This was one tiny chink of opening into the future, unavoidable, but not to be looked at too closely. Curtis would simply have to move Bennett out of Singapore once this was all over, get him a job far away on one of his other projects. (Not Belize, but somewhere.) If he stayed away from Singapore five or ten years, working in other parts of the world, that ought to do it. “Or I might decide never to come back.”
Once he had Diedrich deposited on the bare living room floor, Bennett went away to the tool drawer in his kitchen for duct tape and the underwear drawer in his bedroom for a clean white sock. He taped Diedrich’s wrists behind him, and taped his ankles, then stuffed the sock into Diedrich’s mouth. As he did so, though, he noticed that Diedrich’s breathing was very stuffy and labored, and shortly after he’d gagged him with the sock the man began to jerk and convulse. It was clear he’d stopped breathing, that something had damaged his nose — somehow the pipe had done some damage, perhaps to his sinuses — and he needed his mouth to breathe. Reluctant, but having no choice, Bennett pulled the sock out of his mouth again, and Diedrich gasped and panted and then settled down to his previous labored wheeze.
There was blood on the sock, just a little. Bennett didn’t like that. He tossed the sock in with the dirty laundry, then scooped it out of there and threw it in with the trash under the sink. “Now, you are being stupid,” he told himself, and got it back out of the trash and put it with the laundry again.
All this work had made him hungry. He had waffles he could heat in the toaster, and he could make tea. He had a narrow kitchen table and one chair, and he was seated there, eating his waffle, smelling the aroma from his teacup, when the hoarse voice in the living room yelled, “Help!”
In no hurry — no one in this neighborhood would answer a single cry like that, in the middle of the day, in English — Bennett got to his feet and walked into the living room, where Diedrich had twisted around to a half-seated position.
He stared wide-eyed and slack-mouthed at Bennett, then put his head back and screamed, “Help!”
Bennett crossed to give him a straight jab into that damaged nose. Diedrich fell back, stunned with pain, making little bird noises in his throat. Bennett stood over him and said, “If you shout out anymore, I’ll do something to make you really hurt.”
Diedrich stared at him. Bennett could see rationality come slowly back into those eyes, rationality and fear and hate. That’s all right, boyo, he said, almost out loud. Go ahead and hate me, I don’t mind. He said, “You ready to talk to me?”
“You’re crazy! They’ll get you, don’t you know they’ll—” Bennett kicked him in the ribs. Diedrich shut up, breathing through his open mouth, and Bennett said, “That’s then. This is now. Maybe it’s all true, and some day you’ll get to stand there and laugh and watch the coppers carry me off, all trussed up like a Christmas goose. But that’s then. Right now, I’m in charge. You follow that?”
“I’m your prisoner,” Diedrich said, almost challengingly, as though daring Bennett to admit to such an enormity.
“You are my prisoner,” Bennett agreed. “And I’ll tell you God’s truth, boyo, I never had a prisoner before, so I’m not that certain sure how to take care of you. I got to control you, that’s obvious, but I don’t want to hurt you too much and have you die on me, do I? You’d like to help me keep you alive, now, wouldn’t you?”
Diedrich stared at him, without answering.
Bennett shook his head, and poked the man’s rib cage gently with his foot; not a real kick, just a reminder of the kick of a moment ago. “One thing I believe about having a prisoner,” he said, “is when I speak, the prisoner answers. The prisoner talks when I want him to talk and shuts the fuck up when I want him to shut the fuck up. Now, have you got that?”
“Yes.” The word came out strangled with hate and fear, but it came out.
“Very good.”
Bennett felt he could sit down now, that the point of looming over Diedrich had been made, so he dragged his TV chair over and sat where he could always kick Diedrich if he had to, and said, “It’s very simple, Mr. Jerry Diedrich. I have two questions, and you’re going to give me the answers, and then we’re done with one another.”
“You’re going to kill me,” Diedrich said. Now, oddly enough, he sounded more angry than scared. Possibly he was mourning himself.
Bennett said, “Now, why would I want to do that? You’ll give me my two answers and I’ll be grateful, and what kind of gratitude is it kills the man that made me grateful?”
“I can identify you.”
“Where? When? To who? Look around, boyo, do you even know where you are?”
“I can identify you,” the fool stubbornly insisted.
“Only if you see me,” Bennett pointed out. “You don’t know my name, you don’t know anything about me.”
“Curtis sent you.”
“Somebody named Curtis, you think.” Bennett nodded, considering that. “And how many employees does this Curtis have?”
“Criminals? Killers?”
“Oh, now you’re hurting my feelings,” Bennett told him. He was beginning to enjoy himself. He hadn’t been so relaxed and at ease with himself in ages. He said, “I’m no criminal, Mr. Jerry Diedrich, I’m less of a criminal than you are. Do you think you’ll be looking at those police photos, and there I’ll be, and you’ll say, ‘That’s him, there he is, the handsome devil there!’ Is that what you think?”
Diedrich looked away. Bennett’s high spirits seemed to have a dampening effect on him. He said, “What do you want from me?”
“There, now,” Bennett said. “Simplicity itself. To begin with, Mark’s last name.”
Diedrich stared at him. “Never!”
“Oh, don’t talk about never, Jerry Diedrich,” Bennett said. “There isn’t a man in the world, not a man alive, who won’t answer every question put to him if only it’s put in the right way. Do you think I want to hurt you?”
“You already did. My nose, my...” He shook his head, feeling very sorry for himself.
“All right, then,” Bennett said. “Do you think I want to hurt you more?”
“Probably,” Diedrich said.
He’s going into despair all of a sudden, Bennett thought, and knew despair could only strengthen Diedrich’s resistance. He needed Diedrich to feel hope, to feel motivated to do as he was told.
Bennett got to his feet, and Diedrich flinched, but wouldn’t look directly at him. Bennett went out to the kitchen and got his barely sipped tea and brought it back and knelt beside Diedrich. “I’ll give you a bit of tea,” he said, “to clear your mouth. You’ve a bit of blood in your throat, this’ll help.”
Diedrich pressed his teeth together. Through the clenched teeth, he said, “What’s in it?”
For answer, Bennett took a swig, swirled it around in his mouth, and swallowed. Like a lab technician making a report, “Tea,” he said, “with real sugar and imitation cream. Care for some?”
“No.”
Bennett shrugged and got to his feet. “More for me, then,” he said, and drank it down. Then he smiled at Diedrich and said, “What’s Mark’s last name?”
“No.”
A kick in the ribs, same spot. “Yes, boyo.”
“No.”
Kick. “Yes.”
“No.”
He’s trying to faint, the fairy bastard, Bennett thought. He’s trying to goad me into doing something that’ll make him pass out, so he won’t have to answer my questions.
“We’ll see about this,” he said, and carried his teacup back to the kitchen, where he ruminated while he finished his waffle and washed it down with a glass of cold water.