Gus looked in the trunk. “You’ve been talking to an unconscious guy wrapped in black plastic bags and duct tape all the way from Los Alamos?”
“I was warming him up.” Nick plucked Didricson out of the trunk, and shouldered his bulk with impressive ease. “Pence is very considerate too. He didn’t interrupt me, or make smartass comments, like some of my friends tend to do.”
Gus and John both enjoyed Nick’s admonishment as they followed him out to the subbasement entrance. “I’m glad you guys think this is funny. I have to prepare and question Pence before I take the BMW to Jerry at 4 am.”
“Don’t rush, Muerto,” Gus said as they descended into the lower level. “I can take it over to Jerry. How much do you want to give him?”
“It’s another last minute rush job, so he gets the car, and twenty-five thousand. Lately, Jerry’s becoming the most important outside contact we have. I can’t wait until we get Pence situated on a gurney, and I bring him out of his snooze time. I bet he’ll be surprised.”
“Either that, or he’ll have a stroke, and die right on the table when a vein in his head bursts like a water filled balloon,” Gus replied.
“Don’t ruin this for John, Payaso. This is his first time seeing the special room in action. It’s a very intricate tool for obtaining information quickly, John.”
“It’s actually a horrifying nightmare of unending torment, birthed in a mind so twisted, you’ll be glad we haven’t eaten since early last night.”
“I look forward to yet another new experience in the war against the forces of evil.”
Gus patted John’s shoulder. “Good one, John. Keep those happy thoughts in mind. You’ll need them once Nick activates his insanity room.”
Gus and John took Didricson’s wrapped form from Nick, laying it on the nearest gurney.
“I am sure Muerto only uses this extreme solution for gathering information from very bad and deserving miscreants,” John stated.
“Actually, the last two people treated to a special showing of the room were the parents of Jean’s best friend. She directed Muerto to solve the problem of the parents dealing drugs out of their house. Muerto cured them of that bad habit in one therapy session here in the manmade Seventh Level of Hell.”
“I think that’s enough of your unenlightened perceptions of my holding facility, Payaso. I’ll put Pence through his paces for an hour, and see what I can get him to share with us. You guys get him stripped down, and I’ll start the music.”
*
Didricson awoke in a sweat, his head throbbing. He couldn’t move a muscle. Every movable part was strapped tightly to the gurney. Blinking at the images of torture and mutilation depicted everywhere by ultraviolet lighting, Pence called out loudly to be heard over the eerie music playing in surround sound around him.
“Hello… where am I? What do you want? Please… let me go.” He watched as three men, two with black masks, and one with a hideous clown mask, approached him with white gloves, shining under the black-light. “Is…is this some kind of joke? Why are you holding me here? I have money. We can make a deal.”
“No deals,” Nick said. “We’ll start with something simple. I’ve been informed you’ve been blackmailing the justice department. Apparently, you have information stored away, making some very important people nervous. You’re using it, threatening to release it if you are bothered in any way. Like an arrogant idiot, you even made them allow you to continue working at Los Alamos. I want to know where the information is, and I want you to describe it to me.”
Hope surged through Didricson. “You bastards think you can scare me. I have a deal. No one touches me. If I get killed, hurt, or even sick, every major breakthrough we’ve had at Los Alamos will be released around the world.”
“I see,” Nick said. “Let me explain something to you, Pence. When the DOJ gets in a hole they can’t dig their way out of, they call me. Once I take a contract, I find out everything they want to know, and solve every problem in the contract. They don’t know where I am, what I plan to do, or whom I plan to kill. They want your blackmailing operation ended, the information safely in their hands, and every contact you’ve been selling the United States out to revealed for their viewing pleasure.”
Nick walked alongside Didricson’s gurney, within reach of the surgical instrument tray near the gurney. He held out his hand without looking away from Didricson, palm up. “Scalpel please, Payaso.”
Gus moved next to him, and slapped a scalpel into the palm of Nick’s extended hand. Nick deftly made a shallow incision from Didricson’s ribcage to his groin. Gus took the scalpel as Pence screamed.