been a few years, you know? So Christina explains this and he says, Fine, but come up with a bunch of different places, I want a way so that you and the fence don't have to talk to each other. So Christina figures that one out, too.'
'But how do you know what time to go to the same place?' said Morris. 'You got to decide on that every month.'
'You could just set it at a regular time… but that makes you predictable. So Christina put a wrinkle in for that, too. You get the time and day from the numbers themselves. You combine the last number with the new number,' he remembered out loud. 'The last number gives you the hour and the new number gives you the day. So if the old number was three and the new one was four, then you met at three o'clock on the fourth day of the next month to get the next number.'
'What about the numeral zero?' Morris looked at his piece of paper. 'How do you handle that?'
'Zero was ten. Also, she made a rule that numbers seven through nine were a.m., zero was 10:00 a.m., and numbers one through six were in the afternoon… that way she was always out when lots of other people were around, didn't look strange. Now, with the date, zero was also treated as ten. So that gave you the date of the next meeting. It was always in the first ten days of the month, that way.'
'What about the time and date of the drop-off? You can't just make that any old time, with traffic and parking and all. Plus fucking parades and shit.'
'That's true. She had some kind of trick for that.'
'You could just set a regular time for a particular date, taking into account the traffic for the truck.'
'You could,' Rick agreed, 'but if the same drop-off-place number came up twice in a row, which can happen, then you have the truck appearing in the same place at the same time on the same date two months in a row, which was too risky. No, she had something in there for that, but I can't remember.'
Morris consulted his piece of paper. 'What about the places where you got the numbers?'
'I remember a few,' he said, feeling tired. The pain from the foot wound was indistinguishable from the ankle pain. 'One of them was in Penn Station, looking at the train board. Another was that big stock market board they got over on Times Square. Then I think a third was the digital thermometer on the top of the Gulf amp; Western Building, probably the last digit, since that would-'
Morris took off his watch.
'Hey,' yelled Rick, 'I just gave you everything!'
'You didn't give us Christina.'
'I told you, I'm looking for her myself. I'm getting-'
'Drill.'
He fought them as hard as he could now, butting with his head, whipping his feet out, but they'd kept his cuffs on, and while Tommy pulled his arms over his head and Jones sat on his feet, Morris touched the drill against Rick's rib cage. He could feel it powdering the bone, vibrating his whole chest.
'Rick,' Morris hissed next to his ear. 'Come on, be a champ here, tell us where she is, guy.'
He breathed as best he could. 'I don't know,' he cried in misery. 'I-wait, I-oh…' Suddenly he found his hatred. 'Oh, you cocksuckers can fucking go to hell.'
Morris nodded to Tommy and Jones. 'The jaw.'
He felt their fingers grab his neck and head and shove it down on the old wooden table. He fought with everything he had left, kicking with his good foot, hitting one of them hard in the chest, not even feeling his foot, his rib, but just fighting blindly, fighting against them and his own fear, fighting for the idea of survival, and they snatched his hair and lifted his head up and pounded it against the table and he fell asleep for a moment, and that was when the drill started again and went in and through his unshaven cheek and destroyed one of his upper teeth. The pain burned through into his eye and ear and neck, and he saw hot white lights in his head yet held his mouth open and kept his tongue pressed down to avoid the drill. It stayed in there, whirling blood and tissue inside his mouth, riding back and forth across the destroyed roots of the tooth, killing his head with pain. He may have been screaming, he didn't know. He went limp, eyes shut, mouth filling with blood. Morris pulled out the drill, not cleanly but dragging it over the bottom tooth, and again the pain cabled into Rick's eye socket and pushed outward along the ear canal and even into his nose. He felt air coming in coolly through his cheek. The blood was sticky and warm in his throat, and he tentatively closed his mouth and opened it, tonguing little pieces of tooth against his gum.
' That, I will freely confess,' said Morris, 'was a mistake.'
'Why?' asked Jones.
'You want a guy to talk, you don't drill his mouth.'
'Got a point there.'
Morris drew close and whispered, his breath metallic, like the side effect of medication. 'You're all over the Village, Rick. You been snooping around, looking in shops and talking to people. Right? You think we don't know this?'
'Ha-wait, wait,' he breathed thickly. 'She probably down there-could be anywhere… I don't know — '
Morris wasn't listening. 'Tommy, you pack the ice chest like I told you?'
'In the car.'
'Go get it.'
'Right.'
'Also bring the camera.'
'You got it.'
'Hey, Rick,' Morris said, 'you know, she's not worth it, okay? I mean-hey! — we're reasonable people. You tell us, we drop you at the hospital, they patch you up. You're bleeding now, see. You're in a little bit of trouble. Tell us now and it's the emergency room.'
He made a noise with his mouth.
'It's not a big problem. It's like five minutes.'
His groin felt wet, his head hot. His hands were cold, and he wanted to sleep. Maybe they would take him to the emergency room. Of course. He couldn't really die now, it wasn't time.
Morris started the drill.
Rick shut his eyes. 'Jim-Jack,' he called, mouth a socket of agony. 'Bleeck-er.'
'What about it?'
'Work there.'
'What days?'
He didn't know, but they would not believe him if he said so. 'Mon-day to Sat-day.'
'Nights, day?'
'Yeah, yeah.'
'Downtown-we can pick her up anytime,' said Tommy.
'Right.' Morris turned back to Rick. He looked at the drill, then started it. 'Where's she living?'
'I–I don't-' He didn't want to say it. He was sorry. He was sorry for everything, and he closed his eyes, choking.
'It's coming, I can tell,' Morris narrated. 'I've seen this.'
'I love her… I love that girl!' The drill started near his ear and he began to cry, convulsing in despair at how worthless and weak and broken he was, a nobody afraid of dying. 'I loved…' He sobbed shamefully and covered his eyes with his shackled hands.
'No, no, Rick,' explained Morris, 'not that, not yet, you can't break down yet. You have to just hold on now, say the address. Just say it-you can. Just let it out.'
'I love her, I do!' he cried, hating himself.
'I know you do,' came Morris's voice of understanding. 'That's admirable, I respect you for that, but it doesn't help anything. You have to tell us the address now, Rick. You have to say it. If you don't, then I'll give you the drill again. You know I will. Right? I know what I'm doing, Rick. I worked as a paramedic for nine years, I've seen everything. I have control of you, Rick. I have control of your body and your mind, and I have more things in my box that hurt. Now, you need to give me her address or it will get very bad for you.'
' Ah…' he breathed, not knowing what to do.
The drill started. His eyes were closed, but the drill was so near he could smell the burn of the electric motor. The noise was close to his nostril, just inside, tickling-'East Fourth!' he cried. 'East Fourth… First Avenue. Blue
