“Ralph is apparently much smarter than he looks,” I said, and knelt down onto Larry’s rotund chest.
Normally, this sort of work was beneath me and the Don knew it. When I was a younger man, I did a lot of intimidation work, and made a name for myself. I was brutal but efficient, and fair when I could be. I caused only as much pain as was necessary to make a point, and didn’t lose myself in bloodlust. I quickly moved up into killing work, but the old instincts never quite left.
I had a feeling this job was a sort of gift and a punishment at the same time, a lot like Tara. I glanced back over my shoulder, and she was still there, staring at me with wide, horrified eyes. She probably never saw something like this before. It probably scared the hell out of her.
Good. I wanted her to watch this. Maybe then she’d understand.
“God damn it,” Larry moaned. “You’re going to kill me. I think my head’s bleeding.” He reached up to touch it.
His head was definitely bleeding.
“You know why I’m here,” I said. “And you know I don’t normally do this sort of thing, so you really pissed off the Don. How much do you owe him?”
“I don’t owe him anything,” he said, and stared at the red on his fingertips. “Fuck, I’m bleeding. I’ve got a concussion. Ralph, I need the hospital quick.”
I slapped him in the face then and pulled his hair harder. He groaned and touched his cheek with his bloody fingers, leaving red trails from his ear to his mouth.
“Pay attention, Larry, because this is going to get worse very fast if you can’t think,” I said, staring into his piggy eyes. “How much do you owe the Don?”
“Thirty,” he said. “But I can—”
I slapped him again, harder, and he groaned, eyes tearing up. He was about to cry, the fat piece of shit.
I wanted to kill him. The urge came over me suddenly, like a tidal wave. I knew what this man made his living doing, and I hated him for it, hated all the bastards in this city that got paid by abusing women’s bodies, by selling sex by the pound of flesh. Larry owned a series of strip clubs all over the Philadelphia area, and his girls were notorious for doing a lot more than lap dances in the back rooms. I heard rumors that Larry got his girls hooked on junk, on crack, on pills, and withheld their drugs if they refused to fuck and suck for cash.
He was sick, and I hated him with a fucking passion.
But dead men didn’t pay their debts, and the Don would be annoyed if I murdered a man without orders.
“You owe more than thirty,” I said through clenched teeth. “You owe him fifty, you lying sack of shit. How about from now on, you assume I know everything.”
He sucked in a sobbing breath. “Okay, okay, yeah, I got it. You know everything. I owe him fifty.”
“How much do you have in here?”
“Twenty,” he said, and flinched away from me. “I swear to fuck, I’ve got twenty.”
“Tell Ralph to get the money.”
“Ralph,” he snapped, almost pleading. “Man, the safe in my office, the combination is 22-33-24. Bring down everything in there.”
Ralph got up lazily and shrugged. “Sure boss,” he said, and walked off.
“That’s an awful combination,” I said, and put more weight on the asshole’s chest before pulling away. I stood up and seethed for a minute, and I glanced back at Tara. She stood near the door and it looked as though her body were tugging her outside, but she was torn between watching me hurt the pathetic asshole on the floor, and getting away.
“Come here,” I said.
She hesitated, but then she obeyed, like someone else owned her feet. I steered her to a table and sat her down, then went behind the bar and poured two drinks. Larry climbed unsteadily to his feet, dabbing at his bleeding head. I threw back one of the whiskeys, refilled it, then carried both glasses to Tara. I put one in front of her, and took the chair on her left, where I could still see Larry.
“Drink,” I said without glancing at her.
She lifted the glass and sipped it without a word.
I hated this. I had a pit in my stomach. Not because the violence bothered me—frankly, Larry deserved it, and I would’ve been glad to do more. No, I hated this because Tara was here watching, and she only understood a quarter of what was going on.
Larry sat at the bar without speaking. He groaned a few times and poked at the steadily bleeding wound on the back of his head. His collar turned red, and his ponytail looked like it was dyed pink.