Regan hands Brody his pistol, then walks to the eerily familiar contraption on the floor. Slipping his arm through one khaki strap, he shoulders the horizontal cylinders like a backpack, then settles the thing squarely on his frame. It actually looks like some sort of antique scuba rig, but instinct tells me its purpose is to end life, not to preserve it.
“Recognize that?” Royal asks, as I finally guess what Regan is wearing. “It’s a Flammenwerfer 41. Kraut flamethrower. Excellent unit, like most German-engineered gear. Shoots a mixture of oil and tar. The combination comes out a lot like napalm.”
To my amazement, Brody seems to have patched his neck wound with duct tape, though I remember him saying something about superglue. “As a point of interest,” he goes on, “this is the very weapon we used on Albert Norris. It’s a bit heavy for me now, so I’m going to let Randall do the preliminary work.”
Henry Sexton’s description of Norris’s awful death comes back to me in a rush, triggering a cold sweat from head to toe. Caitlin’s eyes beseech mine, searching for a sign of hope, but I can’t summon any.
Royal turns a valve on the back of the unit, then taps one of the cylinders twice and says, “Light up the jet pipe, Randall.”
When Regan pulls a trigger on a striker unit, the basement fills with a sound that starts my bowels roiling. It’s a hiss blended with a soft roar, the sound of liquid fire waiting to be unleashed. At the end of the firing pipe in Regan’s hand, a deep blue jet with an orange core glows like the key to hell.
“Hydrogen pilot flame,” says Royal, taking a pack of Camel cigarettes from his pocket and shaking one loose. As if replaying an old routine, Regan holds up the jet pipe and Brody leans down over the hissing flame with the Camel in his mouth. He draws on the cigarette once, puffing blue smoke, then straightens up and takes a long drag.
“Best damned cigarette lighter in the world. Ask any Wehrmacht veteran. Singe off your eyebrows, though, if you’re not careful.”
“Let’s do it,” Regan says.
“Wait,” says Brody, picking up the paper bag from in the gun room and dumping our cell phones into the red bucket. Then he removes the microcassette from the recorder we used to make my copy. “A little demonstration.” After dropping the crumpled bag into the bucket, he carries it downrange and sets it atop the two banker’s boxes.
An involuntary whimper comes from Caitlin’s throat.
Regan laughs.
“Aim low,” Brody tells him, taking care to stay near the wall as he walks back to us. “I switched off the fire alarms. You don’t want to burn the goddamn house down.”
Bracing the pipe against his hip, Regan pulls the trigger.
A blast of flame reaches downrange like the hand of Lucifer. In less than three seconds, the ravenous fire devours the bucket and its contents like a campfire eating a paper cup, and the smell of burnt plastic joins that of gasoline and tar. When the flame vanishes, what remains is a red puddle on the burning boxes. Half the oxygen seems to have been sucked from the tunnel.
“So much for your evidence,” Brody says.
Acrid black petroleum smoke is gathering beneath the ceiling like a fog, but he appears unconcerned. “Don’t worry, this place has OSHA-grade air handlers and a world-class sprinkler system.”
“There are two more copies of that tape,” I tell him, wondering why I didn’t go this route before. “They’re with lawyer friends of mine, and they’ll be given to the FBI upon my death.”
Royal probes me with his gambler’s eyes. “The tapes don’t actually worry me much, Mayor. My daughter was delusional all her life. Katy was a known alcoholic and drug addict, and she had a suicidal dose of narcotics in her system when that recording was made. It’s the witness I care about. He’s the only reason you’re still alive.”
Holding the cigarette at shoulder height—the height of Caitlin’s face—Brody steps closer to her. While her eyes track the glowing orange flame, Royal takes Pithy’s straight razor from his back pocket and turns it in the air until it catches the light.
“I do remember this,” he murmurs. “Quite well, actually. I bought it off a madam who’d worked in Storyville as a girl. It’s a terror weapon, really, made for teaching whores lessons, not for killing. The blade is too fragile.” He cocks his head at Caitlin. “You actually remind me of Pithy Nolan in some ways. She thought she knew it all, too. How strange that this gift circled all the way back to me after all this time … and nearly killed me. I believe I’ll pay Pithy a visit next week. Get reacquainted.”
As I try to hide my fear for Pithy, he says, “Ladies’ choice, Ms. Masters. The flame or the knife?”
She gazes back at him without fear. “What are you hoping to find out? I don’t know the name.”
Royal touches the duct tape ringing his neck. “I’m sorry I can’t take your word for that.”
After another contemplative drag off the Camel, he reaches out and cups his left hand behind Caitlin’s head. Then he draws the blade of the straight razor from the corner of her eye to the crease at the edge of her mouth.
I scream, but when he pulls away the blade, I see no blood. He was just teasing her …
As Caitlin and I sag with relief, Royal stabs the tip of the cigarette into her left cheek, pressing it deep into the skin. The pole clangs as she yanks her head away, banging her skull against the steel.
An angry red welt like a bullet wound has risen in the center of her once-perfect cheek. I kick my manacled leg away from the pillar, hoping to break a weak link, but it’s pointless. Caitlin is moaning now. Tears pour from her eyes. Stooping, I seize the chain with both hands and yank it as hard as I can. In seconds, my palms are lacerated and bleeding.
“All is vanity,” murmurs Royal, stepping behind her. “Amazing what the prospect of a permanent scar will do to motivate a woman.”
Now Caitlin’s trembling from head to toe. The old man draws on the cigarette, and its tip glows bright again. My chain clinks and rattles as I try to break free from the wall, but it’s no use.