“Look, you little piss-ant addict,” the man said, sitting in a favorite armchair by the window, slapping one gloved hand with the eighteen-inch metal pipe he held in the other. Was he going to break another finger? Or his thumbs? Surely not. He couldn’t work without his thumbs.
“You gotta know that the Boss wants all or nothing,” the thug continued. “Now, see, Bernardo is a patient man. He’ll take a little down, but you gotta pay for wasting his time, causing all this trouble. Honest, dude, you’ve been a real pain in the ass.”
The intruder smiled in anticipation and the man thought of his ass and what the metal pipe could do to delicate flesh. The thug rose and took a menacing step forward.
“You know, there are dozens of parts of the human body that you can cut off or damage,” he reflected aloud, shaking his head in wonder, “and the damn suckers still work perfectly.”
He grinned with a kind of salacious glee. “Well, maybe not perfectly, but ... There’s lots a’ stuff I can do to you and leave you able to do the job.” He stared meditatively toward the ceiling as if he were a damn priest giving advice to a mendicant.
Which he was, he supposed – a beggar pleading for his life. Don’t hurt me, he entreated silently.
“A leg, an arm, an ear. Whadda ya wanna give for the down payment?” Acting as though he’d just gotten a bright idea, the man answered his own question. “I know, a fingernail. That’s the easiest thing to hide from your ... uh, coworkers.”
“Please, don’t,” he gasped, despite his determination to remain stoic.
“Put a little bandage on it. No one will know the difference,” the thug continued as though he hadn’t heard. “Hella easier to heal than a broken leg, ya gotta admit.”
All the while the man had continued to slap the metal bar against his palm, the sound a sickening reminder of pain, concussion, broken bones, and damaged muscles – all the so-fragile parts of the human body.
Now his attacker laid the metal bar aside and pulled something from his back pocket.
“This’ll work just fine, I’m thinking. You won’t deliver inferior merchandise again. Right? Yeah, the fingernails are a good lesson.”
He saw now that his torturer held a pair of pliers in his hand.
“What do you prefer – thumb or fingernail?” he asked, advancing with purpose and pleasure.
Several hours later the pain was a dull, numbing throb in spite of the Dilaudid he’d taken.
The two ragged ovals where his thumbnails had been still oozed blood through the bandages.
Chapter 38
“I dunno what the kite means,” Cole Hansen mumbled as he rubbed at his chaffed wrists. “It’s just a bunch of scrambled writing to me.”
Cruz had removed Cole’s handcuffs after Frankie made the runaway ex-con swear on his sister’s life that he wouldn’t flee again. Santiago tried very hard not to grimace at her naiveté. Even if he found it kind of cute, she wouldn’t appreciate it.
“Why’d you pick it up then?” Cruz challenged, sitting in one of the oak kitchen chairs that surrounded Frankie’s kitchen table.
“A gut feeling.”
“But why did you pass it to me, Cole?” Frankie asked quietly. “Surely you knew it would put me in danger. Did you want that?”
“No! No!” Cole exclaimed. “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, Doc.”
Frankie leaned back in a matching chair. The three of them had cups of strong coffee and slices of pound cake. Cruz would’ve preferred a cold beer, but didn’t want to slow down the interrogation.
The doctor looked much calmer than she should be. After their lunch she’d gone here – her childhood home, she said – waiting for her friend Walt to call her as he’d promised. That the correctional officer hadn’t contacted her yet wasn’t a good sign, in Cruz’s mind.
“You know, Cole,” Frankie continued. “You probably have information that you don’t even realize you have. Something you overheard after the beat-down in the yard? Gossip or chatter among the inmates?”
“Think hard,” Cruz added. “Your life might depend on it.” He glanced at Frankie. “The doctor’s life, too.”
Cole picked at a piece of cake with his long, dirty fingernails. Even though he’d been living on the street for less than a week, a faint odor of unwashed body and unbrushed teeth wafted across the table.
He took a long swallow of coffee before answering. “Yeah, I guess the LOD’s business ain’t so secret since I dropped out. Might as well tell you what I know.”
“Tell us what illegal activities the Lords are engaged in outside the prison system,” Cruz prompted. “Tell us why Dr. Jones was threatened.”
Cole looked sadly at Frankie, and then gazed thoughtfully toward the ceiling. “There’s drugs, of course, street drugs. They do a good business in northern Cal, took the biggest share from the non-white gangs. The Professor runs it all from Pelican Bay.”
“What else?” Cruz asked.
“Well, there’s prostitution, money-lending, guns and ‘jackings – cars and stuff easy to move.”
“You hear about anything unusual – activities other gangs aren’t into?” Cruz asked.