by Sam Jones
Billy just kept laughing. “Nothing,” he said. “Just get this over with…”
The laughter continued.
Kruger started to get concerned.
“You got something to say, Billy?” he asked.
Billy shook his head. “Not a damn thing…”
Billy diverted his gaze and rested comfortably in his chair, a man self-assured that a life raft would soon be floating his way. Kruger walked over and stood a foot away from Billy, flexing his fingers.
“What do you know?” he asked.
Billy eyeballed Kruger’s surgery scars. “I know you used to look prettier,” he said.
A half second later, Billy felt a hard right landing on his cheek, once again knocked silly by a rabbit punch for what felt like the umpteenth time in the past few days.
Billy tried to shake it off as he remarked, “Nice one.”
“I’m going to ask you one more time,” Kruger said as he jerked a thumb at Mr. Thompson. “And then I’m going to let him go to work on you. You don’t want that. Trust me.”
Billy came out of his daze and glared at Kruger. “You’ve always punched like a bitch,” he said. “You know that?”
Kruger flexed his eyebrows. “That a fact?”
“Like water being wet,” Billy said.
“You’ve always been a funny guy, Billy.”
Billy’s grin turned into an unapologetic “fuck you” gleaming of his teeth.
“You like that last one?” he asked.
“You’re the one tied to a chair here, man,” Kruger said. “I’d stop screwin’ around if I were you. Don’t bite your thumb at me. Work with me.”
“Bite your thumb?” Billy grimaced as his senses returned. “You’re quoting Shakespeare now? Man, you are such a loser, Sykes.”
“Answer me.”
“No. I’m good.”
Whack!
Billy passed out for about three seconds after Kruger popped him one in the jaw. Kruger then grabbed him by the neck with both hands and pulled him, along with the chair, about two inches off the floor. “Last chance,” he said. “Then I let Thompson carve and bleed the answers out of you. What’s your decision?”
Billy choked, his face taking on a beet-like shade as he choked on his next words. “Lorraine Hackett.”
Kruger put him down.
“The girl you said you liked in high school?”
“Yep…” Billy said.
“What about her?”
“If I looked her up now for a date, do you think that would be weird? I always had a soft spot for her.”
Kruger planet his heel in Billy’s chest and knocked him onto his back. Billy hit the floor, the left arm of the chair splintering a quarter of an inch upon impact.
Kruger stepped away and moved toward the door, fists clenched and shoulders hunched. “Find out what he knows,” he ordered Mr. Thompson. “You’ve got thirty minutes.”
“Sykes!” Billy yelled out after him.
Kruger froze in place, his back to Billy as he waited for the rest.
Billy finished with, “You’re a fucking dick.”
Kruger looked at Mr. Thompson and lowered his voice. “Thirty minutes,” he said calmly, “then meet me in the lobby of the hotel. Got it?”
Mr. Thompson said nothing.
Kruger rolled up his sleeves as he stormed out, nothing but the click of his shoes on the floor echoing off the walls as he left the scene, face red and temperature rising as he grabbed his jacket and ordered a pair of men to follow him out.
Mr. Thompson waited for a few moments before he turned his back to Billy. “Mr. Lowe,” he said.
Lowe stood at attention.
“Go and check on the woman,” Mr. Thompson ordered in a classic, monotone physician’s voice. “Tell Marcus I want her brought in here in fifteen. I want to do some…things with her and Mr. Reese. Together.”
Lowe snapped his fingers, formed them into a gun, and fired it at Billy. “You kids have fun,” he said, before leaving the room.
Mr. Thompson slowly shucked his jacket, his shoulder holster and Ruger Mark IV now visible, a sleek and silver weapon with a long barrel that gave personality to a man that had none.
Mr. Thompson then neatly folded his jacket over twice and draped it over a pipe running along the wall. He stepped away from the pipe, reached into his pants pocket and produced a leather valise the size of a calculator. He unzipped it all the way around, folded it open, and removed two pieces of equipment: surgical scissors and a scalpel, their silver metal glinting under the faded lights overhead.
Billy made a puttering noise with his lips.
Oh, man.
This is gonna suck.
29
MR. THOMPSON POCKETED the valise, slipped it into his back pocket, and approached Billy in a way one might associate with a serpent. He stopped about three feet shy of Billy and held up his surgical instruments like silverware; they glinted under the light and sent a sliver of a shiver up Billy’s spine.
“You’re allowed to pick which one of these I will use,” Mr. Thompson said. “And then I will use it.”
Billy rolled his eyes. “Christ. Is that your attempt to sound intimidating? I’ve heard more intimidating threats from children.”
“You’re not funny.”
“I’d like to think I’m an acquired taste.”
Footsteps were heard approaching the room from the hallway outside.
Mr. Thompson turned to see who it was. It was Lowe, a smirk on his face and a skip in his step.
Lowe walked step over step in a catwalk fashion toward Mr. Thompson.
“Mind if I watch?
Mr. Thompson said not a peep.
Lowe took it as a confirmation of his request.
“Oh, Billy, Billy, Billy,” he said as he did a low-energy version of an Irish jig as he circled around the chair. “You shouldn’t have pissed him off.”
“You were that dipshit kid in middle school that befriended the school bully just so he wouldn’t kick your ass, weren’t you?” Billy said.
Lowe flashed a grin. “This next part is my favorite part,” he said before moving away and clearing a path for Mr. Thompson.
The man of the hour, Mr. Thompson, started pacing in a circle around Billy’s chair, his eyes fixated on Billy as he swiveled his head. The way he ambled about was unnatural; there was too much fluidity in his movements, like he was some kind of entity rather than a man.
A few paces in, he stood behind the chair and ran his fingers delicately across Billy’s bare and sinewy back, his finger moving along his flesh like the graceful stroke of a paintbrush.
“I wonder…what your skin will look like…when I peel it.”
“You know,” Billy said, somewhat shuddering as he cast a glance at Mr. Thompson’s hands. “If you’re going to torture me, then torture me. That’s fine. Just stop doing whatever the hell this is. You’re giving me the creeps.”
“Are you homophobic?”
“No, I’m not homophobic. I just don’t dig having a dead guy’s mitts on my back.”
Mr. Thompson pulled his hand back and rounded his way back to the front of Billy. “So, I’m a dead man,” he said, more like a fact than for clarification.
“Oh, yeah,” Billy said. Serious. Nothing standing in his way, certain as all hell. “Big time, snowflake. I may not know how I’m getting out of this chair, but rest assured, once I do—I’m going to put you in the ground…Shit, that was cheesy. Nonetheless, you get my point.”
The part about Billy not knowing how he’d get out of the chair wasn’t entirely true—he had already discovered the looseness of the now-cracked left arm of his chair that now wobbled slightly when he jiggled it.
He had a fighting chance. The best move now would be to keep wiggling the arm until it broke free.
Without Mr. Thompson noticing.
Then I have to get his gun.
Then I have to kill Lowe.
One thing at a time, ace.
Come on. Calculate.
Calculate…
Mr. Thompson placed the scissors back inside his valise with meticulous precision before he slipped it back inside his pocket. “We’ll use the scalpel,” he said.
Billy swiveled his head left and right, trying to make out whatever Mr. Thompson was up to as he moved around him.
I can’t see shit.
Come on, asshole.
Calculate!
Billy then heard the sounds of something on squeaky wheels moving toward his back.
Slowly…
Moments later Mr. Thompson reappeared, pushing a metal cart licked with rust; a two-year-old television resting on top of a cart with a large extension cord plugged in a socket somewhere behind the chair. Mr. Thompson moved the cart about five feet to Billy’s left, positioned it at an angle so he could see it, and then stepped back and judged the placement like a curator hanging a painting.
“For the noise,” he said as he switched on the television and began to tune the dial. He passed the local news station covering the parade, a weather channel, and a commercial for a deep-dish restaurant before landing on the go-to channel for America’s youth: MTV, its theme music cranked up at full volume, and its pastel and static-charged logo challenging the viewer to do his best to keep track of all the images flashing on the screen. A second later, Billy Idol rushed in from the right, his big, spiky and silly haircut and Road Warrior–inspired ensemble assaulting Billy’s eyes as he curled his lip, pointed at Billy, and snarled, “I want my MTV!”
The beat kicked in, and the tunes began to flow, hands clapping and drums beating with an infectious, dance-inducing rhythm that had all the viewers currently watching at home bobbing their heads to the beat.
Billy knew the song.
Most people did.
“Dancing With Myself,” Billy Idol.
As Mr. Idol began to sway in place and oomph the lyrics on the tube, Mr. Thompson ran a finger along his scalpel, delicately, just shy of molesting the implement. His eyes scanned Billy’s torso, limbs, and face as he decided where to start with his, as Mr. Lowe had dubbed it earlier, “routine.”
Billy squirmed, subtly jiggling the loose left arm of the chair.
Come on, you piece of shit.
Break.
Lowe, against the wall with a lit cigarette, motioned at the television. “I love this song.”
Mr. Thompson then moved in on Billy with unblinking eyes and a predatory stride as the bass of Billy Idol’s chart-topping hit reverberated off the walls.
BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM.
Lowe, staring on at the scene with a fiendish Peeping Tom gaze, started to dance in place as the catchy tune and semidisturbing shots of the music video added a sickly, foot-tapping vibe to Mr. Thompson’s “routine.”
Billy wiggled the arm of the chair.
But it still wasn’t breaking.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
Mr. Thompson moved behind Billy and out of his eye line.
Billy couldn’t see him. All he could hear was his icy voice.
“Three,” Mr. Thompson whispered into Billy’s ear.
Shit!
“Two.”
Come on! Jesus! Come on! Shit!
“One.”
The next thing Billy felt was a sharp and vicious pain coming from the area near his right shoulder blade. The primal part of his brain reacted immediately and hit the red alert button to notify the rest of his body that something awful was happening to it as a searing and vicious pain sent shockwaves through the flesh on his back.
He couldn’t see what was happening. He could only feel it, in all its gruesome sensations. As the pain intensified, his ears began to drown out the music and replace it with a prolonged beep-like noise as the excruciating pain in his shoulder began to feel like it was slowly moving around in a circle.
Just pass out…
Just let yourself pass out…
His head spun. His vision went foggy. His stomach felt like it was knotting up twice over. As Billy suffered and felt himself teetering on the verge of tapping out, he knew the moment would forever be seared into his brain.
If he lived through it.
He had never felt pain like this before, and he had been shot before. Twice. But the sensation would forever be remembered if he somehow made it through, the memory now nestling its way into the deep recesses of his brain like many of his war stories he lied about having forgotten.
As Mr. Thompson dug the scalpel in and the unbearable pain reached a crescendo, Billy blacked out.
And then he woke up.
Time had passed. Billy wasn’t sure how much. By the time he came back to, the song was more than half over, so he figured he’d been out maybe a little less than a minute.
Billy Idol’s poppy nonsense was back at full blast.
Lowe was now fully visible and having shit-canned the dancing.
Mr. Thompson was now facing Billy, his scalpel now coated with crimson.
Billy, still feeling the sting from his unseen wound and unable to move, shut and squinted his eyelids and ground his molars as a way to deal with the pain, his arm still fruitlessly trying to shake and break the arm of the chair. Cracked or not, he was starting to realize the thing wasn’t going to budge or give way any more than it already had.
It’s not happening.
Kudos to the craftsman who made it, though.
Mr. Thompson said, “There is a significant portion of skin missing from part of your back. About the size of a quarter.”
Wonderful.
“For every question you don’t answer,” Mr. Thompson continued, “I will remove another piece. Then I’ll feed it to you. If you don’t eat it—I’ll force you to eat it. I will start to work my way around your body until I get to your genitalia. Then I will make you eat that, too.”
Christ.
It really is the simplest of methods that work.
Lowe moved behind Billy’s back to get a look at the wound. “I can see tendons,” he said. Amused.
Mr. Thompson said, “I’m going to ask my first question. And you have five seconds to answer. Do you understand?”
Billy started laughing.
He didn’t know what else to do.
I’m screwed either way.
“Do you have something to say, William?” Mr. Thompson asked.
“Just one thing, fuck face,” Billy said.
Mr. Thompson waited for it.
“I want to know,” Billy said through labored breathing, “how strong a sunscreen you have to use when you go to the beach, you pasty, translucent shitmagnet.”
Mr. Thompson gripped the scalpel and stepped forward; ready to cut another piece of flesh from Billy Reese.
Mr. Lowe began dancing again in place to Billy Idol’s crooning, taking pleasure in the whole thing just to appease his own devious appetites.
“I’m going to cut another piece off of you,” Mr. Thompson said as he moved in and prepared to make contact with the scalpel against Billy’s flesh—more specifically his nose.
“Let’s start here,” he said as he moved behind Billy and quickly coiled his arm around Billy’s neck and put it into a headlock, Billy trying to squirm out of Mr. Thompson’s grip as he clenched his teeth and spat obscenities.
“Brace yourself,” Lowe said as he danced in the corner, his feet twisting and kicking in sync with Billy Idol in a tribal-like and oddly childish manner.
Mr. Thompson held the scalpel upright and used his free hand to apply pressure to the left side of Billy’s nose, positioning and readying it for carving.
“Let’s get started,” he said.
He applied pressure.
The blade touched skin.
A trickle of blood began to flow.
And then four gunshots rang out from the hallway—BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
Everyone froze.
Two seconds later a fourth individual entered the room.
All eyes focused to make her out—her hair was tussled.
She had freshly acquired scratches along her arms and torso and a welt under her eye from some kind of hard hit, most likely from someone’s fist. Her right arm was raised, and a solid black object was gripped tightly in her fist.
The person was Maria.
The object was a Beretta.
Billy cracked a smile.
Control.
30
BILLY WAS ELATED the second Maria showed her face. “I fucking love you,” he said with gleeful relief, conviction behind every word as she trained the gun between Lowe and Mr. Thompson.
“Step away from him,” Maria said, index finger caressing the trigger, Mr. Thompson thirty feet away to her left and Lowe about twenty feet to her right.
Mr. Thompson shook his head. Still emotionless. Almost bored.
“You’re not quick enough to take us both out in time,” he said as he cocked his head in Lowe’s direction.
BAM! Maria shot a hole in the television. A spider web formed in the glass. Sparks spit out from the entry wound.
But not a single person in the room budged.
“You’ve got three seconds,” she said, the gun now aimed squarely at Mr. Thompson’s forehead as she counted down inside her head.
One…
Two…
Three.
Lowe went to draw his pistol—Maria quickly jinked her arm to the right in his direction and popped off three in his chest—BAM! BAM! BAM!
The bullets hit.
His body fell to the floor.
Done and done.
As Lowe was in the process of being shot, Mr. Thompson withdrew his Ruger from his shoulder holster and turned it on Maria. Maria quickly moved to her left and took cover behind a support column as he squeezed off four rounds from his ten-round magazine and hit nothing but metal.
And then he went to shoot Billy.
Shit!
But Maria—once again—came to Billy’s rescue. She peeked around the column and fired off three more shots in Mr. Thompson’s direction and caused him to abort the attempt on Billy’s life.
Mr. Thompson took cover behind one of the support beams and fired the rest of his rounds from the Ruger blindly in Maria’s direction, forcing her back into cover. With the rounds in his Ruger depleted, Mr. Thompson, back shielded by the support beam, lunged forward and picked up the television set from the stand in front of him. He hoisted it up, pivoted, and vaulted the set toward the fogged-up panel window to his right. The television was hefty, but the ghost man threw it with the ease of a pillow cushion. The glass shattered, and the piercing sounds of the window breaking reverberated off the walls and stung everyone’s eardrums as shards rained down onto the floor and the fire escape outside.
