Darkness, Take My Hand (Kenzie & Gennaro 2)

Jack Rouse, looking even worse for wear, was tied in an identical fashion in the next alley over. Jack was a lot older than Kevin and his face was almost green and slick with sweat.

Bubba took in our shocked faces and smiled. He leaned in toward Phil and said, “Take a good look at them. Then think what I’m going to do to you someday, pussy.”

As Bubba sauntered down the alley toward them, I said, “What, you already interrogated them?”

He shook his head and swigged some vodka. “Hell, no. I had no idea what questions to ask.”

“So why they all beat to shit, Bubba?”

He reached Kevin and bent down by him, looked back at me with his deranged grin. “Because I was bored.”

He winked and slapped Kevin’s jaw and Kevin screamed through his wired teeth.

“Jesus, Patrick,” Phil whispered. “Jesus.”

“Relax, Phil,” I said, though my own blood churned.

Bubba stepped over beside Jack and slapped him in the side of the head so hard you could hear the sound ring across the fourth floor, but Jack didn’t scream, just closed his eyes for a moment.

“Okay.” Bubba turned around and his trench coat lifted and swirled around him for a moment. He staggered back to us and his combat boots sounded like the hoofs of Clydesdales. “Ask your questions, Patrick.”

“How long they been there?” I said.

He shrugged. “Few hours.” He picked up a dusty bowling ball from the rack, wiped it with his sleeve.

“Maybe we should get them some water or something.”

He spun on me. “What? You fucking kidding me? Patrick”—he placed his arm around me, used the bowling ball to gesture in their direction—“that’s the asshole who threatened to kill you and Grace. Remember? Those are the fucks who could have stopped this a month ago, before Angie got shot, before Kara Rider got crucified. They’re the enemy,” he hissed and the alcohol on his breath rode over me like a wave.

“True,” I said as Kevin shook involuntarily. “But—”

“No buts!” Bubba said. “No buts! You said today you

were ready to shoot them if necessary. Right? Right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then? What? There they are, Patrick. Be a man of your word. Don’t fucking embarrass me. Don’t.”

He removed his arm and pulled the bowling ball close to his chest, caressed it.

I’d said I’d shoot them to get information, and at the time I’d felt it. But it was real easy to say and real easy to feel standing in a hospital waiting room, for distanced from the actual human flesh and bone and blood I was threatening.

Now, here were two bloodied human beings rendered completely helpless and at my mercy. And they weren’t vague concepts, they were breathing. And shaking.

At my mercy.

I left Bubba and Phil and walked down the alley toward Kevin. He watched me come and seemed to gather strength from it. Maybe he thought that I was the weak link here.

When Grace had told me he’d approached her table, I’d said I’d kill him. And at that moment, if he’d walked into the room, I would have. That was rage.

This was torture.

As I neared him, he sucked air and shook his head as if to clear it and then fastened his numb eyes on my own.

Kevin tortures, a voice in my head whispered. He kills. He enjoys it. He’d give you no mercy. So you owe him none.

“Kevin,” I said and lowered myself until I was on one knee in front of him, “this is bad. You know this is bad. You don’t tell me what I need to know, Bubba will do the Spanish Inquisition on your head.”

“Fuck you.” His cracked voice broke through gritted teeth. “Fuck you, Kenzie. Okay?”

“No, Kev. No. You don’t help me out here, you’re going to be fucked up ten different ways. Fat Freddy gave me carte blanche with you. And Jack.”

The left half of his face sagged a bit.

“It’s true, Kev.”

“Bullshit.”

“You think we’d be here if it wasn’t? You let Vincent Patriso’s granddaughter get shot.”

“I didn’t—”

I shook my head. “That’s how he sees it. Doesn’t matter what you say now.”

His eyes were red and bulging as he shook his head and stared up at me.

“Kevin,” I said softly, “tell me what happened between EEPA and Hardiman and Rugglestone. Who’s the third guy?”

“Ask Jack.”

“I will,” I said. “But I’m asking you first.”

He nodded and the noose bit into his neck and his throat gurgled. I pulled the rope back out of the center of his Adam’s apple and he sighed, his eyes on the floor.

He shook his head adamantly and I knew he wouldn’t talk.

“Fore!” Bubba yelled.

Kevin’s eyes widened and his neck jerked back in the noose and I stepped out of the way as the bowling ball rocketed down the alley and seemed to pick up speed by the second as it hurtled across the splinters in the ancient floor and made contact with Kevin Hurlihy’s groin.

He howled and jerked forward against the noose and I yanked at his shoulders to keep his neck from snapping and tears streamed down his cheeks.

“Only a spare,” Bubba said.

“Hey, Bubba,” I said, “hold up.”

But Bubba was already into his windup. He crossed one leg in front of the other at the foul line and the ball left his hand and arced out by the target arrows, hit the alley with a hint of a backward spin and then streaked across the wood and shattered Kevin’s left knee.

“Jesus!” Kevin screamed and flipped to his right.

“Your turn, Jack.” Bubba picked up a ball and stepped into the next lane.

“I’ll die, Bubba.” Jack’s voice was soft and resigned and it stopped Bubba for a moment.

“Not if you talk, Jack,” I said.

He looked at me as if just noticing me. “You know what the difference between you and your old man is, Patrick?”

I shook my head.

“Your old man would be throwing those bowling balls himself. You, you’ll use what torture can get you, but you won’t do it yourself. You’re vomit.”

I looked at him and suddenly felt the same crazed rage I’d felt in Grace’s house. This piece-of-shit Irish Mafia killer was getting self-righteous with me? While Grace and Mae were holed up in some FBI bunker in Nebraska or someplace with Grace’s career in ruins? While Kara Rider lay in the ground and Jason Warren lay in pieces and Angie lay in a hospital bed and Tim Dunn was stripped of his clothes and shoved in a barrel?