“Fuck me!”
The yowling escalated to hisses and throaty growls, and then the unseen cats went at each other. The sound of small, thudding bodies, vicious snarls, and chalk-on-a-blackboard screams weaved into a shrill cacophony. It made him grit his teeth, and that made his eyes hurt again.
The howls stopped and he was surrounded with a thick, pulsating silence. Just past the fringe of light he saw two unblinking eyes floating in the blackness, staring at him.
“Here, pussy, pussy,” he said, chuckling. He’d made his peace with fear a long time ago. He’d looked down the barrel of a shotgun, felt a stiletto sink into his flesh, did five and a half in Attica with the beasties and the bush babies. And he had a theory about fear. It was all about regret. If you make what you want out of life and don’t bullshit yourself about your choices, then there are no regrets, and a man without regret isn’t afraid of anything.
Then again, he did wish that he hadn’t paid that last visit to Nicki…
The eyes darted toward him, and something swung into the light with a whoosh — it was a long wooden oar-and struck him flat-sided on the sternum. His body reflexively tried to double up, but the bonds prevented it, so he shook and spasmed like a large fish on a hook, and then slowly came to rest.
“Muh-ther-fuck-er,” came out of him.
The pain crawled up into his neck and flooded his eyes with tears. Someone was standing outside the cube; he was dressed in black and wore gloves and a hood. Jackie Cats knew he wasn’t dealing with Carmine or any of the guys. They’d taken him to a pro. He remembered Carmine talking about two guys in the past. One name started with a D — Denton, Durbin, something like that. He couldn’t remember the other guy’s name.
“Jesus,” he said. “A fucking boat paddle?”
The oar’s head smacked into the small of his back. His body tried to arch forward and the oar slammed into his stomach. The blows were wreaking havoc on his involuntary reflexes. Before his muscles could finish one violent spasm they were jolted by another. He was twisting up inside. He felt as if parts of him were being pulled from their moorings. Bile rose in his throat like volcanic magma.
“You picked a helluva way to make a living, you sick fuck. It must pay well. Don’t mind if I puke, do you?”
His lunch shot out onto the floor. It occurred to him that it had probably been his last meal, and he hadn’t enjoyed it. The veal had been tough. He greedily gathered air back into his lungs.
“I’m not giving anybody up, asshole,” he said.
Behind him, a soft voice said, “I need the names of the men who helped you steal the money, John.”
Jackie Cats turned his head as far as he could. The guy was back there, but all he could see was blackness. “You hear what I just said?” he barked.
“I need the names of the men who helped you steal the money, John.”
“Are you fucking deaf or-”
The edge of the oar met his chest with a crack. He howled, his head swiveling back around in time to see the oar disappear. The voice was behind him, so how could the guy be in front of him? Was there more than one of them?
“You tell Carmine-he’s got his money back, and he’s got me, so leave it alone. I’m not ratting. And you can suck my dick.”
He heard a click, and a stream of tepid liquid poured down on his head and shoulders, down his body, drenching him and dripping down into the grille.
“What the fuck?”
The dousing slowed to a trickle and stopped, and the mini-spots grew brighter. The stuff stung his eyes, like too much chlorine in a pool. It tasted bitter.
“It’s a mixture of water and three chemical agents,” the voice said. “Under the lights, it will start to heat up as it dries on the skin. It feels good, at first.”
For a few minutes, it did. Jackie Cats remembered lying on the tar roof of their house off Flatbush Avenue when he was a kid, the sun on his face and the heat coming up through his towel and warming his back. But now his skin was burning hot. He felt like a slab of meat on a spit. He could almost hear the sizzle.
“So how does it work?” he asked the darkness. “You don’t get paid unless I give you names? That it? ’Cuz if it is, you’re doing this one pro bono. I’m telling you-you can wait till I’m fucking charcoal-broiled, but Jackie Cats ain’t talking.”
“I told you what I need, John, but at the moment I’m not asking you for anything. It isn’t time yet.”
“So who are you-Denton or the other guy?”
“His name is Dalton.”
“Whatever.”
His skin felt like it was shrinking, tightening on his bones. His hands had gone numb. He’d begun to feel very strange: suspended this way, he was losing the sense of where his own body started and ended. If he could just touch something…
“How ’bout this? One mean, crazy prick to another. Trust me when I tell you I ain’t giving anybody up, so how ’bout we cut to the chase and you take me out right now? Get it over with.”
He heard the whoosh just before the oar met his left kneecap. His bellow sounded hoarse and unfamiliar.
“Should I take that as a no?” He laughed, and that sounded different now, too. Tinny and high-pitched. “Tell you what, then. I’m gonna explain something to you. Try and make you see why you might as well do me now.”
Another whoosh brought the oar smashing into his right kneecap. His teeth bit into his lower lip. He tasted blood. Harsh lights suddenly came on in the walls and ceiling. The optical shift delivered such a sensory jolt that his body stiffened as if he’d been hit again.
The room was large, about twenty feet square. There was nothing else in it except a man who stood before him just outside the steel frame. Clothed completely in black, he held the oar in his hand.
“Nice to meet you, motherfucker,” Jackie Cats said.
Geiger pulled off his ski mask. He was satisfied with how things were going. He’d used force moderately, just enough to keep Massimo’s primal senses in the moment while the cube and the sodium hydroxide solution gradually did their work. Slowly the man’s concrete sense of the physical self would alter and diminish, ultimately affecting his mind and loosening his sense of resolve, priorities, loyalties. Massimo was telling him how tough he was, explaining why he couldn’t be broken. It was a good sign.
“Go on, John,” Geiger said. “Tell me why we should cut this session short. I’m listening.”
“Okay then. See, the way I see things, life and death is a no-lose proposition. I’ve felt that way for thirty years and I’m gonna feel that way no matter what kind of shitstorm you bring down on me. You know why that is?”
Geiger started to walk slowly around the cube. The oar hung down at his side. “Tell me, John.”
“Here’s why. The way I live life in my world, somebody wants to take me out? Fine. Take your best shot and see if I go down. If I do, hey, it’s cool with me, ’cuz I’m dead now and I don’t give a shit. I don’t care that you whacked me, or that you’re fucking my wife or pissing on my tombstone. Do whatever the fuck you like, or don’t. You staying with me on this, Mr. X?”
“Go on, John.”
“But if you try to whack me and I don’t go down… well, you gotta know I’m coming back at you and there’s a truckload of righteous retribution pulling up to your door. Because now I’m feeling like God on a long weekend with nothing to do but some really terrible fucking damage. And before I’m through with you, you’re gonna tell your wife to get on her knees and suck my hose till she chokes. To make me stop your pain, you’re gonna beg me to do things to her you’d never even let yourself dream about doing to the sorriest whore you could ever stick a cock in. Okay?”
Geiger knew it wouldn’t be long now.
“So either way,” Jackie Cats said, “dead or alive, I’m doing okay-see? Life and death’s a no-lose proposition
