He grabbed her and threw her into the chair. As the flashlight rolled, spinning spirals of light across the shelves, he yanked her wrists up against the vertical slat that provided back support.
“Fucking whore,” he muttered. “You don’t know when to quit.”
“That’s right, Frank. I don’t.”
He wound the remainder of the necktie, the lolling tongue, around the slat, knotting it in place. Tying her to the chair.
“I don’t get to use the armrests?” she asked.
“No.”
“Other people’ve used them.” She could see peeling strips of duct tape that must have held their arms in place.
“Other people didn’t get what you’re getting.”
“Gee, Frank, you sure do know how to make a girl feel special.”
“I like how you’re trying not to be scared. Because that’ll make what happens next just that much better.”
He gave the knot a final tug, cinching it tight.
“You think I’m gonna beg, Frank? Like your wife did?”
“You’ll beg.”
“No way.”
He leaned in close, studying her face.
“You’ll beg,” he said once more, not arguing, not threatening, merely stating a fact.
He picked up the flashlight and returned to the freight door, lowering it by hand. The big door came down with a series of rattles and clanks before hitting the floor with a cymbal crash. She heard Frank turn a key in the lock, sealing them in.
Just the two of them, together in a pitch-black space without windows, without air. A place where she could scream, and no one but Frank would hear. A place where she could die, and no one but Frank would know.
It was a lousy way to go out. She was beginning to regret not taking the shot in the bedroom. Maybe she could have nailed Frank cleanly in the forehead and prevented him from slashing Victoria’s throat. And even if Victoria had bought it—well, so what? That was the life she’d chosen, right?
But everybody made choices. Bonnie herself had followed a path that was always likely to end this way. She’d taken the first step down that road in a farmhouse in Buckington, and fourteen years later she’d come to the end of the line.
Frank crossed the floor, his shoes slapping concrete. He went past her and continued to the far end of the room, the flashlight showing him the way. He disappeared through the door that led to the front of the building. Must be an office in there or a supply room or something.
She twisted, but the knots wouldn’t weaken. It would take hours to work herself free. She didn’t have hours. Frank was already coming back, and in his hand he held a small steel cage.
A cage was bad. Nothing good lived in a cage.
He brought it closer. The flashlight, hooked to his waistband, splashed an oval of light on his shoes.
In the bouncing glow, Bonnie made out a dim, restless creature chained inside the cage. Hairy and long-tailed and … squeaking.
So that was why they called him the Ratcatcher.
“Meet Virgil,” Frank said cheerfully. “He’s a good pal of mine.”
“Hey, Virge.” Bonnie found it suddenly difficult to speak, maybe because there wasn’t a speck of moisture in her mouth. “How’s it hangin’?”
“You’ll like Virgil.” Frank pulled a crate alongside the chair, setting the cage on top. “He’ll give you a French kiss you won’t believe.”
The rat scrabbled at the bars, its small pink hands scratching.
“I’m not feeling the romance,” Bonnie said, her voice thick.
“You will. I’m gonna tie you to his cage with your own hair.” He plucked off her watch cap and tossed it aside, letting her hair unfurl. “Then I’ll open the cage door and let him go at it.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Her eyes were fixed on the rat’s wrinkly nose, its small yellow teeth.
She couldn’t quite make it real. Things like this just didn’t happen. Not outside of horror movies.
“Usually I let him work on the hands,” Frank said. “Sometimes on a guy’s junk. Never done the face before. I think it’ll be a hoot.”
“You’re sick, Frank.” She pulled in a ragged breath. “You’re a sick, crazy fuck.”
“I’m guessing your eyes will be first to go. He’ll suck ’em right out of the sockets and slurp ’em down like grapes. Then he’ll start snacking on your skin. He’ll chew off your lips, your nose—”
“Stop it.” She heard a querulous note in her voice. It surprised her. She’d never heard that particular note before.
“I’m just telling you how it’ll be. Once he gets going, he’ll strip your pretty face right down to the bone—”
“Stop it.”
She felt puke rising in her throat. She forced it down. She would be all right if she didn’t have to look at the goddamned thing. But she couldn’t stop looking. The rat couldn’t be more than a foot long, but it appeared much larger. Gigantic, a monster.
“What’s the problem, Parker?” Frank grinned. “You don’t like this kind of talk? All I’m saying is”—he plucked the cage off the crate—“you are federally fucked.”
He thrust the cage at her face.
She recoiled in the chair, shoulders hunched, head averted. Frank eased the cage closer. The rat pawed at the bars and squeaked and bristled.
“Get it away,” she whispered.
“Say please.”
“Go to hell.”
“That doesn’t sound like please.”
“Get it away from me, you crazy motherfucker!”
“Not till you take a good look.” He wrapped a hand around the back of her skull and turned her face toward the cage. “Open your eyes.”
She didn’t want to. Really didn’t want to. But she did.
The rat was inches away, wild with blood fever. Clawing at the cage, gnashing its teeth, forcing its narrow, bullet-shaped head between the bars. She could smell its breath on her face, a smell like the inside of a garbage disposal.
She squeezed her lips shut against the threat of a scream. She wouldn’t break down. It wasn’t about pride or dignity. She didn’t give a shit about that. She just wouldn’t give Frank Lazzaro the satisfaction.
“Like what you see?” Frank asked.
“Fuck off, asshole.”
“Just say please. I want to hear it. After we get started, it may be too late. It’s tough to talk without a mouth.”
“Fuck yourself and die.”
He drew the cage closer, the rat almost near enough to inflict bite wounds. She struggled to pull back, but Frank held her securely, his hand clamped on her head.
“One simple word,” Frank said.
She could swear she felt the thing’s claws on her eyelashes, the hairs of its snout bristling against her nose.
“Please,” she breathed.
“Please what?”
“Take it away. Please.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear.”
He withdrew the cage, planting it on the crate again.
“I knew you’d beg,” he said with satisfaction.
She couldn’t answer. She was shaking all over, her world wet with tears. She heard the explosive chuffs of her own breath, the triphammer pounding of her heart.
“You can’t do this,” she whispered. “Give me a bullet. That’s fair. This … isn’t.”
Frank squinted at her, leering. “You asking for mercy?”
She shut her eyes. “Yes.”
“No luck, Parker. You spilled my family’s blood. Now you pay. You pay in the worst way possible, and you pay long and hard. It’s not my say-so. It’s not on me. You fucked up. You did it. Now you go out screaming. Because that’s the fucking rule.”
It was useless to talk to him. She saw what Victoria must have seen, the raw craziness in him, the animal hunger, and she knew she was not speaking to anything human.
“Hey,” he added with a sound that might have been laughter, “don’t sweat it too much. If you’re still alive after
an hour or two, I’ll put you out of your misery.”
He shoved the crate directly in front of the chair, then grabbed a clump of her hair and pulled her head forward. He would tie her to the bars, and then she would be wearing the damn cage like a mask, and even before the cage door opened, the rat would be chewing and tearing.
She whipped her head back and forth, but she couldn’t pull free of his grip. Already he was threading her hair through the bars, even as she threw her weight from side to side, making the chair wobble, trying to knock it over and buy herself more time.
But she was all out of time. She knew it.
Panic climbed up her throat, impossible to suppress. She opened her mouth to scream – At the front of the building, there was gunfire.
CHAPTER 38
Patrick Chiu had been doing the eye-in-the-sky thing on the GPS signal from Parker’s Jeep throughout the night, keeping his crew on standby. He’d balked at going after her as long as she was in Saddle River, Lazzaro’s home turf, but once she was stationary in the warehouse district, he and his people had moved in.
For tonight’s action he’d brought along some new talent—three more soldiers, newbies who needed to see combat. They were Mouse and Fire Ant and Bucket Head. They’d all been friends of Joey Huang, and the only hard part would be keeping them from killing Parker too soon.
Of course, Kicker and Monkey were there too. No way they would miss this show.
“What the fuck’s she doing in there?” Eng asked as they studied the warehouse’s impregnable front door.
“Running an errand for her boss,” Chiu said, “after she dropped by his house to suck him off.”
“Yeah, okay,” Lam said, “but why’s it taking so long?”
Chiu could think of a reason, but it was not a good one. “She might have made us.”
“For real?”
“Why else would she be holed up in there this long? A drop-off or pick-up takes only a couple of minutes.”
Eng glanced around self-consciously. “You really think she knows were out here?”
“It’s possible. The warehouse could have security cameras running on battery power, or a window someplace we can’t see.”
“If she knows—”
“She’s already called Lazzaro. Yes. I realize that.”
Eng hefted his MAC. “We can handle anybody he sends.”
Chiu frowned. “Maybe. But I don’t want to start that fight this soon.”
“So we book? Let that bitch have another twenty-four?”
The thought was galling. She should have been dead already. Every new breath she took was an insult to the memory of Joey Huang.
“No,” Chiu decided. “We go in. We snatch her before the fucking cavalry arrives. That way we can get her and as much of Lazzaro’s merch as we can carry.”
“Go in how?” Lam asked.
“Through the front door.”
Lam regarded it dubiously. “Even if we get it open, she can lay low and bust caps at us.”
“Not if we go in heavy. That tote bag of hers—it’s still in the Caddy, right? And she was carrying grenades.”
“Only flashbangs.”
“Bring them. And the tire iron.”
Lam tilted his head quizzically. “What’s the plan, dai lo?”
“Shock and awe, little brother. Shock and motherfucking awe.”
Chiu knew something about security doors. They were built to withstand gunfire, but no door was actually bulletproof. Bullet resistance was the best it could offer. If you hit it enough times with enough firepower in the right places, it would fail.
The bolts and hinges were the vulnerable spots. Blow them to pieces, and the door could be levered out of the frame.
Of course, all that noise would provide Parker with plenty of warning. She would be waiting for them to come in. But he had an idea about that too. Old Sing Dock had tossed firecrackers into a dark theater and made history. Patrick Chiu intended to make some history of his own.
Lam returned with the grenades and the tire iron. Chiu crammed the two stun grenades into his pockets and instructed Eng on what to do and where to aim. Ordinarily you couldn’t do much aiming with a machine pistol, but Eng was fucking surgical with that bitch.
“Got it?” Chiu asked.
Eng nodded, grinning hugely. He loved shooting off that gun. The chance to empty a full mag into a stationary target was like candy to him.
Chiu gave the tire iron to Bucket Head, a strapping youngster whose real name was Benny Kee. “When the door’s been shot up enough, you pry it open.”
Kee nodded. He and the other four formed a tight circle around their dai lo. Chiu turned slowly, surveying the troops.
“Man up, all of you,” he intoned. “We are going to put a big hurt on a little lady tonight.”
He nodded to Kicker, who broke from the circle and took aim at the armored door.
“Hinges and bolts,” Chiu reminded him, just before the MAC went to work.
CHAPTER 39
Frank knew automatic weapons fire when he heard it. Somebody was unloading on the front door with a machine gun, trying to blow it off its hinges.
It would work too. No door could stand up to that kind of punishment for long.
Virgil and Parker’s romantic rendezvous would have to wait. It didn’t matter. Parker wasn’t going anywhere. There would be plenty of time for him to watch her die.
First he had to take care of the fools who’d dared to come knocking at his door.
Under other circumstances he might have tried a tactical retreat—take the Jeep and escape through the freight door—but here and now, running was not an option. He was alive with the power of the beast. He would stand and fight.
He found the side door to the office and slipped inside. The office’s main door looked out on the foyer, with the street door beyond.
The machine gun coughed again. The door groaned, weakening. By now it must have been fatally compromised, but it was still upright, wedged in the frame. Then the gunfire fell silent, replaced by frantic scraping noises. Someone outside was working to pry open the door.
Wouldn’t take long. In a few seconds it would give way, and then the intruders would enter.
And he would gun them down.
A .22 wasn’t much good against people toting a machine gun, but he was unconcerned about that. Nothing could hurt him, not tonight. In the past few hours he had become something greater than a mortal man, a thing of raw fury that could not be stopped. He could take on the world and win. Let them drop a nuclear bomb on him; he would walk away.
These dumb bastards thought they had the edge, but they didn’t know what they were going up against.
He would kill them all, and drink their spurting blood.
- — -
It took Bonnie a few seconds to process the fact that the cage wasn’t in her face and Frank Lazzaro had gone away. Though she’d heard the noise from the front of the building, somehow its significance hadn’t registered.
Then her head cleared, and she got it. The Long Fong Boyz had come calling.
They might kill Frank, or he might kill them. One thing was certain. Whoever survived would be more than happy to kill her.
“Never knew I was so friggin’ unpopular,” she murmured.
The little joke cheered her, made her feel more like herself. She might have lost it for a minute, but she was still alive—and, for the moment, alone.
Except for Virgil. In the deep darkness she could hear the rat’s soft squeaks and the clinking of his chain.
- — -
A last screech of metal on metal, and the outside door leaned in and toppled with a crash.
Frank tensed, ready to fire.
Nothing happened.
Nobody entered through the doorway. Nobody was there.
He heard a sound, a faint metallic rolling sound, like a tin can kicked down the road. Something round or cylindrical, tossed through the doorway, traveling across the floor …
Grenade.
The thought reached him a split second before the thing went off in a shockwave of glare and noise. He spun, staggering, his world lost in a whiteout, his ears ringing. He felt drunk, his mind clouded, the floor strangely spongy under his feet.
A concussion grenade. Distraction and disorientation. It would provide the enemy with a few seconds when they could enter unopposed.
Fuck that. He didn’t need eyes or ears. He needed only the gun in his hand and the black beast at the heart of his soul.
He groped his way back to the office doorway and fired into the foyer, aiming at nothing, seeing nothing, but knowing the bastards were there. The gun bucked in his hand.
They thought they could take him out with a glorified sparkler. Idiots. He would empty the magazine and kill them all.
Already his vision was clearing. There were four of them, five, half a dozen. But one was already horizontal, and when he squeezed the trigger again, another one went down in a flop of limbs.
Two out of commission so far, and he could take out the rest. The blood he’d fed to Santa Muerte’s altar would guarantee his protection, now and forever.
He was taking aim at the asshole with the machine gun when the automatic opened up, a new burst stitching a seam in the drywall and showering him with plaster, and abruptly his hand was empty.
His gun was gone.
He didn’t understand it at first. The gun simply wasn’t there anymore. It had vanished. Magic.
In the next moment a wave of electric pain reached him, setting his arm on fire, and he realized the gun had been shot out of his hand, taking some of his fingers with it.
The room swam back into focus, and just like that, the animal was gone. The beast had retreated into some distant darkness, deserting him, and he was only Frank Lazzaro again. A man, nothing more. A beaten man.
Frank retreated in a daze, half blind, half deaf. A high hum rose in his ears, competing with the chiming of bells. He fumbled for the knife sheathed to his arm. He wasn’t sure what he could do with the knife, but he needed a weapon, any kind of weapon, and the knife was all he had.
A desk occupied a corner of the office. He found it more by chance than intention, stumbled behind it, and fell heavily into a swivel chair.
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