Mike rolled his head. ‘Wants… to talk… you.’
William stood up with the phone, cigarette dangling between his lips. ‘Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.’
He snapped the phone shut and tossed it to Dodge, who slid it into the thigh pocket of his cargo pants. Something passed between their eyes, and then Dodge crouched, picked up the ball-peen hammer from the neat square of burlap, and tapped it into his vast palm.
William said, ‘Why don’t you get rid of our pal there first. He’s makin’ my eyes water.’
Dodge shuffled over, rolled Hank’s body a few more times in the plastic sheeting, and hoisted him onto a shoulder. Mike’s stare lingered on the remaining drop cloth that he’d soon be occupying.
William said, ‘Leave me the rag.’
Dodge tossed it over, and William held it up in front of his face, his small eyes and patchy beard visible through the holes. He shot a stream of cigarette smoke through the towel and said, ‘This ain’t gonna work no more.’
Dodge swung Hank’s body down, which struck the floor, sending a vibration through the sit-up bench. He tugged off his shirt and dipped it into the tub of water, his shoulders and biceps bulging beneath his wife-beater. On his way back to the body, he dropped the sopping shirt onto Mike’s face.
Darkness. Mike had managed to suck in a breath before the shirt hit, and he fought the wet fabric with his mouth and tongue, moving it around. Breathing was difficult, but without fresh water pouring through he was able to draw some air.
William’s voice floated down at him. ‘When we’re done with you, I wonder if you’ll see my brother. If you do, tell him I’m sorry. I should’ve looked out for him better, like he looked out for me. Tell him we sent you.’
Mike heard Dodge’s heavy boots creak the stairs as he carried the body up. He heard William’s knees crack as he crouched and then the glug glug glug of the milk jugs filling. From upstairs came the muffled ring of a phone, then the screech of a fax. A moment later Dodge’s voice called down – ‘Look’ – and something soft hit the cellar floor. The sound of paper uncrumpling, then a shrill laugh escaped William.
‘Wow,’ William said. ‘Wouldja look at that. Okay, go on and take care of the body. I’ll fill in our friend here on the recent developments, and then we’ll go handle business.’
Heavy footsteps moved overhead, and a screen door banged. Mike kept manipulating the shirt into position. His teeth locking into the fabric, he blew out hard and managed to suck a few drops of air around his lips. Then he kept working the shirt across his face – almost there.
A singsong voice. ‘I got something to show you.’ Another laugh. ‘Looks like a cop who owed me a favor came through. Little girl found. In a foster home. He was good enough to fax over a picture so we could confirm. Before we… you know, saddle up and ride all the way out to… Arizona.’
Heat spread through Mike’s chest, out through his limbs. A prickling panic, suffused with rage. Images flickered through the darkness – Dodge and William rolling up in their truck. Snatching Kat off the playground. Her little body, fighting and twisted in panic.
He forced his focus back to the wet shirt. A few drops tapped the fabric, increasing the pressure above his nose, quickening to a thin stream; William was playing with him, drizzling water. ‘Wanna see?’
William reached for the shirt, and then the weight was lifted from Mike’s face. A grin twitched around the cigarette. ‘Ta-da!’
Mike caught a flash of the uncrumpled fax in William’s hand – a photo of Kat in the backyard of the foster home. The picture had been taken at night, the flash severe, and Kat was recoiling, terrified, her skin bleached a sickly white.
Mike breathed through his nose, his nostrils flaring, his mouth clamped around the acid liquid burning into his tongue.
Cigarette smoke unspooling up the side of his face, William looked down at the object clattering on the concrete floor, freed from the wet shirt.
A cheap plastic cigarette lighter.
Chewed open.
The cherry on his cigarette flared with a shocked intake of breath, and William lifted his eyes just as Mike wrenched himself forward in an excruciating sit-up and blew a spattering of lighter fluid into his face.
The cherry erupted into a sparkler, embers flying into William’s eyes and beard. One side of his face caught, the wisps crackling, giving off an acrid odor. William screamed, a high-pitched feminine wail, and stumbled blindly to the tub, with the fax, aflame, fluttering after him.
Mike fought to keep himself bent up into the incline, and as William dunked his head into the tub, Mike flopped off the situp bench, landing across William’s shoulders. The bench flipped with him, the pads clinging to one calf.
William bucked and fought, Mike struggling to keep his weight on him so his face would stay submerged. But without the benefit of his arms, Mike could only pin William so long. William slid out from under him and collapsed on his back, sputtering and moaning. Mike rolled off as well, the wooden lip digging into his side, and spun over to the square of burlap. With the cloth restraints biting into his wrists, he felt for the tools behind his back, his fingers fussing over metal rods and rubber handles. William writhed on the floor, holding his eyes and thrashing. Something stuck one of Mike’s fingers, and he reached for it again, holding the blade even as it opened the pad of his thumb. Trying to will the tingling from his fingers, he got the knife turned and sawing against the restraints. His panicked stare moved between William and the door at the top of the stairs.
Silently, William shoved himself to a sitting position. One eye was open. His teeth showed as a slash carved out of red flesh and black, curled hair. He struggled to his feet and lurched toward Mike.
Mike rocked to aid the movement of the blade, his shoulders aching, his hands cramped and barely holding on. William was almost on top of him. There wouldn’t be time to saw through, so Mike rolled to his side, bent his legs, and tried to swing his wrists down under his feet and in front of him. The cloth restraints snagged on the bottoms of his shoes, and he tugged harder until his hands popped through. He barely managed to get to his feet before William swung at him. Mike ducked the blow, grabbed the back of William’s shirt with both bound hands, and tugged it over his head to tie up his arms, an old schoolyard trick. Pressing his fists together, he hammered them down across William’s face. A ribbon of blood slapped the concrete, and William fell to all fours over the canvas. Mike wrenched his arms apart, straining as hard as he could. The restraints finally gave way with a wet rip just as William hoisted himself up and slipped a knife into Mike’s side.
The motion was silent and smooth, all pressure and no pain, just the slice of a shark cutting through water.
And then William wrenched.
The sensation was electric, Mike arcing like a hooked fish, a current of pain running so hot and intense up his left side that he thought for a moment he’d somehow caught fire.
He staggered back a step and then another, William keeping on, the blade low in his hand, his breath fluttering the charred tufts of beard around his lips. William jabbed and Mike skipped back, the current coming to life again, making him cry out. Mike unhooked his belt and wrapped the soft end around a fist. William lunged with another thrust. Mike dodged and whipped the buckle, catching William at the side of the jaw, knocking him forward too hard and quick for his left leg. He stumbled, landing on a knee. Mike threaded the belt back through the buckle to form a snare and lowered the loop of leather over William’s head. Yanking the makeshift leash tight, he dragged William choking and screaming across the floor to the patch of canvas. William’s resistance, coupled with the tearing pain in Mike’s side, brought Mike to his knees short of the mark. William’s hands scrabbled at his throat, loosening the belt. As he turned to claw at Mike, Mike snatched up the first tool in reach, a flathead screwdriver, and drove it through the side of William’s left knee, crushing the fragile bone. William howled, veins popping on both sides of his neck, and curled on the floor, coughing and weeping.