The Gentlemen's Hour

reduction or elimination of pain; noble effort, truly, but as he continued his research, he could not help but notice that, on the visceral as opposed to the intellectual level, he was likewise interested in the infliction of pain.

He first observed in a sexual manifestation (as is so often the case, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Daniels?) that he began to take pleasure from pain. Not his own, of course, but other people’s. At first, he found willing participants among the submissive, masochistic community, women who found that the endorphin release triggered by mild to moderate pain allowed or enhanced orgasmic pleasure. This was the perfect symbiotic relationship, as the infliction of said pain produced intense physical sensations for him.

Boone feels the van take a sharp right.

Alas, these sensations, similar to drug or alcohol use, were subject to a similar effect of diminishing returns; it would take a higher and higher degree of pain to produce an ever-lessening, unsatisfactory result, and he soon ran out of partners willing to endure that level of suffering. He turned to prostitutes, of course—fortunately there are any number of brothels, especially in Europe, that specialize in sadism—and this proved satisfactory for several years until his addiction required ever-increasing dosages and he became unwelcome at even the most tolerant of establishments. He found the answer in Asia and Africa for some time, where the desperation of poverty provided subjects for sale, but, alas, one is not made of money.

Boone feels the rattle of an unpaved road beneath him. Wherever they’re going, they must be nearly there, and he feels real fear, feels himself start to tremble.

It therefore became necessary to make his avocation a vocation, if Mr. Daniels would forgive the cliche, and he was pleasantly surprised to find a large number of clients eager, in fact, to retain his services at a more than reasonable fee.

It was the perfect match of personality to profession, of expertise to exigency. It has provided him with moderate wealth, material comfort, international travel, and pure physical pleasure beyond the imagination of those bound by the strictures of mundane morality. That is the reward, Mr. Daniels, for those rare individuals willing to confront and acknowledge their true natures and live their lives based on that hard-acquired self-realization. Once he’d endured the agonies of self-hatred and recrimination, he fairly burst into the rarefied aether of pure action.

He goes on and on.

War stories.

The rebel soldiers in the Congo, the diamond dealers in Burkina Faso, the Communist nun in Guatemala, the kidnappers in Columbia, the female student in Argentina whose cries for mercy produced . . .

The van slows down and comes to a stop.

“Ah, well. Now the drug cartels . . . the drug cartels are a boon to business. A guarantee of full employment, if you will. Their conflicts, rivalries, power struggles—the sheer intensity and duration of their hatreds, the uninformed barbarism of their rough-hewn viciousness—produce a demand for pain that is apparently limitless. It is a seller’s market.

“The geologist, Mr. Schering, was a disappointment. A simple ‘hit,’ as they called it, for it had to be disguised as something else, as you know, Mr. Daniels.

“But Mr. Blasingame . . . Ahhhhh! The bones in the foot, as perhaps you know, are keenly sensitive . . . acutely, shall we say, sensitive to pain . . . and the application of a simple blunt-force object such as a hammer produced an impressive reaction. Snapping his digits was a second-act amusement, a superfluous frisson when you consider the denouement, the sawing off of his hands without benefit of anesthesia. A bit Sharia law, admittedly, but it’s what the Mexicans wanted: sending a message, pour encourager les autres sort of thing. The look of sheer incredulity on his face was delightful.

“There are, you know, some people in this world of ours who believe that bad things simply cannot happen to them, so when the blade first went in, his scream was as much from indignation as physical suffering. Of course, that didn’t last, not throughout the amputation, much less the cauterization, which led the man to suffer through the agony in the belief that we had done with him—a belief I did nothing to discourage, I’m afraid. He screamed and sobbed and lost consciousness, but when we brought him around he thanked me for sparing his life. Then I started in on the other hand.

“I think the sheer disappointment quite crushed him, even when I assured him that ‘this was it,’ his punishment was almost over, if he could live through it, and that many men have lived useful lives, et cetera. He was quite shocked when the dirt was shoved into his mouth—another mandate from my Mexican employers—but I think somewhat relieved when I shot him.

“Which brings us to you, Mr. Daniels,” Jones says.

“How foolish, how careless of you, to allow yourself to become somehow enmeshed with people who would cost the Baja Cartel multiple millions of dollars. Mr. Daniels, I have inflicted unspeakable agony on people who have cost them petty change. Do you have any idea what I have in my imagination for you?”

Jones reaches down and tears the tape from around Boone’s eyes.

Boone blinks, momentarily blinded, then sees the spectacled eyes looking down at him. Pale blue, bright, and alive with ferocious sexual energy. Jones is a man in late middle age, light brown hair thin at the top, wrinkles around his eyes. He’s close-shaven, and even in this August heat wears a knotted knit tie, button-down white shirt, and a linen sports coat.

A real gentleman.

“You look at me oddly,” Jones says. “Why?”

Maybe because he has a bright red dot on his forehead.

147

Johnny is looking through the documents when he hears something in the hallway.

“You have a bathtub?” he asks Petra.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Go lie down in it,” Johnny says as he unlatches the holster at his waist.

“I will not.'

The doorbell rings.

A man’s voice says, “Petra? Boone sent me to see if you’re okay.”

“One second,” she says. “I’m just getting dressed.”

Johnny juts his chin toward the bathroom. She gets up from the sofa and starts to go. The door comes in. There are three of them.

Los Ninos Locos.

Crazy Boys.

The first one through the door sees Johnny, the badge he’s holding up, and the pistol he has in his other hand, and makes a snap decision.

He raises the gun in his hand and fires. Johnny fires back—two shots in rapid succession—and the Crazy Boy goes down. The other two come in over him.

148

The right lens of the spectacles shatters, one bright blue eye disappears in a spray of red, and then Jones drops from Boone’s view.

Two more shots follow, each into the brain of one of the narcothugs. The driver slumps dead over the wheel. The last thug reaches for his gun, but the bullet catches him in midmotion, and then it’s quiet.

The van door slides open.

“You good, bruddah?”

“Good, bruddah.”