Page 43 of The Society of Unknowable Objects
Her heart thumped furiously with panic and her whole body tensed, but instead of firing a bullet, he pushed the muzzle of the weapon roughly against her forehead, and the cold metal of the gun against her warm skin sent a shiver scuttling down Magda’s spine. When he spoke again, it was through gritted teeth. “Go and sit over there. I won’t tell you again.”
“It’s okay,” Frank said, looking up at her from beneath his brows, his head at an awkward angle. “Do as he says.”
Magda backed away, holding the intruder’s gaze and trying to convey how much she despised him. She reached the armchairs in the corner of the room and perched on the edge of one. The man with the gun walked between them and studied the Clockwork Cabinet in its recess, and while he was distracted Frank nodded at her and then flicked his eyes to the table in the middle of the room. Magda saw the chess piece on the table next to the Impossible Box and the half-empty Coke bottle. She nodded back, understanding. She had to keep the man away from the Impossible Box.
“He’s bleeding. He needs a bandage or something,” Magda said, trying her best to sound submissive. “Please.”
“Shut up.” He didn’t even look her way. He nodded at the Clockwork Cabinet. “What’s this?”
“He’ll die,” Magda complained. “He’s already weak! You’re killing him. I need to call an ambulance.”
The man turned to face her, a slow and deliberate movement, like he was trying to emphasise how little he cared about her complaint. “If you keep shouting at me, I will put a bullet in your fucking knee.” He pointed at the Clockwork Cabinet and repeated, “What is this?”
“What do you want?” Frank mumbled.
“What do I want?” the man asked, turning his attention to that side of the room. “I want to know what this cupboard is.” He faced Magda again, cold eyes blazing at her. “And I want whatever it was you brought back from Hong Kong. And I want whatever else you’ve got hidden away down here.” He took a step towards Magda, that same sneer contorting his mouth once more. “I want everything.”
“Why?” Frank asked.
“What do you mean, why?” the man demanded, stalking across the room to tower over him. Magda saw Frank flinch back instinctively, his body trying to escape even as the intruder’s shadow fell over him. But Frank’s expression didn’t change, his jaw muscles clenching. To Magda, his eyes didn’t reveal any fear. “This is not a fucking job interview. I’m not here to answer your questions.” He pointed his gun towards the Clockwork Cabinet. “Tell me what this is before I begin to lose my temper.”
Neither Frank nor Magda answered. After a beat the man walked up to the cabinet and knocked upon it with the butt of the gun. “Wood,” he said. He took a few steps back and fired twice, two loud thumps that battered Magda’s senses. Her whole body flinched, hands to ears and eyes clamping shut. When she looked a few seconds later wood dust was circling in the air, and the Clockwork Cabinet was scarred and splintered by two bullet holes.
“Is that how you solve all of your problems?” she shouted at the intruder, enraged by his callousness, and by her own helplessness. “Fire bullets at them?”
The man tugged on one of the drawers where the bullets had punctured the wood, but it stayed stubbornly shut. “Right,” he said. He marched over to Magda and yanked her up out of the seat with a hand under her arm. “Open it,” he ordered, pushing her towards the cabinet. “Now.”
“I can’t,” Magda answered, and immediately the barrel of the gun was against her forehead again, a point of metallic, indifferent coldness that seemed to press into the centre of her being. The man’s ice-cold eyes bore into her, his lips pulling back to reveal his teeth.
“I will make you.”
“I don’t know how,” she rushed to say, hands up submissively. “Only Frank knows how to open it. And he’s dying on the floor over there. Let me help him, otherwise no one will be able to open it.”
The man hauled her back across the room to where Frank lay. “How about this,” he said, pushing her against the bookcase. “You can help him when he tells me how to open it, not before.” He smiled at Magda, and she saw that he was enjoying himself now. “If he dies, he dies. I’ll just shoot the thing to pieces instead. I’m not in any rush here.”
Magda’s mind froze.
He’s not in any rush. Why is he not in a rush? Is he going to keep us here?
She looked at Frank. She could see that he was following the conversation. He nodded once, a gesture that seemed to take an enormous amount of effort.
“Each drawer has a different combination,” he explained, his voice a croak. “I’ll tell you them one at a time, if I can. Just let Magda go. She doesn’t need to be here.”
The man considered the response briefly, then ran his eyes around the many items gathered on the shelves as if looking for a clue or something to help.
Think! Youhave todo something! Don’t just stand there like a helpless victim!
But what could she do? She thought about running for the door, but that would leave Frank. And he would catch her, wouldn’t he? She’d still be fumbling at the door when the bullets hit her.
There is no way out. Oh god, we’re going to die here!
Then the man settled his cool eyes on Magda and it was like being washed in freezing water. “Where’s the thing you got in Hong Kong, then?” he asked, scratching his cheek idly with the barrel of the gun.
“What thing?” Magda asked, knowing how stupid it was to play dumb, but unable to think of a better answer.
The man reached into his back pocket and pulled out the folded piece of paper. “Do you know what this is?”
Magda shook her head, but next to her she heard Frank suck in a startled breath, and when she looked at him his eyes were wide, white circles. The blood from the back of his head was trickling down his neck and onto his shirt collar, like red wine spilled across a crisp white tablecloth.
