He laughed. He didn’t have a nice laugh. It wasn’t the scary-villain type har-har-har, guttural and harsh; more like the hee-hee-hee giggle of the mad-scientist-cackle variety. I know that’s a stereotype, but there’s a reason we have stereotypes.
“So how are we feeling this morning? Yesterday was a bit trying, yes?”
“I slept okay, except I had this weird dream about an old man pulling his own skull from his head and then I found out about Special Device 1031. I guess you wouldn’t consider yanking that puppy out while you’re in there.”
“I won’t.”
“Too bad. Can we talk about the frontal lobotomy?”
“You don’t like the idea?”
“I’d rather have a bottle in front of me.”
Nothing. Not even one hee.
“That’s an old joke,” I said.
“I don’t get it.”
You will.
“How’s the hand?” he asked.
“Hurts like heck.”
He stepped between my dangling legs.
Step: Pop open the shampoo lid.
“Let’s have a look.”
“Okay, but I’m warning you, there’s something nasty in it.”
“I’m a doctor, Alfred. I’m used to nasty.”
“You asked for it,” I said. I brought the bottle around fast and blasted both his beady little eyes. Instinctively, he brought his hands to his face. He took a couple of stumbling steps backward. I jumped from the table, spun him around, pinned his arms to his sides, dropped the loop over his head, drove my knee into his lower back, and forced him to the floor. I lay spread-eagled on top of his squirming body and spun the wooden handle of my homemade garrote, each turn tightening the noose around his thick neck, until his cries for help were reduced to choking, barely audible sobs.
It happened very fast, no more than fifteen seconds from the time I squirted him with my pee to me whispering into his beet-red ear, “I’ve got a couple of questions. Here’s the first: do you want to live?”
He managed to nod, the muscles of his clammy neck rolling beneath my knuckles.
“Good. Here’s the next: where is she?”
“You’ll never—ack!—you won’t get past the guards—”
I twisted the broken hanger a half turn.
“Down the hall! Right, right, left, right, first door on left, bottom of stairs—room 202!”
“Okay. Right, left, right—”
“No! Right, right, left—”
“Right, left?”
“Right.”
“Right, left, right . . . right?”