Savage got up, scooped ice and water from the cooler on the floor by the table and stalked over to Bitters. He threw water right in Bitters’s face and then stepped on his chest, mashing his foot into the cuts and burns.
“Wakey, wakey, Paul,” Ice said. “We’re not done with you yet. Until Richie here gives up the name he’s protecting, we’re going to have to keep showing him what’s in store for him if he stays quiet. None of us like you much. We don’t mind fucking you up and making sure you feel what those children felt every time you hurt them. So, stay the hell awake.”
Maestro grabbed the naked, bloody man by his ankle and dragged him across the cement to place him right in front of Richie. Bitters’s head bounced on the cement a couple of times, and the hard surface scraped at his skin. He left a trail of blood, urine and feces behind.
Maestro glared at him. “Fuckin’ mess we’re going to have to clean up. Should have put a tarp down.”
“I had one down. You pulled him off of it. There’s one over there,” Ice said, indicating the long table under the bank of blacked-out windows where the tools were. “I brought two more.” His eyes were on Richie, and he caught the shudder and fearful moan. The man couldn’t keep his eyes off Bitters. He was fascinated, repulsed, yet couldn’t look away.
“Good thinking,” Maestro said. “I hate cleaning up copious amounts of blood.” Shoving at Paul’s legs contemptuously, he stalked around the man and went to the narrow table to find the other tarps. “Nice, Ice. Big ones.”
“They burn well too. My favorite brand.” Ice kept watching Richie. “You think you want to give me that name you’re holding on to? You gave me a couple of names. A sheriff who we already suspected, a fuckin’ hot dog vendor and good old Avery, who runs the website which we already know about and infiltrated. Who are you protecting, Richie? Because I promise you, it isn’t going to be worth it.”
Maestro and Savage laid out the tarp and rolled Paul Bitters onto it, keeping him on his back, legs apart. He moaned continuously, a steady sound around the material still stuffed in his mouth. Savage pulled out his knife, the big one, the one that had Richie pulling back in his chair and Paul trying to roll over to crawl away. Both men stared at the obviously razor-sharp knife. Paul made horrible gurgling sounds around his gag as Savage sank a knee onto his chest to prevent him from moving.
Richie started a chant calling on a higher power, for what, Ice wasn’t sure. “I need that name, Richie. What is it? Not Avery, but the one who really knows the collector.”
Richie shook his head, moaning, crying. He didn’t take his terrified gaze from the knife, not even when it slashed down through flesh so fast that when it was raised, there was barely a stain of blood on the blade.
Richie watched as Paul’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. His skin turned purple. He tried to thrash, which sent blood pumping out of his body. It was a slow, ugly death.
Ice waited until Bitters was dead. He turned back to Richie with a raised eyebrow. “We didn’t like him, Richie. I’m beginning not to like you either. Fuckin’ give me the name or I’m strippin’ you and laying you on that other tarp. You’ve got about three seconds to give him up.”
Tears poured down Richie’s face as he stared, mesmerized, at Paul’s body. He kept shaking his head, but when he looked at Ice, there was a defeated look about him. “Terrance.”
“Last name, and where do we find him?” Ice snapped.
“Terrance Marshal. My brother, Terrance. He knows the collector. He’s helped him a couple of times. He was in the ring long before I came in. He sponsored me.” As he talked, he kept shaking his head. “He went to school with Avery. They both were contacted by the Russian. That’s what they call him, just the Russian.”
The information spilled out fast. Once the dam burst, he couldn’t stop. “Terrance helped recruit the ring here. The Russian seemed to know who to send him, and Terrance would get blackmail material on them just in case they didn’t want in on the fun. That was what the Russian called it, not me. My brother told me he only had to use the blackmail material on one man and in the end, the Russian ordered him to kill that one, so he did. The others were happy to be part of the circle, so the blackmail material was just filed away. Terrance has it in his safe.”
“But he’s not the collector?”
“No, no, he just knows him.”