to hold down a job was because he was a little . . . o-slay. “Why would someone scream like that if it was a game?”
“Ah.” The man nodded. “I see your point.”
Whoever was screaming screamed again.
“Definitely not a game,” Bumpo said. “Should we call the police?”
Dave thought a moment. Thought, specifically, about how big Mr. Badass was, and how little, by comparison, he and Bumpo were.
“Let’s stay out of it. He’s a very scary man.”
“But maybe he’s killing someone! Maybe we’re next!”
Dave nodded. “Exactly. So we should mind our own business. Pretend like we didn’t hear a thing.”
Bumpo nodded.
Once more, the two men turned as one, walked back into their respective apartments, and locked their doors.
Now they were getting somewhere.
“I’ll tell you anything!” Duka screamed. “Anything you want to know.”
“I bet you say that to all the guys, Mick.”
Duka was gasping for breath.
Pathetic, Castle thought.
“Look, Otto—Frank, I mean—I’m not a strong person, but I’m not a stupid person. I don’t know who ratted you out, if I did I swear I’d—”
Castle jabbed him again.
“DAMN!” Duka shouted. “That hurts, oh Christ, it hurts. You’re a sick man, Castle, I was gonna say I don’t know who ratted you out, but I do know some other things.”
“Okay. Tell me.”
“I know how the Saints and the Toros are connected. Bobby told me.”
“The Toros?” For a second, Castle was confused. Who were the Toros?
Then he remembered. It had been in the file on Saint— one of the things Brent was investigating about the man, a reputed connection to Mike and Joe Toro, who ran an illegal gambling operation down in Ybor City.
“Okay,” Castle said. “Keep going.”
“Saint’s a currency broker, converts pesos to dollars. He—”
Castle jabbed him again.
“ARGGH!” Mickey screamed. “What was that for? I was telling you—”
“You were telling me Howard Saint is a currency broker.
That’s in the papers.” He waved the torch slowly back and forth in front of Duka’s face. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Wait, wait. Please.” Duka took a breath. “The thing is, the currency business—that’s a business you can run clean or dirty. Saint, he runs it in a river of blood.”
Castle nodded. River of blood. Interesting phrase.
“Go on.”
“See, the Toros, they make money from gambling and drugs. Cash businesses. The problem? You can’t bank it anywhere because the Feds will investigate. So what do you do?”
“They give it to Saint. Is that what you’re saying?”
“That’s right. They give it to Saint. What’s he do? Cigarette boats. Sends ’em to the Cayman Islands, and, phhht, the money’s gone, wired to banks all over the world. They turn around and wire it back to Saint, right here in Tampa. Then he loans the money to the Toros, who never pay it back. Minus his forty percent, of course.”
Castle’s eyes widened. “Saint takes forty percent?”
“Yeah. Saint takes forty percent. Pretty slick, hey?”
Castle nodded again. Pretty goddamn slick indeed, especially that 40 percent cut, the most he’d ever run across in these kinds of money-laundering schemes before—and he’d worked a half dozen of them, knew all the ins and outs, the weak points where you could get at the dirty money before it disappeared—was thirty percent, and the guy taking that had to discount his services in an awful big hurry when his customers found out how much he was overcharging them.
A thought occurred to Castle then.
“Where do they drop the cash?”
Duka frowned.
“What?”
“The cash from the clubs, Micky. That the Toros give to Saint? Where do they drop it?”
“Oh.” Duka nodded. “Downtown. In Saint’s building. That part of the setup, I know.”
Duka went on to explain. Castle listened, nodding as the man talked. This was information he could use—not exactly what he’d intended to get out of Duka, but a good starting point for him.
As for Micky . . .
Castle looked at the picture—
Maria. Will.
—and stood.
“Okay, Mick,” he said. “We’re done here.”
“Done?” Duka smiled hopefully. “So you’ll cut me down from here now, right? Let me go?”
“In a second, Mick. I sure will.”
And then he took the thing in his hand and jabbed Duka one last time.
This scream was louder than all the rest.
He would die like a man.
Damned if Castle would see him cry. He could burn him to a crisp, sizzle his skin right off, but Micky Duka would sit here—hang here, really—and take it without flinching. Okay, maybe one or two screams, but that was it. Micky Duka would—
Castle stepped in front of him and crammed the torch into his mouth.
For a second, it burned, the same ice-cold burn that he’d been feeling on his back since Castle had started torturing him. Bastard. Killing wasn’t enough, the psycho had to burn his face so that—
Micky suddenly realized the thing in the mouth had stopped burning and had started tasting like . . . oranges?
He frowned, looked up, and saw that there was no torch in his mouth, that, in fact, he was sucking on a Popsicle.
A second later, Castle had cut him down, and Duka was on his feet, feeling his back where Castle had burned him with the torch, only there were no burns there either.
He turned around again and saw Castle pass the torch, which was still in his hand, back and forth over a piece of steak on a tin plate. It sizzled and popped beneath the flame.
The steak and the Popsicle. The sizzle and the burn.
Duka shook his head.
“You are not a nice person.”
“That’s right. Be sure and remember that, Micky.”
“Oh, I will. Without a doubt.” Duka rubbed his wrists, trying to get some feeling back into them. “So what’s up? You gonna string up Howard Saint and blowtorch him?”
Castle shut off the torch and set it down on the floor. “I like that idea. But I have something better. And guess what?” He looked at Micky with those same creepy deadman’s eyes. “You’re going to help me.”
“Oh, no.” Duka held up his hands and backed away.
“Listen, Otto—sorry, Frank—I told you things. Saint finds out I said them,
“I know.” The man kept his eyes fixed on Duka. “But you don’t want to stay Howard Saint’s lackey your whole life, do you, Micky? End up like your father?”
Blowtorch or not, FBI guy or not, Micky was about to give Frank Castle what-for for dragging his dad into this when he looked right into the man’s eyes, and he got the strangest sensation. Like Castle was seeing right through
