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“The Irish have run New York for generations. That’s the way it’s going to stay. You fuckers aren’t shit.”
Marco and I laugh. Hard.
“You are batshit bonkers. The Irish haveneverdominated New York City. The Italians have. The Irish have worked for us, not the other way around. You’re fucking delusional.”
He scowls at me and looks down his nose at me. It’s hard to do, considering it’s mangled. He flicks me off, and I just laugh again. My guess is Dillan left ten little piggies on his hands and his feet for me to break. I walk around a counter and pull open a drawer where I know they keep the meat mallets. I say nothing while I pull out dish towels and a couple gallon-size plastic storage bags.
I nod to Marco as I set up my workstation. He yanks Duffy away from the wall and shoves him toward me. He opens a drawer with a key. A key that even the restaurant owner doesn’t have a copy of. He pulls out a pair of cuffs that he quickly shackles around Duffy’s ankles. Now he can’t kick or run. He grabs Duffy’s left hand as I pull up his right. I slip a clear storage bag over it and place it on top of a dish towel.
“This hand is just punishment because you pissed me off trying to interfere with my case. The other hand will be simply because you’re a douche. I will shatter every bone in both feet for going after Sinead. Scream as loud as you want. No one will hear you outside this building. And no one in this building could scrape two shits together to save their life.”
I lift the mallet to shoulder height and slam it down on his thumb. He howls with pain. I don’t wait. I drop the mallet onto each finger without pause. I’d cut off fingers, but that’s too permanently obvious. These injuries will heal with no significant outward signs. My goal is to make sure he never types another word.
“You tried to derail my case by prejudicing any possible jury member and judge. You assume your reach is much further than it is. There are millions of New Yorkers who haven’t read the article. It was your intent that’s gotten you here.”
Marco releases his other hand as I trade places with him. He holds the other hand up for me as I slip on a bag. I want no fingerprints left, and if I break the skin, I don’t want blood shooting all over the place. We’ll have a team come in and clean, so there’s no DNA evidence left behind. No point in making their job harder.
“You are some peon with delusions of grandeur that will never happen. You aren’t good enough for CNN or any broadcast news. You’re a dime a dozen reporter, even if it is for a big publication. You’re a nothing in the mob. If you were, Dillan wouldn’t have handed you over. You matter to no one of importance.”
“I matter to you.”
“For tonight. Believe me, I will sleep just fine and not think about you again. Unless you give me reason to. Do that, and I’ll kill you. Then I definitely won’t think of you again.”
I strike each finger twice on this hand for good measure. When I’m done, Marco and I shuffle him into the cold storage where there are sides of beef hanging. Marco lowers a hook that he attaches to a link connecting the cuffs around his ankles. I push a button, and a pulley yanks him off his feet, lifts him into the air, and flips him upside down. He’s shorter than Marco and me, so I don’t have to raise him very high for his head to clear the floor. Marco gets a chopping board and holds it against the soles of Duffy’s feet.
I step forward into position like when I played baseball. For good measure, I swing the mallet a few times like I’m warming up with a bat. Duffy watches me, pure terror in his eyes. I grin. I keep doing warm up swings until I know he thinks I’m just showing off. Uh-uh. It’s keeping him unprepared. I strike his foot with no hint. His body convulses with pain, all the blood already draining to his head. I broke two toes on his right foot with that blow. I’m working from his pinkie toe inward. I take out the next two without a word. I single out his big toe and hit it harder than I have anything else.
He gags and pukes. He splatters it on himself. But Marco and I know where to stand, so we aren’t in the spray zone. I slam the mallet across the bridge of his foot, and I have a flash of that scene with Kathy Bates taking a sledgehammer to James Caan’s legs in the movieMisery. Inspirational body of work, that one. I move to the outside of his ankle and fracture that bone. Then I attack the inside of his ankle. He pisses himself. He douses his own face. Perfect. Exactly the reason we strung him up like this. I strike his heel in just the right place to break the bone and damage his Achille’s tendon.
I repeat the entire process on his other foot. He’s puked two more times and pissed himself again. I think he almost shat himself once. He’s a sobbing and sniveling mess. He passed out halfway through the second foot. The mallet to his junk woke him fast. He may never have kids. That’s fine. One less shitbag procreating in the world isn’t a bad thing.
“Women and children are untouchable. You gonna remember that now?”
“Yes. Please, no more. I can’t take it.”
“Oh, you’ll take whatever the fuck I give you. If I decide to shove this mallet up your ass, you’ll take it and say thank you. I don’t give a fuck what you want. You hurt Sinead, so you paid for it.”
I grab a butcher’s knife and put it against his balls.
“If you want to remain a bull and not be a steer, then answer this question. Did you bug her place?”
“No. That wasn’t me. I don’t know who did that.”
“Your editor?”
“No. Ezekiel approved my article, but he had nothing to do with writing it or how I got any of the information. I knew what happened to Sinead from back in the day. It wasn’t hard to find the photo. When that bitch from Sinead’s firm forced a retraction, all the details I included came from memory. I didn’t need to look anything up.”
“You did it purely to torture her. You abused your connection to her family and exploited her. If you knew what happened to her, then you knew the toll that took on her. This wasn’t about sending a message or even making her regret accepting my case. You mind-fucked her.”
I walk to a bag at the far end of the counter. Whoever brought him over pulled it out of the trunk of the town car they used. It has very specific items in it. It’s a tool bag, if you will. I push some stuff aside and pull out what I want. I prowl back to Duffy, making him watch my slow return. His brow furrows when he sees what I have. Marco knows what to do. He already put the chopping board down. With the hook through the link that connects both sides of the cuffs, Duffy remains in position when Marco unfastens the right one. I slip the first leg into the adult diaper. I do the same for the left. I pull it all the way up, then pull the right leg hole wide, exposing his dick and balls.
“And Jacek?
“Who?
The confusion is legit. I’ve been an enforcer long enough to read expressions, body language, and tone to detect innocence and guilt, lies and truth, real confusion and feigned misunderstanding.
“Polish Mob.”
