you?'
'I don t — '
Before Ben could say another word, a long-barreled pistol materialized in Vincent's hand and whipped across the side of his face, sending him spinning to the ground.
'Did you really think you could get away with this, you stupid shit?' Vincent said. 'I had to go to the operating room to have that damn paint cleared from my eyes. Did you think I wasn't going to remember you? You didn't fool Janet in the office for a second. She had a photo of you brought to me before you had even opened your suitcase.' He kicked Ben viciously in the back. 'How long before you're a candidate for the operating room?' Another kick. 'I think we should find that out.'
Huddled in a fetal position on the packed road, Ben was unable even to speak. He had eaten little for some time, but what there was in his stomach made a sudden, uncontrollable reappearance through his mouth and nose.
'Up,' Vincent said, kicking him once more, this time in the back of the knee. 'I'm going to show you to the hospitality room. When you and I are finished, you're going to envy that passenger of ours.'
CHAPTER 33
But can you persuade us, if we refuse to listen to you?
'All right, let's do it again. Who are you?'
'Callahan. Benjamin Michael Callahan.'
'What do you do?'
'Detective. I…I'm a private detective. For God's sake, please — '
'From where?'
'I–Idaho. Pocatello, Idaho…No, please don't do that again. Don't — '
Vincent touched the electric prod to the side of Ben's chest. The shock, more intense than any pain Ben had ever experienced, exploded down his arm and around his back, sending every muscle in its path into agonizing spasm.
Ben screamed and then screamed again.
He was absolutely helpless.
There was no place to go, no one to intervene, and no way he could get Vincent to let up.
Helpless.
The interrogation had gone on for hours, with the electric prod being the main source of pain, along with a device that screwed down on his fingernails. After being beaten, he had been dragged to a room in the basement of the hospital, stripped naked, and lashed to a high-backed wooden chair. A dozen shocks later, plus some work on his hands, he had wet and soiled himself, and from what he could tell, had passed out as well — probably more than once.
Twice, a Brazilian aborigine, short but extremely powerful, had dragged him to a shower stall and allowed him to wash off in cold water. Then he was shoved back onto the chair, and the torture and interrogation began again, with Vincent, reminding him over and over about their encounter in Cincinnati, relishing every scream.
'How did you learn about the RV?'
'S'someone in Soda Springs wrote down the license plate.'
'Don't bullshit me!'
'Please stop! I'm telling you the truth. I swear I am.'
Again the prod, this time on the inside of his thigh. Again the hideous nerve pain and muscle contractions. Again the screaming.
Ben knew from the moment Vincent had slashed him across the face that he was going to be tortured. He also knew that although it would likely be the last thing he did, he had to keep Alice Gustafson's name from them. Once she read the letter he had sent her and freed Seth Stepanski, there would be plenty she could do to make a dent in the Whitestone Laboratory's illegal organs operation — but only if she was alive. If Vincent and his people got to her, his own death would be meaningless. His focus, as they dragged him to the room, likely the last place he would ever see, was to concoct a story that was close enough to fact and held together well enough in the telling and retelling to be accepted as the truth.
'How did you find us in Cincinnati?'
'I'm a detective, for crying out loud. That's what they hired me to do. With the license plate number it really wasn't that hard.'
'Who else knows about all this?'
'No one. No one. Just me. No one knows anything about this except me…No! No more!'
Whether it was from being chilled to the bone or from the breakdown of his nervous system, he couldn't stop shaking.
There were some forms of pain Ben could handle — headaches, ankle sprains, viruses, strep throats, even the pounding Vincent had administered. But from the deepest memories of his childhood, he had hated and feared being drilled by the dentist. Even with Novocain or whatever they used for numbing, the anticipation of just the slightest touch on a dental nerve was almost more than he could stand. The prod in Vincent's hands was like a hundred drills into pulp, only there was no numbing medicine. None at all.
Again the killer shocked him, this time on the base of his neck. Every muscle in his body seemed to contract. His jaw viciously snapped shut, causing him to bite through the side of his tongue and snap off part of a tooth.
'Again, who hired you?'
'The…the Durkins. From Soda Springs. Their son was killed by a truck in Florida…The coroner there thought someone had stolen his bone marrow. It's the truth. I swear it is.'
'I'll decide what is and isn't the truth, and if I decide you're messing with me, I swear I'll open you up from ass to eyeball with this thing. Now tell me again, how did you end up in Texas?'
Ben had no trouble making it seem as if he couldn't stand any more of the cattle prod. His situation was hopeless, and all he wanted now was to get out of his life with as little further pain as possible, and to take with him the ort of nobility that would go with not exposing Organ Guard and its devoted founder. He retold the story of the Whitestone Laboratory in Soda Springs, and his almost inadvertent glimpse of the address on the case of blood vials to be shipped to Fadiman.
The shocks became less frequent, though no less terrible. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Vincent motioned his helper to throw Ben into the shower stall again. His chest and abdomen were covered with bile and drool. Unable to stand on rubbery legs, he sat on the grimy tile and supported himself against the wall as the chilly water beat down on him. He extended the shower as long as he could stand it, then unsteadily crawled back to his chair.
Vincent was gone. Beside the chair were a large, clean white towel and a pile of neatly folded clothes — a pair of chinos, a gray tee, thin white socks, and a pair of black, spit-polished high cut boots. The aborigine motioned for him to get dressed.
Ben had wondered how, when his torture was no longer entertaining, he would be terminated. He had expected, even hoped, for a bullet to the brain. Now, he didn't know what to think. Dressing was an excruciating, slow process. His legs were almost too battered and the muscles too spent to bend, there were electric burns over most of his body, and his swollen, bluish fingers were too stiff to handle the laces. After watching him struggle for fifteen minutes or more, his guard tied him back in his chair and then laced the boots. Next he went to a small refrigerator in one corner of the torture chamber and brought over a bottle of water and a thick chocolate bar, and freed one of Ben's hands. Ben tried to connect with the man.
'Do you understand me?' he asked.
The guard stared at him blankly.
