“You wouldn’t rather play chess?” she suggested. “I let you teach me how to play, because Marguerite was t-too ignorant to know chess, but I’m actually rather good. I’d love to play a real match instead of always losing on p-purpose so you can feel superior.”
Rage tightened his face. Eve barely had time to brace herself before the bust descended, and with it the now-familiar sound of crunching bone.
She screamed through clenched teeth, making René’s chin jerk. She had told herself at first that she wouldn’t scream, but she’d broken down by the fifth knuckle. This was the tenth. She couldn’t pretend it didn’t hurt. She couldn’t look directly at her hand anymore either. From the corner of her eye, she saw a mess of blood and black bruising and grotesquely twisted joints. All the damage so far was to her right hand—the left still sat beside it, undamaged, curled into a fist.
“Who is the woman with whom you were arrested?” René’s voice was taut. “She can’t be the head of the local network, but she might know him.”
Inside, Eve smiled. Even now, René and the Huns had underestimated Lili. They underestimated anything female. “Her name is Alice Dubois, and she’s a nobody.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He hadn’t believed anything out of her mouth so far. After the sixth knuckle went in a burst of blood, Eve had tried giving him false information, anything her imagination could make up. Hoping it would make him stop. But he had not stopped, even when she pretended to acquiesce and started talking. He might be new to the business of torture, but he was keen.
“What is the woman’s real name? Tell me!”
“Why?” Eve managed to spit. “You won’t believe anything I say. Give me to the G-Germans and let them ask the questions.” At this point she wanted a German cell. The Huns might interrogate her, they might kick her about the floor, but they did not hate her personally as betrayed, outwitted René did. Just turn me in, Eve prayed, biting the inside of her lip to stifle a moan, tasting her own blood.
“I will not turn you in until I’ve drained you of information,” René said as though reading her mind. “If I’m to overcome the distrust the Germans will harbor knowing I took a spy for a mistress, I must give them something valuable. If I can’t, I may as well spare myself the suspicion altogether and just shoot you.” A pause. “It’s not as though anyone will inquire about a disappeared waitress.”
“You can’t kill me. You’d never get away with it.” Of course he could, but Eve began flinging doubts at him anyway. She’d already thought of this, the moment he pointed the pistol at her. “You think you could march me out of this study on my own two feet, off to some lonely spot where you can shoot me and leave me in the bushes to rot? I’d scream and struggle every step of the way. Someone would see.”
“I could kill you here in this room—”
“And then have to dispose of me somewhere, all by yourself. Your German friends may owe you favors, but they won’t dispose of a corpse for you. You think you can lug a body out of your restaurant and get rid of it, all without someone noticing? This is a city of spies, René, German and French and English alike. Everyone sees everything. You’d never get away with it—”
Oh, yes, he could. Money, luck, and a good scheme could always make murder possible. But Eve kept flinging up objections anyway, and she could see the doubts being sowed in René’s eyes. He had no firm plan and he was floundering here, for all his taut control. You make brilliant plans, Eve thought, but unlike me, you can’t improvise worth a damn. René was so rarely surprised by other people; when he was knocked back onto his heels he had no idea how to proceed. Eve filed that away. God only knew if she would ever be able to use it against him, but she still filed it away.
“I could kill you,” he said at last, “but I’d rather drain you of information. If I can give the Germans the network of agents that has done so much damage in this area, they will be exceedingly grateful. Because as it stands, they don’t have the evidence to sentence the two women they are holding to death.”
Eve filed that away too.
René smiled, fingers tapping Baudelaire’s marble head, and she couldn’t help the ice-cold shiver that flashed through her body, everywhere except her destroyed hand. “So—who was the woman, Eve?”
“She’s no one.”
“Liar.”
“Yes,” Eve spat. “I’m a liar and you kn-know it, and you won’t trust anything out of my mouth. You have no idea how to c-conduct this interrogation. This isn’t about getting information from me; this is about you being outsmarted. You’re destroying me because I was cleverer than you.”
He stared at her, mouth tight, two spots of color gleaming high in his cheeks. “You are just a lying bitch.”
“Here’s something you can believe.” Eve leaned forward over her own mangled hand. “Every moan I ever made in your bed was faked.”
He brought the bust down. The first knuckle in her right thumb shattered and Eve couldn’t catch the scream in her teeth this time. Even as she screamed, she wondered if the neighbors would hear through the windows, the muffling brocade drapes, the thick walls. No one can help you, even if they hear. The darkened city outside might as well be on the other side of the world. Let me faint, Eve prayed, let me faint—but René picked up the glass of water at his elbow and tossed it in her face, and the world cleared with a jolt.
“Were you aiming from the start to seduce me?” His voice was tight.
“You walked yourself into that trap, you g-gutless French pansy.” Eve managed a cough of a laugh, water sliding down her chin. “I was glad you did, though. The way you spilled your g-guts over a pillow, it was worth the four minutes of panting and moaning first—”
She had only three knuckles still whole on her right hand, and René broke them all in a flurry of now-expert blows. Eve shrieked. A sharp stench rose into the air of the rich study. Dimly, through the agony, she realized she had soiled herself. Urine and worse ran down the butter-soft leather of René’s expensive armchair to the Aubusson carpet below, and even through the torture engulfing her hand, she was ground down by a bone-deep wave of shame.
“What a dirty slut you are,” he said. “No wonder I insisted you take a bath before I ever fucked you.”