“I don’t guess this is a surprise party?” I said.
“Oh,” said the black man on my left, “don’t know. Might call it that.”
“You surprised so far, ain’t you?” said the man with the pocks. He put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it and tossed the match out the window.
“We kinda good at surprises,” said the black guy. “Fact is, I thought you ’bout as surprised as anybody I ever surprised. And I surprised me a few.”
“Shut up,” Big Man Mountain said.
I wasn’t sure who he was talking to, me or the other guys, but we all went silent and the car cruised on and the wind was choked thick with the smell of damp earth. Sort that fills a grave.
Car lights swung in behind us, and for an instant they gave me an unreasonable hope. Then the lights moved to the side and the dark shape of the car passed us.
On we drove, into an even deeper wooded blackness where the trees dipped low and the vines hung loose, dripping down and scraping across the car like the wet hair of a drowned corpse, and finally there was just this little dirt driveway in a small clearing, and in the clearing was a shack. I reckoned it was some old hunting shack, probably abandoned, or owned by an out-of-towner, and Big Man and his buddies had taken it over. We parked and the two guys in the back helped me get out by encouraging me with a couple of sharp blows to the ribs.
I stood out there in the night, the moon leaking weak light through the trees like spoiled cheese dripping through a grater, and took in the smell of everything: rich earth, the rankness of swampy water, the stench of dead fish. Frogs bleated. A night bird cried. I could hear my heartbeat.
I figured these were to be the last things I would ever smell or hear, so I did my best to enjoy them. In an odd way I felt extremely alive.
I wondered if my body would ever be found. I wondered how long Brett would miss me. I wondered if animals would gnaw my bones. I wondered if Leonard would discover who did it, and if so I wondered how horribly they would die. I sort of hoped Leonard didn’t find out. The idea of him spending the rest of his life in prison did not appeal to me.
Pock Face took the key from Big Man Mountain, opened the trunk of the car, took out a foam ice chest, and carried it toward the shack. Big Man Mountain pointed the beam of his flashlight at the door, and the black guy opened the door with a key and we went inside.
There was an old gas-powered generator in one corner of the room, and Big Man Mountain gave the flashlight to Pock Face and he held it while Big Man fired up the generator and turned on the light.
The light was a low-wattage bare bulb dangling on a frayed black wire, and in the light, dust motes rode about the starkness of the room like frenzied insects. Near the generator was a table, and on the table was a car battery, some cables, a stained brown pillow, and a large metal bowl. The windows were boarded over. The back door had a flap lock on it with a padlock through it.
Beneath the bulb was a wooden chair. They sat me in that and produced some cord and tied my ankles to the chair. From that position I could see there was a ball bat by the door, leaning against the frame. It was stained all over. I had an idea what with.
Big Man came over, squatted down in front of the chair, and took a long look at me. His beard was jet-black and well groomed. His brown eyes were almost friendly, reminded me of a puppy that wanted a pat on the head. His voice turned soft, almost feminine. He carefully unwrapped a breath mint and placed it gently on his tongue. “You got scared eyes,” he said.
“You bet,” I said. In fact, they were starting to water.
“You and your nigger, you got stuff stirred up,” he said.
I glanced at the black guy. No help there. He wasn’t outraged and ready to change sides. Nigger was just a word to him. Fact was, he seemed kind of bored, like this was a job he did a lot and didn’t have feelings about one way or another, long as the paycheck showed up.
I glanced at Pock Face. He had his finger in his nostril, chasing a wily snot ball.
“You shouldn’t go around askin’ questions like you’re askin’,” Big Man said. “It could make some people look bad, know what I’m sayin’?”
“King Arthur?” I said.
“Well, let’s just say it could make some people look bad,” he said.
“Could I just apologize?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” Big Man said. “Know what’s in the ice chest?”
“Ice?”
“Right. But no beer. No soda pop. No fish. Just ice. Ever had your balls packed in ice, Collins?”
“No. It sounds kinky, but I’d really rather not. Especially if you’re doing the packing.”
Big Man turned to the black guy. “Get the chest over here, Booger.”
“I ain’t handling his bobs,” said Booger. “You want his meat packed, you pack it.”
“Get the ice chest, shithead,” Big Man said.
Shithead didn’t look happy about it, but he went over and got the ice chest and set it by the chair. He opened the lid. I glanced inside. Crushed ice.
Big Man said, “What I do here is I take the ice, put some in a metal bowl, and we drop your pants, and we set the bowl in the chair, and put your ass on that pillow over there, and we drop your oranges in that bowl, and guess what?”
“My balls get cold?”
“Real cold. That normally might even numb the pain. But the thing is, they also get wet. You take a little electricity, hit on them wet spots, and let me tell you – there ain’t nothing like it. Know where I learned this little trick?”
“Your mom?” I said.
He grinned at me. “Guess.”
“I don’t want to guess.”
“Yeah, but I want you to,” Big Man said. “Unless you’re ready to get started.”
“Charm school,” I said. “You learned it in charm school.”
Big Man shook his head. “Professional wrestling.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
“Listen,” I said, “I haven’t got anything against you. I don’t even know you, or these other gentlemen. You don’t even have to drive me home. Just let me go.”
“I’d like to,” Big Man said. “I don’t like my work, but it is my work, and I’m good at it, and I made a vow a long time ago, once I start a job I finish it, and I do what I’m going to do as well as I can, even if I don’t like it.”
“Is this going to be like a warning?” I asked.
Big Man shook his head. “Not to you. To the nigger, yes. We’d have got him first, it would have been like a warning to you. Know what I’m sayin’?”
“Maybe you could get someone me and Leonard don’t even know and make it like a warning to the both of us,” I said.
“Very funny,” Big Man said. “It could be that woman you been bangin’.”
“You sonofabitch.”
“You want we should trade you for her?”
“Do your worst, asshole.”
“Oh, you don’t know my worst, gallant little man. Let me tell you, they put me out of professional wrestling ’cause I didn’t like to lose, even when I was supposed to. I liked to give people permanent injuries. Wrenched neck. Dislocated elbow. Knee. Rupture. Little mementoes. Got so no one wanted to wrestle Big Man Mountain.”
“It was probably the odor.”
“Trying to provoke me, aren’t you? You’re thinking maybe I’ll just finish you off. But no. You got to go the distance, you don’t tell me what I want to know. Back when I wrestled, had a little thing I did where I took a battery with a crank into the ring with me, hooked cables to my ears and pretended to fire myself up a bit. You know, crank it while it was hooked to my ears. One time, I fucked up. Battery was charged and I did it for real. Knocked me on my ass. I sort of liked it. A little jolt, it perks you up, you get used to it. Sort of like shock therapy. Which, by the way, I’ve had.”
“Get on with it,” Booger said.
“Shut up, Booger,” Big Man said. “I’m talking to Mr. Collins. You know, Collins, I know a lot about you. I been following you around. Having you followed. I know when you eat. When you shit. When you beat off. I know you’re throwing a pound of round to that little nurse. I’m thinkin’, all this gets through, you’re nothing but a greasy rag, I might could pay her a visit.”