by R. D. Cain
Nastos whistled approvingly, then turned to Carscadden, “Okay, let’s search the place — we’ll find them.”
Carscadden dropped the BBQ prongs. “Yeah, check everything, because if we don’t find anything, we’ll just have to go to plan B and beat it out of him.”
They searched the house. Carscadden squeezed past a piano in the hallway and checked the back two bedrooms. They were empty, except for old bed frames and thin, bare single mattresses that stank from urine stains. They had been chewed by rats and left to rot. The floor had been swept, all of the rat shit and debris piled up in the closet, which had some musty clothes and damp cardboard boxes on the upper shelves. Carscadden checked the ceiling, finding no sign of an attic hatch.
He heard Nastos call him back to the hallway. Carscadden asked, “What?”
Nastos pointed to the ground. Carscadden saw the hatch under the piano. He began dragging the piano back to the bedrooms. Nastos pushed from behind.
Carscadden shouted, “Tara, can you hear me?” The piano scraped the floor so loudly that it reverberated throughout the house. Carscadden thought he heard something but could not tell over the noise.
Nastos grabbed the handle. Carscadden saw a ladder tilted back into a closest and brought it over.
The voice was muffled. “Kevin, we’re down here!”
“Tara!”
Nastos pulled the hatch door open and Carscadden dropped the ladder down. It plunged into the dark. Carscadden raced down the ladder, dropping to the ground below. There was a rotten, stale sex smell in the room, and two figures emerging from blankets in the corner. Carscadden helped Hopkins to her feet then gave her a crushing hug he like he’d never let her go. The other figure was a young man. He straightened up much slower, using his hands on his knees. He refused to make eye contact with Carscadden. Tentatively he reached out for Hopkins, and she turned back to him, breaking the strength of Carscadden’s embrace. “Taylor, this is Kevin.”
“This is the ex-cop?” He sized Carscadden up, not convinced.
Nastos came down the ladder, but stayed back from the reunion.
Hopkins said, “He’s the ex-cop.” She asked Nastos, “Where’s the asshole who was holding us?”
Nastos reached for Hopkins, squeezing her shoulders. “Viktor has him upstairs; you’ll be sad to hear he’s not feeling very well.”
28
Chavez woke with a jolt to a filthy rag stuffed in his mouth and the sound of two men speaking to each other. His head ached. His first impulse was to gag, but he maintained control of himself, breathing deeply through his nose. He resisted the temptation to open his eyes in case they were watching him; he tried to learn as much as he could before they knew he was awake.
He felt the tape around his ankles, the handcuff on one side holding him to the wall, the other arm taped down on the arm of a wooden chair. He remembered now — the fight, the old man with the frying pan.
One man asked, “Do you trust that to hold him?”
Chavez slowly flexed his forearms again, testing the strength of the binding. He wasn’t going anywhere. He felt a finger running over the tape at his wrist and allowed his eyes to open a sliver.
The second male was scratching the back of his head.
“I don’t trust the criminal justice system. I don’t trust charities to spend money properly. I don’t trust cops around my wife. I certainly don’t trust lawyers, no offence.”
“None taken.”
“But I’ll tell you, I do trust duct tape to hold a man while I have an honest and frank discussion with him.”
Chavez opened his eyes. Both men were watching him, like he was some kind of science experiment that was doing something unexpected. One took no offence to a lawyer joke. He made a mental note that he was a lawyer. His mind reeled with the need to identify him, to know who he was dealing with. Then he remembered that the Hopkins woman worked for a lawyer — this would be him; the other, his investigator, the ex-cop. The one he had been supposed to take care of before.
With his body coming to life, he required more oxygen than he could get through his mouth. He began to breathe more deeply, but it only made things worse. Black stars floated past and he felt weak. He was beginning to pass out when the cop ripped the rag from his mouth. He refused to retch or to show any weakness. What’s the cop’s name again?
He turned his head and spat on the ground, sucking in a few deep breaths of air. Nastos, he thought to himself, and Carscadden.
Carscadden seemed the most enthusiastic. “Okay, then. Let’s get this party started. Do you recommend the easy way, or the hard way?” He slid a small table in front of Chavez. On top was a rusty, red metal tool box. Chavez watched with great interest as the man slowly undid the latch and opened it up.
Nastos asked, “You sure you want to be here for this?”
Carscadden met the man’s gaze. “Hell, yeah.” Then he slapped Chavez across the face as hard as he could. It stung, and the sting was made worse by the cold air. Chavez grunted and shook his head. He would use the pain to help him wake up. It only made him stronger. His eyes narrowed and focused on the lawyer. Chavez moved his head around the room, trying to find anything he could use later for when he broke free and wanted to kill them slowly.
Nastos moved directly in front of him. “Lindsay Bannerman. Where is she?”
Chavez slurred, “No hablo ingles.”
Nastos’ face squinted. “Pardon?”
“No hablo ingles.”
Nastos never broke eye contact with Chavez. Instead he smiled. “You see, I think you hablo ingles just fine. That’s how you knew to say ‘No hablo ingles’ when I said pardon.”
Carscadden rummaged through the tool box and began removing the contents.
Nastos ran his fingers through his hair, becoming impatient. “There’s the easy way, the hard way and the harder way. You’re a tough guy, so you get the harder way.”
On the table, Carscadden had spread out an old hacksaw, a framing hammer and a fistful of loose screws. The lawyer handed the cop the framing hammer. Nastos seized it in his right hand and traced over the various parts with his left.
“This part here is called the claw.” He tapped the twin prongs used for pulling nails. “This is the striking face.” He touched the front of the hammer’s head. Then he touched the side. “This is called the cheek.” He gently caressed the cool metal against Chavez’s stubble.
“How’s your ingles now, shit-for-brains?”
Nastos moved the hammer to a position in front of Chavez’s face and rotated it in his hand so the claw was facing down.
Chavez said, “I don’t know anything.”
“Well, you better learn something pretty quick, because Lindsay’s parents love her, and no piece of shit like you is going to keep us from finding her.”
He lifted the hammer up in the air and swung down as hard as he could. The two prongs of the claw smashed through the middle finger of Chavez’s right hand, severing the finger and sending a lone, sad spit of blood to the floor. Chavez felt the pain explode from his hand up his arm, up to his head and down to his balls. His entire body twinged and contorted. Time passed — he had no idea how much — before he could get his breath back. He forced himself to study the amputated finger, the mangled hand. He’d use the hatred to fuel his revenge. As he tried to pull his arm free, the severed finger dropped to the floor, the veins writhing under his skin like newborn snakes.
Carscadden never flinched. He never diverted his eyes from Chavez when he leaned over to Nastos and dispassionately said, “Well, he’s not denying any knowledge of Lindsay now.”
Nastos gave away nothing.
Chavez considered lying, saying again that he didn’t know anything, but he didn’t think they’d believe him. He made a tactical decision not to lie anymore. His only hope of surviving was to give them a reason to quit what the
y were doing before they had crossed too far over the imaginary line of right and wrong. Becoming a liability — that would be a death sentence.
The cop tapped the claw from finger to finger on Chavez’s right hand, starting with the thumb and skipping the mashed digit. “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Catch a tiger by the toe. If he hollers, let him go. Eeny, meeny, miny —” Instead of the last moe, Nastos lifted the hammer, then drove the claw through Chavez’s little finger, embedding the prongs in the chair. The finger severed easily with another spout of blood squirting out to the floor, the finger rolling off of the chair’s arm. Any sound it made was smothered by Chavez’s screams. With a groan, the chair released the hammer from the wood as Nastos twisted it out.
Chavez tried rocking backward and forward violently, as if to tip the chair, but the cop drove his heel down on the front lip between Chavez’s legs, hitting inches from Chavez’s balls. It stopped the chair from rocking and got Chavez’s undivided attention. “Easy now. We’re just getting started with you, sunshine.”
Nastos reached over to the tool box, put the hammer down and picked up the hacksaw. He held it up to Chavez’s face with his right hand and gently touched a finger to the rusted, jagged blade.
“I think I’ll dispense with the English lesson this time, Chavez.” He plucked the saw so the vibration made a sad, metallic sound. He grabbed Chavez at the top of his head by the hair. A fist full of thick, black hair flowed from between his fingers.
Nastos asked, “Donde está mi amiga, Chavez? Where is my friend?” He extended his arm and rested the butt of the blade at the point where Chavez’s right ear attached to his head. Chavez’s face squinted shut as he braced for the pain.
“You work out. Your looks are probably important to you. After I saw off your ears, I’m taking off your nose and lips. I’m going to make you eat them by stuffing them in your mouth and wrapping your face in the tape. After that, I’m going to scar your cheeks with a blowtorch. When I’m done with you, this perfect body of yours is going to look like the monster you are. Comprende?”
Slowly, Nastos began to draw the blade back. It clunked after each jagged tooth passed over the curve of flesh and gouged into him. First a nick, then a gash. A thin red slit opened up, flecks of red rust staining his skin.
Chavez cringed and finally shouted out. “Okay, okay, stop!”
The cop crouched forward so he was nearly nose to nose with Chavez. “Stop the saw? Sure, hey, yeah. You’re right about the saw. It’s nowhere near as much fun as the hammer.” He reached for the hammer, but the lawyer grabbed it first.
The lawyer said, “Mind if I cut in?”
The cop chuckled a little. “Oh, there’s a young man here who wants to dance. Don’t mind one bit. After all, Lindsay is your client; I’m just the help.”
Any hopes Chavez might have had that this was a good-cop, bad-cop game were dashed. It was bad cop, worse cop. He pleaded, “But I said okay. I’ll co-operate. I’ll tell you everything.”
The cop flung his hands up in the air like he was exasperated. “Well, Jesus Christ, Chavez, we don’t have all night. Get talking.”
“And you’re going to let me live?”
The lawyer flipped the hammer around so the claw was facing down, hovering over Chavez’s right hand. Quietly, almost to himself, he began reciting, “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe . . .”
Nastos said, “We will leave you here alive. Still cuffed to the wall, mind you, but alive. The police will be told who you are and will be looking for you. Now all I care about is finding Lindsay Bannerman. I figure the cops won’t be long in finding you anyways.”
“She’s waiting to be found — in Toronto. In Colonel Danforth Park. If you hurry, you can save her.”
Nastos and Carscadden were looking at each other, probably trying to decide whether or not to believe him.
The cop said, “Okay, deal. Now what was the situation with the boy?”
Chavez looked away. It was a mid-distance stare at the bare concrete wall. He turned back to face them.
Nastos continued, “Because he asked to kill you before we left. He doesn’t want to have to testify to anything, he doesn’t want anyone to know. He just wants to watch you bleed to death.”
Chavez read Nastos’ face and saw no signs of a bluff or of a tactic. It was just the truth.
“I swear, Lindsay is there, right down by the river, in the trees.”
Nastos shook his head from side to side. “You know, I almost believed you. And if I did, I wouldn’t let him do whatever it is he has planned, as sign of good faith. Unfortunately for you, I think you’re full of shit. I think she’s already dead and you may as well die here where the boy — Taylor is his name — can enjoy it.”
The boy came around the corner. His eyes wide, his fist tightly wrapped around a small paring knife. He looked over Chavez, his eyes widening when he saw the amputated fingers on the ground, the blood dropping from the stubs.
“Go there if you want to find her.” He could easily have given them the name Anthony. A name they likely already knew. He didn’t — screw them. Coming to hate Anthony was one thing; giving any satisfaction to these assholes was something different. He refused to let them win. Besides, he needed to get to Anthony if he wanted to get his money, take him for all he was worth. Maybe Anthony would be kind enough to pen a suicide note, taking responsibility for everything and giving Chavez enough time to cross the border — or get on a flight to Colombia.
Nastos feigned sympathy. “Oh yeah, you’ve been through enough.”
Carscadden tried to use his phone again, still finding there was no connection. Chavez said, “There is an electronic cell jammer in the living room. Your phones won’t work until you unplug it.”
The cop pulled out a strip of duct tape and put it over Chavez’s mouth, then waved the hacksaw in his face. “If I go there and it’s all bullshit, I’m coming back here to saw your balls off. Comprende?”
Chavez agreed, trying to look weak and frail. A part of him ached to tell them that he knew who they were, that they weren’t in charge as much as they thought they were. It wasn’t enough that he recognized the power he had over them; he wanted them to know it too. He made himself wait; that moment would come in time. Hopkins, the boy and Lindsay might get away. Fortunately, there were other targets out there.
“But the boy here,” he waved a hand at Taylor, “You’re calling him off, right?”
Nastos shook his head gravely. “No. I lied about that. Your day is about to go from bad to worse.”
Nastos straightened up and turned to the lawyer. “We’re not talking any chances. We’re calling Dennehy again.”
The lawyer said. “Fine with me.”
Nastos slapped his hand on Taylor’s shoulder. “Batter up.” To Chavez he said, “See you in hell, cupcake.”
29
The boy stared at him for a while with conflicted thoughts and feelings clashing on his face. He was tough to read. Chavez found the waiting tedious to the point of being annoying. What he had endured in his eight years in the Colombian army, watching those on either side of him — strong, brave men — die, while he survived, had forged in him a feeling of immortality. There was nothing he couldn’t withstand. He had been in the Dragoneantes, at the rank of Sargento Primero, or First Sergeant. A climb through promotions that had mostly related to his lack of mercy. He had killed people with his hands, without hesitation, his heart rate never breaching seventy. Twenty-four-hour survival hikes through the mountains with only water, where eating insects while they frantically squirmed in his mouth was the price of survival. He’d snapped the necks of comrades to free them from pain, he’d sewn up his own wounds — caused by rusted, shit-covered rebel bayonets and hand knives — with needle and thread, no anesthetic.
Now the boy stood in front of him, holding the knife. He was filled with hatred, still scared and avoiding eye contact. Hi
s breathing was sharp, as if he wanted to run. After he inched a few tentative steps toward Chavez, it was clear he didn’t have what it took to cut someone to pieces while they screamed.
Chavez found it challenging to not taunt him. I targeted you because you were a bitch. Look at you. You pathetic little woman. He needed to play this smart if he wanted to kill the cop and the lawyer. The hammer strikes to the chair had done enough to weaken it, he was sure of it. Free from the chair, he might be able to get away with enough time. All it would require was some manipulation.
Taylor’s eyes were closed when he said, “You’re a worthless piece of shit.”
“I know.”
“What you did it me . . .”
“Happened to me too. Only I was much younger.”
Taylor paused, his face twisting. His eyes opened and for the first time he made eye contact with Chavez before averting his eyes to the floor. “Then why —”
“It’s the way our kind breed.” He wanted to smile but he found himself considering his words. “We breed like a virus that we inflict on other host animals. You will do the same now. You’re now like me. The disease is growing in you right now.” He paused. “Don’t believe me? Look at the knife in your hands.”
Taylor’s hand tightened around the blade, then relaxed. The knife slowly spun in the boy’s grip, the small serrated strip glinting in the light.
Chavez continued. “This will be your baptism of blood, like a praying mantis devouring its lover to nourish its future young.” Chavez closed his eyes, tilting his head to the ceiling to expose his neck. “Take me, lover — I’m ready for you.”
Chavez heard no rush of footsteps, sensed no push of air, felt no fear. There was the sound of clutter being shuffled around, but it was distant. He opened his eyes a sliver and smiled, quickly returning to a display of reverence for the moment — as if he still expected to die — when the boy turned back to him.