Soul Circus

Devra Stokes spit on McKinley on her way out. Neither Strange nor Quinn moved to stop her.

AFTER Quinn and Devra left, Strange shut down most of the lights in the house and returned to the living room. On the floor was a lamp with no shade, holding a naked bulb, and he picked it up and carried it over to McKinley. He placed it beside him and left it on. The bulb threw off heat, and its glow highlighted the bullets of sweat on McKinley’s forehead and the tracks of it moving down his face.

Strange got back down on his haunches and pulled up McKinley’s wife-beater, exposing his chest and belly.

“What you doin’?”

Strange drew his Buck knife from its sheath. He held it upside down and pressed the heavy wood-and-bronze hilt against the blackened area of McKinley’s jawline. McKinley recoiled as if shocked.

“That hurts, I expect,” said Strange. He moved to press the spot again but did not make the contact. “What’s your partner Mike’s full name?”

“Montgomery.”

“And where’s he stay at?”

McKinley gave him the address. Strange asked him to repeat it so he could remember, and McKinley complied.

Strange rested one knee on McKinley’s thigh and put his weight there. He touched the edge of the blade to the area below the nipple of McKinley’s right breast.

“You got titties like a woman,” said Strange. “You know that?”

“Man, what the fuck you doin’?” said McKinley in a desperate way.

Strange moved the knife so that the blade now rested with its edge above the purple aureole of McKinley’s nipple.

“You put your hands on that girl, right about where I’m touchin’ this blade. Didn’t you, boy?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt her. I didn’t cut her, man.”

“You like the way this feels, Horace?”

“Don’t.”

“You tellin’ me?”

“Goddamn, don’t be cuttin’ on me with that knife.”

“You gonna leave the girl alone, right?”

McKinley nodded.

“The boy, too.”

“Both of ’em, man.”

“ ’Cause I don’t want you gettin’ near her at all. Her or her son, you understand?”

“I hear you, Strange. We good, right?”

Blood splashed onto Strange’s hand as he sliced into McKinley’s flesh, sweeping the knife savagely across his breast.

McKinley bucked and screamed. The tendons stood out on his neck as he writhed from the pain. The scream became a sob that McKinley could not stop. Strange found it odd to hear a big man cry so free.

“Now we’re good,” said Strange, wiping the Buck off on McKinley’s shirt and sheathing it. “You just sit there and try to relax.”

STRANGE moved the lamp as close as it would get to McKinley. The heat from the bulb, he guessed, was now hot on his face. Strange then dragged a chair over and set it before the fat man. He had a seat.

McKinley had stopped sobbing. His breathing had subsided to a steady wheeze. The dirty flap of nipple, nearly severed and dangling off McKinley’s chest, had begun to turn from purple to black. The blood had stopped flowing from the cut Strange had made.

“What now?” said McKinley, elbowing the lamp away from him as best he could. “Ain’t you done enough?”

Strange drew the Sig from his waistband. He pointed it at McKinley’s face and moved his finger inside the trigger guard. McKinley’s lip trembled as he closed his eyes.

Strange lowered the gun. He turned it and released its magazine, letting it slide out into his palm. He checked to make sure a round had not been chambered.

“Just wanted you to experience what you put that girl through,” said Strange. “That kind of helplessness.”

“Fuck you, man.”

“I’ll just keep this.” Strange stood, the magazine in his hand. “You can have the rest.”

He dropped the body of the.45 onto McKinley’s lap. McKinley was cut, bleeding, and beaten. Worst of all, a piece of his manhood was forever gone. McKinley was past being frightened now. One eye twitched, and a thread of pink spittle dripped from his mouth.

“What makes me so different?” he said.

“What’s that?”

“You out here trying to save Granville Oliver, and at the same time lookin’ to harm me? Shit, him and me, we’re damn near the same man. He ain’t no better or different than me. I worked for him when I was a kid.”

“I know it,” said Strange. He had been thinking the same thing himself, trying to separate it out in his mind.

“So why?”

“Cops, private cops, whatever, they got this saying, when one of y’all kills another one like you: It’s the cost of doing business. What it means is, you got your world you made, and we’re in it, too. And no one outside that world is gonna shed tears when you go. But it’s an unspoken rule that you don’t turn that violent shit on people you got no cause to fuck with.” Strange slipped the magazine into a pocket of his jeans. “You shouldn’t have done what you did to that girl.”

“What, you don’t think Granville’s ever done the same?”

“I don’t know for sure,” said Strange. “But he’s never done it to anyone I knew.”

McKinley looked down at the body of the Sig lying in his lap, then back up at Strange. “Why didn’t you kill me? I’d a killed you.”

“I’m not you,” said Strange. “And anyway, ain’t enough left of you to kill. You’re through.”

“You don’t know nothin’, Strange,” said McKinley, grimacing horribly, showing his bloody teeth. “You the one’s through. One phone call from me is all it’s gonna take. You and everyone you know, all a y’all gonna be under the eye. You gonna lose everything, Strange. Your license, your business, your family. Everything.” McKinley tried to smile. “You the one’s through.”

The fat man’s threats rippled through him. Strange stared at him but said nothing more. He redrew his knife, bent down, and cut the bindings on McKinley’s feet. Then he severed the ropes that held his wrists. McKinley brought his arms around and dropped his hands at his sides.

Strange walked from the house.

MCKINLEY found his cell on the floor. He grunted and got himself up on his feet. He went around the house turning lights on as he dialed Mike Montgomery’s number. But he only got the message service again. He hit “end” and dialed the number for Ulysses Foreman.

“Yeah.”

“McKinley here.”