgehammer. A muscular square-jawed man with a crew cut and the frosty-blue eyes of a killer stood over me and said, “How do you know?” A scar ran down his right cheek, from under his eye to the bottom of his chin. “Know what?” I asked. I was so scared I would’ve gladly licked his toes if he cared for me to do so. “Where the money goes.” “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.” My voice shook with mortal fear. The man leaned into me. “Don’t fuck with me.” “I’m not fucking with you,” I yelled, about ready to lose bladder control. My interrogator slapped my face and screamed, “Don’t fuck with me.” Red-faced with embarrassment, I watched the warm urine trickle down my legs and puddle on the concrete floor.

4 The scarred man stepped back and laughed. “Mama’s boy,” he said, then slapped my face and yelled, “How do you know?” I started to cry. What the fuck was he talking about? The man crossed his thick arms over his chest. “How do you know where the money goes?” Suddenly I knew what he was after. “You want to know how I make money in the stock market?” My interrogator rolled his icy-blue eyes and huffed, “Finally comin’ around, dickbrain.” My heart settled a bit, I sat up in the chair. “No need for cussing and hitting. Didn’t they teach you in training that torture doesn’t work?” The cruel man leaned into me. From close up, the whites of his eyes were tinted murky yellow and pink. “Torture works,” he whispered. “Want me to pull out one of your fingernails? It’ll be fun. I promise.” I clenched my fists. “That won’t be necessary.” He sat in the metal chair across from me and said, “You never made a bad trade. How come?” I shrugged. “What’s the big deal? There’s lots of traders like me out there.” “No one has your track record.” The man sounded almost cordial. I frowned. “I don’t believe you; makes no sense.” The scarred man reached for the folder on the table and opened it. He scanned the pages for a moment and said, “Your ratio of profit to investment is the best on Wall

5 Street. No one knows better than you when to buy and when to sell.” He slammed shut the folder. “How do you know?” I sensed he was honest about my monetary talent. I shrugged. “I get a tingle.” He leaned forward in his chair. “Where?” “In the back of my neck.” My inquisitor smiled a missing front tooth. “You get a tingle in the back of your neck.” “I do. I swear I’m tellin’ the truth.” “I know you’re tellin’ the truth,” he said. “I’m not as dumb as you look.” I chuckled. “That’s a Laurel and Hardy line,” and, finally at ease, I asked, “Who are you?” “The one who’ll kill you if you don’t behave.” “That’s not funny,” I said, once again a trapped mouse. The scarred man stood up and paced the room. “You want funny? Watch Seinfeld. Here’s the deal. You keep doing what you do and give us eighty percent or we snuff you. Casinos in Vegas don’t care for card counters and we don’t like it when someone makes more money than us.” “Who’s we? Who’s us?” I asked. “You’ll never know and don’t try to find out unless you have a death wish.” I was getting tired of his bullshit. You don’t threaten to kill the goose laying the golden eggs. “If I give you eighty percent, I’ll barely have enough to help the less fortunate. I’ll give you thirty percent.”

6 The scarred man had a high-pitched hyena-like laugh. “You’re bargaining with us? We don’t bargain, dickface. From now on, consider yourself the less fortunate one. Or maybe you should feel fortunate ‘cause you get to live. You have three minutes to give me an answer.” He walked out. I got up and walked around the room. My wet pants, stuck to my thighs, smelled sour. I was never a fighter, even in elementary school when I was challenged by a boy shorter and skinnier than me. Maybe I’m a coward or maybe I just know better: anyone who uses violence is an emotional Neanderthal. Therefore, when my interrogator walked back in the room, I shrugged and said, “Okay.” What else could I do? Fight some humongous and shady corporate entity with zero regard for human life? I loved my life in Nosara. Let’em blackmail me. I’d still make two million a year and put it to good use.

I was blindfolded and guided to the van that dropped me off a short walk from my house and then sped away into the twilight. I was gone about two hours. How quickly life veers in unexpected ways. Trying to calm my frayed nerves, I uncorked a bottle of wine and walked to the beach. I sat in a cove overlooking the Pacific, sipped the wine, and listened to the waves erupt through the cavernous rocks and spew rainbows of droplets like a locomotive farting steam.

7 I slept badly, awakening breathless from a nightmare where I’m tortured by the scarred man who snickers while he wraps my face in a wet towel and holds his wide palms over my mouth and nose.

The next day I sat listlessly at my computer. Financial data streamed before my tired eyes. I waited to feel the tingle in the back of my neck but nothing happened. Five hours later I shut down the computer and took a long nap. I woke up at midnight and followed Asian and European stocks. The markets were flat but that hadn’t bothered me in the past, when I could sense a stock hitting bottom. I sat at my computer until five in the morning and pounded shots of whiskey. Getting drunk had sometimes proved useful when I needed to sense the subliminal trend that sent the tingle rushing from the base of my skull to my upper back. Fatigue soaked my bones as the roosters crowed dawn. I hadn’t made a single transaction. Fear shook my heart. The tingle that had led me to lovely Nosara in the enchanted land of Costa Rica was gone. I was fucked.

Two weeks passed. Knowing I’d been crippled doubled my fear of the muscular man with the crew cut and further exasperated my loss of sleep. “The fear of the fear,” my therapist said, when I’d shared my phobia of getting stuck in an elevator, “is the worst fear of all.” I reverted to financial forecasts and even listened to pompous pundits on CNBC. I invested a few times and lost heavily. It was a matter of time before I’d have to face the scarred man and his insane eyes. I was condemned, awaiting execution.

8

A few days later, on a late afternoon, a black Jeep drove up to my house. From my office window I saw my nemesis step out of the vehicle. I waited for him in the doorway. His pursed lips said he was pissed. The scar on his cheek glowed pink. Once in the living room, he grabbed me by the throat and slammed my back against the wall. His nose flat against mine, dead eyes an inch away, he grinned and said, “What the fuck you doin’?” the words peppered with spit striking my face. ”I’m sorry,” I croaked, his hand clutching my throat. “Sorry my ass,” he yelled and hurled me onto the couch. He straddled my stomach and slapped my face eight times. Blood trickled from my nose. I was ashamed of my cowardice, how I couldn’t stand up to his sadism. I didn’t even try to defend myself. He got off my stomach, cracked his thick knuckles and said, “Wassup Mama’s boy? The powers that be are gettin’ restless. They don’t like to be played the fool, especially not by a wimpy dickbrain like you.” I sat up on the couch and wiped my bloodied nose. “I’m trying,” I said breathless. “I don’t know what’s up. I can’t feel the tingle. Too much pressure.” My interrogator curled his fists. “You better feel the fuckin’ tingle soon or I’ll show you what pressure’s all about. I’ll make you hurt till you won’t feel nothin’ at all. I’m comin back in two weeks. You have your shit together, you live; you don’t, and I’m pullin’ out your nails, fingers and toes.” He spoke casually and I believed every word he said. He started to walk out but then turned to me and said, “And don’t try to run. I got my eyes on you 24/7.”

9 I watched the black Jeep drive away. I put an icepack on my nose and lay on the couch. I was scared but also really pissed. I don’t like being called a wimp. The man was an arrogant brute. Arrogant brutes make mistakes. The time had come for me to do what I needed to do. I wasn’t as dumb as he looked.

When he showed up at my house two weeks later, I stood stoop shouldered at the entrance. As he walked up the path, I shielded my face and cried, “Don’t hit me.” A satisfied smirk rose to his thin lips. He was now three feet away from me. I pulled out the handgun with the silencer from my back pocket and said, “I need to rearrange your scar,” and shot him in the face three times. He was dead before he hit the ground, brains soaking into the dirt. Pedro and Emanuel, my burly fishermen friends, ran out from the trees. They wrapped the body in a blanket and carried it to their boat. The boat sailed to deep waters, where Pedro and Emanuel quartered the body and fed it to the sharks. When they got back, I gave them each 100 grand—enough for them to feed their families for a generation. They wept with gratitude. Then we shook hands, as men do, and they drove off in the Jeep, which they dismantled later that night and sank in the ocean two miles offshore. I ran to the dirt airstrip a mile away, where a two-seat Cessna revved its propeller engine. We flew off into the night. We landed in Panama City two hours later, where I paid the Australian pilot 50 grand. A black SUV drove me from the airport to the cargo ship where the Russian captain shook my hand, accepted an envelope with 300 grand, and then raised anchor and sailed full throttle into the choppy Pacific. A float plane

10 picked up me up a week later, while the ship anchored in the Arabian Sea ten miles off the shore of Pakistan. Navigated by a rotund Chinaman who was paid 75 grand, the plane flew close to the ground and landed in the Central Pakistani city of Khost. From there followed a bumpy twenty-hour ride in a truck that drove me to Saidu, in Northern Pakistan, where I was met by three masked men and four mules. In night’s darkest hours we rode into the jagged mountains. We climbed to fifteen thousand feet. A week later we arrived at a tiny village where a stocky and mustached man with fierce brown eyes hugged me and kissed my cheeks three times. “We have heard a lot about you and look forward to working with you,” he said in a throaty accent. “Likewise,” I said, tired but relieved. I’d arrived at the one place on earth where no corporation or swat team could find me—the mountain peaks on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan—an al-Qaeda sanctuary.

Ahmed led me to a stone house where a generator hummed quietly, powering a Dell SPX and a 25-inch flat screen. I sat at the computer, cracked my knuckles, and then browsed the world markets while Ahmed potted tea, which he served with goat cheese and honey cakes. I was sipping tea and scrolling, when I saw that Halliburton stock, which I’d bought for 10 bucks a share on the eve of the Iraq war, and which had risen ten-fold, was starting to slip. The tingle at the back of my neck had me quickly cashing out. I laughed. The tingle was back, stronger than ever, like a dear friend who’d vanished in the wilderness and was feared dead, only to emerge from the jungle riding an elephant straddled with sacks of coconuts.

11 “Halliburton’s paying your twenty percent,” I told Ahmed, who smiled and said, “Allah is indeed Akbar.”