Stupid.
“She’s sleeping, brother,” Fingers said. He raised his eyebrows.
Smoke went numb.
Time passed as he hung there. He noticed the shadows were growing long outside. The light was starting to fade from the sky, and from the room. Death would be a relief of sorts. It was the money, of course. That was why they were here, and it was the only thing keeping him alive. They wanted to know where the money was.
It seemed like an effort even to blink.
There was pain everywhere in his body, and now that he thought about it, that was probably a good thing. They hadn’t severed his spinal cord, for instance. If ever he got away from these guys, he’d still be able to walk.
The beginning of a plan began to form.
Cruz stood in front of him. “You’re a trooper, O’Malley. I’ll give you that much. You can take a beating. We’re getting tired of it, actually. You see, we don’t like beatings. They’re slow. They don’t work on old-school tough guys like you. But our orders were not to hurt you too bad. You see, we had to keep you presentable in case that money was in the bank somewhere and we needed you to go in and get it.”
He shrugged, as if to himself. “But I guess it didn’t work. So when it gets dark out, we’re all going to take a little ride down to New York. You’re going to talk to some people down there about what you’ve been up to these past three years. Then you’re going to officially retire.”
“Well, that’s nice to know,” Smoke said. “I’ve been looking forward to retirement.”
Cruz nodded to the other two. They untied the rope from the ceiling and Smoke collapsed in a heap on the floor. The back of his head hit the worn floor hard, but it was just another pain to add to the list. Still, he faded in and out for a few seconds.
Cruz hunkered down next to him. He stood in a squat like a farmer, like he might run his hands through the deep rich soil. Smoke figured he couldn’t stand like Cruz was doing now even on his best days.
Cruz’s voice took on a conspiratorial tone.
“They’re going to kill you. You know that already. What you don’t know, and what you’re probably wondering, is why they’re bothering to bring you down to New York when we could do it just as easily here. I’m going to tell you, you know why? Because I don’t like to see anybody suffer needlessly, and you seem like a pretty good guy.”
“Thanks,” Smoke said. He made an effort to swallow.
Cruz went on. “You worry them, you understand? Here’s a guy who’s involved in big jobs over the years, suddenly up and disappears. Kills a guy. Steals a lot of money. Sinks his boat in a storm. You didn’t think anybody bought that lost at sea bullshit, did you?” He smiled. “No, nobody bought it. They’ve been looking for you the whole time. You’re an important man.”
Cruz paused, as if in reflection.
“There was something you did that had to be kept real quiet, am I right? Yeah, I am right. So they want to know who you talked to about this thing during three long years away. Did you talk to girlfriends? Did you talk to a shrink? To a priest?”
“I didn’t talk to anybody,” Smoke said, giving up the charade that he wasn’t the man they wanted. “I kept it to myself.”
Cruz turned to look at the two men standing behind him. Then he turned back to Smoke. “And the money?”
“Safe deposit boxes. Six different banks. Four here in town. One in Boston. One up in Quebec City. In case I had to run.”
Cruz nodded solemnly. “I believe you. But they’re not going to. They’re going to torture you, you understand? They’re going to cut your teeth out, one by one. They’re going to crush your balls. They’re going to break your fingers and toes. They’re going to impale you through the ass on a stick. They’re going to cut your eyes out. They’re going to do whatever they want. If you talked to anybody, they’re going to find out, and it’s going to be a slow process. The way you can beat that, and die quickly, is to tell them everything up front, right away.”
Smoke started to shake. “Look,” he said. His words tumbled out in a torrent, a flood of chatter. “You win, all right? You win. Am I keeping my mouth shut? No, I’m not. I told you where the money is. We can get most of it tomorrow, if you want. And I didn’t tell anybody. I can prove it, too. For the first couple of years I kept a diary. I wrote in loose-leaf notebooks almost every day. I kept stacks of them. I couldn’t keep it in my head, but I was afraid to tell anybody. For just this reason – I didn’t want to get anybody in the soup with me when you guys eventually showed up. I probably even wrote about stashing the money in the banks. I don’t remember now. But you can look at them. We got all night, right? The banks are closed by now. If we hadn’t spent all day with this…” He gestured at the floor around himself, the dead cats, the blood, his own crumpled form, and somewhere out there, his dead friend Lorena, who only wanted to have a garden.
“…with this bullshit, you could’ve gotten the money…” Abruptly, he started crying, and that surprised even him. But it hurt. It hurt so bad, and they had hardly even fucking started yet. New York was going to be worse. He knew that. He knew how bad it was going to be. His body was wracked by sobs.
“You can have the fucking money. Read the notebooks. It’s all in there.”
Cruz smiled. “Okay, notebooks. That’ll be a start. It won’t be proof that you didn’t talk to anybody, but it might make things easier on you. Where are the notebooks?”
“I keep them out in the workshop.”
Cruz looked at the two men standing by the doorway, watching the sun go down. “Moss, go check out those notebooks.”
The big man smiled, apparently at the thought of this little man giving him a direct command. “You heard the man, Fingers. Go on and get those notebooks out of the shed. We can see what our friend’s been up to all this time.”
Smoke shook his head, the tears still flowing. “The kid will never find them by himself. They’re in there under about a million different things. He’ll never be able to figure out all my junk.”
An amused, mocking light came into Cruz’s eyes.
“You know if you try anything funny, I am personally going to cut your left eye out. You realize that, right? You can’t get away from us, so don’t let something in your mind convince you otherwise. It’ll make your life, what little is left of it, a lot harder.”
Smoke shook his head. “I know all that. I’m just trying to help. The kid won’t find the stuff. It’ll take him half an hour. I’m not even sure where they are myself. But I’ll do a better job of finding them than he will.”
Cruz gestured at Smoke, and Smoke lay there until the two young men came over to help him. They grabbed him under the arms, and lifted. Smoke let his head loll backwards as they raised him.
Then he was standing. “I need my cane,” he said.
Cruz was right in front of him.
“Never mind your cane. Fingers here will help you walk.”
Smoke allowed Fingers to support him as he and the kid passed through the garden backyard and approached the workshop. Cruz followed behind them. They passed the little grave marker for Butch.
“You used to have a dog, Dugan?”
“Not me. The dog was buried there when I got here. I never felt like digging it up.”
Fingers leaned Smoke up against the wall of the shed, and handed him the key chain they had taken away from him earlier. Smoke worked the key in the lock and pushed the heavy door. It creaked as it opened. The shadows were long inside the workshop.
The kid shoved Smoke through the door and Smoke bounced across the room, then fell to the dusty floor. He was lying below the window that led to the back alley, and from there, the street. That back alley was overgrown with weeds that came right up to the window. He locked that window whenever he was away from the shed. But he kept the lock well-oiled and ready to open. It got hot in there, some days.
Fingers laughed at him. “You know what, old man? You’re pathetic. This is the easiest job I been on in my life. You know what I mean? I mean, we didn’t even hurt you. Not really.”
Smoke reached up and used the window to claw himself into an upright position. He leaned on the window sill. He reached up to the top of the window and clamped his hand on the lock. Motes seemed to float in front of his eyes. He was going to pass out again, and soon.
