“I see,” said Shadow.
“And if you don’t want to help us, sir,” said the square-jawed spook, “you can see what we’re like when we’re not happy.” He hit Shadow an openhanded blow across the stomach, knocking the breath from him. It wasn’t torture, Shadow thought, just punctuation: I’m the bad cop. He retched.
“I would like to make you happy,” said Shadow, as soon as he could speak.
“All we ask is your cooperation, sir.”
“Can I ask ...” gasped Shadow (don’t ask questions, he thought, but it was too late, the words were already spoken), “can I ask who I’ll be cooperating with?”
“You want us to tell you our names?” asked the square-jawed spook. “You have to be out of your mind.”
“No, he’s got a point,” said the spook with glasses. “It may make it easier for him to relate to us.” He looked at Shadow and smiled like a man advertising toothpaste. “Hi. I’m Mister Stone, sir. My colleague is Mister Wood.”
“Actually,” said Shadow, “I meant, what agency are you with? CIA? FBI?”
Stone shook his head. “Gee. It’s not as” easy as that anymore, sir. Things just aren’t that simple.” y
“The private sector,” said Wood, “the public sector. You know. There’s a lot of interplay these days.”
“But I can assure you,” said Stone, with another smiley smile, “we are the good guys. Are you hungry, sir?” He reached into a pocket of his jacket, pulled out a Snickers bar. “Here. A gift.”
“Thanks,” said Shadow. He unwrapped the Snickers bar and ate it.
“I guess you’d like something to drink with that. Coffee? Beer?”
“Water, please,” said Shadow.
Stone walked to the door, knocked on it. He said something to the guard on the other side of the door, who nodded and returned a minute later with a polystyrene cup filled with cold water.
“CIA,” said Wood. He shook his head, ruefully. “Those bozos. Hey, Stone. I heard a new CIA joke. Okay: how can we be sure the CIA wasn’t involved in the Kennedy assassination?”
“I don’t know,” said Stone. “How can we be sure?”
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” said Wood.
They both laughed.
“Feeling better now, sir?” asked Stone.
“I guess.”
“So why don’t you tell us what happened this evening, sir?”
“We did some tourist stuff. Went to the House on the Rock. Went out for some food. You know the rest.”
Stone sighed, heavily. Wood shook his head, as if disappointed, and kicked Shadow in the kneecap. The pain was excruciating. Then Wood pushed a fist slowly into Shadow’s back, just above the right kidney, and knuckled it, hard, and the pain was worse than the pain in Shadow’s knee.
I’m bigger than either of them, he thought. / can take them. But they were armed; and even if he—somehow—killed or subdued them both, he’d still be locked in the cell with them. (But he’d have a gun. He’d have two guns.) (No.)
Wood was keeping his hands away from Shadow’s face. No marks. Nothing permanent: just fists and feet on his torso and knees. It hurt, and Shadow clutched the Liberty dollar tight in the palm of his hand, and waited for it to be over.
And after far too long a time the beating ended.
“We’ll see you in a couple of hours, sir,” said Stone.
“You know, Woody really hated to have to do that. We’re reasonable men. Like I said, we are the good guys. You’re on the wrong side. Meantime, why don’t you try to get a little sleep?”
“You better start taking us seriously,” said Wood.
“Woody’s got a point there, sir,” said Stone. “Think about it.”
The door slammed closed behind them. Shadow wondered if they would turn out the light, but they didn’t, and it blazed into the room like a cold eye. Shadow crawled across the floor to the yellow foam-rubber pad and climbed onto it, pulling the thin blanket over himself, and he closed his eyes, and he held onto nothing, and he held onto dreams.
Time passed.
He was fifteen again, and his mother was dying, and she was trying to tell him something very important, and he couldn’t understand her. He moved in his sleep and a shaft of pain moved him from half-sleep to half-waking, and he winced.
Shadow shivered under the thin blanket. His right arm covered his eyes, blocking out the h’ghrof the bulb. He wondered whether Wednesday and the others were still at liberty, if they were even still alive. He hoped that they were.