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Luca Brazzi Sleeps With The Fishes
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When a character has been abducted and/or murdered by the villains, they may then taunt the surviving characters with some message (often ambiguous) indicating the victim's fate. ID cards, favorite jewelry, or other personal items of the victim may be used, or it could instead be in a 'code' whose meaning the recipient is expected to understand.
For two particularly gruesome variants of this, see Stuffed Into The Fridge and Mary Kellys Kidney.
Examples:
- Named for a scene in the film The Godfather, in which the Corleones receive a fish wrapped in a bulletproof vest which belonged to Luca Brasi (one of Don Corleone's enforcers). One of the older capos explains to Sonny, the temporary head of the family, that it means that Brasi has been killed and dumped in the river.
- In a nod to The Godfather, in Batman: Dark Victory, someone steals the body of previous Untouchable Crime Lord Big Bad Carmine Falcone (who was killed by Two Face, in attempt to "do what is necessary" to take down organized crime) and, later, sends his daughter, who has taken over the crime family, his finger, which her aide recognizes as an "old style message," meaning that someone means to take everything from her, "piece by piece." At the end, the person who stole the body is revealed to be Two Face (if it wasn't already obvious), who, throughout the story, was acting leading nearly all of Batman's rogues gallery to take down the Falcone family and it's associates.
- In the film The Big Lebowski, the title character's wife Bunny appears to have been kidnapped by thugs, and they send him what they claim is her severed little toe. It ain't Bunny's.
- This is parodied in Homestar Runner, when Strong Bad's Lappy 486 computer is lappynapped, and the lappynappers send SB her little toe. Actually, her comma key.
- In Escape From New York, a creepy punk taunts the government troops with what he claims is the kidnapped President's finger. It is the President's.
- In one of the Forgotten Realms novels, the crimelord who has the halfling Regis captive has one of his men give Drizzt and friends (out to save Regis) a package when they reach his city: a halfling's severed finger. Not only is it from Regis, the crimelord does it again as they're breaking into his lair.
- In addition, in the previous book, Entreri had stolen the statue that allowed Driz'zt to summon Guenhwyvar, and let Driz'zt see it just long enough for him to figure out what the small object was...
- In The Simbul's Gift Alassra Shentrantra ("The Simbul") got thorn stem without a flower when her lover Lailomun "misteriously disappeared", as a mocking "gift" from Lailomun's mentor, zulkir Mythrell'aa (reason behind Simbul's seething hatred for Mythrell'aa in particular and Red Wizards in general).
- In Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Kadaj taunts Rufus Shinra with the blood-splattered ID cards of Rufus' personal bodyguards. Granted, they were only Left For Dead, but we don't know that in the movie (yet). Rufus barely reacts, but that's because he's Rufus.
- In the James Bond film, The World Is Not Enough, heiress Electra King has a mutilated ear because her rich-as-Croesus-but-cheapskate father refused to pay her ransom. This is one of the key motivators behind her reversal of the Stockholm Syndrome with her seduction of her kidnapper and then overly complicated revenge plot.
- Irrelevant nitpick in that it was MI-6 who told him not to pay the ransom, as policy dictates absolutely no negotiation with terrorists.
- VERY creepy Real Life example: in the 70's, young heir John Paul Getty III got his ear cut off a la Electra King and sent to his grandfather as a proof of him being kidnapped. Said guy was rescued in the end, but ended up drug-addicted and later comatose.
- In the Rurouni Kenshin manga, Enishi Yukishiro pulls a specially cruel one. Because he can't bring himself to kill Kenshin's girlfriend Kaoru Kamiya because she reminds him of his dead sister Tomoe, he kidnaps Kaoru and leaves a VERY realistically-done mannequin made of flesh posing as her corpse, blood-splattered kendo clothes and bloody katana piercing said doll's chest included. No wonder poor Kenshin had a huge Heroic BSOD at the sight of that.
- The Dale Brown novel Storming Heaven has A skimming Minion of Henri Cazaux get his heart cut. The Dragon's holding it (in the plastic bag) in his hand, examining and squeezing is enough to make one guy not only lose his lunch, but later go to the authorities.
- In the KateModern episode "The Killer is Dead", Charlie receives a phonecall which turns out to consist of her friend Kate's dying screams. Furthermore, the call is from Kate's phone.
- In one episode of The Golden Girls, the girls' young neighbor Daisy holds Rose's teddy bear for ransom. At one point, Blanche receives one of his ears in the mail.
- In the Scrubs episode "My White Whale", Dr. Cox steals the puppet Mr. Cookiepants from an uncooperative pediatrician and later sends a severed puppet hand. Later, Dr. Cox reveals that he had used a different puppet for the hand, and he returns Mr. Cookiepants safe and whole.
- Doesn't Frodo's mithril vest from The Lord Of The Rings count?
- The sausages in the film Prime Cut.
- The word "touchable" written in the murdered Wallace's blood in The Untouchables.
- I also read somewhere that in Real Life, when Capone sent an assassin after Ness whose nickname was 'fingers', Ness sent back a package containing two of them.
- In ''The Scorpion King', Memnon gets a message by carrier bird, and everyone thinks the Akkadian is dead. When he opens the message, he instead discovers that it contains Thorak's amulet instead.
- In the movie Clean Slate, Dana Carvey is supposed to testify against a criminal who is missing his thumb, because he was kidnapped as a child and his father refused to give in to the kidnappers' demands.
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