“Okay, let’s get them situated.”
Harv grabbed a couple of chairs from the eating area. Nathan was hesitant to think of it as a dining room because these two didn’t dine, they merely ate, and from the look of things, didn’t get all of it into their mouths. He removed his night vision, turned it off, and reached into his pocket for the lens cap.
“NV off?” he asked.
Harv reached up, turned his unit off, and capped the lens. Harv took both NV visors outside and placed them the front porch. Nathan flipped a switch on the wall and a bare bulb on the ceiling came to life.
“Oh, man,” Nathan said. He hadn’t expected to see Wayne Manor, but this place belonged in a hall of shame museum. He’d seen the mess in shades of green through the scope, but in Technicolor the true nature of this pigsty took on a whole new dimension. The family-room table consisted of three bald tires stacked atop one another, capped off by half a sheet of painted plywood. Household trash was strewn everywhere. Beer bottles. Empty soup and chili cans. Milk cartons. Wadded paper towels. Apple cores. Peanut shells. Candy-bar wrappers. Half-eaten hot dogs and hamburgers. Microwave popcorn bags. Dirty dishes. Crusty silverware and girlie magazines. Clothes were thrown on every available surface. Shoes. Work boots. Socks. Soiled T-shirts. Old blue jeans. Mechanic’s overalls. Several cases of motor oil were sitting under the living-room window. Cleared paths through the clutter and filth connected the various rooms like worn trails on college campus lawns. And the smelclass="underline" It was like a landfill in here. Nathan shook his head.
“You should see the bathroom,” Harv said. “I don’t know how people can live like this.”
“That’s just it, they don’t live. They survive.”
“I’ve never seen anything this disgusting before.”
“Ever watch the show Cops? Let’s clear an opening on the floor and set them up right here.” Nathan kept his gun up while Harv went to work. After a minute or so, he’d kicked enough crap out of the way to place two chairs about three feet apart. Harv hauled the two men into sitting positions and wrapped several layers of duct tape around their chests and the backs of the chairs to keep them from slumping over. The guy on Nathan’s left was thin and lanky and might weigh one-fifty with his clothes on. Blood was seeping through a gauze bandage taped on the triceps portion of his arm. That bandage looked uncharacteristically clean, Nathan thought. It didn’t track with this environment. Beneath the guy’s shaved head was a narrow, pointed face with a mustache shaped like a horizontal butter knife. His brother was compact and fit. He had a square face with strong cheekbones and short dishwater-blond hair that looked like he’d combed it straight up with bacon lard. This guy weighed two hundred, and looked somewhat formidable.
“Knife and Fork,” Nathan said, nodding toward them.
Harv stepped back, stared for a few seconds, and smiled.
The Bridgestone cousins were dressed in dirty blue jeans, white tank tops, and scuffed work boots. Their hands, arms, and faces were smudged with motor oil and grease. The bigger guy had a tattoo on his arm that looked like it had been etched with copper wire and a blowtorch. It was impossible to tell who was older-they both looked twenty years past their actual age.
“Let’s bring them around,” Nathan said. He reached down, grabbed an empty beer can, and crumpled it in his palms. As if shooting a free throw in basketball, he tossed it at Fork. It bounced off Fork’s forehead with a metallic clink sound. A few drops of stale beer splattered the man’s nose and cheeks. His eyes fluttered open, then grew wide with terror.
“Nothin’ but net,” Harv said and gave Knife a firm shake. Knife’s eyes registered fear, then changed to rage. He whipped his head back and forth, trying to dislodge the tape covering his mouth.
Nathan dragged a chair over and sat down. Without taking his eyes off Knife, he pulled a thin pair of black gloves from his front pocket and slowly pulled them on. Harv did the same.
“Here’s the deal,” Nathan began. “We aren’t going to play good cop, bad cop with you two miscreants. For one, we aren’t cops and the other, we’re both bad. We don’t work for the FBI, CIA, NRA, PTA or the ASPCA. We’re…” He looked up at Harv. “What are we?”
“Independent contractors.”
“We’re independent contractors, so your Miranda rights are not in play here. In fact, this is an anti-Miranda situation. You absolutely do not have the right to remain silent. Oh, and the Eighth Amendment of our beloved Constitution is hereby suspended until further notice. If you’re curious, it has to do with cruel and unusual punishment being inflicted. Now, before we get started, is there anything you’d like to say?”
Knife began nodding furiously, but Fork stared straight ahead, refusing to make eye contact. Nathan leaned forward and yanked the tape from Knife’s mouth. It came off with a sound like tearing fabric. Knife’s poor mustache didn’t fare so well. It had been reduced by a good 20 percent. With an expression of revulsion, Nathan held the strip with his thumb and forefinger and tossed it aside like a plague bandage.
“You stupid motherfuckers,” Knife hissed, “I want my phone call.”
He looked at Harv. “He wants his phone call. Would you bring me the phone, please?”
Harv walked into the kitchen and yanked the phone off the wall, cradle and all. Its cord dangling uselessly, he handed it to Nathan.
Without warning, Nathan swung the phone like an oversized palm sap.
“Oh, man,” Harv said. “That’s gonna leave a mark.”
Blood began streaming from Knife’s nose.
Out in the surveillance van, Holly Simpson and the two techs looked at each other in the glow of the black boxes. They’d heard the impact. As promised, nothing was being recorded.
“Would you like to make another call?” Nathan asked.
“You son of a bitch. You broke my fuckin’ nose!”
“In about ninety seconds, the mucus membrane of that pointed beak you call a ‘nose’ is going to swell to twice its current volume. Breathing through it will become quite labored. If I have to tape your mouth again, you’ll start choking on your own blood.”
“Fuck you.”
Nathan sighed. “I am truly disappointed.” He peeled another six-inch length of tape from the roll.
Cursing like a madman, Knife began whipping his head back and forth.
Harv maneuvered behind Knife while Nathan retrieved a filthy washcloth from the kitchen counter. Harv grabbed Knife by the ears and held his head still while Nathan wiped the blood from Knife’s mouth before jamming the strip of tape into place. He held his wrist up in an exaggerated manner, looking at his watch.
Knife’s face turned a bright shade of crimson and his chest began heaving for air. Nathan raised an eyebrow, silently saying I told you so. Knife coughed behind the tape and was forced to inhale his own blood. His body wrenched in a violent spasm.
“It’s only going to get worse. Soon, you’ll be aspirating blood and vomit into your lungs. That’s a bad situation. You could get pneumonia, and after I’ve broken all your ribs, coughing is going to be a tad uncomfortable.”
Fork’s bladder quit. The liquid ran down the legs of his chair and soaked into the carpet. The pungent smell of urine drifted.
Knife’s desperate wrenching reached a peak and Nathan knew the guy was close to passing out. He yanked the tape free, reducing Knife’s mustache to 60 percent. Vomit spewed.
“That’s disgusting.” Nathan looked at Harv. “Garden hose, please.”
Harv walked out the front door and returned a few seconds later, dragging a green hose with him. He handed the business end to Nathan and stepped back out outside. “Say when.”
Nathan removed the glove from his right hand. “When,” he called.
There was a faint squeak from outside.
Knife wrenched in his seat. “What the fuck you doing?”