AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Valentine entered the kitchen behind the business end of the shotgun. The tabletop was a mess of dirty dishes and paperwork. The main light over the table was still on, bathing the littered octagonal surface in a puddle of yellow. A heavy electric typewriter sat before a chair, a cold mug of coffee next to it, nestled like a small brown pond in a forest of empty beer bottles. A raspy snoring echoed from the living room.
He looked at the typed report on the table, flipping to the second page. Apparently it was a statement by the one patroller standing sentry outside Touchet's VIP suite door at the New Universal Church building. A paragraph caught Valentine's eye.
When the cook entered with Mr. Touchet's nightcap of coffee, I heard him scream. I drew my gun and entered the bedroom. Mr. Touchet was facedown on the bed, nude except for a pair of socks. The young woman was trying to force up the window of the bedroom, not knowing that it was nailed shut. As I entered, she smashed it with an ashtray but I was able to restrain her.
After she was handcuffed and held down by the cook, I examined Mr. Touchet for a pulse. He was dead. He had a steak knife handle sticking out of the back of his head right were the neck meets the skull. His back was coated with some kind of oil and he lay on a towel. There was very little blood on the towel. Mr. Touchet's brass ring had been removed from his finger and was placed around the handle of the knife.
The young woman was screaming obscenities at us, so I hit her. She had not been injured by Mr. Touchet; the bruise on her face was from me.
Valentine walked to the living room and looked in. Virgil Ames lay stretched out on a leather sofa, sunglasses finally off, pistol belt looped around his arm. The air around him smelled of beer breath and stale flatulence. Beyond, in the glass turret-room, he could make out Maj. Michael Flanagan. The major slept in his chair, phone in his lap, widespread feet propped up on his desk.
The prowling Wolf shifted the shotgun to his left hand and took up the parang. No making friends with this dog, he thought, putting the wedge-shaped point just above Virgil's Adam's apple. At the swift inward thrust, the late Virgil Ames opened his eyes. Valentine wiped his knife on the rich leather sofa and moved toward the office.
Major Flanagan woke when the blued steel of the shotgun barrel poked him between the eyes. As Flanagan sputtered into surprised wakefulness, Valentine changed the angle of the shotgun barrel, pointing it between Flanagan's outstretched legs.
"You wanted to see me, Major?" he asked.
"What the-?... Virgil!" Flanagan shouted.
"Dead, sir," Valentine reported. "Better speak up, or you'll be joining him in five seconds. Tell me, is Molly Carlson still alive?"
"Virgil!" Flanagan cried.
Valentine stuck the shotgun toward Flanagan's screaming mouth. "Major, your screaming is not doing you any good, and it's giving me a headache, so cut it out. Or I might cut your tongue out and have you write down your answers."
"Fuck you, Saint Croix. We don't just have Molly, we've got all the Carlsons, as of eleven this evening. If you back out of here and never let me see your face again, they might live. You might even live."
The powerful, spearlike thrust of the shotgun shattered two incisors and left a worm-tail of lip dangling as it hung from a thin strip of bleeding skin. The major's hands flew to his wounded mouth, and Valentine clipped him on the side of the head with the shotgun butt. The major fell over, knocked senseless. Valentine busied himself with handcuffs and rope.
The house was dark when Major Flanagan came to. Valentine splashed cold coffee into his face. Groans rose from the Quisling just before he vomited all over himself. The paroxysm showed how securely he was tied into his office chair.
Handcuffs fixed his wrists against the arms of the chair, and heavy lengths of rope cocooned his chest and shoulders into the back. His legs were tucked under the chair and secured by ankle shackles with a short length of chain winding behind the central column that attached the chair itself to the little circle of wheels below.
No hint of morning could be seen through the windows of the office. Valentine stood next to the desk, a breathing shadow.
A metallic ping sounded, and Valentine picked up the silver cigar lighter, waving the lit end hypnotically in front of Flanagan's face. Its dim red glow reflected off piggish, angry eyes. "Okay, Uncle Mike, do you want to talk to me, or do I have to use this thing?"
"Talk about what?"
"Where Molly is."
"She's in the Order building in Monroe."
Valentine grabbed his pinkie and thrust the cigar lighter over it. An audible hiss was instantly drowned out by the major's scream. Valentine pulled away the lighter and stuck it back into its electric socket, pushing it down to turn it back on.
"Wrong answer. I read some of the papers in the kitchen. According to your report, you put her in a car for Chicago."
Ping.
"Why Chicago, Major?"
"We called the Illinois Eleven as soon as it happened. That's what they told us to do, send her to Chicago."
"Where in Chicago?" Valentine asked, extracting the lighten.
"How should I know? The Illinois Eleven don't like being questioned any more than the Madison Kurians," Flanagan said, watching the lighter wave back and forth in the darkness. "No! God, Saint Croix, I don't know."
This last was addressed to the approach of the lighter to his left hand. Valentine forced Flanagan's fist open and inserted his index finger into the cigar lighter. The smell of burnt flesh wafted up into his nostrils as he ground the glowing socket home. Flanagan screamed again, and Valentine withdrew the lighter. He pressed it back into the socket, reheating it.
