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On what I figured was the third day, the optimism got a little stupider. And a whole lot harder to call up.
I had just finished a delightful, sumptuous meal of slimy green glop, accompanied by a full bottle of a superb vintage of water. I’d tossed the empty plate on the floor and settled back on my luxurious stone bed when I heard footsteps. The sound was different—like,
the feet making them were smaller, lighter, and not wearing boots. I didn’t know what that meant, but it was different, so I figured I better pay attention.
I sat up. The door swung open. Slowly. And then a woman came in. She had blond hair that showed dark roots, and it was pulled back into a tight bun, like ballet dancers wear. She moved like a ballet dancer, too, and she had a body to match, except that there was a whole lot of muscle showing that looked more MMA than ballet. She stared at me like I was a piece of furniture, probably a worn footstool, and turned slowly, surveying the entire cell. That gave me a good opportunity to look again and check her out. She was no footstool. Her face had probably started out as beautiful as the rest of her. In profile, the right side was close to perfect. Classic high cheekbones, a cute little button nose, and those dark green eyes. True beauty—on the right side. But the left side . . .
Once upon a time it had probably been just as perfect as the right side. But somebody had hacked the left side of her face with something big and sharp, probably a large knife. Just for the hell of it, they’d hacked a couple more times. Okay, maybe a whole bunch of times. That side of her face was a mess. It looked like a raised-relief map of the Grand Tetons. It was dominated by a couple of parallel scars that looked like the cheek had fallen off and a drunk tailor had sewed it back on. Those two scars ran all the way down her cheek, from the eyebrow to the chin.
I would have felt sorry for her, until she turned her eyes back on me and just stared.
I’d been wondering why anyone would come here alone, way down in the dungeon with a dangerous thug like me. But then she came soundlessly across the stone floor to me and stood close. She looked right into my face, and I didn’t wonder anymore.
She put two green eyes on me that were colder than the bottom shelf of the deep freeze. Green eyes do not generally do cold very well. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but if you haven’t, take my word for it. Blue eyes can be North Pole cold, brown eyes can fry your ass, but green eyes are always warm, welcoming. Always.
Until this woman came along. These green eyes were way beyond what blue can do. Cold, but way past that; they were dead, but at the same time filled with something that looked like endless pain and a burning need to share it. She made me squirm, just by looking. I mean, I have stared down some hard cases. Most of the time it’s either you know what they’ll do and you’re ready, or you can see they’re not taking it any further than a stare-down. With this woman, I stared back for fifteen seconds, and it opened up a deep, dark pit underneath me. I couldn’t tell what the fuck she might do, or why, but I knew it would be a small slice of hell.
And it wasn’t smart and it wasn’t something I planned, but I looked down real quick and stared at my feet. I could still feel her eyes on me, but she didn’t do anything, didn’t say anything. We did this for a really long minute. She still didn’t talk or do anything else. Just stood there. It was enough. She was scaring the shit out of me without doing a goddamned thing. Something seemed to come off her, maybe pheromones or something, I don’t know. All I know is I was more scared than I’d been for a truly long time. I told myself it was because I was chained to the wall, but it wasn’t. It was her.
It never entered my mind to try anything. I didn’t even want to look up at her. But I did. And when I did, she smiled. It was worse than the stare. If her eyes had been an invitation to Hell, the smile said never mind, Hell was right here already. It actually made my stomach turn over. And while I was still swallowing bile, she reached down, took my left hand, and held it in hers.
It was such a weird thing for her to do, I just let her, and gaped at her. She turned my hand over, looking at it like she was checking for fleas or something. And then she turned it palm down, grabbed my little finger, and locked those terrible green eyes on mine. She watched me like she was looking for something, nothing really amazing or important. Just more like she was going to turn over a stone and wondered what might come out. And while I was still trying to figure out which end was up, she gripped my little finger tighter—and pulled it savagely backward.
The world went dark. Somewhere in the distance I heard a snapping sound. Then a wave of pain crashed into me and I came back into my body just in time for it to take me over.
It hurt. I mean, a lot. It was so sudden and so painful that I couldn’t even scream. I just sort of squeaked and then, just barely in time, turned my head to the side and threw up, a big wet fountain of secondhand green goop.
She didn’t let go of my broken finger. She waited for me to stop barfing and turn back to her. Then her smile got a little wider and she pulled the finger even farther back, until I thought I was going to faint. She held it there for a minute, and then, just when I thought the lights would go out again, she let go. She took a step back, nodded like she’d just finished a minor chore, and turned away.
In the doorway she paused. She turned around and looked at me for a moment with the kind of smile you get from a cat standing over a half-dead mouse. Then she turned and walked out of the cell with that same weird ballet-dancer grace. And I was left sitting in a puddle of green puke, cradling a busted finger, and wondering what the fuck had just happened.
Another day went by, maybe a day and a half. It was hard to think about things like that, because the pain in my broken finger didn’t get any better. It swelled up, and it throbbed like an evil metronome. But you get used to that kind of thing. I mean, it hadn’t killed me, and it sort of confirmed that they were keeping me alive, softening me up for something.
So I kept breathing, which was usually a good idea. And like I said, it wasn’t too long before we moved on to the third act of Softening Riley.
I was sitting on my bed, listening to my stomach growl and thinking it had to be time for a meal. And I was kind of looking forward to it. I know it sounds stupid, weird, considering what that meal was going to be, but it was the only thing I had to look forward to, and I did.
I heard footsteps in the hall, nice heavy combat boots, for which I was grateful. Not just because it meant food but also because it meant that the Queen of Evil wasn’t coming for another finger.
I was wrong about both things.
The door opened, and the two guards took their stations beside the door. But this time the third guy didn’t bring in a tray. Instead, he carried in a chair and set it down, just out of reach of the farthest I could possibly stretch my chains. Then he went out. The other two guards stayed.
Nothing happened. I looked at the chair. It was very nice. If it was real, it was a Louis XVI and worth a couple of grand. It was probably something I was not supposed to put my ragged ass into. It was way too nice to stick in a stone cell with a reprehensible reprobate like me. Especially since there was no way I could stretch my ass far enough to sit in it. So I figured I was about to find out why I was here, straight from somebody important. Maybe Mr. Big himself. I wondered if I should brush my teeth.
I was right. Not about brushing my teeth; about Mr. Big. A couple of minutes after the chair ceremony, I heard feet in the hallway. Then two more guards came in and stood against the walls on either side of me. All four guards stood up straight, kind of at attention but still focused on me. No more than half a minute after that, my dear friend Our Lady of the Finger came through the door.
She glanced around the cell one more time, then turned to the guard on the right side of the door. She murmured something to him I couldn’t hear, and he practically fell over agreeing with her. The woman nodded and went out, and I went back to waiting. Compared to looking at the woman with the scar, it was a real vacation.
A couple of minutes after that, two more guards appeared in the hall and took position beside the door outside my cell. And then a man strolled into my room and sat in the very nice chair. Scarface came back in and stood behind him, hands behind her back.
He just looked at me for a couple of minutes, so I looked back. Maybe it was too so
on for another stare-down, after the nightmare I’d had with his girlfriend. But this guy was relaxed, smooth. He had a kind of bland look on his face, and I could see he thought he was king shit, and that always gets me going. So I met his eyes. No biggie. I mean, I’ve run into a lot of people who think they’re important. Most of the time, they’re the easiest to take down. I’ve done plenty of them. I’m hard to impress. If this guy was trying to make me tremble with awe, he should have left it to the woman. I studied him back like he was just another dork with a Napoleon complex.
He was in his midforties, with dark hair and light brown eyes that seemed a little too big for his face. He didn’t blink, which can get on your nerves pretty quick. He was thin, with cheekbones that stuck out and thick black eyebrows. He wore a suit that was so perfect it almost made me dizzy. I mean, I’ve got a bunch of Savile Row suits, custom tailored for me, that go for almost as much as a new Chevrolet. This one made them look like somebody parked a new Bugatti Divo next to your Chevy.
The shirt and tie were in the same class, and his shoes, too. What he spent on his outfit would feed a family of eight for fifty years, and pay for their gas, too.
