Mike’s shoulders cracked in their sockets, and he realized he’d pulled himself up to a sitting position. Also that he was screaming. He twisted off the backboard, one leg tangling in the pads, the bench rocking up on two legs and settling with the clop of horse hooves on cobblestone. He hit the floor with his shoulder and lay there, exhausted, pain blurring his vision.
Dodge leaned down and lifted Mike as easily as a grocery bag. He laid him back on the bench, manipulating his legs and torso with stern efficiency, totally absorbed in his task. He might have been threading a needle or tying his shoes. When Dodge moved Mike’s feet through the leg pads, Mike bucked, trying to get upright again, but Dodge placed a thumb on his chest and flattened him down onto the decline backboard. Blood rushed to Mike’s head. His chest heaved against the pressure.
Dodge finished with Mike’s feet and eased his thumb off. Mike gasped for air, his ribs aching.
‘You got information you don’t want to tell us, right?’ William said. ‘So we need to extract it from you. It’s not gonna be easy – on you or us. It’s just something we gotta get through together.’
Mike made some garbled noise.
William’s eyes trembled back and forth, as if his gaze were wavering, though it was not. ‘Where’s Katherine?’
Mike said, ‘I don’t know where she-’
William went to a knee over the tub, grimacing. Glug glug glug – the sound of round two.
It was over now, Mike knew. He was going to die. He just had to figure out how to get them to kill him before his stamina gave out. He pictured Kat where he’d left her, sitting on that little bench in the foster home, her untied shoelaces scraping the ground. Please, Daddy?
William said, ‘We know you wanted to put her somewhere safe. Somewhere hidden. But Boss Man needs her, see, you and her out of the picture.’
‘Shep got your address from Graham,’ Mike said. ‘If I don’t check in with him, he’ll call the cops and head up here.’
William shook his head with disappointment. He nodded slightly, and the terry cloth slapped back over Mike’s head. Mike’s panicked inhalation dimpled the cloth into his mouth, up his nostrils, and then the slow bleed of water invaded his face, drowning him into contorted silence. His thighs burned against the pads, but when he tried to shove himself upright, the steady pressure of Dodge’s thumb smoothed him back down. There was fire and agony, the cloth suctioned to him like a sea creature, leaking a calm stream of water into him, shoving his own breath back down his throat.
At last he tasted oxygen and felt light on his face. His eyelids were fluttering as William leaned close, that sour breath moving across his cheeks.
‘Ouch, ouch, I know, pal. I’m sorry. I know.’ William watched closely, his face soft with empathy. ‘But you see, I’m an expert in this. I’ve taken a lot of folks to the edge. I been here before. And you haven’t. So I know the stories they tell, the lies they spin. There’s a pattern to it, see? The fake answers, the money they promise, the friend who’s gonna call the cops.’
‘Okay…’ Mike panted. ‘I lied about Shep.’
‘Where’s Katherine?’
‘I don’t… I don’t know.’
William hoisted a filled jug. ‘Ready for the next round?’
‘No,’ Mike said. ‘No no no.’
But it came anyway. The even influx of water up his nose, the airless choking and heaving, the head-shaking blindness – a fireand-brimstone hell imported from some past, barbaric age. Somewhere between screaming soundlessly and passing out, his instinct to detach, cultivated since the whitesouts of his early childhood, kicked in.
He slid out of himself and observed the proceedings. He made himself impervious. He was a collection of parts, of bone and flesh. He was a rock. Unthinking. Unfeeling.
As Dodge tried to pull the towel free, Mike clamped his teeth down on it, and it tore a little. William laughed, ‘He’s bitin’ it?’ And then Dodge’s fist hit Mike’s forehead like a battering ram and the cloth was ripped from his jaws.
William said, ‘Feisty, huh?’
Mike sputtered and drooled water. Because of the slant, it ran up his cheeks, over his eyes, through his hair, and tap-tap-tapped on the concrete.
William said, ‘Where’s your daughter?’
Mike said, ‘I have no daughter,’ and something in his voice made William draw back, shocked or perhaps a touch awed.
Dodge scowled impatiently and William bobbed his head, winded. A foul odor pressed in on Mike, and he thought for a moment that he’d messed himself. But then he realized it was the decay of Hank’s body, picking up strength in the dank cellar air.
They did another round. And another. He would have preferred to die, but that was the point, to take him to a place where he would’ve pled for a bullet and to make him stay there awhile. And then to bring him back to life, again and again.
When he came into himself the next time, he was breathing and William and Dodge were standing side by side, arms crossed, William wearing an expression of frustration that would have been gratifying under different circumstances. The little towel hung like a dishrag in Dodge’s hand, and Mike was pleased to see that it was ripped in several places; he must’ve bitten down on it a few more times. The smell of Hank’s body was stronger now, mixed in the airless room with the stink of sweat and fear. Reclined half upside down on the exercise bench, Mike hacked water through his mouth and nose, his throat raw, his chest an unremitting ache. His arms were as numb as posts beneath his back.
Dodge produced two cigarettes and set them beside each other between his lips. He dug a cheap plastic lighter from his shirt pocket and lit up, tilting his head to a cupped hand out of habit. He passed one to William, who sucked a long, eyes-closed draw.
‘Fucking stinks in here.’ William armed sweat off his brow. ‘Before we take it to the next level, we should check with Boss Man.’ His left leg was trembling. ‘I’ll get the phone.’
He labored up the stairs and returned a few minutes later. His gait had worsened from the effort of climbing and descending, one foot dragging, pigeon-toed. He reached Mike, squatted, and held the phone to Mike’s ear.
Brian McAvoy’s smooth voice. ‘She’s in a foster home, isn’t she?’
Mike said, ‘Who?’ The syllable like a claw raking his throat.
McAvoy laughed. ‘With the money at stake? We’ll check every last one in the state. And then we’ll move to the next state. And the next.’
‘So all this,’ Mike said, ‘is about money?’
‘You think I’m just a casino?’ McAvoy said. ‘I am a nation. I made something where there was nothing before. My daughter etched her initials into the front step when we poured the foundation. I know you think your life, your daughter’s life are a big deal. But as far as collateral damage goes when it comes to nation building? There’s no choice. This isn’t my fault any more than it is yours. Or Katherine’s. So let’s handle this like men. Men with a decision to make. Here’s my proposal to you: You tell us where she is, and we’ll make it humane. For you, now. And more importantly for her.’
Mike’s breaths were shallow across the receiver. He said, ‘No.’
‘We’re finding her either way. All you’ll be doing is sparing her a scared, miserable existence between now and then.’
‘No.’
‘So what’s your plan?’ McAvoy said. ‘You’re going to outlast my two guys there?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Bring ’em down through force of will?’
‘Sure,’ Mike said.
A guffaw. McAvoy had intended it to be dismissive, but there was surprise in it as well. ‘And then?’
Mike said, ‘You’re next.’
A very long silence ensued. Then McAvoy said, ‘Tell William I’d like to talk to him.’