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Right now, two men had been tied up and left in chairs facing a long table of a mishmash of items, most of which we used but some of which were honestly mostly a hazard.
I found my lips curling into a cold smile as we almost reached the back containers. “Switch on that soundtrack we made. We’ll let them relax to some music while they wait.”
He gave me a wry look and nodded, moving to the small utility room set right outside our interrogation chamber. I waited. A few seconds later, the muffled screams and pleas of a man being tortured started playing through the walls.
It was a recording from a previous session of ours from a particularly cowardly fellow we’d interviewed, who’d reacted quite strongly even though we’d barely touched him, so it sounded realistic and suitably dramatic. The reverberations were perfectly suited to the space. There was no way to tell it was a recording through the walls.
I checked my watch, schooling myself to remain patient. A minute passed. Then two. The wailing and begging intensified, only to be cut off suddenly with a loud scream and the sound of a rotary saw starting up.
Once the saw started, I barked out a loud order to stop so that I could have a chat with the man—mostly because the saw was never used at the time, so there wasn’t much left to the recording—and Boris cut the sound and switched to one of quiet whimpers as I turned and headed down the hall, knowing that the Pueblo waiting for me would hear my receding footsteps.
After a few minutes I returned, wondering absently what Olivia would think of menow, knowing I was an actor, too, as well as a mobster.
I felt my lips quirk up wryly. The things I did to speed up the process…
As I finally entered the occupied room, smirk still in place as I needlessly wiped my hands with a handkerchief, the two men turned nervous, if defiant, eyes my way. They sat under floodlights in the center of that otherwise dim space, forced to face the shadowy gleams of the tools I could use on them.
They were both Puerto Rican, of course, compactly muscled, tattooed, dressed in army surplus gear. Hard men.
We’ll see how hard they remained by the time I was done.
“What the fuck was that all about?” one of them asked, his dark hair slicked back, and the black-and-red tattoo of a spider crawling up his neck pulsated in time with his heart. Despite his brave facade he was nervous. His eyes darted in a telling way, once to the side and then down, before his scowl intensified and he glared back up at me.
I raised a brow and pocketed my handkerchief as I studied him. He couldn’t have been older than twenty-one. Practically still a boy. “What was what?”
“Who was screaming?”
“No-one,” I said completely honestly, as I came to a stop beside the table. “You are the only two in here, beside myself and Boris.”
“Fucking liar,” he growled angrily. “Fucking monster.”
My smile broadened when his friend beside him, beefier, older, and with a darker skin tone, spat at my feet wordlessly.
“Come now, that’s not very polite,” I said, turning back to Spider-Neck, knowing within just a few seconds that he was the one who would give me what I needed. “I think your friend needs to learn some manners.”
He didn’t seem to know how to reply, and then the door opened behind me to show Boris’s dimly outlined head poking through.
“Boss, should I hose down the occupant of chamber one, or…?”
I snorted. “Don’t waste my water, there’s no-one in there worth bothering with.” Again, completely true. Chamber one was entirely empty, of course.
“Understood,” Boris mumbled, playing his part perfectly, before ducking back out. I turned towards the table to inspect the instruments, pretending not to notice the bewildered look the boy was sending his stoic partner.
“Now,” I muttered casually, fingering a set of pliers, “shall we begin?”
“Fuck you,” Spider-Neck managed, although it was clear that he was beginning to lose his nerve.
“You’re not my type.” I didn’t even bother looking at him as I moved along the table, but then I paused. Someone had left a handheld milk frother among the torture implements. For a second, it made my smile real, and I shifted a large, serrated machete forward to hide it better.
But then it was time to get down to business. I took up a scalpel and slid the blade from its plastic safety guard, before walking toward the young talker. I took a half step closer to him than was strictly necessary and leaned forward just a bit. His eyes widened slightly, he had gone suddenly quiet.
I tapped him under the chin with the flat of the scalpel blade, making him flinch. “Now. Here’s the deal. For every ten minutes that pass without you answering my questions, I will remove one of your tattoos. I’m very good with a blade, lucky for you, so I should be able to do it without you losing too much blood. Don’t worry, I won’t let you die quickly.”
His face paled, and he pressed his lips together as if to stop them from trembling. The other guy was glaring at me, but I could see worry mixing in with his rage. “Santiago,” he hissed, “don’t—”
I turned fast and caught the older one by the chin. He tried to fight, but before he could, the blade was glittering an inch from his eye. “I started with your friend because I can see that he’s reasonable. But you? You want Santiago here to take the fall for you, don’t you? Bleed before you have to.”
“Shut the fuck up, man,” Santiago spat, and I eyed his frantically beating spider tattoo for a moment. “He’s not like that. He’s a good guy, unlike you, you sick bastard.”
