was standing over me, grinding his foot into the back of my head and rolling my face back and forth in whatever it was that I had spit up. “Your turn, asshole,” he said. Then he increased the pressure of his foot and said it again. The Mountain was making a blubbering sound.
“You little jerk,” Bruner said viciously. “I'm telling you, get back inside and do what you're supposed to do. Or maybe you'd like to be on-line?”
Marco lifted his foot.
“I'm too old,” he said in a pleading voice.
“Too old for what?” Bruner said. “Get Tubbo inside, Belson, and close the door. Too old for handcuffs and a plywood table? Too old for John Wayne Gacy?”
“Jesus,” Marco said. The door slammed shut behind us. It sounded like a very heavy door. “You wouldn't do that.”
“There's all kinds of customers,” Bruner said.
“I'm going,” Marco said. “I'm going.” I heard his heels tap on the concrete, going away from me. Then I heard a door close.
“And you, Belson,” Bruner said, “keep your fucking hands to yourself.”
“But, Max-”
“You want marks?” Bruner said. “You want internal injuries? You want something to wake up some smart coroner who wants to run for governor? Or you want to go to work tomorrow and take early retirement in a couple of years and live to be a hundred?”
“Okay, sorry,” Belson said, “sorry, sorry, sorry.”
“You bet your ass you're sorry,” Bruner said. I'd made it to my hands and knees. My forehead was bleeding freely and something vile dripped from my chin. “You're about the sorriest thing I've ever seen,” Bruner continued remorselessly. “Just keep your ideas to yourself and your eyes on Tubbo. And you,” he said to me, “get up. It wasn't all that bad.”
I tried my legs. They worked, more or less. “It wasn't a weekend in Acapulco, either,” I said, wiping my face. More blood flowed immediately from my forehead. We were inside and we still hadn't been searched.
“What’m I, your travel agent?” Bruner asked. “You're not going to have a weekend anywhere. Now, stop dicking around and walk.” He reached into his jacket and popped some Maalox. I hoped he was digesting his backbone.
The Mountain was now weeping openly behind me. Great. All my life I'd fantasized having a sidekick, and the one I'd finally gotten had turned out to be the Cowardly Lion. I consigned him to the litter heap and walked.
There was a door inside the door, an arrangement like a low-tech parody of the airlock in a movie spaceship. Marco had closed the inner door behind him, or maybe it had closed of its own accord. The four of us-Bruner, Belson, the Mountain, and I-were now alone inside a brilliantly lighted room about twelve feet square. Now, if ever, was the time to make a move. Now, before we were inside the warehouse with a bunch of guys who looked like the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers.
My back was turned toward Belson, the Mountain, and Bruner. No one could see my hands. I forced a cough and then a chain of coughs, bent double, and put my right hand under my shirt. The grip of the gun felt cold and rough beneath my fingers. I was trying to tug it upward, free of my pants, when the coughs, to my surprise, became real and I bent forward against my will and retched again.
“Damn, you're messy,” Bruner said from behind me. I ignored him: I'd worked the gun up an inch or so. I could have gotten it out if I'd been able to straighten up, but another spasm seized me and I doubled up and spewed some horrid liquid onto the floor.
“Hey,” Belson said happily, “I hit the kidney.”
“The trophy comes later,” Bruner said. “Tubbo, open the door.”
I was still jackknifed forward, fumbling hopelessly at the handle of the gun, when the Mountain went past me and pushed the door open. Bruner or Belson shoved me from behind, and we were inside the warehouse. Without the door to muffle them, we could hear the screams.
In front of us was a scene out of the elder Bruegel or Hieronymus Bosch. The trucks gleamed in the distance, wherever they were picked out of the darkness by the bare hundred-watt bulbs under their conical metal dunce's caps. Closer to us-much closer to us-in the center of a spill of light, was a circle of big men. They were spread apart holding hands like a beefy parody of a circle dance, forming a living wall to keep the children inside. The scream had come from the middle of the circle.
“Give her two more, Marco,” Mrs. Brussels' voice said calmly. Then the door swung closed behind us and the men turned their heads to look.
“Where do you want them?” Marco's voice said into the sudden silence. He was invisible, blocked from sight in the middle of the huddle.
“One minute.” Mrs. Brussels came around the outside of the circle and regarded us. “We have visitors.”
She looked cool and imperturbable. Except for the damp perspiration stains on her collar and beneath the arms of her jacket, she might have been behind her desk discussing some baby's future nightmares. “Mr. Ward,” she said, “or, rather, I guess, Mr. Grist. What a shame you weren't who you said you were.”
“One of the great themes,” I said, wiping new blood from my forehead, “the difference between appearance and reality.”
“Welcome to reality,” she said. “You seem to have cut your head. Who's the fat one?” She wasn't talking to me. The Mountain whimpered.
“A clown,” Bruner said behind me. “A walk-on, that's all.”
“What's a walk-on?” She knew less about Shakespeare than Bruner did.
“He walks on and then walks off,” Bruner said, “except he's not going to walk off.”
“Well, good, Max,” Mrs. Brussels said. “You were right. You said he'd show up,” she said, meaning me, “and he did. One for you. Where's Jewel, Mr. Grist?” In the center of the circle, something choked out hurt little sounds.
“Where you'll never find her,” I said.
“Don't bet on that,” she said. “If I really want her, I know where to find her. Bring our friends in, Max. Maybe they'd like to watch.”
“I'd like to watch you die,” the Mountain said shakily.
“Good thing you didn't buy a ticket,” Mrs. Brussels said. “I'd hate to give you a refund. This is a different kind of show. We've got a bad girl here, and she's learning what it means to be bad.” She made an airy gesture with her hand. “Boys?” she said. “Boys, let our guests get a look at what happens to bad little girls.”
The ring of steroid addicts parted reluctantly. One of them looked at me, and recognition struggled with stupidity for possession of his face. Stupid or not, he looked dangerous. It was good old hearty Marty from Cap'n Cluckbucket's.
“I know you,” he said, narrowing his eyes with the effort.
“That makes one thing you know,” I said, swallowing my own blood through the corner of my mouth. “Give you the rest of the year, you might make it into double digits.”
“I
“Great,” Bruner said. “Get out of the way.”
Marty stepped aside, and the circle broke open as though he'd been the cue they were waiting for. Crowded inside were eight wide-eyed children, six girls and two boys, wide-eyed in a way that suggested nothing but vacancy within. They were wearing bedsheets, insurance, I guessed, against their trying to make an escape.
Aimee Sorrell wasn't among them.
In the center of the circle was a little girl. She might have been fourteen. She was wearing nothing but underpants, and long slashes across her rib cage and her tiny breasts and her thighs wept long red streaks. One of the giants held her by the armpits. Her hands were tied behind her. Her hair and face were wet with tears. Her eyes were enormous and crazed. In front of her was Marco, switchblade in hand. He looked annoyed. He'd been interrupted in the middle of the only thing he truly enjoyed.
“This is Marie,” Mrs. Brussels announced in her third-grade teacher's voice. “What did Marie do, children?”
There was an agonizing pause. Children gathered their sheets around them and looked at the floor.
Mrs. Brussels clapped her hands twice. The children's heads jerked upward. Mrs. Brussels arched an eyebrow
