"Oh? What makes you say that?"
Wentworth sets the tumbler down. "I think you know what I'm implying, Mr Lore."
This is going too fast. Effective manipulation is like sex: you need foreplay. A build-up. He has to want to let go of the information; it should be his relief and release.
I take a pack of cards from the table and hold them up. "You play poker?"
"From time to time." This earns me a slightly bigger smile. A creepy one. He hasn't worked on his airs and graces nearly enough to hide what he is.
"I'll deal." The cards slip into my palm, smooth and silky on my fingertips as I count out two hands. "Five card draw. No bets. Just for fun, hey?"
"Just for fun," he says coolly.
Five card draw is so simple, it may as well be for kindergarteners—a low blow, but one I can't resist. It's not like he's in the dark here; he knows where this is headed.
To an extent.
"That's quite the bruise you have there," Wentworth says, eyeing the purple bloom beneath my bottom lip. "You get into a fight with a sandwich?"
"I find myself in the middle of the odd altercation."
"So I hear." He reaches to slip two cards off the top of the deck, appraises them, and discards two from his hand. A dark eyebrow lilts toward them. "We planned a chapter on such matters, if I recall the proposal correctly."
"There were some interesting choices there." I don't look at my cards. If you invite a snake into your home, you keep both fucking eyes on it.
"My favourite," he says slowly, pretending to ponder his own hand, "was Rachel Fordham. Now that's a story, isn't it, Aeron?"
"Do you like stories, Mr Wentworth?"
"I'm not much for happy endings."
"Ah. Me either. I think we're on the same page." I'm enjoying myself so much, I'm even in for the puns.
It's important to analyse the prey before you throw in the bait. Wentworth here has been frisked by my concierge. This doesn't mean he isn't carrying a weapon, but it does mean that if he is, he can't get to it in a hurry.
Now this tells me two things about my new cards partner: one, he's not here for himself, because a guy on his own wouldn't come in here under that kind of risk. Somebody has hired him. And two, he's afraid of that person enough to be playing me like I'm fucking Jenga.
Perhaps my hidden toy ought to come out and join the games.
I reach to swap a card. It's an ace, which is fitting. Even a bastard like me appreciates a little serendipity from time to time.
"What kind of story were you hoping tonight would be?" I ask.
The man eyes me over his whiskey glass before taking a sip. "One with new beginnings."
Wait for it. Wait. Any second now, he's going to reach for another card, his arm stretched across the glass table, fingers wide to grasp...
Beneath the table, I find the cold metal with my socked foot. Pull it silently along the rug, just a little closer. Run my tongue along the three neat stitches inside my bottom lip.
"Shit." I drop my hand of cards, duck slightly to pick them up again. Manage to pick up something else.
Here's what you do with a story that won't bend to your liking, sports fans: you deus ex machina the bitch.
Wentworth sips his whiskey again, surveys the splayed cards in his hand. Reaches toward the deck. It almost happens in slow motion, and then—
Pulse. Pulse. Thumping in my ears.
Fluid movements. My arm comes up, my fist clenched around the knife, which soars in a perfect arc towards his hand where it lodges between the fine bones, cleaves through the meat, and grates against the glass in a way that sets my teeth on edge. Kkkkksssscccch.
A beat.
Cue the squeals.
His pale eyes bulge, eyebrows shooting skyward. God, he squeals like a child. Like a guinea pig. Oily crimson oozes up around the knife; I'm holding it down so hard that the veins on my arm have popped up like ribbons. Blood seeps on to the glass below our piled hands.
"What the ffffff..." He can't get the words out. Doesn't know if he should move. "Ffff!"
Now I'm the one maintaining eye contact. I won't let it go. It's important that I distract him before he finds a use for his free hand; the pain must overtake his fight-or-flight instincts. "I'm going to give you a choice, Mr Wentworth. You tell me what I need to know, and I will remove the knife, allowing you to leave. No harm done." I want to grin at him, but it's too cliché. "Or you can refuse, and we'll be sitting here a very long time. One by one, you'll lose feeling in your fingers. And you'll lose blood. Perhaps too much." I nod once at the growing spill of syrupy red. "Have I made myself clear?"
He says nothing. Just sucks the air through his teeth again. The skin around his mouth has turned white; the tendons in his neck stand out accusingly.