No, they wanted something.
But they wanted to break him first.
On the fifth day, he knew that to be certain, for a voice called down to him, “Hey, Slaughter? You need anything?”
“No. I’m good.”
“Okay, smartass. You had you chance.”
In other words, you had your chance to beg. Okay. So if they spent all that time and manpower to bring in just one man—him—then that meant that not only did they want something, but time was probably a factor, too. He kept that in mind.
On the evening of the sixth day, the voice came again: “Slaughter? You cooperate and I can get you out of there.”
“That’s okay. I like it down here.”
Whoever that voice belonged to, they went away swearing under their breath. And as Slaughter lay there in his own waste, his skin paling, bug bites all over him, his ribs beginning to make themselves known, he started to realize that as miserable as he was—and oh Christ Jesus, was he ever fucking miserable—that the tables were starting to turn. That he was learning this psychological game and playing it against them… whoever them were.
Wait it out, man.
Just fucking wait it out.
They went to a lot of trouble, and each day this goes on is probably fouling them up. Let them get desperate. Real desperate. Because they will.
You’ll see.
Then on the seventh afternoon, the voice: “You wanna come out of there, Slaughter? You wanna come up and talk business? Take a shower? Get some clothes? Have some food?”
And in Slaughter’s own mind, a voice cried out from absolute broken desperation, Yes! Oh God, yes! Please, please, please let me out of here! But he did not give that voice vent. In fact, he said nothing. Nothing at all. He did not even move.
“Slaughter?”
No answer.
“Slaughter?”
Silence.
“Goddammit, Slaughter!” the voice shouted, and he could tell by the tone that it was used to shouting and used to getting answered when it did so. “Slaughter? Sonofabitch.” The owner stomped away and started bitching at one of the soldiers. “Has he been like that all day?”
“He’s always like that, sir.”
“He hasn’t spoken?”
“He never speaks, sir.”
“Shit. All right. Get his ass out of there.”
“Now, sir?”
“No, a week from fucking Tuesday, you meathead. Yes, now.”
And that’s what they did. They lowered a sling and Slaughter just laid there like he was too sick to move because that was his latest trump card. A couple of lowly privates climbed down into that filthy shit-stinking hole and lifted him onto the sling, bitching and complaining the entire time. When he was brought up, they had medics with a stretcher waiting. He wanted to scream for joy at being out in the world again. He saw that he was in some sort of military compound, Quonset huts and drab gray buildings, lots of jarheads scurrying about.
“Slaughter?”
The voice belonged to some round little man in khakis who did not look military at all. More like a CEO with his white coiffed hair and shiny pink cheeks: overfed and overpaid.
“I could use a shower,” Slaughter said.
He took two showers as a matter of fact. The medics gave him cream for the insect bites, then they put him in a room with a bed. They gave him fatigues to wear, fried chicken and potatoes to eat, an apple crumb for dessert, and ice cold water to drink. When he was done with that he ordered two cheeseburgers and a chocolate shake. He wanted to keep eating but he’d figured he’d burst so he took a nap.
When he woke up, his clothes were waiting for him: clean, freshly folded. His black jeans, scuffed motorcycle boots, and even his rags, his colors. He pulled them on and was amazed that his club vest had withstood two washings in as many weeks and not fallen apart.
He found his cigarettes on the nightstand and smoked.
Then he waited for it.
About an hour later, two MPs came for him. “All right,” one of them said, “come with us. It’s time.”
“Time for what, friend?”
“You’ll see, dipshit.”
They took him to the round little man who said his name was Colonel Brightman. Brightman made no claim of being in the Army or Marines or any of that, and Slaughter pegged him right off as a spook. He had that look about him, like he might suck the blood out of his own mother. Slaughter sat in a metal folding chair across from him and listened to him go on about it all, about the threat to the country and the awful possibility that if the worm rains weren’t contained, the Deadlands would reach clear across to the Atlantic.
“Something has to be done,” he said. “Something… decisive.”
“How did you find me?” Slaughter finally asked.
“We took in some boys from the Red Hand. They said some biker had torn them a new asshole at a farmhouse in St. Croix County. We tied that in with reports of some hellraiser wearing the colors of the Devil’s Disciples burning a path west. After that, it was easy enough. We knew you were with Rice at his farm. You were seen.”
“So you set up a little net?”
“That’s it.” But Brightman was not interested in any of that and he waved it away. “As I was saying, we need decisive action on the worm rain issue. Something has to be done to save the country.”
Slaughter lapsed into silence again. If Brightman wanted him to jump up and salute and wave his fucking flag, he had the wrong guy.
“It’s not by accident we brought you in, Slaughter.”
“I was kind of figuring that.”
“And it wasn’t by accident that we threw you in that hole out there.”
“I figured that, too.”
Brightman just stared at him, dabbing sweat from his face with a hankie. “Did you?”
Slaughter allowed himself a sarcastic laugh. “You think I was born yesterday, citizen? I know how shit works. You were trying to break me down, trying to get me begging for release. And you did that because you wanted me to be desperate, to get me down on your terms so you could spring it on me and I’d bite like a good little soldier.”
“Spring what?”
Slaughter pulled off his cigarette. “Yeah, what exactly.” He shook his head. “All right, citizen. Let’s play cat-and-mouse until you get the nuts to tell me what’s on your mind. Let’s play it like that.”
“You killed two cops in New Castle, PA,” Brightman said then. “You murdered an innocent woman.”
“If you say so.”
“Quit the shit, Slaughter. You left your goddamn prints all over everything, and you did it specifically so that everyone would know what happens to enemies of the Devil’s Disciples. Am I right on this?”
“Damn right,” Slaughter said. “Those cops murdered my brother Neb in cold blood. I saw it happen. He gave ‘em no shit, and he wasn’t armed. They pulled their pieces and put him down like a fucking dog, so I returned the favor. Two less shit-eating cops in the world. So what? And that woman? Not so fucking innocent, citizen. She rolled over. She dropped a dime on Neb. She fingered him to the cops and that brought about his death. She deserved what she got.”
“She deserved to be… gutted?”
“You’re fucking right she did, citizen. The lowest of the low: a rat.”