15 Seconds

Poor kid had no idea who had even strung him up there.

Vance rose up and shined a flashlight into Wayne’s eyes. The boy squinted, blinded, turning his face away. “Who is that? Mr. Hofer? Why the hell are you doing this to me, Mr. Hofer?” The kid was shaking. “What’s going on?”

“What am I doing here, son…?” Vance said, pulling out a chair and sitting down on it in front of Wayne. “I’m simply here to ask you a few things. And how you answer them will go a long ways toward determining whether you ever walk away from here… So you think about what I’m about to say, and then we’ll see. Okay, son?”

Wayne nodded, scared out of his mind.

“Good.” Vance continued to shine the light on him. “First is, what did you do to my girl?”

“I’m s-sorry, Mr. Hofer,” Wayne said, tears and mucus streaming down his face and falling onto the floor. He’d always been scared of Amanda’s old man. The guy was crazy. Even Amanda said so. The stories she would tell of him, when she and Wayne were high. How he had this violent streak. How he would just hurt things-stray cats, squirrels, Amanda’s mom. And what he used to do on the force. How he once busted a man’s wrists with his nightstick while the guy was writhing on the ground. Used it in other ways too, he’d heard. Got him thrown off the force.

“You mean her? Brandee? She ain’t nothing to me. She’s just a friend. Amanda’s still my girl.”

Vance shook his head. “I don’t mean about the girl, son. The girl could fuck you to kingdom come for all I care. You really think this is about her? You want to go on living out that putrid, dog-shit life of yours?”

“ ’Course I do!” The kid was openly crying now, almost shitting in his pants. “Please, let me down, sir. You know I do. You-”

“So then I’ll say it again, how you answer’s gonna go a long way toward determining how we get that done, Wayne. So you tell me…” Vance stood up and faced him now. “You tell me where you got the drugs from, son. I’m talking the Oxy. That’s why I’m here.”

“Oxy? We only just smoked a little weed,” Wayne said. “That’s all. We weren’t hurting no one… We jus-”

“I don’t mean tonight, you stupid fool,” Vance said, feeling his temper rear. “The Oxy that my little girl was taking. Who just got her life stolen away by whatever it was you pushed on her. That’s where she got them from, right?” Revulsion pooled in his eyes. “The stuff she was on. From you, right, son?”

“No, no… It wasn’t from me, Mr. Hofer. I swear.” Wayne was hanging like a side of beef, the blood rushing into his head. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about, sir… I-”

“You don’t know what I’m talking about?” Vance humphed cynically, almost smiling. “What Amanda was high on when she killed that poor, young gal and her baby… While her husband was serving his country over there. Now, I know it was you, son, so there’s no sense playing this out. The Oxy, where’d you get ’em, boy? That’s all that I want to know. Then I’ll hoist you down.”

“I don’t know… I don’t know,” Wayne groaned. “She didn’t get ’em from me…” He shook his head back and forth like it was on a pulley. “I promise. I swear that, Mr. Hofer…”

“You swear…” Vance tightened his grip around the lead pipe, the muscles in his wide forearms twitching. “Son, we both know that’s a damn lie. And lying won’t be the thing to help you now. But here’s a bit of the truth. I lied as well. You’re gonna have to pay for what you’ve done. Everyone is. Everyone up and down the line. Till I find where it came from. No way around that. That’s just where it stands, son.”

Wayne was trembling now, barely able to garble words back. “What I’ve done? What have I done?”

“All those lives you stole, son. The girl and her baby.” Vance stared at him. “My Amanda too.”

“No…” Now the boy was squirming and sobbing, tiring himself out twisting all over the beam. Every time he jerked his legs, the rope tightened around his neck. “I didn’t do anything to them. I didn’t give her any drugs! I swear…”

Vance went over to the black bag he had placed on the chair. “Son, we can do this two ways, and I’m afraid you’re not gonna like either of ’em, but one surely more than the other. But I think we both know by the time I walk out that door”-Vance opened the bag-“it’s gonna be with those names.”

“There are no names! You hear me, Mr. Hofer, there are no names!”

It was still dark and Wayne could barely see. He just heard things from wherever Vance was moving around. Things that made him scared. Like a sharp hiss-followed by the sweet smell of gas, propane, and then a whoosh, which sent an electrical current of fear jerking through his upended body.

He shat down his pants.

Then Wayne looked up and saw the blue flame from a welding torch in Vance’s hand, coming closer to him.

“Listen, please, Mr. Hofer, please… Listen!” he screamed. Suddenly his answers changed, and he began stammering. “These aren’t like regular folk. They’re not from around here. They’re truly bad people. I can’t give you their names. I can’t! They’ll kill me.”

To which Vance replied, chuckling, “What do you think I’m doing, son, just playing around?” He adjusted the flame to high and brought it close to Wayne.

“Now, you can stay up there, whimpering like a child, long as you like. Trust me, I’ve got all night. But whimpering ain’t gonna help you in this situation. I want to hear you talking names, son. Otherwise…”

Wayne’s eyes bulged as the flame came close, darting back and forth. “I didn’t do anything to them! I swear. I didn’t.” The heat was close to his face. He began to sob. “I didn’t!”

“Well, that’s just where you’re wrong, son. Where you and I disagree.”

Vance grabbed one of Wayne’s bare feet and put the blue flame against his sole, the boy’s skin sizzling and his leg kicking around like a half-killed bass and a shriek coming out of him that might have been heard in Lowndes County.

“Please, Mr. Hofer, please…”

“Where you got the Oxy from that you fed my daughter? You hear me? I can make this last forever, son, or I can make it quick. Either way, by the time I leave, I’m going to have what I want.”

He placed the blue flame on Wayne’s foot again, the kid jerking and crying and howling bloody hell. And a stink going up. “Names, son… It’s only going to get worse. I think you must be hearing me now. No one’s leaving here without those names.”

Chapter Eighteen

He got them. Names.

Though it took longer than he’d liked-Wayne thrashing and screaming how these were bad people and they’d come and kill him, which seemed to suggest he didn’t fully appreciate what was happening to him right now.

The lad was passed out now. Still. The whimpering had stopped, though his feet smelled like meat on a spit and were puffed up bloody ugly, swollen, and blistered and blue.

Hell, they wouldn’t be much good to him now anyway.

Vance lowered him from the beam, the ropes still horse-collared around Wayne’s neck. He surely could have saved the kid a lot of pain and aggravation. But he had to pay-that was clear. Just like that girl and her baby had paid.

Just like Amanda had paid. Forfeited half her life just for being young and foolish.

Now Wayne had to pay too.

Vance hoisted up the body by the armpits. He figured as long as he had the apparatus all rigged up, he might as well put it to some use, and cinched the rope tightly around the kid’s neck, placing the noose under his chin. Then he began to squeeze.

Squeeze. With all the strength he had from those years of running that lathe.

All those years on the force and the way they’d pushed him aside without much of a thought to him.