“Where are Sherk and Barney?”
There was a silent exchange, before the man in front of him spoke again.
“You think—”
“Who? Barney and Sherk? No way,” Dirk answered quickly. Walter felt the gun press into his spine. “Care to chime in here?”
Walter ignored the request and continued to walk, his eyes trained ahead even as the bikers stared at him. Unlike the last time he’d been here, they didn’t make fun of him or shout insults, call him a junkie or a crackhead. This time, they kept their mouths shut. And this made Walter smile even bigger. He didn’t know if it was his bizarre confidence following what he had done to the two hitmen or if he was just getting loopy after being sober for so long. Whatever it was, it was affecting the bikers as well.
Walter took another few steps forward and then shook his head, trying to clear it.
It didn’t matter. He was going to get high this day. And Sabra was going to facilitate this, whether he wanted to or not.
When they had made their way most of the way up the long, winding driveway that led to the house, Dirk finally spoke up again.
“You know, Walter, you’d be better off talking now. Better answer my questions before Sabra starts askin’. I mean, you came here by yourself, so you must want something, don’t you?”
Walter couldn’t hold it in anymore. He took one additional step toward the large wooden door, the entrance to Sabra’s lavish estate, then turned to face the man that led him at gunpoint.
“I’m a junkie, man,” he said, still smiling. He held his arms out to his sides. “What could I possibly want from Sabra?”
Dirk’s thin lips twisted into a grimace.
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
Walter laughed. The other man did not.
He wagged the gun.
“Turn around and go inside, Walter.”
14.
“Welcome back, Walter,” the fat man said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with a thick fist.
Slouched in a massive chair before Walter sat the morbidly obese drug lord of the tip of the American Northeast, covering a territory that included Pekinish, Darborough, and, of course, Askergan. Although still considered a small-time drug pusher on any national scale, Sabra and his empire was growing. And after recently teaming up with the notorious Skull Crushers biker gang, and subsequently rebranding them his own, his reach wasn’t only expanding, but it was doing so at an alarming speed.
Part of the reason for this rapid growth in territorial stronghold was the unilateral way in which he ruled. Like an alpha predator, Sabra would first encircle and then corner other dealers, smaller dealers, ones that didn’t have their own biker gang at their beck and call, and politely ask them to join the fold.
The smart ones surrendered. The stupid or the brave—typically one and same, Walter was slowly realizing—became horrific reminders to the others of what happened when they failed to fall in line. And, like his burgeoning drug empire, Sabra’s cache of creative ways of imposing his will was also expanding.
Walter pulled his eyes away from the man and glanced around quickly, trying to catch his bearings. He was in a large, dimly lit room—some sort of office, he supposed, although truth be told, it was larger than his entire apartment. The thick rug beneath his feet was illuminated by the ambient yellow glow emitted from a large chandelier high above his head, which also cast the thick wooden desk before him in a strange light. Dirk had holstered the gun when they’d entered the room, and now he was standing two feet behind him, arms folded across his chest. At some point during their walk to this room, another biker had joined them, a man that looked far meaner than Dirk. This man had a thick black mustache and eyebrows of similar intensity, likely hiding scars like the ones that seemed to mark his entire face and shaved head. But it was his eyes that were worrisome: just pinpricks in the dim lighting, these were the eyes of a man who didn’t ask twice when he wanted something. And he looked none too pleased to have been awoken at this hour.
Even so, he wasn’t the most dangerous person in the room. Instead, that honor was bestowed to the behemoth of a man that sat on the other side of the desk. As Walter took a seat in the metal chair that was bolted to the floor with large metal rivets—such a strange chair, so plain in this room of extravagance—he tried to fully take in Sabra’s impressive, if disgusting girth.
Easily topping the scales at over three hundred pounds, the man’s doughy head peeked up from behind the desk. His skin was deeply tanned, and his neck, a giant waddle of a thing, was covered in unsightly skin tags. His hair was slicked back, a dark black helmet of a do that looked strong enough to withstand gale-force winds. Around the man’s neck were several thick gold chains, and when he raised his pudgy hand as he did now, Walter noticed that every single one of his sausage-like digits was adorned by a massive gold ring.
With his other hand, Sabra grabbed a sandwich from atop a golden plate and took a hefty bite. Either he didn’t notice the lettuce that fluttered from his mouth and landed on the wooden desk, or he didn’t care.
Disgusting slob.
Although Walter had seen the man not a fortnight ago, Sabra’s incredible size was still a wonder to behold.
Walter’s shoulder suddenly seized, and he fought hard to avoid doubling over. His molars ground together as he resisted the urge to cry out.
He needed to get high soon.
Walter’s eyes scanned Sabra’s huge desk before him, his gaze eventually falling on the mirror covered with several thick lines of cocaine.
True to form.
Not his drug of choice, but it would do; in a pinch, it would do.
And this most definitely qualified as a pinch.
Evidently, Sabra noticed his gaze.
“You need something, Walter? Need something to take the edge off?”
The man laughed, his huge chins shaking madly, flecks of half-chewed salami spraying from his wet lips.
It was revolting; the man had clearly just been awoken from his slumber, and yet somehow had a sandwich at the ready.
Disgusting.
Walter fought the urge to respond or comment, deeming it better to keep his mouth shut at this juncture. Seeing the coke had done something to ease the pain in his shoulder, but it was still there. And he knew that if he didn’t get high soon… well, he didn’t exactly know what would happen, but if the men in his apartment were any indication, it wasn’t something that he wanted to find out anytime soon.
His life had changed this morning, that much was certain. This morning, he had wanted nothing but to get high, had known that dying in the back seat of a shitty champagne-colored Chevy wouldn’t have even made him burp with indifference. But after being imbued with this… this power, that, coupled with the sight of his son’s scarred face, had inspired change in him.
No longer was he preoccupied with insurance money from his son’s death. Now he wanted to see Tyler again, to see if he too had been given this gift, so that together they could… well, he wasn’t sure what, but exploiting Sabra and his resources—primarily the bikers and their extended reach—was a start.
Still, he wanted to get high.
Needed to get high.
Sabra shrugged.
“Ben, come over here, grab the mirror. Give the little man a little hit.”
The man with the mustache immediately stepped forward. Walter offered a quick glance to Dirk, and noticed that the man’s eyebrows were raised in obvious confusion. Ben, on the other hand, was as loyal as they came, and he headed toward Sabra without hesitation. He picked up the mirror and made his way back toward Walter, his heartrate increasing with every one of Ben’s slow, methodical steps.
There were four thick lines of coke on the mirror, each one at least three inches in length—a lot of coke. Even though Walter preferred heroin, he knew that Sabra only had the good shit. And this was Sabra’s shit.
“Just a little hit, Ben. We still need the man to be able to feel.”
Sabra laughed again, a thick, bubbly sound like a child struggling underwater.
Despite his anticipation, the sound nearly curdled Walter’s stomach.
Thankfully, Ben stepped between Walter and Sabra, blocking his sight of the horrible Jabba the Hut creature. He held the mirror in thick, hairy-knuckled fingers in such a way that the largest and thickest lines of cocaine were closest to him.
Walter’s shoulder seized again, but this time he was able to ignore it. Like a ravenous dog, he leaned forward, driving his nose into the mirror that was still clutched in Ben’s hand. His enthusiasm was so great that the man almost dropped the mirror. Walter didn’t care; he brought a finger to his nostril, pinched it tight, and then snorted an entire line in one go.
As expected, his nose instantly caught fire, and he pulled back, holding his head high, staring at the brass chandelier above him.
But that was it.
There was no rush, no immediate pupil-dilating, pulse-pounding surge of ecstasy. There was only a calming feeling in his shoulder; a calm, slow, pulsating feeling as the drugs coursed through the thick red and purple veins that crossed his chest and fed the cracker.
Frustration taking hold, Walter turned his head back forward and reached out, trying to grab the mirror from Ben and to get at the other three lines.
The other man was too quick. He pulled the mirror away, and from somewhere behind him, Walter heard Sabra shout, “Just a taste! Just a taste!”
Walter snarled at the man with the mustache, and pushed upward, intending on lunging from the chair.
He didn’t even make it to his feet.
With his free hand, Ben reared back, and with lightning speed his thick fist came forward, smashing Walter in the nose. A spray of blood immediately gushed from his nose, gushing all over the undoubtedly expensive carpet in front of his chair. Walter brought both hands to his face, trying to stem the bleeding.
It hurt, but what hurt more was not being able to get high.
Eyes watering, he stared up at the man with the thick mustache who was staring down his thin nose at him with his odd, flat eyes.
You are going to pay for that.
Then it was his turn to laugh. Realizing that the blood flow was already starting to slow, he pulled his hand away from his face.
“Just a taste,” he said, his words coming out wet. “Oh, I’ll have a taste, alright.”
Walter felt a stern grip on his shoulder, almost pre-emptively convincing him that staying seated was the best course of action. It was Dirk, and for a brief moment he felt bad for what was going to happen to this man—he was different from the others, and maybe he didn’t deserve the same fate as the hitmen back at his apartment.
Walter took a deep breath and sat back down. It didn’t matter anyway. He wasn’t going to fight these men, at least not in the traditional sense.
As if understanding his plight, his shoulder started to tighten and he felt a strange pressure in his left bicep.
They’re coming.
When Walter raised his eyes again, Sabra was no longer smiling.
“I don’t know what the fuck you did to Sherk and Barney,” he hissed, “and I have absolutely no clue why you came here, of all places. But I can promise you one thing: you are going to wish you hadn’t.”
The big man slowly brought himself to his feet, the white silk robe that he wore flowing all the way to the ground. The sash had come slightly untied, revealing the man’s massive breasts, which were completely smooth and hairless—like the rest of his chest—and, of course, a deep bronze.
Sabra made his way around the side of the desk.
“I was going to let you live, Walter. After all, it is poor business for a dealer to kill off his clients, even ones that have difficulty paying.”
Ben stepped to one side, allowing Sabra’s large body to pass by him. Walter’s eyes followed Ben’s hand as he put the mirror with the lines of cocaine, amazingly still piled up like neat snowbanks, even with a spray of his blood marking half of the surface, up in front of his face.
A pudgy hand reached out and grabbed his chin and squeezed tightly.
“But now look what you done. You went and ruined my fucking carpet, Walter.” He glanced at the blood droplets by the front two feet of the chair bolted to the ground. “And this ain’t no cheap rug.”
The man had power in his hands, owing most likely to his immense size. Walter tried to shake the fingers away, but found himself unable; Sabra’s grip was just too strong.
“I’m going—”
Sabra tilted his head to one side, a slight, barely perceptible movement, and it was clear that he was staring at Walter’s nose.
He had seen the blow Ben had delivered, and selecting him to guard his room was an indication that he was more than aware of Ben’s strength. Even though Walter couldn’t see his own face, he could tell by the way the bridge of his nose had started to itch and how the bleeding had stopped so suddenly that the man was in awe of the fact his face was healing. Still, Sabra went to great efforts to avoiding interrupting his planned diatribe.
“—to make you pay for your transgressions, Walter. You could have given me the money you owe me and I might have let you keep one of them. But now…” The man leaned back and sighed, as if these subtle movements were taking much out of him. “But now I will have to take both.”
Both? Both what? What the fuck is this slob talking about?
It was all Walter could do to ignore the increasing tension in his shoulder, hoping that whatever semblance of control he had exerted over the cracker at his apartment was still buried within him.
“Both what?” he demanded through gritted teeth.
Instead of answering, Sabra’s thick lips broke into a smile, and Walter felt something snake its way up the inside of his thigh. He immediately tried to close his legs, but Ben was on him, grabbing his knees and holding them apart.
At the same time, Dirk’s grip on his shoulders tightened. Walter was going nowhere.
Sabra’s other hand, the one not still gripping his face, made its way to his jeans, and then the man grabbed his balls tightly.
Even Walter, recently accustomed to pain, couldn’t help but wince.
“If there is one thing I have learned maintaining control of this drug empire, it is that there are two parts of the body that, when threatened, make even the toughest of men buckle. Strangely, they are much the same shape and the same size.” He let go of Walter’s chin, which was red and raw where he had grabbed it. Then he traced a line beside Walter’s temple, and Walter whipped his head to the side.
Sabra pulled his hand away and leaned back.
“One, are the eyes. But you see, the thing about the eyes is that once you fuck with them, then they can’t see what else you do to them. And sight is a powerful sense.”
Lowering to eye level, Sabra came within inches of Walter’s face.
“The balls, on the other hand…”
When he spoke again, his voice was different, deeper.
“I could pop your balls like fucking grapes,” Sabra hissed, his breath reeking of deli meat.
Go now, my—
But then Sabra pulled his hand away and took a step back. Both Ben and Dirk’s grips loosened as well, and Walter kept the thought at bay. He had no idea how many of those crackers he could send forth, if he could mentally make them burst from his skin, and he didn’t want to risk fucking this up.
“But I am no savage, Walter. No, I am a refined man of great taste and style, and I will not resort to brute strength to punish those that cross me.” Sabra turned his back to him and sauntered toward his desk. “I am also a creative man, you see. And I have other ideas for how to deal with you.”
The man pressed a button beneath the lip of his massive desk, and the sound of creaking chains suddenly came from above them. Walter’s eyes flicked upward, and he saw the large bronze chandelier with the weak orange bulbs and the thick chain links slowly begin to lower.
“Stand him
up,” Sabra ordered, his back still turned.
Walter didn’t need Dirk to help him to his feet, but the man facilitated the process nonetheless. The man then guided him off to one side, directly beneath the chandelier that continued to descend slowly from the ceiling.
What the fuck is going on?
Walter watched as Sabra leaned both hands on the table, and then, as if saddened, he said, “Take off your clothes, Walter.”
Walter froze.
“Walter, take off your clothes.” His voice was almost pedantic, bored even.
When Walter still didn’t respond, Sabra turned and nodded at Ben.
The man, who had stood and backed away when Dirk had directed Walter to beneath the chandelier, reached out, grabbed his flannel shirt, and promptly tore it from his body.
“Jesus.” The word just slipped out of Ben’s mouth, and he instinctively took a step backward.
Walter smiled as Sabra turned, a look of confusion and anger crossing his fat face.
“Ben? What—?”
But then he too caught glimpse of Walter’s chest and his eyes went wide.
15.
“Fucking Christ,” Sabra mumbled. His eyes had grown to charcoal briquettes protruding from his toasted meringue face. It was clear that he was trying to maintain the facade of being in control, of being the giant, larger-than-life drug lord in a silk robe.
“What’s wrong with your skin?”
But this was too much, even for him—Walter didn’t even have to look down at his body to know that. He could feel the cracker pulsating in his shoulder, and pressure was building in his left bicep and just below his ribcage.
It was almost time.
The crackers were coming, and they were coming for the fat man, the mustached man, and the one named Dirk.
Walter’s smile grew.
“Just a taste,” he said, licking the blood from his brown teeth.
Sabra frowned. He was not used to being mocked.
“Any word from Sherk or Barney?”
Dirk shook his head.
“Where did they find him?”
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